Difficult Conversations are No Day at the Beach – Or Are They?

My daughters and I live in the Heartland and love it. We also love leaving the Heartland for a few weeks every year to go to the coast of Maine. It is a beautiful part of the country, but the thing I get the most excited about is being able to boogie board in the ocean.

Now, Maine, even on a warm day in the summer, has very cold water. We have found that if the water temperature is below 60 degrees, we are in for some pain. If it’s 60 degrees or warmer, it still hurts but the ache is more tolerable. When the siren song of the waves calls us, we grab our boards, abandon the bone-hugging warmth of the sun-drenched sand, and bravely turn to confront the pain. We all have different philosophies about entering into the cold – kind of like the different ways we all eat Oreo cookies (which we have every day at the beach, by the way). Some of us like to ease in, one inch of goose-covered flesh at a time, some of us sit down and let the waves crash over us, some of us like to dive directly through the waves to get wet. The net effect for us all, however, is that we eventually all get wet. And cold.

BUT

The cold, and pain, only lasts for a moment. After the first wave has hit you, you are numb from cold (we don’t wear wetsuits, just swimsuits!)  We experience 5 seconds of discomfort for an hour of pure joy and fun. Totally worth it.

I’ve been thinking about this more often lately as I work with leaders and organizations to address the painful and frustrating situations that occur on their teams. Having to confront a difficult issue, or have a challenging conversation can sometimes make us feel wary. We want the situation to resolve, but we aren’t quite sure, or are afraid of, how the conversation will go. It’s a bit like staring at the ocean, wanting to go in but not wanting your bones to ache from the cold. And sometimes, we add to the discomfort or make it worse for ourselves by:

• putting off the conversation
• rationalizing why we really don’t HAVE to have the conversation
• convincing ourselves that if it’s really important someone else would have handled it by now
• convincing ourselves that the risk of bringing it up outweighs the potential benefit
• not acknowledging our own piece of the situation that we need to own differently
• not allowing ourselves to tell the whole story, just the pieces that paint the picture we want

Owning our contribution to any situation, acknowledging that there are valid reasons for why the other party did what they did, and breathing through the initial discomfort of having a difficult conversation can yield amazing results. Addressing what needs to be addressed with care, kindness, and curiosity can help even the most challenging situation turn into something truly great for those involved. 

So take a moment to reflect, to right-size the situation, and have a caring conversation about a difficult topic. The discomfort goes away soon – a properly resolved issue lasts a long, long time.