3. How to Have the Hardest Conversations  ## Metadata - Author: [[Supercommunicators with Charles Duhigg]] - Full Title: 3. How to Have the Hardest Conversations - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/354a67eb-522d-42c4-9802-3dd0e4f8227b ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Netflix N-Word Incident** - A Netflix executive used the N-word during a meeting while discussing offensive language in a comedy special. - This sparked internal conflict, with some defending him and others deeply offended, highlighting differing perspectives on race. Transcript: Charles Duhigg You were to ask employees at Netflix when the Civil War began inside their company, a lot of them would probably point to an afternoon in February of 2018. There were about 30 people gathered inside a conference room, and the company's chief communication officer stood up to speak. The executive told everyone that Netflix had recently released a new comedy special that was particularly offensive. In this special, the comedian Tom Segura makes fun of people with Down syndrome. He complains that you can't say words like retarded anymore. And so the Netflix executive told everyone that they need to expect complaints, and that they needed to treat those complaints seriously. Everyone should appreciate how hurtful those offensive words can be. And then to drive home his point, he offered an analogy. Hearing those kinds of slurs, he said, would be, quote, as if an African-American person had heard, and then he said the N-word. Vernā Myers Netflix has fired its top communications executive. Jonathan Friedland has been the company's chief communications officer for the past six years and is now leaving Netflix after allegedly using racial slurs and insensitive remarks To his team during at least two meetings. Charles Duhigg To the outside world, this seemed like a very simple story. But inside Netflix, the executive's firing was very, very divisive. Some people thought it was unfair that this executive was being blamed for using that word in a non-offensive way and that firing him was way out of proportion. Opposite. That using this word was completely unacceptable. And if people don't understand that, it just shows how little they understand their Black co-workers and how they feel about the word. That this was evidence of racism at the company. Jay Van Bavel Friedland tweeted about his exit on Friday and then later tweeted out, thanks, rise high, fall fast, all on a couple of words. He quickly deleted that post. Charles Duhigg And it was then, as these two perspectives began battling with each other, that the Civil War began. Vernā Myers I mean, I was there for it all. And those were hard conversations. Charles Duhigg I'm Charles Duhigg, the author of Super Communicators. And today, in the third and final installment of our series, we're talking about how to have the hardest conversations. The kinds of conversations that make your stomach clench up, that you worry if they go wrong, they might damage relationships or organizations or the world. Because what happened at Netflix shows us how easily these conversations can go wrong, and what it takes to get them back on track. ([Time 0:00:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1825ba31-bdb7-4178-a4e7-b92c56f22145)) - **Misjudging Conversations** - People are bad at predicting how difficult conversations will go, often overestimating negativity and leading to avoidance. - However, conversations usually go better than anticipated, revealing more common ground than expected. Transcript: Charles Duhigg We're back. And before we return to the story of Netflix, I want to talk about what we know about the science of hard conversations. So what's the last hard conversation you had? Huh. I think I have them all the time. Jay Van Bavel I actually just had a student who didn't get tenure, and I had to offer challenging feedback, and it was hard. Charles Duhigg This is Jay Van Bavell, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at New York University. And he spent a big part of his career studying what we know about tough conversations. Jay Van Bavel The first thing we know is that a lot of people try to avoid them. They're awkward. They cause a lot of anxiety. You know, Democrats, if they talk to a Republican, expect it to go much worse than it actually is. And part of that is because we have stereotypes in our head that they're radically different from us. And so we imagine when we interact with somebody, they're going to be just a total extremist. Charles Duhigg In other words, if that person is in favor of guns, we tend to assume that they're a gun nut who wants everyone to own a gun. If we have to give a colleague some negative feedback, we assume that they're going to get really angry and upset and it's just going to be awful. Basically, we're really bad at anticipating how hard conversations will go. And that anticipatory anxiety, it nudges us to avoid having these conversations in the first place. But then when we actually have the discussion, most of the time we find that our worries don't come true. Jay Van Bavel And it turns out the average person is actually not like that. And we actually share a lot in common with them more than we would expect. And so the average interaction goes better than we would imagine. But ([Time 0:03:33](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c34edfce-e0c8-4a10-a929-bf809c8f837c)) - **Ground Rules