How to tell people things they don't want to hear

In which I apply some helpful Rules of Engagement to an example of conflict some of us might want to avoid

Turning into the lightning bolt of conflict is hard. It activates the intense uncertainty that comes with being in relationship with (fuckin’) people. Avoiding conflict is much easier. It keeps the problem inside you, where you can deal with it by forgiving and forgetting (known as kicking the can of bad behavior down the road), obsessing on it, eviscerating yourself for being such a bad person, stuffing it into a growing reservoir of resentment, or any number of other happy, healthy responses.

So let’s avoid conflict. By turning it into engagement.

What the hell is the difference?

Conflict implies opposition. Power struggle. Two people facing off and going at each other until only one — the “right” one — remains standing.

Engagement implies connection. Curiosity and openness. Two people looking at a problem from their different perspectives and collaborating on a solution or on mutual understanding.

This is a super duper important distinction. Conflict versus engagement. Opposition versus connection. In this post, I’ll deal with one of the examples from a previous post, If you’re a Conflict Avoider, you’re part of the problem. In the post after this one, I’ll deal with the other example from that post. In the post after that, I’ll talk about engaging with people with whom you have intellectual or ideological differences.

OMG! So much to look forward to!!

Rules of Engagement

When it comes to confronting someone with news you think they don’t want to hear — like “The mess you left in the kitchen is unacceptable” or “Your job performance is tanking” — here are some rules of engagement:

• Get in your garden — and stay there

• Describe

• Ask

• Listen

• Come up with a plan of action

How to apply these rules to a roommate who routinely leaves their dishes in the sink, their used utensils on the countertops, and their crumbs on the floor?

Get in your garden

Honor your responses: You are angry, disgusted, appalled. You are sick of (1) living with someone else’s inconsiderateness and (2) being erased as a person with your own standards and needs. Why is it that you’re always so thoughtful and everyone else is such a self-indulgent, entitled, spoiled bratty schmuck? Admit that it feels fantastic to get that off your chest.

Watch yourself try to erase yourself and your needs as you take the first step down the conflict-avoidance path. That is, notice your guilt. Then remind yourself of your needs, which aren’t optional. They just are. Continue to notice your internal struggle as you honor yourself, your feelings, and your right to exist while battling some deep belief that relationships, that life itself, are somehow zero-sum games. That, if you win, someone (possibly you) will lose.

Pull yourself back from this brink, stay in your garden, and remind yourself of something very basic and important: you feel what you feel. You need what you need. No judgment. No blame. Just reality. Your reality.

Describe

State the facts to yourself: The kitchen is a mess. You cannot stand the mess. You have every right to not live in a mess. The mess was left by your roommate. Your roommate can stand the mess (possibly because, once they’ve left it, they stop seeing it).

Then you describe what you’re seeing to your roommate, throwing in a good guess about the source of the problem (their very convenient blindness):

“Um, dude? The kitchen is a mess. Do you see it?”

Oops! We’ve jumped ahead to the next rule of engagement:

Ask

“Do you see it?” is a good question to ask of someone who might really be blind to their surroundings. (I’m a hyper-vigilant person. I am amazed at my ability to stop seeing the shirt I left on the floor or the pile of papers on my desk. If hyper-vigilant people can be blind in this way, then so can everyone else.)

Other good questions:

• “What is this like for you?” (What is it like for you to live with a kitchen in this state?)

• “Do you want to have this impact on me?” (Do you want me to feel angry and erased?)

• And the all-important ask: “How can we both get what we need?”

Listen

Just as your garden, your reality, your thoughts, feelings, needs, and preferences are all yours, your roommate’s garden is all theirs. And quite different from yours. If you’re going to engage rather than conflict, it is crucial to accept this fact. Engaging means embracing difference, wondering about it, being eager to learn about it — by listening to the answers to the questions you ask with genuine curiosity and interest.

Listening well means staying in your garden, by the way. Not jumping into your roommate’s garden to correct them or one-up them or shame them. Those are moves gladiators make. Engaging means chatting over your adjacent garden gates, respecting each other’s separate spaces, listening carefully and asking questions, and insisting on connecting, on achieving mutual understanding and accommodation. Because you matter to each other.

That’s engaging on a topic of potential conflict, which feels a whole lot like kindness.

Come up with a plan of action

Once you’ve shared and gathered the essential data — what you’re seeing, how you’re feeling about it, what they’re seeing, how they feel about it, and any other data that seems important — you can co-construct a plan for dealing with this conflict in the future.

Let’s say your roommate confesses that they really don’t see the mess and worries that they will continue to be blind to it. A good plan (in question form) is “OK so when I see the mess, what’s the best way to bring your attention to it so you can take care of it?” Once you’ve agreed on a plan (probably something like “Just tell me to clean up the kitchen!”) you can double-check: “So when I say, ‘Clean up the kitchen!’ you honestly won’t take offense? What if you do take offense? How will you manage it? Because I don’t want any unnecessary tension between us.”

In my experience, following these rules of engagement can actually be quite pleasant. It is so relieving to be able to relax in my garden, to lay down my battle ax knowing I don’t have to win! I just have to describe my reality, try to understand others’ reality, and trust in people’s ability — desire! — to collaborate and co-exist peacefully. And if I’m relaxed (and curious and non-blaming and committed to connecting) when I’m telling someone something they might not want to hear, they’re more likely to be relaxed.

Just sayin’: When it comes to conflict, kindness means honesty. Directness. Trust. Because describing to someone what is irking you and asking them for what you need — showing up, being honest and direct — depend on trust.

But trust may not be reciprocated. That is, your relational partner might not believe you trust them. Or they may not trust you. If mutual trust is not in place, you and your roommate have some work to do. Which might discourage you from even thinking about engaging.

But consider: Doing battle in the gladiator’s arena is not going to build trust or solve the problem. Collapsing in the face of conflict will not build trust or solve the problem. The only way to build the trust required for effective resolution of inevitable differences is to engage. Over and over again.

Next up: Applying these Rules of Engagement with an under-performing employee.