Conflict-The Unexpected Gift: Making the Most of Disputes in Life and Work
Author: Jack Hamilton; Elisabeth Seaman; Sharlene Gee
Date: 2014-04-07 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Self Help; Psychology
Description: Conflict—The Unexpected Gift Conflict between people can be defined as a difference that causes disagreements. Authors Jack Hamilton and Elisabeth Seaman go to the root of what causes conflict and how to rebuild relationships. Interpersonal conflicts permeate our lives. Sometimes we believe that another person treated us unfairly, and that assumption causes us to become angry at the person. Such conflicts in relationships often are intensified because of old patterns of thinking and behavior that have gotten out of hand. Becoming aware of someone’s true intentions, and the many factors that ca
Publisher: iUniverse

CONFLICT—THE UNEXPECTED GIFT

Making the Most of Disputes in Life and Work

Third Edition

Jack Hamilton and Elisabeth Seaman
with Sharlene Gee

CONFLICT—THE UNEXPECTED GIFT

MAKING THE MOST OF DISPUTES IN LIFE AND WORK

Copyright © 2014, 2017 by Learn2Resolve

Cover Design by Paul Lachine.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-9389-0864-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9389-0865-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014904717

iUniverse rev. date: 08/25/2017

ENDORSEMENTS

This groundbreaking book shows how moments of breakdown can be used as opportunities for breakthrough. The authors have written a clear guide to understanding our own assumptions in conflict situations and how to make sure they are valid. The book’s tool kit and readability will not only preserve endangered relationships, it will enhance our communities by strengthening our families and work relationships.

—Fred Luskin, PhD, director, associate professor, Stanford Forgiveness Projects; professor, Sofia University;
author of Forgive for Good; Forgive for Love; and
Stress Free for Good (with Kenneth R. Pelletier)

How did this conflict happen? How can I address it? What can I do to benefit from it? Many of us have these questions when we find ourselves in an interpersonal conflict. The authors have produced a succinct and practical guide to address conflict successfully. Mastering their easy-to-follow method will change your life. This book will help you lay defensive reactions aside and make your conflicts work for you.

—Marvin L. Schwartz, JD, mediator and trainer
of more than two thousand mediators

Conflict—The Unexpected Gift uses a simple analogy, a ladder, to outline a useful process for turning conflict into beneficial discussions. The authors use real life stories to demonstrate how to apply simple techniques to resolve a myriad of everyday disputes.

—Nancy Neal Yeend, dispute management
specialist, partner, Y&D Programs, LLC.

This very well-written book describes the key principles of effective conflict management in an easy-to-understand and engaging manner and provides the reader with practical tools for applying those principles in everyday conflicts.

—Patricia Brown, former executive director, Peninsula
Conflict Resolution Center, San Mateo, California

As a manager of mediation programs, as well as a mediator and trainer, I recommend Conflict—The Unexpected Gift for its insights on improving human behavior in a conflict context. I particularly appreciate the tools in this book, such as concrete steps for focusing on positive conflict resolution attitudes and effective listening. This book will be a useful addition to any teaching and learning library.

—Martin Eichner, former director of dispute
resolution programs, Project Sentinel, Inc.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Endorsements

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1:     How This Book Came About

Chapter 2:     The Root Causes Of Conflict

Chapter 3:     Self-Awareness

Chapter 4:     Listening

Chapter 5:     Clarifying Assumptions

Chapter 6:     Going It Alone

Chapter 7:     Apologizing

Chapter 8:     Reaching Agreement

Chapter 9:     Moving Forward

Chapter 10:   Practice, Practice, Practice

Chapter 11:   Mediation

Chapter 12:   Wrapping Up

References

Appendix

About The Authors

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who have provided us with the opportunities we’ve had as mediators and instructors that made this book possible. We owe a great deal to those we’ve worked with for allowing us to include conflicts from their lives that illustrated key dimensions of our conflict resolution approach. And we are indebted to many professionals and researchers in other fields.

We have been guided by insights from our professional training and experience—originally in the fields of mediation, conflict management, psychology, counseling methods, curriculum development and high-tech businesses. At the same time, our approach toward conflict resolution has been strongly influenced by ideas from a number of other fields. This book relies heavily on the work of experts from the disciplines of communication management, emotional intelligence, marriage and family therapy, organizational behavior, social intelligence and social psychology.

We will be forever grateful to Hillary Freeman and Sharlene Gee for the many, many hours we spent together with them researching and writing the first two editions of this book. The insights from their personal and professional experiences, which they contributed to those editions, continue to enrich this edition of the book, as well.

We are also especially grateful to Chris Argyris and Peter Senge. Their explorations into miscommunications and stumbling blocks in organizations and the methods for training individuals to move beyond those obstacles have increased our understanding of how to resolve conflicts. Argyris’s work is one of the sources of our Ladder of Assumptions, which we explain in Chapter 2 and which is incorporated in every chapter in this book. Argyris originated “the Ladder of Inference,” which tracks the way a person takes observations and pairs those observations with speculation to reach a conclusion that can create a potentially destructive action.

We liked the idea of a “ladder” but believed we needed one that was more relevant to the situations of people who approached us for assistance. So we created the Ladder of Assumptions with its fewer rungs and with each rung representing a readily identifiable mental process.

The major source for our explanation of the various dimensions of self-awareness in Chapter 3 is Daniel Goleman’s innovative account of “emotional intelligence,” in which he drew upon the most recent brain and behavioral research.

For our work in developing the four components of “listening for deep understanding” presented in Chapter 4, we are especially indebted to three people: Carl Rogers for his pioneering efforts in developing active-listening techniques that counselors could use with their clients; Thomas Gordon for his groundbreaking application of these techniques in his parent effectiveness training methodology; and Mark Brady for his insights into the key role of skillful listening in the human maturation process.

We are deeply appreciative of the help we received from Karina Schumann, with regard to her research documenting how apologies can be effective in leading to forgiveness and reconciliation after conflicts.

By articulating his novel theory on the positive effects of happenstance in people’s lives, John Krumboltz paved the way for us to present a solid argument that conflict is often a gift for individuals at loggerheads with one another.

We have benefitted immeasurably from the insights of Peter Pearson, a founder of The Couples Institute, which clarified for us the emotional impediments to changing the entrenched behaviors people have and how they can learn to overcome such blocks.

We owe a debt to Doug Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project for articulating the skills of expression people from vastly different backgrounds need to learn to communicate effectively.

We also are indebted to our many colleagues and associates for their detailed feedback on preliminary drafts of the manuscript of this book and to our editor, Gwynne Young, whose insight and intelligence made this a far better book than it otherwise would have been.

Lastly, we treasure our family members and close friends who supported us through the many hours, days, weeks and years it has taken to complete the three editions of this book.

CHAPTER 1
HOW THIS BOOK CAME ABOUT

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

—Winston Churchill

We have been mediators for more than 25 years. Having conducted hundreds of mediations over that time, we nevertheless kept confronting ourselves with a question that nagged at us. Had we done enough to teach the parties to the disputes in our mediations the skills to resolve conflicts on their own? After much soul searching, the answer that we came up with was, “No!”

We had found mediation to be an extremely rewarding process because we had seen the tangible results of people arriving at agreements of their own making as to how they were going to communicate positively in the future. The two of us had mediated cases involving conflicts between adolescent children and parents; adult children and aging parents; husbands and wives; landlords and tenants; employees and managers; coworkers in businesses and nonprofits; neighbors; faculty members in schools and colleges; city council members; and associates and colleagues of all kinds.

Although our clients had often sat down at a mediation table “breathing fire” at each other, in more than 90 percent of the cases we mediated, they had resolved their issues and ended up shaking hands or sometimes even hugging each other. Yet, we privately said to ourselves it hadn’t been enough.

So we decided to do something about that!

We were fully aware of the pervasive role that conflict plays in all our lives. At some point in our lives, most of us have become entangled in a conflict with another person, whether it was a small disagreement with a store clerk or a full-scale battle with a family member. You may even have managed to find yourself in a conflict—perhaps small and seemingly inconsequential but nevertheless a conflict—in the past 24 hours.

Conflict is a natural dimension of human interactions. The rough edges of people’s personalities can irritate others. When that happens, it leads to clashes among people in the life settings they share, often resulting in damage to personal relationships.

These standoffs don’t need to create a lifetime of hurt and anger, however. The capacity to learn how to resolve interpersonal conflicts is deeply rooted in our human potential. It may be one of the most valuable skill sets we can develop over the course of our lives.

After deciding to try our best to do more for our clients, we took the next step and developed a curriculum based on the structured communication principles that are the foundation of the mediation process.

We then used the curriculum to teach conflict resolution skills to a broad spectrum of adolescents and adults. They ranged from middle-school children to public- and private-school teachers and college professors and from city council members to boards of directors. Our client list included employees and volunteers in public and private organizations of all kinds.

Our curriculum ultimately became the basis of this book, Conflict—The Unexpected Gift: Making the Most of Disputes in Life and Work. It emphasizes the need for individuals to develop the following knowledge and skills for resolving interpersonal conflicts:

• learning about the root causes of conflict

• practicing self-awareness

• listening to others with deep understanding

• identifying the negative assumptions we sometimes make about others

• identifying the negative assumptions others sometimes make about us

• clarifying whether these assumptions are valid or unfounded

• apologizing for what people have perceived to be offensive behaviors on our part

• accepting apologies from others for behaviors on their part we have found to be offensive

• reaching agreement on ways to communicate more constructively

• moving forward on fresh paths to revitalized relationships

This works well in a structured educational setting, but in daily life, it is not as easy. People seldom reflect on their thoughts and feelings about the people with whom they’re butting heads. They rarely open up to receive the thoughts and feelings of the people with whom they’re fighting. And rarely do they engage in a dialogue that allows the feuding parties to discuss their assumptions about each other and work together to determine which are valid and which aren’t.

We are presenting Conflict—The Unexpected Gift as a practical book you can use to acquire the skills to span impasses and repair strained as well as broken relationships. We explain why conflicts at first seem so intractable; why people often falter when trying to resolve issues they have with others; and why people sometimes avoid conflicts altogether.

This book is intended to help people of all ages improve their conflict resolution skills. Each chapter offers concrete steps for learning a new way to communicate that helps readers resolve conflicts and build more viable relationships with family members, friends, acquaintances and other people with whom they interact.

We’ve filled the chapters in the book with accounts of people we’ve interacted with in our instructional practice, so you can see the approach in action that we explain in the book. We have used fictitious names instead of real names, and deleted personal information and all other identifying facts, or other unequivocal aspects of one’s identity, to ensure the right of an individual to be protected from the use of his or her real name. In several instances we have reduced the accounts of several people to that of one person, whom we’ve also given a fictitious name.

How to Use This Book

It can be challenging to take the steps necessary to resolve conflicts. Our experience indicates the methods we prescribe are effective. We’ve seen them change people’s lives. That is not to say, however, that personal relationships aren’t complicated. Empathy, for example, is a skill we believe is a necessary building block to help resolve conflicts. Yet, it is a struggle to step away from a conditioned way of looking at things from only your own perspective. You might not really believe you can step into someone else’s shoes. We’ll show you how you can. You’ll find exercises you can use to enhance your empathy skills.

We designed this book, so you could quickly access information most pertinent to your particular situation. That means you can read the chapters in any order. However, we strongly suggest you start by reading Chapter 2, “The Root Causes of Conflict” because in it we describe the “Ladder of Assumptions,” which plays a central role in the book. To be even-handed in the use of genders, we have used the feminine and masculine pronouns interchangeably when writing in general terms.

This book will help you recognize that the behavior of others toward you usually has very little to do with you. Something you did or said may have been a trigger for another’s reactions, but you neither caused that person’s behavior nor were responsible for it. Her actions might have been directed toward you because you happened to be the closest or easiest person to unleash her pent-up emotions on. Maybe your mere presence and proximity were enough to prompt her action. It didn’t have to be directed at you; you just happened to have been there to receive it.

A person’s behavior toward you may be caused by a number of factors, including many the person isn’t even aware of. A person’s behavior is often the result of things happening in that person’s life at that time. Other contributing factors are heredity, early life conditioning, cultural traditions, traumatic experiences and even basic needs that have not been met, such as not getting enough sleep at night.

Conflict—The Unexpected Gift is all about learning how to discover harmony with people who are not like you. Our book provides a whole host of skill-building exercises that enable you, a person who sees the world from one angle of vision, to speak with others who see it from different angles.

Addressing and working through conflicts provide opportunities for change. A pearl starts as an irritation in an oyster. Similarly, a conflict can lead to a new awareness and a new openness in your relationships. Resolving interpersonal conflicts is a process. In the course of analyzing your conflict, you learn to let go of unfounded assumptions and pave new chapters in your relationships. A conflict, when reconciled, can be the gift of a second chance.

It is our firm conviction that a set of practices designed and intended to help people become more skillful at resolving conflicts is one way we can nudge the world—one strengthened relationship at a time—toward solving the growing number of problems that result from breakdowns in interpersonal relationships. When people learn to communicate in this way, we are convinced there will be fewer misunderstandings, less violence and eventually decreased outbreaks of war.

CHAPTER 2
THE ROOT CAUSES OF CONFLICT

The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable.

—Paul Broca

An executive at a business organization was getting increasingly frustrated with a man who reported to her. The executive felt the man wasn’t a team player. He wasn’t doing his work quickly, and the executive felt sure the employee was coming to work just to draw a paycheck, without feeling any commitment to the organization.

We talked to the executive, whose account we’ll delve into in more detail later, when she participated in a workshop we conducted at her organization. As we helped her pinpoint the cause of her frustration with her employee, she acknowledged she had made assumptions about her employee that were not true. Those assumptions were threatening to rupture the organization.

Most of us experience this feeling of helplessness, often in the form of frustration, on a daily basis. The interpersonal issues we face can be as small as deciding which family member gets to sit in the front passenger seat of the car or as complex as figuring out how to restore professional relations with a former coworker you now manage. They can be as life-changing as one spouse wanting children and the other wishing to remain childless. And they can be as mundane as one teammate stewing over the belief that another teammate is not pulling his weight.

Even the most ordinary interpersonal challenge can leave you frozen and incapable of figuring out your next step. What on earth can you do when there is no obvious way for one of you to “win” the dispute without the other person “losing”?

A key to resolving interpersonal conflicts involves understanding how the human mind works. People tend to make negative judgments based on their assumptions about who caused a conflict in which they’re involved. So a person caught up in conflict often will blame the other individual for having caused the dispute or will try to put pieces together that don’t always lead to a correct whole picture. That may ease anxieties for a time, but it doesn’t ultimately resolve the conflict in a way that leaves both people satisfied.

To truly reach an accord after a disagreement, you need to become more aware of what actually motivates you and your partner-in-conflict, rather than what your conditioned way of thinking leads you to believe.

How Do Our Minds Make Sense of the World?

Understanding people would be an overwhelming process if we had to start from scratch with every human contact. All of us would be exposed to more input from the world than we could possibly manage. To cope with this unsolvable quandary, the human brain acts as a sort of finely tuned computer designed to make quick, survival-oriented decisions about people. As a result, each of us has the ability to classify the infinite variety of human beings into workable groups of types. These generalized images help us to readily define people so we can understand them, or at least we believe we can.

In effect, the categories we create and use determine the assumptions we make about people. Those assumptions affect our understanding of them as well as our relationships with them. For example, for hundreds—if not thousands—of years, people with mental illnesses have been stereotyped as “crazy” people, “kooks” or, at the very least, “lazy” individuals who could overcome their mental problems if only they tried hard enough.

However, in recent years, scientists have discovered that many mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, are caused by biologically or chemically based brain disorders rather than by lack of effort or interest on the part of an individual. People with such illnesses can now be more or less effectively treated with drugs and psychotherapy. With such scientific and clinical data available, we have to change our assumptions. We must remove the stereotypes of the past and view mentally ill people as ordinary people who happen to have illnesses.

From our earliest years, when we first begin to typecast people, we see others in terms of our standardized pictures. For good or bad, our parents and guardians and our earliest teachers help us form those categories.

In the musical South Pacific, which deals with racial prejudice, composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II outline this widespread learning process in the song, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.”1

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,

You’ve go to be taught from year to year,

It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear,

You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a different shade,

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be carefully taught before it’s too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be carefully taught!

The lyrics of the song deal with the issue of xenophobia and the societal conditioning that leads to fearing people who are superficially different from us. The message of the lyrics is that prejudice is learned—something that is “carefully taught” to children by their parents and by their society.

It may be extremely difficult to ever achieve a prejudice-free society because of the way our minds function. Even in racially homogeneous societies, people develop prejudices over other differences, such as gender, sexual orientation, birthplace and religion. You see this when professionals whose lives depend on quick decisions regarding human behavior, such as police officers and military personnel, are trained to process information carefully but also swiftly in doing their jobs.

But even ordinary citizens, without training or practice, make instant decisions on the basis of scant information to differentiate between friend and foe. They often do this in situations that are not life threatening and that, in many cases, lead to conflict. So how do you avoid this behavior? In our work and studies, we have found that people can help eliminate hasty and flawed generalizations that contribute to clashes in two important ways:

• by becoming aware of those situations in which they make instantaneous judgments based on preconceived categorizations, and

• by taking the time necessary to resolve a conflict using open-minded, nonjudgmental methods.

The Use and Abuse of Stereotypes

Do you know someone who makes a quick judgment and then has a hard time changing his mind? That seems to be human nature. What makes these judgments hard to change is that they are often completely unconscious. They are the result of the system of generalized categories people have acquired over time.

Stereotypes are categories we carry around in our unconscious minds about objects, events or groups of people. A stereotype or prejudice is a vastly oversimplified generalization in which individuals are typecast with certain characteristics because of their real or perceived membership in a category.

Stereotypes may be based on a kernel of truth, but they go beyond the facts at hand. They depend on sweeping claims that usually have little or no basis in fact, leaving us with nothing more than a set of unfounded assumptions. No tools. No ideas. Just unfounded assumptions.

We typically rely on our stereotypes to make sense of a world that is constantly bombarding us with new information. However, we need to continually work on surfacing our stereotypes. And then we need to ask ourselves probing questions as to whether our stereotypes are, indeed, dependable or undependable guides for confirming the validity of new facts. Doing so requires patience, reflection and an open mind. And that takes time.

Oaklander Tony Jonick experienced firsthand what it means to be prejudged when, wearing a long, scraggly beard and haircut for an acting role, he found himself being treated differently than he was used to being treated. He described what happened in a “Perspective” piece he contributed to San Francisco Bay Area public radio station KQED-FM.

Jonick’s experience demonstrates how stereotypes cause us to base a judgment about a person on a limited amount of evidence, as if that represented everything about the person. We’re constantly reliving in the present stereotypes acquired from our past experiences. Our present perceptions are so influenced by the past that we are usually unable to see the immediate happenings in our lives without distortions.

Stereotypes Become Substitutes for Careful Observation

Most of us don’t remember where our most deeply embedded assumptions came from. The situations that gave rise to these stereotypes were forgotten long ago. Eventually, we come to think of our longstanding assumptions as facts. But unknown to us, we’re several steps removed from the facts.

People who have formed rigid preconceptions often find it difficult to alter their point of view when meeting someone who doesn’t fit the mold. In the following account, high school student Andrew, who as an eighth grader participated in our class on conflict resolution, tells how frustrating it was for him when his friends could not see him as the person he believed he truly was.

Andrew Is Stereotyped

“You’re an Oreo! Black on the outside and white on the inside!” I’ve heard these words over and over again from some of my peers. They’ve labeled me as, “whitewashed.” I’ve developed a thick skin in response to their name-calling. But it still bothers me that among my peers, race plays such a large role in our society, even though hateful racism is not intended.

As an African American living in a predominantly Caucasian community, I feel like I’ve been the diversity poster child my entire life. I find it ironic that my peers see me as fitting a stereotype rather than as a lifelong member of my community whose values match theirs. I definitely do not fit the mold of the typical black stereotype portrayed by our society.

Working around racial stereotypes has proven to be one of the most powerful life lessons I’ve encountered. To gain acceptance as a young kid, I changed my mannerisms when I was with my African American friends. As I grew up, I realized my different behavior in various social circles only perpetuated the stereotypes. By not being true to myself, I wasn’t being a true friend, and I was not appreciated for who I really was.

Now, all my friends, regardless of race or background, know my true personality. What I once described as being stuck between two worlds has actually afforded me opportunities to be trusted by people from multiple cultures. I feel I’ve worked hard to dissipate any covert stereotypes that may still remain.

My life straddles two cultures. I’ve learned to embrace both, just as my forefathers did.

Andrew’s account reveals how difficult it is for people to change their perceptions of stereotypes. It also shows the negative impact stereotypes have on the person who doesn’t fit the label he’s been branded with.

Judging and Being Misjudged

People in the throes of a disagreement often fling at their opponent the accusation, “You can’t read my mind!” Yet most of us do feel we can read others’ minds. We subconsciously place people into the categories we have carefully crafted. But those uniquely designed categories may be unreasonable or dated. And then our behavior is off-kilter because we based our assumptions on the other person being a member of a certain category in which she’s not a member.

If we feel other people are making incorrect judgments about us, we become confused or angry, or we feel diminished. We feel insulted by the other person, even though that person’s words may have nothing to do with us personally. The opinions they express flow from their own life experiences.

When you take things personally, it is only natural for you to feel offended, hurt or angry. And once you feel offended, it is human nature for you to want to defend your actions. That can lead to conflicts.

The Ladder of Assumptions

To overcome the predicaments caused by conflicts in our lives, we need to first understand that when we respond to a situation involving conflict, most of us quickly and unconsciously climb something we call a “Ladder of Assumptions.” It’s a useful metaphor for how the mind works.

The Ladder allows you to analyze conflicts by establishing the setting for the conflicts and the actions you take as a result of the assumptions that have led to the conflicts. The shading of the rungs on the ladder represents the ascending steps we take that can lead to conflict. The higher we go up the ladder, the further we step away from the reality of the facts of a situation. Say you are a sports-car driver speeding and weaving in and out of lanes on a highway. We will describe how the Ladder would work in this highway situation. As we go through the description, refer to the Ladder schematic on p. 20.

The Ladder of Assumptions

Setting

At any given moment, the feet of our mental Ladder are set in a particular situation. Included in this setting is all observable, verifiable information in a situation—information that could be captured electronically by, say, the camera on a smart phone, using a video app. The setting includes the physical space from every conceivable angle.

As you race along the highway, the setting is the road. There may be trees lining the sides of the road, a median in the middle, several signs along the way and other cars. Our minds are not capable of taking in the entire setting of situations. For example, as you’re driving along, you may not have seen a police car on the side of the road. Key: There is more to a setting than what we experience or observe.

Rung 1: Facts

A fact is a piece of reality known by actual experience or observation. The facts we observe are the portion of the setting, or total reality, that we are able to take in. No matter how skilled we are at observing, we can take in only a subset of the total facts of any situation. Your position in a situation—and your past experiences in similar situations—significantly limit what you are able to take in. The first incorrect assumption we often make is that we have seen the whole picture and that what we have seen is also what other people have seen. A fact (one of many) in this example setting is this: “That driver is driving 20 miles per hour over the speed limit and is changing lanes without signaling.” Key: A fact is a piece of a setting that a person can experience or observe.

Rung 2: Interpretations

We interpret the facts we perceive. Conflicts often come about when we confuse our interpretations with facts that we can objectively verify. Our “interpretations” can also be defined as “opinions.” We make interpretations to make sense out of facts that we have perceived. We often interpret a current situation based on our personal history. Consider if someone watching you speed along the highway remarks, “There goes another crazy sports-car driver.” Key: When you use adjectives to describe a person’s behavior or a particular situation, you’re generally making interpretations.

Rung 3: Motives

We tend to attribute motives to the other person who has annoyed or offended us with his or her behavior. “He just wants to—”; “She thinks—.” We can’t really know what another person is thinking, but we often think we can. What we attribute to the other person’s behavior is typically based on our own experiences in similar situations that have long-since slipped under the radar screen of our awareness. A comment, such as, “That driver thinks he’s the king of the road and doesn’t care if he causes havoc on the highway,” is one that attributes a motive to the observed driver. Key: When you assign a feeling, emotion or some other word implying an intention to your description of how a person is behaving, you are attributing a motive to that person.

Rung 4: Generalizations

When we observe the particular behavior of an individual, our minds will quickly squeeze that behavior into a category, whether it fits or not. For example, someone watching you drive fast on the highway might mutter, “That driver is just like all other sports-car drivers. They’re all power hungry and want to show off their cars. They don’t think they have to follow the same rules of the road we do. They’re always causing accidents.” Key. Using plural pronouns, such as “they” or “them,” and category descriptions such as “all” to describe a behavior of a person indicates you have assigned that person to a predetermined category.

Actions

We are usually aware of our actions but quite unaware of the reflexive, “knee-jerk” mental process that took us up our Ladder and got us to those actions. For example, someone might think, “That driver’s a danger to everyone on the highway. He deserves to be taught a lesson. If he cuts in front of me, I’m not letting him get away with it. I’m going to pass him and do the same thing back to him. Someone has to show him he’s just wrong in what he’s doing.” A driver does something (a fact). Another person has a reaction (based on an assumption, correct or incorrect) and may retaliate (action). That is “racing up” a Ladder of Assumptions.

Sometimes a person acts in a particular setting by simply selecting certain facts and assuming those are the only facts in the situation (Rung No. 1) or by simply making an interpretation of the facts he perceives (Rung No. 2) and doesn’t necessarily attribute motives to individuals (Rung No. 3) or label people with stereotypes (Rung No. 4).

A study by the AAA Traffic Safety Foundation found that many cases of what we call “road rage” are caused by “simple misunderstandings between drivers.”2 Yet the response to such mix-ups, which may have begun with assumptions that led to anger, can result in physical aggression, according to Matthew Joint, head of behavioral analysis for the Foundation.3 Key: When you act, you might not even realize the assumptions you made that led to your actions.

Acknowledging the Origin of Conflicts

Becoming conscious of the mental process by which we make assumptions about others gives us the power to make changes. We can use the Ladder of Assumptions as a tool to help us reach a more valid understanding of who others really are and what actually motivates them, rather than what our ingrained mental patterns often lead us to believe. We can ask clarifying questions of others to find out whether our assumptions about their behavior are correct, and we can let go of erroneous assumptions when we find out what the people have actually been observing and thinking. In this way, interactions with others can become less conflicted and more positive.

