Crafting your confrontation message is key to delivering your message effectively and getting your needs met. We go through real life examples to further understand FBI. Feeling, Behavior, Impact.
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Speaker 1:
Welcome to the OCL podcast. Our vision is to create people-centered leaders at home, at work, and in our communities who lead through the powerful lens of empathetic listening. Our podcasts will help refresh your skills and sharpen your tools as we do the important work of truly human leadership together.
Adam Salgat:
Hello and welcome to the Our Community Listens podcast. I’m Adam Salgat, and with me today is Sarah Weisbarth, OCL Professor. She’s back today to talk about how to format our confrontation message effectively as we continue to embark on crucial conversations. Sarah, in episodes four and five, both you and me have been talking about how important it is to confront and why we want to do it well. And that is a crucial conversation, one that we need to have if we hope to get people to change their behavior. So how should we start these conversations?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Adam, the conversation actually starts when we do some pre-planning.
Adam Salgat:
Pre-planning. Okay, can you tell me a little bit more about pre-planning?
Sarah Weisbarth:
When we are planning to address a behavior that we hope someone will change, two things will help us be successful in starting these conversations. One is the message we deliver with the words and the way we say them, and then it’s also the timing of our message delivery. But let’s start with crafting the message. We remember from class that an effective confrontation message contains three things.
Adam Salgat:
The FBI, feeling, behavior, and impact. I can usually quickly identify how I’m feeling about something, that’s relatively natural for most people I’d say. Getting to the actual behavior still needs some work, and I kind of remember impact. Can you help me and our listeners with that a little more?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yep. FBI does not have to be in any particular order when we craft our message, but we’ll start with the easy one. Like you said, it’s natural to be able to identify that feeling. It’s kind of easy to figure that out. The key with this portion of the message is to be specific as possible about the feeling. The more specific of a word we use the easier it is for the other person to connect with it, and when we connect with how a person is feeling we are generating the empathy that we find to be so important. So for example, if I use the word angry, it is a feeling, but if I used livid, you might get me and where I’m coming from a little bit more clearly.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah, for sure. I backed away a little bit when you said livid.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, because my message was pretty clear.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah, absolutely.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Now, angry, sad, happy, afraid, these are more kind of words that we use for more surface feelings. Things like livid, lonely, joyful distressed, are some examples of getting a little deeper with a feeling. If you remember in your workbook from class we had this whole page of deeper feeling words. I recommend that if you are struggling with finding just the right word to clearly describe your feeling, to go back and glance through that page and see if anything resonates with you.
Adam Salgat:
That is a great idea and I think it’s smart to do that because it’s really easy for us to just fall into “I’m mad” and it just ends at that and that kind of kills the conversation sometimes.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yep, absolutely. And we joke about this sometimes because sometimes people will say, “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Adam Salgat:
Right. And it’s just kind of the only way they know how to react because they don’t know what you’re mad about or how that came about for being mad, how that feeling came about.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Absolutely. Which is why then we have to help them understand what is it that they’re doing that causes us to feel that very specific feeling. And that moves us right into that behavior and remembering that it cannot be a judgment, this concept is really key.
Adam Salgat:
Right. So you’re emphasizing that and I think it must be pretty important.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yep. I’m going to demonstrate this. Adam, you are unprofessional and it disappoints me that you don’t care about your work. Reaction?
Adam Salgat:
Well, I’ve been up since 5:30 and you don’t know anything. I’ve been working pretty darn hard today.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Thanks, Adam. Sorry, I really did not mean any of that.
Adam Salgat:
That’s good, I’m impressed.
Sarah Weisbarth:
When we use words that are a judgment, they hurt. And I’m guessing our listeners are right now going, “I can’t believe she just said that about him.” It causes that reaction in others that will drive the disconnection. It’s essentially the opposite of what we’re trying to do.
Adam Salgat:
I get it. But how do I know if my words are judgy or not? I suppose it’s different for everyone.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. The rule of thumb that I use is can I describe it? I can’t really describe unprofessional. I might be able to come up with some behaviors that point to maybe my opinion that you’re unprofessional. If I can’t demonstrate it or describe it then it’s really not a behavior. And then I also think about if it were said to me and I would be hurt, or it can be argued with, or if it’s just my opinion not a fact, remembering that a fact is something that can be seen, felt or heard, then it’s a judgment.
