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Project Name: HBR 10/14/2013Mastering Tough Conversations with Holly WeeksSession Number:File Name: HBR 11-14-2013 WeeksDuration: 00:58:52Pages: 12

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Green = Sarah GreenWeeks = Holly Weeks

Green: Welcome to today's Harvard Business Review Webinar - Mastering Tough Conversations. I am Sarah Green,Senior Associate Editor of Harvard Business Review, and host of the HBR Idea Cast, and I want to thank you all for

joining us today. I also want to thank Citrix GoTo Webinar for making this discussion possible. We would like this to be asinteractive a session as possible, so if you've questions or comments at anytime, please send those in. We also have aconversation going on at Twitter. You could find us there at HBR Exchange, or you could use the #HBRWebinar.

Managers must inevitably engage in difficult workplace conversations. These might include firing under-performingsubordinates, or dealing with verbal attacks from colleagues, and I'm sure you could bring them here as examples of

tough conversations at work. These conversations are often emotionally-charged, loaded with anger, confusion, and otherderailing emotions. How you handle these difficult conversations can affect your reputation, your relationship, your

company, even your career. Mishandling these conversations, as too many of us often do, can have a very high price. Buthow do you improve your comfort, your skills, your mastery at having these tough talks.

With us today, with some answers, is communication expert Holly Weeks. Holly publishes, teaches, and consults on theseissues. She is Adjunct Lecturer in Management Leadership and Decision Sciences at the Harvard Kennedy School, and

she's an Adjunct Lecturer in Communication at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As principal of Holly WeeksCommunication, she consults and coaches on negotiation, presentation, and written and conversational communicationsissues, with a special emphasis on sensitive and difficult problems. Her book, which I highly recommend, is Failure toCommunicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them.

Holly, thanks so much for joining us today.

Weeks: And thank you so much. I think I am the happiest person on this webinar to be here. I feel very strongly abouthelping people get better at a skill that scares us all to death, with good reasons, since our history with it is not verygood.

Just before you kick things off, I want to just mention that Holly is going to refer to some case studies, and those casestudies, and I believe the slides as well, are available for download if you look for the resources area at the lower lefthand side of the screen. And with that, Holly, take it away!

Thank you so much.

Many of all of you here have read very good material on how to prevent difficult conversations. But, in fact, today, I wantto look at the dark side of these communications when you have not prevented the difficult conversations. Whether it iswith a peer or a boss or a subordinate, someone outside the group, your friends, your family, whoever it may be -- or ifyou are in a situation in which we have no power to compel people to do what you want, or if you could, the price ofcompelling people to change is too high. So essentially what I am holding aside is when you can make somethinghappen, despite a failed conversation or when you cannot prevent it. So we are really in a swamp here of difficultconversations. That is where I like to spend my time and I am glad you're here with me.

I find that most of us suffer difficult communications a lot more than we master them. We do not focus on getting betterat difficult conversations. We are difficult conversation-averse. We focus on the bright side. We focus on hope, and wefocus on avoidance, and I understand why. Too often these conversations really do feel like battles. They are loaded withnegative emotions when they are full of misunderstanding with people who remain in our lives. I mean, it would notmatter to me so much if these were one-off occasions, if we did not have to face people again, but we do. I also find thatdealing with, actually dealing with, the dark side of tough conversations is not seen as an acquirable skill, but I believe itis. There are harder complications, especially in the workplace, working on difficult conversation skills goes against thegrain. Most professional people have a strong, rational suit, and prefer to check your emotions at the door, and difficultconversations don't seem to spin out rationally.


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Even optimism is a complication. We have the optimism of good intentions -- if we mean well, everything will work outwell; and if it does not, it's not our fault, because we were well-intentioned. That is not a skill. And we have an optimisticidea that we can resolve difficult conversation with a base of mutual respect, trust, and goodwill. If we have that base,we're in asoftdifficult conversation. Because realistically, any more daunting conversations, those qualities are in shortsupply.

As much as anyone, I would prefer that I have any difficult conversations in an atmosphere of mutual respect, but I cantdepend on it upfront, because I can't control the mutual part. This is actually worrying me, and it is kind of depressing.Avoidance starts to make more and more sense to me when I talk about it this way. But over and over, I have seen theproblems that could have and should have worked out but did not. Because important conversations broke down orturned toxic. The tough problems that were the subject of the conversations were not themselves beyond repair, but

resulting damaging judgments, hurt reputations and broken relationships sometimes have been beyond repair. Andstudies show that the two most common traits of people in leadership positions who derail are brittle relationships and

inflexibility. They alienate the people they work with, and they can't adjust their style.

Handling difficult conversations poorly carries a huge price tag. Handling them well, matters enormously. So, I want totake the lid off tough conversations in our time together, and look at what makes them go wrong so we can fix them.Let's get concrete and realistic right away, and let's change unilaterally. I do not care what your counterpart is doing.

Unilaterally -- what we are trying to do. I'll be clear. I want to do this in part because I have a stake in it. Everyone's life,including mine, would be easier if we were all better at this. So, are you ready?

To begin, many of you have seen a case of -- the little, mini case -- Jackie and Ross, and those of you who have not yetseen it can find it following the webinar. But I'll give you a snapshot of the Jackie and Ross case that makes it a goodexample for many of the points that we want to look at.

Here we go.

