Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Sheila Heen: Tackling Tough Conversations | Human Behavior | E51

Episode Date: January 6, 2020

"Hey, we need to talk..." -- if these words scare you, trust that you're not alone! Whether we’re dealing with an under-performing employee, upset with our spouse, or facing issues with a difficult client, we attempt or avoid difficult conversations everyday. Healthy relationships are built around communication and transparency, and so learning how to navigate tough conversations with less stress and more success can help optimize our relationships. Join us this week on YAP as we tackle tough conversations with best-selling co-author of the business classic Difficult Conversations and Harvard Law lecturer, Sheila Heen.  Tune in to learn the three layers of difficult conversations and how to overcome each one of them, the benefit of telling a third story to start your discussions off on the right foot and learn how to enhance the skill of receiving feedback by understanding the common initial reactions we all have when receiving negative feedback and how to deal with them in a positive way. Fivver: Get services like logo creation, whiteboard videos, animation and web development on Fivver: https://track.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=51570&brand=fiverrcpa Fivver Learn: Gain new skills like graphic design and video editing with Fivver Learn: https://track.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=51570&brand=fiverrlearn If you liked this episode, please write us a review! Want to connect with other YAP listeners? Join the YAP Society on Slack: bit.ly/yapsociety Earn rewards for inviting your friends to YAP Society: bit.ly/sharethewealthyap Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com    

Did you know that the rate of reviews plays a huge factor in Yap's Apple podcast ranking? If you listen to Yap on Apple Podcasts but never gave us a review, we'd greatly appreciate if you left one and took a few minutes of your time to share your feedback. This will help us secure sponsorships and remain a free resource to you all. Thanks in advance for your Apple Podcast Review. You're listening to Yap, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. I'm your host, Halitaha, and today we're talking with Sheila Heen. Sheila is the founder of Triad Consulting Group and a lecturer at Harvard Law School.

She also has co-authored two bestselling business books alongside Douglas Stone, difficult conversations and thanks for the feedback. Today, we're yapping with Sheila about the three layers of difficult conversations and how to overcome each one of them, the benefit of telling a third story to start your discussions off on the right foot, and how to enhance the skill of receiving feedback by understanding the common initial reactions we all have when receiving negative feedback and how we can counteract them in a positive way. Hi, Sheila. Welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. I'm delighted to be here.

Likewise, we're so excited to have this conversation with you. So to kick it off, let's give an introduction. You and your business partner co-author Douglas Stone wrote a very successful book called Difficult Conversations. nearly 20 years ago. Now, this book is a business and communication classic. It's one of the top 75 penguin classics of all time, and people still swear by it even two decades later. So tell us about this book and help my listeners understand just how far of a reach this book had and what impact you've witnessed since you released it 20 years ago. Oh, gosh, big question. So, yeah, When I showed up at the Harvard Negotiation Project, I was in law school. I took the negotiation

course. I totally fell in love with the field and just the interdisciplinary nature of it, but also the stance of curiosity and learning and practicality that really was a big part of what the Harvard Negotiation Project sort of stood for and aspired to in the world. The founder, his name was Roger Fisher, he wrote Getting TS, had fought in World War II. and so he'd sort of dedicated the rest of his life to trying to find better ways for us to handle conflict. So his big push was about creating theory for practitioners, creating theory that people could actually pick up and use to try to solve and address real world problems. And that really appealed to me. And he felt strongly that we need to keep one foot in the academic world to

step back and reflect on what we're learning and the patterns we're seeing. And then one foot in the real world, helping people with real problems so that we stay connected to the real challenges that people face. So that's all happening in the 80s. I show up right around 1990 as a student, and then I come on full time after I graduate. And one of the things that we were noticing is that the negotiation advice that we were giving was useful, but then there were certain conversations where it wasn't really helping, including conversations in my own life, right, where I was trying to do a really good job of problem solving, but the other person was being completely uncooperative and difficult. And we kind of thought, well, okay, what is it that we're not getting here, right? If our

advice isn't working, what's missing? And that's what led us to the material that became difficult conversations. We were inviting people to come in with real world problems and we were sort of taking them apart to try to understand why they were stuck. and also what would actually help. And then people would go out and try out what would help. And so that was really the work that spanned about seven or eight years that became the book difficult conversations. And so when people ask me,

how long did it take you guys to write that book? It's like, well, when do you want to start counting? Right. And also, although the book isn't that long, we felt really strongly that to be useful, it needed to be very spare, very practical, and as short as we could make it. So it's, you know, 260 pages or something.

something. That's actually including the material we added for the 10-year anniversary edition. But every single word of that book was rewritten about 14 times because our aspiration was that people anywhere in the world could pick it up and find something that resonated for them and find something that they could try that might help improve the situation. So yeah, it's been fun and funny anecdote. I had just moved to a very small town in Massachusetts about 15 years ago, and I was at like a school fundraiser dinner, and I didn't really know anybody because we had just moved to town.

