How do I make communication easy in difficult situations?

At the best of times, good communication can be a challenge. In difficult situations, the challenges multiply. So idea of making it “easy” is likely best abandoned. Instead, the focus is on keeping it productive and effective, without things deteriorating into an emotion-driven mess.

When we are highly emotional, we struggle to think reasonably and rationally. Our decision making is driven by how we are feeling at the moment, typically with the goal of eliminating those bad feelings. When we are feeling threatened, our emotions can vary from fear, to frustration, to anger. These are unpleasant emotions, so we are motivated to take action to overcome the perceived threat so that we feel better. This is a quick and dirty overview of how our survival instincts operate. If you consider a particular situation to be “difficult” then it’s probably one filled with strong feelings.

Knowing this to be true, the key to improving the outcome is to minimize the perception that you and the others are being threatened. Most of the time, the issue in dispute is independent from the individual’s involved, even though it affects them. However, what tends to happen is that we attach ourselves personally to our positions and any pushback we receive from others feels like a personal attack. When we feel like we’re being attacked in some way, our instinctual response is to defend ourselves. Now the situation is about us and not about the external issue. It shouldn’t be that way. The focus should stay on the issue and how to resolve it together.

If you enter into the discussion with that outcome in mind, you can be intentional about framing your discussion in a way that keeps the people out of the problem. An effective way to do this is for each person to have an uninterrupted opportunity to talk about how they perceive the situation and how it has been impacting them. It is important to use language that avoids laying blame on the others directly. For example, instead of saying, “Your laziness really frustrates me!” say, “When you don’t finish your part of the task on time, it creates more work for me and takes time away from my family.” When you say someone’s lazy, you are talking about them as a person. When you identify the behaviour itself and describe how it is impacting you, it’s less likely to be taken personally by the other person.

When everyone has an opportunity to tell their story to each other in a blame-free way, the true nature of the issue is revealed, as are the needs that need to be met for each person to be satisfied. Then you are ready to get to work together to find the best possible outcome!