A conversation between Jackie and Ross failed at several points for several reasons. If we were to read through theconversation and then go back and try to prevent this confrontation from happening in the first place, we could point theobvious problems and ways to avoid them. But in our live conversation, the characteristics that make the conversationfail, and what to do about them are not obvious. Our situation with Jackie and Ross is that Jackie is a new manager at abank. She is new because the bank has recently merged with another bank, and she is going to review Ross who is oneof her new reports. Now, Jackie has heard through the grapevine that Ross is a skilled auditor, but he tends to talk downto other people, and that way bothers the managers in the departments he audits. But they never say anything to himabout it. He is also quick to challenge feedback that does not go well with the high opinion he has of himself. So nobody,they prefer to avoid the confrontation. Here comes Jackie, who prefers to avoid confrontations, too. But she takes veryseriously her responsibility to develop her employees. So, if Ross wants to move up, he needed to be able tocommunicate more tactfully and positively with his colleagues. Jackie was going to give him a solid salary increase, but hewould receive fewer excellent ratings on his review form than he had before. And Jackie also did want the review to befair. This is how she begins:

"Ross, I'm impressed with your auditing skills. This is our first review, but you have a good track record. Your previousmanagers spoke very highly of you."

But off in that direction Ross goes talking about his strengths, all of his successes. Jackie realizes they are off on thewrong track. So she tries, she jumps in, and she says, "There's one other thing I'd like to mention, but Ross kept right onwith his monologue about how strong he was. So, then, Jackie dropped her nice guy routine, and hit the point head on."Some people," she said, "are unhappy with the way you come across when you are making your recommendations. They


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describe you as cocky and superior. You need to work on your interpersonal skills. That's going to be one of my 'goingforward' recommendations in the evaluation."

Now, Ross, you can tell by looking at his face, Jackie said he really took this badly. He denied having an attitude problem.He pushed back and he actually said to her, "You review me, but you do not see me work day to day." Which, by the

way, was true -- they were so new. And then he went on the attack. "They had a lot more direct reports since themerger. Are you feeling a little overwhelmed Jackie - in over your head?

Jackie was starting to defend herself, because she was so taken back by Ross's accusations. And then she tried to meethim halfway. "Look, we're getting lost track. Let's see if we can come up with recommendations which would work forboth of us. But now, Ross thought, okay, this is great. Jackie is backing down. He pushed even harder and harder. "Whyshould I take recommendations from you? You do not even know the first thing about my work."

Now Ross is attacking Jackie's authority. She takes the gloves off, "I need to tell you that it is unacceptable for you tobully people in their own department, and this very conversation is giving me the evidence I need."

"Bully people?" Ross shot back. "The way you're doing now to me?"

That's a really depressing case.

I'd like to look at part; I want to start imposing some shape to this. So here are six basic types of difficult conversations.It's not the talking about money. The subject of the conversation is not a basic type. People do struggle with difficult

subjects, but I think you'll see it's more useful to think about types of conversations because that is where you want toimprove. Difficult conversations don't often fit neatly into single categories. They go all over the place, and Jackie andRoss cover five or the six.

The first: I have bad news for you. Clearly that was going on with Jackie and Ross. Jackie wanted to handle it well, but

she had to try to choose between being direct and being diplomatic. She was worried about over-planning on one hand,under-planning on the otherit did not go well.

Second - You are challenging my power. Someone worries about tackling a tough issue, usually with a boss, becausethere's more, you pay a higher price if you screw up the boss -- although, someone should explain that to Ross --

because they realized there could be significant fallouts.

The third is: You win, I lose. No matter how cooperative one person tries to be, her counterpart always tries to come outon top at her expense. You saw that at Jackie and Ross.

What is going on here? A conversation unexpectedly becomes intensely charged and extremely confusing. And I am surethat happened to Ross. And I know it happened to Jackie, Jackie is the person I talked to about this. I am pretty sure it

happened to Ross or he would not have been so thrown, "I'm hearing this news as the first time."

This one you will recognize: I'm being attacked. One side or both finds himself in stuff for something he never intended.Certainly, this stuff that Ross threw at Jackie was very far from what she meant to have happened.

This one didn't come up so much: I can't go there. Conflict-averse people, even powerful professionals, try to avoiddifficult conversations altogether. Even as they watch a situation at a relationship degenerate. So, in many cases, I can'tgo there. Which is the definition of conflict avoidance -- means that there is no conversation until things get a lot worse.However this spins out, these types of difficult conversations don't come one at a time. They usually come in barrages. Ifwe can get a clearer view of what happens at tough conversations, and begin to see them unfolding in recognizable and

manageable ways, we will find that the best way to improve your situation going in is to have strategies fordifficultconversations, not for preventing them. I mean there might be a strategy for that too, but if it doesn't work, you are


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empty-handed. With that in mind I would like to look very directly at strategy. Does this introduction give any of youthoughts or questions before we dive into this strategy question?

Green: Well, hi, I think that you preemptively answered one set of questions, which is, how do you know which one ofthese difficult conversations you are in? It sounds like you may actually be facing all of them at the same time, at a worst

case scenario.

Weeks: One of the things I find is that we may not all be vulnerable to the same thing. So, something I might strugglewith terribly, you are a passmasteras[unaudio]. So, in the end, I have derived these six basic types because they aregenerally the ones that people struggle with the most. But if you're invulnerable on one point, don't worry about it toomuch. You're probably handling it very well, unless something gives you feedback that actually you are not, but these arethe ones that generally, however they come together, people get screwed up. The reason I think it's worth separating outwhat they are is because that could influence both your strategies and your tactics. Something that Jackie could not dowas, I don't know if she could or not, but it certainly didn't come up in the conversation.

Green: Great. Thank you. With that in mind I would love to know what the strategy is for handling that.

