1: Imagine being faced with a crucial conversation.
The stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong.
Still, instead of engaging in productive dialogue, you shut down or lash out.
“Rather than engaging in productive dialogue, you either shut down or push back,” 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.
So what usually happens next?
“Recognizing on some level your own bad behavior,” they observe, “you quickly come up with a perfectly plausible reason why what you did was OK:
“‘Of course I yelled at him. Did you see what he did? He deserved it.’
“Or ‘Hey, don’t you dare judge me for not speaking up. I don’t have a choice. I have to keep this job.'”
2: Your brain naturally creates stories to help you understand the world.
Problems start when those stories turn into excuses for your own bad behavior.
The Crucial Conversations authors call these “clever stories.”
“They’re clever because they allow us to feel good about behaving badly,” they explain.
“Better yet, they allow us to feel good about behaving badly even while achieving abysmal results.”
That stings.
3: The authors identify three types of clever stories.
The good news is that once you learn how to recognize these types of stories and how to deal with them, you can take charge of your emotions.
Clever Story #1: Victim Stories—”It’s Not My Fault”
“The first of the clever stories is a Victim Story,” Joseph, Kerry, Ron, Al, and Emily observe. “The theme is always the same. You are good, right, brilliant, or righteous. . . You suffer through absolutely no fault of your own. You are innocent.”
The people or circumstances that are out to get you? They are the problem.
Of course, there are times when you may be an innocent victim.
For instance, “you’re stopped in the street and held up at gunpoint,” they write. “When an event such as this occurs, it’s a sad fact, not a story. You are a victim.”
This can happen, but thankfully, it’s uncommon.
When you tell a Victim Story, you ignore your part in the problem. The story isn’t necessarily false. It’s incomplete.
Exhibit one: You tell your spouse: “Sure I was late getting home and didn’t call you, but I couldn’t let the team down!”
Exhibit two: Last week, your boss removed you from the project team, which hurt your feelings. You complained to everyone, saying, “He just doesn’t appreciate a person with my superb attention to detail.”
What you leave out is how you didn’t tell your boss how behind you were, “leaving her high and dry—which is why she removed you in the first place,” the authors note.
Clever Story #2: Villain Stories—“It’s All Your Fault”
In Victim Stories you overstate your innocence.
In Villain Stories, you “overemphasize the other person’s guilt or stupidity. You automatically assume the worst possible motives or grossest incompetence while ignoring any possible good or neutral intentions or skills a person may have.”
Exhibit three: You describe your boss who is passionate about quality as a “control freak.”
Exhibit four: When your spouse is upset you didn’t keep a commitment, you say they are “inflexible and stubborn.”
With a Villain story, your inclination may be to replace their name with a label, as in: “I can’t believe that bonehead gave me bad materials again.”
You may even villainize an entire group of people, as in: “Those yahoos in engineering have no idea what it takes to sell our product.” Or, “Lawyers! You can’t trust a single one.”
When someone does something that makes you mad, you may villainize them, saying, “You are so thoughtless! You could have called me and told me you were going to be late.”
Clever Story #3: Helpless Stories—“There’s Nothing Else I Can Do”
Villain and Victim Stories use the past to explain why you feel stuck.
“Helpless Stories,” the authors note, “look forward to explain why you can’t do anything to change your situation.”
In the story you’ve created, you’re powerless to do “anything healthy or helpful.”
Helpless Stories often evolve out of Villain Stories. They often offer up a Fool’s Choice, the authors explain: “You can either be honest and ruin the relationship or stay silent and suffer.”
Exhibit five: You say: “If I told the boss this, he would just be defensive—so of course I say nothing!”
Exhibit six: You say: “If I didn’t yell at my son, he wouldn’t listen.”
Notice the progression: I’m innocent. You’re the problem. Therefore, there’s nothing I can do.
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Think about a conflict or disappointment you’re dealing with right now. Which clever story are you telling yourself: I’m not at fault, it’s all their fault, or there’s nothing I can do?
Action: Rewrite the story by adding one fact you’ve conveniently left out—especially something you did, didn’t do, or could do differently.
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