And I sat next to this woman. And we were talking about, you know, what do you do, whatever? And she said, she teaches dance class. And then she asked what I did. And I said, well, I teach negotiation and difficult conversations. And she said, oh, you know, there's a book called that. And I said, I do know that actually because I co-wrote that book. And she said, oh, my goodness, like we use it to teach dance.

Oh my gosh. And I thought, wait, what? Like, that didn't even occur to us. And she said, well, I teach a form of tango that is a really, the partners have to be very connected. So my students tend to be married couples or couples who are together who come in to learn the tango. And she goes, the whole first lesson is them fighting about like, you're not leaving strongly enough. Well, you're not listening as usual. And so she's like, all of the issues in their relationship end up in the middle of their dance lesson.

And she goes, so I send them home with a copy of the book. Yeah. It's so incredible. As we were doing our research, we noticed that the book was used everywhere from obvious places like college courses to not so obvious ways like the Palestinian and Israelic conflict or, you know, the Greek and Turkish. Cypriots, yep. Yeah. It's pretty amazing that your book has been used in such like high stakes situations and also like lower stakes situations like a dance situation. like a dance class.

Right, exactly. And, you know, one of the fun things for us is that we feel like we learn from readers all the time who write to us or reach out to us to say, hey, here's how I've been using it, or I've been teaching it, or I've been using it in prisons. Or there's actually a copy of it uploaded onto the International Space Station. Wow. Which I was sort of, I had your reaction. Like, wow, that wouldn't have occurred to me.

But at NASA, they said, like, look, you're on the space station. You're in very tight quarters with other people. usually from other countries, and you've got to be able to get along and work together, because there's really no getting away from each other. So it makes a lot of sense. Completely. So tell us about your latest book. Thanks for the feedback.

You wrote it 14 years later, again with Douglas Stone. What was the reasoning behind writing that book? And why such a long delay between both the works? I know. Sometimes I look back and think, like, what the heck were we doing that whole time? And I'm like, oh, right. I was having three kids and running a business and teaching. and trying to learn something new.

That's the biggest thing. You know, after difficult conversations started to do well, the publishing world, of course, turns around and says, great, what's next? What are you going to write that we can publish in the next year or two? And, you know, there were a lot of obvious extension books, you know, difficult conversations at work and at home and on the patio and, you know, with a chef.

I mean, you could do an endless variation. But I guess for our own sake, as well as maybe the sake of our rights, readers, we felt like we didn't want to write the same book over and over and over again. That just didn't seem that interesting to us. So we felt like we needed to wait until we had learned something new enough and different enough and sort of big enough that it was bookworthy as opposed to an article, right? That would be a little bit narrower. One of our pet peeves is books that have like one really genuinely good idea, but then

it's patted into 300 pages. and we may be overcompensate because our books tend to be chockful of ideas that will keep you busy for the rest of your life. But we feel like at least you're getting your money's worth. So we were kind of spending that 20 years of pre-publication and then all the way up to the feedback book, going around the world, working with leaders on their toughest conversations, and feedback conversations kept coming up again and again and again as one of the kinds of conversations that everybody in the world struggles with and feels like they don't work the way

they're supposed to, you know, I try to give them feedback, they're defensive, and then eventually they say, you know, and then other people have this horrible feedback for me that's totally inaccurate and unfair. And it was like, okay, whether you're the giver, the receiver, it's not working. Yeah. So what is there here that we have to learn? And that's, I think, what took us so along was that we were looking for the right question. And it was, it was really Doug, who after about 10 years of sort of wrestling with these feedback conversations questions, suddenly one day said, well, hang on, maybe we're missing half the equation, right? In any exchange of feedback between a giver and a receiver, it's actually the receiver who's in charge. They're deciding what they're

going to let in and what sense they're going to make of it and whether and how they're going to change. So maybe we've been going about this backwards by focusing mostly on the givers and how to give feedback. Maybe we should be trying to understand what's so hard about receiving feedback for all of us, by the way, in all areas of our life. Like formal feedback, obviously, from clients or bosses, et cetera, performance reviews, but also like all of the informal offhand unsolicited little tips and suggestions that everybody in our lives have for us for how they want us to change. Yeah. And that was a really interesting question. You know, we kind of looked around.

