When someone asks “Have you got 5 minutes for a call?”, here’s how to set yourself up for success to ensure neither you or nor the other party feels defensive or unfairly treated in a conversation that could involve conflict.
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If you supervise lead or manage any human being, one of the messages
Speaker:that you probably dread receiving is one of those quick Have you got
Speaker:five minutes for a quick catch-up?
Speaker:My other half who leads a big team always the dreads those, because he
Speaker:knows that if a member of staff wants to sort of speak to him urgently,
Speaker:it's never normally with good news.
Speaker:Good news comes on a WhatsApp message or on an email.
Speaker:But when somebody wants to speak to you, there's probably
Speaker:something difficult coming up that's going to be tricky to hear.
Speaker:I had one of those the other day.
Speaker:Just the message Have you got five minutes?
Speaker:Just once to have a quick chat about something.
Speaker:There was no warning about what exactly it was about.
Speaker:And so this person came on the call and actually they were very kind
Speaker:and compassionate at the beginning.
Speaker:They said that the reason they wanted to have the call was that
Speaker:they really valued our relationship and they wanted to make it as good
Speaker:as it could be giving forwards.
Speaker:They then talked about something that had happened and how they felt about it.
Speaker:And even though I felt they probably hadn't got their facts completely.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:was all going okay for me until at one point I suddenly started
Speaker:to feel myself getting quite defensive and feeling quite upset.
Speaker:And I can pinpoint that moment.
Speaker:It was when the person said that they felt that I had been unfair.
Speaker:And also at that point, I can't really remember very much about
Speaker:what we talked about, but I remember feeling very defensive and
Speaker:fitting that that got me all wrong and feeding a bit hard done by.
Speaker:And the conversation finished okay in the end, but I can pinpoint the
Speaker:exact time where it started spiral.
Speaker:I'm gonna show all of you can look back at conversations that you've had
Speaker:with your team that didn't go the way that you wanted them to go, even though
Speaker:you did your best to be empathetic and caring and open-minded and wise.
Speaker:And so we start to avoid having the conversations that we
Speaker:know we need to have because they are tricky conversations
Speaker:or difficult conversations.
Speaker:And I would describe any difficult conversation is something where someone
Speaker:has to say something to the other person that the other person probably won't
Speaker:like to hear, that's uncomfortable.
Speaker:And why do we fear these conversations?
Speaker:Because we fear the effects it has on our relationship with people.
Speaker:We worry that we're going to be accused of all sorts of things.
Speaker:We worry that we're going to be feeding bad.
Speaker:We don't want to upset people.
Speaker:It's a massive threat situation because if our amygdala detects a group threat,
Speaker:It sends straight into the corner into our adrenalized sane, where as soon as
Speaker:we're in that fight flight or freeze state, We can't really hear things
Speaker:properly, we can't make good decisions, and so we fear the consequences.
Speaker:Of having these conversations.
Speaker:And then the problem is we don't often understand why they are
Speaker:so difficult and what happens to make them spiral out of control.
Speaker:And we often avoid them because we think, well, the other person
Speaker:is going to get really defensive.
Speaker:They can't hear that sort of thing.
Speaker:They're not mature enough.
Speaker:They'll just be thinking of themselves.
Speaker:They've behaved really badly.
Speaker:So what's going to happen when I pointed it out?
Speaker:So we often think the reason why they're difficult is because of
Speaker:the other person, or it's because we just not saying it right.
Speaker:That there's something magical that we can say or do in these conversations
Speaker:that's going to make it so much better.
Speaker:And then what happens?
Speaker:Is that we never have the conversations that we need to have.
Speaker:And relationships.
Speaker:Deteriorate anyway, if we don't have these conversations.
Speaker:Standard strop.
Speaker:People aren't held to accounts about things.
Speaker:People don't know where they're going wrong and they can't
Speaker:learn from feedback and improve.
Speaker:We don't gain any more understanding about them.
Speaker:They don't gain any more understanding about us.
Speaker:We ended up feeling incredibly guilty and responsible for how they're feeling.
Speaker:We feel like a failure.
Speaker:They feel like a failure, and it's just a downward spiral.
Speaker:So the mistake we make is just thinking, I just need that skill, that skill,
Speaker:that right sentence to say, to make it all right, when actually what we need.