Carlos Lozada, an economic analyst in Atlanta, captured the essence of this goal in a column he wrote for The Christian Science Monitor a number of years ago. He said he dreamed of a day when people would eventually become open to the possibility that they can view Latinos as varied as people of any other group and that people would see him primarily as an economist who just happens to be Latino. He wrote, “I don’t wish to live in a world in which my skin tone becomes my single, all-important attribute, and I would be offended if, based on my racial background, someone extrapolated assumptions about my beliefs, intelligence or customs.”4

An Executive and Her Staff Member

Remember the executive who had reached an impasse with an employee? During one of our workshops, she used the Ladder of Assumptions tool to examine her perceptions of the situation. The executive, whom we shall call Myra, told us she was very upset with her employee, whom we shall call Antonio. When Myra finally was able to take a deep breath, she identified the Ladder of Assumptions she had climbed. She wrote:

The setting was the building in which both of us worked and, in particular, a conference room where our team was meeting.

The facts, the first rung of the Ladder, were that I am a manager of the team, while Antonio is a team member who works for me. At the team meeting, Antonio said that he had not met a deadline. He had not completed a set of work tasks I had assigned him to accomplish by a certain time.

I instantly went up the Ladder and made some interpretations, the second rung of the Ladder. I interpreted Antonio’s behavior as that of a low-performing plodder who takes forever to complete an assignment. I even started to think that Antonio not only is tardy in getting his work done and is basically a clock-watcher, but also he drags down the overall performance of the team.

I missed the fact that he stuck around after the meeting ended to talk with some of the team members. It turns out he obtained information from them that helped him speed up accomplishing his work tasks.

I continued rushing up to the third rung of the Ladder, motives. I attributed a motive to Antonio that he is bored with his job and is quite content to simply go through the paces at work. Going further, I assumed that he is only concerned about getting a regular salary and isn’t concerned about improving his performance on the job. I even assumed that he doesn’t care about how well the team is functioning.

Because of the motives I attributed to Antonio, I became selective in the facts I observed. I disregarded facts that challenged my assumptions and continued to hold onto them. Because I assumed that Antonio wasn’t interested in his job, I started only to notice times when he wasn’t actively engaged. This led to me finding even more situations where he seemed disengaged from his work.

In a flash, I darted up to the fourth rung of the Ladder, generalizations. I stereotyped Antonio as a typical union member who does as little as he can and still keep his job. Plus, this caused him to not worry about any consequences he might suffer from not meeting management’s standards of work performance, such as being fired.

Suddenly I found myself at the top of the Ladder, actions. I got very angry with Antonio. No longer expecting him to do good work, I decided to stop giving him opportunities to contribute to the team. I stopped sharing information with him and asking him for input. During times when I was talking with other members of the team, I sometimes even spoke dismissively of him.

I stayed at the top of my Ladder for several days, feeling justified in holding onto the anger I felt toward Antonio. Then, ever so gradually, I began to wonder whether he might be a person who has a hard time focusing on his tasks at hand. Or maybe there are things going on in his personal life that are making it difficult for him to focus. I started to realize that I couldn’t even remember some of the facts that had caused me to make my assumptions about Antonio. As this process of self-awareness went on, it caused me to begin questioning many of the assumptions I had made about him.

I finally decided the first thing I needed to do was to share my assumptions with Antonio. So I arranged to meet with him. I started the meeting by asking him how he was doing. His response to my question really opened my eyes. He said that he is a perfectionist and has a hard time dealing with the pressure of tight deadlines. This is particularly true, he said, when the work is especially important because then he feels he doesn’t have enough time to make his work perfect. He admitted that this often leads to him procrastinating and avoiding completing tasks when he can’t do them according to his high standards.

The meeting helped me a great deal in going back down my Ladder, owning up to my assumptions and admitting to Antonio when they were unrealistic. We were able to talk about our different approaches to getting a job done. We agreed I tend to be quick out of the starting gates and am more of a risk taker, while he is more methodical and detail-oriented. By talking about it, we both realized each of us brings distinct skills to our work setting that benefit the entire team. That discussion helped us get off to a fresh start and establish a much better working relationship.

Myra told us the Ladder of Assumptions tool changed the way she dealt with disputes.

“I had always felt that if I needed to deal with conflict I was having with another person, I would do it directly and openly by confronting the person with what he or she was doing wrong,” she said. Going rung by rung back down her Ladder helped Myra analyze her own actions and deal with the problem internally. She explained her epiphany this way:

I discovered that when conflict occurs, if you do not deal with it internally and figure out what is occurring at the time—or as quickly as you can collect yourself to do so—the conflict will occur over and over again.

Since learning about the Ladder of Assumptions, I’ve begun to internalize the Ladder’s rungs. It’s helped me realize where my responsibility starts in a conflict and how to prevent that conflict from escalating. Now, when a knot starts getting tight in my stomach, I try to ask myself: Where am I on the Ladder, and what do I need to do to climb back down?

Myra applied the Ladder of Assumptions lesson she had learned earlier and took the lead in resolving the conflict with Antonio. It turned the relationship around and made all the difference in her work environment. Myra’s Ladder and her conversation with Antonio were the first steps in building resolution. She acknowledged that the frustration she had been experiencing was largely based on assumptions she’d made that weren’t rooted in reality. Once she recognized that, she took the steps that were necessary to resolve her issues with Antonio.

The behaviors we see in another person are only a fraction of what is actually going on with that person. Others might have a totally different communication style than we are used to. At the same time, they can’t possibly see in us all the things that are happening in our lives. We may be climbing our Ladder, and they may be climbing theirs. The important thing is to be aware of our Ladder and how we got to where we did with our assumptions. That opens a door for us to inquire to find out more details about what is really going on with the other person. Most importantly, what do we need to do to get back down our Ladder, so we can have a meaningful conversation that is based on reality and facts rather than on assumptions?

Practicing Probing to Defuse Anger

If you find yourself angry with someone, you can help defuse your anger if you remember that you may have made incorrect assumptions about that person. To help move away from the anger, frustration and hurt, you need to learn how to act differently. Anger, frustration and hurt are negative, inward-facing emotions that can cloud the path to open dialogue. Just as you train muscle groups for a sport, you need to train your mind to take a more positive approach to difficult interpersonal situations. Your first goal should be to determine the basis for your assumptions and those of others by discussing with them the validity of each other’s respective assumptions.

Concluding Thoughts

Focus on your mind being filled with unconscious assumptions that can cause you to instantly judge the behaviors of others. This can ignite conflict. These simple steps can help you retrain your mind and keep an open mind about others:

Retrain your mind:

• Acknowledge you have pre-formed assumptions about people. When you are receiving new information, be aware of assumptions you have already formed and try to put them aside, at least temporarily.

• Commit to looking within and examining where those assumptions originated. Consider the people in your background who have had a major influence on the way you think.

• Be diligent every day in observing how you react to people. Look at interactions you have with another person as an opportunity to learn more about how your mind works.

Maintain an open mind about others:

• Be willing to entertain the possibility that people don’t always fit the categories in which your mind has placed them. Give yourself permission to change your mindset about people.

• Allow yourself to imagine other dimensions to a situation than your first reaction. Consider that your first reaction can be incorrect.

• Imagine a different explanation, when you think you understand the intent behind a person’s behavior. Know that your original reasoning about the motive for a person’s behavior is based on your life experiences, which are usually quite different than that of the other person.

Activities

The following exercises give you practice in creating your Ladder of Assumptions.

How Many Fs?

Give yourself a minute or two to look at the following phrase and count the number of occurrences of the letter F; if possible ask two others to do the same:

Feature Films are the Result
of Years of Scientific

Study Combined With
the Experience of Years.

How many Fs did you count? Did the three of you agree on the number of Fs in the phrase? We present this exercise to groups of approximately 20 people, and there is never agreement. This activity often provides an amusing lesson in humility about how we often can’t even agree on the facts—the first rung on the Ladder of Assumptions. You’ve all seen the exact same phrase; you should all be able to agree on how many times the letter F appears. (The answer, by the way, is six.)

The “I Search” Exercise

This exercise should be written in three sections:

• What I assume to be true about someone

• The interview

• What I learned

Here’s what you do:

• What I assume to be true about someone. Write a Ladder of Assumptions that exists in your mind about someone with whom you have had a recent experience, not necessarily a conflict.

• The interview. Schedule time to talk with the person with whom you have had a recent experience. Ask her if you can share the Ladder of Assumptions you wrote about her, in the light of that experience. If she is willing to allow you to do that, discuss how accurate your assumptions seem to be and write down the comments she makes.

• What I learned. After concluding your interview, compare your Ladder of Assumptions with comments made by the person you interviewed. Write what you learned about the accuracy of the assumptions you made about her.

CHAPTER 3
SELF-AWARENESS

If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.

—Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Very often, the Ladder of Assumptions exposes your own deeply rooted beliefs. One of us met a student whom we’ll refer to as Natasha when she was a freshman having trouble fitting in with her peers at an American university. Newly arrived from an Eastern European country, Natasha found herself shrinking back from interactions with fellow students. One voice in her head told her to get to know these students who likely had interesting ideas. The other voice warned her that to do so would open her up to the risk of being taken advantage of. It was a confusing time for her.

To end the confusion, Natasha had to delve deep within to discover the roots of her inhibitions and become more aware of who she is. You will read about her discovery process later in this chapter.

Developing Humility

Developing self-awareness is basic to psychological health. You need to learn to catch your mind in the moment, especially when you are rushing to judgment. It builds your capacity to observe your thoughts and feelings without necessarily acting on them. When you recognize—as you read in Chapter 2—just how inaccurately your mind can function in the moment before you take action, your level of humility rises.

You need to be humble enough to acknowledge that however you interpret someone else’s behavior—however you judge a situation—it is only from one point of view: your own. And yours is only one of many possible perspectives. It is your own particular collection of subjective thoughts. Whenever you rush to judgment, you need to face the fact that you could very well be wrong.

Here are accounts of people who used their self-reflection skills to recognize they had caused conflicts with others by racing up Ladders of Assumptions they created about the other parties. These individuals used their self-reflection skills to resolve those conflicts by going back down their Ladders to the rung of “facts” and checking the validity of the assumptions they had made.

A Woman Catches Herself in the Moment

Two volunteer members of a committee of a community association, to whom we’ll give the names Kathy and Eileen, had a conflict. The conflict erupted at a meeting of the committee. Here’s how the conflict played out in Kathy’s and Eileen’s words during the meeting:

Kathy: When it’s time to contact members about renewing their annual memberships, an online registration and payment system will make things so much simpler. Our manager can just send an email to members to tell them it’s time to go to the association website and renew their memberships. This will save the manager and the volunteers a lot of time. It’ll be much more efficient than delivering or mailing packets to members. As we all know, some of those packets get lost in the shuffle and are never opened by our members. Also, sending emails will be good for the environment because it saves a lot of paper.

Eileen: I’m sorry, Kathy, but your idea won’t work at all. The emails will just end up in people’s spam filters. So it’ll be even less efficient than our regular way of contacting members about renewing their memberships. I know what I’m talking about. I send out a lot of emails in my business, and many never reach the intended recipients. It’s really frustrating sending email blasts that never get to my prospective clients.

Kathy: Eileen, you’re being so negative.

Eileen didn’t respond to Kathy’s statement. The committee members continued with their discussion, without anyone responding to either Kathy’s or Eileen’s comments. Several days later, we mediated a session between Kathy and Eileen. Before the session, we had asked each woman to write a Ladder of Assumptions she had raced up regarding the other.

Here is what Kathy wrote:

The setting was a meeting of a community association committee.

The facts were that the committee members were discussing different ways that annual membership fees could be collected more efficiently.

I interpreted Eileen’s response to my suggestion as abrupt, dismissive and condescending.

The motive I attributed to Eileen was that she wanted to show the committee members that she had much more expertise in the matter than I did.

I stereotyped her as one of those female professionals who act as if they know it all but actually are insecure.

My actions were to get angry and accuse Eileen of being unreasonably negative.

Kathy and Eileen each brought copies of their Ladders of Assumptions to the mediation session and shared them with each other during the course of the mediation. Following their dialogue about their respective Ladders, Kathy spoke about the exchange between her and Eileen that had taken place at the committee meeting. Here is how that went:

Kathy: Eileen, I want to say I’m sorry I jumped on you at the committee meeting and criticized you for being so negative regarding my suggestion. I know I do that to my kids sometimes, and I’m working on not doing it.

Eileen (with a serious look on her face): Yes, you did jump on me, Kathy.

Kathy: Well, I’m working on being more aware of when I do that to people, and I know that what I said to you was wrong. I’m truly sorry, Eileen.

Eileen (with a smile on her face): I accept your apology, Kathy.

Even though Eileen had made abrupt remarks during the committee meeting, Kathy took responsibility for her own reaction to them. Kathy recognized she had raced up a Ladder of Assumptions and assumed that Eileen had tried to put her down. This insight about herself enabled her to go back down her Ladder to the rung of facts and take responsibility for the incorrect assumptions she had made about Eileen and for the angry response she had made to her. Kathy’s self-awareness and humility opened a door to resolving the tension between her and Eileen.

A Man Shares How He Became More Self-Aware

For more than 35 years, a group of 10 men have been meeting once a week for an hour, starting at 8 in the morning. The men take turns being the meeting discussion leader. At one of the meetings, the discussion leader’s topic was a magazine article featuring 10 things men need to do to lead a healthy and fulfilling life.

Here is a Ladder of Assumptions one group member raced up toward another man at the end of the meeting. It is in the group member’s words:

The setting was a meeting of the members of the group.

The facts were that at about 8:50 a.m., I said, “I think what has been missing in our discussion so far is the subject of spiritual growth and what each of us needs to be doing in that regard.” The discussion leader said, “That is a perfect segue to my final topic: meditation.” He proceeded to lead us in a four-minute meditation.

When he finished, I said, “The meditation made me think of a spiritual growth situation that occurred in my life a few days ago, involving a discussion I had had with a woman whose husband had passed away two days before.”

Another man said, “That happens all the time at the senior facility where I live. People die there on a regular basis.”

Yet another man said, “Situations like that come up in my life, too.” At about 9 a.m., I said, “I’d like to share with you how I responded to the woman who had lost her husband.”

A different man laughed and said, “There you go again. You’re always trying to extend the meeting past our agreed-upon time of one hour.”

I interpreted the comment made by the last speaker as insensitive and disparaging.

The motive I attributed to him was that he didn’t want the meeting to go beyond the regular ending time, no matter how important the topic seemed to be to others in the group. He wasn’t interested in hearing what I wanted to share: an event in my life that I felt was related to the discussion leader’s topic of meditation.

I stereotyped the man as one of those rigidly uncompromising people who are strongly bound by rules.

My actions were that I felt hurt and instantly became angry. I said, “That’s it,” got up from my seat, and abruptly stomped out of the room.

Later that morning, and upon further reflection, it dawned on me that I had raced up a Ladder of Assumptions that had much more to do with my own behavioral pattern than with the man who made the statement. I calmed down and went back down my Ladder. I then sent the following email to the man:

I’m sorry I reacted to your comment this morning the way I did. I felt hurt when you said that I had gone on too long with something I was saying, and then I got angry. Making a mountain out of a molehill, and getting annoyed and irritable as a result, is an immature behavior I’m trying to change. My reaction had nothing to do with what you said and everything to do with my own lifelong way of responding to criticism. I need to be more open in the moment to what others like you say to me.

I apologize for getting angry with you this morning. What you said to me turned out to be very helpful. It enabled me to become aware of an unconscious behavior of mine that I need to change. I’m committed to changing it.

He told us that the same day he sent the email, he received the following positive response from the man who had annoyed him at the meeting:

Thanks for your email. I was going to call you and apologize for hurting your feelings, but you beat me to it. I think you do have a tendency to sometimes unconsciously want to prolong meetings, but none of us, certainly not I, doubts your good intentions.

A Teacher Gets Angry at One of Her Students

Consider the account of a woman, whom we’ll refer to as Sarah and who teaches at a junior high school. She contacted one of us for help in resolving a conflict she had had with one of her students. She applied the approach described in this book to deal constructively with her feelings. Here is her description of what had happened:

It was the last week of the spring semester. The previous day, my students had had a substitute teacher because I had been ill. I stood in the doorway of my classroom and greeted the students as they entered. I felt very good about my students and believed I had established good rapport with them during the school year. I had worked hard all year long teaching them, and I believed they appreciated the efforts I had made.

I tried a little joke with one of the boys as he walked through the doorway. I said, “Would you rather have me or a sub as your teacher today?” I absolutely could not believe it when he said, “A sub! A sub!” What he said really hurt me deeply.

Here is the Ladder of Assumptions about the student I created in my mind:

The setting was my classroom at our junior high school.

The facts were that I stood at the door of my classroom at the beginning of one of my classes and welcomed my students as they entered. I asked a boy, “Would you rather have me or a sub today?”

He said, “A sub! A sub!”

I interpreted his comment as disrespectful, hurtful and cruel.

The motive I attributed to him was that on one of the last days of the school year, he wanted to joke around with his friends in the classroom. He knew he could do that with a sub but that I wouldn’t permit it.

I stereotyped him as one of those 13-year-old boys who often make mean comments.

My actions were that I felt hurt, concluding that all the hard work I had put into teaching my students that year had been a waste of time. I cried in front of the class and told my students I felt I had been disrespected.

After school that day, I went home and cried all night. I felt defeated as a teacher, a profession in which I had devoted many years of my life. The next day, I decided I would quit my career as a teacher and not return to the school the next year. I felt totally relieved and at peace after making that decision.

Over the next several days, I had long talks with my husband, my father and some of my closest friends. The more I talked with them, the more I realized I had made the decision to quit teaching while I was feeling low and while I was struggling with the emotional effects of having taken the boy’s words personally. I thought about the Ladder of Assumptions I had created in my mind about what the boy had said to me. I tried hard to go back down my Ladder to the factual rung and then figure out how wrong I had been with my assumptions.

I acknowledged to myself that I had taken the boy’s comments personally, when they actually had nothing to do with me. I realized that during the last few days of the school year, he no doubt was eager to get away from school for the summer and simply wanted to have fun in my classroom. The comment he made was by a boy who simply was tired of attending classes, not by a boy who was trying to be disrespectful to me. Reflecting on all this, I took a deep breath, slowly exhaled and finally decided to continue with my career as a teacher at my school after all.

Sarah went through a heartfelt process of self-reflection. She looked within and identified all the hurt and anger she had felt toward her student as a result of racing up her Ladder of Assumptions. She took responsibility for her assumptions and acknowledged they probably were not based in reality and that she had taken his comment personally. In the end, she saw that her decision to quit her teaching career had been impulsive. This gave her the inner peace to reverse her decision to quit her teaching profession and continue with her position at her school.

A Man Owns a Problem He Blamed on His Bank

The Ladder of Assumptions tool helped one of our clients recognize he had been rash in dealing with a problem at his bank. One morning, on the way to his office, the client stopped at his local branch bank to deposit several checks. Here is a Ladder of Assumptions he told us he raced up in his mind shortly after he arrived at the bank:

The setting was the ATM at the bank.

The facts were that our client entered his card and PIN. No option appeared on the screen allowing him to deposit checks to his checking account. He withdrew his card, reinserted it and re-entered his PIN. Again no option appeared for depositing checks. He withdrew his card, reinserted it and re-entered his PIN a third time, with the same result. He withdrew his card, walked into the bank and stood in line waiting to tell a bank teller about the problem with the ATM.

He interpreted the fact that no option for depositing checks appeared on the ATM screen as indicating that the ATM software was malfunctioning and that the local branch manager was inept.

The motive he attributed to the local branch manager was that he didn’t care about his clients not being able to make important financial transactions, and he had bigger fish to fry.

He stereotyped the local branch manager as a member of one of those management teams of a parent bank that is primarily interested in maximizing the bank’s profits and satisfying the shareholders rather than meeting the needs of the customers.

His actions were that he stepped forward to the next available bank teller, feeling righteously indignant. He told her that the software in the ATM outside the bank was broken because he had inserted his ATM card and entered his PIN but was unable to deposit his checks to his checking account. She responded by saying that she would like to have him speak with the branch manager.

She walked away and returned several minutes later with the manager. Still feeling strong displeasure at the ATM, he told the manager the same account he had given the bank teller. The manager said, “Let’s walk outside to the ATM so that you can show me the problem.”

But here is where things took a turn.

Our client told us that when they were at the ATM, the manager had him insert his ATM card in the machine and enter his PIN. He did. They looked at the screen. Neither of them could see an option on the screen for depositing checks. He then asked our client to withdraw his ATM card, which he did. He asked if he could look at the card, so our client gave the manager his card. The manager looked at it, gave it back and said, “This is your credit card, not your ATM card. That is why you haven’t been able to get a check deposit option on the screen.”

Our client felt totally humiliated and realized that he had raced up a Ladder of Assumptions that had no basis in fact whatsoever. He immediately went back down his Ladder. He apologized profusely to the manager for the mistaken assumptions he had made and the indignant tone of voice he had used when speaking to him. He told the manager he was very sorry for having taken his time.

Our client told the manager that in the future when he was depositing checks, he would make very sure that he was using his ATM card and not his credit card. The manager graciously accepted his apology, and the two men shook hands. The manager went back inside the bank. Our client deposited his checks using his ATM card and went on his way feeling very grateful that the manager and he had parted company on good terms.

When the manager told our client he had used his credit card, not his ATM card, our client instantly admitted he had made a number of unfounded assumptions. His admission resulted from him facing the fact that he had blamed the bank and its manager for a problem with the ATM when it actually was a problem of his own making. Gaining this insight enabled him to reach a new level of self-awareness. It became clearer to him than ever before that he needed to embrace the reality that he is completely responsible for his responses to events that occur in his life.

Natasha’s Growth in Self-Awareness

We explained the Ladder of Assumptions to Natasha, the freshman student newly arrived from an Eastern European country we introduced you to at the beginning of the chapter. She went on to use it to reflect on something disturbing she had learned in her childhood. Here is her account:

When I was a young woman, I left my Eastern European country for the United States to attend an American college. I especially remember the advice my mother gave me before I left. She told me not to develop close relationships with people of a particular religion or men of dark skin color. I can’t say that my mother’s statements shocked me because my family members, as well as most people from my country I knew, tended to avoid relationships with people who were different than them.

Since early childhood, my parents had told me to be very careful around adherents of that religion because my parents believed them to be selfish, sly and greedy. My parents told me people of that religion used whatever means necessary to achieve their own goals and that those people strove to be prosperous regardless of the price others had to pay for their success. This suspicion and outright dislike of those people was not peculiar to my family but, rather, was widely accepted by many people from my country.

In my country, stereotypes also persist about people who have dark skin color—stereotypes that may have gotten started in the 1960s, when thousands of African students came to Soviet universities to study. These students were among the first large groups of Africans many people from my country had ever experienced face to face. People from my country viewed them as foreigners who came from strange countries and who carried rare diseases with them.

Male African students were not used to the custom of people from my country not speaking to strangers on the street. As a result, they were viewed as crude and vulgar when they approached people from my country whom they didn’t know and spoke to them in loud voices. When girls or women from my country were singled out for social overtures by male African students, the men were labeled as black warriors who could not control their sex drives.

Once, when I was a little girl, my mother took me to a restaurant for dinner. At the restaurant, we had to wait in line behind some male students from Africa. It was the first time I had observed these different people so closely. They talked to each other in a language unknown to me. I looked at their hands and compared them to mine. I was stunned by the contrast. I recall that I was too scared to look at their faces.

My mother left me alone for a few minutes. After she left, one of the African men turned around, greeted me in flawed Russian, and patted me on the back. I did not take time to think about what had happened. All I remember are the feelings of surprise, fear and anger that rose up in me. I ran away from the line and found my mother. I was still shaking when I told my mother about the stranger’s gesture.

Even though I’m now much older and living in the United States, I still seem to carry around those same stereotypes. I’m still quite apprehensive toward people who seem to fit those stereotypes. I decided I needed to write my Ladder of Assumptions about these people. Here is what I wrote:

The setting was in my hometown.

The facts were that my mother told me to have nothing to do with people of a certain religion and with men with dark complexions.

I adopted my mother’s interpretations that people of a particular religion were sly, greedy and ruthless and that men of dark skin color were crude, vulgar and unhealthy and were sexual maniacs.

The motives my mother attributed to people of a certain religion and men of dark skin color, which I accepted, were that people of that religion would not let anything stand in their way of achieving financial success and that men with dark skin color were driven to take advantage of women sexually.

Just as my mother did, I stereotyped those religious people as a group of religious fanatics desirous of attaining wealth at any price and men with dark skin color as a racial class with subhuman characteristics.

My actions, like those of my mother, were to fear people of a particular religion and men with dark skin color and to avoid them whenever possible.

I’m struggling to accept that I have prejudiced attitudes, even though it wasn’t a matter of choice but, rather, a matter of picking them up from the prejudices radiating from the people around me while I was growing up in my country. I’m hopeful I can reverse the process by going back down my Ladder of Assumptions and unlearn these assumptions and prejudices. I keep reminding myself that if they were taught to me when I was young, I ought to be able to teach myself to give them up and replace them with attitudes that are based on facts rather than fears.

It’s a lot of hard work to open my mind and lift the veil of my stereotypes. But I want to be able to get to know better individuals who look, act and talk differently than I do. So my goal is to try to communicate with them and understand them. If I don’t do these things, I realize I’ll always fear people who appear different than I am.

Natasha reached a level of self-awareness that has enabled her to understand how stereotypes learned in childhood prevent her from getting to know her fellow students as individuals rather than as representatives of groups, which people often characterize with stereotypes that have little or no basis in fact.

Natasha realized that without a sincere effort on her part to break down these stereotypes, her behavior would continue to be driven by fear rather than by a willingness to enrich her life by developing relationships with students who are different than her.

How to Practice Self-Awareness

Dedicating time to practicing self-awareness through self-reflection requires substantial effort in cultures in which people tend to be highly scheduled. Practicing self-reflection is like practicing a sport or a musical instrument. The objective of practice is to internalize new behaviors. The more regularly you give yourself the gift of time to practice self-reflection, the easier it will become to remember to be fully aware and present in the moment when experiencing and working toward resolution of interpersonal conflicts.

