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The six hardest things to talk about in the workplace.
Politics. Religion. Sex. Money. Feedback. What’s going to happen if the boss leaves.
The six hardest things to talk about around the holiday table.
Politics. Religion. Sex. Money. Feedback. What’s going to happen if mom/dad dies.
Especially after such a divisive election season with every one of the six hard topics in play, emotions are hot and tensions are high. This newsletter addresses how to tackle hard conversations and taboo topics with grace and authenticity.
STORY: How to tackle hard topics.
READ MORE: Resources and videos to help you speak your mind without driving people away.
BOOK STUFF: We’re reading Primal Leadership and meeting December 2 and December 19
PODCAST: Episode 18, the last of this Season, just dropped!
GOING FURTHER: Three events are coming your way!
December 11, 5 pm - Women’s Leadership Collective (FREE)
December 19, noon - Set Your Intention for 2025 (FREE)
April 25-28 - We set dates for the 2025 Heroine’s Journey Women’s Leadership Retreat (APPLY TODAY)
STORY: HOW TO TACKLE AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS
What do you talk to co-workers about? Perhaps the weather. Kids. Pets. Vacations. Sports. Movies.
What don’t you talk to co-workers about? And how does that compare to the list of things you don’t talk to family about?
If you’re anything like me, then the hot button, forbidden topics include politics, religion, sex, money, and succession (aka the boss leaving or mom/dad dying). Like I’m at home with my parents for the holidays and we’re due for a conversation about my parents’ health and what to do about my dad’s recent series of falls. Uncomfortable.
And of course, there’s offering feedback – not “forbidden” but oh so uncomfortable. Like the nonprofit board chair who needs to tell a board member to stop publicly criticizing an employee. And a client of mine who needs to confront an employee who’s been late and unreliable.
To understand what it costs us to avoid a conversation that we really want or need to have, try this short experiment right now. Imagine a polar bear – a healthy 600 pound female with beige-tipped white fur lumbering across an ice shelf trailed by two adorable cubs. Got it? Great! Now set a timer for one minute. For one minute, whatever you do, DO NOT think about that polar bear or her cubs. Every time a polar bear comes to mind is one point against you. Okay… go!
How’d you do?
I did terribly. Nine points. I initially tried to distract myself by thinking about scuba diving in Hawaii – imagining myself amidst coral reefs and tropical fish. However, polar bears swim, and soon I had polar bears swimming with the butterflyfish and cleaner wrasse. So, I opened my eyes to look out the window and there were polar bears lumbering up the hillside. The last 10 seconds I just counted down with the clock trying to breathe, but the white of the numbers reminded me of… you guess it, polar bears. It was excruciating!
Avoiding something you are thinking or feeling is incredibly expensive to your brain. In psychology research studies, suppressing emotions or thoughts leads to unhealthy behaviors, intrusive thoughts, cognitive overload, emotional reactivity, and a decline in well-being compared to conditions where people are allowed to express their emotions or thoughts.
Suppression is costly. Really costly.
The alternative to suppression – revealing – is freeing. If we can’t be vulnerable and reveal ourselves around big things like our beliefs, values, and emotions, then our relationships are built on nothing but air.
“You can only be as connected as you are revealed,” says Jim Dethmer. If we want our relationships to grow deeper, if we want to feel seen and understood, if we want to learn and grow as a human in the company of others, then the only way forward is to reveal ourselves.
How do we do that? Here’s four tips to navigate conflict and difficult conversations.
Tip 1. Feel Fully
The reason we are not sharing is usually because we’re avoiding uncomfortable feelings like fear, hurt, anger, sadness, or disappointment. Questions arise in our mind: What will they think? How will they respond? Why should I have to be the one to bring up an awkward topic?
Before you do anything else, let yourself feel your feelings all the way through.
Starting with my excursion into the desert to find my anger and more recently through attending the Conscious Leadership Integrity Boot Camp and in reading Primal Leadership for my book club (come join us), more and more I’m allowing emotions to flow naturally when they arise in myself and others. Negative emotions aren’t scary things to be avoided. They’re a core part of the human experience, hard-wired into the limbic parts of our brain. It’s natural to feel afraid and anxious, sad and angry, hurt and disappointed. In fact, allowing negative emotions to flow all the way through has helped me feel more vibrant and more alive.
