ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Maxfield is coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, Influencer.

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  Dear Crucial Skills,

My supervisor often gives me leadership responsibility for projects involving multiple departments. However, my position is not viewed as one of authority. As a result, I struggle to get results from others when I ask them to do something. When I present my lack of progress and ask for assistance, I’m told I need to stop blaming others for my lack of results. Since I have been trained to teach Crucial Conversations, my supervisor assumes I should be able to convince others to shift their priorities. Unfortunately, people outside of my department are not able to make my request their No. 1 priority, no matter how many Crucial Conversations skills I employ.

How do I get my supervisor to see that I need her support, without making her think I am blaming others? I am at the end of my rope!

Without Support

 Dear Without,

You are not alone. When I was teaching at Stanford’s Advanced Project Management Program this was the participants’ most frequent concern. You’re given lots of accountability, but no authority, and you’re expected to use your skills and charm to get it all done.

It doesn’t work that way, does it?

Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations focus on dialogue skills—the skills required to reach shared understanding and commitment. These skills would be all you needed if the lack of cooperation you were experiencing was the exception, not the rule. However, it sounds as if it’s the rule, and that tells me you need to change the rules. You need a structural solution—a solution that involves all six sources of influence.

The situation you describe calls for a project-management system, one that people buy into and have the skills to use. Then it requires holding people accountable to the system—not just to your individual projects.

I will walk through the influence model found in our book Influencer to help you solve this problem. The process starts with identifying measurable results you want to achieve; next, you identify a few key behaviors that, if changed, will bring about those results; and finally, you must outline strategies to accomplish your vital behaviors using six different sources of influence.

Measurable Results. Your goal is to ensure project schedules, budgets, and specs are met.

It sounds as if your projects have to compete with employees’ other tasks. That’s to be expected. The problem occurs when your projects never get a high enough priority, or when the priority gets bumped. Instead of focusing on your project, focus on the overall project-planning process. Your goal is to get people to commit to a fair process—one that meets their objectives as well as yours. Then your challenge is to help everyone stick to the process. Become a champion for the process, not just your project. This change will create greater Mutual Purpose.

Vital Behaviors. The vital behaviors you’ll want to focus on are:

1. Prioritizing all of your project’s tasks against people’s competing tasks.
2. Ensuring that people who complete the tasks have input into the project plan and sign up to deliver on realistic schedules, budgets, and specs.
3. Ensuring that when people have reason to believe they could miss a schedule, budget, or spec, they will immediately update the team on the problem.

The Six Sources of Influence. The sources of influence and specific strategies you’ll need to target are:

Source 1 - Personal Motivation: The people you rely on are feeling a lot of pain. Their plates are too full; they feel as if they have five bosses; and they’re constantly being blindsided with new unexpected demands. Instead of turning up the heat regarding your projects, get their buy-in to a more consistent process—one that has realistic priorities and plans.

Source 2 - Personal Ability: You and your colleagues may have to learn basic project-management principles. Look for resources that are already available within your firm. such as a project-management specialist. Once you have a project-management system in place, you’ll find your Crucial Conversations skills will become more powerful.

Sources 3 & 4 - Social Motivation & Ability: The most important social support you need is from your manager and the managers your resource people report to. They need to fully support a more robust project-management system. Ease their concerns that the priority-setting process may take more time and is less flexible by demonstrating how results are delivered far more reliably.

Source 5 - Structural Motivation: I bet the employees you count on are rewarded for achieving results within their own departments, and not for achieving your goals. Goals that require cross-functional teamwork are often shortchanged. Work with your manager and the resource managers to find ways to reward people for executing on their plans and for keeping to the project-planning process you’ve outlined. Even tiny changes to these reward systems will send a powerful message that managers are serious.

Source 6 - Structural Ability: This entire approach relies on implementing a project-management structure. Check to see if you already have one that’s gone dormant. Check to see if your organization has a Project Management Office that can help you re-invigorate your project structure. Here are some basic structural elements I’d want to see: a priority-setting process that involves the right stakeholders; a project planning process that results in realistic schedules, budgets, and specs; project status meetings that keep the projects on track; a measurement system that provides ongoing feedback on how well people are keeping to their project plans.