Start your day by quietly reminding yourself to participate fully in positive conflict resolution behaviors. Try thinking about each of the following statements as a way to prepare yourself to be present for the entire day:

• I anticipate that opportunities to practice conflict resolution will arise today.

• I will work toward perceiving these opportunities when they arise.

• I will be open to using the opportunities presented to further my practice of conflict resolution.

• I will try to respond to conflicts creatively and positively.

• I hope to learn from my efforts to resolve conflicts.

• I will be grateful for the opportunities to further my own learning process and reach creative resolutions.

At the end of your day, set aside a few minutes to reflect on how your day has gone. Some examples of how to reflect include the following:

• writing in a journal or writing a blog

• drawing

• developing a computer graphic

• composing music

• meditating

Challenge yourself to bring to the surface assumptions you formed in the past, so you can determine what effect they are having on your behavior in the moment. Bring your assumptions to the surface, become aware of their origins and determine their relevance in current situations. Avoid living on the basis of unfounded assumptions you have formed over time. By taking the time to examine your own thoughts, you will find it is less likely that you will hold onto and even spread stereotypes.

Concluding Thoughts

Here are ways you can observe your behavior toward others in the moment and check it out:

• Identify another person’s behavior that comes across to you as objectionable.

• Describe to yourself how you are acting when you react to that person.

• Identify the emotions you’re having that seem to be causing you to act this way.

• Acknowledge that the emotions you are having are your own; no one else is causing them.

Here are ways you can try to figure out why your mind rushes to judgment about others:

• Bring to the surface of your mind feelings, positive or negative, that you have toward others.

• Identify the thoughts that trigger the feelings.

• Notice any preconceptions that color your observations of the behavior of others.

• Be aware that those preconceptions have no objective validity; they belong to you.

• Explore experiences you had earlier in your life that may have led you to forming these preconceptions.

• Reflect on whether those preconceptions are valid today.

Activities

This exercise helps you focus on stereotypes you make about other people.

Introspection

Drawing on the account you’ve just read about Natasha’s struggle to raise her awareness and let go of long-held stereotypes that have strongly affected her, think of a time you might have stereotyped another person. Describe in writing the situation or circumstances. Include the stereotypical label you put on the other person in this manner:

• Most (name the group or category of people) are (write the characteristics of that group).

• Most (name the group or category of people) act (write the behaviors of that group).

Write what you think caused you to believe those characteristics about and actions of the person you stereotyped. Here are some possible causes:

• At the time, it seemed to be common knowledge.

• I heard my mother or father say the same thing.

• Someone else whose opinion I respected told me the stereotype was true.

• I heard my friends saying that.

• I formed the opinion on the basis of my own observations at the time.

Since that time, have you come across new information that contradicts the stereotype with which you labeled the person? If so, summarize the new information. If not, try to find some new information that may contradict the stereotype.

Rethink your stereotype about another person whom you described earlier in light of the new information you have received about that stereotype. Write a new statement about that person in a manner that replaces your previous stereotype:

Some (name the group or category of people) may be (write the characteristics), but many others in that group may not be.

CHAPTER 4
LISTENING

It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the province of wisdom to listen.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes

One of our colleagues is a woman who worked with a volunteer organization that helped in disasters. She trained extensively, and yet, after only her third assignment, she decided to throw in the towel because her superiors failed to listen to anything she had to say. “It was a shame that valuable resources were wasted and that I returned early because a few individuals in power positions lacked the listening skills to effectively address my situation,” the colleague, whom we’ll call Cathy, said. Later we will consider how Cathy’s superiors to whom we’ll give the names Jonathan and Jill, might have functioned differently.

Learning how to listen is a skill we are expected to perform at an early age, yet it is a skill that is rarely taught in school. Do you remember being told to “listen” as a small child? As a preadolescent, were you told, “You need to listen”? Did your parents yell at you, “Listen to me!” when you were a full-fledged teenager?

If you were a typical teenager, you probably weren’t listening when your parents were yelling. And their yelling didn’t encourage you to listen. How could it? You were never given any instructions on listening. Learning to listen simply by observation requires a lifetime of pattern recognition. It is challenging at best. Just as children don’t generally learn to read on their own, people don’t learn how to truly listen until they’ve been trained to do so.

Listening, in the simplest sense, involves stepping aside from our own agendas. This is easier said than done. It is not uncommon for us to have feelings come up when someone is speaking to us. These feelings can take our focus away from what the speaker is saying. We’re distracted further when we concentrate on how we are going to respond. The needs of the speaker and our own needs can conflict, resulting in very little, if any, effective listening on our part.

When people use the word “listening,” they’re referring to the process of hearing words and understanding their literal meaning. But what we do in reality is anything but listen. Much of the time, when one person is talking, the other person is listening only for the purpose of constructing a reply. That “listener” is actively looking for how the words relate to him and how he can segue into his own stories.

To listen deeply to another person, it is key that you give your full attention to that person. At the same time, you must become aware of your thoughts and feelings—and temporarily put them aside. That makes it possible to focus on the speaker. This process can occur repeatedly in a conversation. Noticing when your attention drifts away and then redirecting your focus back to the speaker is a basic ingredient in listening deeply.

As you become more practiced in focusing your attention on the speaker, you lay the foundation for learning additional listening skills. You can become better aware of the need to check in with speakers to make sure you are hearing what they are attempting to communicate. This lets speakers know what you have understood. You might say to a speaker, “This is what came through to me when you were speaking. Is that correct?” By learning how to “listen for understanding” in the deepest sense, you will enter a new world of recognizing how others feel and why they act the way they do.

Listening for Deep Understanding

When you “listen for deep understanding,” it is with a desire to grasp the meaning behind the spoken words. Your aim is to understand the speaker’s emotions and the motives behind her statements. This doesn’t necessarily mean you intend to agree with the other person or that you want her to change her viewpoint. You are not trying to find solutions. You want to connect with the other person on a level deep enough to enable you to communicate in a way that leads to better understanding between the two of you.

Simple listening becomes listening for deep understanding when you make an honest and determined effort to hear and digest someone’s point of view—and that person’s feelings—without making immediate assumptions about what you have heard. It requires an ability to quiet your thoughts and your desire to speak, so you really absorb what the other person is saying. Keeping quiet, however, doesn’t mean you are not totally participating. Listening for deep understanding is an active experience.

To be sensitive to other people’s emotions, you must pay attention not only to their words, but also to the tone of their voice, their posture and their facial expressions. To help you hear and see the nuances of another person’s perspective, reflect on what that person might be assuming and how he might be feeling. However, you should not consider your initial reflections as true until you verify them with the other person.

Empathy is an essential ingredient in listening for deep understanding. It draws on the capacity to understand other people’s thoughts and to feel their emotions. It is a capacity that is different from sympathy, which involves recognizing other people’s circumstances and feeling sorry for them.

When you demonstrate empathy, you are able to stay present with a person long enough to recognize a possible shift in the initial assumptions you have made about her. You may find that what you thought she was saying at first was completely different from what you eventually learned she was trying to tell you.

Brenda Ueland, a 20th-century American journalist and radio writer, penned a classic essay “Tell Me More: On The Fine Art of Listening,” which captures some of the most important elements involved in demonstrating empathy and learning to listen for deep understanding.

According to Ueland, “Listening, not talking, is the gifted and great role and the imaginative role.” The “true listener,” Ueland says, “is much more beloved, magnetic than the talker, and he is more effective and learns more and does more good.” 5 Ueland emphasizes the creative strength inherent in a listener being truly present. It allows people to tell their stories in such a way that they experience being heard, possibly as never before. Listening deeply and giving our undivided attention to other people’s accounts help us connect with emotions behind their words.

We wholeheartedly recommend Ueland’s suggestions on truly listening:

Try to learn tranquility, to live in the present part of the time every day. Sometimes say to yourself, “Now. What is happening now? This friend is talking. I am quiet. There is endless time. I hear it, every word.”

Then suddenly you begin to hear not only what people are saying but what they are trying to say, and you sense the whole truth about them. And you sense existence not piecemeal, not this object and that, but as a translucent whole.

Ueland advises her readers to listen to their spouses, their parents, their children and their friends; to “those who love you and those who don’t; to those who bore you; to your enemies.” It will, she says, “work a small miracle. And perhaps a great one.”

Ueland points out in her inimitable way that a true relationship exists only when two or more people are totally engaged in listening deeply to one another—when they are fully immersed in their situation and are giving their undivided attention to each other. By opening themselves without reservation and inviting a like response from the other, they go way beyond offering only a shallow piece of themselves to a place where they are capable of bringing their whole selves to the encounter.

Actions That Impede Listening for Deep Understanding

Any number of things can get in the way of listening for deep understanding when two or more people are supposed to be having a conversation. Here are some actions that can hinder communication:

• talking interminably, rarely stopping even to take a breath, giving the other person virtually no space to respond

• repeating yourself, often loudly, in an effort to make your point

• assuming the other person has discounted your views and then responding negatively to what that person is saying

• disagreeing instantly with what a person is saying and justifying your opinion as the “correct” one

• interrupting a person before she finishes a statement and launching into your own views

• following immediately after an individual’s account of a personal experience with an experience of your own, without asking the other person if he would be interested in hearing about your experience.

• telling your side of an issue so strongly that the person finds you defensive

• responding to someone who challenges you by confronting that person in like manner, usually resulting in a “tit for tat” exchange

A Disaster-Aid Worker feels Rebuffed

As Ueland advises, if we really listen to others, we may experience a miracle. However, there won’t be many such miracles when people don’t listen to you. Instead, you could easily feel shut off, stymied and angry. That’s how Cathy, our colleague with the disaster-aid group, described the way she felt after her ordeal. Her story is a good lesson on how a failure to listen can affect someone. Here’s what happened from her point of view:

Years ago, I signed up for and received extensive training to volunteer at an emergency response organization. Professional mental-health volunteers are in short supply. Volunteers can expect to get as little as 24 hours’ notice to work at a disaster and must be willing to be deployed for at least two weeks. This meant that on short notice, I’d have to request several days of vacation time from my employer.

On one disaster call, I flew to a state three time zones away, checked in at a hotel, and then reported to the volunteer headquarters. Jonathan, the assistant mental-health manager and himself a volunteer, greeted me and assigned me to do a three-day needs assessment at a center that was a two-hour drive away.

I was concerned about this placement due to safety reasons. I was new to disaster work, having gone on only two previous assignments. Both times I had traveled with other volunteers to the assigned sites. This time I was expected to drive alone to a flooded area.

I told Jonathan, “I want to do the work, but I’m not sure I can handle it by myself. Can you assign another volunteer to go with me?”

He replied, “We’re short on volunteers, so I can’t possibly send someone with you. You’re a professional. You wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t do the work. Just get with it and do it.”

Still experiencing a queasy feeling in my stomach, I said, “But I’ve just talked with another assistant mental-health manager who told me she actually did a needs assessment earlier today at the same site. She said mental-health volunteers should not be placed at that site because—”

Jonathan interrupted me, saying, “That person had no business saying that, and you had no business listening to her. You’re working for me, and you need to do what I tell you to do. I’m not going to take any more guff from you. You’re going!” Then he abruptly walked away.

I didn’t feel Jonathan made any effort at all to listen to me. He didn’t share with me the importance or purpose of the assignment, and he didn’t explain why a second needs assessment was necessary.

Here is the Ladder of Assumptions I went up about Jonathan:

The setting was the volunteer headquarters shortly after a disaster.

The facts were that I was assigned to drive alone to meet with people at one of the disaster sites and to do a needs assessment over three days. An assistant mental-health manager had already done an assessment at that site the same day. I spoke to Jonathan about my concerns about going alone and doing what seemed to be unnecessary work. He said he couldn’t change the assignment and that I shouldn’t listen to the other volunteer’s assessment. His last statement was, “You’re going.”

I interpreted Jonathan’s response to my attempts to talk to him as rude, unprofessional and dismissive.

The motives I attributed to Jonathan were that he felt he knew best, didn’t want anyone to question his decisions and wanted to wield power over me.

I stereotyped him as one of those ill-prepared volunteers who are placed in positions of authority that they never would have held in the professional domain because they lacked the necessary managerial skills.

My actions were to get extremely frustrated and angry. Yet, although ambivalent about the placement, I did what I was told and went alone to the site to do the needs assessment. I did the minimal work required. I saw only 11 clients over the three days I was there.

At the end of the assignment, I was still angry at Jonathan. I called him to report the minimal activity level and staffing needs at my site. Jonathan interrupted me and said curtly, “I don’t care what you think. There was work there to be done, and there is still more work that needs to be done. I’m the one who makes those decisions, not you. Report to headquarters tomorrow at 1 p.m.” As his tone seemed punitive, I was concerned and asked about my next assignment. He again ordered me to report to headquarters the next day and hung up on me.

Feeling uneasy about the situation, I then called headquarters and asked to speak to Jonathan’s boss, Jill, also a volunteer. I attempted to explain the situation to her, but she interrupted me, saying, “Cathy, you’ve been a problem from the very beginning. I’ve received only bad reports about you and your work.”

Hurt by her comments, I said, “I’ve done the best I could under the circumstances. Where did my bad reports come from?” Jill said she received the information from Jonathan. I felt he’d been rude, unprofessional and dismissive toward me from the time we met, so it was no surprise that he was the source of the bad reports.

Jill then gave me an ultimatum, “Either complete the assignments you are given and do your job with a smile, or you’ll get another bad review and you will be sent home.” She wanted an answer from me right then. She didn’t allow me to explain my experience at my site or give my perspective on the situation.

Because of the level of hostility and lack of respect I felt from both Jonathan and Jill, I told her, “I’m going home then.”

She said, “Go ahead, but you’ll have to figure out your travel arrangements yourself. I’ve got my own work to do.”

I felt it was a shame that valuable resources were wasted and that I decided to return early because a few individuals in power positions lacked the listening skills to effectively address my situation. With that experience behind me, I questioned the effectiveness of the organization in screening volunteers for managerial positions. I sent a letter to the organization in which I shared my experiences and stated that I was withdrawing as a volunteer for the organization.

Cathy did not feel Jonathan or Jill listened to her, resulting in the organization’s loss of a skilled volunteer. The outcome might have been quite different if Jonathan and Jill had listened for deep understanding to Cathy.

Throughout our mediation experience, we have developed four techniques that will help you avoid the types of responses Jonathan and Jill demonstrated and become skillful in listening for deep understanding. We’ll use Cathy’s experience to demonstrate the techniques, showing how Jonathan and Jill might have listened for deep understanding to Cathy.

How to Listen for Deep Understanding

Encourage

A speaker begins to feel understood when you encourage her to say more. You do this by asking open-ended questions or by using other ways to request more information. An open-ended question is one that leads to a response greater than a word or two. A closed-ended question can generally be answered with a yes or no, a time, a date or a place.

When you are asking open-ended questions, you can get a better response from someone if you phrase questions in a manner that allows the respondent to express herself freely, encouraging the person to share background information, feelings and motivations.

Here are examples of open-ended questions:

• What led to the argument you had with him?

• What made you feel that way?

• How did you address the problem?

• What possibilities for resolving the issues did you consider?

• How did you arrive at the agreement that was reached?

• What factors did you consider when you decided to include that particular provision in the agreement?

If Jonathan and Jill had been listening to Cathy with the intent of understanding her deeply, this is what they might have said to encourage her to more fully describe her concerns:

Jonathan: I can tell you’re anxious about going on this assignment, Cathy. It’s hard for me to fully understand why you’re so concerned about going to the site alone. Can you fill me in on what seems to make you so nervous about that? If I can get a better handle on why the assignment is unsettling to you, I might be able to work out a different assignment for you.

Jill: I’m glad you called me, Cathy. I need to have you give me some more details about your experience doing the needs assessment at that site. It will give me more to go on when I decide what we’re going to do there next. Also, the way you describe your dealings with Jonathan concerns me. Please say more about exactly what you said to him and what he said to you. I need to get a better picture of what you said to each other.

When we’re willing to step back from a conflict with another person and sincerely invite the person to expand on what has been said, it opens up the possibility of breaking through an impasse and getting to the source of an issue.

Clarify

To fully grasp the concerns and feelings behind what another person is saying, you have to dig even deeper. Admitting you don’t yet have a clear picture of what is bothering the other person is not a bad thing. It actually indicates you are sincerely trying. To listen for deep understanding, you must then ask clarifying questions to let the other person know you are seriously interested in getting on the same page with that person about her views.

Here are some examples of questions that are meant to elicit further explanation of a person’s previous statements:

• What did I do that caused you to feel this way about me?

• I’m not clear about how my behavior affected you. Could you explain again how you felt when I spoke to you?

• You said I couldn’t care less about what is going on in your life. Can you explain to me what you meant by that?

Here are some possible clarifying questions Jonathan and Jill might have asked Cathy, if they had been listening deeply to try to understand her:

Jonathan: You said you’ve had very little experience doing this kind of work in a disaster area Cathy. Can you tell me what kind of experience you’ve had doing this kind of work in non-disaster situations? Also, can you describe what type of work you’ve done in other disaster situations?

Jill: Filling me in on your experience doing the needs assessment at the site and your interactions with Jonathan has been very helpful, Cathy. What was it the other volunteer told you about her experience earlier in the day at the site that convinced you additional needs-assessment work would be redundant? And what was it about Jonathan’s tone of voice and choice of words that caused you to feel he wasn’t interested in your side of the story?

Restate

In a conversation between two people—a dialogue—each person needs to feel acknowledged and understood by the other person. One of the best ways to make sure you understand another person is by acknowledging the other person. You can do this in two ways:

• by paraphrasing or restating in condensed form what that person has said, and

• by reflecting feelings you’ve picked up from the other person.

These types of statements confirm you are listening to him in a way that demonstrates you want to understand him deeply:

• It seems what I said made you think I don’t respect you.

• It sounds as if you’re feeling really frustrated with me right now.

• I gather you feel I’ve been rude to you.

• From what you’ve told me, I can tell you’re really angry at me.

Here is what Jonathan and Jill might have restated and reflected to Cathy, if they had been listening to her with the intent of understanding her deeply:

Jonathan: You seem worried about going to the site by yourself, Cathy, when you’ve had very little experience doing this kind of work in a disaster area. You’re also wondering whether the work is necessary, given that another volunteer already did a needs assessment there today and told you another one wouldn’t be necessary.

Jill: From listening to you, Cathy, I gather you feel you weren’t really needed at the site because the activity level was so low and you were confused about why you were even sent out there. I take it that your interactions with Jonathan have been extremely frustrating for you because you felt he treated you in a dismissive manner.

Summarize

When you summarize the key perceptions and feelings you think you’ve heard, it gives the other person a chance to either acknowledge you are right on target or, if you’ve missed something, let you know what you didn’t catch the first time around. The end result is a level of transparency between you and the other person that puts the other person at ease. Making it clear you have heard someone else’s perspective is not the same as agreeing with that person. You may not agree with her view, but you want her to know you have definitely heard it and have done your best to understand it.

Here are several examples of summarizing statements:

• To a student confiding in you about his second thoughts about his college choice: “When the college rep interviewed you during your senior year in high school, you felt good about the college. Now that you’ve finished your freshman year at the college, you’re wondering whether it really meets your academic needs and whether you should even have accepted its offer of a scholarship.”

• To the loved one who has talked to you about what you’ve done since promising to quit smoking: “You’re upset with me because I promised to quit smoking, but I haven’t been able to quit completely. You think I never really intended to quit and that I told you I would quit just to get you off my back.”

• To the executive who came to you with his concerns about finances at your firm: “You’re angry because Jack, whom you trusted to manage finances at the company, has let you down. To assess the financial status of the firm, you’ve decided you need an impartial financial audit.”

Here is how Jonathan and Jill might have summarized what Cathy had said to them, if they had been listening for deep understanding to her:

Jonathan: In a nutshell, Cathy, it seems as though you feel you don’t have the experience and skills to carry out the assignment I’ve given you today. Also, you question whether the three-day needs-assessment, which is the main task in the assignment, is necessary because another volunteer has already completed that task in just one day. I’d still like you to do another needs assessment to confirm the one that was done today. If we could spare another volunteer, I’d send one with you, but we can’t. Do you have any ideas of what else we might do to make you feel safer? I hope I can help you feel comfortable in taking on this assignment.

Jill: I appreciate you being honest about why you didn’t want to go to the site on your own and why you were put off by Jonathan’s insistence that you do so. You said the three days you spent at the site could have been spent at a site where you felt you were truly needed. That’s the kind of input I need to hear. We need to do a much better job of making good use of the few professional volunteers we have. Do you think it would make sense for the three of us—you, Jonathan, and me—to talk about this when you get back to headquarters? It would be good if we could all learn how to do things better based on our recent experiences.

Opening the Door for Discussion

Your intention should always be to listen for deep understanding to someone, rather than listening only so you can respond. When you listen for deep understanding, you show the person talking with you that you really care about what she has to say. Your sincere interest is made clear through your words. The other person no longer clings so tightly to her position but starts to open up to you and your perspective.

You have opened the door to a discussion of the factual basis of the assumptions the other person has made about you. You have helped the person explore the root causes for her thoughts and find a path to correcting any erroneous assumptions she may have made about you. You have, indeed, truly listened for deep understanding.

Listening intently to another person is hard work. Our colleague Peter Pearson has spent more than 20 years as a therapist helping couples resolve their conflicts. Pearson and his wife, Ellyn Bader, founded the Couples Institute in Menlo Park, California. He’s found from his work that the motivation to listen requires that it be stronger than the self-protect and self-defense mechanism.

There’s a physiological reason for this, according to Pearson. He says that when people get defensive, the limbic system in the brain is activated and draws more blood to it. Less blood (oxygen) goes to the analytical, or logical, part of the brain. The logical part of the brain needs to kick in before you can step back and listen for deep understanding. But when the logical part of the brain gets less oxygen than the limbic system, it interferes with your ability to see things analytically. And you wind up overreacting emotionally.1

So what can you do to overcome that emotional reaction? And how can you remember to do it? Pearson recommends you “breathe and breathe again.” Pearson says that taking relaxed breaths will send more oxygen to the logical brain. When that happens, you’re better able to think. That’s the condition you want to be in to take advantage of our suggestions for listening for deep understanding. Oh, and Pearson has a little tip: Stretching your arms will decrease the “fight or flight” response.6

Sometimes people are reluctant to listen without immediately responding because they don’t want to appear to be ceding a point in an argument or giving in. Remember that listening for deep understanding does not mean you are necessarily agreeing with the other person’s point of view or supporting it. Listening for deep understanding is neither giving advice nor telling people why they shouldn’t feel the way they do. It is listening so you understand where the other person is coming from. At this point, you are not trying to solve anything. You are simply paying attention on a deep level.

When you can communicate to people that you are hearing what they are feeling, no matter how irrational their feelings may seem to be, they can stop trying to justify to you and to themselves what is going on inside them. They can then start down the road of figuring out for themselves the assumptions behind their feelings. Eventually, this process may result in suggestions that benefit both of you. For further examples of the four components of listening for deep understanding, refer to the appendix at the back of this book.

Concluding Thoughts

Listen for deep understanding by ENCOURAGING another person to expand upon what she has been saying to you.

Here is how you do that:

• Quiet you mind, while others are expressing their views about you. Take a deep breath, and let intruding thoughts fade away so you can be in the moment with the speaker.

• Try to be truly open to others’ views about you. Be interested in learning more from others about their views of your strong areas and your areas that need developing.

• Explore the possibility that others’ views are as valid as yours. Keep reminding yourself that your view is one of many regarding a particular situation. Remember that your perspective of any given situation is different from everyone else’s.

Listen for deep understanding by asking CLARIFYING questions of the other person.

Here is how you do that:

• Be sincerely curious about where others got their information about your behavior. Phrase your question in a manner that indicates you are grateful to receive further information, rather than in a way that might come across as blaming the other person.

• Be honest in your desire to know how others reached their conclusions about you. Know that others usually aren’t purposefully trying to make an incorrect case against you but, rather, have simply raced up their own Ladder of Assumptions about you.

• Try to help others explore alternative conclusions about your behavior other than the ones they drew. Ask them if they would be willing to entertain the possibility that there might be an explanation for your behavior that they haven’t yet considered.

Listen for deep understanding by RESTATING what you have heard from the other person.

Here is how you do that:

• State in your own words the points you heard from the other person. Work on remembering the essential thoughts expressed by the other person and then putting them into words that come naturally to you.

• Share with the other person the feelings you heard behind his words. Develop a “third” ear that enables you to get “in tune” with the other person’s deeply felt emotions.

• Keep trying until the person tells you that the points you restated and the feelings you reflected are on target. Don’t take personally any statements from another person that might seem to impugn your ability to hear what she is saying. Try, and then try again. You can succeed!

Listen for deep understanding by SUMMARIZING the main points and feelings you heard throughout the other person’s account.

Here is how you do that:

• Retrieve from your memory and state the key points mentioned by the other person. Practice moving from statements of minute detail you heard from the other person to general statements that capture the essence of what he has said.

• Share with the other person the key feelings expressed by the person. From all the various emotions you have heard from the other person, focus strictly on the predominant feelings you have heard, and communicate those.

• Continue until the person says you have correctly heard all his key thoughts and feelings. Keep repeating in different ways and rephrasing what you have heard until he is satisfied with your grasp of what he has said. Don’t stop until he expresses confidence that you’ve heard essentially everything he has said. If this becomes too lengthy and either of you becomes tired or frustrated by the process, be sensitive to that and suggest you continue at another time.

Activities

These tasks help you develop your muscles for listening.

Image of a Listener

Create an image of yourself being an effective listener, and give that image a name (a strong word, such as “compassionate”).

Write a few guidelines taken from the suggestions in this chapter for listening for deep understanding.

Step into the shoes of someone with whom you currently are, or recently were, in a conflict, and complete the following exercises with that person. When you first practice these exercises with that person, they may seem strange and unfamiliar to both of you. So you may want to explain to the other person that you are learning an approach to resolving conflicts and that the exercises are intended to help you do that. This may enable you to get that person’s buy-in to working with you on the exercises.

