A Difficult Conversation Checklist:
Step 1: Perpare by Walking Through the Three Conversations
1. Sort out
What Happened
- Where does your story come from (information, past experiences, rules)? Theirs?
- What impact has this situation had on you? What might their intentions have been?
- What have you each contributed to the problem?
2. Understand
Emotions
- Explore your emotional footprint, and the bundle of emotions you experience
3. Ground your
Identity
- What's at stake for you
about you? What do you need to accept to be better grounded?
Step 2: Check Your Purposes and Decide Whether to Raise the Issue
-
Purposes: What do you hope to accomplish by having this conversation? Shift your stance to support learning, sharing, and problem solving.
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Deciding: Is this the best way to address the issue and achieve your purposes? Is the issue really embedded in your Identity Conversation? Can you affect the problem by changing your contributions? If you don't raise it, what can you do to help yourself let go?
Step 3: Start from the Third Story
1. Describe the problem as the difference between your stories. Include both viewpoints as a legitimate part of the discussion.
2. Share your Purposes
3. Invite them to join you as a partner in sorting out the situation together.
Step 4: Explore Their Story and Yours
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Listen to understand their perspective about what happened. Ask questions. Acknowledge the feelings behind the arguments and accusations. Paraphrase to see if you've got it. Try to unravel how the two of you got to this place.
-
Share your own viewpoint, your past experiences, intentions, and feelings
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Reframe, reframe, reframe to keep on track. From truth to perceptions, blame to contribution, accusations to feelings, and so on.
Step 5: Problem-Solving
- Invent
options that meet each side's most important concerns and interests.
- Look at
standards for what
should happen. Keep in mind the standard of mutual caretaking; relationships that always go one way rarely last.
- Talk about how to keep
communication open as you go forward.
