{"id":4808,"date":"2023-11-21T14:02:10","date_gmt":"2023-11-21T13:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/?p=4808"},"modified":"2023-11-21T14:03:36","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T13:03:36","slug":"difficult-conversations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/2023\/11\/21\/difficult-conversations\/","title":{"rendered":"Difficult Conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello Friends!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s that time of year again \u2013 time for Performance Evaluations. Most companies seem to use the time between September and December to finalize their fiscal years, and that always leads to the annual performance review. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I don\u2019t get a performance evaluation from my boss (she\u2019s lovely but since we\u2019re the same person, I get an ongoing monologue rather than a review \ud83d\ude09), I myself have had a few challenging conversations lately. And I realized that although I think I\u2019m pretty good at initiating a difficult conversation, I may not be as good at them when I\u2019m unprepared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let\u2019s explore Difficult Conversations together, and see if we can discover a few best practices that might ease that disquieting feeling of one\u2019s equilibrium being shaken, shall we?\u00a0\ud83d\ude0a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EMOTIONAL AGILITY….<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan David<\/a> is the<\/strong> authority on having effective conversations. I\u2019m currently doing her Emotional Agility for Wellbeing at Work course<\/a> and it is brilliant! So much wisdom in such an easy-to-understand format!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my favourite micro skills from the course has been that on having challenging conversations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven the most emotionally agile among us can sometimes struggle to put what we\u2019re feeling into words in order to have important conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need to be able to go to<\/strong> our emotions \u2013 understanding and processing them \u2013 but we also need to know how go through<\/strong> our emotions: to apply emotional agility to our behaviours and actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Effective conversations require both.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So often we are thrust into difficult conversations and devolve quickly into react mode, rather than response<\/a>. The real skill here is to have the wherewithal to actually be able to pause and identify your emotions in that moment, so you can choose how to respond, rather than react. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For David, there are four key steps to having emotionally agile conversations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I think for many of us \u2013 certainly for me \u2013 the challenge is #2: stepping out from how you\u2019re feeling. That\u2019s another way of saying, reSPOND, don\u2019t reACT. Take a moment to think about what the aim of the conversation is, and choose how you want to proceed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David also advises not conflating yourself with your emotions. She points out that we often say things like “I am stressed” or “I am angry”, which actually indicates to your brain that your whole persona is stress or anger. She suggests reframing your emotions as a temporary feeling. So instead of “I am stressed”, try, “I am noticing that I am feeling stressed”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it looks like Gaelic even has that built right into the language:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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FOPO – FEAR OF PEOPLE’S OPINIONS…<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love a good acronym! A new one to me is FOPO: Fear of People\u2019s Opinions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I heard this in one of my favourite podcasts, The Long and the Short of It<\/a>. In episode 234 \u201cDifficult Conversations<\/a>\u201d, Jen hypothesizes that  FOPO \u201cis at the center of everything. I’ve actually landed on that, as humans, we have two primal fears: the fear of death and the fear of people’s opinions. And that like, everything else stems from that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is fear of people\u2019s opinions what is really causing us to have difficult conversations? Could well be!! As Jen goes on to say, \u201cdifficult conversations create change, and it’s easier to stay the way we are.\u201d That\u2019s certainly true!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So are we avoiding having difficult or potentially challenging\u00a0conversations in order to avoid change?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DOING IT BETTER…<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\u00a0James Clear<\/a>\u00a0so aptly puts it: \u201cOdds are, the latest debate or family squabble isn\u2019t worth winning. Most arguments are only tangentially related to your end goal. What outcomes are you actually trying to create?\u201d
\u00a0
With that in mind, let\u2019s dive into the E.A.R.S. Framework for having difficult conversations!
\u00a0
This also came from the Long and the Short of It podcast, and is Pete\u2019s framework. E.A.R.S. stands for:\u00a0
\u00a0
E<\/strong>mpathize
A<\/strong>sk questions
R<\/strong>eflect back
S<\/strong>tate our position (how we want to move forward)
\u00a0
As Pete says, \u201cin any given difficult conversation, we want to empathize. We want to ask questions. We want to reflect back what we’ve heard. And we want to kind of state our position and how we want to move forward.\u201d

Adam Grant<\/a>\u00a0has a similar framework [but without the fancy acronym]. He suggests having effective conversations is about changing how you think [and if you haven\u2019t read his book \u201cThink Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don\u2019t Know<\/a>\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s well worth the read!]:<\/p>\n\n\n\n