So, like, what's out there on that? And there was almost nothing. And so that's really what launched us sort of in the direction of the feedback book. So, you know, now we're five years out from the feedback book and we're on the hunt for our next question. Very cool. I want to focus most of our time today on both those two topics, difficult conversations and feedback. So let's get right to it, starting with difficult. conversation. So what is your definition of a difficult conversation? I thought this would be the best

way to start it off. Well, there's an easy answer, which is if it feels difficult to you, it counts. So they tend to be conversations that either keep us up at night, worrying about them, debating. Should I even have the conversation? Because I can sense it's not going to go well. They're not going to change. Sometimes there are conversations that we have over and over and over again, right? It's an argument that we can't seem to handle well enough. And so it's just a point of conflict in the relationship that isn't working. But if it's causing you anxiety or if it's not getting you the results that you want or need, it counts as a difficult conversation.

And part of what was interesting to us is that that answer is different for everybody. Yeah. Basically anything that makes you uncomfortable, right? Yeah. So what are the most common reasons for avoiding a difficult conversation? Well, I think we're weighing the potential costs, right? Like, I don't think it's going to be worth it because I don't think they're going to agree with me or they're going to be willing to change or they're not even going to think that this is a problem. They're going to think it's my

problem. Or I just don't want to create tension or stress in the relationship. And it's interesting because there already is tension and stress in the relationship. It's just that it's tension and stress for you, and maybe not for them. They may be totally oblivious that you are frustrated or feel like this isn't working. But it's more comfortable for me to be mad at you than to risk that you're going to be mad at me. Yeah. You know, when you bring up this relationship, so it reminded me of something that I heard you say before where you point out that these conversations, some people think that you're having a conversation in a relationship, but really these conversations are what build your relationships. Could you elaborate on that?

Absolutely. This really comes from the work done by John Gottman on marriage, right? He's a marriage researcher up in Seattle, and he's sort of famous for saying that he can watch a married couple talk about a stressful issue in their relationship. He can watch them have that conversation for five minutes and predict with 92, 93% accuracy whether or not they're going to divorce within three to five years. Wow. Yeah. And so what he points out really from his. research is that how we have these conversations is really at the heart of the relationship, that if we have ways to listen to each other, to feel heard, and to work, to find solutions, even if we still don't agree, it's not that we never disagree, actually, but it's that how we

handle that disagreement or that conflict means that the relationship will thrive and, you know, stay healthy. And if we don't handle that well, either by avoiding it or by, escalating it, dismissing, he codes contempt or dismissal, where it's like, oh, this again, where you just basically shut down to anything legitimate that your partner has to say as one of the biggest danger signs in relationships because the relationship itself starts to fray, right? So there's this funny situation where whether it's a work relationship or a personal relationship, these conversations are where the rubber meets the road. And it's like, I don't want to bring it up because I don't want to hurt the relationship, but the relationship is already

jeopardized. Yeah. Because we can't talk about it or we can't talk about it effectively. And so finding a better way to have that conversation, I think, is really the only solution that I've found because it's not that you can't, you can find relationships where you're not going to have any conflict. Exactly. And conflict is healthy. And a little bit of conflict is what keeps a relationship healthy in the end, if you never bring up anything bad later down the line, it might blow up worse than it would have been if you just brought it up when you were having the bad feelings. Totally, because I don't say anything, but I silently resent it, right? And then the next time it happens, I'm reacting, deciding whether to bring it up,

deciding not to, adding that to my resentment bucket. And then eventually you do the same thing again, and it just, I can't handle it. And then I am reacting not just to what you did a few minutes ago today. I'm reacting to the 17 times you've done this this year. And to you, it seems like I'm overreacting, right? But to me, I'm actually reacting totally proportionately to how ridiculous and frustrating you are to work with. And that's dangerous, right? It's not a healthy relationship because we have all these workarounds. And it's also incredibly stressful. to be in relationships like that where you have to tiptoe around and carry a bunch of resentment.

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In your book, you say that there are three layers of difficult discussions, the what happened conversation, the feelings conversation, and the identity conversation. Would you break these down for our listeners? and perhaps let's just focus on the key characteristics of these layers for now and then we can work on solutioning them in a bit. Yeah, absolutely. So part of what we mean is that if you look at or listen to a difficult conversation, to really understand what's going on,

you have to listen beyond what people are saying to each other and listen to what they're really thinking and feeling and not saying. In other words, have a conversation with them about what's going on with them during the conversation and what their internal voice, we would call it, is preoccupied with. And what we've found is that your internal voice is preoccupied essentially with three things, each of the three conversations that you talked about. First, I'm having a conversation with myself about what happened. What has happened, what is happening now as we're trying to talk about it, and what I think should happen to solve the problem. And I have a story about that, right?