Practice on a Real Person

Refer to the first two steps in listening for deep understanding—“encourage” and “clarify”—and then perform these tasks:

• Compose up to four statements or questions aimed at understanding the other person’s situation by encouraging him to develop his story further and by clarifying a part of his story.

• Arrange some time to meet with the other person.

• Repeat your strong word, and take a deep, relaxing breath.

• Have handy the statements and questions you wrote, along with the guidelines for listening for deep understanding.

• Practice with the other person making the statements and asking the questions.

Refer to the final two ways to listen for deep understanding—“restate” and “summarize”—and then perform these tasks:

• Restate to the other person the thoughts you have heard and reflect any feelings you have picked up.

• Summarize what you heard the other person say and the feelings he expressed.

CHAPTER 5
CLARIFYING ASSUMPTIONS

Understanding is a two-way street.

—Eleanor Roosevelt

Say you’re a freshman in college. You’ve been having a rough time ever since the start of the year. You’ve been stressed about your studies, anxious about your future on the men’s varsity soccer team and spending a lot of time deciding what you need to do to improve your chances of becoming a really good soccer player.

With the end of your first year coming into view, you have to deliver news to your roommate that probably will not be accepted well by him. You intend to room with another student next year. Although you made the decision a while ago, your roommate may feel as though it is coming from left field. You and your roommate are good friends, and you want to keep that friendship.

This is, in fact, an amalgam of several cases we mediated.

How might you do your best to shape this “must have” discussion with your roommate, to preserve the relationship? We’ll delve further into this dilemma later.

Conflict on a Geographically Dispersed Team

It’s hard enough for people who see each other every day to resolve conflicts, but when people are in other parts of the country, unknown factors and miscommunication can build up.

Consider the case of a group of coworkers at a company based on the West Coast, whose project was to develop a curriculum for a training class. When one employee, a telecommuter in the Midwest, started missing due dates; failed to reply to emails and texts; and didn’t phone calls, one of the other team members got frustrated.

When the long-distance telecommuter went incommunicado, the frustrated employee, whom we’ll call Pat, made a number of assumptions in a vacuum. With little information to go on to explain why her coworker who will be known as James in this account, had dropped off the map, she assumed the worst: that he was taking advantage of his working from home to blow off the rest of the team.

Pat couldn’t know what was going on with her coworker because they weren’t communicating, and they weren’t in close enough proximity to each other for one of them to walk into the other’s office—or even drive to the other person’s house. Pat and two other members of the team were at her company’s West Coast headquarters; another member of the team was in an East Coast field office; and James, the Midwest telecommuter, worked out of his home.

Here’s how Pat describes the circumstances:

We had weekly team teleconference calls to discuss the status of our project to develop a curriculum for a training class and to come up with action items. A lot of the work was exchanged via email and attached documents. Input was coming in on the project almost daily. James participated in the calls and had just as many productive ideas as any other team member. He also had specialized experience in one subject of the class. No one else had that knowledge.

Then for days on end, James didn’t email anything or return calls or reply to texts. There were action items with due dates he missed, and he didn’t explain why he missed them. The rest of us, and our two managers, grew frustrated especially because there wasn’t much other than emailing, texting or calling that we could do with a remote teammate. We couldn’t go into his office and talk with him. At times, it didn’t seem that James had been doing any work at all.

As we got closer to an upcoming deadline, we received a burst of work from James in an email, which came with an 8:30 a.m. timestamp—just before our 9 a.m. team teleconference call. He was in a time zone two hours ahead of us, so that was 10:30 a.m. his time. No one else on the team had time to read or review his contributions, and consequently, we couldn’t discuss them during the teleconference call.

I sarcastically pointed that out to James during the teleconference call, saying: “Thanks for finally sending your work—not that we had any chance of reviewing it.” I made a few other snide, short comments to James during the call. I’m not a screamer; I’m more of a sit-and-fume type. Sarcastic comments help release my irritation.

When I considered the situation later, this is the Ladder of Assumptions I realized I had raced up about James:

The setting was a five-person team, on which James and I were coworkers. The team was charged with the responsibility of developing a curriculum for a training class.

The facts were that James did not email, call or text over a period of three weeks. He did call in for the teleconference calls. He emailed 50 pages of work shortly before deadline and our team teleconference call. There wasn’t enough time for the other team members to review them and discuss them during the call.

I interpreted James’s behavior as inconsiderate, irresponsible and unprofessional.

The motives I attributed to James were that he worked from home because he wanted it all: a high-paying job in a state with a low cost of living and a home near his in-laws, who could babysit. But he didn’t want to work as hard as the rest of us were working. He didn’t care about letting down the team. He wanted to hide from the consequences of missing deadlines by not communicating with us.

I stereotyped James as one of those employees who work from home; have young children not yet in school; and just don’t dedicate their time and focus on their work in the same manner as those of us who go into our offices to work.

My actions were to be snippy with James during the team teleconference call. I gossiped about him at work with the other two local coworkers on the team, and I complained to his boss about his behavior.

After a few days passed and my irritation subsided somewhat, I felt I could and should deal with this issue by talking with James about my concerns. Because I had taken the action of talking to James’s boss, I thought she might have communicated with him. And so I was optimistic that he would either directly answer or return a phone call from me.

James and I did manage to connect on the phone. I concluded that it was one small step in the right direction because he had made himself available. We chatted and made small talk at first. I learned he was remodeling his house and his mother-in-law had recently been very ill for a short while. I used that as an opening to encourage him to communicate with the rest of us. We didn’t need to know the personal details about his circumstances, but it helped to know there was something unusual going on in his life.

We went on to talk about the frustration those of us at headquarters had felt when he didn’t follow through on his commitments and simultaneously went incommunicado. I praised him for his knowledge of the subject matter and the quality of work he did when he turned work in. After actually talking to and hearing from him, I realized he did care about the curriculum development project and about pulling his weight on the team. I realized that when I hadn’t been able to communicate at all with him, it was easy for me to assume he didn’t care about the project.

I requested that he agree only to take on action items and deadlines he believed he could reasonably make and discuss with us if he didn’t think his assignments made sense. And I asked him to please let us know ahead of time if he couldn’t make a deadline. The main thing I asked him for was to communicate with us—at the very least to return calls or texts from us within a work day.”

Pat realized that although her phone call with James wasn’t part of a planned strategy, she had definitely gone through the mental steps of going back down to the factual rung of her Ladder of Assumptions and clarifying her assumptions. She didn’t share and check out with James every one of the assumptions she had made about him earlier. But in the course of their discussion, she changed her assumptions about him and was able to work out ideas with him to go forward.

In many instances, people who aren’t far apart still can make unfounded assumptions about each other. It happens when there isn’t full communication with each other. This can happen with coworkers who have offices on the same floor—and even with college students living in the same room in a dormitory.

Conflict Between College Freshmen Roommates

In the conflict we introduced at the beginning of the chapter, you were faced with telling your roommate, whom we’ll refer to as Derek, you would not be rooming with him after the term was over, but rather with your soccer team buddy, who will be known as Nate. Consider the consequences if you were to introduce the news by texting him this way:

You: Derek, Nate and I are going to be roommates next year. I asked him, and he said yes. I wanted to let you know as soon as possible, so you could start thinking about what you’re going to do about finding a roommate for next year.

Derek (texting back): Wait! Did I get that right? Did you say you asked Nate to be your roommate next year?

You: Yeah! Nate agreed to room with me next year. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. I’ll be back in our room in a half an hour. I’ll talk with you then.

Back in your dorm room, Derek says to you, “I didn’t have any idea you wanted to change roommates. I thought we were gonna room together again. I thought we were good friends and roomies.”

You: We are good friends, Derek—

Derek: Do you realize this is the end of spring semester? Haven’t you seen everyone studying for finals and packing up to go home for the summer? Finding a new roommate now will be almost impossible, especially since I haven’t made any real friends other than you this year. This news is really freaking me out.

You: Derek—

Derek: How am I supposed to ask practical strangers to be my roommate? I don’t know what I’m gonna do if I can’t find another roommate.

You completely understand why Derek was so angry with you. You recognize that Derek felt betrayed and tossed aside by you. You understand he may try working through those feelings by proving to you that you made the wrong decision. Because you have read this book, you are going to try listening to him in such a way as to understand him. Here’s how that conversation might sound:

Derek: I think you’ve totally forgotten about all the things I’ve done for you this year. I never complained when you came in late from a party and turned all the lights on. I took you home with me over spring break, so you wouldn’t have to stay on campus alone. I’ve helped you out of all kinds of weird situations. Who else would do all that? Of course, I thought we’d be roomies again next year!

You: I get it! You think I haven’t noticed or appreciated all you’ve done for me this year.

Derek: Not only that, but also you’ve gone behind my back to find another roommate! At least you could have given me the courtesy of telling me what you were up to. I had no idea how devious and underhanded you are. You sure had me fooled. I thought we had a good relationship, but apparently we don’t.

You: You’re really mad at me for finding a different roommate for next year without letting you know what I was planning. And you think I’ve been sneaky in doing it.

Derek: I feel so betrayed by you! You’re one of my best friends. If I can’t trust you, who can I trust?

You: What I’ve done in going behind your back to get another roommate for next year has made you feel that you can’t trust me anymore. Is that what you’re feeling?

Derek: Yeah!!! That’s exactly the way I feel.

By listening for deep understanding to Derek, you have come away with a good grasp on why he interpreted your announcement about rooming with Nate next year as an outright rejection of him. Derek’s interpretation of your announcement leaves you feeling guilty because it never was your intention to diminish him in any way. On the other hand, you also are thinking that this conversation so far has been one sided.

You may be feeling frustrated because you have listened carefully to Derek, but you have not had an opportunity to explain your side of the story to him. It is now your job to help him listen to you. Both parties in a conflict need to listen for deep understanding to each other. Without each party being heard, reaching a final agreement that resolves the conflict may be next to impossible.

Completing the Listening Cycle

How can you motivate Derek to listen to your side of the story? And why is it so important for you to be heard? Why can’t you just be satisfied with having heard his side of the story?

Derek felt the weight of anger driven by miscommunication somewhat lifted off him when he experienced you listening to him. It is also important for you to lighten your emotional load by explaining the rationale for the comment he felt was hurtful.

The hurdle you are facing now is figuring out how to encourage Derek to listen to your perspective. Fortunately, there are two beneficial circumstances in your favor that you have already set up by having listened to Derek first:

• Derek experienced you listening to him; although, he probably still feels somewhat resentful toward you. The hope is that he may not feel compelled to remain in what is essentially a fight-or-flight scenario. Now his mind, heart, tone of voice and body language may be more open to hear you.

• You have just modeled how to listen for deep understanding by listening intently to Derek. He may find it easier to listen for deep understanding to you by mirroring your listening lead.

Making the Approach to Being Heard

Now that you have listened thoughtfully to Derek, you might take the following approach.

Let Derek know you would like to have another discussion with him about the situation. Asking takes courage on your part. You want to clear the air. You don’t want Derek to stay hurt and mad at you. So you want him to hear you out about your reasons for getting a new roommate. To Derek, those reasons may turn out to be questionable. But remember, you are asking Derek to join you in your pursuit of a resolution to the situation. Your hope is that, in response to your showing respect for him, he will agree to work with you in seeking to resolve the issue dividing the two of you.

You might start by telling Derek that you didn’t mean to shock him. Ask him if you can share your thinking about changing roommates. In effect, you are asking Derek to help you explore the factual basis of your assumptions. Describe to him your reasons and values, and ask him to recap them without judgment, as you did for him in the first discussion.

You: Derek, the more I think about what you said, the more I get where you’re coming from. At first I was surprised by how you reacted, but now I totally get why you’re mad at me. I realize the way I brought this up was really insensitive. I’m wondering whether you might be up for listening to me tell you what I meant to say.

Derek: I heard what you said the first time. You want to room next year with Nate. Period! You seem to have forgotten all the things I did to help you this year with school and your personal life.

You: I can totally see how you feel that way. I’m wondering if you might give me a chance to explain why I said what I did?

Derek: (reluctantly): If you have to, OK.

You: The reason I asked Nate to be my roommate definitely has nothing to do with you. You’ve helped me a lot with my classes and when I was struggling with being away from home for the first time. I asked Nate because we have the same classes and the same major. We also have the same tough workout schedule. You know how Nate and I are on the soccer team. If we live together, I’m sure he’ll give me tips about how I can get my game on. And maybe I can help him, too. You know how this season was a bummer ‘cause I didn’t get to actually play much, and I’d really like to be a starter next year. I was thinking Nate would help me.

At this point, you want to check in with Derek to find out what he heard you say and how he feels about your explanation.

You: Does what I just said make sense?

Derek: Well, I’m no soccer player, so I guess I can see how living with Nate might help you get better. That’s your choice. I get your point that you didn’t mean to put me down. But … whatever. You were way late in letting me know you had asked him to be your roommate next year.

Communicating Constructively

Communicating constructively to another person about your concerns, as you did with Derek, makes it possible for you to express yourself in a positive, factual way. Otherwise, the way you express yourself could easily put others on the defensive. When you react brusquely to another person’s words or behavior and instantly state your assumptions, you risk cutting that person off. This does not allow the other person to open up and hear your thoughts and feelings. That is what is needed, if conflicts are to be turned into cooperative dialogues where both people experience being understood.

You may need to postpone talking with the other person until you have been able to reflect on the impact your words and tone may have had. Given the outcome you’re looking for, what will be the best approach to take? How would you like him to talk with you, if the roles were reversed? Is he likely to react to your words the same way you would react to them, coming from him? Or is he likely to be more receptive to an approach that is different from one that would work best for you? We’re separate individuals, so we respond differently to the same events and words.

When it’s time to give your side of the story, speak openly and directly. Your goal is not to persuade him but to have your concerns heard fairly. You want to help the other person understand your assumptions. Your goal is to help him understand how you came to think what you were thinking.

It’s not easy to share negative conclusions and judgments you’ve made. You know they may put off the other person. The key to communicating constructively is to start by sharing what you see as facts and by stating your assumptions clearly and without blame. Once you’ve shared your point of view, you can ask the other person to share his views regarding the accuracy of what he just heard.

Clarifying Assumptions

When you and Derek have shared your respective assumptions with each other, you are ready to have a conversation about which assumptions are correct and which are not. Here’s how that might go:

You: Derek, your assumption that I’m clueless about all you’ve done for me isn’t true. You’ve been the best roommate. You’ve helped me get through some really difficult times this year.

Derek: Thanks, though it’s kind of hard to believe you. I feel—felt, whatever—totally rejected by you, and it’s hard to let go of that feeling. It’s cool that you’re saying that’s not what you meant, that you weren’t intentionally trying to reject me. Can I really believe that?

You: Tell me what you think about why I want to room with Nate. Do you think it’ll help me get better at soccer? I really think so, but maybe I’m wrong.

Derek: Actually, I don’t think it really matters. It’s not like you’re playing soccer in your dorm room. Personally, I think you just need more confidence in yourself and figure things out on your own. You’re actually an outstanding soccer player, as far as I can see.

You: Thanks. That’s nice of you to say. But, I don’t think I’m an outstanding soccer player. Hmmm. Maybe I could get better at soccer without living with Nate. Who knows what he’s like to actually live with? You’ve got a point that I need to rely on myself more.

Derek: Now that you’ve explained yourself, I can begin to see things a little differently. Maybe you weren’t being devious and sneaky after all.

You: I’m glad you realize that I wasn’t trying to be sneaky. Nate and I had become such good teammates that I was just thinking about how we could spend more time together next year. It never was about keeping you in the dark. It never occurred to me you might think I purposely went behind your back.

Derek: Even though I knew you were on the soccer team, I never realized how important it was in your life. It seems soccer’s the most important thing to you. Is that it?

You: Hmmm. Most important? I don’t know. I definitely see myself as a soccer player, and I want to be a much better soccer player. I’m really hoping to play professionally after I graduate.

Derek: Well, it sounds as though you think rooming with Nate is going to somehow help you get toward your goal of playing professionally. I just hope we can stay friends, even though we won’t be roommates, anymore.

You: I sure hope so. I realize now that I told you about my plans way too late. I can see how it’s gonna make it hard for you to find another roommate. Actually, I can help you look for a roommate. I know a couple of freshmen guys who are looking for new roommates, and I think you’d be really compatible with them. And you’re right. I probably could have figured out on my own how to be a better soccer player. I might not have had to change roommates to figure that out.

Clarifying Assumptions is a Process

It isn’t always possible to clear the air in one conversation. It can be a step-by-step process in which a series of constructive exchanges occur. It helps to acknowledge that your assumptions are guesses that can turn out to be partly true or not true at all. The point of stating your assumptions to another person is to find out if those assumptions make sense to that person.

It usually takes time to sort out the assumptions that both of you can agree are unfounded and those that have a basis in fact. Eventually, when both of you are willing to give up your unfounded assumptions and focus strictly on the ones that are grounded in reality, you are ready to clear up the misunderstandings between you and move forward toward resolution.

Concluding Thoughts

Ask the person with whom you’re in conflict to share his assumptions about you.

Here is how you do that:

• Move away from your strong feelings and realize your adversary is a human being. Acknowledge the other person is someone whose story is as legitimate as your own.

• Try to be truly open and listen for deep understanding to the other person’s views about your words and your behavior.

• Make your best effort to avoid immediately judging as wrong what you hear from the other person.

Share with the other person the assumptions you’ve made about him.

When you do, be sure to abide by these guidelines:

• Try to avoid accusations when you speak to the other person. Be aware that your assumptions are only guesses and may be faulty.

• Endeavor to state your assumptions without trying to justify them.

• Take responsibility for the assumptions you’ve made about the other person and for the effects your assumptions may have had on him.

Ask questions that will help you and the other person determine the factual basis of the assumptions you have made about each other.

When you do, keep these guidelines in mind:

• Be open to receiving new information from the other person about your assumptions without immediately judging that information as wrong.

• Work toward being able to entertain two contradictory assumptions at the same time: yours and those of the other person.

• Maintain an attitude of respect toward the other person as you ask questions. Be aware that others can be just as sure they are right about their assumptions as you have been about yours.

Come to agreement with the other person on your respective assumptions that are factually based.

Let these recommendations guide you in this way:

• Seek to avoid holding onto unnecessary disagreements. Recognize that sticking to assumptions you are convinced are right, without honestly taking into consideration the other person’s assumptions, is a stumbling block to reaching an agreement.

• Shift from thinking, “I’m right and you’re wrong,” to thinking, “Together we can agree on what is true about our relationship.” Be willing to reshape your assumptions or even abandon them completely, if they don’t add up.

• Affirm the principle that resolving conflicts and restoring relationships are higher values than being right.

Give your best effort to letting go of invalid assumptions and reaching common ground with the other person.

Here are steps to doing that:

• Assess whether you sincerely desire to reach common ground with the other person. Search within yourself to locate any vestiges of angry feelings toward that person.

• Acknowledge you have sufficient self-confidence to yield to the correctness of another person’s assumptions without feeling personally diminished.

• View the other person as willing to entertain the notion that his assumptions may not necessarily be correct. Consider that the other person may be just as flexible as you are.

• Work hard together to reconcile apparently contradictory assumptions. Search for and find common themes that may have been hidden in seemingly opposing assumptions.

Activities

These tasks help you focus on both people’s Ladders of Assumptions.

Assumptions From Another Point of View

This chapter’s first vignette, the conflict in a geographically dispersed team, is told from Pat’s perspective. Put yourself in James’s shoes. What do you think might have been going on with him? Then perform these exercises:

• What might have been James’s Ladder of Assumptions? What assumptions might he have had about Pat?

• What language could he use to constructively communicate his perspective to Pat? How might he share and check out assumptions he has about her?

• Create a realistic script in which James and Pat clarify their perspectives and check out their assumptions with each other. Continue the dialogue between James and Pat to the point where both are satisfied they’ve explored the validity of their respective assumptions.

Assumptions From Two Opposing Points of View

In this chapter’s second vignette, the conflict between two college freshman roommates, we didn’t include the Ladders of Assumptions each raced up about the other. So, here’s your chance to try your hand at writing Ladders of Assumptions for them. Write the following:

• Derek’s Ladder of Assumptions about “you” and

• the Ladder of Assumptions “you” made about Derek.

CHAPTER 6
GOING IT ALONE

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something; And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.

—Edward Everett Hale

What happens when there is no way for you to have a truly meaningful talk with the other person in a conflict?

One situation was brought to our attention by a woman who had looked forward to her adult daughter’s coming to stay with her at Christmastime. The visit didn’t turn out the way the mother had hoped it would. Her daughter whom we’ll refer to as Joanie, didn’t want to participate in the activities her mother had planned and abruptly ended her stay. The daughter was gone, but the conflict remained. The mother wanted to resolve the dispute, but in this instance she had to go it alone. You will read later in the chapter how she resolved it.

There are times when one person in a conflict wants to reach resolution, but the other party is unavailable or unwilling to share and clarify assumptions. There are even times when the person who committed the perceived offense dies before the other person has come to terms with obstacles in the relationship.

There are things you can do yourself. You can figure out on your own how not to take the other person’s reactions personally. You can learn how to defuse your hurt and angry feelings resulting from the negative assumptions you have made about the other person.

A Conflict With a Dinner Partner

A woman, whom we’ve given the name Maureen, contacted us because she needed assistance in resolving a very negative confrontation she’d had with another person, whom we’ll call Brian, in her retirement community. It wasn’t the type of situation where she felt comfortable talking directly with the person. And she didn’t need to. Working with us, Maureen was able to clarify her assumptions about the man—and overcome her hurt and angry feelings—without ever engaging in a dialogue with him.

Here’s what happened, in Maureen’s words:

I live at a retirement community. Early on after I moved here, I was invited to join several single men and women for dinner on a regular basis. We typically eat together in the common dining room. Occasionally, a member of the group makes plans to eat dinner with someone else. And sometimes we invite another single person to eat with us. We usually gather at a table in a lounge for about 45 minutes for a glass of wine before sitting down to dinner in the dining room.

One evening, we were seated at a table in the lounge enjoying our wine and talking with each other. At one point, I walked into the dining room to speak to the maitre d’ about reserving a dinner table. As I was doing so, a single man who occasionally eats dinner with us also walked up to the reservation desk. I spoke to Raphael and invited him to join us for dinner. He accepted.

I walked back to where we were seated in the lounge and brought a chair up to the table to my right for Raphael. As Raphael sat down, Brian, who was sitting in the chair to the right of Raphael, stood up and shouted past Raphael directly at me, “F— off!”

I was shocked to my core at what Brian said to me. No one had ever said that to me before. My father never permitted vulgar language like that to be spoken in our home. I couldn’t imagine what would have caused Brian to speak to me in such a demeaning way. I could see the others at the table staring at Brian, and I was sure they had heard what he had shouted at me.

Shortly after, everyone got up and walked into the dining room. I was the last one to walk to the dinner table. By that time, there was only one vacant chair, which happened to be to Brian’s right. I sat in it. I was still in a total state of disbelief about what Brian had said to me.

Brian leaned toward me and said so softly that no one else could possibly have heard him, “I’m sorry.” I heard what he said, but I didn’t acknowledge I had heard him. To me, it seemed a perfunctory statement with no feeling behind it. It seemed as though he was simply trying to be dutiful.

Throughout dinner I said nothing, though I’m usually quite talkative. I left the table before dessert was served and went to my apartment, still speechless and in a state of utter shock. I spent a sleepless night, trying to figure out what I had said or done that could possibly have caused Brian to explode at me the way he had.

My conflict with Brian totally devastated me for a week after that. Day after day and night after night, I struggled with my feelings of having been deeply offended by Brian’s remark and of being very angry at him. Finally, I was able to sit at my desk and write on a pad of paper the assumptions about Brian that had initially entered my mind.

Here is a description of my Ladder of Assumptions:

The setting was the lounge and the dining room at the retirement facility where I lived.

The facts were that a group of single men and women was sitting at a table. Later, another single man joined us. At that point, a man who was already seated at the table used an offensive phrase when he spoke to me in a loud voice. Later, the group of us ate dinner together at a table in the dining room. I said nothing to the man who had spoken to me earlier, and I left the table before dessert was served.

I interpreted the comment of the man who spoke to me earlier as harsh, vulgar, unwarranted and deeply offensive.

The motive I attributed to him was that he resented me for rejecting him as a friend because I had invited another man to join us for dinner.

I stereotyped him as one of those men who are socially inept and who are possessive of women for whom they have positive feelings.

My actions were to go incommunicado and walk away from the situation as soon as I comfortably could. For the following week, I tried to dig myself out of my pit of depression that followed the incident.

After several days had passed, I was able to refer to my Ladder of Assumptions about Brian to help calm myself down. I could see what the facts were and what my assumptions were. Even though I never checked my assumptions with Brian, by examining my Ladder I could see that what he had said may have had more to do with him than with anything I had done or said.

Eventually, my hurt feelings faded away, and I no longer felt angry toward him. However, for the time being, I thought it best if I didn’t eat with my dinner group when Brian was at the table.

Never having dealt with a situation like this before, I found it hard to imagine feeling comfortable sitting with Brian at that dinner table again. In time, however, I came to the realization that I might be able to do so if I moved out and broadened my circle of friends. I thought this would enable me to eat with a number of different groups of people at different times.

Feeling I no longer would be obligated to eat dinner every night with that same group eased a lot of the tension that had built up inside me. So now I am able to eat dinner with the group even when Brian is present. I’ve let go of my angry feelings toward him.

By calming down and allowing for the passage of time, Maureen was able to use the Ladder of Assumptions she had raced up with respect to Brian to more objectively examine her conflict with him. She was able to identify the facts in the situation and bring to light the assumptions she had made about him. Even without clarifying her assumptions with him, she came to the realization that he could have offended her without her having caused or deserved his outburst. She saw the possibility that it might not have been about her or her actions. In the end, she was able to stop taking personally what he had said and let go of her hurt and angry feelings toward him.

A Mother-Daughter Conflict

The Ladder of Assumptions is a useful tool for finding out what part you played in a dispute—even if you’re the only one confronting the problem. It helped with the woman we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. A holiday visit with her daughter turned sour.

