Start Talking
The simplest tactic for your toughest conversations
My publisher: We’re dropping your book.
Me: S#!T
That never happened (thankfully), but the rest of this story did…
My publishing team and I were in the final stages of finishing my book for its Sep 2 launch. Editing, laying out, re-laying out after re-editing and so on.
The process is inherently painful, but I felt like we were making the job tougher than it needed to be.
I had feedback to share, but I held back.
I pride myself on having hard conversations. I coach others on how to share challenging feedback. I’ve read all the books, practiced all the tactics.
And yet, I wasn’t having the talk I needed to. What was happening?
The start is the hardest part
I’ll be partners with my publisher on Your Grass is Greener for years and having a good relationship with them is important to me. So, I prepared my feedback in advance and was ready to be Radically Candid for a Crucial Conversation.
But still I stalled.
Sure, I was afraid they’d drop me, leaving me in a tough spot a few weeks before launch, but fear never stopped me in the past. I kept reworking what I planned to say and rethinking the communication tactics I’d use.
That’s when it hit me. I wasn’t stuck figuring out my feedback. I was forgetting the simplest tactic of all: how to start.
If you can open the conversation, you’ll find you’re way from there.
Simply getting started is the hardest part of a hard conversation and the best way to start is by stating your intent and anti-intent upfront:
Intent: what you hope to accomplish with the conversation
Anti-intent: what you explicitly want to avoid
Here’s what I said to my publisher to get our conversation going:
“I have feedback I’d like to share and my intention is to help us improve. It’s not my intent to create a rift or make you feel like I don’t want to continue our longterm relationship…[insert feedback here]”
Clarifying why you want to talk and what you hope to avoid is the best way to enter a tough conversation. And once you start, there’s no turning back.
If you ever struggle like I did, focus on simply getting started.
Clearly stating your anti-intentions upfront provides helpful guardrails for your conversation. If the other person feels you’re tracking toward an anti-intent, they have permission to call it out.
And clarifying your actual intentions allows them to focus on what you’re saying, rather than having to guess what you mean.
My publisher knew, Jason is telling me something to help us improve, not saying he wants to get rid of us, and could fully focus on finding a path forward.
The obvious outcome
I got the conversation started and we spent over an hour talking through my feedback from there.
Instead of the F-You I feared, I got the Thank You I should have foreseen.
We’ve improved how we’re working a lot. Focusing on how to get the conversation started is what finally made it all happen.
What hard conversation is waiting for you to simply get it started?
Try it yourself: Figure out what hard thing you want to say, then focus your attention on how to kick off your conversation.
The best start to any tough conversation is stating your intent and anti-intent.
😂 P.S. A terrible joke, try not to laugh…
If you ever get locked out of your house, talk to your lock calmly…
Because communication is key.