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Andy Stanley - REVERB Mastering Difficult Conversations · Andy Stanley Sermons

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  Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership podcast Reverb, a conversation that digs deeper into
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  this month's podcast topic, all designed to help leaders go even further faster.
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  I'm your host, Susie Gray. This month, we're talking about our conversation
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  last week with Sheila Heen on the topic of navigating difficult conversations. Andy,
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  I really enjoyed your conversation with Sheila, and this is an area we all
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  could use some help getting better at. Yes, and Shila specifically mentioned three
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  layers to difficult conversations that need to be addressed. What happened conversation, the
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  feelings conversation, and the identity conversation. And if you don't know what that
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  means, probably our listeners need to go and listen to that. We'll catch
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  them up. Yes, we'll catch them up. But as we get started,
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  you know, on a lighthearted note, can you share with our podcast
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  audience which layer is the most challenging for you personally and why? And again,
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  for those of you who missed last week's podcast, these three levels are
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  the what happened part of the conversation that were all good at. Your son
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  or daughter comes home from school and they're mad, and you say, what
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  happened, you know, tell me what happened. Or there's a conflict with
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  somebody and you need to talk about what happened because something bad happens. You
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  know. That's where we enter the conflict and often stop and stop right.
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  It never goes past that, and then we walk away thinking, hey,
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  we handled that pretty well. And then they're not okay, and you don't
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  know why they're not okay, and it's because of these other two levels that
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  she talks about. Then there's the emotional level, and then, as you
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  said, the identity level. And I I've had to learn the second level,
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  the emotional level. We can talk about that. The third level,
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  the identity level, was brand new to me listening when I read the book
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  that just again opened so many doors that explained conversations that I've had, especially
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  at work. But moving back up to the emotional part of the conversation.
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  As I mentioned last week, I actually took a little seminar on empathetic listening
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  that I was terrible at and if I go with my natural flow, I
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  forget to do this. And empathetic listening is basically where you listen for emotion,
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  where you say Wow, you're so frustrated right now, and I can
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  understand why. You know, you're really angry with me right now, and
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  I get it. You know, you just you name that emotion, you
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  affirm the emotion, and when somebody affirms our emotion, we feel like we're
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  understood. Yeah, it releases some of the energy. It does. It
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  released some of the energy. But again, the temptation is to just stick
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  with what happened, with what happened, what happened. So when I learned
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  this and when I remember this, it just makes difficult conversations easier because I
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  give the other person permission to feel what they're feeling. And that just helps.
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  And when people do that for me, that helps as well. But
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  it's not intuitive for most of us. Some people it is, but the
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  rest of us, it's just something we have to remember. Well, it's
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  interesting. I remember when we had Ian Cralin on the podcast and you discovered
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  you were in an enneagram one, And it's interesting what he says about understress
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  people with your Enneagram type kind of double down on Nope. This has got
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  to be the way, you know, you can tend to get a little
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  you know, controlling, And he says they believe that there are two ways
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  to do things, their way and the wrong way. And so this idea
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  of understanding, like, hey, there's some emotion, if I kind of
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  come at it with what's naturally in me to do, and so I can
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  see how that's something that you've had to learn and build in because I definitely
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  feel the same way. Yeah, And it's again I just as a fix
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  it person, and especially in a corporate environment where we don't have time for
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  all these emotions. We just need to just do better. Here's what you
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  did. You know, move on. But you know, you fix your
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  car, you don't fix other people. Nobody wants to be fixed, and
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  nobody wants to feel like they're being fixed. And it doesn't work anyway.
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  So we might as well just acknowledge we got to deal with what happened.
