Recently, a colleague asked me for some advice on saying “no” to a student’s request for a letter of recommendation to medical school. The student had done well in the colleague’s class but outside of a course grade and assignment grades, there was little content to make a compelling letter. Our ensuing conversation in which we discussed how to approach the student’s request and deliver a (from the student’s perspective) disappointing response reminded me of my undergraduate years when I approached a professor for a letter of recommendation and was told “no.” As I discussed with my colleague, I appreciate the professor’s honesty today (and share the story with current students) but I found the conversation very difficult at the moment. Further, being on the other side of that conversation today makes it no less difficult.
This recent interaction with my colleague proved timely as I was just finishing the book, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, of the Harvard Negotiation Project (HNP). Overall, like Thanks for the Feedback, another book from the HNP (and reviewed on this blog), I really appreciate the perspective and advice offered in Difficult Conversations. As a rhetorician, I appreciate how these books represent a version of applied and practical rhetoric; how to negotiate, persuade, engage, and/or understand while in a difficult conversation or rhetorical situation. In one sense, the book offers real world examples and applications of rhetoric as “finding the available means of persuasion,” outlined by Aristotle with a framework for how we can or can try to get there. However, in another sense, the book walks a line between persuasion, which isn’t always possible or the goal in difficult conversations, and curiosity, which may lead to persuasion or just peace and understanding. Unlike another book from the HNP, Getting to Yes, Difficult Conversations, could be subtitled, “getting to okay” or “getting to understanding.” Approaching difficult conversations as a win-lose or yes or no situation, leaves no room for curiosity, and in many cases ensures a failure to persuade. Honestly, persuasion, or asking/trying to change someone’s mind is really difficult. Consider the last time you were persuaded; my assumption is that one conversation didn’t do the trick. In many cases, getting someone to read and/or listen to your argument or perspective can be labeled a success. After all, it is so much easier to read and listen to opinions we already support or are tangential to our prior beliefs (see confirmation bias). As such, the authors introduce the need to take a “learning stance” when engaging in difficult conversations. Essentially, we are encouraged to be curious about others–their opinions, stances, and evidence.
As I read through this book, I saw overlaps between the need to take a learning (and curious) stance and stasis theory. Stasis theory is a classical approach relying on 4-5 stasis questions to investigate and understand points of agreement and disagreement in an issue or problem. Stasis theory can aid critical analysis, as well as invention. I find it really useful when discussing difficult issues in the classroom. Essentially, we work through questions of conjecture, definition, quality, and policy. Recently, in a class on social media, I asked students to rely on stasis theory as we investigated smartphone and social media addiction and the current conversations surrounding the issue. In some ways, Difficult Conversations offers an applied and interpersonal stasis-lite approach to navigating disagreement. As I note later, the move to “contribution” rather than “blame” diffuses some of the fingerpointing (occasionally and/or potentially) found in stasis theory. In many ways, these processes or question-based approaches can work in tandem, with stasis theory uncovering larger disagreements around issues with the framework offered by the authors showing a way to move forward interpersonally beyond the stasis analysis. In other words, once we’ve used stasis theory to find the point/s of disagreement, the authors of Difficult Conversations provide a path forward.
In a framework echoing the approach of stasis theory, Difficult Conversations asks readers to unpack the three difficult conversations operating within a difficult conversation:
The “What Happened” conversation. Disagreement over what happened or what should happen.
The Feelings conversation. Are my feelings valid? Appropriate? What do I do about the other person’s feelings?
The Identity conversation. This is the conversation we each have with ourselves about what this situation means to us.
Reaching an understanding of these three embedded conversations, similar to investigating questions of stasis, allows for interlocutors to better understand others as well as consider best paths forward, especially if persuasion of some sort is the ultimate goal. Again, what I appreciate with the authors’ use of these questions is their commitment to reflection on ourselves and our stake in the conversation or argument (as opposed to the non-interpersonal approach of stasis theory).