Weeks: Well me too. If we look forward, basically, I pretty much want to rethink what we try to do in strategies fordifficult conversations, and I will continue to look at Jackie and Ross as our example. Thinking strategically, lets see howwe could move, it lets us think how our counterpart could move, and even how our counterpart is likely to move. I'm veryinterested in that, because I find that most people most of the time are reacting as soon as conversations get tough.They don't have any forward motions. Imagine that you are in a conversation with me, and I have the strategy for goingforward and you don't. Well, who is going to direct this conversation? It is not going to be you. Jackie, of course, thoughtshe would be directing the conversations, but Ross was the one with-, I don't know if he had any strategies, but rebuttal-type techniques completely threw her off. But working from strategy, first, we are going to assume there will be problemshad, and we're going to anticipate how to handle them. At the same time, assume we're going to be taken by surprise.

Now, in Jackie's case, she had no strategy for difficult conversations. She had prepared the topics she wanted to cover inthe performance review. She had a grasp of the problem with Ross's attitude. She had some supporting informationthere. She had a scoring plan for the review, with a figure in mind for Ross's salary increase, which, by the way, wasmore than what she had gotten herself at his level, and she had a commitment to fairness. She had what she thoughtwas a constructive opening, although I'd certainly argue to the end with that. But Jackie put her head in the sand as tohow the conversation itself was likely to go. She didn't have any strategy for a conversation that was not going to be

congenial. One in which Ross would refuse to accept her points or conclusions. She floundered. She found herselfreacting to Ross's ploys. She found herself trying to make a bargain with him and failing, but she never found herselfimplementing a strategy to deal with what was happening in the conversation herself, and yet she had perfectly good

reasons ahead of time to think that this would not be easy.

For example, Jackie, well-intentioned as she was, spoke dismissively about Ross's attitude as, these are her words, onething I would like to mention. Even though it was the significant problem to be faced. Tough personal feedback willalways be hard to hear and by minimizing it, Jackie practically set Ross up not to hear it at all. But when Ross did ignorethe topic, Jackie swapped minimizing for hit the point head on.

The conversation began to deteriorate really fast at that point, but not just because the attitude issue was a sensitiveone. In fact, the topic had barely been raised before it was snuffed out by distortion, belligerence, confusion, andaccusations from both sides. Now concretely, Jackie needs a pair of strategy devices to correct the faults in theconversation. So, we want to think through a preferred outcome and preferred working relationship, plus interferences.Let me get this as clear here as I possibly can.

Preferred outcome is where we want to get where we think we can get, where we're trying to get in the conversationitself. Once we hear our counterpart's concerns, we might adjust our preferred outcome. That's fine, but we should haveone going in. That means that before you even get into the conversation, in many cases, we hope before you get into it,


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you're trying to think what the preferred outcome is for you, much as you might be influenced by what your counterpartsays.

Preferred working relationships: it is not what is wrong between the two counterparts, but what's wrong between us andour own preferences, our own preferred outcome. Hang in here for a sec. In a difficult conversation, it is much easier and

more effective to talk about a good thing we want and what is interfering with it now, than to talk about what's wrongwith our counterpart. Jackie, of course, used a lot of strategy. She wanted to talk about what was wrong with Ross, andhow he could fix it, instead of talking about something that she wanted, and why they didn't have it now. But, isn't thatthe very kind of soft, the kind of over-positive idea that got Jackie into trouble with her opening. No, because itscompanion part was interfering with the relationship we want, builts in balance, which Jackie didn't have and couldn'tfind. Plus, in planning strategy, interference is the companion category to a preferred working relationship. We know

what our preferred relationship is, but why don't we have it in this conversation with this counterpart? What's interferingwith the relationship we want? What's conflicting with our own ideal? Some of these we may know and some we may

not, but every question will change every time.

To me this is the kind of preparation that influences the strategy you go into with your counterpart. As a side benefit, it'salso part of the conversation itself, but it'll be much better stuff to say than most people use. Now what would this kind ofstrategy look like for Jackie? To begin, this one we do know about Jackie's preferred working relationship with Ross: we

know that Jackie wanted to be helpful to Ross because he reported to her, and she took the advancement of her reportsseriously, and she favored constructive conversations and solutions that appear fair to both sides. Now, looking at theinterference, we remember that Jackie knew from the information she got before the review, three things that would

probably interfere with her preferred relationship with Ross during the review.

First, Ross would be likely to challenge her suggestions if they didn't contribute to his advancement. Second, he wasdefensive about criticism. And third, he was likely to be surprised and resistant to comments about his personal skills andunlikely to agree with her, in part because he has never heard any of these before.

In the review itself, when they hit the roughest patch -- Ross's attitude with clientshow would Jackie's plan to use

preferred working relationship and interference as a strategy have played out?

First, preferred outcome. I want Ross to recognize that he has an attitude problem and agree to my recommendationsthat he work on his interpersonal skills. Jackie told me, when we tried to pick up the pieces of this disastrousconversation, but I'll tell you this: it would've been much better if Jackie had scrutinized a preferred outcome like that and

said to herself, "I don't think that is going to happen." Given what she knew about Ross, given what anyone knows abouthow hard it is to hear about interpersonal problems with the people from audit, or whatever one's work is, during areview, I must say Jackie suggested, if you recall was, "You will want to work on that" It's not going to be well-received.

So, I don't think Jackie can get the outcome she wants given the approach that she used. So, I'd like her to think aboutthat ahead of the conversations, and probably in that particular case work to try something better.

