Dialog across difference #6: Let's assume I am right...

When we begin an innocent conversation and it turns to discussion of a problem, we know it's not our fault. The only question, whose fault is it?

That is the trap we've set for ourselves and we are likely to step right into it. 

Snap!

"I read your email to our client and I wanted to throw up." 

WTF?

Yes, my colleague just said that. What is the next sequence of events or dialog moments?

Grrr... I wait. That's a helluva provocative statement. 

My mind races. Am I a dialog artist or a dialog dummy? Do I care? Am I good at conflict negotiation or do I stumble when it's a verbal grenade thrown at me?

If I fight hard enough to right myself, I will turn this into a learning moment, I think. 

But then my colleague accuses me peremptorily of failing in that regard. 

"This is something that you should learn from," she says. 

Oh the hell with you, I think. 

We go 'round and 'round about how it went, and how it should have gone. 

In the end, I realize that my colleague has some need to throw a bomb (she is something of a bomb-tossing aficionado) for her own emotional reasons. Whatever those reasons might be (get everyone's attention, underscore the seriousness of the issue, start the blame negotiations in her favor), I cannot fall for it. I either default to a calm compassionate curiosity or it gets unproductive and ugly. I may get defensive for my own emotional reasons, but it's not helping.

IRL (in real life) this is messy, with an eventual landing on learning and agreement to move to next steps. 

My challenge to myself is to get up after each grenade toss, dust myself off with self-talk, and seek a reset toward a constructive conversation. I may need to swallow hard and thank my colleague for a productive, if challenging conversation. If I can, and if I want to produce some tiny progress, I may suggest a mutual commitment to calling each other in instead of calling each other out. When I feel attacked, I will do better if I seek to elicit what trauma has fed my colleague's decision to lead with an accusation. 

Refusing to assume I'm so right that it should obviate any need to scrutinize my own interactions is my best hope for collegiality and creative constructive conflict. Shared commitment to compassionate curiosity is easy rhetoric, but also gives us a gold standard to which we can always attempt to return, no matter how messy it can be.