Beyond stasis theory, and to provide another rhetorical perspective on the work of the authors, I found the underlying questions or errors in these conversations, as described by the authors, reminding me of Toulmin argument theory and its approach to unpacking arguments. In a sense, what we are seeing in many difficult conversations is a disconnect over unstated assumptions (termed the “warrant” in Toulmin terminology). Toulmin provides a way to take apart an argument and see its varied parts, allowing one, in turn, to find openings, weaknesses, strengths, and points of agreement/disagreement. Toulmin is effective in situations with variable solutions or options. However, what I really appreciate is the ways in which it exposes our unstated assumptions in an argument (claim + reason). (For example: There are dogs nearby because I hear barking and howling. Warrant: Dogs are animals that bark and howl.) Ultimately, this can help the persuasiveness of an argument while also encouraging a learning stance where interlocutors learn more about each others’ perspectives.
Again, in all of these theories and frameworks, understanding is prioritized. And, as the authors of Difficult Conversations note, a learning stance proves more likely to persuade as opposed to a message delivery stance (25). This learning stance, as a rhetorical approach, is captured here: “Instead of wanting to persuade and get your way, you want to understand what has happened from the other person’s point of view, explain your point of view, share and understand feelings, and work together to figure out a way to manage the problem going forward. In so doing, you make it more likely that the other person will be open to being persuaded, and that you will learn something that significantly changes the way you understand the problem” (25). Further, this rhetorical approach based on understanding and getting beyond a battle of conclusions requires curiosity: “Curiosity, coupled with an awareness of some of the common mistakes we make in our attempts to understand others, is the best tool we have to help us begin to bridge our differences in experience and meaning-making” (48). Understanding others’ stories and, in turn, how they make meaning requires spending time at the bottom of the ladder of inference. Unfortunately, we live in a world fueled by conclusions and lacking curiosity. As the authors explain in Chapter 4, “Abandon Blame: Map the Contribution System,” we may need to acknowledge our contribution to disagreements rather than assigning blame. Blame is easy. However, as the authors explain, “Focusing on blame is a bad idea because it inhibits our ability to learn what’s really causing the problem and to do anything meaningful to correct it” (76). Our conviction to our own stories and conclusions and a limit to our curiosity creates stalemates or the ever popular agreements to disagree: “At heart, blame is about judging and contribution is about understanding” (77). Rather, curiosity, a learning stance, and a commitment to contribution over blame, leads to asking, “What did we each do or not do to get ourselves into this mess?” (78)
Examining how we get into these messes and difficult conversations leads the authors to introduce the ladder of inference–a tool that allows us to understand and explain how we make decisions, reach conclusions, and/or take action. So, why do we have different stories regarding interpersonal issues or larger cultural disputes? “Our stories are built in often unconscious but systematic ways. First, we take in information. We experience the world--sights, sounds, and feelings. Second, we interpret what we see, hear, and feel; we tell a story that gives it all meaning. And from that we draw conclusions about what’s happening” (39). This process, as captured by the concept of the ladder of inference provides a means for understanding how we create stories, and in turn, actions. As with stasis or Toulmin approaches to argument, the ladder of inference prompts us to get beyond conclusions and opinions or stances; in this sense, we aren’t learning and aren’t curious: “In difficult conversations, too often we trade only conclusions back and forth, without stepping down to where most of the real action is: the information and interpretations that lead each of us to see the world as we do” (39).
This focus on uncovering the “real action” and maintaining a commitment to focusing on contribution over blame really makes me rethink how I present difficult or complicated issues in class with students. In some ways, this move to contribution flips the stasis question approach, especially policy or cause/effect questions. It complicates the question of cause--how do we not blame but rather look at what contributed to the current situation. In some ways, it can diffuse the blame potentially appearing in a stasis approach. I will note that the HNP process, as sheridan this book, assumes face-to-face conversations (synchronous) and not necessarily written argument (asynchronous); again, it strikes me as the interpersonal approach to unpacking arguments or disagreements. And, in the end, all three of the approaches noted have similar lofty goals: persuasion, or, more realistically, finding the most effective way to achieve understanding (perhaps more likely than persuasion.) We can use stasis questions, as well as a Toulmin-based analysis, to help create conversations around issues, beginning from points of agreement and leading to points of disagreement, or from unpacking the rungs on the ladder of inference. At the same time, we can rely on the advice and framework offered in Difficult Conversations to ensure we are honest, open, and curious in the conversations spurred by a stasis or Toulmin approach. Ultimately, this text and other work by the HNP, provides useful references for rhetoricians interested in disagreement and moving beyond disagreement, whatever that might look like. After all, “The paradox is that trying to change someone rarely results in change. On the other hand, engaging someone in a conversation where mutual learning is the goal often results in change” (166).
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