for Disagreement** - Accept that complete agreement is rare; focus on establishing ground rules for disagreements. - These rules, spoken or unspoken, help manage conflict constructively, like Jay Van Bavel and his brother's political debates. Transcript: Jay Van Bavel So I think we have to start with the premise that we're never going to get to 100% consensus with any human on Earth. We're just going to not agree with everybody on anything. Charles Duhigg But that doesn't mean you can't agree on how you're going to disagree with each other. Jay Van Bavel Right. My brother and I, when we get together, we disagree politically very strongly. And we actually enjoy the give and take. He works in a very different field than me. He works in like the oil fields of Alberta. And I work in like the academics of like Manhattan. And so we don't get to actually have like pretty heated conversations with people who really differ from us that often. And so it's actually really interesting for us when we get to have those. Charles Duhigg But Jay's mom hates it when the brothers start arguing with each other. Jay Van Bavel My mom wants, like, the holidays to go smoothly. And so her goal is to, like, please, like, keep it to small talk. And I want this to be like a smooth holiday because we don't get together very often. And so I think what you have to have is a little bit of ground rules. Charles Duhigg These kind of ground rules can be tiny, like let's only argue when mom isn't around. Or they can be big, like let's not call each other names. And many times these rules aren't necessarily spoken aloud, but the best communicators pick up on those norms and they abide by them. Jay Van Bavel You have to actually read the room and figure out what the norms are. Maybe your mom is not there for this. And then you go outside and like have a drink with your brother and you can like do it and it's cool. ([Time 0:05:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6a2f8199-6faf-4766-a88a-9f4272d364ec)) - **Model Good Behavior** - Demonstrate conversational ground rules through your behavior, not just words. - This shows respect and sets the tone, like asking tough but fair questions, as Jay Van Bavel suggests. Transcript: Charles Duhigg What I hear you saying is like, we need ground rules. Yeah. I can't force my ground rules on your mom and say you have to talk about politics, but she also can't force her ground rules on me. She has to let us go outside and talk politics outside. Now I'm guessing when you're talking to your brother, are some other ground rules that are kind of unwritten. There's probably some things you would say or wouldn't say in order to remind your brother that, like, actually, we disagree on this, but still we have this connection. Or I still love you. Or I don't think you're an idiot, even though I keep on implying that. What's happening with that conversation with your brother? What are the other ground rules that both of you are aware of, but maybe not fully conscious of? Jay Van Bavel I think one of the key things is that it helps if you focus on the issues and don't attack the person. The moment I start implying that he's an idiot or he starts implying that I'm an idiot, then it gets heated and then it blows up. We're brothers, right? So that's probably happened for about 40 straight years. And so I think that's one of the things is you have to learn to talk to each other in a respectful way and separate the issues you're debating from the person you're debating with. ([Time 0:07:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2b35e48b-e3ae-4678-aed7-3f033b24f7f4)) - **Prioritize Empathy** - In tough conversations, prioritize empathy over facts. - Share personal experiences to connect emotionally, making others more receptive, as advised by Jay Van Bavel. Transcript: Charles Duhigg If one suggestion for having tough conversations is to set ground rules, then the second suggestion is demonstrating those rules through our own behavior, like asking tough questions To show others that it's okay. And how we act is important because sometimes people stop listening to what we say, and instead they listen to how we treat them. Jay Van Bavel We often assume that we should, and research shows us, that people have the assumption that presenting facts is what's going to get across to people who are different than them. Well, they disagree with me, but if I just present the facts, it's going to open their mind. Charles Duhigg But that almost never works. And the reason why is that in a tough conversation, facts are pretty secondary. What matters to people is what they're feeling. They might feel threatened by this discussion or disrespected, or they feel like you don't actually want to listen to them. You're just waiting your turn to speak so you can correct them. And those feelings are much more powerful than any statistics or factoids you might throw at them. So if we want to connect with someone, if we want to convince them to listen to our facts, then often we have to start by activating their sense of empathy. And the way to do that is by describing our personal experiences. Jay Van Bavel People will open and listen to your personal experience because they can't deny it. You know, it's really hard to deny somebody who has been stuck in a school where there's been a live shooter or lost somebody to a situation like that. They can spew all the statistics they want about how guns are