How to navigate hard conversations this holiday season
Raise your hand if you’ve ever used avoidance, ghosting, defensiveness, or appeasement to steer clear of hard conversations and the tough feelings that can come with disagreement. We’ve all been there. While it’s really tempting to detour around this stuff, it’s actually not that great for our relationships or personal growth.
Before I dive into why and how to have hard conversations, I want to say that they are different from unsafe conversations. Only you can gauge when a conversation is more harmful than helpful, and when to protect your peace.
That said, there are a lot of times when conflict arises in work and life, and though it can seem easier to ignore or divert, finding middle ground helps us become more resilient, better communicators and de-escalators, and better at embracing diverse perspectives.
In this article, you’ll learn the facilitation tools and mindsets I use every day to guide groups (which I’ve technically been cultivating since my days as a peer mediator in middle school — very cool, I know).
Though it has been MANY years since then, the heart of the matter is the same whether dealing with middle schoolers, professionals, or family members: Having hard conversations can feel a lot less hard when we apply intention and effort.
8 Tips for Dealing with Hard Conversations at Work and at Home
1. Don’t Avoid
In an era of ghosting — where a lack of response has unfortunately become commonplace — it takes extra effort to normalize having hard conversations. While I’m in full support of taking a moment or pause when you’re feeling overwhelmed or unsure about how to respond to something, a non-response only adds to the collective unease and disconnect.
Not responding to teammates or family members as a way to avoid having hard conversations erodes trust and feelings of togetherness. Rather than avoiding, respond with integrity and quiet confidence. More on that to follow.
2. Take a Moment
Before you engage in a hard conversation, give yourself a moment to connect to your own vibe (frequency, energy), and check in with where it’s at.
Coming into the conversation with fiery or fearful energy doesn’t serve you or your conversation partner (it’s why I’ve personally committed to never sending an email, text, or making a call while angry). Instead, ground down by feeling your feet on the earth or taking a few deep breaths. And if you can’t ground, now might not be the time to have the conversation.
If you find yourself losing touch in the midst of a conversation, don’t be afraid to step out somewhere private like a bathroom, or schedule a different time to finish the conversation. Never underestimate the power of a pause.
3. Be Honest
Tell the truth. Don’t exaggerate, lie, or obfuscate the truth. If it feels like a hard truth, use simple and direct language to state it in a way that’s not alarming, shocking, or with hyperbole (basically the opposite of the news these days).
Another important note about honesty: don’t engage in disingenuous peace making, aka appeasement. For example, when you’re at work collaborating with colleagues and making decisions together, it doesn’t bode well to withhold your perspective or acquiesce just to keep things copacetic. That’s not in support of your best work, or the team’s best work.
Further, when you don’t express your POV or feel like you’ve been heard, it makes it difficult to commit to a path forward. At home, this can lead to resentment and disconnection. At work, it can be a drag on productivity, progress, and the collective psyche of those you share space with.
4. Be Kind
Treat the human in front of you as a human, first and foremost. When speaking to them, try to ground yourself in their basic humanity. If it’s really hard to do this, remember that we all start out as babies and children who have the same basic human needs. This trick may help you see them in a new light if you’re feeling triggered.
5. Avoid Personalization
See if you can separate the issue from yourself and your conversation partner. It’s not you against them, it’s two people sharing differences. And this goes both ways, whether you’re frustrated with the person you’re talking with, or they’re frustrated with you.
Depersonalizing the conflict is an excellent way to de-escalate the situation and look at it more neutrally. This requires setting the ego aside and operating with kindness, compassion, and respect.
6. Listen
How often do you find yourself so focused on what you’ll say that you’re not really listening to the person in front of you? Try listening so well that you can state what you’re hearing back to your conversation partner. If you notice you’re getting confused or not able to successfully play things back to them, slow down and ask them to say it again.
This practice can help you deepen your understanding of the person you’re speaking to. It doesn’t mean that you will agree, but it does mean that you’re more likely to understand or comprehend their point of view.
7. Be Specific
Ambiguous, lofty, unclear language and feelings can get us into trouble. Get clear about the issues you want to cover and why, then be specific about them with your conversation partner.
For example: “Hey, can we talk about what you shared during the retrospective meeting and your point of view on why the team didn’t get the final deliverable done on time? I’d like to better understand your thoughts and share mine, as I saw things a bit differently. My goal is for us to hear one another out and hopefully learn from each other so that we can have a different outcome next time.”
Then, when you’re in conversation, aim to stay on the topic at hand. It’s easy to get off course, so expect some straying to happen but don’t be afraid to gently course correct. Validate the importance of the tangent and suggest that you come back to it later so you can stay focused on the primary issue you’re there to discuss.
8. Acknowledge That It’s Hard
This seems obvious, but how often do you find yourself pretending that things are easier than they are because you think it will somehow make it more comfortable? Simply stating that you’re struggling with something can make it so much less hard.
For example, you could say, “I’m struggling to find my words,” or “I’m really wanting to understand but having a hard time.” Naming the things that are challenging can reduce the added feeling of pressure and humanize the situation. (*Side note: I’m not advocating for having no composure or offloading your feelings onto the person you’re speaking with. If you’re feeling at risk of doing that, see “take a moment” above.)
Conflict Happens; Don’t Let It Ruin Your Day
Using these tools will help shift our perspective around hard conversations. Rather than seeing them as inherently difficult, we might view them simply as conversations and give them less power over our moods.
From there, we can radically change the way we engage in dialogue with our peers, partners, bosses, in-laws, and beyond. Not only will it make communication more productive, but it will also save us a lot of peace of mind.
If you like these ideas and feel hungry for more, check out the following books. They are great resources for additional ways to navigate hard conversations: Listen Like You Mean It, Say What You Mean, The Art of Communicating.
What do you do to navigate hard conversations? It feels like we need these tools now more than ever, so share your thoughts as comments, and send this to a friend who you think might like it!