Preferred working relationship and interferences. Again, in a difficult conversation, it is much easier and more effective totalk about a good thing you want and what is interfering with it now, than to talk about what's wrong with yourcounterpart. I mean, this is a strategy issue. So, what I would look for and do for Jackie is that she try a new opening.

That is about as far as we will go on this example. She might have said to Ross, "We have not worked together long, butI want you to know how important it is to me professionally to help my reports advance. I want this to be a constructivereview that looks fair to both of us. That gives me a problem because I want to talk about a tough issue that I do notthink you have heard about before. I think it's going to be hard for you to hear." Think for a second about how Ross is

set-up by this opening, compared for the following conversations, compared to the way he was set-up in Jackie's actualfirst attempt, in which case, he was praised for the work he was doing. Ross is far likelier to be able to hear feedback

from Jackie, part because he knows it is coming and because it doesn't sound so embarrassing, and it's not destructive tohis own sense of reputation as what she chose to say.


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Now, I'll tell you that Jackie herself came up with this language, but it took a while. And one of the reasons that it wasslow-going is that good strategy in a difficult conversation is often an act of courage. It's a lot easier to start soft. Butgiven how that tends to play out, I can't recommend it, and I know this goes better. To be clear, having a good strategydoesn't mean we're not going to have bad moments. It just helps us think well when we do. Getting through a badmoment is an act of courage. Any questions about strategy? Thoughts, counterviews, arguments about strategy?

Green: Well, there is one interesting question that has come up in particular. What if you are talking with someone whowon't let you talk, either because of a power differential, they have the power; or because they are one of those "I can'tgo there" people. If you are trying to have this productive conversation and someone won't let you get a word in, thenhow do you use any of your strategies?

Weeks: Yeah, getting from dialogue to monologue -- that's a bit of a challenge. Before you get in there, experiment witha friend -- you know, pay them if you need to -- to play that role, and ask them to give you feedback on whatcombination of body language, for example, and words you can use. We're in a pickle here because interrupting is notwell regarded in our culture. So, if I'm the monologist and you just want to jump in, and I feel like you're interrupting me,you've made at least a faux pas in terms of social interactions. And that is not what you want, but often, if I use-, if I'msaying "uhum-uhum," and supporting what they're saying, then people would feel like you're talking about what they'retalking about and that relieves them a bit and they will then pause.

I am an expert in making use of any inhalation. Anytime anybody is trying to take a breathman I'm in there. I do oftenbegin by granting them what they're saying, even if I'm going to argue from there. If I'm just granting them what they'resaying we're not in a difficult conversation, but if I'm trying to move it from what they are arguing, then it is. So, it's acombination of signaling with your body and essentially that you're not a threat. But you do want to take turns here in

this conversation. And that counts to at least give you that little pause. Slip in, slip in.

Host: Thank you. We have a second question, and which actually you may be about to answer it, and that is, what if youare really kind of fearful of these kinds of conversations, that it's hard to even think about it as a proactive thing to do.How do you get over that hurdle? And you may be going there next.

I will. But I want to touch on this now because that's, you're very patient, this is good ahead of time. Look at this, to beperfectly honest with you, this is what I assume: I assume that we are conflict conversation-averse. It just, the cause isso high of practicing avoidance as our preferred approach to difficult conversations. So, I am assuming that this is astruggle for all of us. That's partly why I look at this as an act of courage. I certainly would not go into; I wouldn't go talk

to the UN as my first exercise in handling a difficult conversations. I would work on skills in more protectiveenvironments. I can't make it feel good upfront, but I do know that if you have successes, it will start to feel better fromthen on. It's kind of an iterative process here, but I want to give you the tools. And then, you know, take a drink, have a

beer, and maybe that will make it easier for you. Somehow solve yourself and go from skill.

Great, hi, thank you.

I would like to change horses now and look at tactics. If strategy gives us what we want to say, tactics are how we'regoing to say it. We tend mistakenly to think that the trick with the conversations is a knack for tactics alone- nope.

I love this image of the two physicists and one of them is writing on a blackboard and in the middle of an equation. Thena miracle occurs, and the other thinks that he might want to be more exclusive here in this particular step. We tend tooperate on the premise that we'll go into this conversation, and when things get tough, a miracle will occur and we'll backon track. It's not going to happen. In part because we tend to see what we want is to say the usual things that are hardfor people to hear, but we want to say them in a way that will get the reactions they usually get. That's asking tactics todo more than they can do. The truth is that saying-, trying to say bad things better so we get a better response, is muchharder than having better things to say. So, good tactics depends on good strategy.


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When you're in a tough conversation, counterparts don't shout or lie or threaten or stonewall or monologue or refuse toreason, because they're crazy or vicious. Although I know how much people prefer things that their terrible counterpart iscrazy. You know people aren't that crazy. And it doesn't help you much to assume that they are so letsjust drop that.They're not doing it because they're crazy. They're doing it because they are trying to stop a threat. I call these thwartingploys. Bad choice of term because it is hard for me to pronounce, but I want to separate it from tactics. Tactics I want to

use as good things to do. Thwarting ploys are generally not aimed at us personally, they tend to be strong, fixedpatterns. Counterparts use them out of habit. Sometimes even unconsciously or because it had success with them in thepast. I'll bet you anything that the reason that Ross came back so hard at Jackie is because it has worked for him before,

not because he invented this specifically to suit her whom he had virtually never met. If we rethink what to do in terms oftactics, there are two things I'd like to focus on today.

The first is to immunize our self against thwarting ploys.

