We’re excited to begin a new series of posts focused on one of the most common problematic communication patterns: the Polite Fight. Again, we’re drawing from the content of our book-in-progress. We hope you’ll enjoy it! And as always, we welcome your feedback, both positive and negative, to help us make this blog — and the book — the best they can be.
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“Rob and Amanda Parker* were very loving people,” psychologist Mark Johnson told us. “They weren’t at each other’s throats like many of the couples that I see. And yet they just couldn’t find a constructive way to discuss the problems that were tearing them apart.”
The past few years had been extremely stressful for the Parkers. Rob and Amanda had two healthy daughters (aged 5 and 7) but had always wanted a larger family, and their attempts to have a third child had ended in disappointment. Over the course of three years trying to conceive — including many aggressive and invasive fertility treatments — they had exhausted all possible options. Now, in addition to their grief, they were also struggling with the loss of romance in their marriage. Years of scheduling their sex life around temperature charts and surgical procedures had robbed them of any sense of spontaneity.
Ten months after their doctors had called an end to the fertility treatments, Rob and Amanda’s relationship was growing more and more strained. This was easy to see when Dr. Johnson had them recreate one of their typical tough conversations. They’d been having this same “polite fight” on a regular basis:
Rob: We used to make time to be together.
Amanda: But that was before we had kids and jobs and bills to pay.
Rob: Of course, I know that. I’m not expecting us to be acting like we’re dating.
Amanda: You say that, but you act like that’s how I’m supposed to feel.
Rob: Don’t you ever feel like you felt when we first got together?
Amanda: Of course, but you expect me to be ready for romance all the time, and that’s just not realistic.
Rob: I’m not trying to pressure you. It’s just that I’m feeling this distance between us that I don’t know how to handle.
Amanda: I feel distance too, but I don’t think you understand how I’m feeling about not having a third child.
Rob: Don’t you realize I’m upset by this too? We’ve been in this together all along.
Amanda: I know, but I don’t think you know how this affects me. You expect me just to be over it.
Rob: I don’t expect you to be over it, but that was almost a year ago.
Amanda: I know it was almost a year ago, but we don’t even talk about it anymore. You act like it’s all in the past, and I think about it every day…
Listening to this conversation, Dr. Johnson recognized a familiar set of issues that arise for many couples. He refers to conflicts over romance and intimacy — often connected with the process of building a family — as the “common cold” of his counseling practice. But he also understood that issues alone don’t cause conversations to fail. He knew enough to look beyond the issues and the personalities to see the specific communication behaviors that Rob and Amanda were using. From this perspective, it quickly became obvious why they were having so much trouble. They had fallen victim to one of the most common conversation killers: the Yes-But.
Communication Challenge #1: Yes-But — The Great Divider
Although Rob and Amanda were saying different things, they were saying them in the same, unconstructive way. Almost every statement either of them made was a Yes-But — a superficial, token agreement (“I know…” or “I don’t expect you to be over it” )followed immediately by a different idea (“but I don’t think you know how this affects me,” “but that was almost a year ago”). We’ve all experienced the frustrating effects of Yes-Buts — whether they come from a child (“But Mom said I could go!”), a friend (“The movies could be fun, but I’d rather see a play”), or a supervisor (“That’s a great idea, but it’s not in our budget”). People don’t necessarily notice when they’re being Yes-Butted; they often just get annoyed without knowing exactly why. When we look at what Yes-Buts do to a conversation, it’s no wonder they set us on edge and get arguments going.
The Problems with Yes-Buts:
1. Yes-Buts send a mixed message. Often people Yes-But with the best of intentions, hoping to be diplomatic or make unpleasant news easier to hear. Disagreeing with someone directly (saying “I see things differently” or “I’m not willing to do that”) may seem too harsh or too negative. It might sound more polite to say, “I can see how you’d feel that way, but…” The problem is that when they do this, they’re giving two conflicting messages at the same time. They’re saying both Yes and No, “It’s good” and “It’s bad,” or “I’m with you” and “I’m against you.” This doesn’t make their message nicer or more pleasant. It just makes it more complicated and harder for the other person’s brain to process. Whenever someone gives us a mixed message, it’s almost impossible to hear both sides equally. As a result, we end up focusing on one side or the other — which leads us to Problem #2.
