Chapter 5 Chapter 1 picks out three conversations

Jack is about to face a difficult conversation. He said that one afternoon, it was late, and I got a call from Mike.Mike is a good friend of mine, with whom I occasionally do business. 'I'm in trouble', he said to me, 'I need to do a financial manual now and it has to be printed by noon tomorrow'.He also said that the designers who have a cooperative relationship with them are out of town and cannot come back, and he has been under a lot of pressure for this. " "At that time, I was following up another project, but, as Mike's friend, I decided to temporarily put down all the work at hand to help him. That night, in order to finish his financial manual, I was busy until late at night." "No. In the early morning of the next day, Mike reviewed the sample I made and said that there was no problem and it could be printed. At noon, I put the printed manual on his desk. At that time, I was exhausted, but I was in a good mood Well, because I helped him solve this problem."

"Then I was back in my office. That's when I found Mike's message on the phone recording: 'Well, you screwed up! Jack, I know it's a tight schedule, but... (sigh) income The statement in the report is not clear enough, and there is a small discrepancy in the data. Such a mistake is too terrible. You know, this is a very important customer. I hope you can check the data immediately and make a new report for me. Received After leaving a message, call me back as soon as possible.'” "As you can imagine, when I got this message, I was pretty annoyed. There was a discrepancy in the figures on the graph, but the discrepancy was negligible. So I called Mike back right away." Then, there is the following dialogue:

This conversation between Jack and Mike was a typical difficult conversation.Months later, Jack is still bitter about the conversation, and his relationship with Mike has become lukewarm because of it.He really wanted to know if he could have used another and better way to solve the problem between him and Mike. At the same time, he also wanted to know what he should do now to save this relationship. But before we help Jack find out, let's analyze his conversation with Mike to understand how the difficult conversation came about. What is surprising is that despite superficial differences in the origin, form, and outcome of the conversations, at the bottom of it all difficult conversations all share the same structural pattern.However, as the so-called obsessed with authority, when you are caught in a difficult conversation, your thoughts and emotions have been completely occupied by the details and anxiety of the conversation, so it is naturally difficult to find this structural pattern.However, once you understand this structure, your conversational skills will skyrocket and you will be able to handle even the toughest conversations with ease.

In the dialogue between Jack and Mike listed above, the words of both parties reflect only some superficial information of the real intentions of the speakers.To make the true structure of difficult conversations apparent, we need to understand the underlying unspoken information beyond the meaning of the words themselves: at the same time, we must also unravel the unspoken thoughts of the speaker and emotions.In difficult conversations, these "dumb" information are often the real meaning of the speaker. Now let's take a look at Jack's unspoken thoughts and feelings as the conversation progresses.

Of course, Mike also has many thoughts and feelings of his own, which he also does not express.Mike is considering whether he should have hired Jack in the first place.In the past, he was actually not very satisfied with Jack's job, but now, he has decided to take the risk with his companions and give this friend another chance.For now, Mike is frustrated by what Jack did, and at the same time confused about whether he made the right decision to hire Jack in the first place—both personally and as a result. This is true from a professional point of view. In this way, we can easily see that there are many differences and unhappiness between Jack and Mike, but neither of them has broken them one by one.

By studying hundreds of conversations of various types, we found that people's words actually contain an underlying dialogue structure, and understanding this structure is the first step in our understanding of conversations, and it also helps us improve conversations. A big magic weapon of quality.The findings confirm that our thoughts and emotions drift along the same three dialogue levels, or "dialogues," no matter what the subject of the conversation.In any of these three types of conversations, we tend to make predictable mistakes that also distort and misdirect our thoughts and emotions, thereby bogging our conversation down.