And that story actually itself has three key components. I'm pretty preoccupy. with what I'm pretty sure I'm right about. Whose fault this is that we're having this problem? Mostly you, yours, but it's not actually any easier if I feel like it's my fault. Like I should have seen this coming. I can't believe I let myself, you know, get into this situation, et cetera. But the story always involves some blame for why we're in this fix and having this conflict. And then the third piece is I have a story about why you're acting the way you're acting,

Why are you being so difficult? What do you like as a person? You know, you just have to control things, or you really are jealous or threatened by me or something, right? I have some theory about what's going on with you that is causing you to act this way. And all of that is part of my story about what's happening. And that's the most obvious piece, maybe. That's the part that we vent about to our friends when we talk about the situation. But under that, there are two more things.

The second is a feelings conversation. what do I do with the strong feelings I'm having of frustration or confusion or anxiety or sadness or guilt and particularly maybe in a professional relationship where it feels like I'm not really supposed to be having feelings. But of course, it's just not the way human beings are built. So we have all these strong reactions to reading our email or, you know, trying to solve a problem in a meeting. And then I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. And then the last is sort of at the deepest level, if a conversation feels difficult to you, chances are there's something about identity that is at stake. There's something the situation suggests about you that is at issue.

It might be like I'm being a wimp. Why am I not sticking up for myself? Why do they think they can take advantage of me? You know, am I not being fair? Am I not a good boss? Am I not up to the job? There's something that the situation suggests about who I am and what I'm capable of that feels like it's at stake. And that's part of what then raises the temperature on the feelings, the anxiety, et cetera, and frustration.

And then that colors the story we tell about what happened. So that's the underlying structure of any difficult conversation. Yeah. This was so interesting to me. From my understanding, what we should do is turn each one of these layers into a learning conversation and flip it on its head, basically turning the conversation into one that promotes peace and compromise and avoids blaming and fighting. When it comes to the what happened layer, how do you suggest that we kind of turn it around and stop blaming each other? Yeah, it's a great question. And I usually actually explain them in this order.

But just for fun, I have an instinct. We should do them in the opposite order. Because the identity conversation is often where I can kind of ground myself and not be so reactive. So if I can identify, what does this situation seem to be suggest about me that's so frustrating or upsetting? that actually helps me understand why I'm having such a hard time with it. So just a couple of examples. I have a couple of clients who ask for things repeatedly. And I have a really hard time saying no because I think of myself,

like part of my story, my identity story is I'm really responsive and I'm very helpful to clients and they always get more than they bargained for. Well, now anytime like their scope creeper, they ask, oh, could you add one more thing or could you stay and, you know, do the following? And could we add this? Saying no isn't just saying no. It feels like I'm not being the person I want to be. But at the same time, I also don't feel like this scope creep is fair.

And now I feel I'm being taken advantage of. So like I've got two identities that are in tension. And if I can just figure out what's at the heart of it for me, often I can be like, oh, okay, now I get why this is hard. And it's more complicated. Like we hold identity as very either or black or white. Like either I'm a generous person or I'm. totally selfish. And that's, of course, ridiculous in the real world and in business and family

life. So, you know, we have to find a happy medium. And sometimes I might even want to say, you know, look, I love adding whatever we can to make sure you get the most value we possibly can. This does feel like it's beyond what we originally talked about. So let's talk about how to handle that. Now we can talk about some options. But I at least feel more comfortable putting it on the table because I'm naming it. So you were talking about turning each on its head. Yeah. That's how I would sort of get a little bit of insight into what's going on with me in the identity conversation. And then that actually changes the feelings conversation because it's just easier for me to name the feelings I'm feeling. Yeah.

