How to Start the Hard Conversation | A Bit of Optimism

What is the first step that people can learn in how to have a difficult conversation?

For me, the most important thing is reminding myself of this one golden sentence: conflict is a team sport for mutual understanding.

Conflict is a team sport for mutual understanding.

Conflict being something that's inherently adversarial, is the you versus me, right, wrong, winner, loser, that crowds out the ability to actually understand each other. And so if conflict is the mechanism through which the important information that we both need to know to do our jobs, to be in our relationships, to understand each other, that's How this thing is getting surfaced. Okay, well, how do we actually understand this thing? And so to me, conflict is not something that I want to win or lose. I think we can all win if we both leave and you understand me and I understand you. I understand what's going on for you. I understand what needs to happen now.

Inherent in the concept of conflict is that there's another person. Yeah. So it recognizes that it's me and.

For me, when I'm in a really intense conflict with someone, it's tunnel vision.

Right.

I look at this person, maybe I love them, maybe I care about them, maybe I have loved working with them, and I can't see any of that. Like, I see like a monster in front of me almost. And so when I'm able to relax that and be like, oh, you're not some evil being with bad intentions, but you're just a person who I seek to understand, who I want to help you understand me, it changes everything. Because now we can both win.

It's so good just to recognize that this person isn't a monster. It's just something that happened. They're doing something in their self-interest. Which is fine. Whether they did it right or wrong is irrelevant. And just recognizing that, even that's a relief.