How to Engage in Tough Talks: A 101-level Primer on Managing Difficult Conversations
““Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” ”
We are in a social and cultural moment where difficult or confrontational conversations, including those about personal identity and social and cultural conflicts, are common in nearly every corner of our lives, from the workplace to the family dinner table. In fact, according to research by PwC, 65% of 52,000 workers in 44 territories stated that conversations about societal topics like climate, immigration, race, and gender equity occurred sometimes or frequently in their workplaces.
Handled incorrectly, these conversations can result in high stress levels, damaged relationships, and feelings of burnout. In the workplace, they can create distrust, undermine investments companies make in workplace culture, and lead to attrition when managers are unable to communicate the nuances of their ideas, feelings, and expectations as it pertains to issues of social, ideological, and identity-based differences. It’s more crucial now than ever that we have the tools and build the skills necessary to engage in these conversations effectively, while still prioritizing our own needs and boundaries.
Fortunately, Justice Informed has a tried-and-true method for approaching difficult conversations in a way that teaches our clients to establish their ideas and perspectives as just that, manages the sensitivities that individual power dynamics import upon conversations, and invites (rather than demands) others to see life and truth through their lens. The past years of “cancel culture” and workplace hostilities underscore the lack of preparation most people have for navigating a workplace that is as much about production as it is about communication skills. Our “invitation-based process” to inclusion and social change centers compassion, empathy, space-making, love, and curiosity over revenge, aggression, and silence.
Specifically, through the lens of Nonviolent Communication practices, Justice Informed created a trauma-informed process that includes specific tactics and tools for how you can best navigate through difficult conversations. The individual steps of this process are outlined here:
Preparation (pre-conversation)
Conversational goal clarification
Narrow in on your specific goal for the conversation so you can use the language and skills most aligned with those goals. The most common conversational goals include to inform, to persuade, to agitate, or to be heard.
Cost-of-view analysis
Prior to a conversation, it’s important to first analyze how markers of privilege and your own personal identities/experiences show up, along with your specific desires for personal accountability.
Individual vs. systemic thinking
Consider whether the extent to which you are coming to the conversation either focuses on individual experiences or a systemic understanding of the issues you are discussing.
If you cannot see yourself as part of a broader community and someone capable of impacting others (whether you want to or not), it is nearly impossible to discuss ideas and needs that involve people other than yourself
You won’t have time to prepare for every difficult conversation before you enter it. But these preparatory tools can still be useful at the start of a conversation.
Discovery
Name the power levels and any potential hierarchy between the conversational parties
Utilize appreciative inquiry/active listening
Appreciative inquiry centers curiosity over interrogation.
Many people do not realize the way they ask questions is more of an interrogation than active listening. They are listening to defend and gain ground over another person, rather than invite discussion and consider perspectives while standing on their own value.
Calling in/calling out
You can decide when calling in (using appreciative inquiry and leading with compassion to understand motivations and intentions behind comments) is appropriate versus calling out (naming and publicly demonstrating disagreement with moments of harm and where you see their view as being dangerous or harmful).
Engage in reflection/validation of the other party’s stated needs and experiences.
Avoid “why” questions. Instead, use “what/how” questions.
Stating Needs
Use “I” statements.
Explicitly naming your OFNR (Observations, Feelings, Needs, and Requests).
State who you are centering in this conversation.
Qualifications for Disengagement. In order to disengage from the conversation, you will need to either:
Reach consensus with your conversation partner
Decide to pause and re-convene at a later time (make sure to set up a specific time during the conversation)
Reasons can include either party running out of time, or emotional bandwidth being reached for the time being.
Conduct a stake analysis on your partner
If the other party has no stake in changing and/or has expressed harmful views that result in you needing to draw a boundary, it is time to disengage from the conversation.
““The presence of conflict does not always equal a lack of safety.””
A focus on confrontation in a way that centers love and restoration over animosity might look unfamiliar or feel unnatural to you. It may feel strange to even consider these things as workplace or community goals. That makes sense. It’s not a coincidence that the moments of confrontation we most often can recall in literature, film, and popular culture are between two enemies. Think Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader in Star Wars or Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg’s characters in The Social Network. Even our very consideration of workplaces and community spaces more often involves ideas of competition and domination rather than collaboration and interdependence. But confrontation is not the same as conflict. And the presence of conflict does not always equal a lack of safety. These assumptions about interpersonal communication prime our perception of confrontation as inherently negative, while still holding an expectation that all conversation should reduce complexity down to a binary “good-bad.”
While there’s no doubt that confrontation can, and sometimes should, be scary or anxiety-inducing, it is a necessary and expected part of human relationships. Yet many adults cannot manage conflict or conversations about differences of opinion. It costs their companies and nonprofits dearly. It hurts their brands and community reputations. It leads to distrust of leaders and bad performance reviews for individual contributors. In the realm of social impact, where conversations about identity are expected with high frequency, it’s especially important to face these conversations head on and with confidence to protect both your own emotional well-being, and if possible, your relationship with the conflict’s other party.
Now let’s look at some realistic examples of how some of the tools and tactics from the Tough Talks framework can be utilized in practice. At Justice Informed, not only do we instruct others on the Tough Talks framework, but we also get to utilize these tactics and principles ourselves when we engage in difficult conversations with each other, with our clients, and with other JI community members.
Justice Informed’s position as an organization that centers on human relationships means that difficult, emotionally-fraught conversations are not unusual between the Justice Informed team and its clients. In particular, Justice Informed’s DEI Assessments often expose sentiments at an organization that may be uncomfortable or upsetting to leadership. In the case of one former DEI Assessment client, Justice Informed utilized several principles of the Tough Talks framework when a disagreement ensued over a specific question on the DEI Assessment survey. This client wanted to remove a question from the survey that explicitly asked about whether the qualities of white supremacy or other oppressive cultures existed at the client organization. After Justice Informed stated its position and explanation for why this question was valuable to include in the staff survey, both Justice Informed and the client organization engaged in stake analysis over the disagreement. The client organization feared legal repercussions from the inclusion of this question. Justice Informed feared that staff wouldn’t have the space necessary to express any potential feelings of the organization’s alignment with these oppressive cultures. Ultimately, Justice Informed found that the client organization’s stake in removing the question was higher than its own, particularly given that there were other opportunities in the survey for staff to express challenges with the organization, though with less specificity.
““Consistency is a shield. The more you engage in difficult or confrontational conversations, the less difficult they will eventually become.””
On the other hand, there are many other instances where a stake analysis may yield different results for Justice Informed, in which cases Justice Informed has historically chosen to stand on its values more firmly. For instance, upon receiving a draft of a DEI Assessment Report, another former Justice Informed client wanted to remove specific language and quotations from staff describing their explicit frustrations with their organization and its partners. After engaging in appreciative inquiry to determine the root of the client’s concerns, Justice Informed ultimately stood on its values and stated that it was necessary to keep this language in the Report. To remove or alter the language in any way would perform an explicit disservice to the marginalized and minoritized staff, partners, and clients of this organization, who Justice Informed aims to center in all of its work.
Even when utilizing the Tough Talks framework, confrontational conversations will remain difficult. That’s to be expected. But in the words of Justice Informed CEO Xavier Ramey, consistency is a shield. The more you engage in difficult or confrontational conversations, the less difficult they will eventually become. We hope that the Justice Informed Tough Talks framework offers you the tool belt you need to begin to dive into these difficult conversations with confidence.
Want more information on how you can operationalize our Tough Talks framework in the workplace? Sign up for our November 30th Tough Talks Webinar here, visit our website, or contact info@justiceinformed.com for more information.
