It takes true intelligence to navigate a difficult conversation.
But what does that mean, exactly? What is intelligence? What is a conversation?
Previously, we defined intelligence as a gerund, an action verb-turned-noun.
It is not an adjective. Thus, nobody can say they are or are not intelligent.
It is not a noun. Thus, nobody can say that have or do not have intelligence.
It is a gerund. Therefore, we use or do the "intelligence-ing" while connecting or growing towards each other. A difficult conversation especially requires true intelligence to manage.
What is a conversation? A conversation in these same terms is the growing of a connection. It is a 2 (or more)-way growth of separate entities towards each other. An illustrative natural example, albeit at a comparably glacial pace, is a symbiotic relationship.
A clownfish grows to rely upon and protect the sea anemone, while the sea anemone grows to rely upon and protect the clownfish. Their relationship exists in the spaces between them, defining and adapting to them even as the relationship forces them to adapt via genetics and environmental behavior. A symbiotic relationship develops in macro-scale. A conversation does the same on a micro-scale.
The point is that a conversation is not constrained to transmitting a correct answer. (Looking at you, Wiki-search engines and derivative answering apps.) It is not constrained to receiving. (Looking at you, Speech-to-Text hands free keyboards.) It does not exist as a physical dimensionally measurable phenomenon. (Looking at you, computer language processing.) Rather, a conversation is about manipulating the receipt by its transmission. It is about manipulating the transmission via its receipts. Conversations are dynamic. They react and adapt, which in turn changes the parties involved by forcing them to adapt. Each exchange in a conversation changes the underlying state and the next exchange reflects this.
To illustrate the point, we have seen many neophyte or clueless or just plain uncaring teachers and presenters present poor conversations. We have all been there - walking to a class or a conference and seeing (or perhaps guilty of using!) a Powerpoint Presentation. The speaker sits down behind a desk or lectern and literally reads off the notes. The Powerpoint becomes the lead. The audience generally remains unengaged.
A far better approach is facilitate the discussion while relegating the Powerpoint Slides to a background exhibit. A good teacher knows where is the student, where is the target, and how to bridge the gap. A good teacher does not necessarily read off the canonically correct facts. That would be the equivalent of imposing a royal decree on the illiterate masses. That tends to lead to such events called revolutions. Rather, a good teacher facilitates the conversation on an approach most inducive to their partners' assimilation and accommodation.
As a first case in point, Browning, et al, (2007) explore what it means to be an effective physician in healthcare. How can a medical care provider at a hospital update anxious family members in an impossible environment about loved ones and propose medical treatments in ways that lead to acceptance, trust, and optimal outcomes? They bring up the concept of the "hidden curriculum," the unspoken "comfort" zones from which physicians tend to speak where the worldview is that the physician must be the absolute knowledgeable expert with the canonically correct answers. Where the physician is the imperial envoy who dictates the facts to the audience. Where above all, the physician must not ever be caught without the emperor's clothes.
To counteract this tendency, they suggest that healthcare providers do not need, nor should aspire to be, the know-it-all expert. Doing the work to identify the expertise-driven proposed treatment is half the equation, but that is not the driver for getting the patients and family to receive it. As in sales, the other half of the medical equation is the emotional standard of care. The more effective pedagogical approach is to suspend any semblance of hierarchical superiority in order to become a helpful peer. The moral and relational dimensions are opposed to pure skill focused training in favor of balanced development to foster compassionate caring. The focus is less on how to deliver news and more on how to support the patients and family.
It all goes back to that old adage, “monkey see, monkey do….” The way you treat me as a student will set the tone for how I treat patients. So if you want me to take a personal interest in my patients and to treat patients as partners, the most powerful thing you can do is to treat me the same way.
-Skiles J. (2005) Teaching professionalism: a medical student’s opinion.
A second case in point, Sue, et al (2009), discuss difficult conversations about race. They specifically address microaggressions - essentially brief "guerilla war, hit-and-run" style indignities that intentionally or unintentionally communicate hostile insults and intents. Microaggressions are so brief that there is such a small window of opportunity to challenge them. Yet, doing so escalates the situation into potentially dangerous territory. Microaggressions most naturally occur between powerful and relatively powerless entities.
The mental health impact can be modeled thusly: Person A brings merchandise to the sales clerk, Person B. Person A has hopeful expectations of a positive, mutually beneficial interaction and their dopamine levels experience a phasic spike. The Pavlovian dog analog would start salivating and wagging its tail. But Person B casually suspects Person A may try to steal the merchandise. Person A's dopamine levels experience a phasic drop - i.e. feels disappointed, causing attentional resources to focus on this incident and store an episodic "flashbulb" memory to relive the incident over and over. The Pavlovian dog in this case, well, how would it react if someone just took away its food bowl?
Sue, et al, suggest that attempting to address microaggressions triggers difficult conversations because Person A feels trapped between suffering in silence and being seen as instigating hostility while Person B feels falsely accused of doing something wrong. Third party mediators can help or do great harm, depending on the approach.
