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Tammy Lenski

Tammy Lenski

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Disagree better: Confronting difficult behavior

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June 12, 2022

Welcome to Disagree Better, a twice-monthly email designed to help you collaborate and negotiate in ways that keep vital relationships resilient and important decisions sound in business and life.

“Confronting” is a loaded word, often associated with hostilities. Done effectively, though, confronting can reduce or entirely avoid a big clash. Here are a few resources for effectively using this essential negotiation, conflict resolution, and problem-solving skill to address difficult behavior.

Insight

When we avoid expressing a concern out of fear we’ll make things worse, or alienate the other person, we risk the problem or behavior continuing unabated. It’s possible to raise an issue for discussion in a way that is less likely to be experienced as confrontational or argumentative. Here are three “soft starts” that engage the other directly and kindly:

— How to express a concern without making things worse

Go deeper

When confronting difficult behavior, we typically focus on what we want the other person to stop doing. Sometimes this works. But too often, we create a “behavior vacuum” with this approach, making it hard for them to stop the difficult behavior. You can avoid this common misstep by going to “Do-Land”:

— Avoid this common blunder when confronting difficult behavior

Elsewhere

A completely different way to deal with difficult behavior is to, well, embrace it — to re-cast it in our minds from “rebelliousness” or “trouble” to “contribution.” One way to do this is to trade “shoulding” with “coulding.” When the researchers asked groups either “What should you do?” or “What could you do?” in response to a problem, they found the “could” group was able to stay open-minded and generate more creative solutions. Sometimes, they noted, rule-breakers have a lot to teach us:

— When solving problems, think about what you could do, not what you should do

Take care of each other,
Tammy

P.S. In the wake of the Uvalde tragedy, I received several requests for tips to engage family and friends who don’t share your view.

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  • Safeguarding the space between
  • Fine-tuning communication
  • Maintaining composure
  • Recognizing mental models
  • Choosing good process
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