Report Back to your Manager. Meet with your manager and frame the larger issue. It isn’t just about executing your projects; it’s about executing any and all projects. Bring in whatever facts you can to back up your case. If you don’t have data on missed deadlines, budget overruns, and failures to meet specs, then bring in examples of the problems: for example, people have unclear priorities, priorities that constantly change, objectives that aren’t realistic, and no clear project plans to follow. Explain that solving this larger problem is the best way to solve your specific problem.

Best of luck in influencing your organization,
David

David Maxfield Influencer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Dear readers,

I seem to have struck an awkward chord with several of you out there. I appreciate your watchfulness and dedication to the skills of good communication and consideration. I took a risk in distilling a rather long incident into a short story—please allow me to fill in some of the details.

Some of you have suggested that I was a bit of a wimp and should have taken a stronger stance with my step-grandfather. It’s true—at that time in my life I often chose silence over speaking directly. I was years away from studying and writing Crucial Conversations, and am grateful for the impact those skills have had on my life since. When this story occurred, I was in my mid 20s, dealing with my grandmother’s new husband, and trying to balance being nice to him with the needs of my family. I didn’t really know what to do or say. I hinted several times that we needed to cut the tour a bit short, my grandmother practically begged him, and my wife was quite direct—all to no avail. We were fairly open, but unsuccessful.

Some readers felt that I was the insensitive and excessively focused one in the story. Certainly a janitor would be interested in a janitorial tour. I agree. I was at first surprised by Bert’s reaction. I didn’t know my step-grandfather all that well, but we did adjust to his wishes and then tried to find a way to tailor a tour for him that wasn’t so painful for everyone else. In this we failed.

What I intended to illustrate in this article was the fact that we, like Bert, often get so amazingly focused on one element of our lives (or our arguments) that we miss other important features. Bert, as I learned from further exposure, was a classic low self-monitor who I believe was almost incapable of reading social cues. Recent studies of how the brain functions suggest that a certain portion of our population use their brains in different ways—making it very difficult for them to see what others see in the most simple of human interactions. I find myself acting like this when I get too caught up in an argument. Bert acted this way all the time.

It was with this in mind that I wrote my most recent column. My life has improved greatly as I’ve learned to monitor conversations around me—both the impact I’m having and the skills others are using—and I hope others might benefit from a similar awareness. My apologies to those who found me weak and insensitive. I appreciate the chance to review and improve my crucial conversations skills.

Thanks for your insightful comments,

Kerry

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Every family has at least one kooky relative, and mine is no exception. In our case it was my step-grandfather Bert who routinely provided us with endless tales of quirkiness and interpersonal insensitivity. For instance, once when my wife and I had not seen Bert and my grandmother Dorothy for years, they dropped unannounced into our apartment in the town where I was attending school at the time. When it comes to social interaction, Bert is a train wreck, so, true to form, he initiated his conversation by stating, “You’ve certainly porked out since I last saw you. It looks like you swallowed your own eight-year-old self. Ha ha!”

After Bert ranked on me for an hour or so, he eventually asked for a tour of the campus. Glad to escape the insensitive humor and all-around rudeness, my wife and I buckled our two baby girls into our VW bus and, along with Bert and Dorothy, started out on what we hoped would be a pleasant tour of the campus—one where we would putt along amicably while discussing the university’s architecture, history, and curriculum.

Bert wasn’t interested in any such “foo-foo crapola” (his words, not mine). No, Bert wanted to walk inside the buildings and see stuff up-close-and-personal. After walking through the humanities quad, where he never once raised his eyes above the kick plates, Bert asked me to take him to the janitor’s closet. As if students carried a pass key or knew the entry code. Eventually, Bert found the custodial nerve center where he enthusiastically examined cleaning solutions while my wife and I tried our best to keep our toddlers from eating them.

As you’ve probably guessed, Bert was a custodian. To him, visiting a university didn’t mean examining the curriculum or listening to a lecture, it meant exploring the things that needed to be cleaned. It was the world Bert cared about and, as near as I could tell, pretty much the only one he saw.

The fact that Bert was interested in taking a custodial tour wasn’t the problem. Granted, it’s a bit odd to be touching and sniffing cleaning chemicals when touring a college campus with your grandchildren, but the issue here wasn’t Bert’s quirkiness, it was his insensitivity. Bert took my wife, my children, and me on a lengthy janitorial journey with no thought whatsoever of our needs or interests. In fact, the more we hinted and complained about stepping over sewer pipes or avoiding the flames that were leaping out of the power plant, the more Bert threw himself into the tour.