Here's the thing: we need to be vulnerable to a ploy for it to trigger a reaction from us. I tend to think of this as-, youknow when scientists are studying how a pathogen deals with a cell and some of the scientists focus on getting rid of thepathogen, and some of the scientists work on making the cell more invulnerable to the pathogen. I'm looking at theladder. The two had to link up for the pathogen to be a problem. I can't control the pathogen, but I can control myself,the cell. If we're not vulnerable to the thwarting ploy, we don't have to think about it. But don't worry about all of them.

Just worry about the ones we're vulnerable to. We have three choices: react, again and again, make our counterpartsstop using the ploy or immunize ourselves.

Immunizing ourselves is far and away the best bet. You know, and I know, and I know from one of the last questions, isthat we know what our own vulnerabilities in thwarting ploys are. We tend to be susceptible to the same ploys for

decades. If we're not provoked by someone shouting at us, shouting has probably rolled off of us for a long time. If weare provoked by shouting, this is probably not the first time. Just as habit drives most thwarting ploys, habits drive ourreaction to do them. We can't predict when a ploy will be thrown at us, but we can determine how we will handle

ourselves when it is. We can break this viral lock of ploy invulnerability unilaterally, instead of hoping our counterpartswould change.

When we immunize ourselves against thwarting ploys, we stop simply reacting to what's thrown at us and learn to protect

ourselves where we're vulnerable. We focus on ourselves. Part of the reason that this is my approach to improving thetactics aspect of difficult conversation is I didn't have luck changing my counterpart, but I could change myself. I do knowwhere I'm vulnerable. This will make you think less of me I'm afraid. I'm not as vulnerable as most people are to

counterparts lying to me in a difficult conversation in part because I've seen it before, and it sort of makes sense to methat people aren't telling the whole truth all the time in difficult conversations. But many people are very vulnerable tolying, and so they need ways to deal with that. And I want to leave you with an approach to solving that. But before I do

that, I want to introduce this second approach. And I don't mean to tease you, but it'll work better this way, based on myexperience, and that is: we need to find a middle ground between extremes.

How do we go so far wrong when we're trying to handle the difficult conversation right. First, we tend to rely on anapproach that insists that our counterparts either do not have a problem with what we're saying or change themselves.

That means I'm putting my success in your hands even when the two of us are at loggerheads. And, you know, I don't

have that much confidence.

Second, we see our range of tactics as simultaneously narrow and extreme.

Although the tactic clearly was not working, Jackie didn't seem to have anything else to put in its place. She swung fromthe, what I call the hyper-nice opening. She was not even on track for the conversation she was going to have bypraising Ross. She swung from that to what she calls "hitting it head on." And I'm thinking to myself what happened to


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the middle ground, between hyper-nice and "hitting head on." Well, from his side, Ross choices of tactics was only topolar extremes: defer to Jackie or challenge her. These are terrible choices, terrible choices, narrow and extreme.

I'll tell you, here's a little pearl of wisdom. Inevitably, our problem counterpart's emotions rise in direct relation to theineffectiveness of our own tactics. So you know where I'm going to come out on this. I want to change it on our side, not

hope that things go differently for the counterpart. So to get really specific, we want to take two steps. To get balance isto find that point. There is no trick to handling a conversation well despite tough emotions, only skill. It's not a trick. Weknow very well how to speak neutrally. The skill is bringing it from our area of strength, which is ordinary conversations,to our area of weakness, which is difficult conversation. You commit to speaking from neutral even when you don't feellike it. No emergency room nurses, no police officers, say to themselves: next time I'm not going to feel my emotionalreactions to what I see and hear. They know they will, but they have also mastered the skill of going to neutral and

responding from there even in the face of a strong emotional reaction. We can learn it. Know which of your reactions areyour own worst enemies in difficult conversations. Practice responding neutrally even when you don't feel neutral. Don't

hope that in a moment you're going to make changes spontaneously.

Now, let's look a lot more specifically at the foundation of a tactic for going to neutral. I call this the blueprint forspeaking well at tough times, and I'm going to say it again and again I don't win until I'm in there to practice this. This isa blueprint that's simple to grasp: clear contents, neutral tone and temperate phrasing. But it can be hard to apply if your

habit is to be tough or soft, blunt or circumvent, to attack or saying nothing, to be stubborn or give-in, to retaliate or takethe punch. In tough conversations clarity, neutrality, and temperance take practice. I want to be very specific about whatI mean here because there's a lot of ways to do this kind of in a mediocre fashion.

Clarity means let your words do your work for you, say what you mean. So, in Jackie's revision, when she said to Ross, "I

want to talk about tough issues that I don't think you've heard about before. I think it's going to be hard for you to hear."She was very clear with her words. There was no more of the hinting, the sidestepping that she used in the first versiongreat clarity in her content.

I find that many people think that a roundabout and misleading way of telling someone that he's not getting something

that he wanted is brutal, but there is nothing inherently brutal about honesty. It's not the content, but the manner ofdelivering the news that makes it brutal or humane. If the content is clear, the listener can start to deal with the

information, not guess at it or misunderstand it. In that way, clear content eases the burden for the counterpart, ratherthan increases it. But now, alright, there is a difference between brutality and humanity in being clear. Why do things goso badly wrong in these conversations? Well, that brings us to tone.