The mother describes how it all began:

I had been looking forward to spending the Christmas holiday together with Joanie, my daughter. She arrived from her home in another city the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Together we enjoyed an early candlelight service. We had accepted an invitation from a friend of mine to go caroling after the candlelight service and have something to eat. We had also planned, at Joanie’s suggestion, to attend a service of lessons and carols at 10 p.m. at another church. We had done this in past years as a family and also in later years. However, after we returned from the first event, Joanie closeted herself in her room and then said she didn’t want to attend the later service after all. I didn’t want to go by myself, so I reluctantly stayed home.

On Christmas morning, we were invited to have brunch at the home of friends. That afternoon we were planning to celebrate in my home with a few women who otherwise didn’t have family or friends with whom to spend Christmas. However, in the morning, Joanie was uncommunicative and was wearing her street clothes. She asked me when the brunch was to take place. I told her and asked whether she was going to change her clothes. She said she wasn’t going to our friends’ home for the brunch and wanted me to take her to the train station, so she could return to her home.

Joanie told me she was feeling bad because she couldn’t enjoy the holidays with her boyfriend, who lives in another state. Besides that, she told me she wasn’t happy about her job because she disliked her boss a lot. However, I felt she was being selfish and thinking only of her own feelings and not at all about mine. I felt my joy had been taken from me. While I was washing dishes in the kitchen, I was crying. I thought Joanie probably could hear it.

When I took Joanie to the train station, even though I felt angry, upset and resentful, I didn’t share my feelings with her.

Here is the Ladder of Assumptions I raced up about Joanie:

The setting was my home.

The facts were that my daughter and I had made plans for celebrating Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together. These included attending a service of lessons and carols, visiting friends and hosting friends at my home. My daughter did not participate in any of these events and instead returned to her home.

I interpreted my daughter’s behavior as thoughtless, selfish and uncaring.

The motives I attributed to my daughter were that she wanted to withdraw because she was so upset, hurt and angry about situations in her life. And she didn’t care about me or whether her actions had a negative impact on me.

I stereotyped her as one of the younger, thoughtless generation. I feel those in that generation consider only their own self-interest and not of others.

My actions were that I didn’t speak with her and decided to wait to see if she would explain her actions to me.

Later, the mother told us that she calmed down and decided to make the most of Christmas Day. She said, “I had a good time at my friend’s home as well as later on at my own party at my house, where we all shared a warm, wonderful feeling and holiday spirit.”

The positive experiences helped the mother to step back down her Ladder of Assumptions. This gave her the space to recognize that her daughter’s behavior wasn’t about her at all. Her daughter was wrapped up in her own feelings of hurt about her boyfriend and disappointment with her boss.

In this case, the Ladder of Assumptions helped the mother differentiate the facts from her assumptions and find peace after a troubling emotional experience. Stepping back down a Ladder doesn’t necessarily mean revisiting each rung of the Ladder. It means stepping back down to the factual level and examining in your own mind what actually happened.

Even without talking with her daughter about what had taken place, the mother realized her daughter hadn’t done anything to try to intentionally upset or hurt her. The daughter had acted out of her own unhappy feelings, which had nothing to do with her mother. Her daughter hadn’t apologized, but the mother was able to move on all the same.

A Sister-Brother Conflict

A woman, who will be known as Anita, gave us the following account of her upbringing in a broken family and a conflict that developed many years later with her brother and how she resolved it essentially on her own:

I was the second child in a farm family of five children. When I was 6 years old, my parents divorced. They had reached a point where they really hated each other. The court gave custody of us children to my father, who then split us up. My older brother went to live with my father. I was sent to live with our only aunt. My mother agreed to take my younger sister, leaving me feeling unloved by my mother. My two younger brothers were sent to live with some other relatives.

In time, my father remarried, and we all went to live with him and our new stepmother, who was very loving toward all of us. From time to time, I thought about contacting my mother, but I knew it would really upset my father if I did. So I never followed through with my desire to get in touch with her, even though I saw her a couple of times at family weddings. When I did see her, I had no feelings for her because she wasn’t the mother I grew up with. Eventually, all of us kids got married and went our separate ways. Over the years, I had infrequent contact with my younger sister and my older brother.

Four years ago, my mother passed away. She was in her 90s when she died. A day after she died, I learned about her passing from the local undertaker in the small rural town near where my brother and I lived. I felt devastated when I learned about my mother’s death from a total stranger and not from my older brother, who had kept in close touch with our mother.

Here is the Ladder of Assumptions I went up about my older brother:

The setting was the small rural town where my brother and I lived.

The facts were that my older brother had kept in contact with our mother over the years. The day she died, my brother did not call me to tell me that she had passed away.

I interpreted my brother’s behavior as disrespectful and insensitive, when he didn’t call me the day our mother died. I couldn’t understand why he treated me so badly. It seemed as though he just brushed me aside when he didn’t inform me of my mother’s passing.

The motives I attributed to my brother were that he didn’t call me after our mother died because he couldn’t have cared less that I learn about our mother’s passing. He treated me as an outsider in the family. He gave no consideration to the fact that he shirked his responsibilities toward me and felt no remorse in doing so.

I stereotyped my brother as a typical older brother. Older brothers don’t live up to their responsibilities when there is a death in the family.

My actions were to stay as far away as I could from my brother during the next four years.

Finally, after a lot of soul searching, I came to the conclusion that I had had enough of holding a grudge against my brother and being estranged from him. I decided that I had to go back down my Ladder of Assumptions and take the bull by the horns if my relationship with him was going to change for the better.

I picked up the phone and called his home. His wife answered. I told her that I wanted to come visit them. She said that that was fine, and so we set a date and time.

When I arrived at their home, both of them said hello. We sat down and started visiting. But whenever I broached the subject of why my brother hadn’t called me the day our mother died, his wife came to his defense and chimed in with reasons as to why he hadn’t called me.

Finally, feeling very frustrated, I looked directly at my brother and said that I wanted to hear from him why he hadn’t called me. He said he did what our mother had told him to do. She had told him that he didn’t need to contact me or our two younger brothers because the three of us had had so little contact with her over the years. Surely, we wouldn’t care whether she was alive or dead, she told him.

I told my brother that after our mother died, the most important thing for him to have done was not necessarily to have honored her wishes to the letter but, rather, to have treated all the surviving children in the right way. After all, I told him, I was our mother’s daughter, despite the fact that I had had very little contact with her over the years, and that he should have treated me accordingly

At that point, I said I would like to give him a hug. We both got up from our chairs and I walked across the room to him and gave him a hug. It felt so good! I told him that I forgave him and that I loved him. All of us said goodbye, and I left their home finally feeling at peace with my brother.

Anita essentially resolved her conflict with her older brother on her own. She did finally have a face-to-face visit with him at his home, but it amounted to her sharing her feelings with him about his not contacting her when their mother died. He told her that his only responsibility was to follow the wishes of their mother to the letter. He took no responsibility for not contacting Anita. Despite his unresponsive attitude, Anita was able to forgive him and move on in her life, no longer holding a grudge against him.

A Daughter-Father Conflict

There are times when a person with unresolved feelings has no other choice than to go it alone in resolving those feelings. A woman whom we’ll refer to as Glenda consulted with one of us about negative feelings she had had toward her father most of her life. Her father had long since died, but she still wished to confront the longstanding grudge she had held against him. Glenda gave us this account on her 97th birthday:

During my early years, it seemed ours was a happy family. I never heard my parents quarrel. And so it came as quite a shock when my mother told my younger sister and me that our father was no longer going to live with us.

When my parents divorced, I was 13 years old and my sister was 11. News of the divorce was published in our local newspaper. My sister and I felt very embarrassed and ashamed when our school friends told us they had read in the newspaper about our family splitting up.

Under the terms of the divorce settlement, our mother was to receive child-support payments from our father until my sister and I were 18. That is exactly what happened. Our father stopped the child-support payments when we each reached that age.

But at the age of 18, we both still were our father’s daughters, and our mother still needed the money he had been giving her to pay for family expenses. We felt abandoned by him, as if he had just thrown us away.

This is the Ladder of Assumptions I created in my mind about my father:

The setting was our home.

The facts were that when my sister and I each became 18, our father no longer made child-support payments to our mother.

I interpreted my father’s behavior as heartless and selfish.

The motives I attributed to my father were that he no longer cared about me or my sister and was glad he didn’t have to make child-support payments any longer.

I stereotyped him as one of those divorced husbands who couldn’t wait until he could quit making child-support payments to his former wife.

My actions were that I no longer acted in a loving manner toward him and that I carried a nearly lifelong grudge against him.

Now, on my 97th birthday, I have finally reached a decision to go back down my original Ladder of Assumptions about my father, let go of the bitter feelings I’ve had about him and forgive him. Looking back almost 80 years later, I now realize my father was a good father to us, not heartless and selfish. After the divorce was final, he showed he loved my sister and me by making every one of his required child-support payments to our mother. I’m sure he felt he was being a good father. If I had gone to him after my 18th birthday and had asked for some additional financial help, I now believe he probably would have made every effort possible to help me.

For most of her life, Glenda had held her father responsible for financial problems she had had as a young woman, which kept her tied to the past. Even though her father had died long before, giving her account to one of us gave Glenda an opportunity to release him of that responsibility and to express her gratitude to him. Letting go of an old hurt toward the end of her life enabled her to finally forgive him and be at peace with him.

Finishing the old business Glenda had carried with her for much of her life opened a door to a new level of understanding about her father and a deeper level of calm within herself. Eight days after she said she had finally forgiven her father, she suffered a stroke. Two days later, she died peacefully in her sleep.

The experiences of Maureen, Joanie’s mother, Anita and Glenda demonstrate how you can find a way to resolving a conflict through using your own initiative and applying your own skills. However, when you are able to gather together all the people involved in a dispute, you can get a better sense of everyone’s assumptions, discuss together whether or not they are valid and work jointly to resolve the issues that divided everyone. You will learn more about that process in Chapter 8.

Concluding Thoughts

As you try to resolve a conflict by yourself, keep in mind that:

Interpersonal conflicts can be resolved, even if one party to the conflict is unavailable or is unwilling to cooperate.

Follow these guidelines:

• Take responsibility for any Ladder of Assumptions you create about another person. You have total control over what you decide to do with Ladders that you make about others.

• Calm yourself by considering each of the rungs of any Ladder of Assumptions you create.7 Dispassionately reexamine your conflict. Reflect on the way in which your assumptions may have caused the negative feelings you have experienced.

• Allow the feelings generated by any Ladder of Assumptions you build about another person to diffuse and ultimately fade away. Make deliberate decisions to let go of each feeling about another person that your own assumptions have caused.

You can figure out for yourself how to not take another person’s behavior personally.

Keeping these factors in mind can help you do so:

• Understand that a person’s behavior toward you may be caused by a number of factors, and the other person may be unaware of any or all of them. People respond to you based on things that are happening in their own lives. Other factors may be heredity, early life conditioning, cultural factors and, sometimes, traumatic experiences.

• Become aware that you may have been a trigger for another person’s reactions to you. However, you do not cause another person’s behavior; rather, the person who makes assumptions about you causes his or her own behavior.

• State to yourself, “I don’t have to take his behavior personally,” whenever a person is reacting to you in a manner you judge to be negative. Rely on this self-help tool to avoid racing up a Ladder of Assumptions about another person’s negative behavior toward you.

Activities

Reflect on a conflict you may be having with someone who is unwilling to discuss the conflict with you or is unavailable to do so. Write down the following:

• a Ladder of Assumptions you have built about the person and

• the feelings your assumptions have caused you to have toward that person.

Are you able to release any negative feelings or actions that your Ladder of Assumptions caused you to have?

If it is possible to reconnect with the person, write down the action steps you will take.

CHAPTER 7
APOLOGIZING

Apologizing is one of the most powerful tools we have available to deal with conflict in our lives.

—Michelle Gousie Geremia

A couple whom we’ll call Rob and Ann sat across from each other discussing problems they were having regarding dinnertime. Rob cooked dinner for the two of them during the week and was ready to eat when the food was cooked, but Ann’s schedule depended on her workload. They wanted to eat together, but Rob couldn’t count on Ann being home at a certain time. And Ann faced an irritated partner, if she stayed too long finishing her work for the day. Things were stewing for a while before they finally came to a head. You will read more about that later in the chapter.

We often can help people in conflict reach thoughtful solutions that meet both sides’ needs. That’s typically what mediators do. But sometimes it’s difficult to identify just what those needs are. Whose needs hadn’t been met? Who was at fault? Who should apologize to whom?

Let’s face it. It’s hard to apologize. And it’s particularly hard to do it in such a manner that the apology demonstrates the offender’s sincere concern for the other person, thus increasing that person’s trust. To apologize, a person needs to be humble, courageous and able to sense when the timing is right. To say, “I apologize,” and mean it is a critical first step along the path of repairing a relationship.

Crafting an Effective Apology

Often you know in your gut when you’ve made an assumption that has offended another person. A feeling of dread comes over you, and you know you owe the other person an apology. As mediators, we often see the power of sincerely made apologies. An apology can ease tension and help make it possible for people to be willing to work together. It’s as if an invisible blockage has just dissolved, and the ensuing terms of agreement are easier to forge. But keep in mind you want to apologize as soon as possible after an incident takes place. Waiting too long to apologize can make an apology seem insincere.

Simply saying, “I’m sorry,” is not going to cut it. An insincere apology can make you come off as condescending and hinder any progress in resolving your troubles. But how do you offer a truly meaningful apology that doesn’t sound as if you’re just going through the paces and trying to achieve a quick fix? Without the skill to properly express to the other person that you’re sorry, you can turn something that began as a minor offense into a major blow to your relationship.

Fortunately, you can learn how to apologize in a way that is meaningful and constructive. Let’s look at Rob and Ann’s predicament, and then we’ll show you how you can master a sincere mea culpa.

Sharing the Evening Meal

Before Rob and Ann could sort out their troubles—and before one or both of them could apologize—they had to understand the seeds of their conflict. Their evening routine had evolved over time, without Rob and Ann recognizing that it didn’t really meet their needs. It had been fine when Ann was able to come home around 7 p.m. It was when her schedule became increasingly irregular and she began coming home later and later that the two had had tense evenings.

The couple filled us in on the details. Rob got home from his job by 5:30 p.m., while Ann tended to come home any time between 6:30 and 8:30, depending on how many unpredictable tasks her boss threw her way. When Ann did get home, she usually was exhausted and would often want to open the mail, check a few things on her computer and just unwind a little.

Rob preferred to eat at 6:30 because by then he was hungry. The hungrier he was, the more annoyed at Ann he became. Rob told us he didn’t want to impose a time when Ann came home, but without a set time, he never knew when he should have dinner ready.

When Ann would come home around 8:30 or sometimes even later, she would find a partner fuming. By that time, dinner had been simmering on the stove for more than an hour. Ann could tell right away from Rob’s body language and the look on his face that he was irritable. He banged around the kitchen more than necessary and then put the dishes on the table and started eating without talking to or looking at her.

Ann didn’t get hungry or irritated the way Rob did, so she couldn’t empathize with him. Rob felt frustrated because he never knew what to expect. When Ann’s late arrivals became more frequent, Rob felt disrespected and taken for granted.

As for Ann, she felt constant pressure to come home earlier and knew that when she did get home, Rob would either ignore her or nag her or sometimes even explode at her. It irritated her because she had work pressures that made life miserable for her at the office. And instead of having a partner who supported her dealing with those pressures, she had one who piled on additional stress and friction at home.

Let’s take a look at the Ladder of Assumptions Rob raced up about Ann on an evening when there was a blowup.

Rob’s Ladder of Assumptions

The setting was Rob and Ann’s home in the evening after both had returned from work.

The facts were that Rob had finished making dinner at 7 and had left it sitting on the stove until Ann came home at 8:30. In the previous four workdays, Ann had come home at 6:50, 7:24, 7:10 and 8:05.

Rob interpreted Ann’s behavior as uncooperative, inconsiderate and disrespectful.

The motives Rob attributed to Ann were that she valued her work more than she valued him and that she took for granted that he would carry out his home responsibilities no matter what time she got home from work.

In this situation, Rob didn’t reach the generalization rung of his Ladder and stereotype her.

Rob’s actions were to bang around the kitchen until Ann said she was ready to sit down at the dinner table and to be short with her during what little meaningless conversation they had during their meal.

Now, let’s take a look at Ann’s Ladder of Assumptions about Rob on that same evening.

Ann’s Ladder of Assumptions

The setting was Ann and Rob’s home in the evening after both had returned from work.

The facts were that Ann arrived home from her office at 8:30. Rob didn’t speak to her when she entered their house. The staff at her office regularly left work at 5:30. But on this day her boss called an emergency meeting, just as she was straightening up her desk, because a load of parts had arrived only half filled. An outcome of the meeting was that her boss assigned her some action items that he said she had to accomplish before she could leave the office. She finished with the last item at 8.

Ann interpreted Rob’s behavior as inconsiderate, insensitive and impetuous.

The motives Ann attributed to Rob were that he wanted to control her work life so that she would arrive home at the exact time that the dinner he had prepared was ready to be eaten. In addition, he felt justified in judging her because she gave more authority to her boss than she did to him.

Ann stereotyped Rob as the type of man who expected women to act in a subservient manner to men and to view their work life as secondary to that of men.

Her actions were to wear a look of disgust on her face, and yell at Rob, “What in the world is wrong with you tonight? Can’t you see I’m exhausted from having to beat my head against a brick wall at the office?”

Who Should Apologize?

How should Rob respond? You know he doesn’t mean to create so much drama for Ann when she comes home late, but he feels neglected. He thinks Ann considers her work to be more important than their relationship. He feels responsible for the bad vibe at home, but he also thinks Ann should try harder to place his needs at the very least on a par with her work.

How do you think Ann should respond to Rob’s behavior? She may feel responsible for coming home from work late and causing problems for Rob. But she’s also feeling justified because she has legitimate reasons as a result of the rat race at her office. She thinks Rob could certainly be more understanding and flexible and stop being such a grouch and nag.

If Rob and Ann were to apologize to each other, provided the apologies were effective, it would help ease the tension between them and put them on a path to reconciliation.

Aaron Lazare, M.D., a psychiatrist and former dean of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, has written On Apology, an entire book about apologies. In his book, which we cite in the References section of this book, he analyzes the factors that lead people to apologize and explores how people transfer power in apologies.

Lazare found that the apologies most likely to be accepted by the other person should contain some key elements if they are to be effective:

• an acknowledgment of the offensive behavior

• an explanation of the offensive behavior

• a genuine expression of remorse

• an offer to make amends

Including these factors can help you craft an apology that will go a long way toward bringing you and the party you offended together. If you were Ann, how might you apologize to Rob? Here are examples of effective and ineffective apologies that Ann might have made, based on Lazare’s four essential elements.

Ann’s Apology to Rob

Acknowledging the Offensive Behavior

To acknowledge your offensive behavior effectively, you must start by describing exactly what you did wrong, including even the worst aspects. Use accurate language. Accept responsibility. This is an essential first step to putting things right.

Ineffective acknowledgment: “I know I was kind of late tonight. It was my fault.”

Effective acknowledgment: “I appreciate that you make dinner for us every night. It must be hard to time dinner when you never know when I’m coming home. I should have been more considerate and called you earlier, so you could have decided what you wanted to do about dinner: wait to eat until I came home, or go ahead and eat without me.”

Explaining Your Actions

Once you’ve admitted you did something wrong, the person you’ve hurt will probably want to know why you acted the way you did. Being truthful is the best way to rebuild a strong, viable relationship. Look within and be honest with yourself. That’s key to figuring out the real explanation for your actions, and it will help you change for the better.

Explanations also help reassure both of you that the offense isn’t likely to happen again. Excuses, on the other hand, merely signal that you’re avoiding responsibility. Leave them out of your apology.

Ineffective explanation: “Work’s such a pain. There’s always some fire drill.”

Effective explanation: “You know that important project with the Friday deadline I told you about? The shipment came in today with only half the parts. My boss called an impromptu meeting right before I was going to leave at 5:30. Then I had some immediate action items I had to take care of after the meeting. I lost track of what time it was. When I saw it was after 8, I drove home as fast as I could. I should have called you before I left to let you know when I would arrive home.”

Expressing Remorse

It is important that you express real remorse. You’ve probably heard the “I’m saying this because I should, not because I believe it” apology many times. It doesn’t make you feel good because it removes the blame from the person apologizing and puts it on you. If you think the person who offended you isn’t remorseful, you’re not going to buy the apology. You’re only going to feel more offended than ever.

Ineffective expression of remorse: “I know I’m late, but I couldn’t help it. You’re hungry, and that’s why you’re grouchy.”

Effective expression of remorse: “I apologize for coming home so late when you had dinner waiting. As soon as I saw you, I could tell you had been waiting for me. It’s so nice to come home to a home-cooked meal. I know you’re hungry much earlier, and I appreciate you for always waiting for me, so we can eat together. I don’t mean to act as if I take you for granted. I’m truly sorry.”

Making Amends

Often there will be nothing overt to mend; hearts and relationships are broken more often than physical objects. Making amends has tremendous healing power, sometimes mending even seemingly irreparable wounds. Merely saying you’re sorry is as ineffective as a Band-Aid. Your actions have to show the person how you feel.

A good way of making your feelings clear is simply doing what the other person has asked you to do. When you do that, you’re showing the other person you have heard him and value him. If you have any lingering doubts as to whether what you have done amounts to sufficient amends, it’s all right to ask, “What else can I do to make it up to you?”

Both of you will have to figure out whether what the person making amends is offering is realistic and doable or whether she needs to consider another alternative. That’s because if it turns out she can’t follow through, her broken promises can make things worse.

Ineffective amends: “I’ll try to come home earlier.”

Effective amends: “I’ll make every effort to be home no later than 7:30. You can plan on serving dinner at 7:30. We’ll just both count on having dinner at 7:30, even if I come home earlier. I know you’re hungry earlier than 7:30, so maybe you can have a snack to help you hold out until 7:30. If I’m not home by then, just eat without me. If I know it’ll be after 7:30, I’ll call you before 7:30 and let you know. I’ll call again when I leave work, so you’ll know when to expect me.”

If you make an apology that demonstrates honesty about your shortcomings and commitment to doing better, the other person may realize your behavior was unintentional and not intended to cause a conflict. It opens a door for the other person to stop taking your behavior personally.

Now, change hats! If you were Rob, how might you apologize to Ann? Here are examples of ineffective and effective apologies he might have made.

Rob’s Apology to Ann

Acknowledging the Offensive Behavior

Ineffective acknowledgment: I admit I was mad at you tonight. If you hadn’t been so late, I wouldn’t have gotten mad at you.

Effective acknowledgment: I got really upset with you tonight. I was frustrated because the dinner I had gone to great trouble to prepare for us got cold sitting on the stove. I felt rejected by you, even though I was pretty sure you got stuck at work through no fault of your own.

Explaining Your Actions

Ineffective explanation: I felt really hurt when you came home late tonight. I had some things about my day at the office I wanted to share with you, but when you got home late I didn’t feel like talking with you.

Effective explanation: I felt hurt when you got home late and got caught in an old pattern of mine of getting back at someone who I thought didn’t treat me right. That was the reason I hardly spoke to you at all when you got home, and I was short with you when we were sitting at the dinner table. I need to take responsibility for being so obnoxious and learn better how to deal with things that don’t always go the way I want them to go.

Expressing Remorse

Ineffective expression of remorse: If I didn’t do the right thing when you got home, I’ll see if I can do better.

Effective expression of remorse: I really apologize for being such a crud last night after you came home from work. I know you’ve got a taskmaster of a boss, and that he makes a practice of giving you work to do at the office that keeps you there way past your quitting time. I should have known better than to have gotten caught up in feeling sorry for myself.

Making Amends

Ineffective amends: It wasn’t your fault. I’ll think about doing better next time.

Effective amends: I’m going to make every effort to be more understanding of the pressures you’re under at the office and how hard you work. The salary you earn each month enables us to make our mortgage payments and go on some really nice vacations every year. I owe a lot to you for the lifestyle we have. I want to treat you to a really nice dinner out Saturday night, and we can go to a movie afterward. How does that sound?

Was That Apology Real?

Suppose you’re on the receiving end of an apology, and the words the other person says come across as weak. You may feel worse than before. And you may find yourself feeling irritated with the other person. The guidelines in this chapter can help you recognize why the apology felt so unsatisfactory. After you read the guidelines, you can follow up with the person in a positive way. You also can use the tips we offer in Chapter 5, “Clarifying Assumptions,” to learn how to communicate constructively with the other person.

When you receive an apology that is sincere and helpful in restoring your relationship, you know it. You get a sixth sense about it. It makes you feel good. It can soothe the hurt you’ve been feeling and can stop—or even reverse—the damage. It opens a door for you to be able to accept the apology.

Apologies can certainly help pave the way for reaching some sort of agreement. You may discover, however, that you don’t need to receive an apology to come to peace about the situation. Through introspection and using the Ladder of Assumptions, you can stop taking the other person’s behavior personally. You can release the grievances, wounds, hurts or feelings of being wronged, recognizing that the behavior was not intended to be hurtful.

Concluding Thoughts

Following up in a sincere, positive way means that you need to include these elements:

Acknowledge the unfounded assumptions you made about another person by following these guidelines:

• When you have offended another person, acknowledge what you did.

• Take responsibility for the effects that your attitudes, beliefs and actions had on the other person.

• Say why you acted the way you did. Be truthful.

Apologize for making those incorrect assumptions. In the best apologies, you will abide by these principles:

• Express regrets for what you did that was hurtful to the other person.

• Be honest and sincere in expressing a truly genuine apology to the person you offended.

• Make a sincere effort to right any wrongs you have committed. Do whatever you can to help the other person recover emotionally from what you said or did.

Activities

These two exercises can help you craft a sincere apology.

First Exercise

Recall an event in your life where you were offended by someone’s words or actions. Using what you’ve learned about effective apologies in this chapter, write an apology from the other person’s perspective that you would appreciate hearing from her:

• If this person were to offer you the apology you’ve just written, write how you think it would make you feel.

• If this person were to offer you the apology you’ve just written, write how you think it would make the other person feel.

Second Exercise

Recall an event in your life where someone else was offended by your words or actions. Using what you’ve learned about effective apologies in this chapter, write an apology that you think this person would like to hear from you:

• If you were to offer the person the apology you’ve just written, write how you think it would make him feel.

• If you were to offer the person the apology you’ve just written, write how you think it would make you feel.

