CHAPTER 1

Can This Conversation Be Saved?

Communication breakdowns are bad news for our lives and work. At best, they're asource of irritation and frustration. At worst, they can threaten our jobs,families, and friendships—and in some cases, even our health. Researchsuggests that failed communication is one of the leading causes of preventablemedical errors.

The Surprising Common Factor in All Communication Breakdowns

How can we go about improving our conversations? First we need to get clearabout exactly what's going wrong. We can't solve a problem if we don't knowwhat's causing it. However, when it comes to communication problems, the causeis often tricky to spot. Consider the following conversation between a physician(Dr. M) and his patient's daughter (Sarah). As you read it, see if you canfigure out what's causing the trouble between them:

Sarah began by saying, "It's so upsetting to see my father in thiscondition. I know this is not how he'd want to spend the last days of his life."

"I'm very sorry," replied Dr. M, emotionless.

"I think it's finally time to take him off the respirator."

"I can see how you'd feel that way now," said Dr. M, "but this new medicationmay start to improve his quality of life."

"At this point, that's just not enough. He's never going to get to the pointwhere life is worth living again."

"Wouldn't it be better to wait and be certain? I'm sure you want to explore allthe options."

"We've waited so long already," said Sarah, whining now, "and nothing hashelped!"

Still very calm, Dr. M replied, "The morphine has helped to make him morecomfortable, and his breathing seems a little easier today."

"Look," said Sarah, exasperated, "I just can't talk to you about thisanymore!"

What's going on here? What made that conversation so difficult? When we presentthis dialogue in our training sessions, people usually come up with twodifferent types of explanations: blaming the people and blaming the issue. Infact, these are the most common reasons people give for any type ofcommunication failure. Unfortunately, neither explanation is particularlyuseful.

Explanation 1: Blaming the People

If you blamed the problem on Dr. M or on Sarah, you're using the peopleexplanation. From this point of view, communications fail because ofpsychological factors, such as attitudes, emotions, intentions, motivations, orpersonality traits. In the hospital case, we might decide there's somethingwrong with Dr. M (he's cold and insensitive, and doesn't care about Sarah'sconcerns), with Sarah (she's too emotional or too pessimistic), or with both ofthem (they're both too rigid and set in their views).

The psychological perspective has a strong intuitive appeal. It may seem likecommon sense—of course people's bad attitudes, hidden agendas, and ragingemotions ruin conversations; you can probably think of a few examples off thetop of your head. However, this type of thinking also leaves us in a bind, withno good way to solve our problems.

Suppose you decide that the real trouble with your communication is someoneelse's defensiveness or overemotional reaction. That's not something you havethe power to control. In fact, if you try to control it and force the person tochange, you're likely to make things worse. If you don't believe us, ask anybodywho's tried to resolve an argument by saying things like, "Stop being sodefensive," "Calm down," or "You need to relax." (Imagine what would havehappened if Dr. M told Sarah to be more rational, or if she told him to showsome feeling.) Moreover, even if it were possible to make someonechange—perhaps by convincing them to get coaching or go intotherapy—that's a long-term process. It's not an efficient strategy formaking your conversations work better right now.

Sometimes it may seem as though the only solution is to get the difficult personout of your life—quit your job, fire your employee, seek a divorce, and soon. Even if you haven't gone through this type of thought process yourself, youlikely know people who have. You probably know more than one person who's actedon that reasoning, only to end up having the very same conflicts a few monthslater in their new job or new relationship. And of course, it's often notpossible to exclude someone from your life. In our example, so long as Dr. M iscaring for Sarah's father, they have no choice but to talk to one another.

The Usual Suspects

When a conversation fails, it's easy to blame:

The people. Difficult personalities, motivations, or emotional states

The topics. Touchy issues and irreconcilable differences

Explanation 2: Blaming the Topics

If you don't blame a communication breakdown on the people, you might be temptedto blame it on the topics being discussed. Perhaps some topics are socontentious or emotionally charged that a certain amount of frustration—oreven bitter fighting—is simply inevitable. From this perspective, nobodyis to blame because no better result was possible. The conversation was doomedfrom the outset.

Sarah's conversation with Dr. M, evaluating whether or not her father's life isworth living, certainly falls into the category of highly charged topics. Thequestion of taking a person off life support can stir up a lot of controversyand moral outrage, even when the person involved is a stranger. It's easy to seehow this contentious issue could be a big part of the problem.

Unfortunately, that explanation gets us no closer to finding a solution than thepeople-blaming approach. When you identify the subject matter as the source ofyour trouble, you're basically admitting defeat. There may be some difficultconversations you can simply avoid. For instance, you could decide not to talkabout religion when you're around a particular colleague, or to avoid politicaldebates with your parents. But much of the time, avoidance is not an option.Whenever you have a real problem you need to resolve—your employee ismaking costly mistakes, your department is facing tough layoff decisions, yourspouse is threatening to leave you, one of your kids has started using drugs, oryour dying father is suffering in the hospital—sidestepping the issuewon't make it go away.

Explanation 3: The Real Reason Why Conversations Fail

Focusing on who's talking or what they're talking about doesn't just leave uswithout solutions. It also distracts us from the true cause of communicationproblems:...