necessary for defense or their constitutional rights. But when someone comes and talks to them about that experience, it changes the conversation, changes the tenor of the conversation immediately. And that's what people will remember. That's what's going to get them to open their heart and open their mind. ([Time 0:08:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/26794b08-931e-4cae-b622-11666cc75b8a)) - **Vernā Myers's Shifting Perspective** - Vernā Myers initially saw the Netflix incident as needing correction and apology. - She changed her view upon realizing the deep hurt felt by many, particularly Black employees, demonstrating the need for deeper understanding. Transcript: Charles Duhigg This is Super Communicators. I'm Charles Duhigg. And now that we've learned some of the science behind having a tough conversation, let's go back to the situation at Netflix. Jay Van Bavel Sources say that Friedland used the N-word in a meeting with other Netflix staffers, some of whom later reported the incident. Per Insider's Netflix CEO... Charles Duhigg This firing set off a battle inside Netflix that lasted long after that executive was dismissed. And in the battle, some people thought that the company had overreacted. That yes, the executive had used a deeply offensive word, but he hadn't used it in an offensive manner. Vernā Myers Well, here's the thing. When I first heard it explained to me, I thought, it's not so bad. Like, he wasn't calling anybody the N-word. Charles Duhigg This is Verne Myers again. And she watched all of this unfold as a consultant to Netflix. And it's worth noting that the fired executive, Jonathan Friedland, he's apologized repeatedly for using this word. And there's more on that at the end of this episode. But even after Friedland left, the battle inside Netflix dragged on for months and months and months. And as a Black woman herself, Verne recognized how complex the situation was. Vernā Myers It's not, OK, it's not a good idea to do this, to use the actual word. But it sounds so horrible when you hear, oh, he used the N-word because people are thinking, oh, he called someone that, right? Which wasn't the case. So I was sort of saying, okay, well, maybe you explain that that is not what you're supposed to do. And also this person had a very good relationship with lots of people, was loved and respected by lots of people. So my first feeling was, okay, we just need, this needs a correction and an apology. But I changed my mind about it. ([Time 0:12:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/890114c3-a9db-4652-aeb3-f4aa5a57bf02)) - **Normalize Anxiety** - Acknowledge and normalize the anxiety surrounding difficult conversations. - Frame discussions as learning opportunities, not as blame sessions, as Vernā Myers did at Netflix. Transcript: Charles Duhigg She started as a full-time employee at Netflix, Verne found that people were having a hard time with this conversation for the same reasons Jay Van Bavell had found that all kinds of Other people avoided tough discussions. Because they were terrified that if they talked to someone who disagreed with them and it went poorly, it would blow up in everyone's face. Vernā Myers Some of that is you're worried that you're going to mess up if you, you know, wade into any of these conversations. And so some folks felt like, okay, I can't really talk about these two people who are different from me. Like, we talk about stuff, but we talk about it with our own people. Charles Duhigg To Vernay, however, this seemed like the core of the problem. If Netflix was going to have real conversations about topics like race, then employees needed to know how to talk with people that they disagreed with. So she did what Jay's research suggests we should do. She went out of her way to help people understand that it was totally natural to feel anxious about these conversations. But the anxiety they were feeling? It doesn't mean that the conversation is destined to go off the rails. Vernā Myers One of the first things we did was to make it clear that this was not like a gotcha exercise, right? This is going to be about learning, not about figuring out who's bad and who's good. This was not like a witch hunt to find the bad people, but to actually collaborate as a group of people who all have the same goal in mind and also see the benefit of it. ([Time 0:17:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7885b67b-c384-492a-a7d0-e3793b565850)) - **Establish Ground Rules and Model Vulnerability** - Establish clear ground rules for respectful communication. - Model vulnerability by sharing personal mistakes to encourage openness, as demonstrated by Vernā Myers. Transcript: Charles Duhigg Verne's strategy was to start conducting workshops. The idea was to bring people together and, with some guidance, help them have conversations that, up until then, had felt kind of dangerous to everyone. But if those workshops were going to work, then she needed to pay attention to Jay's second insight. She needed to establish some ground rules. Vernā Myers The thinking behind workshops is you've got to get in a room and have a conversation. So you're trying to give people like an experience because experience is really what shifts attitudes. So to do that, we use a set of guidelines like we're not going to blame, shame and attack each other. You know, we're going to listen to each other. We're going to seek first to understand each other versus