TALKING TO DIFFICULT PEOPLE – and to authors who have written about it

This is, invariably, an aspect that generates impasses when we negotiate differences. The question of how to deal with these characters arises here and there in different scenarios. The members of the courses and lectures on Dialogues, Decision Making and Dispute Resolution, topics of my practice and my enchantment, are curious to receive tips on managing negotiations with people we categorize as difficult.

The literature explores the theme, identifying different personal profiles and different scenarios as difficult, offering different reflections, tactics and tips regarding its management.

I went to my library and together they were on the bookshelf: Difficult Conversations – how to discuss what matters most, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen; Overcome No – Dealing with Difficult People, by William Ury; Bargain with the Devil – when to negotiate, when to fight, by Robert Mnookin; Working with difficult people, by Muriel Solomon. The first three, drinking from the same source – the Negotiation Project from Harvard, and Muriel, a corporate consultant for decades and author of numerous articles, offering tactics based on business communications. Finally, I also found on the shelf: Working with the Enemy – How to Collaborate with People You Disagree, Dislike, or Distrust by Adam Kahane, and identified the opportunity to reference his thinking in this Read With Me.

So I decided, instead of dedicating myself to the reflections of a single work, to embrace the convergent ideas of the five works and share with the reader... conclusion of this review.

Talking to Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen – Difficult Conversations – how to discuss what matters most.

 For this trio from the Harvard Negotiation Methodology, difficult conversations touch critical aspects of human interaction – perception of vulnerability, low self-esteem, uncertain outcomes with respect to matters that matter or people you care about – and often lead us to avoid their occurrence or their inappropriate management. The authors conclude by saying that difficult conversations are part of life, as well as managing the fear and anxiety triggered by them, giving up the perfect result coming from them and accepting the best possible, admitting that if we are fragile in these contexts, we are also resilient to face them. them.

The book is intended to combine mind, heart and skills (skills) to achieve effective communication in the negotiation of differences in different contexts, not only in what we believe to be difficult to transit.

In difficult conversations, he identifies a common structure that actually includes three conversations in parallel:

 

• disagreement about what happened (what happened conversation), which concerns the perception, interpretation and values ​​of each person involved;
• questioning about exposing/validating the feelings perceived in oneself and in the other (feeling conversation);
• an internal debate about self-image, self-esteem and future well-being (identity conversation).

 

Result: in these scenarios, we invariably learn about ourselves and about each other! And if we believe so, we can transform difficult conversations into learning conversations.

The authors' tips for dealing with these three scenarios appear below:

 

1. what happened conversation

 

• Explore the different stories – instead of asking who is right, curiously explore the others stories; different stories they are born from different worldviews, different information, dissimilar interpretive biases. Next, try putting a & between the different versions.

 

• Discriminate impact intent – don’t assume you know what the other meant… you run the risk of making two big mistakes: (i) according to the impact on us, we assume that we correctly identify the other’s intention, usually negative, and translate it as matter of character – when it comes to ourselves we tend to be more benevolent!

  (ii) good intentions can cause bad impacts – that's why we should ask clarifying questions to check intentions, treating our interpretation as a hypothesis, and not as truth.

 

• Abandon blame and investigate possible co-responsibility – guilt concerns judgment (which is governed by personal criteria and biases); co-responsibility concerns the interaction with the other and implies us. Guilt looks to the past and co-responsibility for prevention relative to the future, encouraging learning and change.

 

     2 – Feeling conversation

• Feelings are often at the heart of difficult conversations. – when not expressed, they can invade conversations, escalate the conflict, make listening difficult, blind our perception.
• Explore and accept your feelings and those of others – consider the other's feelings as important as your own. The feelings of both are at the base of judgments and accusations, in the translation we make of the other and his actions (and vv).
• express your feelings – carefully, non-judgmentally and in a descriptive manner; speak in the first person without accusing; share without evaluating or monopolizing the situation (victimization). Establishing communication in the direction of resolving an issue is as critical as expressing feelings appropriately. Strive!

 

     3 – Identity conversation

• Difficult conversations threaten our identity – accepting that we make mistakes and are part of the problem are issues that can unsettle us. Self-knowledge and being prepared for probable reactions from the other and for learning about the other (and oneself) are focuses that distance us from the threat to our identity. Change your lens!
• Attention to short-term gains with long-term costs. Avoid!
• Distance yourself from the right and wrong binomial, and think about managing differences!
• Also distance yourself from imposing a solution, inviting the other to create a solution together with co-responsibility!
• Listen and present your ideas not as truths, but as different perceptions, different perspectives. Admit that your view is biased!
• Be on the lookout for alternatives that consider the different perspectives of everyone involved. Use AND instead of OR!