Everything that Mike and Jack said, thought, and felt in their conversations fit seamlessly into these three layers of "conversation."The same would be true if it were you, in the midst of a difficult conversation. Most difficult conversations are often accompanied by discord and disputes, and the focus of disagreement is nothing more than what happened or what should happen.Who said what and who did what?Who is right, who thinks what, and who should be held accountable?Jack and Mike argued endlessly for this, but some of them were expressed in their words, while others were hidden in their hearts.Does that chart really need to be redone?Is Mike suspected of forcing Jack?Who is responsible for this mistake?

Every difficult conversation also involves many emotional questions and answers.Are my feelings correct?Is it appropriate?Should I admit it, or deny it?Shall I bring the matter up for discussion, or check it out quietly?What did I do to affect other people's emotions?What if they get angry or hurt because of it?The conversation between Jack and Mike was filled with personal and emotional thoughts.For example, "Is this what I'm getting in return" conveys a signal that Jack is hurt and deeply angry, while "I'm under a lot of pressure" reveals Mike's inner anxiety.These emotions were not directly mentioned in the conversation between the two parties, but the words of the two unknowingly revealed their true inner feelings.

It’s really a kind of self-talk we have about what the situation at hand means and affects us.In fact, as we talk, we often have an internal debate about ourselves, and the debate is about ourselves: does this mean that I am competent, does it mean that I am a good person, or does this prove that I am Is it worth the love of others?How does it affect our self-image and self-esteem, our future and our well-being?At the same time, our answers to these questions also determine to a large extent whether we can feel a kind of self-"balance" from this dialogue, or whether we will experience a sense of loss of self. anxiety.Throughout Jack's conversation with Mike, Jack struggles with a sense of self-conscious inadequacy, and it's this internal angst that makes him feel a little out of balance.Mike, on the other hand, has been weighing whether he was right with the original decision to hire Jack, or just a stupid mistake.

Any difficult conversation will inevitably be entangled in these three layers of conversations. Therefore, if you want to get out of a difficult conversation, you must master the methods and skills of effectively managing these three layers of conversations.At the same time, it may seem difficult to deal with all three levels of conversation comfortably and comprehensively, but it seems much easier than facing the embarrassing consequences of blindly handling difficult conversations. No matter how good our conversation skills are, there are always some challenges that come from these three layers of dialogue that we cannot change.For example, in a "what happened" conversation, we may still encounter situations that are more complicated than we originally anticipated.Or, in each layer of dialogue, we may get some information that the other party has not yet noticed, but it is not easy to awaken the other party's awareness of this information.Or that we still struggle emotionally and feel insecure because the conversation touches on and threatens something important about ourselves.