• If this event is one that remains unresolved, write some notes about what might be keeping you from offering an apology like the one you wrote above.8

CHAPTER 8
REACHING AGREEMENT

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.

—Jimmy Carter

Timing matters when you’re trying to reach agreement. Regardless of whether an apology has been made—or made and not accepted—there will come a time when you want to look ahead at what you’d like to see take place.

It helps to wait until both sides have calmed down. When Rob and Ann, the couple in Chapter 7, reached a point in their relationship at which they were willing to solve the problem instead of bickering, they increased their chances of being able to discuss the situation, listen to each other’s ideas about possible solutions and come up with a solution that works for both of them.

You hear the expression “win win” a lot for good reason. It refers to thoughtful solutions that meet the needs of both sides in a dispute. It’s not always easy to identify those needs. It’s important to keep talking with each other to recognize each other’s needs and wants. The two aren’t the same.

Needs are essentials, things you cannot do without. Good examples are food, water and clothing, which people need to maintain a healthy life. Wants are things we desire or would like to have but aren’t absolutely necessary. Getting take-out pizza and beer is, generally speaking, a “want.” A winter jacket for the snow is most likely a “need.” A new jacket to change your wardrobe or complement the color of your other clothes and accessories is probably a “want.”

Building Agreements by Brainstorming

Peter Pearson, the cofounder of the Couples Institute, says the two most common negotiating mistakes people in conflict make are these:

• stubbornly pushing for their own interest and

• submitting too quickly to the other person’s suggestions for the sake of avoiding tension.

“The best way to avoid either of these negotiating errors,” Pearson says, “is by making suggestions that incorporate benefits for both yourself and the other person.”9

When you and another person are in a dispute, a good resolution is one that meets the needs of both of you. To discover what those are, it’s helpful to brainstorm together. In brainstorming, you put all ideas on the table—even “crazy” ones or ones that need to be fleshed out—without judgment. Both people agree not to judge or criticize the other’s suggestions. A kernel of a solution that satisfies both of you may be somewhere underneath all your ideas.

Brainstorming an Agreement Together

Negotiating the wrong way could have left Ann and Rob with a simple but unsatisfying solution, such as, “You eat after you get home, and I’ll eat after I get home.” But participating in a creative brainstorming conversation can be far more satisfying and long lasting.

Here’s how that conversation might go:

Ann: I’ll try to be home by 7:30. You can just plan on serving dinner at 7:30, even if I come home earlier. Will that work for you?

Rob: I guess … but you said you like to have some time to unwind a bit before sitting down to dinner. I realize you need to have that time, but I’m usually very hungry and don’t think I can wait for you to unwind.

Ann: Well, if I get home earlier than 7:30, I’ll probably have enough time to relax before we eat at 7:30. If I don’t get home until 7:30 or after that, I’m fine with you going ahead and eating before I do.

Rob: But I’d like us to set aside the time to eat dinner together, no matter when you get home. We usually have our best talks at the dinner table.

Ann: That’s sweet of you to say. Yeah, you’re right. How about this? If I get home later than 7:30, go ahead and eat. But maybe you could wait to eat your dessert until I get home and have a chance to catch my breath. When I eat dinner, you can have your dessert, and we can talk about our day.

Rob: That might work. Right after dinner I’m usually too full to really enjoy my dessert anyway. That’s probably the best solution for those days you come home after 7:30.

Ann: As I said, though, I’m hoping to be home for 7:30 dinner, with time enough to relax beforehand. And maybe both of us could hold off on dessert for a while. I think I also enjoy it more when I have a little break after dinner.

Rob: Let’s give it a try and see how it goes. I’ll write down what we’ve agreed to do and email it to you, so we can look at it later if we need to.

Try your agreement as an experiment, rather than as a permanent solution, as Ann and Rob agreed to do in the script above. These interchanges might seem stilted and awkward at first, but you are learning important listening and negotiating skills that will open the way for you to solve problems in your future.

When you work together toward a mutually agreeable solution, as Rob and Ann did, it creates a good feeling of joint ownership and commitment to the resolution you’ve drafted.

Crafting a Durable Agreement

It can be helpful to put agreements into writing, so everyone is clear about what you have agreed to. Consider meeting at a neutral site such as a restaurant, where you can step away from day-to-day activities and collaborate on ways to build an agreement that works for both of you.

Try hard to support the other person’s suggestions, and ask her to support your ideas, too. The goal is to work cooperatively in building specific action plans in the agreement.

In the course of the discussions you have with each other, jot down the points you agree on as you go along. At the end of your conversation, review these points and see whether you still agree with them. Some may need to be changed or deleted, and more items may be needed in your list to fully spell out your decisions.

Try for balance in your agreements, so you both feel you’re giving the same amount to the outcome. Both of you need to feel comfortable with what you’ve agreed to do.

Check whether each item is really doable. Is there anything that would get in the way of carrying out any of the points in your plan? For example, what if one of you will be traveling during the time you agreed to do something? You may not be able to comply with that part of your agreement, so you’ll need to agree on a different date.

In writing your agreement, use simple, clear language that both of you understand. If either of you is not sure about something, try hard to write it in a different way that both of you can understand and agree on. The point is to make sure both of you know what each expects of the other.

Also consider what will happen if someone doesn’t or can’t fulfill a portion of an agreement. And put it in writing. Include a contingency, such as contacting the other person when you can’t do what you promised to do.

A Woman’s Predicament

Put yourself in the shoes of a woman whom we’ll call Emily and consider how you might craft an agreement with a friend, who will be known as Dave in this account, that includes specific ways you would want the two of you to start communicating more constructively.

You have been dating Dave for a couple of months. You have a lot in common with him and are interested in knowing if he might be the “one.” This is important to you, given that you are 35 and may still want a family; although, it isn’t a definite requirement.

The problem is you have been frustrated of late because of a number of events. Foremost is your perception that Dave has been avoiding talking to you about his day-to-day feelings—as people who are in a relationship usually do. Sharing your innermost feelings with each other on a regular basis, unlike your desire about possibly having a family, is an absolute must.

You bring the matter up, telling Dave that you want to talk with him. Dave responds by saying, “OK.” But then instead of talking, he goes off and writes in his journal by himself. You wonder how serious he is about the relationship, if he does not share with you his feelings on a regular basis.

You have even more doubts about the relationship when Dave cancels an hour before a weekend event the two of you had planned well in advance. You believe that he does not give the relationship a high enough priority.

In an earlier conversation, you both had agreed to make sure you had some quality time together. Yet here he is cancelling an important weekend event on such short notice.

You speak to Dave about this again by asking him if he is really “in” this relationship or “out.” After all, you think, if he were “in” the relationship—that is, committed to it—then clearly he would be talking with you more and making better priority decisions.

After one of his private journal sessions, Dave says that he is “in.” You are glad about this but still have doubts about the relationship overall and about how the two of you communicate. You tell him that you would like to sit down with him and come up with a set of agreements that would meet both of your needs. He agrees to do what you requested of him.

What Emily and Dave’s Agreement Might Look Like

The discussion between you and Dave might go something like this:

You: You should have told me way more than an hour ahead of time that you would not be able to make the event on Sunday. It’s not the first time you’ve done this. You should know by now that I’m sensitive about having promises broken.

Dave: I apologize for having to cancel on Sunday’s outing on short notice. Something came up at the last minute that I couldn’t do anything about. I thought you would understand that I wasn’t purposely trying to disrespect you.

You: I’m not sure I can accept your apology. I’ll have to think about it because this is just one more example of what I mean about us not having quality time for each other. This is the kind of thing that is so frustrating for me. It leaves me with doubts about our relationship.

Dave: Emily, I am really sorry that I had to cancel on you at the last minute. You shouldn’t take it so badly. In my mind, missing out on our Sunday outing has nothing to do with our relationship. It just happened to turn out that way. That’s all.

You: Whatever. We’ve just got to find some way to fix our relationship, if we’re going to keep it going. There is going to have to be a way for us to figure out how we can have quality time together. It will have to be similar to how you make sure you have quality time by yourself to write in your journal.

Dave: It would help me if we could start by defining what you want out of quality time with me.

You: I want us to have quality time the way other couples have. I want us to be able to talk long enough to know what’s going on in each other’s lives and how we are feeling about each other.

Dave: What would you consider having enough quality time together?

You: I can give you some good examples that pop into my head: having enough time to have a good chat over a cup of coffee in the morning or having a glass of wine while we’re unwinding at the end of our work day.

Dave: I like the idea of starting our mornings together with a small conversation. Could we give that a try?

You: Well, that would be a start in the right direction of us having more quality time together on a regular basis. Having a good conversation so I can tell you how I feel about you and you can tell me how you feel about me means a lot to me!

Dave: Would that help to ease some of your doubts about our relationship not being a priority for me?

You: Yes, Dave, that would definitely be a start toward taking away some of my doubts.

In this way, Emily and Dave would finally be able to reach agreement on the notion that having a conversation on a regular basis is very important. The couple could find that such conversations create little moments of happiness. Expressing happy, warm feelings about each other openly and honestly could be essential for them to maintain their good relationship.

Baby-Proofing a New Dad and Mom’s Relationship

When a new baby, especially a first child, joins a family, the parents are usually excited and rejoicing. However, bringing a child into the world can be very difficult for a new parent. Both men’s and women’s workloads increase after a baby is born. New routines can sometimes upset spouses who have different outlooks. Such situations can lead to frustration, embarrassment and arguments.

Often the arrival of a new baby brings to the surface negative attitudes and unconscious assumptions in parents that neither of them had seen in the other before. Those attitudes and assumptions can wear down their relationship. Having assumed during their courtship that children would be an unconditional blessing, a mother and father may be forced to re-examine their entire history together, after a baby arrives, including the viability of their relationship.

Disagreements between parents can come about from different parenting styles; dissimilar ways of handling the stress that comes from lack of sleep; opposing perceptions of each partner’s jobs or tasks; limited time with one another; resentments over seeming imbalances in child care duties; and comments intended to be helpful that, instead, create ill-will.

Couples can struggle with sharing housework and child-rearing responsibilities in ways that seem fair. Achieving greater gender equality requires new conflict resolution strategies and skills. For example, men who take on more of the work of meeting the needs of a newborn also may have a desire for more influence, triggering conflicts when their viewpoints vary from those of their partners.

New parents often put off discussions about issues in their relationship while they care for their young children, and later on find a wedge has been driven between them because they have focused solely on the needs of their children and not on each other’s needs in their relationship.

How a Brand New Dad and Mom Might Craft an Agreement

Consider yourself a new dad and think how you and your partner might start creating an agreement about who does what when your baby whom we’ll refer to as Aaron wakes up crying in the middle of the night. Know in your heart that both of you need to put on the table your honest concerns about the matter and work together in constructing a workable compromise.

That conversation might unfold in a manner like this:

Mom: I don’t like saying this, but ever since I came home from the hospital, you haven’t been doing your share of caring for Aaron. I’ve been the only one who has been waking up in the middle of the night when he’s been crying and needs someone to pat his back until he goes back to sleep.

Dad: But I have to be able to sleep through the night so that I can get up and go to work in the morning. You have all day to catch a nap or two while Aaron is napping. I definitely don’t get a chance to nap while I’m at work.

Mom: I know you work hard at the office, but when I’m up half the night and have to take care of Aaron all day long, too, it’s more exhausting than going to work. I’m really getting worn down. If I don’t get some help from you soon, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Dad: But I don’t see how I can get up in the middle of the night and be as focused at the office as I need to be. You know that all of us at the office are working 12-hour days to do all the work that needs to be done to keep our new company in business.

Mom: Can’t we find some way to split up the night chores? I can’t keep on doing what I’ve been doing. That’s all there is to it. We’ve just got to find a way for you to help out more.

Dad: Well, I can tell that you’re really frustrated and that getting up in the middle of the night to take care of Aaron is wearing you down. Maybe we can sit down and make a list of the chores that have to be done during the night to give us a better understanding of what we’re faced with.

Mom: I appreciate your trying to understand what I’m going through as a new mother and how doing what I’m doing is more than I can handle. I like your idea of us making a list of what has to be done at night. The nightly chores we have to work on for Aaron are feeding him, changing him and getting him to go back to sleep.

Dad: Could we start by creating a nighttime routine for the family?

Mom: What will a nighttime routine do that is different from what is going on now?

Dad: A nighttime routine will help us to even the load of caring for Aaron by establishing our various responsibilities. It may take an adjustment period for it to run smoothly.

Mom: I’ve already told you I can’t keep on doing what I’ve been doing, and so how am I going to survive during an adjustment period?

Dad: What would help you to survive the adjustment period?

Mom: I adore Aaron but I simply can’t catch up on any of the sleep I lose during the night when I’m at home during the day and hear him crying from time to time. Would it be too much to ask for you to take Aaron to visit your parents every other day on your way to work, so I can get some rest at home? Your parents have said they’d love to look after Aaron at any time we need them. Please ask them how they’d like this arrangement for a couple of weeks. I could plan to pick up Aaron from their home at noon, after I’ve had some rest.

Dad: I think that would be a great idea to try while adapting to these changes. It would allow you to get some rest and my parents to spend quality time with their grandson.

Mom: I want both of us to feel that this is working out for both of us. If we decide it isn’t working, I want us to feel as though we can revisit this conversation and come up with some different solutions.

Dad: That sounds good to me!

When couples can learn to communicate honestly with each other in such a way in the early going, the disagreements that come up in their lives as new parents can be transformed into gifts of more balanced relationships. Sustaining such a positive relationship requires couples to talk through issues openly, show how much they appreciate one another, express concerns without criticizing the other and develop agreements that take into account each other’s needs.

Concluding Thoughts

Be aware that you need to know and express your thoughts to change them.

You can raise your awareness by following these guidelines:

• Avoid digging in your heels and imposing your ideas on the other person.

• Be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

• Think of solutions that will benefit you and the other person.

• Try to look at the other person’s gain as your own gain and his loss as your own loss.

Work collaboratively with the other person about ways the two of you can communicate more compassionately in the future.

A real collaboration arises when you:

• Believe from the very start that your suggestions for improving the relationship are as worthy as hers.

• Understand that yielding too quickly to another person’s suggestions is counterproductive.

• Seek statements to include in a mutual agreement that convert contentious issues into practical ways to resolve them.

• Start implementing the practical steps in the agreement, knowing they will strengthen the foundations of your relationship and ensure it can survive.

Activity

Consider the following dilemma that could have developed between a son and his mother, as explained by the son:

My girlfriend and I have been dating for a year. We’re both 25 years old. My mother doesn’t approve of her because she feels my girlfriend doesn’t meet our family’s standards. But I think my girlfriend and I share the same values that I grew up with. We love each other and we want to get married.

My girlfriend thinks my mother controls my life, that my mother dominates me and that I should confront her about it.

I admit that my mother holds old-fashioned beliefs and that she thinks my girlfriend isn’t good enough for me. She is convinced that my girlfriend will try to control me and will not allow me to maintain contact with my family after we get married.

My mother is a good mother, but she needs to let me go. I’m troubled that she may try to drive a wedge between my wife and me after we’re married and that she will accuse my wife of being the cause of my newfound independence.

Write a dialogue between the son and the mother, in which they state their differences, listen to each other and then move forward, ultimately reaching an agreement that meets each of their needs.

CHAPTER 9
MOVING FORWARD

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive.

—Maya Angelou

In the following account we’ll learn about a family whose members we’ll call Betty, her son Ted, her daughter-in-law Janet, and her two grandsons, Troy and Sam.

One night at dinner at her son’s home, Betty had a fight with her daughter-in-law. They raised their voices at each other, and the daughter-in-law threw Betty out of their home. That began a long period when the two women weren’t talking, and Betty felt cut off from her grandchildren’s lives. Throughout that time, Betty felt as if she were carrying a weight within her. We will come back to Betty’s conflict with her daughter-in-law later in this chapter.

The burden of an unresolved conflict is a lot like carrying a toddler around or hauling a school backpack. When you put the toddler down or finally drop your books on your desk, your first few steps feel as if you are as light as a feather. Pounds lighter, you feel relieved and liberated.

In the same way, after you take steps to resolve the conflict, you may experience a state of relief. As time moves you further away from the conflict, you may feel the conflict is genuinely resolved, with no or few lingering feelings of remorse, anger or hurt.

However, even if everyone involved in a conflict agrees to set aside false assumptions and meet on common ground, the relationship can still feel tenuous. You may wonder where you go from here. How do you begin to repair bruised emotions? How do you restore the relationship?

Bank of Goodwill and Trust

Turning around a conflict usually takes time. It requires a recognizable and sustained change of behavior. Reading this book so far, you’ve learned the actions that we call “deposits” in a “bank of goodwill and trust”:

• understanding the root causes of conflict

• becoming self-aware

• listening for deep understanding

• clarifying assumptions

• going it alone

• apologizing

• reaching agreement

The goal is to ensure the deposits and savings in your bank of goodwill and trust are greater than the withdrawals that diminish your account.

Once you understand the main reasons for your disagreement, you can begin to move forward by steadily increasing the deposits and savings in your bank of goodwill and trust—by honoring the agreements you’ve made. But there will no doubt be occasional “withdrawals” that will accompany the deposits. Not honoring the spirit of an agreement might constitute a withdrawal. Deposits can be in the form of subsequent discussions requiring good listening skills, letting go of blame, a willingness to work through emotions (perhaps privately) and working together to find a satisfying resolution.

Every time a person honors an agreement, that individual is building trust. The agreement Rob and Ann worked out in Chapter 7 can be used to help illustrate the concept of a bank of goodwill and trust.

Ann’s Timeliness and the Bank of Goodwill and Trust

Ann’s job dictated that on many nights she had to work into the late evening. Rob’s job was just the opposite. You could set your watch by the time Rob arrived home. In a proposed agreement between Ann and Rob, Ann suggested she would try to return home from work at a reasonable hour.

Every work day that Ann called to say she was leaving work and came home before 7:30, she was investing in their relationship—in other words, making a deposit in her bank of goodwill and trust. When she wasn’t home by 7:30 and also hadn’t called, she made a withdrawal. When trust is low, it might be a big deal to Rob if Ann were to show up even two minutes past their agreed time. Imagine how he might feel, however, if Ann were to come home at 7:32 after she had honored her agreement for a whole month. Rob might not have even noticed that she had arrived two minutes later than she said she would.

Building Trust

Trust is built by consistent behavior change, and moving forward requires a belief that the changes both parties are making can last. To increase the likelihood of your agreement lasting, consider how you might support each other to make the desired changes. Include those supporting roles in your final agreement. For example, you might want to be reminded of a particular behavior through the use of a word, phrase or action you both agree on.

Whether you can ever fully resolve a conflict with another person depends on many factors, including these:

• How motivated is each person involved in the conflict to work together toward resolution? The person who is least motivated to follow the agreement can limit if and when the conflict will be left behind for good.

• How much emotional damage has been experienced? Emotions from a conflict stemming from a one-time, flippant comment by a coworker at a meeting is different from finding out 10 years into your marriage that your spouse had been having an affair since Year 2.

• What are the positive possibilities and opportunities for you?

• What are the risks of doing something versus doing nothing and “letting sleeping dogs lie”?

• How does the other person benefit from resolving the conflict?

• If the other person in the conflict resists your overtures to resolve the problem, what might you be able to do that would make that person receptive?

• If the other person in the conflict does not become receptive, what can you do for yourself to make it easier for you to live with the unresolved issue (as demonstrated in the accounts in Chapter 6, “Going It Alone”)?

Complicating matters, you may continue to berate yourself for your own contribution to what was hurtful to the other person. You may feel guilt and shame over what you said or did. Being able to forgive yourself for past feelings and actions is important because when we hold on to self-critical judgments, we take ourselves out of the present moment. We carry this self-diminishing emotional baggage into current interactions with the other person in the conflict. Doing so inhibits us from being our true selves when relating to that person.

Regardless of the other person’s degree of willingness to address a conflict, you can start each day with a strong foundation of honoring yourself and maintaining that attitude throughout the day.

Here are some examples of actions you can take that might be helpful for you:

• Write down things you can try that might ease the conflict.

• Begin your day with thoughts of behaving in these new ways, as you go about your daily life—while doing such things as dressing or going to your job. Remind yourself that you really are a good person and want to demonstrate that to others.

• Anticipate that you may encounter conflicts many times during the day, but affirm that you have the knowledge and skills to deal with them in a positive way.

• If you want to, share with another person you trust what you intend to do. Support always helps.

• Be serious about your intent, but add a little laughter and humor each day.

• Remember that the past is the past, but it is over and hopefully you have learned from it. We live in the present moment and should look forward to learning and living in a new way.

• Write a letter to yourself acknowledging the new behaviors you’ve tried that day.

• Compliment yourself when you have moved, even in very small ways, toward accomplishing a behavioral goal.

One Conflict, Several Possible Outcomes

Conflicts and their resolutions are not one-size-fits-all. Each conflict is unique, and its resolution depends on the needs of the individuals involved. The conflict between Betty and her daughter-in-law, which we described briefly at the beginning of this chapter, could have a variety of different outcomes. Many of them could leave Betty able to move on with her life. We’ll take a look at how the conflict may have played out. First, Betty will tell you in detail what happened:

My daughter-in-law, Janet, and my son, Ted, have two children: Troy, from Janet’s earlier relationship, and Sam, a child the two had together. Sam is eight years younger than Troy. From things I’ve directly and indirectly heard, Janet has always felt I favor Sam. One example Janet has brought up is that I’ve gone to watch many of Sam’s soccer games, but I’ve rarely gone to any of Troy’s games.

One night while I was having dinner at their house, conversation themes revolved around the parents’ lack of time, given both of their busy work schedules and all the family members’ after-school and work activities. Trying to help, I offered various solutions, including questioning whether they both really had to work. In hindsight, I realize my suggestions might have come across as veiled criticisms, because Janet seemed to be getting increasingly agitated, possibly feeling personally criticized and judged by me.

Not one to keep her feelings inside, Janet had clearly had enough of the conversation topics. She yelled at me, accusing me of being blind to Ted’s imperfections and my favoritism toward Sam. I realized she considered my suggestions personal insults. I was caught completely off guard. I felt attacked. I defended myself by raising my voice and throwing a few sarcastic retorts at her. The outcome of this argument was that Janet told me not to contact her or her children again. Ted immediately drove me home. He seemed forlorn and caught between two strongly opinionated women.

To try to get a better handle on what was going on in this situation, I wrote down my Ladder of Assumptions about Janet:

The setting was my son and daughter-in-law’s house, where the three of us were eating dinner together.

The facts were that Ted, Janet and I talked about their lack of time together because of their respective work schedules and their parental roles with regard to their sons’ after-school activities. I asked if they both had to work. Janet described her feelings about my relationships with Ted and their sons.

I interpreted Janet’s behavior as defensive, strongly opinionated and judgmental.

The motive I attributed to Janet was that she wanted to punish me by forbidding me to contact her or my grandchildren.

I stereotyped Janet as a typical daughter-in-law who believes mothers-in-law are critical of their daughters-in-law and favor their sons.

My actions were that I responded to Janet by raising my voice and directing sarcastic remarks at her.

So how might this conflict have played out? Here are scenarios that illustrate three different ways in which the family members in this dispute might have moved forward:

Scenario 1: One side is willing to talk; the other avoids the conflict.

Scenario 2: One side dies before the conflict is addressed.

Scenario 3: Both sides are willing to resolve the conflict.

Here’s how each scenario might have played out from Betty’s point of view:

Scenario 1: One side is willing to talk; the other avoids the conflict.

This is what Betty might say if she used the Ladder of Assumptions by herself:

At first, I stayed at the top of my Ladder of Assumptions. I was furious, feeling wrongly characterized and unfairly punished in a cruel manner. I wasn’t even allowed to talk to Janet to find out exactly what she was mad about. I absolutely could not understand her, and I wasn’t about to grovel or apologize for something I hadn’t done. I couldn’t get past the fact that she was depriving me of any contact with her or my grandsons. I was their grandmother, and I felt I had the right to express my love to them.

In the immediate aftermath, I tried to ask Ted why Janet had gotten angry at my questions but often found myself getting angry at him for not supporting me and shaking some sense into Janet. Ted finally got angry at me and began avoiding me.

For two years, I never went to my son’s home and had virtually no contact with my grandsons. Janet and Ted’s family stopped spending Christmas with our extended family. The four of them celebrated alone.

My anger eventually morphed into resignation. My need for answers and understanding seemed to lessen over time, and I became willing to accept my relationship with their family on Janet’s terms. I did a lot of self-reflecting and started coming back down my Ladder of Assumptions, acknowledging unfounded assumptions I had made. I realized I did favor Sam a little over Troy. Troy was already a young boy when I first met him, and it took time for me to get to know him. I already loved Sam from when Janet was pregnant with him. I was able to be part of his life from the very beginning. But I know in my heart that I always did my best to treat both my grandsons with the love I felt for each.

Both Troy and Sam were turning out fine. They were doing decently in school; they had friends; they were involved in sports; and they were staying out of trouble. These facts helped me to eventually see that Janet and Ted were living their lives the way they decided was best for their family. I forgave Janet. Without any ill will toward her, I accepted that I might not ever see her or my grandsons again; although, I desperately did not want that to be the case. Equally hard as forgiving her was forgiving myself for my own “bad” behaviors (yelling at Janet; blaming her and Ted; and trying to convince both of them to change).

Gradually, the feud thawed. Ted would occasionally come to my house on special occasions, but conversations were strained. As more time passed, Ted occasionally brought Sam along with him. Through this occasional contact, I was able to keep up with what was going on with the family, even though I wasn’t an active participant. In time, I invited the family to my house for dinner, and they accepted. We stuck to safe topics of conversation to avoid ruffling feathers. Later, I was invited to Janet and Ted’s house. The more visits we had, the more we were able to behave like our natural selves.

I’ve never asked Janet to tell her side of the story and tell me whether my guesses about why she cut off communication with me were accurate. And she hasn’t discussed the matter. If she had been willing to bring it up, I would have been willing to discuss it. But for myself, and my needs, I’m OK with what I have now. I don’t feel as though I’m walking on eggshells or avoiding landmines. I just am who I am, and I suppose I’ve changed, having gone through this.

Even though there are still some unanswered questions, my gratefulness for having the family back together overshadows any unease I might still have. I think the internal work I’ve done while we were out of communication has allowed me to accept them as they are, and I can simply live in the present moment and forget the past. I don’t know what will come in the future, but I will respond then as best I can.

