Having difficult conversations
How often are you scared of having a conversation at work?
For me, it happened just this week. What I remember is the feeling of complete shutdown and avoidance before speaking the first word. My mind was whispering to me, “Are you really going to do this?”, as I was preparing to utter the right words, that would lead to the right outcome, where everyone would be happy and the world would be alright.
But this is not how it goes. Sometimes, there is no right, just wrong, no matter how hard you try to find it. Sometimes, you should not expect the “right” outcome, because who even knows what that is? There is just trying, and finding a way forward, no matter how imperfect it is.
Maybe, just maybe, we do not have to say the right thing all the time. Maybe just saying the best that we can come up with in the moment is enough. Saying nothing at all leads us nowhere, and certainly not closer to a resolution. Saying something, no matter how imperfect, shows a willingness to reach out.
“Maybe, just maybe, we do not have to say the right thing all the time. Maybe just saying the best that we can come up with in the moment is enough.”
What can settle a difficult conversation is not being right or wrong but the realisation that the other person is not out to get you, or to make you feel bad. They are just an imperfect human trying to do the best that they can of the situation they are in, facing another human trying the same thing in a completely different way. The key, to me, is facing our assumptions, to figure out our starting points, then finding common ground by looking at what we are trying to achieve, and using the conversation to map a way to get there that works for both of us.
If we don’t talk through our difficulties with each other, we risk remaining just that – the other – while the solution was waiting there for us all along, at the halfway point between you and me. While evolution might have taught us to protect ourselves by thinking the worst, clearing the air might show us that our assumptions were far worse than reality. If only, we give ourselves the chance to do the scary thing, and have the conversation.
This post is part of a new series, called Daily Musings, where I share thoughts and reflections after a day at work.