2. People hear only the “But.” If only half of a Yes-But message gets through, which half do you think it will be? When Amanda Yes-Buts Rob, will he be struck by what they have in common (“I feel distance too…”) or what seems to divide them (“…but I don’t think you understand how I’m feeling about not having a third child”)? In almost every case, what grabs people’s attention is the disagreement: whatever comes after the But. It’s human nature to notice differences rather than similarities. As a result, the Yes part of the message — the part that shows some agreement, understanding, or common ground — simply gets lost.
3. Any difference can become a conflict. Yes-Buts don’t just heighten existing disagreements; they can actually create new ones. Consider what happened with Rob and Amanda. They were talking about two separate issues: 1) wanting more closeness and 2) grief over not being able to have another child. There’s no essential conflict there. You can want closeness and still feel grief, or at least acknowledge that both of these experiences are valid and important. However, as the couple kept Yes-Butting, it started to seem as though one of them had to be right while the other one was wrong. Since neither person wanted to be wrong (who does?), they naturally kept arguing and the conflict kept escalating.
Yes-Butting is one of the most reliable ways to get an argument going, whether you’re speaking with just one other person or with a group. If the people you’re talking to are in the least bit competitive, they’re likely to respond with Yes-Buts of their own. Before you know it, you can find yourself caught up in an endless ping-pong match of competing ideas. Yes-But communication is one of the leading causes of unproductive business meetings. Instead of working collaboratively to make decisions or solve problems, people spend their time arguing:
“We need to invest in better technology.”
“Yes, but we don’t have the money for that.”
“Of course there will be short-term costs, but over the long run we’ll save money by being more efficient.”
“That may be true, but we can’t justify another expenditure right now.”
“I know, but if we wait for the perfect situation we’ll never move forward on this.”
…and so on and so on.
As the conversation continues, the two sides typically become more and more rigid and polarized, to the point where it seems like they have nothing in common.
While these sorts of “polite fights” are relatively civil compared to more heated arguments filled with insults, labeling, and accusations, they are equally ineffective for resolving conflicts. Furthermore, a polite fight can easily escalate into something more serious. Getting stuck in a back-and-forth debate that never gets resolved is extremely frustrating. If it goes on for long enough, at some point people will probably start venting that frustration at one another, raising their voices and blaming each other for the problems they’re facing.
In the next post, we’ll start teaching you strategies to deal more effectively with Yes-Buts in your own conversations. Stay tuned!
*Names and identifying details have been changed to protect anonymity.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Can This Conversation Be Saved? Part 3 (Conclusion)
This is the final piece in our series “Can This Conversation Be Saved?” If you missed the previous entries, view them here: Part 1, Part 2
How Bad Conversations Turn Good
We saw in the last post that our difficult hospital conversation included several specific types of challenging communication behaviors — from mind-reading to leading questions to yes-butting. Using the SAVI system, we can come up with strategies to combat the negative effects of each one of these. If Sarah or Dr. M had possessed those skills, their conversation probably would have gone in a much better direction. Here’s one possibility:
Sarah: It’s so upsetting to see my father in this condition. I know this is not how he wanted to spend the last days of his life.
Dr. M (with feeling): I’m really sorry. I hear how difficult this is for you.
Sarah: It is so hard. I’m starting to think it’s finally time to take him off the respirator.
Dr. M: Many people consider that option when several different treatments have failed, and they start to lose hope. Are you feeling that way?
Sarah: Yes, I am. I’m feeling totally hopeless and also feeling guilty — I don’t want to prolong his life just to save me from the grief of losing him.
Dr. M: I can see how hard it is to face all these decisions, not really knowing what’s going to be best for your father.
Sarah: I just don’t know what to do.