Emotions evolved biologically in order to shape our responses to things that happen to us in the world, and to give others clues about what we’re feeling and likely to do. Suppressing emotions prevents us from fully understanding ourselves, each other, and the world around us.
Fortunately, letting emotions flow doesn’t take a lot of time. A single wave of emotion only lasts a few minutes, usually 90 seconds or less. If you’re too shy to reveal your emotions in front of others just yet, a quick bathroom break or “trip to the car to get something” is a great excuse to let yourself cry, ball up your fists and growl in frustration, or go fetal in fear. Let that 90 second wave of feeling pass by without fighting it or trying to change it. It’s an embodied way to acknowledge the polar bear of emotion inside.
Pretty soon, you’ll notice the feeling shift. Maybe it’ll soften and unclench. Maybe butterflies will move from your stomach to your throat. Maybe you’ll find sadness underneath the fear. Simply sit with the feeling until the waves subside. Trust me, you’ll feel better.
At that point, you’re ready for tip 2.
Tip 2. Speak Unarguably
Now that your emotions won’t come out sideways when you address the issue, you’re ready to reveal. You’ve probably heard people talk about using “I” statements to express themselves in a less threatening, less argumentative way. And yes, “I” statements work. But here’s 3 ways to take “I” statements further into what the Conscious Leadership Group calls “speaking unarguably”.
Speaking unarguably means speaking the truth of your experience from a place of curiosity and learning. It’s not about making the other person see your point of view. It’s not about them, it’s about you – sharing your truth and then genuinely getting curious about what is possible to learn about yourself and your relationship. Your reveal is the opening invitation to connect.
Let’s take that example of talking to my dad about his recent falls.
I started speaking unarguably by noticing what I felt in my body as I thought about his recent series of falls. I felt twisting in my stomach and an anxious desire to hold his arm. I felt trembly. So I simply shared that: “Hey dad, when I think about you and your recent falls, my stomach twists into a knot, and I feel a trembly desire to hold your arm.”
Next, name the feeling. For me that’s worry and anxiety: “That this has happened several times in the last few months has kept me feeling worried and anxious.”
Finally, name the thought but in a way that separates fact from story. Facts are what a video camera would record and playback. Stories are all the thoughts and narratives we tell ourselves about those facts. A great master’s degree level “I” statement that acknowledges that your truth is a story is not necessarily a fact uses this sentence starter: “I’m having the thought that…” So I said, “Dad, I’m having the thought that getting a smart watch with fall detection would be a wise investment.” Notice how framing thoughts in this way leaves the door open to curiosity, learning, and connection. Notice how the attention is put upon the position, idea, or policy, not on my dad and his identity, beliefs, or motives.
In summary, here’s three ways to speak unarguably:
In your body: “I notice…”
In your heart: “I feel…”
In your mind: “I’m having the thought that…”
Tip 3. Listen Completely
From here, just listen. This is not about convincing, fixing, defending, advising, diagnosing or judging… it’s about understanding. It’s the mindset one brings to an international cultural exchange experience – genuine, open-ended interest and curiosity.
You can deepen your ability to listen completely by asking, “And what else?” Extra credit if you reflect back what you hear in your own words with something like, “What I hear you saying is… Is that right?”
When they say, “Yes. That’s right.” Then you know you’ve listened completely. You’ve drawn out their truth and now you are both fully revealed.
Tip 4. Connect Deeply
From here, the conversation opens up into a back and forth that is an opportunity to share life experiences, wants, needs, values, desires, and beliefs, and then seek a path forward together.
At the MIT Human Dynamics Lab, they put people into situations such as salary negotiations, speed dating, and job interviews. One of the coolest things they found was that 40% of the variation in outcomes came not from the words spoken but from social signaling in the form of facial expressions, tones, gestures, posture, turn taking, pacing, etc. The more people are able to get in sync with one another in all these nonverbal ways, the more successful the outcomes. Speaking your truth, listening completely, and the back and forth that follows, all serve to get people in sync. And it’s when people are in sync that they feel connected and thus can move forward together.