 

Talking to William Ury – Overcome No – negotiating with difficult people.

This work answers the question that always arises for Ury in his explanations of negotiation skills: “…and if the other side hasn't read your book... and if they don't know these negotiation principles that you teach, how to deal"?

With the proposal to transform opponents into partners, Ury offers us five steps in this direction, soon presented in the book's index, and which will guide the structured exposition of his ideas. Here, they follow in sequence, making the depth of the author's ideas simple, since they are translated into a single paragraph:

 

• Don't react: go up to the gallery – to fight back, give in, break up are impulsive reactions, which distance us from our interests and from the other. According to Ury, the prize of a (difficult) negotiation would not be to make his position prevail, but to satisfy his interests. And concludes, if the bad news is realizing that you contribute to the vicious action/reaction cycle, the good news is that you have the power to break the circle, at any time, unilaterally.

Going up to the gallery – moving away from the scene – you can map your interests and best alternatives; decide whether it is worth trading and thinking about strategies; know your strengths and weaknesses; take a break and distance yourself from impulsive reactions.

• Disarm them: move to their side – means offering the other an attentive listening, which demonstrates respect for their point of view through summaries (paraphrases), to check their understanding and demonstrate listening and understanding (non-agreement). It means respecting the other's feelings, apologizing if necessary, agreeing without compromise whenever you can; it means expressing your opinions without provocation, acknowledging the differences between the two and creating a favorable climate for negotiation.

 

• Change the game: don't reject…reframe – show interest and ask questions that help identify the other's interests. With it create hypotheses – and yes… and bypass obstacles; make reasonable requests and negotiate the rules of the game. And finally, rephrase: eu e you by About.

 

• Facilitate the sim – build a golden bridge – building a golden bridge means helping your opponent to overcome obstacles to understanding: don't pressure or insist, but bring the other in the direction you want, facilitating the solution in co-authorship and preserving your dignity (of both). Develop ideas together and pay attention to basic human needs (recognition, respect, trust) and intangible motivations (prestige, preservation of image and self-esteem). Help your opponent write the victory speech – if he/she needs to flex positions, let this change be attributed to circumstances/scenario changes, and not to his/her opponent's mistake. Don't be in a hurry to handle this strategy!

 

• Make it difficult to No – make them come to their senses, not to their knees – use a necessary minimum of power to guide towards the appropriate solution of the problem (mutual benefit) and ask questions to test the reality. Warn, do not threaten – what will happen if we don't come to understanding? Present your best alternatives without provocation and, if applicable, propose a third party to facilitate the dialogue. Give your opponent the possibility of having choices and honorable departures; even when you can win, trade – your goal is mutual satisfaction, not victory!

 

Talking to Robert Mnookin – Bargain with the Devil – when to negotiate, when to fight.

Mnookin is an arbitrator and mediator of complex commercial issues, a Harvard leader in the field of negotiations. He soon clarifies that he uses the expression bargain, from bargain with the devil, meaning trying to resolve a conflict via negotiation, before using coercive measures; and categorizes as 'acts devil' those who are intentionally aimed at infringing grievous harm (deliberate physical injury) to another human being without justification. Sometimes they are single acts and sometimes repetitive, which would characterize a evil person. Thus, Mnookin categorizes terrorism and some other characters and passages in the story, such as Hitler and Nazism.

It is challenging to go through various contexts with the author – global devils, business devils and family devils, and from each one to extract reflections, always touching on themes that Mnookin poses as challenges in this field – recognition, legitimacy and morality; the assessment of costs and benefits due to trading and not trading in these situations; the alternatives arising from said negotiation, as well as from non-negotiation, in addition to avoiding common traps – such as demonization and dehumanization of the other, zero-sum games (winner x loser), automatic reactions to the fight, calling the other to combat.

On the recognition of the other as an actor in a negotiation in which we are involved and on the legitimacy of this negotiation and the other's claim, in the scenario bargain with the devil, the author draws attention to the possible dissonance between the analyzes of the different parties involved and the importance of each one asking these questions and knowing the other's answer. Regarding the issue of the morality of the question and negotiation, Mnookin draws attention to its challenge, since moral judgments come from our subjectivity – from an interaction between intuition and analysis. He considers, however, that even if there is dissonance as to morality, we should not ignore moral principles that we consider should be observed.

