Asking (and Answering) Questions to Get Ready For Difficult Conversations

In front of Eagleson Hall in 2007

When I walk into Eagleson Hall at the University of Washington, I am walking into many memories. Years of teaching, years of wandering the maze-like halls on the way to the Speech and Hearing Clinic, years of working with generation after generation of undergraduate and graduate students.

I was reminded of all this when I entered the building on Thursday evening. As the speaker for the SPHSC 2011 Grand Rounds, a continuing education opportunity for local speech-language pathologists, I was back on familiar turf for one evening. Even the room I was speaking in—Eagleson 001—was an old home to me, the site of many teaching hours, a room known for rows of wickedly uncomfortable seats, old-fashioned fixtures of a traditional classroom.

My presentation was titled, “Learning to Ask Ourselves Questions: Preparing for Challenging Conversations.” Speech-language pathologists (and indeed, many people in other roles) must enter into challenging conversations fairly regularly. Our work requires conversations that hold the potential for upset—telling someone about a child’s speech delay, talking to someone about the limits of treatment, acknowledging someone’s fears, helping someone face a long and difficult rehabilitation road, sitting with disappointment. A challenging conversation holds some painful truth that must be heard before hope, energy, and renewal can be offered.

If you read this blog regularly, you will not be surprised to learn that I presented a question-based reflective process as a way to prepare for these conversations. You know I love questions! They are invitations to explore what we feel and what holds meaning for us. When preparing for a difficult conversation, we ask ourselves questions to uncover our feelings, attitudes, and associations towards the anticipated exchange. Speaking (and writing) to ourselves, we ask questions and we answer, and we follow our responses with more questions and more answers.

Gradually, we clear out our irritations and distractions, we discover our own fears or concerns, and we clarify what might be difficult about the conversation for us. As we do this, we firm up our boundaries and regain our balance. With our own needs addressed (or at least put firmly to the side), we become ready to help someone else.

And my presentation? I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and it went according to plan…mostly. Even with my own reflective process beforehand, I was still surprised by some of my reactions as I talked about my case study in real time.

This, then, is the real conclusion to my talk. We are wise to prepare ourselves for difficult conversations. We must do our best to unravel inner conflicts so we don’t unwittingly introduce them into the exchange with clients. But even with our best reflective process—with our best questions and our sincere efforts and our honest self-exploration—we can still be surprised in the real moment.

In a night filled with memories, I remembered this: rehearsal is never the real event, so we always have to be awake. We have to be ready to keep asking questions and listening to more answers. We have to be ready to learn more.

What happens when you dive in impulsively? Read more on difficult conversations.

Questions for Reflection: In what situations have you faced difficult conversations? What has helped you in these conversations? What has hindered you? How do you relate to the idea of using a reflective process to prepare?

Writing Prompts: “When I have to be part of a difficult conversation, I am helped by ______” (then keep writing); “In a hard conversation, I run into trouble when I ______” (then keep writing); “A reflective process before a hard conversation might help me ______” (then keep writing).”

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Tagged as: balance, boundaries, change/learning, Eagleson Hall, Grand Rounds, memories, presentation, questions, reflection, reflective process, speech-language pathologist, University of Washington