Crucial_Conversations

Now, an apology isn’t really an apology unless you experience a change in heart. To offer a sincere apology, your motives have to change. You
have to give up saving face, being right, or winning in order to focus on what you really want. You have to sacrifice a bit of your ego by admitting
your error. But like many sacrifices, when you give up something you value, you’re rewarded with something even more valuable—healthy dialogue
and better results.
Next, watch to see if this sincere show of respect has helped restore safety. If it has, you can now explain the details of what happened. If it hasn’t,
you’ll need to use one of the more advanced skills that follow in the next few pages. In any case, first make it safe; then return to the issue.
Remember, when your behavior has given someone cause to doubt your respect or commitment to Mutual Purpose, your conversation is likely to
end up in silly game playing and frustrating misunderstandings until you offer a sincere apology.
Contrast to Fix Misunderstanding
Sometimes others feel disrespected during crucial conversations even though you haven’t done anything disrespectful. Sure, there are times when
respect gets violated because you behave in clearly hurtful ways. But just as often, the insult is entirely unintended.
The same can happen with Mutual Purpose. You can start by innocently sharing your views, but the other people believe your intention is to harm
them or coerce them into accepting your opinion. Clearly an apology is not appropriate in these circumstances. It would be disingenuous to admit
you were wrong when you weren’t. How, then, can you rebuild Mutual Purpose or Mutual Respect in order to make it safe to get back to dialogue?
When others misinterpret either your purpose or your intent, step out of the argument and rebuild safety by using a skill called Contrasting.
Contrasting is a don’t/do statement that:
• Addresses others’ concerns that you don’t respect them or that you have a malicious purpose (the don’t part).
• Confirms your respect or clarifies your real purpose (the do part).
For example:
[The don’t part] “The last thing I wanted to do was communicate that I don’t value the work you put in or that I didn’t want to share it with the VP.
[The do part] I think your work has been nothing short of spectacular.”
Now that you’ve addressed the threat to safety, you can return to the issue of the visit itself and move to remediation:
“Unfortunately, just when I was starting to make the trip out here, an issue came up with the VP that I needed to address right then and there,
or it could have cost us a huge piece of our business. I tell you what—I’ll see if I can get her down here sometime tomorrow to review your work.
She’ll be here for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Let’s see if we can show off the process improvements you came up with.”
Of the two parts of Contrasting, the don’t is the more important because it deals with the misunderstanding that has put safety at risk. The
employees who worked so hard are acting on the belief that you don’t appreciate their efforts and didn’t care enough to keep them informed—when
the exact opposite was true. So you address the misunderstanding by explaining what you don’t intend. Once you’ve done this, and safety returns to
the conversation, then you can explain what you do intend. Safety first.
Let’s go back to Yvonne and Jotham. Yvonne is trying to get the conversation going, and Jotham suspects her motives. Let’s see how
Contrasting might help her.
YVONNE: I think it makes things worse when you withdraw and won’t talk to me for days at a time.
JOTHAM: So you expect me not only to put up with regular rejection, but also to be sociable and happy when I do?
Jotham appears to believe that Yvonne’s motive is to reshape him. It’s unsafe. Mutual Purpose is at risk. Rather than responding to his sarcasm,
Yvonne should step out of the content and clarify her real motives.
YVONNE: I don’t want to suggest that this problem is yours. The truth is, I think it’s ours. I’m not trying to put the burden on you. I don’t even know
what the solution is. What I do want is to be able to talk so that we can understand each other better. Perhaps that will help me change how I’m
responding to you, too.
JOTHAM: I know where this is going. We talk, I continue to get rejected, but you get to feel good about yourself because “we’ve communicated.”
Have you been reading your self-help library again?
Obviously Jotham still believes that Yvonne merely wants to confirm that their existing relationship is okay and if she does, she’ll be able to
continue to reject Jotham—but feel good about it. Jotham still feels unsafe. So Yvonne continues to step out and build safety, using Contrasting.
YVONNE: Seriously, Honey. I’m not interested in discussing why our current relationship is strong and healthy. I can see that it isn’t. I merely want
to talk about what each of us likes and doesn’t like. That way we’ll be able to see what we need to do in order to improve and why. My only goal
is to come up with some ideas that will make both of us happy.
JOTHAM: (Changing tone and demeanor) Really? I’m sorry to be so insecure about this. I know I’m being a bit selfish about things, but I don’t
know how to make myself feel differently.
Contrasting is not apologizing. It’s important to understand that Contrasting is not apologizing. It is not a way of taking back something we’ve
said that hurt others’ feelings. Rather, it is a way of ensuring that what we said didn’t hurt more than it should have. Once Yvonne clarified her
genuine goals (and not merely some trumped-up goal that appeals to Jotham), Jotham felt safer acknowledging his own contribution, and the two
were back in dialogue.
Contrasting provides context and proportion. When you’re in the middle of a touchy conversation, sometimes others experience your words as
bigger or worse than you intend. For example, you talk with your assistant about his lack of punctuality. When you share your concern, he appears
crushed.
At this point, you could be tempted to water down your content—“You know it’s really not that big a deal.” Don’t give into the temptation. Don’t
take back what you’ve said. Instead, put your remarks in context. For instance, at this point your assistant may believe you are completely
dissatisfied with his performance. He believes that your view of the issue at hand represents the totality of your respect for him. If this belief is