1: Maria is mad.
She’s a copywriter at a mid-sized company. She and her co-worker Louis just reviewed the latest draft of a proposal with their boss.
“During the meeting, they were supposed to be jointly presenting their ideas,” Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Emily Gregory write in their classic book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High.
“But when Maria paused to take a breath,” they write, “Louis took over the presentation, making almost all the points they had come up with together.”
When their boss turned to Maria and asked for her thoughts, she felt there was nothing left to say.
Now, she’s furious.
“Maria has been feeling humiliated and angry throughout this project,” the authors note.
Prior to the meeting, Louis had discussed their ideas with the boss without Maria being present. Now, he’s “completely monopolized the presentation,” they add.
She’s convinced Louis is minimizing her contribution “because she’s the only woman on the team. She’s getting fed up with his ‘boys’ club’ mentality,” the authors explain.
So, how does she respond?
She knows she doesn’t want to appear “oversensitive,” so she mostly says nothing and focuses on her work.
Sometimes, though, she gets in a sarcastic jab: “Sure I can get that printout for you,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Should I just get your coffee and whip up a bundt cake while I’m at it?”
Louis feels Maria’s animosity, but he can’t figure out why she’s angry. He is, however, beginning to resent her hostility toward him.
“As a result, when the two work together,” the authors write, “you could cut the tension with a knife.”
2: This week, we’ve been exploring the three elements of what the authors call a “crucial conversation:”
- The stakes are high
- Opinions vary
- Emotions run strong
Today, we are going to focus on the third element: Emotions.
If it weren’t for strong emotions, “most of us do just fine in a conversation,” the authors note. “We can talk about the weather like a champ.”
When your emotions take over, however, you can quickly become the worst version of yourself, and the conversation becomes toxic.
“How you respond to your own emotions is the best predictor of everything that matters in life,” the authors suggest. “It is the very essence of emotional intelligence.”
You, however, are not a prisoner of your emotions.
“By learning to exert influence over your own feelings,” they predict, “you’ll place yourself in a far better position to become [an expert at crucial conversations].”
When it comes to your emotions, two things are true:
Fact #1: Emotions don’t just happen to you. They “don’t settle upon you like a fog,” the authors observe. “They are not foisted upon you by others.
“No matter how comfortable it might make you feel to say it, others don’t make you mad,” they explain. “You make you mad. You make you scared, annoyed, insulted, or hurt. You and only you create your emotions.
Fact #2: “Once you’ve created your upset emotions, you have only two options: You can act on them or be acted on by them. That is, when it comes to strong emotions, you either find a way to master them or fall hostage to them.
3: So, what is making Maria (and Louis) mad?
“The worst at dialogue fall into the trap Maria has fallen into,” the authors share. She “is completely unaware of a dangerous assumption she’s making. She’s upset at being overlooked and is keeping a ‘professional silence.’
“She’s assuming that her emotions and behavior are the only right and reasonable reactions under the circumstances,” they note. “She’s convinced that anyone in her place would feel the same way.”
She believes the way she is feeling is the only valid response.
“Since, in her mind, her emotions are both justified and accurate, she makes no effort to change or even question them.
“Besides, in her view, Louis caused them,” the authors observe. “Ultimately, her actions (saying nothing and taking cheap shots) are being driven by these very emotions.”
The reality? “Her emotions are controlling her behavior and fueling her deteriorating relationship with Louis.
“The worst at dialogue fall hostage to their emotions, and they don’t even know it,” they note.
While she may not realize it, there are ways she could act.
“The good at dialogue realize that if they don’t control their emotions, matters will get worse,” the authors write.
What do they do? “They fake it. They take a deep breath and count to 10. They choke down reactions and then do their best to get back to dialogue,” they explain.
“At least, they give it a shot,” the authors write. “Unfortunately,” once these emotionally choked folks hit a rough spot in a crucial conversation, their suppressed emotions come out of hiding.
“These suppressed emotions show up as tightened jaws or sarcastic comments,” they observe.
Others stay silent and don’t share what they really think. “Meaning is kept out of the pool because it’s cut off at the source.”
Either way, the dialogue dies. Yet, there’s another option to consider.e.
“The best at dialogue do something completely different,” the authors write. “They aren’t held hostage by their emotions, nor do they try to hide or suppress them. Instead, they act on their emotions.”
When they have strong feelings, they learn how to influence and change their emotions by thinking them out.As a result, they choose their emotions, which makes it possible to select behaviors that create better results..”
Is this difficult to do?
“It’s not easy to rethink yourself from an emotional and dangerous state into one that puts you back in control,” the authors state. “But it can be done. It should be done.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: When I become upset during difficult conversations, do I automatically assume my emotions are the only reasonable response?
Action: The next time strong emotions arise, pause and ask yourself: “What story am I telling myself right now?” Then consider whether there may be another interpretation.
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