Tough Conversations

Solutions Through Compassionate Communication.

Lesson in an Irish Pub

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We’d arrived in Shannon on 9/11, just a couple of hours before the planes hit the towers in New York. Now it was 9/12 and, like everyone else on our tour, I was still in shock.

In the pub restroom the only other occupant was a teenager, red hair in spikes, lots of piercings and a few tattoos. I looked away, certain she wouldn’t want to speak to me. But she approached and asked, “Are you an American?”

When I nodded, she came over and put her arms around me, saying “I’m so sorry about what happened.” For the first time since I heard the news, I was able to weep.

That Irish girl’s care for me was both a gift and a surprise. I’d dismissed her, assuming we had nothing in common. But I was wrong. We shared our simple humanity. She was, in fact, an agent of love.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn as a mediator is to stop making assumptions. To suspend judgment. To be open to surprise. A good mediator needs to feel and to demonstrate what Carl Rogers called “unconditional positive regard” – even if people are rude or loud or angry. But how can one ignore bad behavior?

Mediation author Kenneth Cloke says, “I try to imagine what would make me behave that way.” Over the past eight years, in hundreds of mediations, here’s what I’ve discovered: most bad behavior is a screen for fear. If I can help another feel safe and respected, anger will dissipate. Generous listening becomes possible. The best impulses of each of us can emerge. We can begin to drop the assumptions and begin to really understand.

Carolyn Parr

MISSED COMMUNICATION

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In the Fumicino Airport in Rome, I’m checking in with my husband. The ticket agent helpfully offers to change our seats in Economy Plus so we can sit together. She says, “You’ll be in the center section.”
I say, “No, thank you. Now we have one aisle seat and one on the bulkhead row. We’ll keep the ones we have.”
“But you’re not together,” she patiently explains. “I’ll put you together,” she says, typing into her computer.
I’m starting to feel a little desperate. My husband is 6 feet tall and needs legroom. I’m slightly claustrophobic. We don’t want to be crammed in the middle section!
I try again, “We’d rather keep the seats we have. Please don’t change anything.”
She looks at me as if I’m a pre-verbal child. She slowly, patiently, repeats herself. “You.. are.. not.. sitting.. together. I will put you together.”
I get what my husband describes as, “an edge” in my voice. “We prefer to keep the seats we have.” She shrugs and surrenders. Finally.
What was there not to understand? I gave her a very clear message. Her friendly assumption got in the way. She saw an older couple, obviously affectionate, and assumed we would want to sit together. What she did not “get” was that we have been sitting together for 51 years and hope to have many more opportunities to do so. But on a 9-hour flight each of us would prefer to be able to get in and out without a lot of rigamarole. Men of a certain need to go to the bathroom more often than younger folks. I feel very uncomfortable if I cannot see a clear path of egress from some direction (an aisle or up front). We both are subject to leg cramps and need to be able to stretch and move our legs and feet. I didn’t want to have to explain our history, just to be able to keep the seats we already had.
The message here is this: when a conversation begins to recycle itself, check your assumptions and those of the other person. She might have simply confirmed that she’d heard me correctly. “You’d prefer to keep the seats you have?” would have worked. On the other hand, I could have thanked her for her thoughtfulness and mentioned our need to stretch. Maybe I lost an opportunity to affirm her sense of concern for older passengers and keep our seats.
Next time I sense a missed communication, I hope I remember that I have a role to play too.
Happy travels,

Carolyn