Dr. M: We do have a support group here to help family members deal with these types of issues. It sometimes helps people to know they’re not going through it alone. Is that something that would interest you?
Sarah: I’m not really comfortable in groups, but I could use someone to talk to.
Dr. M: Would you like me to set up an individual counseling session?
Sarah: I’d really appreciate that. Thank you.
Dr. M: Great. I’ll set up an appointment for you. And as you prepare to make a decision, I want to be sure you have accurate information about your father’s new medication and the types of effects it can have. Is now a good time to discuss that?
Sarah: Sure.
Dr. M: Okay, let me tell you what the studies show…
Can you tell what changed here? You may have noticed that Dr. M’s side of the conversation sounded quite different. Be careful how you think about that difference. Many communication frameworks focus on abstract principles: Consider multiple perspectives. Own your story. Be respectful. And so on. There’s no need to talk about principles here. If Dr. M comes across as more respectful or considerate, it’s because he changed his behavior — what he actually did. This is a key point to remember: Principles do not change conversations. Actions change conversations.
Dr. M did very specific things that helped Sarah feel heard and understood. For instance, instead of arguing with Yes-buts and leading questions, he mirrored her emotions (“I hear how difficult this is for you”) and asked questions (“Would you like me to set up an individual counseling session?”). Starting out in this way also left Sarah more receptive to hearing his ideas about the new medication.
Now, Dr. M is not the only one with the power to transform this conversation. Suppose Sarah had the skills to change her own behavior. The dialogue might have sounded something like this:
Sarah: It’s so upsetting to see my father in this condition. I know this is not how he wanted to spend the last days of his life.
Dr. M: I’m very sorry.
Sarah: I think it’s finally time to take him off the respirator.
Dr. M: I can see how you’d feel that way now, but this new medication may start to improve his quality of life.
Sarah: So you’re saying you think this new medication may make a difference for him. How big a difference?
Dr. M: If he responds well to the drug, it could extend his life for several months. It could also allow him to return home, as long as he had 24-hour care available.
Sarah: Oh God, that would make a huge difference to Dad — he hates hospitals. He always said he’d rather die at home. How long will it be before you know if it’s working?
Dr. M: Most people respond within a few days, but it could take up to two weeks to know for sure. I’ll check in with you every day to let you know what’s happening.
Sarah: Thank you! This is the first sign of hope we’ve had in a long time.
Again, what made the difference here was not principles, but actions. After a person has been Yes-butted — in this case, hearing Dr. M say, “I can see how you’d feel that way now, but…” — the most natural response is to argue back. It takes skill to resist doing that and try something else instead. What Sarah did was to paraphrase Dr. M (“You think this new medication may make a difference for him”) and ask a question (“How big a difference?”). By using this approach, she not only avoided an argument, but also gained important information that helped ease her distress and give her new hope.
Part of our aim in our work is to give new hope to the people we train (including readers of our blog). Once you understand the factors that cause your conversations to succeed or fail, it is possible to dramatically improve them — even in cases where the people and issues you’re facing seem overwhelmingly difficult. We’ve seen it happen hundreds of times, in families, couples, and all sorts of organizations. Even after a discussion begins to go downhill (for instance, with Dr. M’s Yes-but), there’s almost always a way to turn things around. In fact, some of the most successful and transformative conversations start out with personal attacks, defensiveness, whining complaints, or sarcastic jabs. The key is that at some point, someone needs to take the initiative to start doing something different. That someone can always be you. At any point in a conversation, from any position in the conversation, you have the power to intervene and change the course of events. You just have to know how.
The Key to Change: Conversational Fitness
One point we keep emphasizing is that the way you understand what’s going wrong will determine the steps you can take to bring about change. If you blame your communication problems on irreconcilable differences, you may want to just go into hiding — or at least into denial. If you blame them on someone else’s emotions and personality, you may want them to go into therapy. But as soon as you shift your focus to behavior, it’s clear that you have a much more effective option: go into training.
