MOST relationships are important for one reason or another.
Maybe you care about someone in an intimate relationship. Your relationships with your parents and your kids are probably important as well as your relationships with friends. And then there are your professional relationships - how you get along with coworkers, vendors, bosses, and other professionals impacts your ability to succeed and how much you enjoy your work - among other things.
Since we don't always see eye to eye on everything, there are going to be disagreements.
Disagreements can be highly toxic and damaging to these important relationships, even destroying the relationship if we don't learn to fight fair.
Fighting fair is critical to preserving and growing our connections with other people. Let's face it - it is very difficult to take back comments and actions that are made from a place of anger or judgment or a misuse of power. "Sorry" is an option but much better to be proactive going into a heated moment than cleaning up a mess of hurt feelings afterward.
When you find yourself faced with one of these relationship hot spots, take a moment to reflect on what you want to get out of the conversation and what actions might move you in that direction. Here are some specific guidelines to minimize relationship damage during heated discussions.
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Ask permission or schedule a time BEFORE you attempt engagement. Sounds like this, "I'd like for us to discuss our finances. Is this a good time or can we set aside a 1/2 hour later today?"
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Set guidelines for the discussion BEFORE you begin. Guidelines will be whatever works for the two of you (after the basic ground rules below). You could decide who will start the discussion, whether they speak uninterrupted or are willing to take questions, how much time you are going to allot to the conversation. You could even ask someone to use a different tone of voice with you or to refrain from swearing if that is an issue. Think about what each of you might need to make the conversation productive.
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Set an intention and an outcome for the conversation. It is useful to be explicit here. The outcome might be to brainstorm or to explore or to consider different options. It could be just to express yourself. When you know your goal or outcome, it is easier to stay on track. The intention is how you want to be together during the discussion. You might try an intention like, "working together as parents" or "to be supportive of each other while discussing an issue" or "to be open minded." Decide together and then share your intentions with each other.
Setting an intention is absolutely critical when you have more power than the other person, for instance if you are a boss speaking to an employee or a parent talking to a teenager. By letting the other person know that your intention is to understand a situation, be supportive, or find solutions together - you will lessen the angst and fear the other person might be feeling due to the differences in your roles and power.
Setting guidelines for the conversation is something you do together and is negotiable. You need to find a way that works for the two of you. The four ground rules that follow are NOT negotiable. You must honor them to avoid diminishing rapport in the relationship.
The FOUR Basic Ground Rules for Fighting Fair
- Take Responsibility for Yourself. No blaming. No matter how right you think you are, blaming the other person isn't going to resolve anything. Speak from your own point of view. Use phrases like, "I wanted" or "I assumed" or "I feel." Once you start accusing and assigning blame to the other person, you have polarized the discussion into winners and losers. Where there are winners and losers, you both lose because the relationship loses something.
- Put Aside Defensive Behavior. Don't defend and justify. When you do, you again lock in to positions of right and wrong. It is the other side of blaming. It says, "Oh no, YOU are wrong and I am right and here is my proof." Unless you are dealing with very simple, indisputable, verifiable data that doesn't include any objective information, perception, or feelings - don't defend. It perpetuates rather than resolves conflict.
- Avoid Contemptuous Behavior. "Contemptuous" is anything that attacks or demeans the other person and can be as subtle as eye rolling when someone is talking to as overt as using physical power. As tempting as it may be when you are angry, these are the straws that break the back of important relationships. What you say and do when you are upset will be remembered long after the conflict is over and may cause collateral damage to the relationship.
- No Stonewalling Allowed. You need to be a partner in the conversation if you intend to fight fair. Shutting down, withdrawing, or refusing to engage is generally perceived to mean that you just don't care about the issue at hand or worse yet, the person to whom you are speaking. It comes across as insulting and demeaning. If you need to withdraw to collect yourself and refrain from doing relationship damage, by all means, take a break. Just let the other person know that (a) you are taking a break and (b) you will get back to them to resume/resolve. And then, keep your word.