Speaker:It's to understand the moment where the conversation starts to go wrong.
Speaker:And be able to shift our approach.
Speaker:And that starts from way before we even have the conversation.
Speaker:This is a You Are Not a Frog quick dip, a tiny taster of the kinds of things we
Speaker:talk about on our full podcast episodes.
Speaker:I've chosen today's topic to give you a helpful boost in the time it
Speaker:takes to have a cup of tea so you can return to whatever else you're
Speaker:up to feeling energized and inspired.
Speaker:For more tools, tips, and insights to help you thrive at work, don't
Speaker:forget to subscribe to You Are Not a Frog wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Conversations don't go wrong because somebody doesn't want to hear feedback.
Speaker:They don't want to know what they can see to improve.
Speaker:They don't want to know what they've done to upset other people.
Speaker:They go wrong.
Speaker:When you, while skipping that feedback, whilst having that
Speaker:conversation have gone over the net and gone into judgment.
Speaker:Now, what do I mean by over the net?
Speaker:Well, I came across this concept when I listened to these guys on a podcast.
Speaker:Uh, there's a wonderful book called connect by David
Speaker:Bradford and Carole Robin.
Speaker:And they run a class on interpersonal dynamics at Stanford Business School.
Speaker:And their theory.
Speaker:Is that the biggest problem in interpersonal communication
Speaker:is when you go over the net.
Speaker:Now, what do we mean by this?
Speaker:Well, In any conversation, you've got two people and there
Speaker:are three things going on.
Speaker:You've got me, what's going on in my head, my intense, how I'm feeling.
Speaker:I've got you, I've got what's going on in your head, the impacts of what
Speaker:I'm saying, what you intended, what you think, what you're worried about.
Speaker:And we've also got the behavior.
Speaker:Now I can only ever know two out of those three things.
Speaker:I know what's in my head and I know the behavior that I can see.
Speaker:When I'm talking about behavior, I'm saying, you know, if you were
Speaker:filming that situation, what would you be able to watch on the film?
Speaker:So it would be what I said, what I did, the tone of voice that I used.
Speaker:The other person only knows about three things.
Speaker:They know the behavior that they can see.
Speaker:But they will say what's in their head, their assumptions, how they're
Speaker:feeling the impact of stuff on them, but they have no idea what's in my head.
Speaker:When we go over the net is when we think we know all three of those things.
Speaker:It's when I think I know what's in the other person's head.
Speaker:When I assume I know what they intended.
Speaker:When I assume I know what they're feeling.
Speaker:When I assume why they did something.
Speaker:I can never know why they did something unless they tell me.
Speaker:And if you think about it, the times when you can feel the most
Speaker:annoyed and upset is when somebody has misjudged you or misunderstood
Speaker:you, misunderstood your intention.
Speaker:If someone accuses you of disrespecting them, or being greedy, or being
Speaker:selfish when that hundred percent wasn't your intent, you feel
Speaker:very upset, you feel very judged.
Speaker:And that is when you're a amygdala will go there's a threat, there's a treat.
Speaker:You get into the corner, you'll be flooded with adrenaline or the
Speaker:blood will rush from your prefrontal cortex to your big muscles.
Speaker:And you just won't be able to think straight.
Speaker:So being misunderstood is a massive threat.
Speaker:And as soon as you feel misunderstood in any way, shape or form, It's
Speaker:pretty much curtains to any rational conversation because you're backed into
Speaker:the corner, you don't behave well, and it all becomes about self protection,
Speaker:which is defensiveness, isn't it?
Speaker:And you can't have a conversation if you're being defensive and
Speaker:someone else has been defensive.
Speaker:And if you're being defensive and somebody else has being defensive,
Speaker:and there's not really any hope for that conversation, because
Speaker:all you're doing is fighting your own corner, fighting the battle.
Speaker:And no matter how rational you started off.
Speaker:He just ended up defending yourself, even if the back of your mind,
Speaker:you're thinking, why am I doing this?
Speaker:So if, when we're thinking about these tricky conversations that we
Speaker:need to have, rather than fearing the other person and how they are
Speaker:going to react, if we start to think about our own approach and
Speaker:understand the precise moment when we might be triggering defensiveness
Speaker:in somebody else, these conversations are going to go much, much better.