Adam Salgat:
This is kind of difficult.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yes, that’s why the pre-planning is so important. And it can also help to run your messages by someone else. I had a friend ask me about a message she had crafted recently and it started out with, “It is annoying when.” It then went on for about three to five sentences. I stopped listening after the word annoying and was kind of hurt and the message wasn’t even for me.
Adam Salgat:
Sounds like it’s really important to think about the words you’re using and what you’re trying to say to someone when you choose to confront them and ask for change.
Sarah Weisbarth:
It sure is, and keep it short and simple. Pre-planning can sometimes lead to overthinking. So think about the feeling, identify the behavior, and the thing that you can see, feel, or hear, but stop yourself from delivering messages that are lengthy or loaded.
Adam Salgat:
Loaded, what do you mean?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Well, often by the time someone is to the point where they’re going to choose to confront the issue, it’s been going on for a while, and the message gets crafted to include everything that has led up to that point. We have to remember an FBI message is just starting that crucial conversation, it’s just the conversation starter.
Adam Salgat:
So you were saying that first message is a conversation starter. So I shouldn’t just drop a bomb on them with everything that’s been bothering me or getting in my way for the last six months?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Absolutely. It just is a first statement of a particular behavior and how you feel about it and the impact that behavior is having on you. You can’t load up your guns and unload on them, you have to start that conversation slowly.
Adam Salgat:
So if I have other things to bring up, try to find, I suppose, even a statement inside of this conversation that you’re ready to utilize, to help bring about behavior change on other things that might be in our way.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Right. You’re assuming the conversation’s going to go somewhere from this first statement, because you’re going to share with them that you’re feeling something about something they’ve done and it’s having an impact on you. They’re going to respond and then the conversation is going to continue.
Adam Salgat:
Tell me a little bit more about impact.
Sarah Weisbarth:
I look at impact is like, well, why should I care?
Adam Salgat:
Right. You seem to have a very real approach to confrontation, Sarah.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, so here’s the thing. If I am ready to ask someone to change, I had better be able to tell them what the thing is, that’s the behavior, that’s causing me to feel a particular way, and why I want them to care about it, the impact. There’s always going to be an effect from a behavior and/or a feeling, and it’s really important that we communicate the effect or the impact that those behaviors are having on us.
Adam Salgat:
Do you have an example for me and the audience of an impact statement?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yep. Here’s an example of a really well-crafted message and let’s see if we can pick out the impact. This is a real life work scenario. When you don’t practice your part of the presentation in advance, important information gets missed while we’re speaking live. This hurts our ability to fully share the impact of our project and get future funding. Where do you hear the impact in that message?
Adam Salgat:
Well, it sounds like the impact to me is talking about not getting the funding that they need to get their project for their business to keep it moving.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yep. That’s one of the impacts. Really, it’s a very clear point that if you haven’t practiced your part of the presentation, that’s the behavior, then it’s going to impact the future funding. But it also backs up and it impacts the ability to share the excitement about the project, the impact of the project that’s going to lead to that funding. And there’s another one, the important information gets missed. It’s almost a progressive impact. Important information gets missed, which hurts the ability to share impact of the project and then it impacts future funding. If this were delivered to me and I cared about these things I would actually apologize and start practicing my part of the presentation.
Adam Salgat:
Well, that would be very big of you to notice that they’ve wanted you to make a change.
Sarah Weisbarth:
That’s really the whole point of effective confrontation. If we don’t point out to people the behavior that they’re having and the impact that is the result of it they’re never going to change.
Adam Salgat:
Okay, how about another example? You have another one?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yes. Here’s a friend scenario. When you laughed during my story about struggling with my kids I was hurt and felt unheard. I was feeling vulnerable in the first place and this made me more reluctant to share stories that are hard to talk about.
Adam Salgat:
The feelings are clear to me. They’re hurt by the action of you laughing that they were unheard or vulnerable, those are pretty real.
Sarah Weisbarth:
We do have to take a bit of a risk when we confront someone and share our feelings, it does create that vulnerability.
Adam Salgat:
So I see the impact is that they might be reluctant to share their stories that are hard to talk about and they’re just losing that connection that they have with someone.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yep. And it makes me wonder what that relationship would be like. I can imagine that these two people would start to not trust each other and wouldn’t share those stories and that connection would be lost.