Tone is all the non-verbal part of a message. It's your vocal inflections, you facial expression, your body language -- andthey carry emotional weight. They are read by your counterpart as an emotional load on what you are saying. A neutral

tone helps you be heard without distortion. Interestingly, when Ross said to Jackie -- I actually do not think it'sinteresting -- during his performance review: "Are you feeling a little overwhelmed, Jackie- in over your head?" It was his

tone that made his question sarcastic, rather than sympathetic. It's hard to use neutral tone when emotions are runninghigh, I know that. But it is familiar to hear it. Even in crises we're accustomed to classic neutrality of NASAcommunication, or else. We'll use Tom Hanks, "Houston, we have a problem." Rather than say it, "Houston, we have a

problem." (different tone).

It takes practice to acquire such neutrality in voice, face and body, but it is part of middle ground and it helps you bothspeak well and get heard without distortion. The key is that in ordinary conversations, you talk that way all the time. Wewant to bring that tactic from our area of strength to our area of weakness. Do you know what I am saying? I am saying

there's a certain degree in difficult conversations to imitate your-self in a better moment.

That leaves us with our last aspect of the blueprint: temperate phrasing. When you say to yourself, "I can't say that," youprobably can say it; you just can't say it that way. Some phrasing is temperate, some disassembles, some provokes yourcounterpart with loaded language. If your counterpart dismisses, resists, or throws back your words, he's not likely to

hold on to your content. That's my problem with prerogative phrasing, which is what Ross used with Jackie. Just as my


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problem with Jackie swinging from hyper-nice to completely not saying what she had to say and then really hitting wellhead on. Jackie said, "Ross I've heard that some department managers are unhappy with the way you come across whenyou're making your recommendations. They think you're kind of cocky and superior. You need to work on yourinterpersonal skills." Even we who are in this difficult conversations ourselves, we could pick on a loaded language. Ofcourse for Ross, it was like a red flag infront of a bull. If Jackie had changed her language, not her content, but her

language, she might have said, "The managers you audit tell me that your recommendations would go down better ifthey were delivered colleague to colleague not up-down. It's hard for them to hear about mistakes in their procedures,even when they know you're right. In this case, my voice is even more neutral, more uninflected than how I would

ordinarily talk. But that can help people not try to read my emotionsread a different take on the message, whichAmericans are super into.

In the revisions, Jackie's goal was to advance the conversation, to hear and be heard accurately, and have a functionalexchange between two people on a sensitive issue. Temperate phrasing will get her there and provocative phrasing will

not, so we'll look at- it is important to me is that we separate out these three things. Yes, clear content, neutral tone,temperate phrasing are a package deal, but you won't get the same good results if you use temperate, but mix yourmessage with a contradictory body language; nor will it work well if you think your content too blunt, so you soften thephrasing. That's a mix-up. Bluntness is a characteristic of intemperate phrasing, not of content, but softening yourcontent to fix the problem of phrasing will not get you where you want to go.

Keep the blueprint simple and stick with it. Practice all the time. Call me up- wait, alright, not everybody. But callsomebody up, practice on the phone. Practice the difficult message that you want to give. See if you can get to this

characteristic of tactics, and it will stand you in good stead. You'll notice here when I talk about tactics, I'm not trying todo the same old thing and get a different result. I can't control the result I'm going to get from my counterpart. I can't

control my counterpart, so I'm going to change the stuff that I can control, and that's on my side. That's what I'm lookingfor, for you.

I'd like to end here with a stand-back overview of my idea of the background to all of this, which is three-way respect,and we'll start with self-respect, balance within yourself.

Self-respect is not self-justification or self-righteousness or selfaggrandizement, although I think Ross would think it

was. It's a balance stance that we take to brace against our own emotional reactions. Self-respect here is about us, andit's for us. But it isn't at our counterpartsexpense. That self-respect is a high standard that means to me "hold yourown." but in what you do, please do not excuse -- I want to take off the please -- don't excuse yourself, your own bad

behavior in difficult conversations. Respect yourself. Own what you do. It'll just be helpful if you have more skill.

The second aspect of the three-way respect is respect for your counterpart and that's balance between the two of you.

Respecting the counterpart means recognizing that they have interests and concerns they think are valid. It is notnecessary for you to agree with them, and it is not desirable necessarily for you to defer to them. Respecting the

counterpart is a working attitude. Even when we're provoked, our counterpart can't make us just a reaction machine. So,I'm using respect as a transitive verb. I'm way past how you feelat the moment I don't particularly care how you feel.Please don't count on reciprocity from your counterpart. Bring respect unilaterally. You bring this to the conversation that

means you control it. Waiting until your counterpart brings it -- I don't think it's ever going come up at all, but I know

that before I bring itit will. And perhaps somewhat oddly.

The third leg of three-way respect is to respect the conversation itself; to bring balance to the conversation. Focusing onthe landscape of the conversation, which is the way that I think of it, these parkour players are using their environment,

they're using their landscape to practice their sport, even though it doesn't look like a landscape that can be used.Focusing on the landscape of your conversations where the problems are playing out. Take some of the pressure off the

two players in the conversation. Like these parkour tracers players. They have, when they run into a problem or animpediment, they have a "what have we got here" kind of approach, as opposed to "Oh God, this is a horribleimpediment! I probably should stop." What we do is think where we are now and could move. Where our counterpart is

and is likely to move. Where we want to get and what's in the way of getting there. I so often hear in a debrief after a


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horrible disaster for conversations, that one party or the other could see where the counterpart was likely to move, butthey didn't know what to do. All they could think of was stopping something, instead of working on their side to workthrough the problems that are in the conversation itself. It's kinda like chess. The problems are in the game. That's thenature of the game; it is not that your counterpart is a problem.

Alright, maybe and in the time that we've had, I hope you found values here. I myself clearly feelvery strongly about this. I thank you very much for joining the webinar, and let me say that the more of us who can setright a conversation that's going wrong, the better. So, spread the word. Thank you very much.