Generally unhelpful: being passive to let the class or parties drive the discussion, disengaging to dismiss the importance of the conversation, getting emotionally charged and judgmental, or changing the subject to avoid the issue.
Generally helpful: being comfortable and acknowledging the difficulty to validate the feelings, facilitating the conversation to assist the parties in explaining their argument positions, and openness to explore possibilities. This enhances their credibility as an honest broker.
A third case allows us to dive in depth on a real example. The arrest incident involving Henry Louis Gates Jr in Cambridge is a matter of public record. The events are as follows: Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr, professor of African American Studies at Harvard, recently returned from a trip to China. Along with his driver, he found his university housing front door damaged from an attempted break-in while he was away. A neighbor only observed unidentified 2 males attempting to force a stuck front door and summoned the police. Unaware of the inbound police presence, the driver completed his assistance and departed. Sgt. Thomas Crowley, Cambridge Police Department, then arrived on scene. Based on their later interviews and the Cambridge Police Report, their conversation proceeded thusly:
Crowley: Sir, please step outside on the porch.
Gates: No, I will not. Who are you?
Crowley: I am Sgt. Crowley, Cambridge Police. Please step outside. I am responding to a call about a break-in in progress at this residence.
Gates: Why? Because I am a black man in America?
Crowley: Is there anyone else in the residence?
Gates [yelling angrily]: That's none of your business! You racist police pig!
Crowley: I am not a racist. I am a Cambridge police officer responding to a citizen's call about a break-in.
Gates: You racist officer, you don’t know who you’re messing with! I'm calling your boss!
Crowley: Fine. Harvard Police just arrived and will take it from here. I'm leaving now.
Gates: Ya, I’ll speak to your mama outside, you racist!
And so on. At top is a photo of their ensuing Beer Summit when Barack Obama played the third party mediator at the White House. One would imagine their conversation to be rather difficult as well. Why? What exactly makes a difficult conversation? What exactly makes a conversation at all?
Again, a conversation is the growing of a connection. The involved parties are transmitting and receiving, where both transmissions and receipts are merely the means to an end. The transmissions manipulate the receipts and vice versa. When Person A transmits an output, they are already anticipating and expecting the response. Their dopamine levels experience a phasic shift that only awaits validation so as to continue with the expected script. Like a karate push, the person is expecting an impact reaction or opposing force. The question is what do Persons A and B expect? What are their positions from which come the words?
Dr. Gates is a famous professor of African American Studies who just spent some time in China. China is a communist country operating under a hierarchical, authority-based culture where indignant yelling and power-plays are required to get anything done. (e.g. Martinsons & Davison, 2006) It is also 12 time zones different from Cambridge, US. A direct flight takes approximately 12-16 hours. US Customs and Border Control sometimes takes a while at Logan International Airport. So Dr. Gates arrives at the scene exhausted as if from a proctology exam right after being packed like a sardine, jetlagged to the point of being awake at 3AM in the morning, and in the midst of recovering from a foreign culture. Note that there are extremely few professors of African American Studies in China. Or people with black skin. Then he encounters signs of an attempted break-in at his home. Then he gets called out by another police officer - a "jing-cha" in Chinese in his Chinese-time mind. In the culture from which he just traveled, escalating to the boss or "jing-li" is an appropriate approach to establish authority.
Sgt. Crowley is an experienced police officer in Cambridge, a very racially diverse city home to several famous schools. Famous schools means rich kids alone on their own for the first time - magnets for thieves and burglars looking for easy, rich pickings. He is a first responder. This means if there is an ambush, he is the one walking into it. Alone. He has family and is tasked with watching over residents' families. He arrives on scene looking for 2 potentially hostile males. He sees 1 elderly male. Where is the other one? Or the first two? Is this a hostage situation? Is the unaccounted for male or males hidden somewhere, forcing the elderly hostage to "act normal" until the officer leaves? The appropriate approach is to lure the elderly male out to a secure zone - that means outside and away from any concealed "bad guys" - so as to allow the elderly male to speak more freely and to do a safety assessment. It would be a bad call to either go inside and expose himself to being a second hostage or to just leave and allow a crime to proceed on his watch.
With this in mind, perhaps the conversation could have proceeded thusly:
Crowley [knowing a hidden perpetrator may be listening]: Hello Sir, sorry to bother you. My name is Thomas Crowley. I need your help with something out here. Can you come out please? It will only be a minute.
Gates: No, I will not. Why should I?
Crowley: [switching to direct approach #2]: I am Sgt. Crowley, Cambridge Police. I am responding to a call about a break-in in progress at this residence. I may need your help in understanding what's going on. Please.
Gates: Why? Because I am a black man in America?
Crowley: I don’t know about that. But I am just doing my job. My protocols are to have you safe outside so I can --
Gates [yelling angrily]: That's none of your business! You racist police pig!
