Power of labels
A regular topic in my coaching work with leaders is ‘difficult conversations’. Seems straight-forward, right? Get a model and guide the person through the techniques for having a ‘difficult conversation’. A few good questions, active listening and off you go. These techniques are very useful. But often there is still this nagging sense that we haven’t got to the heart of the person’s concern.
The way we frame a question in the first place really matters. Difficult conversations. It’s a very common expression in the workplace. So common, that we can easily skip over it and take it as obvious. The problem is in the label.
Words shape our body
Words have the power to trigger our nervous system and shape our bodies. My recent study in Ontological Coaching and the neuroscience of the body highlight this fact. We react to our interpretation of our experience through our whole body. This includes our nervous system, biochemistry and even the way we shape our body structure. We are not just a computer algorithm processing away in a flesh-coloured container. We are a whole human body. This means that words have the power to shape our responses and to generate the mood we are trying to avoid. The words we use to describe an upcoming experience heighten our nervous system. When we say to ourselves ‘Oh, I am going to have a difficult conversation with Mary today at 11am?’ we unintentionally activate our nervous system. Your adrenal glands come to your aid, your muscles tighten, your breathing goes shallow and your brain no longer pays attention to anything else. Your whole system becomes distracted by this ‘difficult conversation’. It’s like saying to yourself; ‘I am going for a shark swim this afternoon.’ Say that and feel what happens in your body. And see how well you stay on task in the morning! Your nervous system is pumping away before you even get there. Your body is already in the ‘difficult conversation’.
You show up ready for ‘difficult’
If I’m the person you are going to have the imagined ‘difficult conversation’ with, I am likely to encounter a very tense human body with resting tight face (or other kind of face). I’ll sense you are primed with a pre-interpretation that every word I utter will be difficult for you.
The mood, body shape and pre-listening you come in with means you are very likely to interpret the other person as being difficult. Sometimes, the moment they walk in the room and let out a sigh, which you interpret as them being difficult by obviously dismissing the importance of the conversation. Actually, it’s because they were up half the night with their dog howling at the moon! Many of the leaders I coach talk about this experience. Also, I can see it in the way they hold themselves as they talk about an upcoming conversation.
Take out the ‘difficult’
What other words might reduce these reactions in our body systems? Think about what you want to do in the conversation. What we want to do is to communicate clearly with the other person. So, what if you said to yourself, “I am going to have a clear conversation with Mary.” Leaders I coach have told me that ‘open conversation’ also works to reduce their physiological priming. Others found ‘direct’ worked for them. In follow up coaching, leaders report back to me that this shift in language really works. Their physiology was less pumped and their mood was more open and constructive. They often report that the conversation turned out to be productive and not really as difficult as they had imagined.
Prime yourself for what you want to be
Hang on, is this just some sort of corporate mind game? You know, let’s pretend that everything is great when it’s not. Aren’t some conversations ‘difficult’? Yes, of course. But they aren’t always the ones we thought were going to be difficult. Sometimes an easy one ends up being difficult and a difficult one ends up being easy. By using the language of ‘difficult conversations’ we imagine a scenario that our body then primes us to deal with. This increases the possibility that the phrase ‘difficult conversation’ becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, if you use words that describe how you want to be in the conversation, like clear, open or direct you will prime yourself to be that. You are also more likely to show up for other people as open and constructive.
