In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear provides a comprehensive guide to building better habits and breaking bad ones. Clear emphasizes the importance of small, incremental changes yielding significant and long-lasting effects for the person. In short, make small changes everyday and you will get compelling changes over time. I couldn’t agree more with Clear and anyone who has experienced the effects of incremental changes, both good and bad, can attest that shifting one seemingly small behaviour can have significant repercussions. 

Borrowing from James Clear, in this post I want to highlight for you the incremental changes that you can make to your approach to difficult conversations about conflict so you can get better results with your co-worker, boss, spouse, or child. What do I mean by difficult conversations? Any issue that occupies a lot of your mind and time, anything that you ruminate on repeatedly, or any conversation that you want to have with someone about their behaviour but are concerned about making it worse by talking.

One of the biggest atomic habits of transforming a difficult conversation is to prepare for it ahead of time. 

This idea might sound simple and redundant, but it is incredibly important and underused. Most of us wouldn’t deliver the first draft of our work to our bosses without editing or revising it. Most, if not all, people take time to review their work before its final submission. Yet when it comes to conversations, discussing our thoughts and views, we often think that it’s fine to send over the first ‘draft’ of our thoughts. Entering a conversation without preparation is like submitting your work without any review, and of course as is with work so is with our personal relationships. When we don’t take time to review and reflect on our thoughts, unprocessed thoughts and feelings show up and can derail a conversation without it ever reaching its goal and providing the speaker with what she/he wanted out of that conversation. 

Simple steps to help you prepare for a challenging conversation:

1. How should this conversation happen?

Think about the 3 big questions: Why? When? Where?

Why: Why do you want to have this conversation? What do you want to achieve and is your goal achievable through this mode of communication? Considering your purpose before having a challenging conversation will allow you to know the direction of the conversation. It will help ground you and it is something that you can share with the other person, if appropriate, and reference back to during the conversation. Purpose is the north-star of your conversation and without you can get lost easily.

When: Think about a time that’s better suited for such conversations. For example, are you choosing to have the conversation right before lunch and before your co-worker has had a break? Are you opening up the conversation after a grueling day of work and right after your spouse has walked in the door? Many conversations can take a downturn based on the timing alone.  Be proactive and think about a time that works for you and consider the effectiveness of timing for the other party as well. Better yet, consult them about this and ask if that time works for them. 

Where: Consider the location that you’re choosing for that conversation and the person in question. Is this a conversation that needs a quiet and a confidential space? Does the person with whom you want to have a conversation respond better if you’re sitting down at a coffee shop or walking in nature together?

Tip: Walking and talking is an incredibly effective way to talk about those tough topics. When two people are walking and talking, they’re literally facing the same direction. They walk side-by-side or close by one another and the synchronistic movement and the togetherness is also a symbolic representation of facing the same problem together and with each other. 

2. Mentally shift from wanting to convince to wanting to learn

When conversations go wrong it is often because the parties enter the conversation wanting to convince the other one of how right they are and how wrong the other party is. They will resort to arguments, ‘facts’, telling their version of the events as the whole truth of the situation, and often going in circles about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. The truth is that difficult conversations are rarely about right and wrong, rather they’re about conflicting perceptions and interpretations of reality. It’s about the stories people make and the values they assign to actions and behaviours. 

We must first understand the other person, where they are coming from, why they think what they think, and how they view the conflict, before we can share our own. Being curious and listening to the other person’s perceptions, no matter how much we disagree with them, can be challenging but has an incredible payoff. People often appreciate having the chance to fully explain their perspective, be listened to actively and be understood. As I’ve written before here, your understanding doesn’t necessarily connote an agreement with their thoughts or even forgiveness of their actions. But your understanding is a valuable gift you can give yourself and the other person by slowing down to truly learn about the person’s perspective. 

3. Invite the person to the conversation

As I will write again below, getting permission and consent is an important part of effective dialogue. Both parties must want to engage in a conversation to resolve the problems that they face. Collaborative problem-solving revolves around consensual and voluntary participation. 

Invite the person in an inviting way to join you. Tell them the reason why you want to have this conversation and make your reasoning a joint goal. This is important for you, but how is it important to them? What’s in it for them when there’s less tension and disagreements between the two of you? Use your potential common purpose to invite the person to this conversation. 

4. Know that your emotions and the other person’s will show up

I assure you that your emotions will not only show up, but they will occupy prominent seats at the table if you don’t work through them prior to the conversation itself. Difficult conversations are challenging because they’re emotionally charged. Often people, especially at work, believe that they can have challenging and productive conversations without addressing any feelings in their meetings. This is a mistake! 

Our emotions guide our work and our lives. When we find meaning in what we do, when we feel appreciated and valued, it drives us further. Such feelings will help us be more efficient, productive and contribute meaningfully to our community. Likewise, our feelings of resentment, disrespect, lack of appreciation can and will negatively impact our behaviours. 

Sit with your feelings and work through them before starting a difficult conversation. What feelings have come up for you? Put yourself in the other person’s shoes, what emotions do you think they might be experiencing as a result of this conflict, or what you’re about to tell them? Be prepared that emotions will show up during your conversation. Meet them, acknowledge them, validate them. People’s emotions always make sense to them and they’re always valid even if you disagree with their message. 

5. Ask permission before sharing your thoughts, opinions, or advice 

Conversational consent is a powerful way to ensure someone’s buy-in into having the conversation. Asking permission if the other person wants to hear your thoughts gives you two particular advantages: 

i) You know from the beginning if the person is interested in your thoughts or not. If they’re not, there’s no point in continuing the conversation. Their ‘no’ must be respected and if that’s the end of the conversation it’s better to know early so you can decide what your next steps are without wasting your time on something that someone doesn’t want to hear. 

ii) You can reference their consent during the conversation when they will inevitably interrupt you with their thoughts. You can gently remind them that they gave their permission so you can share your thoughts, and ask again if they still want to hear you or are they done listening? 

By checking and rechecking the person’s choice in listening to you, you’re reminding both of you about the respective powers that you have in having or not having the conversation. And if there’s to be dialogue between two people, they both must allow one another space and time to express their thoughts. 

These small shifts and preparation will have significant impact in the direction of the conversation, and just as James Clear pointedly demonstrates this through different examples in his book, I can assure you that based on our decades of experience as front-line workers, mediators, and teachers in the field these small shifts have big gains. Making these changes will make your life easier, less conflictual (not free of conflict!), and certainly more productive.