The Art of Confrontation
Jan 24th, 2012 by usfclce
Ryan = [R]
Jennifer = [J]
The Art of Confrontation
[R]:
Hey everybody this Ryan here at the Center for leadership and Civic Engagement and I am here today with a special guest.
[J]:
Hi I’m Jennifer Espanola I get to serve as the Director of the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement
[R]:
And I am excited today to spend a little bit of time with Jen. We’re going to chat about some things are near and dear to us, some hot topic issues that will hopefully help you improve some of your personal habits, maybe work habits school habits and things that you do on a daily basis. So we’re going to talk about the art of confrontation. Maybe a lost art if you will, but it’s something that we’re passionate about and Jen’s got some good thoughts that I think some of you might like to here.
[J]:
Cool. Well I, I actually wanted to talk about this because it’s something that has not always come easily to me as a leader, but I've learned through all of my leadership experiences how unbelievably valuable this is. And so I’ve kind of dedicated myself to figuring out how to do this better and really it created a lot of comfort for me in being able to confront other people and it’s changed everything it really has because honestly it’s just not anything that we can avoid. You know, it’s something that’s just part of daily life.
[R]:
Now when you, when I hear confrontation the first instinct everybody always thinks of, they just clam up and they don’t want to deal with it. They try to get as far away from confrontation as possible. So, what things can we do? What advice do you have to get us started on the right path at least to addressing the situation and moving form there?
[J]:
I do have a couple of ideas about how I changed myself into being a confronter. And one of them, I learned this term that I think is so cool, it’s , it’s a very old term , and it’s called “Aporrea” and what it really means is being in a state in bewilderment. Meaning you approach a situation assuming for yourself that you don’t understand anything about it. You come into it with a state of bewilderment so that you kind of turn into an investigator and you really leave all your assumptions behind you. Which I think is a real key ingredient to being a good confronter because it’s really our assumptions that can undermine our credibility, but if I come to you in a state of bewilderment like I want to know more you know Ryan, why did you do that? Or what, what was behind your choice for that? Or what are some of the things that I don’t know that lead up to you doing that. That creates more trust between us because you see that I’m trying to figure it out.
[R]:
It goes back to one of my old favorite saying which is very similar to this Aporrea which is “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.” And I think that’s very a similar, a great point.
[J]:
the other thing that has really helped me in my confrontations is trying to dismantle the fear in the other person. So, for instance I have a person in my life, you know I, I’m comfortable with confrontation, but I have a person I’m really close to in my life that is not at all comfortable at all with confrontations and so if I come to that person and start to say I want to talk to you about something, the minute I say that this person shuts down because there just you know like in a “oh-my-gosh-what’s-coming-you-know-I-can’t-handle-this” kind of thing. So we have learned it helps to send this person an email first. So that they can have their moment of panic by themselves, they can really kind of take in what I’ve written out and it gives them a minute to just gather themselves so that then I can say you know this is something that I want to talk to you about. I’m interested in really getting your information about it and having a discussion can we do that tomorrow? And it’s changed everything about our confrontations. It’s turned in more into a dialogue, it’s more of a conversation than me coming and hitting this person you know. It’s really helped dismantle their fear about it.
[R]:
It, it kind of plays in nicely into personality types, right? Because...
[J]:
Mhm
[R]:
Those that might not be comfortable thinking quickly on their feet need that time to kind of reflect those…
[J]:
Oh yeah
[R]:
…those, the difference between judging and perceiving.
[J]:
Yep!
[R]:
So, that, I can see how that could help in that respect because you’re going to give them the opportunity to think about it, reflect on it, and maybe even prepare “okay here’s mine, my own little defense..”
[J]:
Absolutely
[R]:
That’s a great idea too. I like that a lot
[J]:
Absolutely. The other thing the kind of last I guess little nugget I’ve learned about effective confrontations and this does make a huge difference is making sure that I’m only speaking my own voice. I’m only stating my opinion and not trying to turn my opinions into a fact. Because if I state something as a fact that’s actually my opinion and I’m wrong, then again my credibility is shot in the confrontation. So it’s really important to use language like “well it’s been my observation that dot dot dot” or “my experience with this has been this this this” because really the other person can’t refute that, because all I’m saying is this is my experience and how can you refute that?
[R]:
Exactly.
[J]:
But if I tried to say you know this situation is wrong, or this situation should have been handled like this. Well, there might be other opinions around that and so that’s really changed a lot of my, the effectiveness of my confrontation is just speaking my own voice and making sure the other person knows that all I’m trying to give is my opinion and not tell them that something is or isn’t. It’s really interesting!
[R]:
It is. It is!
[J]:
You know it’s kind of a fascinating art.
[R]:
It’s a great topic too because it’s so applicable to things that happen, like you said, in our lives. It doesn’t have to be about work or school or organizations or things like that. I mean, just practicing civil discourse in our lives is just such a huge…hot topic right now I feel like and, and so m any things that could’ve gone differently if they would’ve been handled in a civil manner and that’s a sad note but also an opportunity for us to learn and, and hopefully improve and create some positive change for the future. Jen thanks for coming on and sharing with us I think that, that’s some phenomenal advice, I think that anyone who has a confrontation and uses this is about to be ten times more successful than they were before so. next week we‘ll have a new guest and a new podcast and we hope that you’ll keep coming back and come visit us in the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement. if you ever have any questions come visit us.
[J]:
Take care and thanks a lot!
[R]:
And Go Bulls!
[J]:
Go Bulls
