6

Start Talking

Bringing conversations back to life

If you’ve been doing the work with us up to now, you have accomplished the following:

• You have identified at least one conversation toward improving the world that did not go the way you wanted it to go. You may have identified a conversation that you want to have but have been putting off or avoiding. In either situation, you have identified a real conversation that matters to you that is stuck.

• You have reflected on your way of being in that situation and how it is tied up with your conversation with yourself: your view of yourself and the other person, the things you are thinking and feeling but not necessarily saying.

• You have identified the bait and the costs of being stuck.

• At some point during this process of self-reflection, you’ve found yourself squirming, blushing, or chuckling to yourself. You’ve caught a glimpse of how your way of being and speaking is out of alignment with the complexity of who you are in the present and with the future you want to create.

•  You have gotten clearer on what you really want in the situation, and you have created a new way of being that may be more authentic and effective in light of those goals.

If you have done all the exercises to this point, you have made real progress and begun changing your side of the conversation. Now the question is, How do we take action to make a difference?

The first thing to acknowledge is that moving from a journey of self-reflection to a new actual conversation can provoke some real doubts and concerns. Very often we will see people read aloud their description of their pitfall and acknowledge this: “I see how this may not be working, and I see this new way of being I want to embody, but . . .” What comes after the “but” is some description of the situation that is centered on the past. Often it focuses on how the other person in the conversation has been thinking, feeling, or being.

• “I just don’t think I can get through to that person.”

• “ It’s too late; I have soured the relationship and missed the opportunity.”

• “ We’re both being self-righteous in the situation; I might be able to give up that way of being, but I don’t think he’s going to.”

Do we want you to figure out what pitfall the other person is in and name it so the reflection can be balanced and fair? Sadly, no. After all the work we’ve done on self-reflection, it would be great if we could hold up a mirror and force others to be self-reflective, to take responsibility for their part of the conversation!

In fact, this is a huge trap. You can’t make anyone else be self-reflective. The only reason you got this far is because you chose to pick up this book, you chose to do the exercises, you chose to reflect and learn. All we’ve done is give you the tools and let you know that we’re in this together. If you try to point out someone else’s way of being, the bait you think that person has grabbed onto, and the consequences of being stuck, two results are almost certain: first, you won’t see the whole picture because you don’t really know what’s going on inside the person’s head, and second, you will likely provoke defensiveness and entrenchment.

This whole inquiry involves getting vulnerable, exposing what we don’t usually expose, letting go of past known behavior, and exploring possible futures that are unfamiliar to us. So you’ll notice a tendency to protect yourself and the emergence of new pitfalls. For instance, identifying other people’s pitfalls is a great way to make yourself right, righteous, and certain! And it’s a great way to keep yourself safe from having to take on making a difference.

So what can we do?

It’s time for another thought experiment—an imaginary conversation in which you acknowledge your pitfall and its consequences out loud to the other person.

Depending on your situation, having this conversation may feel like jumping off a cliff. It may feel awkward to disclose so much of your inner landscape. That’s great! Letting go of the bait and moving beyond staying safe should make you feel vulnerable.

Remember that this is a thought experiment—it is not always the case that you should literally say this aloud to the other person. Even just envisioning saying it, and role-playing with a buddy, can help push you over a mental hump. Beneath all the anxiety about coming clean, people often experience another feeling: spaciousness, freedom, a sense of possibility.

You may notice, however, that Gabriel did follow the exercise 19 template when changing the conversation with Sarah in chapter 5. It was a pivot point in their interaction around the recycling bin. When does it make sense to say words like these out loud with the other person?

The power of apology

Our script in exercise 19 is basically an apology. If done well, an apology can transform and strengthen a relationship. It can generate a willingness to cooperate going forward. It can be a demarcation point, breaking existing behavior patterns, and it can offer a commitment to cocreate a more desirable future starting now.

The trick is that apologies need to be wholehearted to be effective. John Kador’s book Effective Apology is a great resource and lines up well with research by Stanford social psychologist Karina Schumann.¹ Table 4 is based on Kador’s and Schumann’s work.

Table 4 Elements of wholehearted and effective apologies

Our experience is that by envisioning who you want to be (as we did in chapter 5), you’re more likely to generously express each of the five effective elements and create a powerful apology.

You may find yourself reacting to the language “I am sorry.” As one of our students put it,

I think in some cases to say “I’m sorry” is disempowering—it takes away from your message and puts you on the back foot. . . . I would tend toward language like “I can understand / recognize how my actions / words would have occurred as X.”