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  But let's create space for the emotional side of this, because you know,
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  we're emotional beings and difficult conversations, the emotions, I mean, they're front
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  center, especially if somebody you're about to have a difficult conversation. So one
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  of the things that helps me with this is Diane, my assistant, because
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  again, I've got thirty minutes or an hour and we need to have this
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  conversation and move on. And she will, and I've mentioned this before on
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  the podcast. She'll say, now, remember there are words of affirmation person,
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  or they're acts of service person. So she'll remind me of their love
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  language. Then she'll remind me of their enneagram, and she'll remind me in
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  me of their temperament. It's like, Andy, remember you're gonna want to
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  talk about information. This is a whole person. And honestly, just those
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  simple reminders before a conversation helped me step back away from just what happened and
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  what do we need to talk about, to take into account how they're going
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  to process this, what's going to be the biggest potential withdrawal, what'll trigger
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  it, what will trigger it. And that's one of the things that I
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  thought was so interesting last week with Sheila talking about this withdrawals. We'll get
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  to those in just a minute with identity. So again, just remembering going
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  coming in, it's not just about the information. And again her point is
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  there are three levels of conversation and they're all happening at the same time,
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  you know, and we can either not be aware of them and wonder why
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  didn't that go well? Or we can remember these three and it we'll keep
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  unpacking in this conversation. And so it was. It was so fascinating,
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  and of course I couldn't help but think about things at home, Yeah,
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  with kids, with Sandra, just this is true there, It's true in
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  the neighborhood, it's true in the grocery store, it's true everywhere we go.
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  So what happened the emotional component and then the identity component? And I
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  thought it was interesting. She talked about that executive education class that they do
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  in the in Triad and they set up this premise of what are you listening
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  for? And they have some people just listen for facts or like the what
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  happened? And they have some people just listen for feelings. And she said,
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  the questions you asked will elevate one or the other. So if you're
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  asking and then what happened next? And then and then what did you do?
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  You know, your go facts, facs, fats facts, it's going
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  to elevate that. But the people that are listening for feelings or elevating And
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  how did that make you feel? And how did that leads you to feel
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  in that moment? Or you name it. You say, that must have
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  been so frustrating. That would have really bothered me, That would have really
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  made me just shut down. That just you just name them, name them.
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  And again for all the parents listening. Home is where you practice with
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  this, and the stakes are lower in some cases, especially if you have
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  younger kids. And one of the illustrations in a little seminar I did all
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  those years ago was, and I mentioned this briefly last week, was you
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  know, your son or daughter comes home and says, I hate my math
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  teacher, and the natural response is to say, what happened? And again
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  they've just delivered a big emotion. We bypass it and go to what happened?
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  That's a miss. So when our kids or anybody around us begins the
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  conversation with emotion, if we can remember to stay there, and it really
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  is a skill that we learned to stay there. Wow, yeah, I
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  can tell you're really upset. Whatever that was, that must have been terrible.
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  It was terrible. Well, now I've affirmed what you're feeling. I'm
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  not. I don't say now we don't hate people in our home. You
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  know, now I'm correcting. They start with emotion. Now I'm correcting,
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  So now you shut them down. Oh of course, I've said you shouldn't
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  feel this way, and I don't even know what happened, right, and
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  I you know, so if we can just remember, you know, affirm
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  those emotions, then people feel understood and the conversation won't be necessarily as difficult.
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  So those are kind of those first two. What happened in the emotional
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  side, and then this whole identity piece that was fascinating, wasn't it.
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  I think that was, like we said earlier. I think that's the thing
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  that was the revelation in the book of Oh Wow, when I got that
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  reaction, I stepped on a piece of someone's identity, and it was a
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  little bit, you know, it was a little bit unexpected to think that
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  that conversation is happening while the other two are also happening. Good communicators can
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  navigate all three as they're having these difficult conversations. I thought it was fascinating,
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  and I thought too, the thing that helped me understand this the most
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  was when she talked about, and she talks about this in the book,
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  when I can remember, oh, yeah, I have an identity. We
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  all do in terms and sometimes we're not aware of it. And by identity,
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  we're talking about how you basically define yourself. I'm an honest person.
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  I've always been an honest person. So if you accused me, as she
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  talked about, of being dishonest, wow, that was a landmine because she
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  has so created an identity for herself fro I'm being honest because of something in
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  her past. So our identity is a combination of here's something I'm really good
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  at that I think i'm really good at and has been affirmed my whole life.
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  So I'm good at this. It's how I perceive myself. It's how
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  I rate myself. It's what allows me to feel like I'm a good person.