You know, I guess I feel like I'm in a little bit of a dilemma. Or I don't, I'm not sure actually that I have a solution yet. Or it feels to me like this is the kind of thing that we should table for the moment and make sure the first phase goes well. and then we can revisit it. Whatever, right? But I can just be very transparent and straightforward about feelings, including how I feel treated and how they feel treated, so that I can say,

I want to make sure that you really walk away feeling like you got your money's worth and that is out of budget. So let's talk about some options so that we can think about together how to put your money where it's going to matter most. Well, now we're on the same side solving that problem. And part of that is making sure. that they feel well treated. That then brings us back to the What Happened conversation,

which is the first one you talked about turning on its head. But now it's actually easier for me to shift what I'm preoccupied with. So rather than being focused on what I'm right about, to get curious about why is it that we see this differently? And why does it matter to you? And then let me share why it matters to me. If that's my purpose instead of proving to you that I'm right, it just changes my whole stance in the conversation

because I have a different purpose for it. And that makes it easier for me to shift from blame to thinking about joint contribution. We've probably each done or failed to do some things that got us here. Like, you guys have been adding some things which I have just included and not flagged. But now we're kind of at the 11th hour and you're wanting to add something that's really important that you might have traded off. But we've already done the previous work. So I've contributed to this. That doesn't necessarily mean we don't still have a budget problem.

But it does mean I'll take responsibility for my part. And, you know, that makes it easy. for me to hold you accountable for your part too. And that puts us in a problem-solving stance. Yeah. I think this is like really great advice. And I think that was a great example that you pulled. And what really resonates with me is in the what happens stage is that your first negotiation is really with yourself. Totally. And this is something that you've mentioned in past interviews. And so you really need to start looking at how did I contribute to this? how can I look at what they're thinking about differently and see their view a bit more clearly? Absolutely.

Cool. So sticking on feelings a bit, can you explain why our inner voice and exploring our emotional footprint and emotional patterns can help us navigate these difficult conversations better? Yeah. I mean, I think that the role of feelings in life, start there, but also in the workplace, has really changed in the last 20 years, and that's been really interesting to watch, where there's a much more awareness of the ways in which emotion drives conversation, but also drives working relationships and engagement scores and people's commitment and the culture of an organization.

And so thinking about what role our feelings playing in how we work together or how we live together, Right? Our friendships, our family relationships can help us get to the heart of what's really going on sometimes. Because by the time something becomes a difficult conversation, typically we've got at least two problems. We've got the surface problem, which is what should we do about the budget? Or, you know, what's a reasonable timeline for this project? But if it's starting to feel difficult, chances are there's a second deeper problem, which is how we each feel treated when we disagree about things, right? You never listen.

Why am I even offering my opinion? I was actually on the phone with a friend last night whose business partner routinely just ignores what she has to say. And then it creates all this conflict that ripples out to everybody below them. And, you know, they had had a big conflict about whether a great idea that the first business partner got super excited about was actually strategically a priority. Like is that where we should be putting all of our time and resources because we're really burning out our staff? And I don't think it's necessarily the most important thing we need to do next year.

And they had several conversations about it. And then in a public forum, the first person got up and announced. And we're doing this next year. And, you know, my friend was like, am I even here? I feel invisible. This is ridiculous. You know, we didn't come to agreement, but you're going to do whatever you want to do. So how I'm feeling treated is maybe the deeper problem.

And whatever we decide on this particular priority, the surface problem, that deeper problem is going to resurface again and again and again. So if we're not dealing with the feelings problem, then we're not actually changing how we work together in order to work together more effectively. Yeah, that makes total sense. Something else that was really interesting to me is that you say that anger is typically a secondary feeling. Could you explain that a bit? At Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers.

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Yeah, this is something that I learned from others that was pointed out to me. Two things maybe. One is anger is often, as you say, a secondary feeling and it's prompted by something first. So it might be hurt or surprise or feeling left out of something. Like, why wasn't I in that conversation when that decision was made and now I'm surprised about it? And then that turns quickly to, and I shouldn't be surprised about it. So now I'm angry. Or I shouldn't be feeling badly treated by you over and over again and now I'm angry with you. And so that translation from either hurt or surprise or embarrassment or anxiety,

into anger happens so quickly that we don't even notice it. We just know that we're angry. And anger, I think, in many workplaces and maybe there's talk that it's more acceptable for men to be angry and less acceptable for women to be angry, but anger is more acceptable generally in society than hurt. It's pretty rare for someone to come to a meeting and say, you know, I guess I'm just feeling really hurt that I was left out. That's actually what they're feeling. That's the most important thing, probably that they're feeling. Instead, they make an argument about why they should have been included. And it comes out as frustration or anger. And so part of it is just making sure, like, what are the range of feelings I'm feeling? I am also feeling anger, but that's not

the only thing. And often there's more subtle, you're usually feeling a bundle of feelings. And being more complete about them makes it easier to talk about them. So that it's easier to say, I guess I was surprised to hear that this decision had been made. I feel confused about why I wasn't included in that conversation. And then I wonder whether I'm confused about whether am I in here or am I out. And so I'm frustrated because this isn't the first time it's happened. That's a much easier thing to say because you're naming all of the different things that you're feeling. And they can then respond to that range of feelings.