All we can change is the way we respond to these challenges, and most typically, we can assume we know all the information and things we need to know and explain, instead of trying to find out what we did before. What information does the other party know but we do not know.Or, for our inner emotions, we can find ways to hide them, or simply release them, even though we may regret it later, instead of trying every means to control them and keep them under rational management among.We no longer need to try to figure out what topics about us (or them) will be talked about or threatened as the conversation progresses, because we can continue to talk without scruples, as if this conversation It has nothing to do with us at all-it will not touch the most fragile nerves in our hearts at all. Once we understand these key points and the damage they can do to a conversation, we can begin to learn more effective conversational techniques.Now, let's dig deeper into each layer of conversation to break down each one. In difficult conversations, we spend a lot of time in "what happened" conversations, during which we often debate who is right and who is wrong, and whose words are what, often because of experiences or stories that are different from the other person's Meaning, and who was the one who did the wrong thing, on these three frontiers—truth, intent, and fault—we often begin with a common but extreme assumption.Therefore, in order to improve our ability to deal with difficult conversations, we must first correct this triple assumption. In conversation, all of our opinions and emotions are based on the same assumption: I am right, you are wrong, and when we speak up and argue our point of view, we often don't. to confirm the veracity of this assumption.In fact, it is this simple assumption that has given us so much trouble and worry. Why am I right?I'm right because you drive too fast; I'm right because you fail to mentor your younger colleagues; I'm right because you say something inappropriate at Christmas; I'm right , because the patient deserved more and better medication and treatment after such a painful operation; I was right because the contractor overcharged me; I was right because I was promoted Well deserved award; I was correct as the manual is inherently flawless.If you ask me, I can tell you a whole bunch of "I'm right" things. However, the original fact is: I am not right. How could this be?It seemed impossible at all.I will always be right! Oh sorry, that is the truth.In a difficult conversation, finding the right facts is never the point of the conversation.What the two sides were arguing about was their differing perceptions, interpretations, and values.What they care about is not what is written in the contract, but what the contract means.What they want to know is not which children's book sells best, but which children's book we should show our children. The two sides of the conversation are not concerned with the facts, but with what they are concerned with. Now, let's go back to that conversation between Jack and Mike.On the question of whether that chart is accurate, Jack and Mike agree.They all agree that it's not a very precise, or perfect, chart.What really divided them was, was this little error on the chart worth the effort?If so, how should this problem be solved?Right and wrong are not the focus of the question, how to explain and judge is the main point of the debate between the two sides.Therefore, both parties in the conversation should devote energy and time to exploring how to explain and judge this issue.On the contrary, blindly obsessed with finding out what is right and what is wrong is tantamount to diving headlong into a dead end, and can only return without success in the end. In "what happened" conversations, if we can shift the focus away from assumptions about the truth, we no longer need to stick to proving "we are right" and thus shift the purpose of the conversation to Understand the perceptions, interpretations, and values ​​of both parties on the issue.In doing so, the focus of our conversation shifted from conveying information to asking questions, and then exploring how each person sees the world, so that we can see the perception, interpretation and values ​​rather than a narrow adherence to "truth". The second issue debated in a "what happened" conversation is intentions—yours, and mine.You hurt my feelings by yelling at me just to make your point?Just because you want to control me, or what you say is to help me keep my promise to quit smoking, you throw away all my cigarettes?What I think about your intentions will affect how I see you as a person, and this opinion will ultimately affect the outcome of our conversation. The mistakes we make with “intent” are often simple but not trivial: we assume we know what the other person is up to when we don’t.Worse, when we're unsure of the other person's intentions, we too often arbitrarily categorize them as bad intentions. In fact, intent is intangible, unseen.What we see as "intent" is nothing more than an assumption about the purpose of another person's actions.In other words, the so-called intention of the other party is nothing more than a hypothesis made up by ourselves, and we are the creators of this intention.At the same time, the stories we create for these intentions are actually far less accurate than we imagine them to be. Why is that?Because, like everything else in a difficult conversation, human intent is a complex complex.Sometimes people act with multiple intentions; at other times, a person does not have any intention at all, or at least his intention has nothing to do with us; Yes, but in the end it hurt us. Precisely because our views about other people's intentions (and how others