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  And it's a little bit different for all of us. And again,
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  a lot of us don't know what those things are. But when somebody accidentally
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  touches one of those things in a negative way, it feels insulting. It's
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  not just correcting. I feel insulted. And so when we can understand that
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  about ourselves, then I realize, Okay, every person that I have a
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  conversation with, a positive or challenging conversation, they have an internal identity as
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  well. And to the degree I can figure out or guess a little bit
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  about what that might be. It's easier to stay away from those things,
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  or as VOI avoid them, or to say to them. And we talked
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  a little bit about this last week, to say, Hey, before we
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  have this difficult conversation, I just want you to know, I think you
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  are a fantastic leader. The people that work with you, they respect you
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  so much. So I'm affirming what I know they is part of their identity.
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  Just kind of separate out the what happened and how it made you feel
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  peace. So as we think about who were married to, as we think
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  about the things that are children, how they define themselves in terms of what
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  makes them kind of who they are, to take those things into consideration during
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  challenging or difficult conversations. It is so important. But this is tricky.
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  But again, we as we figure out the person in the mirror, it's
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  a reminder of oh, yeah, the person on the other side of me
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  has one of these on the inside of them as well. Yeah, And
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  it was interesting to me that you said, as it relates to your kind
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  of identity as a communicator and your identity as a leader. The thing that
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  cuts deepest for you is your identity as a leader. Yeah, I was,
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  I honestly was a little surprised to hear I was surprised. I mean,
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  this was just sort of a no exercise I went through as I read
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  the book and as I thought about the conversation with her, the whole identity
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  piece, because I thought, okay, I was thinking of other people,
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  what you know, how does he how does she identify? And again we're
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  kind of guessing. But in thinking about that, I realized when people criticize
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  my communication, and by criticize, I mean we do reviews all the time
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  between services or get an evaluation, and you know, everybody wants to score
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  high. And people tell me, oh, you're such a great communicator,
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  I'm like, thank you. But when my leadership decisions or somebody takes a
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  dig at poor leadership that I don't know a better word, that hurts my
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  feelings more than the other. And I think if somebody were to take a
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  shot at my parenting because I think I'm good, I'm a good dad.
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  You know, so all those things and we all have a list of three
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  or four to identify what they are and the deeper levels of them. Yeah,
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  because you're saying, these are deeper. These are deeper for me than
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  things. Right if you tell me I'm not a good singer, yeah,
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  I know, right, Or if you tell me your handwriting is terrible,
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  Oh I know, or Andy, we can't let you organize something because you're
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  not a good I know. They didn't hurt my feelings. But even things
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  you're good at, like communication, you're saying, that's not as deep as
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  some of these other things. So I think figuring those things out about ourselves
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  may be important, but the point is to remember the person on the other
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  side of us is carrying those things well. And if I take a dig
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  accidentally in having a difficult conversation as something that they feel like is fundamental to
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  who they are, you know, that's a LANDMND and we don't always know
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  what they are. But I just thought that was a really interesting part of
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  the conversation for sure. Well changing gears, Sheila talked about some common mistakes
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  people make in navigating difficult conversations. She talked about avoiding and postponing the conversation,
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  which has to be the most common I would think, I mean,
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  really just has to be. And that's temperament driven to some extent or schedule
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  driven, but yeah, it could be schedule driven or yeah, turning the
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  conversation into a blame game or lack of preparation. And I would love to
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  hear, how do you prepare for a conversation you know is going to be
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  difficult? How do you prepare beforehand for that kind of converse? Because I
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  feel like you're great at being calm in the midst of conflict, So how
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  do you prepare for that? Well? I kind of kidded her. I
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  said, you know, most people prepare for the difficult conversation on their way
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  to work, you know, in the car, because we have those conversations
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  in our head and we know what we're going to say, and we imagine
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  what they're going to say, and we're always wrong. Right, Yeah,
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  was you already reactor? What's in your head that they're going to say?
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  Yeah? The whole idea of preparing for a difficult conversation at the level that
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  she surfaced, I think I'd fall way short of that because she give these
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  three things are the template for preparing for a difficult conversation. What happened?