Yeah. Do you suggest in like a work setting or a business setting that, that you do show that level of weakness in business. Yeah. Well, so I'll maybe say two things about it. One is I would make a big distinction between describing emotion and being emotional. So I think it is relatively rare that it's a good idea to be emotional at work, meaning yelling, crying, et cetera. Yeah.

But saying, very calmly, naming feelings, you know, I guess I'm frustrated. We're going in circles. I'm not understanding why or I feel like you're not listening to what I'm saying and I can't tell whether you just disagree or you're not really understanding why I see it this way. So just naming that actually gets to the heart of it quickly and is coded as quite professional. So I would say that people won't even notice if you get good at that. They won't even notice that you're naming feelings. they'll just notice that you're a much easier person to work with because you can talk about

anything and figure it out together. Yeah. So yeah, I am actually suggesting that. And I would not actually code that as weakness. Yeah. I agree. I would code that actually as, wow, you're just very transparent and problem focused. So I actually am not going to try to put one over on you because you're going to call me on it.

Yeah. And that actually conveys a lot more confidence and strength than trying to hide it. I totally agree. Last question on difficult conversation so that we can move on to feedback. I'd like you to share your advice on telling a third story instead of using our own perspective to open up a conversation and how this third story concept can help us have better conversations. Yeah. So the third story really comes out of an observation that how you start the conversation has a big predictive impact on where the conversation is going to end up, the outcomes you get.

If you listen to the first few minutes, three minutes of a conversation, that will highly predict where you land hours later in some cases. And it's partly because you're really setting the frame about what the conversation is about. And the mistake that we make is that we tend to start the conversation from inside our own story. And inside my story about what's going on, you are the problem. And if you would change, we wouldn't have a problem. So I will tend to open the conversation with those things implicit in what I'm saying. I might say something like, you know, I think we just need to sit down and talk about whether you're committed to this enterprise or not.

Because I'm not sure you're really all in and that's affecting the business. When I cast you as the bad guy and the problem and describe the problem, that way, that's not the story that you live in. You have your own version of what's really going on, and that's not an invitation to a conversation that you're likely to want to take. You're like, well, I don't want to be part of that story. I'm cast as the villain there. So instead of starting inside what we would call the first position, your own story, or even starting inside the other person's story, which leaves yours out, we suggest starting from the third story, which is the way that a mediator or observer might describe it.

And the key word is difference. So if you can think of how would someone describe the difference between us that's leading to this conflict, it might sound something like, you know, Hala, I would love to sit down and talk a little bit about the effort that we're each putting into this enterprise. Because I wonder whether we have really different assumptions about the time commitment that we're making or sort of the priority that we're putting on it. in our lives. And so my sense is that I'm putting in a lot more time and effort and energy. And that was my assumption that we would both be doing that. But it could be that that wasn't

your assumption. And so I'm curious to learn more about how you see how things are going. And also, you know, whether you feel like it's working because I'm starting to worry. So I'm basically saying, I think we have something that is different here and that is causing a problem. And I would like to talk about it to both learn more about your perspective and to share my perspective. And by starting in the third story, I'm signaling that both of our stories are part of this conversation. Yeah. It's not all about what you think and it's not all about what I think. It's about putting those together and comparing them and then figuring out what to do. Yeah. And that's starting from the third story. That's one piece of advice that I'm going to implement the next time I have a difficult conversation

for sure. That was definitely one of my favorite takeaways I had from the book. So moving on to feedback, like I mentioned previously, you and your co-author, Douglas Stone, wrote, thanks for the feedback, the science and art of receiving feedback well. I really enjoyed this topic, so let's just dive right into it since we're running out of time. Negative feedback can be tough. People have a problem receiving negative feedback and tend to shy away from it. Can you tell us why people have such an issue with receiving negative feedback and why receiving this type of feedback is actually really important to our self-development. Yeah, it's a great question. You know, there's a way in which the feedback book and material is really just a deep, deep dive into the identity conversation,

right? Because any feedback, particularly negative feedback, about who I am or how I'm impacting the people around me in my personal life or my professional life, can be among the most painful experiences in our lives. And I think that we do at least theoretically want to learn and grow and we know from experience as well as, because this is what we're supposed to say, that feedback is good for us, like eating your vegetables. And at the same time, there's a part of us that just really wants to be accepted and respected the way we are now and finding out that how I am now is not totally okay with the people around me is really painful. And so we have all kinds of triggered reactions when people offer us feedback directly or

