Difficult conversation? Try 10 tips

It’s one of the most important, oft-repeated tasks in life, yet the one most avoided: A difficult conversation. Whether that’s because it’s with someone important to you, or simply a thorny and emotional topic, it’s human nature to both need and dread it.

Anticipating it, feelings and anxieties run high. That makes the situation fraught with added risk. Will voicing it just make things worse?

But avoiding a bad situation just drags it out, so there’s only one way forward: Confront it, prepared and self-aware.

Advice from various psychologists, relationship and business coaches including Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today have common themes:

1. Examine your motives. In stressful conditions it’s normal to be focused on ourselves and the short-term. We worry about what others think of us, how things affect us, how it will turn out for us. Am I focused on that tight-chested feeling under stress, or on the potential solutions both sides might see as beneficial?

Think less of venting the problem, and more about how to patch it up.

Answering, "what do I really want?" only begins with what works for me. To make the conversation successful, next comes what you want for the other person, for the relationship, and how it affects others — from their perspectives.

Answering that on multiple levels tends to turn anxiety into a sense of focus, and determined calm.

2. Plan ahead. With difficult topics, better to schedule it without letting too much time go by for stewing. That way both can prepare, or at least not feel blindsided. “I’d like to talk with you about ‘X.’ Could we do that this afternoon?"

3. Conquer your emotions first. Anger, fear, and hurt or defensiveness do nothing to facilitate a tough conversation; worse, they become barriers.

Experts say our emotions often have less to do with what the other person is actually doing, and more to do with how we perceive what they’re doing. Coming into a conversation seeing blame, victims, and villains makes productive results unlikely.

This includes taking responsibility for your own feelings. Others’ actions may make things harder or easier, but no matter what someone else does — or what motivations we assume they have — each person owns their own feelings. It’s up to us to decide how we react to them.

It’s more helpful, say consultants, to see yourself and the other person as actors. Two humans with roles and actions and behaviors which can be discussed, then acknowledged, better understood, and modified (that includes our own communications with, and reactions to, the other person).

4. Manner matters. Looking them in the eye and being attentive (no phones or interruptions during crucial conversations), sitting eye level in a comfortable place, and speaking directly to them facilitate a successful conversation.

5. Speak calmly and politely in a matter-of-fact tone as much as possible. Listen for elevations in your voice, angry words or name-calling, and avoid or correct these. This maximizes the odds that others will hear the content of your message, rather than be focused on your emotion or demeanor.

6. Communicate that you care about them, too. Starting with acknowledging the other person’s concerns or experiences tends to both disarm them and increase the odds they’ll listen, without trying to convince you first. Connecting to those motives before beginning the conversation changes your affect — how you come across, how you approach the conversation.

7. Gather facts, in part by listening. By definition, a difficult conversation includes opposing or different views. The other person probably comes to the conversation believing they have reasons or perhaps lack information not communicated. Without actively listening and allowing information exchange with open minds, the conversation degenerates into a contest of conclusions rather than shared information.

8. Don’t start a crucial conversation with a conclusion. Share the facts and premises, lay out your data. Explain the logic, then listen to theirs with curiosity rather than emotion, which gets in the way of the goal.

9. Be clear, specific, respectful and realistic. Expressing blame and finger pointing, however justified you feel, won’t accomplish anything. Others simply feel lectured, put-down or self-hating so no progress is made.

In describing concerns or things you’d like to happen differently, be as clear as possible and use specific examples. The words “always,” “never,” “everything,” and “nothing” overgeneralize and are unhelpful in conversation, flaring up those emotions that make it difficult.

10. Avoid interrupting; seek to understand. When the other person is speaking, consciously listen to what he or she has to say with the intent of hearing and processing it. Don’t just wait for them to be done so you can speak. If you’re thinking about your response while they speak, you’re not listening.

Make sure you understand before responding. Repeating it, acknowledging that you’ve heard, or asking them to explain further can be a very useful tool for improving relationships. If both sides don’t feel heard, improvement is unlikely regardless of the situation.

Finally, say psychologists, approach the conversation openly with a genuine interest in problem solving, rather than needing to prove that you’re right. Seeing it as a competition, or one being right and the other wrong, simply encourages more emotion and conflict.

Human beings have different and evolving levels of understanding — of themselves and of others — and these are what tend to cause relationship problems leading to difficult conversations. The goal is mutual understanding, working within these differing levels for workable solutions, not judgment.

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network who faces a difficult conversation. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.