And it only grew worse. The sun kept beating down, my youngest daughter actually wedged her binky under a wrecking ball, my wife gave me one of her “he’s your relative” stares—and Bert? Well, he droned on.

Now, don’t get me wrong. You can care passionately about a lot of different things and still be socially well adjusted. Unfortunately, like Bert, many of us follow our interest in a subject with such fire and focus that we lose our social graces in the process—even if just temporarily. For instance, when caught in a debate at work we turn our attention so intensely on our side of the argument that we often miss the net effect of our actions. It may not be wax on the floor beneath us that we obsess over, but like Bert, when we’re caught up in the details of our own viewpoint, we often fail to notice that we’re turning people off to it. Or if we do notice that we’re not having the effect we had hoped for, we’re not sure what to do instead.

The good news is that not only can we easily improve our ability to note when we’re losing our social sensibility, but we can also improve the skills we employ when trying to express our views. That’s because the tools for enhancing our social repertoire are all around us. We actually live in the best laboratories available. We call them kitchens and offices and meeting rooms, but they are laboratories nevertheless.

How do these labs work? To quote from the renowned social commentator Yogi Berra: “Sometimes you can observe a lot by just watching.” If we take our focus off the arguments we and others are making and carefully watch others in action, noting what works and what doesn’t, we can turn every social venue into a learning lab. For instance, Jean Piaget made some great discoveries in the field of child development simply by watching his own children at home. Socially gifted people aren’t born gifted. They learn the skills by watching social interactions with the same level of interest Bert had for studying floor wax.

So, take a lesson from my experience with Bert. As you become more and more drawn into an argument, take your focus off “your thing.” Step out of the argument and observe how others are responding and note if communication ceases—even while you’re still talking. If that is the case, take the opportunity to apologize, open the conversation up to everyone, and get back on track. And drawing on these same observational skills, on those occasions when you yourself aren’t in the middle of the debate but are on the sidelines (perhaps in a meeting), observe gifted people in action. Focus on what they do, what works and why. Turn every high-stakes, emotionally charged discussion into a learning opportunity.

Turn your world into a stimulating learning lab, not just a place that needs to be waxed.

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ron McMillan is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Dear Crucial Skills,

I recently had an argument with someone at work because I misunderstood what she was saying to me and I said some things in return that I regret. I took your course but the skills went away from me when my emotions kicked in. Now, even though we have met with the clinical coordinator and everything seems to be ironed out, she is very cool toward me. I have apologized and even sent her a card, but I feel I truly blew it and now I’m unsure we’ll ever get back to where we were. Do you have any suggestions about what I can do to help bridge the gap?

Still Embarrassed

 Dear Still Embarrassed,

We all make mistakes in our communication with others. The wise among us recognize the error and apologize to the offended person. You, having said things you regret, have taken these steps. You even went the extra mile and sent a card to apologize. Well done.

These actions are all within our control. What are not in our control are the other person’s feelings and response. Others get to decide how they’ll respond to your efforts to set things right. Sometimes they’ll forgive you and move on. Sometimes they decide to hold a grudge. Sometimes they feel hurt and may discount your apology as insincere, or they take it as sincere but steel themselves against you, wondering when it will happen again.

I wonder if the latter is the case with your coworker. Maybe she sees your efforts to be kind and respectful, but is looking, waiting, and wondering when you will lash out again.

In cases like this, consider a metaphor. Your efforts to be respectful and treat your coworker well are like pebbles. Water is like distrust or unease. You drop pebbles into the water hoping they will pile up, build mass, and rise above the water so that your respect and good intentions become the focus and substance of your relationship instead of the distrust. However, your pebbles seem to sink out of sight, making no appreciable difference. The key to changing this situation is to create a new context for your relationship, a way to capture the pebbles and make them count.

Let me share an illustration. As I finished a Crucial Conversations workshop, a middle-aged man approached me. He thanked me for the workshop and said he was the single parent of three teenagers. He had tried to apply the things I had advocated with his children, by consciously and consistently attempting to build trust and respect with them over the last year—but, it wasn’t working. They still distrusted him. He said they were “gun-shy” of him.

I asked him if something specific had happened a year ago. He became emotional and explained that he had come home drunk and “slapped his kids around.” He said that when he woke the next morning and realized what he had done, he was mortified and wanted to die. He vowed to stop drinking and has not touched alcohol since. Over the last year, he has been on his best behavior with his children, not slipping once, but they are still emotionally distant.

