A Difficult Book

[liralen]

So our CEO gave everyone this book called, Difficult Conversations last week and there have been all kinds of jokes about the book going on around the office. No one likes being told what to read or what can help them, I guess.

But everyone got a copy in their mail, and I, wordaholic that I am, started reading it just 'cause it was in front of me.

It was hard to read.

Mostly because the examples they had in the book probably reflected every difficult, argumentative and hard conversation I've had in my life. It was oddly a relief to know that everyone has these kinds of conversations and has them blow up so completely, and also oddly stressful and terrifying, in some ways, to read these things because of all the hooks they had into old conversations that I never felt that good about. The first third of the book was incredibly hard for me to read.

Until I hit the 'know your tendency' bit about some folks tend to blame others and other folks tend to soak up blame. I suddenly tied in the fact that I really, truly soak up blame partially because I believe that if I know that I was at fault then I can do something about it in the future. But I realize, now, that I nearly always go too far in that, especially when I'm talking with someone who really tends to want to blame others. I knew it in vague ways before it was stated so plainly, but now it's pretty damned clear.

It was odd to realize that and realize that a lot of my discomfort in reading this stuff was because I was going back to all those old conversations and thinking, "Damn... I fucked that up..." and at the same time I was also thinking, "Why do *I* have to do all the work all the time?" add to that all the old emotions of "But I can't care so much when I get hurt so badly." With the additional information, it was clear that while I have made mistakes, it isn't up to me to fix them *all* and I can't go back in time and I can do better with the people that really do care to listen to me and that lifted the worst of the reaction. Whew.

I've always thought arguments were pointless, and I've realized in the past that on the most part, whenever I've been in a strenuous argument with anyone all it does is harden each person in their position. I always thought it was just human nature and always felt kind of sick and guilty about fighting, but never really figured out *why*. This book finally gave me the key as to *why*. There are far more important and interesting things to figure out in a conversation with someone than who is 'right' or 'wrong' or 'to blame'... and it was really cool to get a concrete feeling as to why and exactly what those more useful, constructive things are and why there are so many people I really enjoy talking with. Whew.

I also realized why I actually have no problems even talking about sometimes delicate stuff with most people, but there have been three or four people that have made me feel like it was all my fault that we couldn't seem to talk about anything without a fight. While I did do stuff to escalate what was happening, it isn't just me, and it was especially important to me to figure out to really look at the fact that there are many other people that I am comfortable talking with and whom are very, very comfortable talking with me about stuff they never could talk about with anyone else. Balancing the reality of my relationships and interactions against how a few people decide to see me. But now I can see why they decided some of that, too. That was very cool to learn.

So I'd recommend this book to anyone that is terrified of talking to *someone* about something they don't want to hear.

Comments

[flit.livejournal.com]

Smart managers like analytical challengers, but the social skills are important too. People who are more interested in competition than collaboration are disruptive even if they're Right. If no one else wants to work with them because they're too confrontational, then it limits their utility: they can only be used on solo projects, of which there are very few in a company.

I work for people who ask hard questions, who look for the Right Answer. Since they don't make it personal, since it's not about Winning, it works very well. I say this as someone who's been subjected to those hard questions, and who hasn't always been Right.

They have immense respect, and they deserve it. The people who asked hard questions in a nasty way, who avoided the social graces, who pushed buttons instead of keeping it professional? They're gone, and that caused an improvement.

The "touchy-feely goodness" doesn't change the facts. It doesn't mean you back down from the truth. What it does is make the facts a lot more palatable to someone who has a lot of emotional investment in their own opinion, so they work with you instead of against you. It's not a zero sum game.

[zamiel.livejournal.com]

I get by on megadoses of ironic funny, which works much better with my clients on the phone (which, I suppose, is why they keep saddling me with all the pissed-off or upset people, who then go away reassured and perhaps even giggling, if I'm in particularly fine form), but fails rather interestingly with Compaq upper management, because they don't have the strength of the conviction that they have a supportable position, and thus can't stand any kind of challenge that doesn't paint them in glowing light. In fact, they seem to get miffed when you point out how impersonal your challenge is, because if it was personal they could puff and blow, but since its sort of a blanket expression, they actually have to poke holes in the argument. And, inevitably, cannot.

Its interesting to examine the vectors by which respect trickles in. I'm respected by my co-workers, who recognize a broad-spectrum technical competence and someone who'll say all the unpopular things and even use me as a conduit for voicing their own concerns of that nature, because they trust me to say, "No, that's entirely too doofy," if it is, or actually push the envelope if its not. Its the guys that have no idea what it is that I do that have the problems with me. And, of course, the entrenched sacks-o-shite who don't like being stirred around with.

Ever get the feeling that 7yrs in tech support have pretty much soured me on ... well, pretty much everything? I so need a new career.

[flit.livejournal.com]

If your upper management is so dysfunctional they can't take criticism even sugar-coated or impersonal, then there's not much you can do to fix it. The best you can do if you want to stay there is to try to find a good direct manager to shield you from the people above them. It doesn't fix the problem, but it makes it directly tolerable.

It's hard to imagine doing 7 years in tech support and *not* being bitter, actually. Unless you're getting lots of opportunities to change and grow, or getting put into harder and harder problem solving, doesn't it start getting to be pretty much all the same? System or network administration is a typical career path out, or development. Heh, development is the least prone to future bitter, from what I've seen....

[zamiel.livejournal.com]

These are the guys that bought one of the most cutting-edge high-end enterprise technology companies in the world, and sold off the core technology that powered the whole thing (the Alpha chip) in exchange for ... well, nothing. Then they announced moving Tru64 from the Alpha to the Itanium, a chip with a decade less archetectural field-testing. Do you smell an innate problem here?

Pfeh, change and grow. I can't even get into the number of classes I'm supposed to be getting every year. I take management courses when I can because I find the underlying ideas interesting, many times, if only to highlight why these people are so wrong-headed.

What I'd like to get into is enterprise wide data mining/information management, but ... well, its fairly niche.