The three conversations
Every hard conversation is three at once: what happened, how it feels, and what it says about you. Sort them out before you have them out loud.
For a Conversation · Stone, Patton and Heen, 1999 · takes half an hour
How to run it
- Write your story of what happened. Then write theirs, as they would tell it to a friend. Both are true to the person telling them.
- Separate intent from impact. What you think they meant is a guess; what it did to you is a fact. Write both, and notice you have only guessed at their intent.
- Map contributions instead of blame. What did each of you do that helped this happen? Yours goes on the page too, or the conversation is an accusation.
- Name the feelings, yours and theirs as you’d guess them. Unnamed feelings leak into tone.
- Ask the identity question: what does this threaten about how I see myself? Competent, fair, a good friend? That is usually why it is hard.
- Decide your purpose: to learn their story, to say yours, to solve something together. Then write the opening in the third story, how a neutral observer would describe the situation, and start there.
Where it falls down. Going in to prove your story is the true one, which is the one thing the conversation cannot do.
With a pen
My story of what happened
Their story, as they’d tell a friend
What I think they meantA guess
What it did to meA fact
What each of us contributedMine goes here too
Feelings, mine and theirs
What this threatens about how I see myself
My purpose, and the opening in the third storyHow a neutral observer would describe it