Adam Salgat:
It actually makes me kind of sad and I don’t even know these theoretical people were speaking of but it’s disappointing.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, it is. And these are actual theoretical people, these are listeners that wrote in and gave us some messages. And so it really just points out that this is what empathy looks like. We’re concerned for these people and we don’t even technically know them, but just hearing their struggle and how they feel about it and the impact it’s having we have that empathy for them.
Adam Salgat:
This is why conversations are crucial. If we want to be in a relationship with others, feel connected to them, we have to start addressing the things that cause us to feel disconnected. And those are difficult things to do sometimes. But as some people have said the only way out is through, so you have to get through that conversation.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Absolutely, Adam. And you really summed it up perfectly why we feel like effective confrontation is so important. And most people are so anxious about confrontation and really all it is is a means of growing and connection with others, understanding them, sharing yourself, helping them understand you.
Adam Salgat:
These seem to be some pretty good messages. Is it really that easy?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. So these first two examples that our listeners sent in were actually great examples for us to use. So yes, it can be that easy but not always. It takes some work to dig deep and figure out the message we really want to deliver. Identifying that deeper feeling requires us to be open, figuring out the behavior. That’s the logical part and sometimes that hurts my head.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah, I don’t blame you.
Sarah Weisbarth:
I have a story to share for you. It’s a little close to home but it will help us understand that this takes some effort and sometimes it’s not perfect. So let me just set the scene for you quickly. My husband and I have been very busy and going in incredibly different directions and it’s really causing us to have some fragmented conversations. And I’m kind of summarizing this in a simple format. It’s just, we’re just talking at each other. We’re more like roommates and when one of us tries to have a deeper conversation and the other one doesn’t seem to have time or listen or respond, it’s starting to create some tension beyond what we’re used to, this is not how we normally function.
Both of us you can tell are experiencing distress. And I’m actually getting impatient and disappointed and regrettably, Adam, I’ll just confess, I’m being a little passive aggressive with how I’ve been interacting with my husband. And that’s just real. I’m not proud of that but sometimes it’s just like I get tired and I don’t always use all of my best skills. But thankfully, a kind friend gave me a little nudge and suggested to me that I use my skills and maybe ponder the message that I would deliver to my husband.
Adam Salgat:
I’m listening.
Sarah Weisbarth:
So last week, actually, the house was quiet for the evening. I calmly, slowly, gently asked him to sit down for a moment and shared with him that I had a concern that I wanted to talk with him. We sat down on the couch and my message went something like this. “If we keep going the way we’re going and the way that we’re interacting with each other…” Let me pause here. This was truly my best effort of describing the behavior. I’ll admit it’s not perfect but in the moment it was literally the best I could come up with. And I think he was sensing the same thing I was sensing. So I went with, “If we keep going the way we are going, we are going to be disconnected.” And that was the closest thing I could get to a feeling at the time. And I continued with, “We are not going to enjoy our marriage together like we used to.” And that’s the impact.
Adam Salgat:
Very sorry to hear that, Sarah, but I’m also very happy that you took the time to reach out to your husband and work on that.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Thanks. It’s not always easy. And I actually just shared with Heather the other day in our office this exact story, Heather is our logistics coordinator. And she looked at me and she’s like, “Wow, I thought you will always craft a perfect message.” I’m like, “Nope, sometimes it’s hard.” And I’m really boiling it down to what is the thing? And this message that I crafted I think the impact was probably the most important thing. Not that my feelings weren’t important but I think that impact caused my husband go like, “Wait, okay, we need to talk about this.”
Adam Salgat:
Absolutely. When you guys sat and had that conversation, even though you didn’t have a perfectly crafted message you took the time to think it through so you could approach him in the right way. And I’m very impressed at how intentional that was.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, we do. We have to… Thank you. Let me just acknowledge that. Thank you for that kind of thing that you just said to me. But we do, we have to set up that timing intentionally because if we want to really start the conversation, we’re hoping that door is going to be open for a longer conversation and that’s all I was doing that night. And we have started to talk about our schedule and our communication and our stressors. So setting up the timing, crafting the message was crucial and it just opened that door for further connection and further conversation. It’s really all key.
