Coping in a tough world: Part 3: prepare for a difficult conversation.

The biggest mistake is to try to resolve a tense situation all at once.

If you have followed our earlier suggestions in this series, you have begun to work on your attitude to control your emotional response to a tough situation. Seeing the gold inside, you know you do not depend on outside statements of your worth. And, having torn up some dog-eared blueprints of what you thought you needed, you see that there are many options for a good, meaningful life. With this new perspective, you are free to approach problems rationally.

Let us look at a common situation. Two companies merge, and John, a training manager, finds himself reporting to Pamela, an HR manager from the other company. Then John has to apply for his own job-and does not get it. Although he has not been terminated, he now has an unclear, unspecified job and an uncertain future. He does not get along well with his boss, whom he suspects of trying to edge him out altogether.

Although he has polished his resume and sent it around, John would like to stay with the company. He realizes that it would be much better for him if he could improve relations with Pamela. Yet every time they talk, she treats him with suspicion and disdain, disagrees with him on all training matters, and implies that he has been steadily wasting money on useless corporate education projects. What can John do?

FOUR STEPS TO SUCCESS

The biggest mistake is to try to resolve a tense situation all at once. Instead, John must learn to break his task into four manageable, logical phases:

1. doing a self analysis

2. preparing for a difficult conversation

3. steering a problem-solving discussion toward agreement

4. going the extra mile.

In this column, we will look at the first two steps.

Step 1 : Analyze

John's first job is to think hard over past conflicts and ask two questions:

1. How did I appear to the other person?

2. What did I contribute to the problem?

These questions can he surprisingly revealing. To answer the first one, ,John has to put himself in the role of Pamela interviewing him. The "John" he sees with her eyes may appear sulky, negative, opinionated, antagonistic, unwilling to compromise.

The response to the first question partly answers the second, but John should pursue it further. Has he contributed anything else to the problem? For example, has he been treating Pamela as a valuable person worthy of respect? Or has he seen her as a tool for getting what he wanted or an obstacle? People hate being seen as tools or obstacles. In fact, that is one of John's complaints about Pamela's treatment of him.

Step 2: Prepare with a complete scenario

Chastened by his self-analysis, John determines to change his approach to Pamela. But adopting a more friendly, respectful attitude may not be sufficient to reroute their circular, damaging dialogues. John needs to prepare for the next one.

The secret to successful preparation is to have a complete scenario of the situation, including all likely alternative plots. The following worksheet will help.

The key here is to script this conversation realistically until it results in some acceptable agreement. This is trot just a matter of substance: tone, implications, and body language all contribute. So, once you get the basic plot right, you will need to refine the details: get the wording right; see yourself saying it; listen to how it sounds; think how you would react

Next time, we will look at a possible preparation for John and ways to turn it into an effective problem-solving discussion focused on agreement.

1. What I want
2. What the other person probably wants or needs
3. How to combine or reconcile the two sides
4. What exactly I might say      Likely responses
   Possible counter responses    Likely responses
   (etc.)
5. Worst possible outcomes       My options for them

Cheryl and Peter Reimold have been teaching communication skills to engineers, scientists, and businesspeople for 20 years. Their firm, PERC Communications (telephone [phone] I024, e-mail [e-mail]), offers businesses consulting and writing services, as well as customized in-house courses on writing, presentation skills, and on the-job communication skills. Visit their web site at www.allaboutcommunication.com.