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  I need to be super clear, here's what the problem is, and part
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  of the preparation is Okay, how is this going to make them feel?
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  And I need to go ahead and just affirm those emotions. Hey, this
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  is going to be challenging. I don't want to this is going to feel
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  personal. Just say it's okay, whatever you're about to feel. And then
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  to ask the question, Okay, does this conversation does it cross over into
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  identity? Am I about to talk about something that's so not just personal to
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  them, but that is defining to them? And again, the easiest illustration
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  is, you know, to criticize a mother about her ability to be a
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  good mother, So that's a mother is an identity, right? Or father?
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  You know you haven't been a good father to your Heay, wait,
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  let's don't go there. You can not go there. No, But if
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  I've made a mistake in disciplining a child and somebody challenges me on that,
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  they're just talking about what happened, but I feel that much deeper. You
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  have just impinged upon how I identify as a father. And I tend to
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  think I'm a good father. So again, it's easy to see in those
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  roles, but at work we carry some sense of identity as well. I've
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  always I pride myself in my communication. I pride myself in my organization.
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  I pride myself in handling details. And you've just come down hard on me
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  because I let a bunch of detail slip. Are you kidding? I'm like
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  the best detailed person. So in terms of preparing for difficult conversations, again,
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  clarity on what happened, sensitivity to the emotion, and then okay,
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  what are the potential pitfalls when it comes to how this person the density they
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  carry at work, and that's tricky. Yeah, And I think it's really
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  great that, as Sheila mentioned, her group and you can go find all
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  this information in the show notes has come up with some templates to help you
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  prepare well, because what you just said is you're getting your own emotions are
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  getting high and sometimes it's hard to go okay, wait a minute, what
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  am I facing on the other side. But taking the time to go okay,
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  now I'm going to work through process and think through those things is super
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  important. So can I add one more thing? Because she touched on this
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  at the end, she talked about these aren't her words, this is kind
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  of our words, but that confrontation really is an expression of showing value to
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  person. It's caring. Caring. Yeah, if I don't care, I
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  don't confront because I don't, I don't. You know, that's the best
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  she can do. What's the point of having the conversation. You know she's
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  doing the best she can. We just let it go. Okay, Well
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  that's that may be true, but that's not honoring, that's not challenging.
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  That's not mentoring up and leading up or trying to lift the person up.
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  And clear is kind Being clear with somebody who's not performing the way you expect
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  is a kindness, yes, rather than just putting up with it, right,
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  it's the honesty is kindness. So again, when it comes to difficult
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  conversations, they feel so negative, we dread them for the most part,
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  or we should, you know, for the person that's looking forward to it,
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  they they're not ready for it, right because they haven't taken the other
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  person into consideration. They just want to get it out and move on.
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  And that if when I'm unhealthy, that's me. I just want to have
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  that meeting because I can put a check in the box. I'm going to
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  move on. Terrible leaderships unhealthy. But again, when we get this right,
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  we're doing the other person a favor. And the reason we all everybody
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  listening knows that's true because they've been on the other side of difficult conversations.
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  And as I said last time last week, the best bosses and managers we've
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  had in our careers were those that would sit us down and say, hey,
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  you mess this up, or this could have been better, or hey,
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  I know you think you did a good job, and you did do
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  a good job, but I know you and you are capable of more,
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  and you know you're the best. You did better than anybody else, but
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  you are winging it and you can do better. And I've had I have
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  been challenged, you know, almost with those words verbatim when I you know,
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  I compared myself to some other people like I was, you know,
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  I did better than everybody else, and and my boss sat me down and
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  said, you're winging it, you are capable of more, and chastised me.
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  But I hear I am talking about that conversation. So it inspired you.
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  Yeah, So there's this is a way of loving people in a way,
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  so it's it's crucial. Well, Andy, that is all the time
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  we have for this episode with revers Thank you so much for digging deeper into
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  the topic of navigating difficult conversations and providing a few more insights, and to
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  all of our listeners who want to thank you for joining us. Be sure
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  to visit Andy Stanley dot com slash Podcast, where you'll find more resources to
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  help you go further, faster,