Adam Salgat:
To wrap up our podcast today, Sarah, we have a couple messages from our listeners that they’re looking for some help with. You want to jump in and check these out?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, let’s do that.
Adam Salgat:
The first one, real life work scenario. When you are insubordinate in our staff meetings I feel undermined and angry. This hurts my leadership and the team morale. Thoughts on this one?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Well, I’m just going to go just directly to editing. Insubordinate is a judgment, it is clearly a judgment. I would ask, if this person came to me for help, I would ask what is the thing that they are doing that points to this opinion of insubordinate? We need to help the person we’re confronting understand their actual behavior. The feelings in this one are great. If I was nitpicky I could say replace anger with something a little deeper but that’s being nitpicky.
The impact of hurts my leadership and our team morale, not horrible, maybe a little bit of an opinion. So instead, maybe go with, I feel undermined and I’m concerned that this damages my ability to lead and our team morale, something like that. But if I were to change one thing I would highly suggest to come up with the behavior that points to this judgment of insubordinate, because I could really argue insubordinate and get really defensive really fast if you told me that.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah, I agree with that. And that’s very helpful to help point out that what is it that you’re doing specifically that makes them think you’re being insubordinate. So let’s do one more. You hurt my feelings and don’t care about me when you don’t plan anything for Mother’s Day.
Sarah Weisbarth:
So, direct editing again. Don’t care about me is a judgment. I could picture this in our family and I know that if I said this it would be quickly argued that I do care about you. I don’t see why you would say that, I clearly care about you. You might want to be careful about that sense. But I think this judgment of don’t care about me probably points more to how this person is feeling, that they’re really hurt. And so identifying the feeling, not just that it’s hurt might be more important. If this happened to me I would be maybe disappointed, hurt, crushed. So instead of the feelings just being hurt what is the actual feeling that this person is experiencing?
When you don’t plan anything for Mother’s Day that’s a pretty good behavior. I mean, I can actually point to a behavior and actual situation, if there was nothing planned then there was nothing planned, that’s pretty factual. If I reworked this in my head it might look like, when you don’t make plans for Mother’s Day I am disappointed and crushed, it makes me wonder if I’m important to you. I think that’s… I don’t know, I’d try that one.
Adam Salgat:
Let’s put those back to back for our listeners so they hear them and soak them in and focus on which one you think would have a bigger impact if someone said it to you. The first is, you hurt my feelings and don’t care about me when you don’t plan anything for Mother’s Day. And the second, if they came to you and said, “When you don’t make plans for Mother’s Day I am disappointed and crushed. It makes me wonder if I am important to you.”
When you hear them right next to each other, which one do you believe is making a bigger impact and connecting with the person? Sarah, I know your answer and listeners out there you can’t respond to me because this is not live. But really, when you hear them back to back you can hear the difference of how that connects with someone differently.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, absolutely. And even just listening to you read them back, I was also noticing that the way the second one was crafted… The first one tried to put the feelings first because we teach you feeling, behavior, and impact. But in recrafting it I actually went behavior, feeling, and impact. Which really points to you can craft your FBI messages in any order and direction that you want to. It can be feeling first, then impact and then behavior. Behavior, feeling, impact. I always joke in class that it can be FIB, or BIF or FBI. I like that one too, I think I’m funny, but it does not have to be in a specific order. And you might want to start to think about the person that you’re confronting and maybe what would maybe connect with them more if it’s going to be that behavior or that feeling first.
Adam Salgat:
If anybody wants some help crafting their FBI statement and maybe they’ve written one but they need to edit it or they just need someone with an expert eye to look at it, how can they get in touch with us?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Well, I would say there’s a couple different ways. You can always message us on our Facebook page, but it is an open Facebook page. Messaging us will be anonymous and we’ll get back with you, I’ll probably get back with you through an email. But you can also reach out to me at Sarah with an H dot Weisbarth. So that’s S-A-R-A-H.W-E-I-S-B-A-R-T-H@ourcommunitylistens.org, and I would be happy to help you with any of your FBI messages or maybe involve some of our other professors because you’re going to hear from them in the future on our podcast.
Adam Salgat:
Well, thank you so much, Sarah. And don’t forget alumni, you are the message.
Speaker 1:
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