In this example, Janet and Betty didn’t resolve their conflict. They didn’t listen to each other; discuss what the conflict was all about; check out assumptions; or apologize to each other. They seemed to be avoiding, rather than resolving the conflict.

However, it’s worth taking a look at what Betty accomplished that played a part in turning around the conflict. Betty reflected internally on her own perspectives, attitudes and actions, regardless of what Janet was doing. She examined her contributions—her thoughts and attitudes—to the conflict. She seemed to let go of her assumptions about what had caused Janet’s actions. She accepted that she, too, had behaved badly and eventually was able to come to terms with that, rather than continue to beat herself up or dwell on it.

By not dwelling on the past, worrying or feeling defensive, Betty believed she could listen, be honest and be compassionate. However, until she or Janet decided to actively pursue resolution, the conflict might either remain under the radar screen or, because of the emotional baggage Janet might still be carrying, even possibly resurface.

Scenario 2: One side dies before the conflict is addressed.

Imagine if Janet died while she and Betty were estranged. The same type of internal work Betty did in Scenario 1 would probably have given Betty acceptance and peace.

There are times it is effective to forgive, even though an offender has not offered an explanation or extended an apology. This is especially true when the person committing the perceived offense has died. (See Glenda’s account in Chapter 6 for an example.)

Some people have already made up their minds they will never release their offender from old hurts and instead continue to hold grudges and resentments that can last a lifetime. But some of humanity’s wisest visionaries agree that letting go of old wounds is important for the well-being of everyone who is involved in interpersonal strife.

Frederic Luskin is director of the Stanford (University) Forgiveness Project. In 2001, he and six colleagues conducted a study on 259 adults. Each person had at least one unresolved “hurtful” experience that still elicited what Luskin called “negative” results. The study was subsequently published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

The study found that people could be trained to forgive, and that in forgiving people, the participants relieved their stress.10 In Forgive for Good, the book Luskin wrote about the study, he offers a nine-step method for forgiving, which, he says, makes it possible to move beyond being a victim.

Luskin stresses that forgiving another person is not the equivalent of condoning that person’s behavior or ignoring the hurtful events that had occurred. On the contrary, it involves setting aside your pain and anger, and not holding someone else (including someone who has died) responsible for your emotional well-being.11 Forgiveness allows you to move on.

Scenario 3: Both sides are willing to resolve the conflict.

Compare scenarios 1 and 2 with one in which both sides are amenable to addressing the conflict. Betty recalls how that actually happened:

At first, I was furious, feeling unjustly and wrongly characterized and unfairly punished in a cruel manner. I wasn’t allowed to talk to Janet to find out exactly what she was mad about. I could absolutely not understand her, and I wasn’t going to grovel or apologize for something I didn’t know I had done. And how could she deprive me of any contact with my grandsons? After all, I’m their grandmother, and I have the right to express my love to them.

In the immediate aftermath, I attempted to ask Ted to help me understand why Janet was so angry but often found myself getting angry at him for not doing something about our predicament. Ted would listen to my questions and acknowledge how painful the situation was for me. He said he wanted to support me but said that the issue was really between Janet and me and that he really couldn’t answer for Janet. He kept reminding me that I was probably displacing my frustration over the situation with anger toward him. We talked over some ideas of what might be effective ways for me to directly communicate with Janet and in what time frame.

I waited a few weeks, and then, after much soul-searching, I decided to send Janet a letter. I tried to show in what I wrote that I had let go of my negative assumptions about her and that I now saw her in a different light. It was brief. I essentially just shared the fact that first and foremost, I loved her. I apologized for the hurtful things I had said to her at dinner that night.

I told her that I felt horrible that the evening’s conversation, particularly what I said, had upset her so much. I suggested that if she were up to it, whenever that might be, I would like to go for a walk with her and just talk things out.

Months later, Janet called me and suggested we go for that walk. It ended up being a long one, where we talked honestly and openly like never before. After we had built enough comfort and trust, I shared with her that I had realized I did favor Sam a little over Troy and why that was. I told her I couldn’t imagine my life without Troy, and I shared some specific memories involving him and me.

We didn’t formalize any agreements, but we did talk about doing things differently in the future. We both felt we had a tendency to bottle up tensions. We knew we both tended to talk to Ted about our issues with each other, rather than talking directly with each other. We encouraged each other and gave each other permission to talk about whatever might be bothering her or me. We said we’d try really hard to not put Ted in the middle of communicating with each other. We agreed that no matter how mad we might become at each other, we were a family, and not talking was not a solution.

No conflict follows a specific template. Just as Betty’s conflict with her daughter-in-law might have gone in three different directions, your conflicts can take different turns. Examine the facts of the conflicts and the assumptions you made, and be willing, as Betty was, to apologize, to forgive when appropriate and to move on.

Concluding Thoughts

To genuinely progress from a dispute, you must:

Commit to putting conflicts behind you and moving forward.

• Be truly interested in reconciling with the other person in the conflict.

• Be willing to move forward without holding grudges.

• Acknowledge that a full-fledged effort on your part is required to change old habits. Take small, doable steps that move you closer to changing old habits, and jot them down after you’ve accomplished them.

• Expect the best from the other person, giving her the benefit of the doubt if an issue between the two of you arises. Avoid the inclination to second-guess the behavior of the other person.

Make adjustments when necessary.

• Acknowledge to yourself and the other person that things don’t always work out as planned.

• Be willing to apologize to the other person in the conflict, when you may have faltered in keeping your end in the agreements.

• Commit to identifying and agreeing upon needed changes in your behavior.

• Make your best effort to be magnanimous. Accept the other person’s apology, if he has not upheld his commitment to change.

Activities

These exercises will help you move ahead after a conflict:

• Recall a time when you were able to resolve a challenging conflict with someone and felt good about the outcome.

• Write the Ladder of Assumptions you raced up about the other person.

• Write the Ladder of Assumptions you think the other person raced up about you.

• Recall how you came back down your Ladder and why you were able to do it.

• Recall how the other person came back down his Ladder and why he was able to do it.

• Describe the outcome.

• Explain what made the outcome possible.

• Describe the contribution you made to the resolution of the conflict.

• Describe the contribution the other person made to the resolution of the conflict.

• Summarize what you learned from the experience.

CHAPTER 10
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

—Aristotle

A recurring theme in this book is that we all make assumptions on a regular basis. It’s part of how we operate in the world. Assumptions are based on our ability to infer from observations we make. Thankfully, lots of times our assumptions are correct. But sometimes our inferences lead us to make assumptions that are incorrect. And these can have negative effects on our interpersonal relationships.

We occasionally hear from some of our students that they are completely in sync with the approach to resolving conflicts in Conflict—The Unexpected Gift and that they are eager to apply the approach in conflicts they are currently having with other people. However, they sometimes question whether they have gained enough confidence to try the approach in a real-life situation. They have doubts that if they were to “stretch their wings” and give it a go, they would have the necessary skill set and social adeptness to succeed.

The fear of failing is hard to overcome. Some of our students may be asking not just whether they are capable of completing the task, but also whether they are willing and ready to take it on in the first place. If they were to strike out in a trial effort to put their skills to work talking through an issue they have with another person, their fears about whether they are up to the task might well be confirmed. The cycle of doubt can become self-reinforcing, possibly leading them to abandon their well-intentioned efforts.

The good news is that this somewhat gloomy script can be rewritten through carefully guided, step-by-step practice. When people question whether they are up to the challenge, we encourage them to put our approach to the test in a situation where they are having a disagreement with someone.

Our experience shows that with the right nudge, even a doubting Thomas can start to acquire ways of interacting positively in conflict situations. As people begin to have positive outcomes, they gain increased confidence in the process. According to Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck,12 through hard work, people can keep on building these skills until eventually they become ingrained.

STEPS TO RESOLVING A CONFLICT

Here is a step-by-step plan for trying out the approach with someone with whom you currently are having a disagreement and who may be amenable to working with you to resolve the issue:

1. Identify an issue you and the other person have not been able to resolve and to which you are willing to apply—to the best of your ability—the approach you’ve been reading about in this book, Conflict—The Unexpected Gift.

2. Commit to the following ground rules:

• Be respectful toward your conflict partner.

• Be responsible for how you have behaved in the relationship and for the assumptions you have made about that person.

• Be honest with your conflict partner, striving at all times to be authentic and straight forward—avoiding hidden agendas and deceptive maneuvers.

• Be open to your conflict partner’s comments and feedback, and consider the validity of her comments to the fullest extent possible.

• Be agreeable to arriving at a resolution that benefits both you and your conflict partner.

3. Drawing on the Ladder of Assumptions tool explained in Chapter 2, begin your study of the issue by:

• writing a Ladder of Assumptions that you have climbed about your conflict partner and by

• writing a Ladder of Assumptions you believe your conflict partner has raced up about you.

Follow this guide for writing your Ladder about your conflict partner:

My Ladder of Assumptions About My Conflict Partner

Setting: How would I describe the backdrop for the issue dividing us?

Facts: What specific instances of my conflict partner’s behavior toward me—and my behavior—are at the heart of the conflict between us?

Interpretations: How would I describe my conflict partner’s negative behavior toward me?

Motives: What negative intentions have I attributed to my conflict partner?

Generalizations: What stereotypes have I ascribed to my conflict partner?

Actions: How have I been behaving toward my conflict partner, since the issue dividing us has arisen and since I raced up my Ladder?

Before starting to write your Ladder of Assumptions about your conflict partner, read the example below written by one of our clients to get an idea of how you might write your Ladder.

A Husband’s Ladder of Assumptions About His Wife

The setting was the dining room table at our home.

The facts were that my wife, our 5- and 7-year-old children and I were at the table eating dinner. I was talking directly to my wife, giving her an account of an event that had occurred in my life earlier that day at my office. In the middle of my account, my wife looked away from me toward our children and spoke to them. The comments she made to them went on for about two to three minutes. When she finished talking with them, she looked back at me.

I interpreted my wife’s behavior as arrogant and dismissive of me, her husband. Cutting me off in the middle of an account of an event in my life I was telling her about and diverting her attention to our children was disrespectful.

The motives I attributed to my wife were that she wasn’t interested in listening to me, didn’t care enough about me to give me an opportunity to finish my account of the event in my life and didn’t want to hear the rest of my story.

I stereotyped my wife as typical of women who try to control their husbands by always maintaining the upper hand in their interactions with them.

My actions were that I felt hurt when she in effect tossed me aside, and then I became angry with her. When she looked at me again after she had finished talking to our children, I didn’t make an effort to continue telling her my account of the event that had occurred in my life that day because I felt it was fruitless to do so.

Follow this guide for writing your conflict partner’s Ladder about you:

My Conflict Partner’s Ladder of Assumptions About Me

Setting: How would my conflict partner describe the backdrop for the issue dividing us?

Facts: What specific instances of my behavior toward my conflict partner—and her behavior—are at the heart of the conflict between us?

Interpretations: How would my conflict partner describe my negative behavior toward her?

Motives: What negative intentions has my conflict partner attributed to me?

Generalizations: What stereotypes has my conflict partner ascribed to me?

Actions: How has my conflict partner been behaving, since the issue dividing us has arisen and since she raced up her Ladder?

Before starting to write your conflict partner’s Ladder of Assumptions about you, read the example below written by the wife of our client to get an idea of how you might write your conflict partner’s Ladder.

A Wife’s Ladder of Assumptions About Her Husband

The setting was the dining room table at our home.

The facts were that my husband, our 5- and 7-year-old children and I were seated at the table eating dinner. My husband was saying something to me about an event that had occurred that day at his office. While he was talking, our children started talking between themselves. I spoke to them, telling them to be quiet and saying that it was impolite to be talking while their father and I were talking to each other. When they stopped talking, I looked back at my husband expecting to hear more about the event he had been describing to me.

I interpreted the look on my husband’s face as an expression of anger toward me because he hadn’t been able to control my behavior and continue telling me about the event at his office.

The motives I attributed to my husband were that he always wants to rule the roost and have the center stage at the dining room table. He believes that just because he is my husband and the father of our children, he is the most important person in our family.

I stereotyped my husband as a typical man from a family with an ethnic heritage that considers the husband the dominant figure.

My actions were to criticize my husband for his egotistical behavior of trying to have the center stage all the time and getting angry with me for speaking to our children, when they needed to be reprimanded for inappropriate behavior at the dining room table.

4. Arrange to meet with your conflict partner, or if a meeting isn’t possible, arrange to have a phone conversation.

5. Begin the meeting with a statement something like this: “I’m really concerned about the issue that has been going on between us. I would like to do whatever I can to ease the tension that has built up so that it can go away. To do that, I need to know what you have been thinking about me and about our issue. So will you help me by responding to some assumptions I have made about the issue?”

6. If your conflict partner agrees to help you, consider these elements:

• It’s critical that you talk with her when she’s in a reasonably good mood; when you have a block of distraction-free time to talk; and when you’re feeling calm and confident you’ll be able to keep traces of frustration or anger out of your voice.

• Discuss with your conflict partner the Ladder of Assumptions you wrote that includes the assumptions you believe she had made about you.

• Tell your conflict partner that you are going to make a sincere effort to understand her evaluation of the assumptions you believe she had made about you.

• After you state each assumption to your conflict partner, ask whether the assumption you just stated is correct.

• Listen with deep understanding to your conflict partner’s evaluation of the validity of each assumption you stated.

• Do not question the validity of your conflict partner’s evaluation.

• Thank your conflict partner for being open and honest with her evaluation of the assumptions you believe she had made about you.

• Later, based on your conflict partner’s evaluation, make revisions in the original Ladder of Assumptions you had drafted from her viewpoint.

• Then, also based on your conflict partner’s evaluation, make any revisions that seem appropriate in the Ladder of Assumptions you had made about your partner.

7. Arrange another meeting with, or make another phone call to, your conflict partner. Then follow these steps:

• Thank your conflict partner again for being willing to talk with you and give you honest feedback regarding the validity of the Ladder of Assumptions you presumed she had made about you. Say that since then you have either discarded, or at least revised, the assumptions in that Ladder accordingly. Work together to decide which, if any, of the revised assumptions may still seem to be unfounded, and let go of them.

• Then inquire if you can share the Ladder of Assumptions you have gone up about her. Hopefully, she will agree to allow you to do that.

• After you state each assumption, inquire whether the assumption you just stated is correct.

• Listen with deep understanding to your conflict partner’s evaluation of the validity of the assumptions you have made.

• Ask clarifying questions about any of the comments in her evaluation that are initially unclear to you.

• Do not question the validity of her evaluation.

• Express gratitude for your conflict partner being open and honest with her evaluation of the assumptions you had made.

• Acknowledge that you are going to make a sincere effort to understand her evaluation of the assumptions you had made about her.

• Later, based on the comments in her evaluation that you believe are based in fact, discard any assumptions in the Ladder of Assumptions you had gone up about her that are entirely unfounded.

• Then, based on her evaluation, make revisions in any of your assumptions that in your view have least some foundation to them.

8. Check in with yourself from time to time to gauge how much you have let go of your negative assumptions and feelings about your conflict partner. When you do, follow these steps:

• Reflect on the stories or accounts you might be sharing with other people about the difficult events or periods you have had with your conflict partner.

• When you are discussing the conflict with another person, ask yourself, “Am I characterizing my conflict partner in even mildly negative terms?” If the answer is, “yes,” you still have some lingering hurt feelings.

• Try to have compassion for yourself and resolve to keep on with your conflict resolution efforts.

• Write what you might do to help yourself release your unfounded assumptions and negative feelings of having been injured by your conflict partner.

• Visualize your conflict partner carrying out a self-reflection process concerning any lingering unfounded assumptions and negative feelings she may be having about you, similar to the process you are following for yourself.

9. Schedule another meeting with your conflict partner to discuss which of the assumptions each of you have either dropped or changed. Then follow these two steps:

• Tell your conflict partner which assumptions you have discarded altogether or, at least, revised.

• Finally, reach agreement on the assumptions each of you have made about the other that are based in reality.

10. Apologize to your conflict partner for any behaviors on your part that have had an adverse impact on her. Make sure your apology includes these elements:

• State that if any of your behaviors did have an adverse impact, you never intended for that to have occurred.

• Say that you would like for the two of you to start fresh in your relationship.

• Inquire if there is anything left in your about-to-be-resolved conflict that needs to be clarified before the two of you embark upon a fresh start.

• Discuss anything that needs to be clarified, and make those clarifications together.

• Agree on any clarifications the two of you reach so as to remove any obstacles to a fresh start in your relationship.

11. Make agreements with your conflict partner about how you will behave toward each other in the future, including commitments to avoid the disagreeable behavior of the past. When you make the agreements, be sure to include these elements:

• Be truly interested in reconciling with her, and be willing to move forward without holding grudges.

• Expect the best from her, giving her the benefit of the doubt if an issue arises in crafting agreements. Avoid the inclination to second-guess her behavior.

• Acknowledge that despite these well-intentioned agreements, each of you is likely to continue to look at the world from somewhat different angles of vision.

• Tell yourselves that just because you’ve been able to turn your conflict into cooperation does not mean the two of you have been transformed into perfect people.

• Accept that even though both of you may be moving forward cooperatively, events may occur that again provoke frustration and irritation, if not anger.

• Remind yourselves that conflicts still may occur, which means that on such occasions, the two of you will need to once again put into practice the skills you have learned and used successfully.

12. If neither meeting with nor phoning your conflict partner is possible, try to accomplish the steps above in email or letters. Read the example below written by one of our clients to get an idea of how you might write an email to your conflict partner:

Subject Line: Can We Have a Talk?

My dearest wife,

As you no doubt know, it seems that we often have difficulty discussing matters, big or small, that we have differing opinions on. We don’t seem willing to take the time or effort to listen and try to understand each other’s side before jumping into an argument defending our respective positions.

I have often felt disappointed and discouraged by our inability to communicate and understand each other on things that matter to each of us. This ongoing communication difficulty and conflict with you has led to me feeling irrelevant and alone and wanting to give up. I’m wondering if you feel the same way? If so, I want to do everything I can to change for the better the way we talk with each other.

I would truly appreciate it if we could set aside some dedicated time to work together to figure out how we can communicate more effectively on important issues, without argument or conflict.

The goal of sitting down for a good talk would be for us to better understand and meet each other’s respective needs. I believe this is critical to sustaining our friendship, now and in the future.

My best wishes,

Your loving husband

What if, after going through these steps, you still haven’t been able to resolve the issues between you and your conflict partner? Might there still be hope for the two of you to find a way to talk through the matters that are dividing you? Read the next chapter to learn about an option—mediation—that could help the two of you break the logjam.

Concluding Thoughts

Do not give up hope when you have a dispute with others. Here are some key points to keep in mind:

Be persistent and steadfast in your efforts to resolve disagreements with people in this way:

• Continue with your efforts to resolve an issue you have with someone, even though it is difficult and even though you may not initially gain the cooperation of the other person. Tell yourself, “I’ll try,” rather than, “I can’t.”

• Don’t view a setback as an impossible roadblock but, rather, as a challenge you can learn from and overcome.

• Be unwavering and firm in purpose in pursuit of your goal, keeping a steady hand on the tiller and visualizing positive outcomes of your efforts.

Consider the other person’s point of view to be as valid as your own by doing the following:

• Acknowledge the other person’s perspective and appreciate the person’s position.

• Convert the person opposing you into a partner by listening for deep understanding to him and honoring his energy and positive intent.

• Remain respectful, interested and purposeful, even though you may not get your viewpoint across right away.

Welcome feedback from someone who disagrees with you in this manner:

• Accept feedback at face value. People in your life notice things that you don’t.

• Avoid justifying your position. Telling someone why her feedback is incorrect doesn’t work. It leads to increasing the divide between the two of you, rather than lessening it.

• Take the opportunity to learn from the other person’s comments, rather than labeling her as uninformed.

Activities

Here are things you can do by yourself to reinforce your efforts at resolving your conflict:

• Write yourself a letter, or a memo, in which you describe what you learned, using the approach in this chapter to resolve an issue with a conflict partner.

• Describe what worked and what didn’t work.

• Describe the measures that didn’t work well, and explain the reasons for it.

• Affirm yourself for working hard and accomplishing what you did.

• Explain what you plan to do differently when you try to settle another difference you have with someone.

CHAPTER 11
MEDIATION

Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict.

—Dorothy Thompson

A woman is worried that her widower father, hundreds of miles away, is living by himself. She would like him to sell his house and move to a senior-living community, where she is confident he will be cared for. The father has built many fond memories over the previous six decades of living in his house and doesn’t want to leave it, his neighbors or his friends.

The two have been talking past each other for some time without coming close to resolving their conflict. They have become so polarized they are barely speaking to each other. When they do talk, their conversation typically deteriorates almost immediately into a shouting match. Neither is willing to acknowledge the other has anything valid to say. Even sharing the Ladders of Assumptions they have raced up about each other is totally out of the question.

The end to the deadlock comes through mediation. You will learn more about how the mediation process helped the father and his daughter resolve their issues later in this chapter.

There are times when it seems nothing will help you settle your differences. And it may be that even with the best intentions and concerted efforts to apply what you have learned within these pages, you face disputes that appear to be intractable.

There is still hope. We became mediators because we saw how an independent third party could help break down the seemingly impenetrable walls between people.

Mediation is a process that can be approached from different angles but has certain essential elements. It is a series of systematic actions in which a neutral third party—a mediator—assists two or more people in resolving a dispute by guiding them in open communication in a controlled, non-adversarial environment. For the purposes of our discussion in this chapter, we will focus on interpersonal mediation. Often business mediations, with a primary focus on financial settlements, are handled differently from what we describe here.

A mediator is a third party who is not involved in the conflict. The goal of a mediator is to foster a fair environment that facilitates mutual, respectful problem-solving efforts by the parties. The mediator does not decide who is right or wrong and, in fact, does not recommend a decision of any kind. Rather than assigning blame or fault, a mediator focuses on assisting those involved in the conflict in expressing their own real needs and in communicating clearly with each other. A mediator helps people come together to talk through their issues in a calm, organized way. A mediator endeavors to ensure that each individual is fully heard with respect to their view of the issues, as well as their feelings about the issues and each other.

If there is one fear that keeps people from coming to the mediation table, it is the fear of sitting across from an adversary one more time and getting a lot of angry words thrown at them with no hope of getting beyond their impasse.

In mediations, mediators and participants agree on ground rules that help keep discussions civil and prevent disputants from attacking each other verbally or physically. The mediator ensures that the ground rules are followed. Participants in mediations learn that, in the words of Marshall Rosenberg, “the behavior of others may be a stimulus for our feelings but not the cause. We are never angry because of what someone else did. It’s not what the other person does but the images and interpretations in my own head that produce my anger.”13

The mediation process is confidential. People who participate in mediations can feel comfortable discussing their issues openly because nothing anyone says, does or writes down during the sessions can be shared with anyone else, unless the participants agree to do so.

One of the advantages of mediation is that it tends to be non-adversarial, in contrast to a courtroom process. Mediation enables individuals to discuss their issues at length and allows them to explore a variety of solutions before choosing a mutually agreeable outcome they have created themselves. This is in contrast to a court case ruled on by a judge with limited time and knowledge of the people and the situation.

Here’s what happens in the mediation with the father and daughter we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. The session takes place in a room at the mediator’s office.

The mediator, who will be known as Anna, is at the head of the table. To her left is the widower, whom we’ll refer to as Harold, slumped in his chair, obviously ill at ease. Harold’s married daughter, to whom we’ll give the name Tanya, sits across from her father, appearing worried and fidgeting with her hands in her lap. Here’s how the session goes:

Anna: One of the reasons I’m here is to help you talk with one another about issues you have found difficult to discuss. I will not take sides, and I will help you to talk calmly with each other. After you have talked and listened to each other, and have considered and discussed options for resolving your differences, I will try to help you reach an agreement. You may not be able to reach an agreement at this first meeting, which is all right. But I hope you will.

Tanya: I’m terribly upset because Dad just won’t listen to me and realize he’s got to do something about his living arrangements. I love him dearly and know he simply can’t continue to live at home alone any longer. He gets dizzy sometimes; he doesn’t take his medications when he should; and he doesn’t eat the proper food. I’m awfully afraid that he may fall and hurt himself and no one will be there to help him. Living 600 miles away, I certainly can’t be there when he might need me.

Harold: I don’t know what Tanya’s talking about. She talks like I’m nothing but a used-up old man. The truth is, I’m fit as a fiddle. I drive my car, and I get out for walks three times a day. Just ask my neighbors. They’ll tell you how spry I am. And when I need something, they’re the first ones to help me. We’ve known each other for more than 60 years, and we trust each other because we’ve been through a lot of hard times together. The only way I’m leaving my home is when they carry me out feet first.

Tanya: I know Dad has a lot of friends in his neighborhood, but they’re getting old, just as he is. And they’re not going to be able to live there indefinitely, either. Ever since Mom died 10 years ago, Dad has hung on to the house for dear life because that’s where the two of them raised our family, and it has lots of memories for him. But he won’t give any thought at all as to whether it’s the wisest course for him now. He thinks he doesn’t have any options. But he does.

And I forgot to point out that Dad’s home is falling apart on him. The repairs on the house, which he used to be able to do, he just can’t do anymore. And he refuses to hire contractors to do the work for him. The house is 60 years old and is really a mess. It needs new wallpaper and paint. He sure can’t do it by himself, and he can’t expect his neighbors to do it for him.

Harold: All this nonsense about me not keeping my house up and needing to move into a retirement home—

I don’t want to be around old people using walkers and wheeling around in wheelchairs. Besides, if I moved into a retirement home, all my longtime friends and relatives would forget about me. I’m not what you’d call a social person. It takes me a long time to open up with people and trust them enough for us to become friends.

Tanya: Dad just isn’t being realistic. There are all kinds of activities and social programs at senior-living facilities that are designed to help the people living there get better acquainted. People don’t become good friends instantly, but you can’t expect that. When they see each other day after day, they become friendly soon enough. Dad would do just fine at one of these places, but he just won’t admit it. Besides, he needs to live someplace where he can get three meals a day and where someone can make sure he takes his medications.

