Replace Fighting with Brainstorming

In these unusual times, we may be spending more time than ever with family, and encounters with friends and co-workers might require lots of arrangements and negotiations. We might find ourselves butting heads about new topics, like sharing home WiFi bandwidth, helping kids homeschool, and wearing masks. That’s why NPR interviewed Kwame Christian, director of the American Negotiation Institute, about how we can have tough conversations without letting them boil over into full-blown arguments.

Christian’s technique revolves around a simple, three-step process:

1. Acknowledge and validate emotions. Recognize how everybody is feeling about a given situation, even if it's sensitive.
   
2. Be compassionately curious. Ask lots of questions and fully listen to the answers. 
3. Brainstorm. Once both parties have acknowledged how they're feeling and identified why there's an issue, come up with solutions together — so that there is buy-in from both sides.
   
   

Christian stresses that productive problem solving begins with recognizing the difference between the micro and macro levels. “On the micro level, there might be something specifically that we disagree with. So, we're not on the same page on this specific thing. But as we expand our perspective to the macro level, there are going to be some principles or goals that we do have in common. So, when I'm framing the conversation, I'm talking about that shared outlook and shared perspective. And then we can move to the micro and figure out what it is we do next.”

When was the last time you turned a confrontation into a collaboration? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

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