Speaker:We'll actually end up with better relationships at the end of
Speaker:them than if we'd said nothing.
Speaker:Both sides will feel heard.
Speaker:Both sides will feel understood.
Speaker:And that's where real change takes place.
Speaker:That's where teams get to fell it where trust is built.
Speaker:But it all starts with me controlling what I can control.
Speaker:You know, I talk all the time about the same, the power about
Speaker:working out what's in your control and what's not in your control.
Speaker:Well, unfortunately, the other person is not under my control.
Speaker:I don't know what's in the head.
Speaker:I can't control how they feel.
Speaker:can only control what I say and what's I do, my attitude
Speaker:and how I approach things.
Speaker:And it all starts with staying on your own side of the net.
Speaker:So how do we do that?
Speaker:Well, firstly, we refrain from all judgment.
Speaker:So when this person said to me that she'd felt I'd been unfair, that was
Speaker:judgment that was over the net, because she had no idea what my intent was.
Speaker:Was my intent to be unfair?
Speaker:To push my own interests above theirs?
Speaker:No, of course it wasn't.
Speaker:But but by saying they felt I had been unfair, that immediately
Speaker:triggered my inner chimp, triggered this feeding of hang on a sec, I
Speaker:wasn't being unfair you over the net.
Speaker:He don't know that.
Speaker:So, if you say to somebody I felt dismissed, I felt you weren't
Speaker:listening, I felt you were being mean or thoughtless, that is the
Speaker:net, because you don't know if their intention was to be mean.
Speaker:You don't know if they were dismissing you.
Speaker:You don't know if they weren't listening to you.
Speaker:Now, from their behavior, it might look like they weren't listening to you.
Speaker:So you could say when I came into the room, I, you were reading a
Speaker:piece of paper., I started speaking to you and you didn't look up.
Speaker:So the story in my head was that you weren't listening to me.
Speaker:That's owning that, owning what I thought.
Speaker:But not saying you weren't listening to me, that's an accusation and that
Speaker:will immediately put people's backs up.
Speaker:So assuming that we know what the other person was
Speaker:intending is way over the net.
Speaker:And just a side note, when you say, I felt, well, that's not actually true.
Speaker:You can't feel that somebody is being unfair.
Speaker:You can feel upset because you think somebody is being unfair.
Speaker:You can feel angry because you think that somebody dismissed you, but you
Speaker:can't feel dismissed or feel unfair that doesn't make any sense at all.
Speaker:So by all means own your feelings.
Speaker:Say how you felt.
Speaker:But you felt like that because of the story you were telling yourself.
Speaker:So if this person has had said to me the story I'm telling myself was that
Speaker:it was unfair and then I felt upset, that would have made me less defensive.
Speaker:But if we take that step further, If this person had assumed good intent
Speaker:from me, so if this person has said, now I know that you would never want
Speaker:to be unfair or come across like that, then I would have felt much safer.
Speaker:And she could have said, but I did feel upset because my
Speaker:interpretation of it was that it was.
Speaker:And that would have given me a chance to go, okay, there's
Speaker:something that I did there that had that impact on this person.
Speaker:But because they've assumed good intent from me, they've not
Speaker:assumed that I'm out to get them.
Speaker:They've not assumed I'm being mean, thoughtless or selfish.
Speaker:That gives me somewhere to go with this.
Speaker:So assuming good intent of the other person is the most important
Speaker:thing in any interaction.
Speaker:If I have to feed back about some behavior that was detrimental and
Speaker:harmful to either me or somebody else, if I go in and saying to them, I know
Speaker:that the last thing that you would want is to do something that's going
Speaker:to affect our relationship or cause issues to people, I know that right?
Speaker:So if I think that the other person assumes that I have good intent.
Speaker:That makes it much easier for me to hear feedback.
Speaker:If I'm thinking that the other person thinks I'm a despicable
Speaker:human being and it's just expecting me to do horrible things.
Speaker:I'm going to get much, much more defensive.
Speaker:So assuming good intent and knowing that other people are
Speaker:assuming good intent from you is the basis of psychological safety.
Speaker:Just basically means that you can feed anything back.
Speaker:I'm like, I know that you don't think I'm awful, so you can actually tell me
Speaker:anything I've done that really didn't work for you, because I know that.
Speaker:You know, I would never mean anything harmful.