I asked him what had happened between him and his children the morning after the hurtful incident. He explained that he sat down with his children and told them how sorry he was for hurting them and asked for their forgiveness. Nothing else was said and every kindness he has offered since, although appreciated, was no more than a pebble sinking in the pond.

For this father, I believe his heart is right and his children are aware of his kindnesses toward them, but they seem to be on guard and wary. Rather than seeing his awful behavior as a once-in-a-life-time mistake, they may fear they got a glimpse into their Father’s real feelings and that he may erupt again at any time.

Picture how the situation would have been different if the morning after the incident, the father had gathered his children and given a heart-felt apology, asked for their forgiveness, then said, “I want you to know as of this moment, I will never drink alcohol again. Never. And I will never raise my hand against you. I will never strike you or hit you. I love you and you can count on my promise.”

Whether or not the children believed him at that moment, he would have created a context for their relationship, a clear set of expectations they could use to hold him accountable. From that moment forward, every sober day would be evidence that Dad was keeping his word. The context Dad created was like a jar of water. Every time Dad kept his word it was like putting a pebble in the jar. Instead of sinking away, it’s captured in the jar and displaces some of the water. Over time, the jar fills with respect and good intentions and empties of distrust and unease.

Even now, it’s not too late for this Father to create a new context for his relationships. This is done by setting clear expectations going forward, and informing his kids of what they can expect from him. Dad could meet with his children, reference what happened a year ago, detail the things he has done to make sure it never happened again—including his having given up alcohol. He could then create clear expectations going forward. “I will never drink again. I will never hit you. If I’m angry, I’ll do what I did during this past year: I’ll talk it through with you. I love you and will keep my promise to you.” If he sets these expectations, even though it’s a year late, the children will not only start putting pebbles in the jar, they may even retrieve some from their memories, and the jar will be filled quickly and their trust restored.

Now, your offense was nowhere near the severity of the Dad in this story; however, the principle still applies. I would encourage you to build a context for your relationship with your coworker. Sit down with her and begin by stating the facts: “Two weeks ago, I yelled at you and called you a ‘yellow-bellied sap-sucker’” (or whatever you really said). “I also apologized to you and sent you a card asking for your forgiveness.”

Having stated the facts, express what you really want for the relationship: “I hope we can have a professional, respectful, warm relationship going forward.”

Next, create the accountability. “In the future, you can expect that I will work hard at being respectful and professional.” You don’t need to obtain a commitment in kind from her; you just need to keep your commitment. In this way, you’ve given her the jar, and maybe because of the way you’ve handled it, she’s already put several pebbles in.

I wish you the very best in your efforts to build good, strong, effective relationships.

Ron

Ron McMillan Crucial Conversations

VitalSmarts’ most popular junior scientist, Hyrum Grenny, conducts a playful experiment to solve America’s hand-hygiene problem—a problem that leads to infection and avoidable medical errors. In fact, in America’s hospitals, hand washing compliance rates hover between 30 to 50 percent! Watch as Hyrum teaches strategy and principles to change behavior using a group of 80 unsuspecting kids and cupcakes.

Please share this video with your teams, organizations, friends, and family. To spread these powerful principles of influence, consider:

• E-mailing this link to your colleagues: http://www.crucialskills.com/2009/09/all-washed-up/
• Embedding the video on your blogs and Web site with the following code:
  <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/osUwukXSd0k&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0×3a3a3a&color2=0×999999"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/osUwukXSd0k&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0×3a3a3a&color2=0×999999" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

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Influencer Training is a step-by-step strategy for solving entrenched problems by changing behavior. Learn how you can bring this award-winning training into your organization today by calling us at 1-800-449-5989 or visiting our Web site.

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editor Influencer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Grenny is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Dear Crucial Skills,

I’m holding a performance review with one of my direct reports. The way we do it here is that he rates himself first. Next, I provide a rating and lots of data to support it. It’s not unusual for the employee to offer a higher rating than the supervisor, but this time it was much higher.

And here’s the tricky part. At the end of the performance review I’m supposed to assign improvement goals to him. I did, but he disagreed with all of them because he thinks he walks on water and I think he’s under water. Now he’s got goals I know he doesn’t believe he needs to work on. What next?

