Category Archives: Facilitation

The Professional Communicator’s Holiday Guide to Managing Your Hostile Relatives

A Few Tips to Avoid Disputes, Dyspepsia, and Disinheritance

No matter which holiday(s) you celebrate, now is the time to gather with family and friends.  For many folks in the age of political polarization, however, that’s not exactly a recipe for peace on earth. 

Communication professionals deal with these situations all the time for our clients: helping defuse tension with hostile audiences.  Whether it’s managing an angry town hall meeting, training employees how to handle unhappy customers, or even developing messages haters and skeptics will listen to instead of changing the channel, this is what we get paid to do.

And it’s not just about donning a flak jacket and hoping for the best. Sometimes we even move beyond de-escalation and find a way not only to keep things from exploding.  Sometimes we can achieve greater understanding, or work together toward a common goal, or motivate the hostile audience to change its behavior or ways of thinking.   

The great news is that these techniques can also work at the holiday dinner table to make the conversation with family and friends more productive, and maybe even more persuasive.

Whether it’s professional or personal dialogue, one of the most useful frameworks I’ve found is called the Change Conversation Cycle (CCC), formerly known as the Radical Conversation Cycle. 

Developed by Karin Tamerius for her organization Smart Politics and based on behavioral psychology, it’s a five-step recipe for better communication with a hostile audience.  Even if it’s an audience of one, like your brother-in-law from hell.

Here are the five steps of the CCC, directly from Tamerius’s website:  

1. Ask: Ask open-ended  questions. Be curious about how the other person developed their beliefs.  Spend more time asking questions than making statements.
2. Listen: Pay very close attention. Listen to understand, not to respond. Try to hear the values and emotions being expressed as well as the words.
3. Reflect: Paraphrase what you heard. Name the emotions and values expressed as well as the words. Don’t move on untilthe other person feels heard and understood.
4. Agree: Express agreement with one or more things the other person said. It’s usually easiest to agree on values, goals, and emotions. 
5. Share: Present your point of view. In general, sharing a personal story is the most memorable and persuasive way to communicate your perspective.

You’ll notice there are no steps labelled tell, argue, debate, prove, or react.  There’s nothing here about correcting the other person’s facts, or rebutting what they are saying with facts of your own.  In fact, the first three steps are all about really hearing and checking for understanding.

The five steps are fairly easy to remember. More challenging is putting them into practice.

When you’re first using this technique and you’re in the heat of the moment, you may feel like you need the mindfulness of a Zen Buddhist master, the composure of a professional poker player, and the patience of a saint.  Deep breaths. This. Is. Hard.  But trust me: You can do it.  It won’t be easy at first, but almost nothing is easy when you’re a complete novice.  Keep working on it, and you will soon level-up to mastery. 

To be prepared for whatever you may encounter this holiday season, here are a couple of suggestions. 

• Before you go over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house, put the five steps of CCC on your phone.  (Or, old-school, on an index card in your pocket).  Refer to this cheat sheet as often as necessary.

• Mentally rehearse some of the possible discussions you might have, especially the kinds of conversational hand grenades your most extreme family member might toss into the mix.  When they say something that would normally push your buttons, consider how you will respond. How will you ask a neutral question?  How will you listen rather than preparing your response in your head?  What would reflecting sound like?  What areas of agreement might you find?  What can you share in return that will help them connect with you?

• Don’t overdo it.  This is exhausting work. And just like with intense physical exercise, the “muscles” you are training need a chance to rest and recover after a particularly tough workout, or else you’ll reach a failure point.  So if you’ve engaged in a few rounds of the cycle with someone, move on and talk with someone else for awhile.  And definitely don’t waste time using it on social media trolls.  CCC works with people you know or at the very least people who are not able to remain anonymous.  Don’t use it to feed the trolls.   

If you want some practice, check out the “Angry Uncle Bot,” developed by CCC originator Karin Tamerius, which can simulate a conversation with that outspoken relative who’s on the opposite end of the political spectrum from you, whichever end that happens to be: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/opinion/thanksgiving-family-argue-chat-bot.html

Tamerius also leads an active Facebook group where she frequently posts scenarios that give people an opportunity to practice the steps.  So check it out!

Here’s hoping you not only keep the peace until the pie is served, but that everyone leaves the celebration feeling a little less polarized and a little more understood.