Speaker:That's got a bit meta, but this assumption of good intent is
Speaker:so, so important, particularly for not going over the net.
Speaker:So to stay over my side of the net, firstly, I assume good
Speaker:intent from the other person.
Speaker:The next thing in your approach that will make things so much better is to
Speaker:know what your highest intention is.
Speaker:Why am I having this conversation in the first place?
Speaker:What's in it for them?
Speaker:When we do our training, we often start with what's in it for me.
Speaker:W I F M.
Speaker:We need to start with what's in it for them.
Speaker:Because if the only person that's going to benefit from this
Speaker:conversation is me, then there's probably no point in having it.
Speaker:There needs to be a benefit to the other person.
Speaker:So something they could do differently in the future that's
Speaker:going to help them go through life.
Speaker:That's going to help our relationship.
Speaker:That's going to make things better.
Speaker:So if I'm sharing something that I need to get off my chest because I've
Speaker:misunderstood it and I want to find out what really happens so we can avoid
Speaker:it again, that's a great intention.
Speaker:If I'm sharing something, because I just want somebody else to know
Speaker:how much they've hurt me and feel bad about it, that's a terrible
Speaker:intention and that sort of conversation is always going to go wrong.
Speaker:But if I'm sharing something.
Speaker:In order to understand, move on and make things better, then that is
Speaker:a great intention for everybody.
Speaker:So always ask yourself before you have a conversation what's in it for them.
Speaker:Seriously, why am I doing this?
Speaker:How is this going to help them?
Speaker:What's the biggest possible positive outcome for them?
Speaker:And finally, to stop ourselves going over the net, we need to listen
Speaker:much, much sooner and ask questions.
Speaker:Because if I don't know what's going on in your head, the only way
Speaker:I can find out is if you tell me.
Speaker:And I need to ask the right questions.
Speaker:I need to be curious, genuinely curious, not asking questions with the sort
Speaker:of subtext of, well, why did you do that if you knew, blah, blah, blah?
Speaker:That's not going to help, but just really getting curious.
Speaker:Can you just tell me what was behind that?
Speaker:Recently someone said to me, It's just an off the cuff comment that the best
Speaker:way to get feedback is to just say to them, how do you think that went?
Speaker:If you were to rate it on a scale of one to five, where would he be and why?
Speaker:And half the time someone would say, oh, it didn't really go that
Speaker:well, would give you the score and tell you everything that you
Speaker:were going to tell them anyway.
Speaker:How much better is that?
Speaker:How much more accessible is that towards somebody then just giving them a list
Speaker:of everything that they did wrong.?
Speaker:And so often when people give you feedback about stuff, you
Speaker:want to button and go, yep.
Speaker:I know this.
Speaker:I know, I know.
Speaker:And this is what I've done, but they just so intent on telling you that
Speaker:a piece that you can't get it in.
Speaker:You can't get a word in edgeways.
Speaker:So before you have any difficult conversation, just asking them how
Speaker:they're feeling about the whole situation and what they think will
Speaker:save you a lot of pain in the long run.
Speaker:It makes everything so much easier and so much more accessible.
Speaker:So approach these difficult and tricky conversations by firstly thinking, how
Speaker:can I stop myself going over the net?
Speaker:How can I assume good intent from the other person?
Speaker:How can I get the highest intent from myself?
Speaker:And how can I find out what's in their head without making those assumptions?
Speaker:And if you start there.
Speaker:You can't go far wrong.
Speaker:Now there are also mistakes we make in all of this.
Speaker:Firstly empathy.
Speaker:The other person needs to know that we really empathize and understand them.
Speaker:So just go straight into conversation without finding out how are you doing?
Speaker:How are things, you know, what's really going on for you outside of work
Speaker:or whatever will be really helpful.
Speaker:Secondly, watch out for your own defensiveness.
Speaker:Because often if you've gone over the net and triggered bad
Speaker:defensiveness, triggered their inner chimp, that will trigger you because
Speaker:they'll start saying some things.
Speaker:And when you get triggered, you'll be much more likely to be judgemental,
Speaker:to say things that you regret.
Speaker:Your inner chimp might also be checkered by feeling really guilty.
Speaker:If they're feeling upset.
Speaker:Now with the best will in the world.