Signed,
Agree to Disagree

  Dear Agree to Disagree,

Sounds like an awkward moment. One I’ve been in myself. (We recently recreated one of these kinds of awkward performance reviews in a video.) It should be no surprise to those of us in leadership positions that we often have to confront people’s illusions about themselves. The fact that human beings have an incredibly inflated sense of efficacy is also no surprise. I just attended my son’s soccer game last Saturday and smiled when I heard parents from both sides swearing vehemently that the ref was obviously playing for the other team. We all think we do better, deserve more, and are perfectly informed far more often than is the case. (Note: The ref did, in fact, favor the other team).

The tricky thing in performance reviews is that even leaders might have an inflated sense of rightness. And these leaders are seated across the table from someone who likely suffers from the same affliction. So how can two imperfect people muddle their way toward truth?

The answer is to trust the dialogue. A better approximation of truth is much more likely to emerge through healthy dialogue. So here are a few tips to help the dialogue happen in the emotionally charged atmosphere of a performance review.

1. Decide how to decide. To avoid violated expectations, be clear up front that while your strong preference is to arrive at consensus about the rating and goals, at the end of the discussion you as the supervisor are charged with making the final decision. Do not overstate this—let your team member know that you are willing to spend the time and energy required to reach a common view of things and would only make an independent decision if it’s clear you cannot do so in a reasonable amount of time.

2. Don’t own the burden of proof—share it. Don’t get cornered into feeling like you have to convince your direct report that you are “right.” That’s not your job. Your job is simply to share your view. If you find yourself trying to convince your team member that your view is “right,” then you’ve stepped out of dialogue and into monologue. You need to step away from your own conclusions and recognize that they are just one view of the truth. Take a few deep breaths and open yourself to a different perspective. Share the responsibility for arriving at the “right” conclusion. Let him know that you’d like his help in making sense of a substantial amount of data. You should feel that together, you’re filling a pool of meaning, not that you’re trying to convince each other of your story.

3. Separate content and pattern. Often, the disconnect comes because the supervisor has seen a pattern and is attempting to help the employee recognize and take responsibility for this pattern. Yet the employee doesn’t own up to these behaviors. Instead, he or she explains away one data point after another.

For example, you say, “On a number of occasions, customers have complained that you were brusque or impatient with them.” There’s the pattern you’re trying to establish.

To which your team member says, “Can you give me an example?”

Now, here’s where it gets slippery. At this point, you MUST give him examples. You can’t expect him to just nod robotically to the pattern you’re alleging he has demonstrated. So you give an example: “Last Friday a customer said you dropped his project on the counter and walked away without saying a word.” To which he says, “I remember that—and that’s not what happened. Yes, I didn’t say anything, but I smiled and waved and turned to get a phone call that had been on hold.”

This is a tricky point in the crucial confrontation because something subtle just happened. If you don’t catch it, you’ll end this performance review feeling unsatisfied and at odds. You’ll avoid this outcome if you can recognize what your team member just did. What was it?

He changed the subject from a pattern conversation to a content conversation. You’re now discussing what happened last Friday rather than what happens as a pattern.

Here’s what you have to do to move back to the right conversation: “I see—and I can see how you might have thought you handled things right in that instance. But what I need your help with is the pattern that has emerged. I can share three different examples with you—and there may be extenuating circumstance in each—and yet the pattern is more consistent with you than with other members of the team. That’s what I’d like us to discuss and resolve.”

Do you see what just happened? First, I tried to share responsibility for addressing the pool of meaning. Second, I moved the conversation from content back to pattern. And finally, I set expectations that if he continues to give explanations for every element of the pattern, he’ll still need to address why the pattern is different for him than for other team members.

Now, even if you do all of these things, you still may agree to disagree. In which case, you’ll have to lean back on suggestion number one. You could end with something like: “Well, it seems like we see things differently. I appreciate your patience and hope you can see that I have sincerely wanted to understand your view, as well. Yet I still have to make my best judgment about what’s going on and how to move ahead. I apologize if I am wrong in that judgment, but I ask that you respect the position I’m in and make efforts to respond. I still believe this pattern of brusqueness with customers is an issue you should address. To do so, I ask you to do the following. . .”

Your question demonstrates how seriously you take your coaching role. I applaud your efforts and wish you luck as you sort through your own self-illusions and work to be a positive influence on some of our similarly afflicted colleagues. In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to convince the ref that he’s playing favorites!

