Ombuds Report: Objective Shifting

This month I want to give you the secret to making any difficult conversation a success:  Shift your objective.  So often our objectives in difficult conversations are to get an apology, get an admission of guilt or wrongdoing, or get the other person to change their behavior.  However, these objectives require an accomplishment that is completely beyond your control.  You might get these things, but there’s no guarantee.

Instead, you can 100% guarantee success when your objective is something within your control, such as to share your perspective, ask them to understand where you’re coming from, or give them an opportunity to share their perspective.  Then, regardless of how the other person reacts or what they do next, you are successful. 

This process might seem simplistic, but you would be surprised how helpful it can be.  When your objective is in your control, you can meet it every time.  You can still want and hope for an apology or an admission of guilt, but the point here is what are you expecting to happen and how are you going to judge whether or not you are successful?  If you get the apology or the admission, it can just be icing on the cake. 

I recently worked with an employee who thought her supervisor was mistreating her.  She wanted to try mediation before escalating the situation to HR.  As we discussed what mediation would entail, it became clear that she was hoping her supervisor would leave the discussion consumed with guilt over what the employee had experienced in the past few months.  I asked some questions about how she was going to accomplish this and what she would do if her supervisor did not feel guilt at all.  The employee had the opportunity to think through how she would move forward even if she didn’t get the resolution she wanted.  She shifted her objective:  Now she wanted to simply share her story of the past few months.  When her supervisor apologized and pledged to make the situation better, the employee could add that to the success she had already achieved. 

So much of conflict surrounds unmet expectations.  If our expectations are not met, we are devastated, angry, and sometimes stuck.  When we shift our objective to something that we control, then a conversation can either meet or exceed our expectations, and we can focus our time and energy on more important things.  If we don’t get the apology or the admission we are looking for, we’re not shaken to our core.  We’re disappointed but also ready to figure out our next steps.  Shift your objective, and your success rate will soar.