Now, when we talk about training, we don’t mean the type of training where you sit passively in a seminar while a lecturer explains all the general rules and principles that good communicators ought to follow. The type of training we’re talking about is more like an athletic workout or sports practice than an academic class. Imagine trying to become skilled at basketball just by being told what to do and watching experienced players do it. You obviously wouldn’t get very far. To master the game, you need to get out on the court, get the ball in your hands, and try doing those things for yourself. In communication, too, what matters most is your level of hands-on skill: your conversational fitness. You need to be able to respond effectively right at the moment when something sets you off — when your boss yells at you, your colleague shoots down your great new idea, or your spouse starts rehashing the same old complaints you’ve heard hundreds of times before. This is no easy task. We all have at least one or two fixed habits that we’ve developed over the years, whether it’s a tendency to defend ourselves (“I couldn’t help it”), to catastrophize (“This will be a disaster!”), to use sarcasm (“Yeah, right, like that’s going to help”), or to Yes-But everyone else’s suggestions (“That’s nice, but we can’t afford it”). Changing those habits takes active, focused practice.
What type of practice works best? Thanks to recent research in neuropsychology, we can now answer that question with greater precision than ever before. Due to the way the human brain functions, it takes particular types of activities and experiences to change the way we communicate. (See our earlier post for a little more detail.) The book we’re now in the process of writing (from which these last three posts are drawn) will put those ideas into practice with an intensive training program for mastering all the most difficult conversations. As we go along, we’ll continue to adapt this new material into blog form. We hope you’ll enjoy it — we’re excited to share all these ideas with you!
How Bad Conversations Turn Good
We saw in the last post that our difficult hospital conversation included several specific types of challenging communication behaviors — from mind-reading to leading questions to yes-butting. Using the SAVI system, we can come up with strategies to combat the negative effects of each one of these. If Sarah or Dr. M had possessed those skills, their conversation probably would have gone in a much better direction. Here’s one possibility:
Sarah: It’s so upsetting to see my father in this condition. I know this is not how he wanted to spend the last days of his life.
Dr. M (with feeling): I’m really sorry. I hear how difficult this is for you.
Sarah: It is so hard. I’m starting to think it’s finally time to take him off the respirator.
Dr. M: Many people consider that option when several different treatments have failed, and they start to lose hope. Are you feeling that way?
Sarah: Yes, I am. I’m feeling totally hopeless and also feeling guilty — I don’t want to prolong his life just to save me from the grief of losing him.
Dr. M: I can see how hard it is to face all these decisions, not really knowing what’s going to be best for your father.
Sarah: I just don’t know what to do.
Dr. M: We do have a support group here to help family members deal with these types of issues. It sometimes helps people to know they’re not going through it alone. Is that something that would interest you?
Sarah: I’m not really comfortable in groups, but I could use someone to talk to.
Dr. M: Would you like me to set up an individual counseling session?
Sarah: I’d really appreciate that. Thank you.
Dr. M: Great. I’ll set up an appointment for you. And as you prepare to make a decision, I want to be sure you have accurate information about your father’s new medication and the types of effects it can have. Is now a good time to discuss that?
Sarah: Sure.
Dr. M: Okay, let me tell you what the studies show…
Can you tell what changed here? You may have noticed that Dr. M’s side of the conversation sounded quite different. Be careful how you think about that difference. Many communication frameworks focus on abstract principles: Consider multiple perspectives. Own your story. Be respectful. And so on. There’s no need to talk about principles here. If Dr. M comes across as more respectful or considerate, it’s because he changed his behavior — what he actually did. This is a key point to remember: Principles do not change conversations. Actions change conversations.
Dr. M did very specific things that helped Sarah feel heard and understood. For instance, instead of arguing with Yes-buts and leading questions, he mirrored her emotions (“I hear how difficult this is for you”) and asked questions (“Would you like me to set up an individual counseling session?”). Starting out in this way also left Sarah more receptive to hearing his ideas about the new medication.
Now, Dr. M is not the only one with the power to transform this conversation. Suppose Sarah had the skills to change her own behavior. The dialogue might have sounded something like this:
Sarah: It’s so upsetting to see my father in this condition. I know this is not how he wanted to spend the last days of his life.