indirectly, formally or informally. And those triggered reactions can also get in the way. They cause us to reject feedback almost impulsively or immediately so that we're not able to find whatever value there might be in it because we're listening for what's wrong with it rather than what might be right about it. Yeah. Let's talk about those triggered reactions a bit. Can you tell us more about truth triggers, relationship triggers, and identity triggers? Yeah, totally. So when feedback is incoming, I think each of us has an instinct to be scanning it for what's wrong with it, right? What they're saying isn't true. And there's sort of three kinds of things that can be wrong with it are three kinds of triggers that human beings have when feedback is incoming. So as you say, the first one is

truth. Like, is this feedback accurate? Is that what happened? Or are you misunderstanding the situation? Do you have all the information? Is this good advice? Would it work in the situation? All of that is sort of evaluating the accuracy or the value of the feedback itself. And that's what we call truth trigger. And if I can find something wrong with your feedback, well, then I can set it aside and relax and go on with my life and just reject it outright. The second kind of trigger is as you say, a relationship trigger. And this has everything to do with who's giving me the feedback because all feedback lives in that relationship between giver and receiver. So I often have a bigger reaction to the who than the what, right? Like I don't like you. I don't respect you. I don't

be like you. You don't know what you're talking about. Or like I trusted you and you're not being fair to me. So in some way, I'm having a reaction to who is offering me the feedback that is causing me to reject what they're saying as well. And this is why your best friend can tell you things that nobody else can, but it's also why sometimes the people closest to us can't get through to us because it's just too upsetting. You know, feedback from your spouse. I don't even code as soon as his feedback.

It's just like him being annoying. So, and I can hear the very same thing from somebody like a stranger, and I just hear it totally differently, less, it's less threatening. Yeah. And then the last one is identity triggers. And this has to do with our emotional reaction to the feedback, but also our sensitivity to feedback. In the course of our research on the book, we came across some evidence suggesting that in terms of sensitivity to feedback, how upset we get and how long it takes us to recover, individual sensitivity can vary by up to 3,000 percent. Yeah.

And then we're all, you know, working together on teams together, you know, in families together and having really different reactions to the feedback that we get. Yeah, that was to me so alarming the fact that these triggered reactions can vary by 3,000 percent. I know, right? What's your instinct about are you on the more sensitive end or are you more even keel? You know what? I am very sensitive, but I do notice that oftentimes people give me feedback and I definitely let it roll off my shoulders because I'm very confident at the same time. So I'll take feedback sometimes not so seriously where I should probably be listening a little bit harder, but then at the same time I'm very sensitive. So I think I'm one of the biggest triggers is who is telling me to feedback. Yeah. Well, and I'm glad you said that because although we're saying like, oh, there's as much as a 3,000 percent difference. in sensitivity versus being very even keeled. Of course it's more complicated than that. You're always going to be more sensitive about some things, more sensitive to some people.

There's going to be moments where you quickly dismiss something and then other moments where even something that's pretty mild, like you totally take to heart and it like scars your soul. So it's always more complicated than that. And then you add sort of our physiology, which is sensitivity and reactivity. And it gets complicated pretty quick. And it's not better or worse, by the way.

It's not better or worse to be highly sensitive, generally speaking, or sort of undersensitive. It's just that there are different challenges. Like if you're highly sensitive, you can overreact to feedback, meaning like, this isn't just one thing, it's everything. Like, I've never done anything great, you know, anything decent in my entire life.

And our sense of the feedback is sort of super-solvelling. and distorted. And in that state, like, you can't learn. You have to be able to sort of dismantle the distortions to see the feedback at actual size where you can learn from it and not have it threaten who you are. How can we tell if someone might be particularly sensitive to feedback? What are the traits of somebody who might take feedback very poorly? Well, you're going to probably notice from experience with them. Several people have asked me, like, is there like an app or is there a secret, like, way I can know. And, like, it's just a more analog answer than that, which is, you could ask them. One of the most useful things to conversations to have with the people that

you work with, including clients, by the way, for me, is to talk about sensitivity to feedback and how we want to handle feedback in our working relationship or in our personal relationship. and sort of talking about sensitivity or here's a couple of my pet peeves about feedback, here's what I really appreciate. So when you have coaching for me or ideas and suggestions, you know, give them to me right away or I'd love to talk about them at the end of the day because then I can kind of sleep on it and I'll probably come back to you with questions. But just having a conversation about how do we want to work together