Take for example, my recent conversation with an education colleague about the election. She and I spent over an hour discussing the life experiences that shaped our political views. I learned how her background in economics allows her to see beyond campaign soundbites into the underlying policy impacts. I discovered that we shared common values around kindness, free speech, and community. I found the positive in her perspective, and I think she saw the positive in mine. Moving forward, I’m find myself far more excited to help an organization she runs put on a STEM day for middle school girls.
Or take the example of a school leadership team who struggled to speak to one another about an issue that was dividing them. It was the common theme of newer hires pushing for change leaving long-time employees protecting institutional memory and history. I helped facilitate a conversation in which everyone was invited to speak unarguably, listen completely, and connect deeply. One person mentioned how the little unspoken things become really big things that get in the way of people’s day to day responsibilities and love of their jobs. The ability to clear the air and talk about the polar bears in the room was freeing for everyone, paving the way for this team to make a plan on how they will move forward together.
Take Aways
The fact is, the things we withhold from one another are like bricks in a wall separating us from connection with each other. They are also bricks weighing down our ability to move through the day because so much energy is being diverted towards suppressing the thoughts we’re not sharing and feelings we’re avoiding. By revealing our inner experience, we live more fully.
If you want help with this for yourself or your organization, take a look at the GOING FURTHER section at the bottom of this post.
READ MORE: Resources and videos to help you speak your mind without driving people away.
For help feeling your feelings all the way through, check out this blog post “When Emotions Explode” or podcast episode 16 “Leading with Heart”.
BOOK STUFF:
We’re reading Primal Leadership and meeting TODAY- December 2 and December 19. Register to join us!
PODCAST:
Episode 18, the last of this Season, just dropped! Listen to The five lessons travel taught me about how to live
GOING FURTHER: Three events are coming your way!
December 11, 5 pm - Women’s Leadership Collective (FREE)
Have you ever felt unqualified, like a fraud amongst more talented, brilliant colleagues who have their s**t together. Do you ever worry that one big mistake will result in loss of status, job, esteem, belonging, or control? You aren’t alone.
At October's Women's Leadership Collective (WLC) meeting, the vast majority of the women who came have felt like an impostor which matches the data which suggests nearly 70% of working professionals experience impostor syndrome at some point in their careers. Sooo this month, when we meet, Dec 11th, we’re going to learn how to turn impostor syndrome into an impostor moment with a super playful exercise!
December 19, noon - Set Your Intention for 2025 (FREE)
Endings are a chance for new beginnings. As 2024 draws to a close, it’s time to reflect upon the year and look forward to what may be around the corner. What can we learn from the challenges we faced this year -- personal, professional, and societal? Who have we become? What qualities will we need to cultivate in the year ahead?
Invest some time in yourself during this busy holiday period. We will guide you through a process to create an intention word or phrase (like “alchemist” for Irene or “supreme fortune” for Tutti) that will help your leadership flourish through whatever the new year might bring. You will leave this session with:
Clarity about the future ahead
Understanding of how and why intention-setting works
Roadmap to apply this intention to your life or leadership
April 25-28 - We set dates for the 2025 Heroine’s Journey Women’s Leadership Retreat
Are you an adventurous woman looking to rekindle the passion and purpose that drew you to your work? Leadership can sometimes feel lonely and overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be.
Each year we hold space for an intimate group of seasoned mid-career professionals who long to slow down and fall in love with their work all over again. It’s an opportunity for creative dreaming, away from the daily stresses of leading our organizations and teams. You will be seen, heard, and valued for the inspired leader and messy human you are, and will emerge with hope, inspiration, actionable skills, and greater clarity about your future.
This woman’s leadership retreat weaves together three strands -- group leadership coaching, creative adventuring, and self-paced reflection -- into an unforgettable four day, three night experience in stunning Mendocino, California. LEARN MORE AND APPLY TODAY!
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