CHAPTER 1

Choose What and IfHow to Know What Conversation to Hold and If You Should Hold It

I made a Freudian slip last night. I called my husband by the name of my firstboyfriend. It was embarrassing.

I did the same sort of thing. I meant to say to my husband, "Please pass thepotatoes," but I said, "Die, loser; you've ruined my life!"

Problems rarely come in tiny boxes—certainly not the issues we care about. Thosecome in giant bundles. For instance, your boss promises you a raise and thenrecants. This is the second time he's promised you something only to go back onthe promise, except this time he dropped the bomb in a meeting, and so youcouldn't complain on the spot. When you stopped him in the hallway to bring upthe issue, he told you that he was in a hurry and said you should "stop beinginsensitive to my time demands." You asked if you could talk later, and he said,"Hey, I didn't get the money I deserved either."

Let's try a home example. Your in-laws just walked in unannounced while you wereeating dinner. You've talked to them about giving you a heads-up, particularlyif they plan on dropping in at dinnertime, and they still prance in on a whim.What problem do you address?

You don't have enough food to go around. That could be easy to discuss. They'verepeatedly promised they would notify you but are constantly breaking thatagreement and losing your trust. That is likely to be hard to bring up. Finally,after turning down your invitation to join you at the table, they pout andwhimper in the corner. That could be really difficult to confront.

In each of these cases, you're left with two questions that you have to answerbefore you open your mouth: What? and If? First, what violation or violationsshould you actually address? How do you dismantle a bundle of accountabilityproblems into its component parts and choose the one you want to discuss? Youhave a lot to choose from, and you can't talk about them all, at least not inone sitting. Second, you have to decide if you're going to say anything. Do youspeak up and run the risk of causing a whole new set of problems, or do youremain silent and run the risk of never solving the problem?

Let's take these two questions one at a time. We'll deal with the if questiononce we've resolved the what question.

CHOOSING WHAT

The question of what you should discuss may be the most important concept wecover in this book. When problems come in complicated bundles, and they oftendo, it's not always easy to know which problem or problems to address.

For example, a teenage daughter swears to her father she'll be home from herfirst big date by midnight but doesn't come home until 1 a.m. Here's thepressing question: What problem should he discuss? "That's easy," you say. "Shewas late." True, that's one way to describe the problem.

Here are several other ways: She broke a promise. She violated her father'strust. She drove her father insane with fear that she had been killed in a carwreck. She purposely and willfully disobeyed a family rule. She openly defiedher father in an effort to break free of parental control. She was getting evenwith her father for grounding her the weekend before. She knew it would driveher father bonkers if she stayed out late with a guy who sports a dozen faceperforations, and so she did that.

Although it's true that the daughter walked in the door 60 minutes after curfew,this may not be the exact and only problem her father wants to discuss. Here'sthe added danger: if he selects the wrong problem from this lengthy list ofpossible problems and handles it well, he may be left with the impression thathe's done the right thing. However, if you want to follow the footsteps of ourpositive deviants, you have to identify and deal with the right problem, or itwill never go away. This still leaves us with this question: What is the rightproblem?

Signs That You're Dealing with the Wrong Problem

Your Solution Doesn't Get You What You Really Want

To get a feel for how to choose the right problem, let's look at an actual casewe recently uncovered during a training session for school principals. It's froma grade school principal's experience. During recess a teacher notices thefollowing interaction. Two second-grade girls are playing on the monkey bars. AsMaria pushes Sarah to hurry her along, Sarah shouts, "Don't you ever touch meagain, you dirty little Mexican!" Maria counters with, "At least I'm not a bigfatty!" This is the precipitating event.

The principal calls the children's parents, describes what took place, andexplains that the school will be disciplining them. Maria's parents are finewith the idea and thank the principal, and that's the end of the discussion.Sarah's mother takes a different approach. She asks, "Exactly what form ofdiscipline will each child receive?" The principal explains that the disciplinewill suit the nature of the offense.

The next day Sarah's mother shows up unannounced, catches the principal in thehallway, and proclaims in loud and harsh tones that she doesn't want the schoolto discipline her daughter. She'll take care of the discipline on her own. Theprincipal explains that the school is bound by policy to take action. In fact,tomorrow Sarah will be separated from her...