Emotions while communication. Should you control them?

Everything started with a question in my head 'Sometimes in conversations, I feel quite emotional. And I feel the adrenaline rushing in my veins. Is it okay? Shouldn't I be better at controlling myself?'

Last year Taras Fedoruk, PMP?, PgMP?, PMO-CP? recommended a book from Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Al Switzler, Ron McMillan 'Crucial conversations. Tools for talking when stakes are high'.

And since the first pages it started hitting me 'Wow. This answers my question above better than anything else'.

Crucial conversations happen every day and any conversation can become crucial. What does crucial mean? As per the book it's when opinions vary, stakes are high and emotions run strong.

Emotions don't settle upon you like a fog. They are not foisted upon you by others. No matter how comfortable it might make you feel saying it - others don't make you mad. You make you mad. You make you scared, annoyed or insulted. You and only you create your emotions.

The emotional part is the one which is the most important in communications. People are irrational and subjective despite how we're trying to convince ourselves and others that it's wrong. Even more, emotions help us make the decision. Without this part of the brain we're indecisive in anything. How big or small that is.

Let's imagine that we're in a crucial conversation. And before going deeper how the emotions rise. Let's start with a question - 'am I emotional now?' Sometimes things change so fast that we don't even notice that everything is quite different now and our heart is pumping blood like crazy. So here are some questions that can help assess current state:

1. Am I in some form of silence or violence?
2. What emotions are encouraging me to act this way?
3. What do I really want? for me? for others? for the relationship?
4. What would I do right now if I really wanted these results?

When you ask yourself a question you make your brain encourage the rational part to be more involved. This also settles some emotions and allows us to see the bigger picture. For if you're driving a car with a speed of 100+ km/h but decrease it to 70 km/h and surprisingly you start noticing that the sky is blue and there are trees nearby.

Next thing, let's look here where do the emotions arise?

Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. We add meaning to the action observed. We make a guess at the motive driving the behavior. Why were they doing that? We also add judgment - is it good or bad? And then, based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion.

It's important to get in touch with your feelings and to do so, you may want to expand your emotional vocabulary. Question your feelings and stories. Once you've identified what you're feeling, you have to stop and ask, is it the right feeling? What story have I built?

Also, there are several typical types of stories:

• Victim stories - 'It's not my fault' When we justify that we're innocent and by no means took part to add to the consequences.
• Villain stories - 'It's all your fault'. Oh, this is a nasty thing. This is where we turn other people into bad characters and this justifies a lot for us. Like we stop seeing others as reasonable, rational, and decent human beings. We assume that the other party has bad intentions toward us. So we tell everyone about the evils of the other party as if somehow we're doing the world a huge favor.
• Helpless stories - 'there's nothing else I can do' In these fabrications we make ourselves out to be powerless to do anything healthy or helpful. We convince ourselves that there are no healthy alternatives for dealing with our predicament, which justifies the action we're about to take.

This is quite an appealing idea that if you want improved results from crucial conversations, change the stories you tell yourself - even when you're in the middle of the fray.

When the first thing here is about the facts. We tend to confuse stories with immutable facts. So if we go back we may separate fact from the story, by testing ideas against a simple criterion: Can you see or hear this thing you're calling a fact? Was it an actual behavior?

Let's imagine that now we have done all the hard work with the emotions and identified the story & facts behind it. What's next? The conversation keeps going and we're still on the opposite views of the matter which is important for both parties.

If the dialogue moves into wrong direction, you can help to bring it back with simple phrase ' I think we've moved away from dialogue'. This simple reminder helps people catch themselves before the damage is severe.

Acronym STATE can help you to navigate the conversation next where the first three skills describe what to do, and the last two tell how to do it:

1. Share your facts
2. Tell your story
3. Ask for others' path
4. Talk tentatively
5. Encourage testing

Keep in mind different techniques to set a healthy dialogue

• Contrasting (start with what you don't intend or mean, and then explain what you do intend or mean)
• Ask ('I'm interested in how you see this..')
• Mirror ('You seem angry with that ...')
• Paraphrase ('let me double check if I got this right...')

Tentative talk is important if we share our stories (our point of view). So if we mix up things and are super convinced and forceful about our version, get ready for others to be resistant. The more pushing our story seems the more resistant others become. But the more tentatively someones speak the more open people become to the opinions.

However, no need to decrease own confidence. Like 'this is probably stupid, but..'

Back off your harsh and conclusive language. But don't back off your belief. Hold to your belief; merely soften your approach.

Learning about others' paths doesn't mean that you agree or support them. Understanding doesn't equate with agreement. Simple but keeps emotions down when you know that nothing is decided yet. Unless it's already done. So then you come back to the question: What do I really want? for me? for others? for the relationship?

And some final tips I enjoyed in the book.

• If you completely agree with the other person's path, say so and move on. Don't turn agreement into argument.
• If you have something to add avoid going from negative and finger-pointing to that. Agree with what you agree. And add on top of that.
• If you have a different point of view, compare your two views. Don't suggest others are wrong. Maybe you're wrong and just need time + conversations to learn more.

Healthy and safe communication is crucial for people to get along and enjoy collaboration.

#projectmanagement #communication #books