Speaker:If you tell me that there's some things that I have done that have caused hurt
Speaker:to somebody else, I'll fill upset.
Speaker:And that's quite appropriate.
Speaker:Nobody likes to be told that their behavior hasn't
Speaker:worked for somebody else.
Speaker:Nobody likes to think that they've caused harm or upset to anybody.
Speaker:We feel upset.
Speaker:We feel guilty.
Speaker:We feel remorseful.
Speaker:But that is normal human behavior.
Speaker:And you are not responsible or in control of how they are feeling.
Speaker:That is their stuff.
Speaker:And it's okay for them to feel bad.
Speaker:And often when we see that other people are upset, we start fracking them.
Speaker:We start trying to fix it.
Speaker:We start trying to rescue them.
Speaker:We start giving advice or we start canceling how they're feeling.
Speaker:Because we can't keep with somebody else feeding bad, and
Speaker:we may feel incredibly guilty.
Speaker:But it's okay to sit with those feelings.
Speaker:If you've done that work around, what's my highest intent, you know, you give
Speaker:him that feedback for good reason.
Speaker:Then finally, another mistake that I make.
Speaker:Is to go into fawn mode.
Speaker:So when our inner chimp is triggered when we're in the corner, when in our
Speaker:sympathetic nervous zones, we can go into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
Speaker:And fawn is where we start to get over helpful.
Speaker:That's why we start seeing that fracking and, and really
Speaker:trying to make it better.
Speaker:So we might start saying things like, oh, you know, it doesn't really
Speaker:matter and, and then minimizing what we've just said, which
Speaker:drastically reduces its impact.
Speaker:Someone said to me recently, Rachel it's really good idea.
Speaker:Just to ditch the final third.
Speaker:What's that mean?
Speaker:Ditch the final third of what you were going to say.
Speaker:Say what you need to say in a kind and compassionate way, and then leave it.
Speaker:Let the other person deal with it and listen.
Speaker:So often we assume that the conversation is going to be difficult because the
Speaker:other person is going to get defensive and it's their problem and they're
Speaker:difficult and it's all going to go really badly wrong, whereas actually,
Speaker:we have a lot more control than we think we do if we stay at our side of
Speaker:the net, if we assume good intent from them, if we get a highest intent right,
Speaker:and we really listen so that they feel understood, you will find that at the
Speaker:end of these conversations, even though they might be an uncomfortable, they may
Speaker:have been difficult, but quite often the relationship is much, much, much better
Speaker:than it was even before you had it.
Speaker:And as senior health care professionals, this is part of your work.
Speaker:This is part of your job.
Speaker:I would love it if I never had to have difficult conversations.
Speaker:Believe me, I shy away from conflict.
Speaker:And I don't think I'm very good at it, which is why I'm getting quite
Speaker:obsessed with how to do it better.
Speaker:And in our memberships, like the Shapes Academy, we're constantly
Speaker:being asked, how do I have these difficult conversations
Speaker:and how can I have them better?
Speaker:So the High Five model is something that we teach inside the Shapes Academy, and
Speaker:we give you lots and lots of different conversation canvases and models using
Speaker:our Shapes Toolkit that will help you.
Speaker:Have these conversations in a way that really isn't over the net, that finds
Speaker:out what the other person is thinking.
Speaker:It's all about not making assumptions, not making those quick snap judgements,
Speaker:which put other people into the corner.
Speaker:'Cause when you're both in the corner, when both your chimps
Speaker:out, that is when things go south.
Speaker:So in the next week, if you're going to have any conversation that you
Speaker:think has the potential to be slightly tricky, ask yourself am I assuming
Speaker:good intent from this other person?
Speaker:What is my highest intent from the conversation?
Speaker:What's in it for them.?
Speaker:And how can I uncover what they're really thinking what's going on
Speaker:for them as soon as I possibly can?
Speaker:So if you have any specific phrases or any ways that you remember.
Speaker:Let's do that.
Speaker:Please email me at hello@youarenotafrog.com.
Speaker:I'd love to hear about ways that you navigate this.
Speaker:And if you have any questions or cases you're stuck on, then email
Speaker:us and we'll try and cover those in the next hot topics, podcasts within
Speaker:our frog, extra membership too.
Speaker:So go well, do not shy away from those difficult conversations, but
Speaker:make sure you get the approach right.