While most of us like to think we are generally virtuous and honest people, living and relating with integrity is often much harder in real life. Honesty isn’t black and white, it’s a spectrum; brutally honest sits on the far left, omission in the middle and deceit and lying being down the right end. Every time we open our gobs, our honesty falls somewhere on that line.
100% honesty all the time isn’t practical. We’d probably end up single, jobless and with a whole mess of burned bridges and problems. The idea of the spectrum is to get you to reflect on the extent to which you are being honest.
Honesty and integrity go hand and hand, and often they coincidence with hard conversations. While distraction and avoidance are handy short term fixes, not having hard conversations can significantly impact our mental health, physical health and psychological well-being. Is there a hard conversation that you need to have with someone in your life? If so, the formula below can help you navigate just that.
The formula for having hard conversations:
1. ASK – Do you have the capacity for a (insert adjective) conversation?
2. SET-UP – I want to tell you something
3. EXPLAIN – I haven’t told you yet because I’m afraid…
4. SUGGEST – What I’d like to happen is…
5. DELIVER – What I want to say is…
6. THANK – Thanks for taking the time to listen…
7. RE-VALUE – I really appreciate our relationship. It means a lot to me…
So, what’s the method to the madness? Remember the last time somebody just dropped a massive bomb on you and you weren’t prepared? Not good, right. When we need to have hard conversations, we owe it to our loved ones to pay them some simple respects. We should check in with them and make sure they are emotionally regulated, have time and capacity, and give them a moment to settle in. In order to get the best possible outcome, set up an emotional container.
Once you have their full attention, let them know why it hasn’t come up before. Many hard conversations go pear shaped because the listener reacts and gets angry about possible lying or omission that has gone on before. This is your opportunity to be authentic and vulnerable. The more vulnerable you are, the more likely it is that your listener will lean in with empathy and compassion rather than aggression, hostility and judgment.
Give them a desired outcome so you both have something to work towards, and then deliver the thing you want to say. Be humble, express gratitude, and make your listener feel valued and appreciated. It’s hard to show up on both sides of a hard conversation so the easier we can make it for everyone, the better. Remember that this formula is not fool proof and there will be hiccups along the way, but at least you have a practical framework to fall back on. Here’s to strong relationships built on trust, honesty and integrity. Cheers!
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