It’s tough isn’t it?

When you know you have to have a conversation with someone but it has the ability to go horribly wrong.

Can you remember a time when you’ve had to approach someone about something you’d really rather not talk about?

Or perhaps that time is now, and you have a challenging conversation looming over you that you need to have sooner rather than later but you keep putting it off?

You start to think about what you need to say, and how it could possibly go down…

“I’ll say this… and they’ll react like that, which will make it worse but then I’ll reply with this”… and so on.

You start to get that uneasy feeling in your stomach even just thinking about approaching it.

Have you ever been kept up at night worrying about every possible scenario in your head that could eventuate when you finally have that discussion?

Haven’t we all?

Everyone experiences the pain of having to confront someone with an uneasy discussion at some point in their lives. From asking someone to confirm the truth when you think they’re lying, to asking for a raise or complaining to a neighbour about their barking dog.

It’s unavoidable.

Difficult conversations are part of our every day lives and they range from anything that you don’t want to talk about, to full-blown confrontations about tense subjects. We are usually reluctant to have these conversations out of fear of the consequences.

And when we finally do have them, we usually think and feel a lot more than we actually say, right?

It’s tough.

No one likes the idea of hurting someone’s feelings, or causing unnecessary anger – it’s human nature to avoid this kind of situation.

But sometimes you have to do it, right?

Sometimes you’ve just got to bite the bullet and break up with someone who really loves you because you just aren’t happy anymore, or deliver bad news to a colleague who is about to lose their job.

Sometimes it just has to be done.

So how can you make it as painless as possible?

Because luckily there are ways to avoid inflicting unnecessary pain or anger in these situations.

First of all it’s all about enquiry and understanding.

And then it’s about knowing how the other person wants to be dealt with. How they want to be spoken to. How they want to be treated.

So let’s start with the basics…

Always assume you don’t know everything.

As much as we like to think we know a lot, we can never know everything. So when you first approach someone about a difficult subject, assume you don’t know the whole story (cause most of the time you won’t).

When you need to have a difficult conversation with someone, it will never go well if you start off by thinking you already know all there is to know about what happened.

So start off by coming from a place of enquiry. Ask for their side of the story (they’re probably going to give it to you anyway). Then…

Try to understand their point of view.

As hard as it might be to accept, they may have a point. Let them have their chance to be listened to and to be understood.

“People almost never change without first feeling understood.” ― Douglas Stone.

One of the most important lessons I ever learned was – most of the time people’s frustration comes from a place of feeling misunderstood, or not listened to.

When someone is venting, they are frustrated and taking it out on others. 9 times out of 10 they just want someone to listen to them. They just need to feel like someone understands how they’re feeling. Even if you can’t solve the problem for them, just helping them feel understood can almost always defuse any tense situation.

It’s worth noting that difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. It’s about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, values, and levels of understanding.

I learnt this when dealing with some fairly angry customers a few years ago when I worked for a Motorway Alliance. Everyone seemed to have some issue about the motorway in one way or another – the traffic, the road works, whatever. So I learnt fairly quickly that even though I couldn’t always solve their problems, if I just listened to their concerns and made them feel understood, that was half the battle. Sometimes they would even thank me at the end of the conversation even though I felt like I hadn’t really done anything?

But at the end of the day, the easiest way to deal with difficult conversations is…

Knowing how the other person wants to be dealt with.

It’s about getting into their shoes.

If you know anything about the training I do, you’ll know that there are four very different ways that people communicate. There are four different styles of communication (the four coloured DOTS – Purple, Yellow, Red, and Blue) and you have a fraction of all four in your communication style, but you are more dominant in one than the other three.

So there is one natural style of communication that you use most of the time when speaking to people, it comes natural to you, so you use it, and it colours all of your conversations with others.

So when you’re speaking to someone…

• If you’re dominant in Purple you’re more likely to talk rather than listen.
• If you’re dominant in Yellow you process words into complex pictures inside your head in order to interpret what someone is saying.
• If you’re dominant in Red you won’t talk much, but when you do it will be in short sharp bursts (like bullet points).
• If you’re dominant in Blue you’ll talk more if you feel comfortable with the person you’re speaking to.

As you can see, each style is quite unique.

So if you’re having a difficult conversation with someone, wouldn’t it make sense to know which style they might be so that you can tailor your approach to suit their style?

Then they are far more likely to respond well if you’re speaking “their language” so to speak.

And it’s easy enough to do this with the techniques we teach by looking at the way they are dressed, what their environment (their room, car, office) looks like, and certain words they use. With these techniques you can quickly and accurately predict the likely style of the person you’re speaking with, and then adjust your communication slightly to be able to get along with them better.

Then you can address the difficult conversation in the way they need so that they will respond in the best possible way.

• If they are Purple – you need to ask them questions rather than lecture (what happened etc.) and don’t make it personal!
• If they are Yellow – they will probably react without fully listening but you need to let them complain and then explain why they are complaining. Give them a timeline for improvement as they are very time conscious.
• If they are Red – just tell it how it is, don’t fudge or avoid certain details. But you must be sure of your facts (don’t rely on hearsay as the truth is very important to them).
• If they are Blue – don’t come across as confronting in any way. They will avoid confrontation at any cost! Let them know that they are valued and let them feel comfortable enough to be honest with you.

And at the end of the day, never blame or criticise someone when having a difficult conversation. This will almost always result in defensive behaviour.

Think about it…

As soon as someone blames you for something, or criticises you in some way, isn’t you first reaction to defend yourself?

All this will do is cause them to become further set in their argument and want to prove you wrong (even if they know it’s not right).

“The urge to blame is based . . . on the fear of being blamed.” ― Douglas Stone.

Don’t turn it into a blame game – that’s never fun.

Think about why you’re having the conversation… to come to some sort of resolution, right?

So the best way to do that is, come from a place of enquiry and understanding, then try to approach them in a way they will appreciate – the way they want to be dealt with.

To find out more about making difficult conversations easy, contact me here.