Here is why we have found taking responsibility in the language of an apology to be an important part of the process. While at first glance “I am sorry” seems to give away our power, putting us on the “back foot,” the alternative puts the onus on the other person to change. Although you might say, “I can understand how you would interpret my actions as X,” the background conversation here is “But you’re wrong, and here is how you should interpret me correctly!” You may appear to stand firm, but this approach actually gives your power away. It makes your progress in the conversation dependent on their shifting their interpretation. A genuine “sorry” does something different: it frees you up to try a new approach. It frames what’s not working as independent of them or other forces external to you. That gives you power.

Research shows that partial, safe, or sympathetic apologies, like our student suggests above, don’t work.² Or worse, they can backfire. Full apologies that accept responsibility are more likely to be effective. Even when legal benefits are not at stake, there is a real psychological benefit to withholding the words “I’m sorry.”³ Thus, to make a full apology, to say “I’m sorry,” is to let go of psychological bait.

This expression of vulnerability creates a different kind of power with the other person. It sidesteps the mutual attempts to have power over each other’s thoughts and actions. A powerful apology

• exercises your own autonomy, overcoming short-term psychological gain in pursuit of your own deeper values

• models that possibility for everyone who witnesses it

• validates the perceptions of the other party, which can leave them feeling whole and available to focus on their own deeper values and commitments

• frees both of you up to play together, creating new solutions and pathways that transcend the circumstances that previously appeared to be stuck

Table 5 includes a few examples from our workshops where participants admit to creating pitfalls:

Table 5  Examples of people’s acknowledgments of the pitfalls they have created

We have also seen this approach of “coming clean” work in a mix of conversation and writing. Laura Yates encountered our work as part of the Byron Fellowship.⁴ She recounted the story of her senior trip, which we mention briefly in our preface. We were less than a week away from graduating from college, and celebrating the past four years together, when the conversation moved to the topic of climate change. One of my closest friends said he thought scientists were just trying to scare everyone into changing their behavior. I snapped and yelled at him for not believing in science. I refused to listen to anything he had to say. I ended the conversation abruptly by saying “This is bullshit. I don’t want to talk about this with you at all.”

Everyone froze and got really quiet. The rest of the trip was really uncomfortable. In that moment, I shut down my ability to relate to my friends and completely lost the opportunity to have a valuable conversation about climate change.

With some coaching on pitfalls, I understood what I lost through my way of being in that conversation. I also realized I had the power to change the way both my friend and I remember the conversation. I could open it back up with a different way of being. So I wrote him this letter:

Nick, I wanted to talk to you and apologize for the way I acted on vacation. When you said you didn’t believe in man-made climate change, I yelled at you and ended the conversation abruptly. By reacting this way, I wasn’t being open-minded or a true friend—I was acting in an aggressive, dismissive manner that isn’t characteristic of the type of friend or person I want to be.

I want to acknowledge now—because I didn’t when we first had this conversation—that there is uncertainty in climate science. Uncertainty is inherent in all science. The uncertainty scares me because it threatens the choices I’ve made in my life so far. Instead of being authentic and acknowledging the uncertainty, I purposefully diminished the value of what you were saying, asserting that I was right and you were wrong.

The way I reacted hurt our relationship and made everyone around us feel uncomfortable and distanced at a time when we should have been relaxing and enjoying our last few days together.

If I’d been speaking from a place of friendship and love, what I should have said is this: “There is some uncertainty about climate change science. Uncertainty is inherent in the scientific process. I hope that the predictions about man-made climate change aren’t as bad as people say. However, I do think it’s important for us as humans to understand the impact we have and take counter-measures in case we are causing these changes in the natural environment, which is why I’ve chosen to work and study in this field.”

I hope you feel comfortable telling me and holding me accountable if I flip out like that again—whether it’s at you or any of our friends. I know it seems strange for me to bring this up almost a month after it happened, but that exchange was one of the last ones we had before graduation, and I didn’t want it to be a lasting memory. I want to let you know I really value our friendship and I sincerely apologize for acting in a way that didn’t show you how much your friendship means to me.

Love,

Laura

When we read this letter, we were struck by the writer’s vulnerability—admitting to uncertainty about climate change and apologizing are never easy. At the same time, we can hear the authenticity—the genuine desire to connect and relate to Nick. We can also see that Laura reasserts her values: why she has chosen to work and study in the field of environmental leadership. We were intensely curious to know the outcome.

Once I finished writing this letter, I decided to call Nick and share it with him in the hopes that my reopening the conversation in a more positive way might help us strengthen our friendship. Reading Nick this letter forced me to be vulnerable and to open myself up to him, helping him feel more comfortable and willing to interact. After hearing me read the letter, Nick was quick to tell me he felt some guilt about the way he was being during our original conversation. He expressed an interest in learning more about climate change because it was something I was passionate about. He joked that we’re both pretty passionate people, and it wasn’t surprising to him that we’d gotten in an argument in the first place. Hearing him say that made me realize how much more powerful and effective I could be if I approached every conversation with the same amount of passion and a more thoughtful way of being.