Mookin offers us a framework (guide lines) that could be applied to any negotiation, in the text characterized by thinking outside the box. The identification of interests and better alternatives, on and off the table, of all those involved; the impacts of the negotiation for all and the identification of the mutual benefits of the proposals made; systematically comparing expected costs and benefits for all and a realistic analysis of the implementation of an agreement - its feasibility, make up this framework. The author adds an additional warning: and if the other does not comply, may he be obliged to do so? And he makes a recommendation: if you trade with Devil, you should develop extra alternatives as you will need them if the combo doesn't work.

 

Talking to Muriel Solomon - Working with difficult people – when the other you work with is belligerent, arrogant, deceitful, discourteous, abrasive, self-centered, inflexible, critical. Muriel goes through all these possibilities in her book, offering tactical talks & tips. What is common among the tactics presented by the author is the proposal of logical actions focused on interpersonal communication, instead of emotional reactions. It was interesting to go through the 30 chapters, finding tactics for different situations and difficult profiles, but my mouth crooked by the pipe of systemic thinking implied with the linear vision offered by the work, which identifies the difficulty in the functional profile of the other, and not in the relationship , in the interaction that also includes us. My multidisciplinary background made me scratch my head while reading.

Here's a reading tip for those who have a greater affinity for the linear equation cause & effect or identify situations in which the same person is recursively part of communication disruptions in different relationships, and self-implication does not show management alternatives.

Talking to Adam Kahane – Working with the enemy – like collaborating with people you disagree with, dislike, or distrust.

Kahane is a researcher, physicist and graduate in energy economics, who has always had in mind working with challenges, exercising this passion in corporate planning on the global stage. Its insertion in the transition apartheid for the democratic regime in South Africa, in 1991, redefined his thinking about solving complex situations – says the author: it is not done through the hands of specialists, but through the hands of the actors themselves, including teams that bring together enemies, collaboratively.

 

From contact with this work, I drew the distinction between traditional collaboration e extended collaboration:

• the traditional collaboration – as a moral value or one that follows a plan to be conducted in harmony, aiming at common goals, according to the author, is becoming obsolete;
• the extended collaboration – would be the one that brings together different interests and in which one depends on the other to advance/solve an impasse (which he also wants to solve). In this collaborative nature you are in a situation of interdependence – without the other there is no possibility of progress, of solution. A single way out: negotiate differences and work together to find solutions!

As a result, Kahane considers situations that generate extended collaboration as of high complexity and little control, as a consequence.

Kahane's extended collaboration concept draws from experience with apartheid, and ensures that it requires elasticity from all actors, in three dimensions;

• accepting conflict and connection with the other (interdependence), making it flexible and welcoming differences;
• accept that, sometimes, these are situations that do not allow for definitive agreements – it is necessary to try out provisional agreements to firm up the step or redefine them;
• it is also necessary to enter the field full body and be willing to try new things – be available to change what you are doing/proposing.

Interdependence and the common goal are the ingredients that justify collaborate with people you disagree with, dislike or distrust.

 

Conclusion

My practical experience in the field of dialogue facilitation has dealt with the difficult people described in the profile mentioned by Stone, Patton and Heen – perception of vulnerability, low self-esteem, uncertain outcomes with respect to matters that matter or people you care about – and from these authors I adopt the aforementioned reflections as intervention guides in the scenes that bring these profiles together.

I have also moved through the scenario described by Kahane in my work – interdependence and the common goal are the ingredients that justify collaborating with people you disagree with, dislike or distrust – and I often invite clients who have reached this degree of conflict escalation to consider this maxim.

The 5 steps proposed by Ury in Overcome the No are biblical and very powerful in the search for maintaining dialogues with a flow impeded by the profile and scenario described in the two paragraphs above.

There is a beautiful complementary fit between these three works and the reflections offered by their authors. I love to see how different mindsets, like those of the authors we talked to above, and their partial perceptions of a complex whole, dialogue and add value to the scenario of difficult conversations (I like it more than difficult people), which imply negotiating differences on topics that are significant for their actors. A challenge for those who work in facilitating dialogues!

I say goodbye here inviting you to discover the collection of e-Books IN FEW WORDS… in which I share much of what I experience in my professional work, and extending the invitation to meet in learning spaces – courses and workshop – in which these themes are ventilated.

Thank you!