insisting that we be understood. Charles Duhigg And are you actually writing those guidelines and putting them like on a poster on the wall so you can sort of refer back to them? Vernā Myers Yes, or they're in the handouts, or they're on the tables. Charles Duhigg But in situations like this, rules usually aren't enough on their own. You have to model the norms the same way that J. Van Babel did when he encouraged people to ask tough questions of speakers. For Vernet, this meant publicly describing her own conversational missteps. For instance, she would often describe this one time when she was in a grocery store late at night. Vernā Myers And there was a woman who came in and she had like on scrubs, like medical scrubs, and she was black. And so I went to say, you won't believe this, but I went to her in almost everything in me wanted to say, I love nurses. Oh my gosh, you guys are just the best. But before it could get out of my mouth, I just asked an open-ended question, which is, hi, what's got you here so late? And she then said, oh, you know, I'm a doctor at blah, blah, blah, and I just delivered a baby. And I was like, oh, thank goodness. Thank you. You know, you want to get to a world where people in the grocery market don't assume that you're a nurse because it wasn't the scrubs, because if I had put those scrubs on male, black or White, I'm sure I would have gone with doctor. And here's the thing. I'm a black woman. And I have a feeling it would have hurt more if it had come out of my mouth. Because I'm sure she would have been like, yeah, really, sister? Like, I can't count on you to see me for who I am. Charles Duhigg When Vernet would start a workshop by telling a story like this, when she would model norms like it's OK to admit that we've made mistakes, it helped other people be honest with each other. Vernā Myers And that's what I want people to do, which is to say, look, you shouldn't expect to be good at this. And it's not because you're bad. It's because you're human and you've been living in a society that often is undereducated about a lot of these things. Charles Duhigg So once Vernet modeled these norms, she usually asked everyone in the workshop to start talking to each other. She would give the audience prompts like, describe a time you felt mistreated. Vernā Myers And try to go back to an early memory is what we say. And then what happened? How did you react? What was your response? And what do you wish, what did you do? And what do you wish other people would have done? That's like, that's a goldmine, just having people share that at their table. And ([Time 0:19:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/db66fdc6-1838-4867-943d-91c5dd0630c7)) - **Share Experiences of Exclusion** - Encourage sharing personal experiences of exclusion. - This creates common ground and fosters empathy, as everyone can relate to feeling excluded at some point. Transcript: Charles Duhigg The reason this was so valuable was because everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, regardless of how they felt about the Netflix executive getting fired, all of them could Talk about a personal experience where they felt excluded. Everyone had an equal right to be in that conversation. Vernā Myers All of us know something about exclusion, even if it's like in our family, you know, when you go to a party, you know, and you're like, they don't really see me there, or I'm going to have To pretend and, or somebody's going to ask me like a really painful question. You know, most people know what that's like. And ([Time 0:23:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/77550e37-b5bd-4ae4-a67e-9b89642f8b73)) - **The Science of Better Conversations** - Remember the science of better conversations: establish rules, model vulnerability, and share experiences. - These conversations can change perspectives and promote understanding, even without full agreement. Transcript: Charles Duhigg There's lessons here for all of us, for when we need to have a hard conversation, whether they happen in a workshop or our everyday lives. Some of those conversations might be about race, but they might also be about less weighty topics, like you need to give an employee some tough feedback, or you need to have a conversation With your mom about her not driving anymore, or your kids need to tell you that they feel like you're not being the parent they need right now. In those moments, it's useful to remember that there's a science that makes these conversations easier. And that science says these discussions will go better than you expect if you put some ground rules in place, if you model the norms about honesty and vulnerability that you hope others Will embrace. Finally, when we talk about our experiences, rather than arguing over who's right and wrong or whose facts are better, when we talk about our experiences, that's when we find ways to Connect, even when we disagree with each other. And most of all, this science tells us that these conversations are important. They won't cause everyone to see eye to eye. They won't erase divisions or differences or end racism. No conversational tactic is big enough to fix every problem. But all the same, these conversations matter. They're often the first step in the right direction. Because the right conversation at the right moment can change how we see the world. ([Time 0:26:05](https://share.snipd.com/snip/58a9dceb-166f-4214-96ae-3b46590fdcbf))