How To Tackle Difficult Conversations

Have you ever had a difficult conversation with your spouse, family, relatives, on-street or with your bosses? The chances are “YES”. We all have been in situations where we had difficulty in explaining ourselves, or we felt we have been dominated or treated unjustly because we weren’t heard or understood. Difficult conversations have now become a part of our everyday life. Due to the fast-paced world, increased usage of social media, cut throat global competition, and increased consumerism – we don’t have time to understand, listen and empathize with each other, our focus is to solve the matter and move on. In this article, we will explore difficult conversations from the perspective of Truth, Intention and Blame.

When we engage in a difficult conversation, there is this underlying thought in both parties’ heads that we are on the right side – we are truthful. When someone believes he is on the truth and the other side is on the false then the conversation is all about me and my truth. The person then listens to reply not understand, he becomes blinded by the other reality and only thinks in his own world.

Particularly speaking about Pakistan’s society and culture, we all have the habit of judging people’s intentions. I was also the victim of this mentality. We are quick to judge people’s intentions based on actions or our past experience, stories or beliefs. Despite the fact that everyone knows that the intention is inside a person’s heart and there is no machine on the planet that can penetrate the heart and find out what thoughts are inside. When we judge people’s intention then whatever the other person is saying goes through the judgement lens which makes the conversation difficult and we ignore the other party view point, explanation and justification.?

Last is the blame game. As a human we are afraid to accept our mistakes because of the fear of “what will people say”, “how would l look defeated”, “how will I face society” and so on. So, whenever two people are in a conversation, they start blaming each other and ignore the underlying problem that was meant to be discussed. Often the blame game also arises due to running away from responsibilities and failing to take ownership of the role. In some cases the blame could also be true, if backed up by evidence and fact. The crux of the matter is when dealing with the blame game we need to empathize with each other's situation and think of ways to reduce the loss, damage or whatever the problem is rather than blaming each other as it will do no good either to the party or the business.

So next time you are into a difficult conversation, understand that either you and the other party could be viewing the situation from these three lenses and your job is to use logic, reasoning and empathy to produce the best outcome in the situation.?