perceive our intentions) are often so important in difficult conversations, unfounded assumptions about other people's intentions can only destroy our conversations. item disaster. The third mistake we make in our "what happened" conversations has to do with negligence.Most difficult conversations will focus on who is to blame for the current mess.For example, when the company loses one of its biggest customers, we all know that a ruthless game of "drumming and passing flowers" will soon be set off within the company. Whoever receives the big red flower will be responsible for this responsible for the fault.In this game, from beginning to end, we don't care who gets it, as long as it doesn't fall into our hands.The same is true when dealing with personal relationships.Are you having a tense relationship with your stepmother?You think she is responsible for this.Because if she hadn't said your room was too messy and interfered with which kids you played with, your relationship with her wouldn't be so tense. In the conflict between Jack and Mike, Jack believes that it was Mike's mistake that caused all this: you should ask questions before the manual goes to print, not after everything is finished.And of course, Mike believed that it was Jack's mistakes that caused all this: since Jack was responsible for the layout design, he should be responsible for these mistakes. However, talking about mistakes is the same as talking about the truth—it only produces discord, negativity, and meager understanding of the matter or situation.It stokes our fears of possible punishment and makes us more steadfast in our beliefs.No one is willing to take responsibility for negligence, especially in an unfair situation. Therefore, in order not to be a "scapegoat", we will definitely go all out to excuse ourselves from responsibility. Parents with young children know this all too well.When a pair of twins in the backseat of a car are playing mischievously, criticism of one of them is bound to lead to his whining and dissatisfaction.They would say, "But she hit me first" or "I hit her because she called me a child."The reason why children justify is that they don't want to lose their dessert because of punishment. At the same time, it also comes from a sense of justice that exists in their hearts.Everyone feels that they should not be the one to bear the mistakes, because they are right. Sitting in the front seat, you can easily tell where the two children are wrong.However, when we ourselves are in the middle of the problem, it is not so easy to discern who is at fault and where.However, as the difficult conversations get deeper and deeper, one thing is certain, that is, the fact that things will turn out like this must be the result of the interaction of both sides—or, in other words, neither side has played a role As a result, at this time, punishment is almost useless, let alone the time.In the middle of an argument, some otherwise very smart people often do stupid things.In fact, the wisest thing to do is to do everything possible, first to figure out what blinded them and make the conflict worse, and then to find ways to prevent the problem from happening again. Focusing on talking about mistakes only distracts us from figuring out what went wrong and how to correct it.Understanding the methods of fault setting and induction can help us find the real cause of the problem and correct our wrong methods.The difference between assigning accountability and inductive accountability may be subtle, but it pays to be aware of and understand the nuance, as it will make a big difference in your ability to handle difficult conversations . Difficult conversations aren't just about what happened, they inevitably involve our emotions.At this time, the key question is not whether we will have strong emotions, but how we should treat them when they arise. Should you tell your boss exactly what you think of his management style?Or should you tell your boss that your co-workers stole your idea?Should you tell your sister that she has hurt you badly by telling her that she is still friends with your ex-boyfriend?When you decide to talk to the shopkeeper about his macho remarks, how should you deal with the anger you feel at encountering his machismo? When strong emotions arise, many of us choose to try to control them and keep ourselves rational.On the one hand, getting too caught up in emotions can only mess things up, because emotions can cloud otherwise good judgment, and in certain circumstances—say, work—it’s simply not appropriate. .On the other hand, expressing emotions can also cause panic or discomfort, and make us more vulnerable to emotions.After all, what should we do if other people are insensitive to our emotions, or respond inappropriately without fully understanding them?Or what if our emotions hurt them or irreparably damage our relationship?And once we vent our emotions, the other party will do the same.At that time, should we suppress the ups and downs of emotions in our hearts and listen to their anger and pain? After thinking about it this way, one piece of sane advice we might come to is to stay out of emotional conversations—if Jack doesn’t show his anger and hurt when he’s talking, or if Mike doesn’t His disappointment was evident in the words, and perhaps their conversation would have ended in another, more harmonious way.In contrast, if they had dropped the emotional conversation and just talked about the manual, or the "business," perhaps, the conversation would have turned out better. Is that true? The problem with this seemingly sensible advice above is that it fails to take into account the simple fact that emotional conversations are not only part of a difficult conversation, but a very central one.When you