Through the difficult and awkward process of writing this letter, I got clear on why the (un)certainty around climate change science was such a hot-button issue for me. It’s surprising and almost scary how many different layers I needed to pull back to get rid of the projections of blame on Nick for how the conversation went and to find my own power in the situation.

Since this conversation took place, in conversations with my uncle, grandparents, coworkers, professors, and others, I’ve made a conscious effort to engage them with compassion and understanding as my ways of being. Conversations that I previously would have avoided have since become so productive!

It is one thing to declare a way of being that is aligned with the future you want to create. It is another matter entirely to create space for it and act on it. Creating space for a new way of being involves owning up to the history of the conversation first.

Now imagine using the letter to engage the person. You may prefer to send the letter or to read it to the person aloud. Or, you may use it as a way to organize your thoughts before a new conversation.

You will encounter a variety of responses

When you imagine naming the pitfall and owning up to your past approach, what do you imagine happening? What thoughts run through your head? What does it feel like in your body? What do you imagine your conversation partner feeling? What could you imagine your partner thinking and then saying?

If you go through with using the letter, there is a real possibility that the person will be moved and inspired. They may share their own candid reflections on their way of being. Together you will articulate and explore a common ground that you didn’t know could exist. You could get creative about solutions to problems that had seemed insurmountable. Or, as in Gabriel’s situation, you may abandon your old problems entirely for the pursuit of something greater.

Of course, this may not happen right away. A second scenario is that the person will be intrigued by your new approach but suspicious. One of our students reported that he took a new approach to his wife’s driving style, which he saw as too fast and dangerous. He had been either arguing or avoiding riding with her. From a new way of being, he tried appreciating her driving skills and sharing his fear of high speeds. Her initial reaction was “Something sounds fishy.” When he stayed with the approach, she interrogated further: “What is going on with you?”

A response like this is natural. Our colleagues, friends, and relatives have an expectation of how we are going to be. When we show up with a new way of being, we shouldn’t expect them to be completely accepting. In the end, our student shared more of the full context of the pitfalls-and-pathways exercises he had been doing. He shared his hopes about the flourishing of his family and society. His wife heard where he was coming from and adjusted her driving style—staying closer to the speed limit and keeping pace with traffic.

Results require action, and action requires commitment

So far we have moved from letting go of an old way of being, with its associated trap and bait, to creating a new way of being. We have begun to envision new actions—writing a letter and having a new conversation.

What is the likelihood that you will take action, transform or create new conversations, and produce new results in the world now that you have a vision? That depends. What is your success rate for New Year’s resolutions? Ours is awful. An important missing link between visions and resolutions on the one hand and actual actions on the other is commitment. And what we mean by “commitment” is not merely an idea in your head. It’s a conversation in the world, a promise made to someone else.

Commitments that lead to action have a solid relationship to reality—both in time and in space. They are specific. If you want to have a new conversation, exactly when and where are you going to have it? An answer to “when” does not count if it’s “someday” or “soon” or “eventually.” Even “tomorrow” is problematic. We are always starting a new exercise regimen “tomorrow.” Consider the difference between “Next week I am starting a new workout regimen” and “Next Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. I am starting a new workout regimen.”

This is the chance to complete the work you have been doing in chapters 3 to 6.

If you haven’t done so already, please complete exercise 21 before moving forward in this book.

Notice if you’re still reading and haven’t completed exercise 21. You may be encountering all kinds of personal resistance. Before Laura called Nick to address their breakdown on the beach, she needed to get through several internal barriers.

• “ I don’t want to share this situation with a peer because it will make me look bad.”

• “ I don’t want to share my letter with Nick because it’s a month after the argument happened, it’s too weird, and he’s probably busy moving across the country and starting his new job.”

• “ I don’t want to call him and read the letter to him because I don’t know what he’s doing right now, and I don’t want to catch him at a bad time or catch him off guard.”

But she got over these barriers because she recognized that the future she wanted—for her relationship with Nick, for her own growth, and for the world—was worth it.

We have seen these techniques applied in a huge variety of contexts, from Lockheed Martin, Bose, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to the US Navy. This is what Brent Segal, a research and development executive at Lockheed Martin, reported:

I had gotten stuck with a VP of my company as I repeatedly proposed a change of course for a major project. In the workshop, I saw that I had been arrogant and overbearing in these conversations, and I decided to try being calm, listening, and welcoming. Literally the next day, a fifteen-minute planned meeting with him stretched to forty-five and a bargain was struck.

These are the kinds of stories that inspired this book. When conversations are no longer a barrier, anything seems possible.