Chapter 7: What’s Your Purpose? When to Raise It and When to Let Go
“You can’t have every difficult conversation you come across. Life is too short, the list too long.”
Only you can decide to raise or not a difficult conversation, because every situation is different.
You can know you made the right choice by working through the Three Conversations; i.e., get a better handle on your feelings, key identity issues, and possible distortions or gaps in you perceptions.
There are three questions that make three kinds of conversations that don’t make sense:
1. Is the real conflict inside you?
2. Is there a better way to address the issue than talking about it? Sometimes actions are better than words. Sometimes a conversation is simply not worth the time, or not even possible.
3. Do you have purposes that make sense? Chose a possible destination to reach.
Factors to take into account
1. Remember, you can’t change other people.
– “How often do you change your values and beliefs based on something someone tells you?”
– Trying to change someone rarely results in change, instead engage in a conversation where mutual learning is the goal.
– People are more likely to change if they feel understand and heard as well as respected.
2. Don’t focus on short-term relief at long-term cost
- If your purpose is to change the other person, it is likely to have negative consequences.
- Negotiate your purposes in order to decrease the risk of damaging a relationship.
3. Don’t hit-and-run
- “A good rule to follow is: If you’re going to talk, talk. Really talk. And if you’re really going to talk, you can’t do it on the fly. You have to plan a time to talk.”
Sometimes, when there’s no place or time for a learning conversation to happen, you have to let go. Letting go takes time and there’s no limit to it, but you can do a lot to help you with this process.
Four liberating assumptions
1. It’s not my responsibility to make things better; it’s my responsibility to do my best.
- The best you can do is try.
2. They have limitations too.
- They are as imperfect as you are.
3. This conflict is not who I am.
- Don’t let your conflict with others define who you are.
- You are fighting for what is right and fair, not because you need to conflict to survive.
4. Letting go doesn’t mean I no longer care.
- “Difficult conversations operate at the core of our being – where the people and the principles we care about most intersect with our self-image and self-esteem. Letting go, at heart, is about how to handle with skill and grace not having a difficult conversation.”
- Have sound purposes.
Three purposes that work
1. Learning their story
2. Expressing your views and feelings
3. Problem-solving together
Remember that stance and purpose go hand in hand!