and offer each other's suggestions and coaching when we have it can be one of the best foundation conversations to have. Yeah. So last question on this topic, since we're running out of time, I'll just let you give your best advice when it comes to feedback. So these triggers that we just mentioned, truth triggers, relationship triggers, identity triggers, they don't really go away. We just have to deal with them, right? So what's your advice on dealing with these in the most positive way? Yeah. Well, so probably the thing that helps me the most in the moment is to notice my triggered reaction, but not to let that be the end of the story. Like, the fact that I can find something wrong with it doesn't mean that there isn't also something right about it. You're

always going to be able to find something wrong with any piece of feedback that you get. And it could even be, you know, 80 or 90% wrong. But the last 10 or 20% might be something that would be useful for you to keep thinking about. So I try to notice my triggered reaction, but then get curious to ask more questions about what my giver means. What do they want me to do differently? What is it that I'm doing that's giving them the impression that they have? What were they hoping for? So I need to actually lean into the conversation and just learn more

and not decide now whether they're right or wrong. Or I accept the feedback or I'm rejecting the feedback. Just hold that question, set it aside for a moment. And then ask a bunch of questions to listen for both what's right. wrong with the feedback because I'm going to notice that right away. But also to listen for what might be right about it and to always have both of those questions in mind. And if I walk away confused, to go to someone I trust to say, hey, I just got some feedback that feels unfair. I can't quite figure out. Can you help me sort through it? Like, let's go out and for a beer, a glass of wine,

and we can vent about what's wrong with their feedback and how unreasonable they're being. But then when I'm ready, can you help me see what might be right about it? And what I should pay attention to. Like maybe they're, I don't agree with their solution and I don't think it would work, but they're pointing out a problem that might be a bigger problem than I thought it was. So I'll find my own solution, but that's what might be right about it, which is there's something I wasn't paying close enough attention to as an example. Yeah. And that stance, I think, has really changed the way that I think about feedback and hopefully respond to other people when they do offer me something. Totally. Great advice. We ask a question to everybody who comes on the show.

What would you say is your secret to profiting in life? Well, I'm going to probably say something that a lot of other people have said, which is, you know, find something that you love doing, because then you're going to want to be the best in the world at it. And once you get really good at it, it becomes valuable to other people. So maybe I'll add one more thing on the negotiation front that maybe others haven't said, which is one of the hardest conversations I notice is about money, right? The services I'm offering you, what are they worth?

And recognizing that, number one, conversations about money are always about more than just money. They're also about identity and emotion and what money represents to me. in terms of self-worth or freedom or success or respect. So that's one thing to keep in mind. And then the second thing is I should just be looking to other criteria for what the market says this is worth. And that's an easier thing for me to argue and defend, which is, you know, this is what this work is worth.

And I can point to a lot of other criteria. It's not just what I want. it's the value that you're getting and we'll align the budget around the value that we're able to provide or what you would pay others for this in the market. And that actually helps remove sort of the identity conversation a little bit from the negotiation because I'm pointing to other objective criteria that help you also explain why this contractor, this deal is fair and you're getting your money's worth. Oh, I really like that. And just quick question. I had Chris Voss on the show. He wrote Never Sput the Difference. So he's of the perspective that you

should never compromise on your price. What's your view on that? That is a strong statement to never compromise on your price. We try to price really consistently across clients. And that enables us to say, you know, we want to be fair to everyone. So it's not fair to someone else if you get this for less. But I'm totally happy to work with you on scope. So. Yeah. we can do less or we can staff it differently or we can let's prioritize what's most important and we'll find a budget that works for you i chris may not code that as compromising yeah that may be consistent with what he's saying which i suspect is what he means but i think that the never compromise is a way to get people's attention because i think we're a little too quick sometimes to give in

just because someone asked could i get this for less and i tend to say like great question We can definitely do something for less. Let's talk about what we could do for less. But now we're talking about scope as well as money. That makes sense. And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? So if you just Google my name, Sheila Heen, you will come up with our website triad consulting group.com. We have a nav at the very top of the page called Help Yourself that has a bunch of free resources that you can use. And you can also learn just a little bit more about the various things that we do. Awesome, Sheila. Thank you so much for coming on Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to leave us a review or comment on your favorite platform. Follow Yap on Instagram at Young and Profiting and Proffiting.com. And now you can chat live with us every single day on YAP Society on Slack. Check out our show notes or youngoprofiting.com for the registration link. And if you're already active on YAP Society, share the wealth. and invite your friends. You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name, Hala Taha. Big thanks to the Yap team as always. Stay blessed and I'll catch you next time. This is Hala,

signing off.