Dr. M: I’m very sorry.
Sarah: I think it’s finally time to take him off the respirator.
Dr. M: I can see how you’d feel that way now, but this new medication may start to improve his quality of life.
Sarah: So you’re saying you think this new medication may make a difference for him. How big a difference?
Dr. M: If he responds well to the drug, it could extend his life for several months. It could also allow him to return home, as long as he had 24-hour care available.
Sarah: Oh God, that would make a huge difference to Dad — he hates hospitals. He always said he’d rather die at home. How long will it be before you know if it’s working?
Dr. M: Most people respond within a few days, but it could take up to two weeks to know for sure. I’ll check in with you every day to let you know what’s happening.
Sarah: Thank you! This is the first sign of hope we’ve had in a long time.
Again, what made the difference here was not principles, but actions. After a person has been Yes-butted — in this case, hearing Dr. M say, “I can see how you’d feel that way now, but…” — the most natural response is to argue back. It takes skill to resist doing that and try something else instead. What Sarah did was to paraphrase Dr. M (“You think this new medication may make a difference for him”) and ask a question (“How big a difference?”). By using this approach, she not only avoided an argument, but also gained important information that helped ease her distress and give her new hope.
Part of our aim in our work is to give new hope to the people we train (including readers of our blog). Once you understand the factors that cause your conversations to succeed or fail, it is possible to dramatically improve them — even in cases where the people and issues you’re facing seem overwhelmingly difficult. We’ve seen it happen hundreds of times, in families, couples, and all sorts of organizations. Even after a discussion begins to go downhill (for instance, with Dr. M’s Yes-but), there’s almost always a way to turn things around. In fact, some of the most successful and transformative conversations start out with personal attacks, defensiveness, whining complaints, or sarcastic jabs. The key is that at some point, someone needs to take the initiative to start doing something different. That someone can always be you. At any point in a conversation, from any position in the conversation, you have the power to intervene and change the course of events. You just have to know how.
The Key to Change: Conversational Fitness
One point we keep emphasizing is that the way you understand what’s going wrong will determine the steps you can take to bring about change. If you blame your communication problems on irreconcilable differences, you may want to just go into hiding — or at least into denial. If you blame them on someone else’s emotions and personality, you may want them to go into therapy. But as soon as you shift your focus to behavior, it’s clear that you have a much more effective option: go into training.
Now, when we talk about training, we don’t mean the type of training where you sit passively in a seminar while a lecturer explains all the general rules and principles that good communicators ought to follow. The type of training we’re talking about is more like an athletic workout or sports practice than an academic class. Imagine trying to become skilled at basketball just by being told what to do and watching experienced players do it. You obviously wouldn’t get very far. To master the game, you need to get out on the court, get the ball in your hands, and try doing those things for yourself. In communication, too, what matters most is your level of hands-on skill: your conversational fitness. You need to be able to respond effectively right at the moment when something sets you off — when your boss yells at you, your colleague shoots down your great new idea, or your spouse starts rehashing the same old complaints you’ve heard hundreds of times before. This is no easy task. We all have at least one or two fixed habits that we’ve developed over the years, whether it’s a tendency to defend ourselves (“I couldn’t help it”), to catastrophize (“This will be a disaster!”), to use sarcasm (“Yeah, right, like that’s going to help”), or to Yes-But everyone else’s suggestions (“That’s nice, but we can’t afford it”). Changing those habits takes active, focused practice.
What type of practice works best? Thanks to recent research in neuropsychology, we can now answer that question with greater precision than ever before. Due to the way the human brain functions, it takes particular types of activities and experiences to change the way we communicate. (See our earlier post for a little more detail.) The book we’re now in the process of writing (from which these last three posts are drawn) will put those ideas into practice with an intensive training program for mastering all the most difficult conversations. As we go along, we’ll continue to adapt this new material into blog form. We hope you’ll enjoy it — we’re excited to share all these ideas with you!
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