Crucial Conversations and an urban guerrilla group. Say what?
Most people know earworms. They’re those niggling little tunes that, once heard, stick in your brain, seemingly forever. My just mentioning it may have triggered one in you. Sorry about that.
A similar phenomenon is where you buy a new car and suddenly you start to see that model everywhere. Psychologists say it’s a perception deal called frequency bias. Another term for it in common parlance is the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon. Yeah. The leftist urban guerrilla group of the last century.
How it came to be associated with frequency bias, I’m not sure. But it’s a thing. It happens when you hear a new term and suddenly things in everyday life start to jump out at you as an example of it. For me, it applies to Crucial Conversations.
I first heard the term earlier this summer (thanks Beth). At first I wasn’t sure what it meant. But then I started reading a book on the subject. I haven’t finished it, so I can’t offer a rave review. I will say that there’s some good meat in its pages. And I find myself thinking regularly about how to put it to use.
The book flap explanation of the concept is that we face many situations every day, at work and at home, where difficult subjects arise. The question is whether we deal with them then and there, or put them off. Depending on a lot of things, first reactions might be either fight or flight.
The authors’ offer to readers is that they can learn how to spot when a topic is crucial and to address it in the most positive way. They teach strategies for making sure all parties to the conversation find the safe space where they can willingly work to find common ground on solutions and goals.
Some might read that previous paragraph and conclude that it’s just a matter of clear communication. That’s what this retired communications professional thought when he started the book. But the deeper I got into it, the more I appreciated that this old dog would benefit from some new tricks.
One I’ve picked up already is the importance of getting out of myself and feeling some empathy for the other party when a crucial moment presents itself. A good example happened just the other day.
My wife is a busy realtor and is on a specific eating plan. Being retired, I do all the cooking and it requires some bulk food prep. We happen to be on grand-parenting duty right now and while grandma was working, I was focused on one granddaughter and an art project.
Grandma appeared in the middle of this and asked me to remember she needed food made. My first reaction was to be defensive. “I’m busy with our granddaughter. I’ll get to it, but it’ll have to wait.” Her reaction was that I was blowing her off and that I don’t appreciate her working. Not true.
Prior to the Crucial Conversations book, I might have just let her stomp off. But thanks to one bit of wisdom in it, I stopped. I got out of myself and recognized her pain. It allowed me to reaffirm for her, “I don’t dismiss the value of your work and I do want to help you. I just can’t do it right now.” I reaffirmed my commitment to prepping her food and pledged I would get to it as soon as I could. And I did.
It worked. Within seconds, our conversation had gone from friction to fluid and peace was restored.
I still have no clue why frequency bias is called the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon. What I do know is that I’ve learned the value of being willing to engage in conversations that are crucial and that there’s still a lot more for me to learn.