Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (17 page)

Spot the story by watching for “hot” words
. Here's another tip. To avoid confusing story with fact, watch for “hot” terms.
For example, when assessing the facts, you might say, “She scowled at me” or “He made a sarcastic comment.” Words such as “scowl” and “sarcastic” are hot terms. They express judgments and attributions that, in turn, create strong emotions. They are story, not fact. Notice how much different it is when you say, “Her eyes pinched shut and her lips tightened,” as opposed to, “She scowled at me.” In Maria's case, she suggested that Louis was controlling and didn't respect her. Had she focused on his behavior (he talked a lot and met with the boss one-on-one), this less volatile description would have allowed for any number of interpretations. For example, perhaps Louis was nervous, concerned, or unsure of himself.

As we begin to piece together why people are doing what they're doing (or equally important, why we're doing what we're doing), with time and experience we become quite good at coming up with explanations that serve us well. Either our stories are completely accurate and propel us in healthy directions, or they're quite inaccurate but justify our current behavior—making us feel good about ourselves and calling for no need to change.

It's the second kind of story that routinely gets us into trouble. For example, we move to silence or violence, and then we come up with a perfectly plausible reason for why it's okay. “Of course I yelled at him. Did you see what he did? He deserved it.” “Hey, don't be giving me the evil eye. I had no other choice.” We call these imaginative and self-serving concoctions “clever stories.” They're clever because they allow us to feel good about behaving badly. Better yet, they allow us to feel good about behaving badly even while achieving abysmal results.

When we feel a need to justify our ineffective behavior or disconnect ourselves from our bad results, we tend to tell our stories
in three very predictable ways. Learn what the three are and how to counteract them, and you can take control of your emotional life. Fail to do so and you'll be a victim to the emotions you're predisposed to have wash over you at crucial times.

The first of the clever stories is a Victim Story. Victim Stories, as you might imagine, make us out to be innocent sufferers. The theme is always the same. The other person is bad, wrong, or dumb, and we are good, right, or brilliant. Other people do bad or stupid things, and we suffer as a result.

In truth, there is such a thing as an innocent victim. You're stopped in the street and held up at gunpoint. When an event such as this occurs, it's a sad fact, not a story. You
are
a victim.

But all tales of victimization are not so clear-cut and one-sided. Within most crucial conversations, when you tell a Victim Story, you intentionally ignore the role you have played in the problem. You tell your story in a way that judiciously avoids whatever
you
have done (or neglected to do) that might have contributed to the problem.

For instance, last week your boss took you off a big project, and it hurt your feelings. You complained to everyone about how bad you felt. Of course, you failed to let your boss know that you were behind on an important project, leaving him high and dry— which is why he removed you in the first place. This part of the story you leave out because, hey, he made you feel bad.

To help support your Victim Stories you speak of nothing but your noble motives. “I took longer because I was trying to beat the standard specs.” Then you tell yourself that you're being punished for your virtues, not your vices. “He just doesn't appreciate a person with my superb attention to detail.” (This added twist turns you from victim into martyr. What a bonus!)

We create these nasty little tales by turning normal, decent human beings into villains. We impute bad motive, and then we tell everyone about the evils of the other party as if somehow we're doing the world a huge favor.

For example, we describe a boss who is zealous about quality as a control freak. When our spouse is upset that
we
didn't keep a commitment, we see him or her as inflexible and stubborn.

In Victim Stories we exaggerate our own innocence. In Villain Stories we overemphasize the other person's guilt or stupidity. We automatically assume the worst possible motives or grossest incompetence while ignoring any possible good or neutral intentions or skills a person may have. Labeling is a common device in Villain Stories. For example, “I can't believe that
bonehead
gave me bad materials again.” By employing the handy label, we are now dealing not with a complex human being, but with a bonehead.

Not only do Villain Stories help us blame others for bad results, but they also set us up to then do whatever we want to the “villains.” After all, we can feel okay insulting or abusing a
bonehead
—whereas we might have to be more careful with a living, breathing person. Then when we fail to get the results we really want, we stay stuck in our ineffective behavior because, after all, look who we're dealing with!

Watch for the double standard
. When you pay attention to Victim and Villain Stories and catch them for what they are— unfair caricatures—you begin to see the terrible double standard we use when our emotions are out of control. When
we
make mistakes, we tell a Victim Story by claiming our intentions were innocent and pure. “Sure I was late getting home and didn't call you, but I couldn't let the team down!” On the other hand, when
others
do things that hurt or inconvenience us, we tell Villain
Stories in which we
invent
terrible motives or exaggerate flaws for others based on how their actions affected us. “You are so thoughtless! You could have called me and told me you were going to be late.”

Finally come Helpless Stories. In these fabrications we make ourselves out to be powerless to do anything healthy or helpful. We convince ourselves that there are no healthy alternatives for dealing with our predicament, which justifies the action we're about to take. A Helpless Story might suggest, “If I didn't yell at my son, he wouldn't listen.” Or on the flip side, “If I told the boss this, he would just be defensive—so of course I say nothing!” While Villian and Victim Stories look back to explain why we're in the situation we're in, Helpless Stories look forward to explain why we can't do anything to change our situation.