Crowley: [flowing to approach #3]: If you say I am a racist, I must be a racist. OK. But please, I still need your help outside. My boss is Captain at the station and his number is 617-349-3300. If I do anything wrong or inappropriate, please let him know and you can have me fired. You can also let your own president know at the university. But I have to do my job - and that's to have you outside so I can assess your safety and help you however I can.
A conversation is not solely an exchange of words any more than a person is a pile of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. A conversation is not about transmitting commands. Rather, it is about discovering and building a relationship together. As Person A explores Person B's position, Person A begins to refine their own position and vice versa. Crowley's job in this conversation is to discover what happened. As he figures out from conversing with Gates that there was likely no active break-in, there is no dangerous hostage situation, but there might be a developing irate homeowner situation, Crowley can shift position to essentially welcome Gates back home to Cambridge after a long, exhausting journey.
By detecting that Gates is in fact very irate and is embarking on a "police brutality" expectation script -- essentially, Gates' dopamine levels showed a phasic spike in anticipation of confirming a predicted racist assault -- Crowley can invalidate the prediction by refusing to play along the expected role and forcing the shift into a new one. Like a karate push that does not meet the expected opposing resistance, Gates' script goes off balance. Gates' dopamine levels drop and his expectation of brutality is disappointed. He pays more attention to Crowley instead of to his expectation of Crowley. Abraham Lincoln was a master at this approach, by the way. When once accused by his critics of being foolish, he responded by first accepting that he must be foolish since his critics said it, because whatever his critics say must be right. The critic's prepared combative retort fizzled out and they instead had to shift to explaining their position. To seal the deal on the new shared relationship, Crowley can even finish up by offering to help with the broken lock from the prior actual break-in attempt.
Understanding the shared nature of a conversation does not mean giving up and being powerless in one's own home. Gates stated in a later review (here and here) that "he would not do anything differently." While the 60-page review concluded that Gates should have simply cooperated, this may be tantamount to suffering in silence from an authority request.
Crowley: Sir, please step outside on the porch.
Gates: Sir, yes sir!
Sue, et al (2006) pointed out that microaggressions typically occur between powerful and relatively powerless entities. An investigating police officer can commonly have the appearance of authority and power. Dr. Gates, self-described as a "black man in America," can easily feel forced into a position of relative weakness by royal decree. He may reject this apparent position and desire to fight back. Dignity and pride are powerful motivators, especially in defense of one's own home. This explains why Gates would still feel afterwards he should not have to do anything differently - i.e. he rejects this particular "Sir, yes sir!" approach.
A conversation is a shared discovery process of growing together. It is not a royal decree that one person imposes on another - neither Crowley nor Gates can force the other to submit, as apparently they had tried to in the original actual conversation. Neither is it a compromise where both submit, as the review appears to support. Like a "right of way" convention on the roads, the first driver does not actually have more "royal rights" to force the other driver to "kowtow" and wait. Rather, it is more an onus of responsibility to take the initiative to clear the space for the next driver. Driving is a series of difficult conversations, inasmuch as our communications are severely curtailed. We communicate by taking turns to propose and to test.
Gates as the homeowner in his home territory can actually take the initiative - i.e. the "right of way" - and test Crowley as a guest by proposing a challenge.
Crowley: Sir, please step outside on the porch.
Gates: Sorry Sir, but that would be difficult for me right now. I just got back from a long journey from China, haven't slept or eaten in 24 hours, needed help from my driver to get past a broken front door since someone apparently tried to break in while I was out, and I need a cane to walk. Is there any way I can help you without having to go outside?
Crowley: I am Sgt. Crowley, Cambridge Police. Please step outside. I am responding to a call about a break-in in progress at this residence.
Gates: Yes, as I said, that would be my driver helping me in past the door. The one that got damaged from the real break-in attempt that occurred while I was away. I am Dr. Henry Louis Gates and this is my home. Please let me know what you need to verify - is there a computer database you can check? I shall be right here.
Crowley: Is there anyone else in the residence?
Gates: No, my driver already left. You can call him at XXX-XXX-XXXX if you need to talk with him.
Where Crowley goes from there reveals his own position - helpful police officer or racist police brutality perpetrator? Gates retains his pride and dignity, clearly states his position, and challenges Crowley to think of a plan to accommodate so that both can get by their jobs safely. As a professor, Dr. Gates would have experience in this sort of managing the class of potentially recalcitrant students or post-doc research assistants.
A conversation in no way entails a gain or loss in power with one as a winner and one as a loser in a zero-sum game. Neither party needs to change what they wish to do or bring to the relationship. Neither needs to learn polite phrases or magical key words or thousands of complicated tricks. Again as with the symbiosis of clownfish and sea anemone, the parties simply understand that both are there to stay. Both sides naturally discover what they can do to gain from the relationship with their neighbors. This is a conversation. A conversation only becomes difficult if it fails to understand this simple key point.
On the other hand, both Crowley and Gates got to meet Mr. Obama at the White House. And the beer must have been top rate.