Host: Okay, Holly. Thank you. That was enormously helpful and we have questions flooding in. So, I'm happy to havesome time here at the end to get into some of that but before we get into some of the really tough emotional questionsthat people have, which I thank you all for sharing. We have a few really interesting kind of tactical questions. Thingslike, if it's going to be a hard conversation, should you have third party present as a witness? Should you go to the otherperson's office, or a neutral location? How does location play into thiseven time of the day? Do you want to do it theend of the day so that people can leave and get out of the office? How do you think about these kinds of tacticalquestions?

Weeks: Whoever submitted that question is doing all the right work, because these are strategy decisions, right? You'renot even in the conversation yet. There is no one single answer that those are the questions to ask, and in many cases,those are the questions to get advice on. If you, even in my own case, let's say, so part of the reason I work on this stuffis I'm not so pure, I struggle with a lot of this myself. And I, long ago, learned that I needed strategy buddies, because Iwould get, well, I couldn't get past my own point of reluctance, my own fears, my own concerns. I needed somebody alittle more level-headed to say, "Here is the way to think about that question." So, I cannot answer the question in the

abstract because there is no one answer, but it is the right kind of decision to make. For example, do you want tosuggest by leaving the workplace and having the conversation elsewhere that this is a kind of a friend-to-friendconversation? And I might do that if I were trying to give a colleague of mineI'm not going to even say a friend

although that might be the feeling that I might want to project -- if I wanted to say person-to-person, as opposed toemployee-to-employee.

On the other hand, if you ask me to step away from the workplace, and then you started talking about something that

was suitable only to the workplace, I will be very suspicious about this conversation. So, it's a call depending on whatyou're trying to do, and your best judgment about how to make this work well. In terms of, do you want a witness, nowwe're inI think the same person is thinking about thatI would, in my own case, I would have friends that are lawyer,

so I would not do it personally. But, otherwise, I might do it anonymously and describe the kind of conversation I wantedto have and ask if my organization believes that this was the kind of thing that should not be done one-on-one, but youhave verification of some kind. And of course, I wouldn't recommend that you wear a wire, because that's kind of an

offense itself. So, that again, many other people are in a better position to judge the answer to that question than youare. And here I would also say that beware of your own biases. If you decide that you're brave and you're strong and youcan handle these things -- alright, but that may make you turn away from a good option because you think it is going to

work out the way you planned. So, if I'm feeling very brave and competent, and I go into a conversation that could havelegal ramifications, I should step aside for myswallow my pride, go to my self-respect, hold my own, but own what I

do, and get somebody in there with me and if that's the important thing. I wish I could say in the abstract but I can't.

Host: Holly, thank you. I'm also seeing a number of questions coming in aroundit seems that the impulse to fix theother person is dying hard. So a lot of questions about well what if the other person is being too emotional or defensiveor they lash out or they shut down and they won't talk to you at all. A lot of these questions about how to respond to

different thwarting ploys, so maybe a bit more on that.

Weeks: Yeah. I can tell there are a lot of parents on the webinar, because they're trying to fix the kids and teach themgood ways to behave in conversations. Between adults, I am not sure fixing the kids is the approach that is going to bebest received. Again, I applaud these questions, this is exactly the kind of thing that you want to master and have to

admit that worried about in order to master. If I could leave you in the time that we have with one approach to thisthis


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is a hard one. You may need to look at theory to communicate to get more on this, because I cannot exhaust the topichere, and that is make the ploy discussable. Speak to the ploy. As long as no one says to Ross, Ross the way you'retalking to me now says that you're pretty vulnerable -- I wouldn't use that word -- the way that you're talking to me nowsays you have not heard this before and it is a hard thing to hear, which is the language that Jackie ended up with,although a little late in the day. What you're doing is, you arethe word that comes to mind isyou are calling Ross on

his aggression, but I do not like the phasecalling him on itbecause in fact that's pretty aggressive on your side, butyou are seeking to what it is that Ross is doing, that is problematic. And again, this is an acquired skill, but I remind youthat only what Ross is doing that is bothering Jackie is a problem. It's not inherently a problem. If Ross said to Jackie,

feeling a little in over her head, Jackie, and it made Jackie laugh, she's not falling from there. And that thwarting ploy justrolled right off. His sarcasm just didn't hit home, it didn't work. Then you do not have to do anything. It's very hard tocontinue using a ploy once someone has spoken to it, because then you have to note to yourself what you're doing. You

will find people wash their faces, and suddenly, they're kind of pulled up short and wondering what to do now, and muchto my surprise, I will find people often, very quietly apologize for having done it, and try again to get back in theconversation. I am surprised by that, because I'm a kind of a hasty-tempered person. And usually if I am trying to cause

offense I'm not going to fail, and I am not quick to that go off. But when somebody does, with the characteristic wetalked aboutclearly, neutrally and temperately phrased, call me on what I have said, I recognize that this is not my first

choice of approach.

Host: Thank you, and that is actually a great segue-way into some other questions we've gotten from people, which isspecifically about immunizing themselves from those kinds of thwarting ploys. How do you really do that? How do youreally make it so the things that hook us, stop hooking us?