get caught up in a difficult conversation, the resulting emotions aren't just a by-product of disturbing emotions, they're a major contributor to conversational conflict.Taking emotion out of a difficult conversation is like performing an opera without music.Although you understood the plot, you missed the soul of opera—music.For example, in the conversation between Jack and Mike, Jack felt that he was treated unfairly and that his efforts were not appreciated, but he didn't say a word about it in the conversation, but, a few months later , Whenever recalling this conversation, Jack still couldn't contain his anger and dissatisfaction with Mike. Thinking back to the difficult conversations I encountered, was there a time when it was not full of complicated emotions?Do you feel hurt, angry, disappointed, ashamed, confused?Have you ever felt like you were being treated unfairly, or didn't get the respect you deserved?For some of us, even saying something as simple as "I love you" or "I'm proud of you" can feel dangerous. In short, avoiding emotions during difficult conversations may save you time and reduce your worry levels.This seems like a good way to help you avoid some major dangers in the conversation—for you, for others, and for your relationship.However, even if you avoid talking about emotions, the problem remains: If emotions are the sticking point that leads to conflict in a conversation, how can you resolve conflict if you don't talk about emotions? Understanding emotions, talking about them, managing them—this is one of the greatest challenges we face as human beings.No one and nothing can make dealing with emotional issues easy without taking risks.However, most of us can carry out emotional conversations better than we do now.Talking about emotions may seem difficult, but it is a skill we can master. Of course, emotional topics don't work in all conversations.As the saying goes, never wake a sleeping dog if you don't want to get in trouble.Unfortunately, if you're not skilled enough, the consequence of jumping into this topic is that you might disturb not just sleeping dogs, but all dogs - even the ones that keep you up at night dog. Among these three levels of dialogue, self-awareness dialogue may be the most sensitive, but also the most difficult kind of "dialogue" to deal with.But at the same time, it also provides us with a great opportunity to manage our emotions and improve our ability to handle the previous two layers of dialogue. The self-awareness conversation seems to be a conversation that takes place deep inside of us: is it about who we are and how we see ourselves?How did everything that happened affect my self-esteem, self-image, and self-knowledge?How will it affect my future?What am I doubting myself?In short, before, during, and after a difficult conversation, the focus of the self-awareness conversation is always: What am I saying to myself about myself? You might think I'm just trying to ask my boss to give me a promotion.Why does it have anything to do with what I know about myself? "Or, that's what Jack might think we're talking about the manual, not me." In fact, whenever the talker feels stuck, it's mostly because you're talking about yourself. Someone you really, really value.Through the surface of the conversation, you sense danger approaching you. In fact, everything is very simple.When you talk to your neighbors about their dog, what topics do you talk about that relate to you?Maybe you will talk about the small town life that creates high standards for your self-image, you ask yourself to be a kind person, to be a good neighbor, so when you think that your neighbors may think you are an aggressive person because of this When you are a troublemaker or a troublemaker, you will naturally feel uncomfortable. Want to ask for a promotion?What should I do if my request is denied?In fact, if your boss politely declined your promotion request with a bunch of valid reasons, how should you respond?You see yourself as a competent and respectable employee, and how will this affect your self-image?On the face of it, the immediate consequences of this failed promotion bid seem to be all about money—no promotion, no salary increase.However, it’s not the case, what’s really causing you anxiety and the chills down your back is a threat to your self-image. Even if you're the one delivering the bad news, you still can't escape the radiant effects of self-awareness conversations.For example, imagine that due to various reasons, you have to overturn a new and attractive project proposal from the creative department.Although you don't need to be responsible for this decision, you still feel anxious and nervous just thinking about the situation when the person in charge of the proposal heard the news.You may be acting this way in part because you worry that this conversation will affect your self-knowledge: "I'm not the type to let people down and dismotivate them. I'm respected by others because I want to help." They find a solution, rather than coldly turning them away.” However, what you’re about to do goes against this self-knowledge that I’m a helpful person.If you're no longer a hero, do people think you're a villain? When you start to feel that the conversation is mirroring your self-image, you may be feeling unbalanced inside.The young executive in the creative department is so motivated that he reminds you of yourself every time you see him.Right after he knows the outcome, the young executive gives you a long, suspicious look, looking as if he himself has been betrayed.Under his gaze, you suddenly feel a little confused, and at this moment, the anxiety that has been about to move is scattered like fireworks in the sky.You start to hesitate, is it really right to give up