Harold: Even if I did get to know a few people after a while, where would I get the money to buy into a retirement home? Where could I go and live as cheaply as I live now? I hear retirement homes are really expensive. Most require a big payment before you ever set foot in your apartment. I just don’t have that kind of money. I suppose I could come up with the money to pay the entry fee by selling my house, but there would be big monthly payments after that. With my Social Security check, I barely make ends meet now as it is. It wouldn’t be long before I would be out of money.

Harold and Tanya have aired a number of their concerns, and so at this point Anna believes it is appropriate to take a break and to schedule another meeting. She spends some time with her clients introducing them to the Ladder of Assumptions, explaining and discussing it with them. The Ladder, she explains, represents how we rush to judgment about others and how this causes conflicts.

Afterward, she gives them an assignment in preparation for their next mediation session.

They are to go home, write down the Ladders of Assumptions each has raced up judging the behavior of the other and return to the next mediation session with their respective Ladders in mind.

Tanya and Harold agree. Tanya drives her father back home. That evening, after her father has gone to bed, Tanya writes the following Ladder of Assumptions about her dad:

The setting is our 60-year-old family home.

The facts are that I am visiting my 85-year-old father. I am my father’s 56-year-old daughter. I live 600 miles from his home. I visit him about every six weeks. Most of our discussions during this visit have been about his living circumstances.

I interpreted Dad’s behavior as that of a stubborn old man.

The motive I attributed to Dad is that he doesn’t want to face reality about the stage of life he is in.

I stereotyped Dad as one of those old people who are afraid of change and never listen to their kids.

My actions were that seeing nothing in what Dad said that made any sense, I was cold toward him and short-tempered in what I said to him.

Harold didn’t write his assumptions about Tanya down, but he did compose them in his head. Here is the Ladder of Assumptions he made about her:

The setting is the 60-year-old-house that my wife and I built several years after we were married and where we raised our family of four kids.

The facts are that my daughter Tanya is visiting me from her home 600 miles to the east. She is talking with me about my living conditions, and we are exchanging our views on that subject.

I interpreted Tanya’s comments as wrong-headed and insensitive because she lives very far away and can’t possibly see that I’m doing just fine and taking care of everything.

The motives I attributed to Tanya are that she doesn’t really care about what I want to do with my life. She is simply trying to convince me to sell my home and move into a senior-living facility, so she won’t have to worry about me, anymore.

I stereotyped Tanya as one of those kids who are too big for their britches. They dismiss their parents’ views and think their perspectives are the only right ones.

My actions were to let Tanya’s comments go in one ear and out the other and keep on thinking what I’ve always been thinking.

At the next mediation session, Anna encourages Tanya and Harold to share their Ladders of Assumptions and continue expressing their concerns and feelings about their relationship and the matters at hand. Eventually they reach the point where they believe they have said everything they wanted to say.

At various points in the mediation, Anna has asked Tanya and Harold to tell each other what they’ve heard from the other one until they both agree that each one has fully understood the other’s concerns. This process has enabled each of them to understand the disagreement from the other’s perspective and to begin to take responsibility for their own parts in the dispute.

Anna then summarizes what she has heard from Harold and Tanya. The two find that talking to a mediator, who has listened to them with an accepting, empathetic and nonjudgmental stance, has enabled them to finally feel fully heard and to better understand both sides of their disagreement.

By this time, Harold and Tanya have become comfortable talking directly to each other rather than to the mediator. As a result, Harold tells Tanya he was sorry for being so stubborn and not being willing to listen to her ideas. He admits it was his fault and promises not to let it happen again. He owns up to not really knowing what it would be like to live in a senior-living facility. He has never seen one. He agrees to have Tanya drive him to a number of nearby facilities, so he can check them out firsthand.

Tanya accepts her father’s apology and says she is sorry about having not tried very hard to listen to his concerns. She offers to talk with her father’s friends and neighbors and encourage them to visit him, if he were to decide to move from his home. She also agrees that she and her husband would visit him regularly. She also assures him that her sister and brothers would do so, too. In addition, she promises to encourage her adult children—Harold’s grandchildren—to visit him occasionally.

Harold comments that a friend his age has hired a caregiver from a business in town and that this has allowed the man to stay in his home. Harold asks Tanya if she could find out more about that business and how much it would cost for him to hire a similar caregiver. If he could afford to pay someone to shop for groceries, do some cooking, run a few errands and check on whether he is taking his medications properly, he might be able to keep living in his home for a while longer.

Tanya says she would be glad to look into that possibility, as well as some others. She also says that if they were to find a caregiver they all could trust, she and her sister and brothers could probably chip in toward the expense.

At the end of the second mediation session, after Harold and Tanya together have considered a variety of options, the two sign a form listing their agreements. Anna makes copies of it for both of them, so they can refer to it in the future. Anna congratulates them on the outcome of the session. At the end, Harold and Tanya get up from their chairs, give each other a warm embrace and walk away arm in arm. They thank Anna and tell her they are going off to have dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Through mediation, Tanya and Harold have been able to examine the negative labels each had placed on the other and acknowledge the extent to which they had misjudged each other. The process had allowed them to get past their misconceptions and to deal effectively with their real interests. It enabled them to move from only talking at each other about problems to devising some mutually acceptable solutions.

If you find yourself facing a seemingly difficult disagreement with someone, be sure to follow the approach you’ve read and studied in this book. But know that if you’re still not able to work things out, calling upon a mediator is always an option.

Resources for Finding Mediators

If you want to locate a mediator, you might start locally. Many communities have public mediation programs, and often their services are free. In many of these programs, the mediators have received at least a 40-hour basic mediation training and are supervised by more experienced mediators. Such programs often provide ongoing training for their mediators. You can also find mediators on Mediate.com.

We recommend that, if possible, you have a personal interview with someone you’re considering as a mediator to get an idea of how well you might work together. Some mediators offer a free initial consultation over the phone or in person, so they and the prospective clients can learn whether they might be a good match for each other. As is the case with other professionals, not all mediators and all clients will work well with each other. We expect you will be able to find just the right mediator for you and those with whom you want to reach agreement.

Concluding Thoughts

This book teaches communication skills that enable you to do the following:

• Talk through frictions with others before they become intractable conflicts.

• Defuse conflicts that may occur despite your best efforts to head them off.

• Resolve conflicts through the mediation process, if they persist after you’ve done all you can on your own to defuse them.

Mediation, as a conflict resolution process, has these distinctive features:

• The participants are one or more mediators and two or more people who haven’t been able to get beyond arguments to work out a solution to their conflict.

• Mediation offers an accepting space where people can give their accounts and share their frustrations with a professional they can trust.

• A mediator is a professional who is a neutral party who doesn’t take sides in a dispute.

• The goal of a mediator is to foster a fair environment that facilitates mutual, respectful problem-solving efforts by the parties involved in a conflict.

• To reach that goal, a mediator assists the parties to try to communicate clearly with each other by using a structured communication process to help them identify their needs and to work together to develop solutions that meet those needs.

Activity

To obtain further information about the mediation process, we strongly recommend you read the book, Mediation: Transforming Conflict Through Communication, by Christina Sabee, Thom Massey and Bea Herrick, which is listed in the References section of this book.

You may also enjoy this YouTube video where we talk about the mediation process in detail and perform a short skit based on the Tanya-Harold conflict in this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHDcsveodLg.

CHAPTER 12
WRAPPING UP

Ambiguity, contradictions, uncertainty, even error: To be comfortable with them is the beginning of wisdom.

—Sherwin B. Nuland

Lessons from Conflict—The Unexpected Gift

Our purpose in writing this book is to help our readers learn the same practical approach we have taught others experiencing interpersonal conflicts. It is a method that has helped them creatively tackle tough issues while treating the other people in the conflicts with consideration and respect.

Whether you have a serious, longstanding difference with someone or you have a brief dispute resulting from another person’s words, glance or tone of voice, the techniques included in this book can serve as a positive guide to a meaningful resolution.

Here are 10 important lessons we hope you have learned from studying them in this book:

1. The first step in resolving conflicts is to understand what is going on in your mind and in the minds of the other parties to the conflicts.

When two people are in conflict, their minds have unconsciously raced up metaphorical Ladders of Assumptions about each other. By no means do you need to take personally the behavior of another person that is caused by that individual’s assumptions about you.

Unless you understand that, you will have difficulty resolving your conflicts with others. The assumptions individuals have made are their own, not yours. They often are based on genetic factors, as well as on environmental ones, such as early life conditioning, cultural influences and even traumatic experiences. Here is how you can begin to understand what is going on in your own mind and those of the people with whom you are in conflict:

• Acknowledge that people often rush to judgment about others based on unconscious assumptions. Consider those individuals in your background who have had a major influence on the way you think.

• Ponder that your original assumption about the motive for another person’s behavior is mainly based on your own temperament, biases and prejudices, which are usually quite different than those of the other person.

• Be open to the possibility that your first reaction to a person or a situation may be incorrect. Be willing to entertain the possibility that people don’t always fit the categories in which our minds have placed them.

• Imagine a different but plausible explanation when you’re convinced you understand the intent behind a person’s behavior. Be open to the possibility of putting aside assumptions that may be invalid and changing your mindset about people.

2. Make it a daily self-awareness practice to look inward and identify preconceptions that can lead to instant assumptions about others.

Each time we feel the need to be right and make critical judgments about others, we create seeds of conflict. Making negative assumptions about others instantly, and not accepting them the way they are, is self-defeating and adds fuel to the fire of disharmony. You need to observe your behavior toward others in the moment, and check it out by trying to figure out why your mind rushes so quickly to making assumptions about them. Here are ways to avoid making snap judgments:

• Identify another person’s behavior that comes across to you as objectionable, and observe how you reacted to that person. Commit to looking inward and examining the assumptions that may have led to your reactions.

• Bring to the surface of your mind emotions, positive or negative, that you are experiencing in relation to the person, and acknowledge that those emotions are your own. The other person is not causing them.

• Notice that it is your assumptions about the behavior of the person that are triggering your emotions. Be aware that these assumptions have no objective validity; they are your own thoughts.

• Acknowledge the actions you may have taken toward the person as a result of the assumptions you made about them.

3. Listen for deep understanding to others, which lets them know you’ve heard them and enables you to hear their assumptions about your behavior.

Key to listening for deep understanding is a sincere desire to know what is going on with other people. It lets us ask questions we might otherwise not have the insight to ask. And it allows us to be more open to responses that otherwise would not have found their way into our awareness.

There are four components to listening for deep understanding:

• Encouragement

• Clarification

• Restating (what the other person said)

• Summarizing

Here is how you use these components to reach deep understanding.

ENCOURAGE the other person to expand upon what was said in this way:

• You must remain quiet while others are expressing their assumptions about you. Take a deep breath and let intruding thoughts fade away.

• Try to be truly open to others’ assumptions about you. Be interested in learning more from others regarding their assumptions about your strengths and about your areas that need developing.

• Acknowledge that your assumptions regarding a particular situation are different from everyone else’s. Entertain the possibility that others’ assumptions are as valid as yours.

CLARIFY your understanding of what the other person told you by doing the following:

• Say to the other person that it is not yet clear what the person is telling you.

• Ask clarifying questions that let the other person know you are seriously interested in fully grasping the concerns and feelings behind what the person is telling you.

RESTATE what the other person said in this manner:

• Work on remembering the essential thoughts expressed by the other person, and restate them in your own words.

• Develop a “third” ear that enables you to hear the deeply felt emotions behind the speaker’s thoughts, and reflect them to the speaker.

• Keep repeating and rephrasing in different ways what the other person has said until the individual expresses confidence that he has been fully heard.

SUMMARIZE main points and feelings expressed by the other person in this way:

• State the main thoughts the other person mentioned, rather than the specific details that were expressed.

• From all the various emotions the other person has expressed or indicated, focus strictly on the predominant feelings you heard or recognized, and communicate those to the individual.

4. Ask others with whom you’re in conflict if you can discuss with them the assumptions you’ve made about their behavior.

We need to encourage others to give us their perspectives about the assumptions we’ve made about them and, though their views may differ from ours, not immediately judge them as being wrong. Their perspectives hold important clues that can lead to a better understanding of how our assumptions and subsequent actions may have contributed to a conflict. Here is how you approach that discussion:

• State to the other person the assumptions you’ve made about the other person’s behavior.

• Ask the other person whether, in that person’s view, the assumptions you’ve made about that person are accurate. Then listen for deep understanding to the person’s responses to your question.

• Be aware that your assumptions about the other person may be faulty, and take responsibility for the effects they may have had on that person.

5. Ask those with whom you’re in conflict to discuss with you the assumptions they’ve made about your behavior.

The assumptions that other people with whom we’re in conflict have made about our behavior are typically their honest impressions. We have a responsibility to listen with deep understanding to their assumptions so that we can gain insight into how our behavior may have triggered other people’s responses. Consider that their responses to our behavior were instrumental in developing the dispute between us. Here is how to approach the exchange:

• Avoid coming across as accusing the other person of being wrong when you ask the person questions for the purpose of clarifying the assumptions the person has made about your behavior.

• Listen for deep understanding to the assumptions the person you’re in conflict with has made about your behavior.

• Recognize that the other person isn’t purposely trying to make an incorrect case against you but, rather, has simply made assumptions about you the person truly believes to be correct.

6. Work together with those with whom you’re in conflict to determine the validity of the assumptions each of you has made about the other.

When people in conflict are willing to jointly evaluate their respective assumptions about each other, it opens a door for them to seriously consider the idea that it is more important to resolve conflicts and restore relationships than it is for one person to be right and the other to be wrong. Here is how you focus on resolution and de-emphasize declaring a winner:

• Commit to seriously entertaining two apparently contrary assumptions—your assumptions and those of the person you’re in conflict with—at the same time.

• Be willing to revise particular assumptions each of you has made or even abandon them completely if they don’t pass the joint reality-checking process.

7. Come to a mutual understanding with those with whom you’re in conflict regarding the validity of particular assumptions each of you has made about the other, and let go of assumptions that are determined to be invalid.

When people in conflict are willing to let go of the assumptions they’ve made about each other that turn out to be invalid, they are making important strides toward coming to agreement on assumptions that are jointly determined to be factually based. Here is how you figure out which assumptions to validate and which you must let go of:

• Assess whether you sincerely desire to reach common ground with the other person. Don’t proceed if there are any vestiges of negative feelings toward one another.

• Jointly explore alternative assumptions about each other’s behavior. Together be willing to entertain the possibility that there might be explanations for each other’s behavior that haven’t yet been considered.

• Acknowledge that each of you in the conflict has sufficient self-confidence to yield to the correctness of the other person’s assumptions without feeling personally diminished.

• Work together to reconcile differing assumptions about each other’s behavior and to arrive at those assumptions that both of you can agree upon.

8. Apologize sincerely to people you have wronged based on incorrect assumptions you’ve made and actions you’ve taken that offended them.

Recognize that your assumptions have caused the negative feelings you had about the person you were in conflict with, and apologize for the behavior of yours that offended the other person. Doing so shows that you have chosen the future, not the past, as the focus for your interactions with the offended person. When you apologize, you should, if possible, include these four aspects of an effective apology: (a) acknowledging your offensive behavior; (b) explaining your actions; (c) expressing remorse; and (d) making amends. You do that in the following manner:

• Take responsibility for the circumstances that caused another person to feel offended by acknowledging what you did.

• State truthfully the reasons for behaving the way you did.

• Express regrets for the action you took or the behavior you displayed that was offensive to the other person.

• Make a sincere effort to right any wrongs you committed. Do whatever you can to help the other person recover emotionally from what you said or did.

9. Reach agreement on new, constructive ways to communicate with those with whom you’ve been in conflict, when dealing with issues that may arise in the future.

In arriving at agreements with others we are in conflict with, we need to include solutions that will benefit us both. Although it is important to stick up for your own suggestions, for an agreement to be balanced, it is equally important for you to be willing to yield to the other person’s ideas. Each person needs to be willing to be part of the solution. To make sure that your agreement has this parity, it is important that you do the following:

• Include in the agreement explicit steps for implementing it, knowing that enumerating those steps will increase the likelihood that the agreed-upon changes in both parties’ behavior spelled out in the agreement will be made.

• Incorporate steps in the agreement that will be taken if one or both of you happen to veer from the path forward you agreed to.

10. Decide to “bury the hatchet” with those with whom you’ve been in conflict, bringing closure to old conflicts and starting new, positive chapters in repaired relationships.

The challenge is to be 100 percent willing to let go of old grudges, and move forward expecting the best possible outcomes from a repaired relationship. If one person falters along the way in doing something that was agreed upon, the other person needs to be magnanimous—accepting an apology from the offender where it is appropriate and a commitment from the person to not let it happen again. You can do this by:

• acknowledging that a full-fledged effort on the part of both of you is required for you to change old habits and sustain your agreement.

• recognizing that, while things don’t always work out as planned in an agreement, it doesn’t mean that corrections can’t be made and renewed commitments pledged.

• anticipating best efforts from both parties in “righting the ship” and getting back on course.

Concluding Thoughts

Making these lessons part of your life gives you the tools you need to resolve disputes that previously have been intractable but now are doable. If after reading this book, however, you still feel at a loss and don’t have good ideas where to start, try this approach:

• Briefly leaf through each chapter for the main ideas.

• Make a note in writing of the one or two skills you think would be the most difficult to learn and apply in your life.

• Put your note in a spot where you can look at these skills frequently.

• Be open to letting them inspire you, rather than discourage you.

• Visualize positive outcomes from your focus on them. Be prepared to be surprised at the results a few small changes you make each day can create in your life.

Even though some interpersonal conflicts we have may seem to be intractable, these lessons can help us address the conflicts in a fresh, creative manner. The lessons are designed to enable you to focus on two sets of assumptions—yours and those of the person with whom you’re in conflict—at the same time and work together in reaching agreement on the assumptions that have a factual basis. These lessons have the potential of helping you open a new door to resolving your differences with the other person. Putting them into practice will have given each of you a chance to become a more understanding and compassionate person.

REFERENCES

Adler, Ronald B., Lawrence B. Rosenfeld, Neil Towne and Russell F. Proctor II. Interplay: The Process of Interpersonal Communication. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998.

Allport, Gordon W. The Nature of Prejudice. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1958.

Argyris, Chris. Overcoming Organizational Defenses: Facilitating Organizational Learning.Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1990.

Bastis, Madeline Ko-I. Heart of Forgiveness: A Practical Path to Healing. Boston, MA:Red Wheel/Weiser, 2003.

Beer, Jennifer E. and Caroline C. Packard with Eileen Stief. The Mediator’s Handbook. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2012.

Brady, Mark, ed. The Wisdom of Listening. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2003.

Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York: Free Press, 1989.

Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books: New York, 2008.

Fisher, Roger, William L. Ury and Bruce Patton. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. New York: Penguin Books, 2011.

Flanigan, Beverly. Forgiving the Unforgivable: Overcoming the Bitter Legacy of Intimate Wounds. New York: Macmillan, 1992.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2005.

Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Bantam Books, 1995.

______. Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. New York: Bantam Books, 2006.

Harris, A.H., et al. “Effects of Group Forgiveness Intervention on Perceived Stress, State and Trait, Anger, Symptoms of Stress, Self-Reported Health and Forgiveness”(Stanford Forgiveness Project at Forgive for Good at Learningtoforgive.com).Accessed Feb. 24, 2012.

Haskins, Diana. Parent as Coach: Helping Your Teen Build a Life of Confidence, Courage and Compassion. Portland, OR: White Oak Publishing, 2001.

Joint, Matthew. “Road Rage.” Aggressive Driving: Three Studies. AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Washington, DC: March 1995. Accessed March 7, 2017. https://www.aaafoundation.org/sites/default/files/agdr3study.pdf.

Jonick, Tony. “My Day as a Threat.” Perspectives. Oakland: KQED-FM, Feb. 19, 2008.

Katie, Byron. I Need Your Love—Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005.

Keltner, Dacher. Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.

Kottler, Jeffrey A. Beyond Blame: A New Way of Resolving Conflicts in Relationships. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.

Krumboltz, John D. and Al S. Levin. Luck Is No Accident: Making the Most of Happenstance in Your Life and Career. Atascadero, CA: Impact Publishers, 2010.

Lazare, Aaron. “Making Peace Through Apology,” Greater Good: Magazine of the Center for the Development of Peace and Well-Being, Vol. I, Issue 2, Fall 2004a, 16-19.

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Luskin, Frederic. Forgive for Good. New York: HarperOne, 2001.

Patterson, Kerry, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzer. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.

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______. Don Miguel and Don Jose Ruiz. The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery. San Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen Publishing, 2010.

Sabee, Christina, Thom Massey and Bea Herrick. Mediation: Transforming Conflict Through Communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Kendall-Hunt Publishing, 2008.

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APPENDIX

THE FOUR COMPONENTS OF LISTENING FOR DEEP UNDERSTANDING

RESPONSE

PURPOSE

HOW TO DO THIS

EXAMPLES

ENCOURAGE

To learn more; to draw the speaker out; to get a fuller account

Invite the speaker to say more, using open-ended questions that can’t be answered with a “yes” or “no.”

“Tell me what else happened after that.”

I’d like to know more. Say a little more about that.”

“I don’t fully understand what you’re saying. Tell me how you felt about that.”

CLARIFY

To try to fully understand what the speaker is saying

Ask questions that begin with:  “how,” “what,” “with whom,” “when” and “where.” Avoid “why.” It can put the speaker on the spot.

“What led up to this situation?  When did this first become a problem for you?”

“Who else was involved?”

“How did this affect your work?”

“When did you first talk with him about it? How often has this occurred?”

RESTATE

To let the speaker know that you are listening; to check your understanding of what’s been said

Tell the speaker what you have heard in your own words.

“From what you told me, I gather that she speaks to you rudely every time she sees you and treats you disrespectfully.”

“You seem to be puzzled and angry at her behavior and want her to stop or to tell you what’s wrong.”

SUMMARIZE

To pull together key points, perceptions and feelings; review everything said.  It’s a basis for further discussion.

State the main points the other person made, including issues, ideas and feelings.

“When you had your interview, you found out that this might be a good place to work because—, but now you wonder whether you have all the necessary qualifications and whether you should take the job.”

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

JACK HAMILTON

Jack Hamilton believes that other people have perspectives on life that are as valid as his own and that we are at a time in the world when embracing diversity among people, groups and nations is vitally important. He believes that his purpose in life is to help people come to a truer understanding of their shared human experience and of the reality that adversaries are people who have not yet heard each other’s life stories.

Jack grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He holds the following degrees: a bachelor of arts with a major in history from Harvard University; a master of arts with a major in political science from the University of California; a master of arts with a major in education from Stanford University; and a doctorate in the field of counseling psychology, also from Stanford University.

Jack served in the U.S. Army as a lieutenant and infantry platoon leader. He also worked as a high school history instructor, a high school vice principal for curriculum, an instructor at Stanford University, a senior research scientist at the American Institutes for Research, director of executive services at the Institute for Information Management, cofounder of the Information Group, Inc. and a partner at the mediation practice, Learn2Resolve.

Jack was honored by Santa Clara County, California, for his work as a mediator. He has taught conflict resolution workshops and classes at the Leadership Training Institute of the National League of Cities, as well as at businesses, nonprofit organizations, schools, colleges and universities. He is the author of more than 50 journal articles, book chapters and books.

ELISABETH SEAMAN

Elisabeth Seaman comes from a multicultural background, having grown up in Europe and Central America. She is committed to helping people of diverse backgrounds learn how to resolve their conflicts peacefully. As a member of a family that experienced some of the worst terrors of World War II in Europe, she feels passionate about being an active peacemaker. She believes that her work in helping individuals make peace with each other, a few people at a time, creates a ripple effect that has a positive impact on an ever-growing number of people.

Elisabeth has mediated a wide range of disputes in interpersonal, family, multicultural, workplace, consumer and community settings. She has facilitated meetings and led trainings in Mexico, Costa Rica and the United States. She has taught conflict resolution and communication skills workshops in business, nonprofit and public settings. She contracts with the U.S. Postal Service to mediate alleged discrimination (EEO) cases. For her mediation work, Elisabeth received commendations from the county of San Mateo, California and the state of California. She works in Spanish as well as English.

Elisabeth studied at the University of California, Berkeley for three years, completing her B.S. at Boston University. In 1982, she began serving as a volunteer community mediator. In 1992, she founded Learn2Resolve, a mediation, facilitation and conflict resolution training organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR), the Association for Dispute Resolution of Northern California and the California Dispute Resolution Council. Elisabeth also is credentialed in numerous types of mediations.

Elisabeth and Jack introduced the Juvenile Victim/Offender Mediation program in San Mateo County, California, under the auspices of the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center. Both of them serve as coaches for new mediators in a San Francisco Bay Area community mediation program.

END NOTES

1 Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” South Pacific, 1949. (Permission granted by the publishers to cite the lyrics here.)

2 Matthew Joint, “Road Rage” Aggressive Driving: Three Studies. (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, Washington, DC: March 1995), accessed March 7, 2017, https://www.aaafoundation.org/sites/default/files/agdr3study.pdf.

3 Ibid.

4 Carlos Lozada. “Politically Correct: Linguistically Out-to-Lunch,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 16, 1998, 16.

5 Brenda Ueland. “Tell Me More: On the Fine Art of Listening,” Strength to Your Sword Arm: Selected Writings (Duluth, MN: Holy Cow Press, 1992).

6 1, Ibid.

7 Although we ask that you consider each rung, it’s not the case that every rung is reached when one races up a Ladder of Assumptions. For instance, a sweeping generalization or stereotype might not have come into play.

8 Karina Schumann, Ph.D., professor of psychology, University of Pittsburgh, oral communication with authors (Nov. 15, 2013).

9 Peter Pearson (cofounder, the Couples Institute), in email communication to the authors, Sept. 11, 2010.

10 “Forgive for Good” at Learningtoforgive.com, “Effects of Group Forgiveness Intervention on Perceived Stress, State and Trait, Anger, Symptoms of Stress, Self-Reported Health and Forgiveness (Stanford Forgiveness Project),” accessed Feb. 24, 2012.

11 Frederic Luskin, Forgive for Good (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2001).

12 Dweck, Carol. Mindset (Random House: New York 2007).

13 Rosenberg, Marshall B. Nonviolent Communication, 3rd ed. (PuddleDancer Press: Encinitas, California, 2015).