Weeks: Yeah, boy, maybe I have mislead you a little bit because in fact, you're still going to feel what you feel. In many

cases, you're just going to handle yourself differently. And so, in protective situations, please don't wait until you'retalking to your boss to try this. Figure out -- oh, don't figure -- just record because you already know. Record the thingsthat you struggle with the most, and then, in that moments of calm, with your strategy buddy, your tactical buddy, if you

have one, think what you're going to do the next time. For example, one of the ways that the world breaks into two ispeople who are sympathetic when someone talking to them starts to cry. And people who are utterly freaked out whensomeone who is talking to them freaks out and starts to cry. And generally, in the latter case, people believe that thecrying person must bethe crying woman is being manipulative, but I can tell you now, having worked on this for a very

long time, the women who cry in these situations are often horrified at what they have done. They are haunted by havingbroken down.

Figuring out whether they're manipulating you or not, that should not be your line of work because you can't control your

counterpart. But what we want is an approach that works in both cases, and those of you who are not triggered by thiswill be laughing at my suggestions in either case. Whatever you think is the cause of the tears, hand her a tissue. If she's

trying to manipulate you, the word is: did not work, nothing is happening here. Carry on if you must. In fact if she brokedown and is just devastated by what is happening, she does not have to face your anger or dismissiveness. You haveliterally just handed her something, given her a hand. I like these approaches that are not dependent on the motive ofthe counterpart, which in fact, you don't know and in difficult conversations you are probably not a good guesser.

Host: You know Holly, that actually raises a great point, which I remember from the book and we didn't quite have timeto get into it today, but it seems like an important thing to highlight which is that, we only have access to what the otherperson is going upfor instance, over email, over the phone -- if some of these things are coming at you, you have evenless to go on. It seems like it's just so hard to remember in these cases, but we're all probably communicating less thanwe actually think we are. Any advice on in the moment remembering that there is a lot going on below the surface thatwe can't see.

Weeks: You are right, we didn't get that far today. Although it is sort of a third leg of handling this kind of conversation,which is that there is a great deal you don't know and that is just a fact. That's not a theory that you don't know a lot ofstuff here. So, we need approaches that don't depend on in fact knowing stuff that we don't know. That is one of thereasons that I tried to make more things discussable in the conversations than most people do. Most people handle their


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tough spots with silence, hoping that nobody will notice that they're freaked out or whatever their reaction is, but I havetrained myself to ask people what's going on with them. I'm not saying that's what you do, I'm saying have that in yourrepertoire of things to try and master it, not waiting until you get in there, but ahead of time. I find that I am makingdifficult conversations more like chess, more like a sport where you practice and you get ready, and you do have acounterpart but they're not necessarily bad people but you just got a tough game going on. That is how I think about it,

partly because it's helpful to think of it that way. I'm as vulnerable as anyone else to my bad reactions but I don't have toact on them in the conversation itself, but I will leave this with something that Kathy just said, which is if things aregetting tough, please pick up the phone. I cannot tell you how much damage you can do by leaving a written trail of bad

correspondence or emails. It's not going to help that you ask me if I'm your counterpart to interpret your tone when it'swritten. And of course, I interpret it with my own ear, not your mouth. So, in many cases, and this would freeze yourblood, the harder the job, the closer you want to get. Now I sound like the Godfather -- didn't he used to say that he

liked to keep his enemies close. You want to talk and even better than that it's face-to-face. These days I don't think Ican require face-to-face because of the cost of airfare, but talking is better than emailing, and I must say email feelssafer. Doing this well is an act of courageit is not easy, but it's better.

Host: Holly, thanks a lot. I think we have time for just one more question. Which a lot of people have asked, which is ifyou should have a conversation that is either in the process of going off the rail or maybe it was yesterday and youre justnowor maybe you have just tuned in to the webinar because yesterday you had a terrible conversation. How do you

ever recover in media-risk, in the moment or after the fact?

Weeks: This is soyou are fabulous people in this webinar. There is in "Failure to Communicate" a whole section on

recovering from error, because I assume that I'm going to make mistakes. It's built in that I will, and my recommendationis, along with owning what you do, become good at taking responsibility for your mistakes. Learn how to apologize well.

If you put owning what you do, which is part of self-respect, together with respecting your counterpart, and respectingthe problem that has been created in this conversation. Part of self-respect is also doing things you don't necessarily wantto do. That's on your side. I would become a good apologizer, and if you grew up in a family of girls, you all learn to like

over-apologize. Let's see if we can bring some balance to that, so find neutrality there between extremes, but it is almostalways well-received. If someone says "I was hasty-tempered yesterday, and I regret it today." You'd find your ownwords. I don't want to give you this language, because it's probably not the way you talked, but owning what you do is abig deal. And it doesn't have to be in the moment, it may be afterwards. No. It's going to be met with different kinds of

responses from different kinds of people. Some people don't want to let go. Okay, you're still doing your side right, andall I know how to do is handle my unilateral tide of this not my counterpart's respect. And I will say that I have learned inmany cases if I am taking responsibility for an error, and to be honest with you in negotiations, sometimes you look forsomething to take responsibility for so that you can change the center of the exchange by regretting some part of theconversations. I'll just repeat. Straight repetition from someone who doesn't want to let it go is probably better thanfollowing wherever they're going. It seems like kind of a light touch, a bitter hasty explanation, but put it in yourrepertoire. Owning what you do, do something about it.

Host: Holly, thank you again so much for joining in today, and I'm afraid that we are out of time, and I hope today I gotto most of your questions somewhere or another. You asked me fantastic questions today; I know that's what Holly said.Thanks again to Holly Weeks for sharing her insights today, and also thank you all for joining us and for asking such

fantastic questions. With that, that concludes todays webinar. Of course we have to thank Citrix GoTo Webinar formaking this fantastic production possible. I hope you all have great day. Thanks again.

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