"We Need To Talk"

“We need to talk.”

I heard that, and my heart sank. I don’t know about you, but for me, those four words might cause more anxiety than any others in the English language.

This time it was my boss who said them, but it definitely wasn’t the first time I had heard them. As always, my heart started pounding and my stomach hurt. I dreaded the upcoming conversation, even though I really had no idea what, if anything, might be “wrong.”

Those words can make me panic internally and go right to thoughts like, "I’m in trouble" even when I don’t know what I might be in trouble for.

And that is actually the worst of it. Not knowing.

On this particular day, I had no idea what I might have done. Or if I was even in trouble at all. I had to wait until we sat down for a private lunch meeting to find out.

“Maryann came and complained to me about the way you talked to her the other day. She was pretty upset. What happened?”

I was dumbfounded.

Clearly, I was in trouble, and I felt terrible. But I was also confused. It was true that I had had a conversation with my coworker a few days earlier, but everything had seemed fine to me.

She had experienced our interaction very differently, and now I was hearing about it.

This was not the first time something about what I said, or the way I talked with someone, had upset them without my realizing it. I felt confused, sad and ashamed.

It is disappointing - and kind of scary - to realize that you can be completely unaware of how another person is receiving the message you are trying to send. If you don’t know it is happening, how can you do anything about it?

That question stayed with me.

Effective, connecting communication is a learned skill. Most of us began learning how to communicate long before we even knew we were learning it. We absorbed the patterns of the adults and other people around us. Over time, many of those patterns became automatic.

Some of them serve us well. Others can create confusion, disconnection or hurt without our intending it. And because our own communication patterns feel normal to us, it can be surprisingly difficult to recognize when another person is experiencing them differently.

That was part of what was going on with me, and the pain of experiences like this motivated me to understand communication differently. I wanted to know what I was missing. More importantly, I wanted to know whether I could learn to notice it.

As I grew as a leader - and as a parent - I began to understand the power of paying deeper attention when talking with another person, especially when emotions are involved.

Communication isn't only about the message I intend to send. It's also about noticing what is happening between us while I'm sending it.

Has something shifted? Did what I just said land differently than I expected? Do I need to slow down? Ask a question? Listen a little longer instead of continuing to make my point?

We won't always notice. We won't always get it right. And even the most skilled communicators will sometimes hear those dreaded words, “We need to talk.”

But we can learn to become more aware of what is happening in our conversations while they are happening. Then, when something does go off course, we can learn how to slow down, stay present, listen and find our way back to connection.