How to Have Difficult Conversations

It is the question I am always asked at the end of my workshops. When the presentation ends, when you are interrupted, when the conversation begins and the tension is high, how do you remain a confident communicator?

From settling out of court, to dealing with betrayal, to a manager who talks over you in every meeting, to a colleague who dislikes you and won’t listen — we are surrounded by humans and the mess they bring to the table. Along with the mess we bring to the table. To be able to put all that mess aside and see the person in front of us is the lifelong skill I am seeking to reach. This blog is not the full answer but with these four words you are about to read you will be able to control yourself, to bring warmth and calm to the room.

I see. I feel. I need. I want.

Imagine your colleague has sent an email too soon and it has caused a lot of trouble. You have to challenge them. You say, ‘You sent that email too soon’ and they get defensive. It's deadlock. In his book Non-Violent Communication, Marshall B Rosenberg gives us four simple phrases to transform the way we bring a challenge to someone (and he would know as he has worked in some of the most challenging conflict zones in the world):

1. I see.
2. I feel.
3. I need.
4. I want.

Using these words your challenge could sound like this: ‘When you sent the email, [I see] we had not agreed on what we were going to say. This is a really sensitive subject with our client and I am concerned [I feel] about the damage this email has done. I need [I need] us to act quickly to fix this. I want [I want] us to compose an email together that lays out the roadmap for the next three months. We will co-author it and co-sign it so the client has no confusion.’

This kind of communication requires you to confidently bring challenge to the other person with no apology. Jefferson Fisher in his book The Next Conversation says that we should never end these challenges with ‘Is that okay? Does that make sense?’ It undermines everything we have said and fills the silence that needs to be left. Maybe that is a British way to end a sentence, but we all have our cultural ways of not allowing the silence. We are terrified they might say ‘No.’ But I have seen this work time and time again. It controls your temperature so the issue remains the issue and it doesn’t become a personal attack.

Now you can’t stop personal attacks, but you can reframe. If they come back with something rude, Jefferson says you can use a short pause, which he defines as between one and four seconds. People often retract what they have said or change it, because it is like a mirror. The next step, with whatever the other person says after your pause, you simply playback what they are saying, to make sure you have heard it correctly. Take a breath before you do it, and then after the playback, reframe.

How do you reframe? Well it’s back to I see, I feel, I need, I want. But now it is about what you are seeing in the moment, what are you feeling about the situation, what do you need from this conversation. I don’t like using the 'need' word but to the other person it just sounds direct. You are not hiding behind jargon or boiling over with anger. You are repeating what you need and that leads to saying what you want to happen. It will gently unpeel the anger and tension.

Challenging with warmth and speaking with short sentences is how you do this practically. Nobody needs a long sentence speaker. It is pretty much guaranteed the person on the other end of you is trying to interrupt and make their point. So be kind and speak in short sentences. A long sentence may win an argument in a Netflix court drama, but it will lose you the person in real life.

This is just the beginning and there is some great teaching out there, but you don’t need a book, you need a tool that you can put into practice. Try this and see what happens. Then let me know!

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