Difficult conversations
Listen, acknowledge, respond
Stay connected when the other person is emotionally activated.
The shape
- Listen
- Acknowledge
- Respond
Why that order
Acknowledgement is not agreement. It is evidence that the person's experience has registered, and until it has, nothing you say about the substance will be heard.
A worked example
- They say
- Nobody listens when we raise these issues.
- Listen
- Let the concern be finished.
- Acknowledge
- I can see it feels like these have not been taken seriously.
- Respond
- Let us go through the two you think were not addressed.
Used in
Where this shape does its work in a real situation.
Practise it
Knowing the shape is about ten minutes of work. Running it while somebody senior is looking at you is a different thing, and that is what these are for.
Mostly serves Connection, and reaches into Presence.
A framework tells you what shape the answer takes. It cannot tell you whether shape is what you are short of, and for most people it is not. Which one is yours, and whether a framework is the right instrument at all, is what a Discovery Call is for.
Take the AssessmentOr read the whole glossary first.