this idea so early?So, you feel like you should say something, and before you can gather your thoughts, you do.You stammered something about the possibility that we might revisit this plan in the future, but in fact, even you didn't believe it had any chance of being realized. Even in the slightest way, an imbalance in the self can cause us to lose confidence in ourselves, to concentrate, or to forget what we were about to say.If the impact is a little bigger, it will even give us a sense of collapse.We may feel like our minds go blank, panicked so much that our only thought is to run away; in some more severe cases, we may even feel breathless as a result. However, as the saying goes, if you know yourself and the enemy, you will win every battle. As long as you know that self-awareness dialogue is part of a difficult conversation, your anxiety and anxiety will be greatly alleviated.And, like the two conversations above, with the self-knowledge conversation, you can not only understand it, but you can do more and better.While self-imbalance is unavoidable at times, self-awareness talk doesn't always give you so much trouble and worry.As with your emotions, with a little bit of skill development in this area, you can handle self-awareness conversations more easily and effectively.In fact, once you find your place in your self-awareness conversation, you can indeed turn this source of worry into a source of strength in no time. Although we sometimes use many excuses to cover up, our initial purpose of initiating a conversation is usually to prove our point of view to the other party and make him accept this point of view, or to let the other party do what he wants, or to make the other party do what he wants. Or to make our ideas a reality, but the conversation ended up deadlocked.In other words, the purpose of our conversation is to convey information. Once you understand that the challenges from the above three levels of dialogue are inherent and unavoidable, and you know the mistakes you can make at each level, you will likely find that you initiate a particular conversation. The purpose of conversation is shifting.You will gradually begin to appreciate the complexity of the perceptions and intentions of both parties in the conversation, and gradually see the fact that the problem is actually the result of the joint efforts of both parties; you will gradually discover that in the conversation, it is the Emotions, not facts; and you gradually understand what it all means for each speaker's self-esteem and self-knowledge.Ultimately, you find that informative talk no longer makes sense.In fact, you may find that you no longer have any information to convey, and instead, you want to share certain information and ask the other person certain questions. So, you are no longer just trying to convince others to accept your point of view and methods as before. Now you are thinking about how to understand what happened from the perspective of the other party and how to explain your ideas to the other party. In addition, you also want to share and understand the emotions of both parties with the other party, and work together to find a good solution to the problem.On the one hand, after you have done this, you will likely find that the enemy who "desperately resisted" you before is gone and replaced by a conversation partner who is willing to open up and accept your point of view; On the other hand, the way you look at problems has also changed dramatically because of the information you learned through the conversation. Shifting our conversational stance means inviting others to join us in our conversations and help us find good solutions to our problems.If we are to achieve our conversational purposes, then both we and our interlocutors must learn from each other.We must have a learning conversation. As for the difference between a typical information war and a learning conversation, we will find out in a moment. This book will tell you how to effectively deal with these three layers of dialogue, so that your ability to cope with conversations will be improved rapidly, thereby helping you gradually transform difficult conversations into learning conversations. In the next five chapters, we will analyze and explore the common mistakes people make in these three layers of dialogue.When you have a difficult conversation and find it difficult to open up and accept the other person's point of view and feelings, these contents will help you change your posture in the conversation and master learning conversation skills.In Chapters 2, 3, and 4, we will examine each of the three hypotheses in the "what happened" conversation.Chapter 5 turns to analyzing the emotional dialogue, while Chapter 6 takes the self-perception dialogue further.The content of these chapters will help you organize your thoughts and emotions.Before you step into any difficult conversation, you must complete these vital preparations. In the final six chapters, we will return to the conversation itself: first, you will learn when is the best time to initiate a conversation, and when to let it go; The purpose of the conversation is valid—that is, if you want to initiate a conversation, what outcomes can you expect to achieve, and what outcomes you can't expect.Then, we will discuss the skills of conversation with you, and gain an in-depth understanding of how to effectively complete the conversation related to you: find the best way to start, the most appropriate way to ask questions; learn to listen and learn; express clearly and forcefully their own ideas; help each other to solve problems together, and this includes tips and methods on how to get a deadlocked conversation back on track.最后，我们会将上述的所有技巧和方法应用到杰克与迈克的后续谈话中，看一看，它们在实际生活中是否真的具有化腐朽为神奇的力量。