Warmly,
Joseph

Joseph Grenny Crucial Confrontations

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ron McMillan is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Dear Crucial Skills,

My husband and our daughter fight a lot but when I try to diffuse the situation they often get angry at me, and as a result I resort to silence. Their most recent fight started with a simple request from my husband for our daughter to put the dog food in the garage and ended with them yelling at each other and my daughter going to her room yelling “I hate you, I’m moving out!”

After reading Crucial Conversations I decided to listen and evaluate their conversations. I learned they both go to violence and they both have the same goal—unfortunately, their common goal is to win the argument! Their relationship is getting worse all the time and I want to help them learn to communicate but I don’t know how.

Caught in the Middle

  Dear Caught,

You are in a difficult position. You are the third party in a relationship with two people who badly mishandle their crucial conversations with each other. Your choice of reactions include: going against them and setting up a three-way gunfight; joining one and ganging up on the other; refusing to participate and walking away; or trying to change the way they interact. The last option is the best choice, but it’s also the most difficult.

Family therapists and professional facilitators spend years learning and conducting real-time mediations to help other people improve communication, but even with years of experience they do so with mixed results. Getting your family to agree to have you facilitate their crucial conversations would be tough enough; actually facilitating the conversations would be even harder.

Perhaps the best way to help your family is to have individual crucial conversations with your husband and your daughter about how they conduct themselves in their crucial conversations. Your role then is not to facilitate their conversations; rather, your role is to help them improve their conversations.

The key to holding effective crucial conversations is to create mutual purpose and mutual respect. These two conditions make it safe to dialogue about tough things.

First, have a conversation with your husband. Begin by sharing the facts with him. For example, you might say, “I noticed when you spoke with Jennifer yesterday about putting the dog food in the garage, you both got very angry and it turned into a fight.”

By sharing the facts and avoiding accusations, you minimize his defensiveness. You also introduce the subject of your conversation with your husband without placing blame.

Let’s say your husband (we’ll call him Larry) gets defensive and responds with, “It wasn’t my fault that it turned into a fight, it’s Jennifer’s lousy attitude that’s the problem.”

Make it safe for Larry by sharing your good intentions and clarifying your purpose. “Larry, I’m not blaming you or suggesting it’s your fault. I just want to figure out how to solve problems in a way that improves relationships in our family.” This skill, called “sharing your good intentions,” discloses what your motives are and identifies your purposes. It also helps your husband see that this conversation is not an attack.

Perhaps Larry responds with silence. Check to see if your purpose is mutual.

“What I want is for problems to be solved—like Jennifer putting the dog food where it belongs—in a way that is respectful. I want her to feel you respect her and I also want her to treat you with respect. Is that what you want too?”

This purpose is likely one that he shares and desires also, in which case, you’ve successfully established mutual purpose.

If you sense your husband is reluctant to try a different approach, share with him the consequences you believe will result if things don’t change.

“Larry, if things don’t improve between you and Jennifer, I’m afraid there will be serious damage to your relationship that could last well into the future. She is getting to the age where she will be making some big decisions and leaving home. I’m worried that a strained relationship might push her away and make her hesitant to confide in us. That will make it difficult for us to be of help to her at this important time.”

If these consequences help him come around then you might move to getting his commitment. If he’s still resisting, you might share a consequence that shows him how this problem affects you. “When you fight with Jennifer, it really hurts me. I love you both and it scares me to see you attacking each other. I feel like our family is breaking apart and it causes me great pain.”

When he expresses a willingness to make things better, it is time to decide who does what by when. What exactly do you want him to do? Do you want him to apologize to Jennifer? Do you want them to sit down and discuss their relationship? Maybe you want him to start with baby steps. “Larry, I want your commitment that you’ll see your relationship with Jennifer as a higher priority than putting away the dog food. That doesn’t mean you let things slide, it just means you will handle things with her in a calm, respectful way. Do I have your promise?”

For someone who is reasonably good at interpersonal relationships, this dialogue may be sufficient for Larry to do things differently. If Larry is less skilled, you may need to factually and accurately describe some of the words and phrases he uses that are disrespectful. Give specific feedback on his behaviors and suggest replacement behaviors or skills that will help him improve.

After getting his agreement to do a better job, suggest a time and date to follow up and talk over how things are going.

After successfully navigating this crucial conversation with your husband, have the same conversation with your daughter.

Conversations with family members about their behavior are tough conversations to hold, but holding them and holding them well is crucial to the well-being of you and your family.

All the best,
Ron

Ron McMillan Crucial Conversations