It's particularly easy to act helpless when we turn others' behavior into fixed and unchangeable traits. For example, when we decide our colleague is a “control freak” (Villain Story), we are less inclined to give her feedback because, after all, control freaks like her don't accept feedback (Helpless Story). Nothing we can do will change that fact.

As you can see, Helpless Stories often stem from Villain Stories and typically offer us nothing more than Fool's Choices— we can either be honest and ruin the relationship or stay silent and suffer.

Of course, there's a story behind our stories. They don't just randomly roll out of our mouths. They serve four important masters.

Clever stories match reality
. Sometimes the stories we tell are accurate. The other person is trying to cause us harm, we are
innocent victims, or maybe we really can't do much about the problem. It can happen. It's not common, but it can happen.

Clever stories get us off the hook
. More often than not, our conclusions transform from reasonable explanations to clever stories when they conveniently excuse us from any responsibility—when, in reality, we have been partially responsible. The other person isn't bad and wrong, and we aren't right and good. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. However, if we can make others out as wrong and ourselves out as right, we're off the hook. Better yet, once we've demonized others, we can even insult and abuse them if we want.

Clever stories keep us from acknowledging our own sellouts
. By now it should be clear that clever stories cause us problems. A reasonable question at this point is, “If they're so terribly hurtful, why do we
ever
tell clever stories?”

Our need to tell clever stories often starts with our own sellouts. Like it or not, we usually don't begin telling stories that justify our actions until we have done something that we feel a need to justify.
¹

We sell out when we consciously act against our own sense of what's right. And after we've sold out, we have only two choices: own up to our sellout, or try to justify it. And if we don't admit to our errors, we inevitably look for ways to justify them. That's when we begin to tell clever stories.

Let's look at an example of a sellout: You're driving in heavy traffic. You begin to pass cars that are attempting to merge into your lane. A car very near you has accelerated and is entering your lane. A thought strikes you that you
should
let him in. It's the nice thing to do, and you'd want someone to let you in. But you don't. You accelerate forward and close the gap. What happens next? You begin to have thoughts like these: “He can't just crowd in on me. What a jerk! I've been fighting this traffic a long time. Besides, I've got an important appointment to get to.” And so on.

This story makes you the innocent victim and the other person the nasty villain. Under the influence of this story you now feel justified in not doing what you originally thought you should have done. You also ignore what you would think of others who did the same thing—“That jerk didn't let me in!”

Consider an example more related to crucial conversations. Your spouse has an annoying habit. It's not a big deal, but you feel you should mention it. But you don't. Instead, you just huff or roll your eyes, hoping that will send the message. Unfortunately, your spouse doesn't pick up the hint and continues the habit. Your annoyance turns to resentment. You feel disgusted that your spouse is so thick that he or she can't pick up an obvious hint. And besides, you shouldn't have to mention this anyway—any reasonable person should notice this on his or her own! Do you have to point out
everything
? From this point forward you begin to make insulting wisecracks about the issue until it escalates into an ugly confrontation.

Notice the order of the events in both of these examples. What came first, the story or the sellout? Did you convince yourself of the other driver's selfishness and
then
not let him in? Of course not. You had no reason to think he was selfish until you needed an excuse for your own selfish behavior. You didn't start telling clever stories until
after
you failed to do something you knew you should have done. Your spouse's annoying habit didn't become a source of resentment until you became part of the problem. You got upset because you sold out. And the clever story helped you feel good about being rude.

Sellouts are often not big events. In fact, they can be so small that they're easy for us to overlook when we're crafting our clever stories. Here are some common ones:

• You believe you should help someone, but don't.

• You believe you should apologize, but don't.

• You believe you should stay late to finish up on a commitment, but go home instead.

• You say yes when you know you should say no, then hope no one follows up to see if you keep your commitment.

• You believe you should talk to someone about concerns you have with him or her, but don't.

• You do less than your share and think you should acknowledge it, but say nothing knowing no one else will bring it up either.

• You believe you should listen respectfully to feedback, but become defensive instead.

• You see problems with a plan someone presents and think you should speak up, but don't.

• You fail to complete an assignment on time and believe you should let others know, but don't.

• You know you have information a coworker could use, but keep it to yourself.

Even small sellouts like these get us started telling clever stories. When we don't admit to our own mistakes, we obsess about others' faults, our innocence, and our powerlessness to do anything other than what we're already doing. We tell a clever story when we want self-justification more than results. Of course, self-justification is not what we
really
want, but we certainly act as if it is.

With that sad fact in mind, let's focus on what we really want. Let's look at the final Master My Stories skill.

Once we've learned to recognize the clever stories we tell ourselves, we can move to the final Master My Stories skill. The dialogue-smart recognize that they're telling clever stories, stop, and then do what it takes to tell a
useful
story. A useful story,
by definition, creates emotions that lead to healthy action—such as dialogue.

And what transforms a clever story into a useful one? The rest of the story. That's because clever stories have one characteristic in common: They're incomplete. Clever stories omit crucial information about us, about others, and about our options. Only by including all of these essential details can clever stories be transformed into useful ones.

What's the best way to fill in the missing details? Quite simply, it's done by turning victims into actors, villains into humans, and the helpless into the able. Here's how.

Turn victims into actors
. If you notice that you're talking about yourself as an innocent victim (and you weren't held up at gunpoint), ask: