I was doing a talk the other day to a group of 50 Rotarians about difficult conversations. Once they knew what the topic was, they were all excited. It turns out, everyone has had them, can relate, and would like to make them go away. The only two ways to do that are to avoid them or to make them easier to navigate. Avoiding them feels easier in the short term, but will end up causing even more difficult conversations down the road. Most of us can agree that if those conversations become less challenging, we are less likely to practice avoidance. If we can go so far as to make them actually productive, even better.

I asked the audience “what are some examples of difficult conversations and what makes them difficult?” All of the answers had to do with the topic of the conversation. Giving corrective feedback was at the top of the list. Anything involving money is challenging for many people to talk about. Having a conversation about boundaries in a relationship feels fraught with danger. No one mentioned the other person.

Some People Are Just Harder to Reach

Have you ever noticed that there are some people who are just more difficult for you to communicate with? They may be nice people and you may even like them, but the communication just never seems to go well. Sometimes it can feel like they are being difficult on purpose — choosing not to understand what you stated so clearly, speaking in circles instead of making a point, getting upset when you are being perfectly nice. The differences in the way two people communicate cause as much difficulty in conversations as the topic does.

Your Brain Is Filtering Everything

We are inundated with so much information that our subconscious mind filters out the vast majority of it. This allows your conscious mind to deal with a tiny fraction, leaving your brain to make assumptions about the rest. If we didn’t do that, we’d be paralyzed with input. It’s a very effective way to navigate the world, but when it comes to dealing with humans, the assumptions can be a problem. We automatically assume the other person receives, processes, and shares information the way we do — and far too often, we are wrong. When that happens, miscommunication occurs.

Once miscommunication starts, it tends to snowball. It requires conscious effort and more than a little self-restraint to recognize when things are going off the rails and figure out how to get back onto the same page.

Three Signs You’ve Lost the Thread

If you catch yourself thinking any of the following, it is time to pause and re-evaluate:

• Why is this otherwise smart person so incapable?
• How could they possibly think that?
• Why do some people have to be so difficult?

A very smart person with dyslexia may frustrate you because they “refuse” to do all of the reading — when really they are facing a significant burden by trying to gather information the way you prefer to gather it. Wondering how they could possibly think that is often because the criteria they use to make decisions are very different from yours. Someone who seems “difficult” may not be understanding you because you implied something that felt obvious to you…but wasn’t to them. The trick is to recognize it early.

How I Started Making Sense of It

When I was growing up, it always felt as if people were being difficult on purpose. It wasn’t until high school that I was introduced to the Myers-Briggs MBTI assessment — and things started to click. I finally understood that the reason some people are so challenging to communicate with isn’t stubbornness or bad intentions. It’s that they receive, process, and share information in fundamentally different ways. That realization changed how I approached every difficult conversation moving forward. It changed my assumptions.

The Assumption Worth Changing

I must admit that this article is written around a fundamental assumption on my part – that you assume others communicate the way you do. That clearly shows how difficult it is to navigate the world without making assumptions. If we can’t avoid them completely, why not try changing our assumptions to the following:

• This person has good intentions
• I must not have been clear
• If I look at this from their point of view, things will become clearer

The problem isn’t necessarily that we make assumptions — perhaps it is just that we need to adjust what those assumptions are. If instead of assuming our way of communicating is the right one, we assume it is our job to adapt to the way the other person communicates, those challenging conversations will get a lot easier.

A map for the next eight weeks

That is what this series is about. Over the next eight weeks, we will look at the personality traits and cognitive styles that create the most friction and miscommunication. Some from the MBTI assessment, some from other assessments and some observed traits that most of us can identify with. We will show that no diagnosis is required for better communication, just a better understanding of the legend on other people’s maps.

Do you have an upcoming event bringing people together from different departments or different communication styles? Addressing these differences before or at the start of the meeting can make communication go more smoothly. If you’d like to talk about resources for that, reach out to me here.