How to Have Difficult Conversations when Neurodivergent
Difficult conversations are something everyone dreads but if you’re neurodivergent working in a world that’s not built for you, it’s so much harder. So today we’re going to talk about what makes it harder and what we can do about it so difficult conversations don’t feel quite so difficult.
The questions of what do I really want for myself, others and the relationship is quite easy to answer, and it’s even easier to frame in a way that our boss would be receptive to, because ultimately our goals are the same: we would like to get the best out of our team so that they perform at the highest standard. By approaching it from this angle, it becomes working towards a shared goal from different starting points, rather than winning or losing our own agenda.
But sometimes it’s not that straightforward. The book uses the example of one parent being offered a new promotion that would be a huge advancement in terms of career, seniority, money etc but comes with a catch; needing to relocate. The parent with the promotion thinks the trade off is worth it, the rest of the family doesn’t agree. This one seems pretty black and white; either they relocate or they don’t. But the book urges going deeper.
Because by questioning the purpose, the reasons why each person has their position, they might land across something in the middle, something that they both share. Maybe both of them just want what’s best for the kids and their family, with the promoted parent thinking the higher salary is what’s best, whereas the other places more importance on the local community.
But by finding out their shared purpose, they have something that they’re working towards together, something that allows them to reevaluate their understandings of what’s best for the kids and family and work together towards a solution that works best for their underlying shared purpose, rather than choosing between black or white.
Look at these two unhappy eggs. That side eye implies that they’re having a difficult conversation as well.
Part two: Emotional Dysregulation and Big Emotions.
Almost every form of neurodivergence has emotional dysregulation in common. Our emotions are not wrong, but we for sure feel things bigger than our neurotypical peers. So when we’re in a difficult conversation, the anxiety, the stress of being slighted, the frustration as conversations go in circle, all of that hits us bigger than the other people in the room.
Now what’s difficult is that in order to have a constructive difficult conversation, this isn’t a case of just managing your own emotions, which is hard enough to do on its own, it’s also a case of managing the other participants emotions as well. It’s all those emotions running wild that are what makes a difficult conversation, well.. Difficult.
So how do we deal with them? The book suggests a CBT style approach of questioning our reactions, the stories we tell ourselves, and what evidence there is to support them. However, I find this approach a little infantilising as it has an underlying vibe of “it’s your fault if you can’t control your emotions because you’re not doing all this CBT-esque work to control them” so I didn’t love this particular chapter. As well, I know that neurospicies see really mixed results with CBT and it’s a space where I’ve been hearing more people pushing back in recent years. So what can we do instead?
While I didn’t love some of the rhetoric in this chapter, one part I did like was the concept of stepping outside of the emotion so that these are not consuming in the moment, and given this is one of the things my client was struggling with, I went off to do some research and stumbled across something I found interesting, and I’ll leave a link to the article from The Management Centre below as a reference.
It introduced the concept of anchoring, of having a memory of calm, confidence and competence that you can return to in times of emotional turmoil. What I particularly loved about this concept is the suggestion to have something physical to associate with it so that you can use this as a reminder during the time you need it most. I’ve done similar work with clients using alter egos, using particular jewelry or props on their desk that they can put on or pick up whenever they need to call upon their alter ego to help them in a situation and we can do the same thing with an anchor. Perhaps it’s a memory of the beach, watching the ocean waves and picking up your water bottle and watching the water flow as you tilt it slightly anchors you back to that place and memory.
This strategy, however doesn’t help us with others’ emotions and the book has an answer for this; when someone is reacting with strong emotions, it’s because they are not feeling safety in the conversation and the conversation can’t continue without re-establishing safety again.
When it comes to making it safe, we need to diagnose what is causing the decline of safety. Is it that they don’t believe you truly care about their goals and motivations? Or is it more so that they don’t believe you respect them?
The book suggests apologising if you’ve got something to apologise for, clearing up any misunderstandings (something we’re going to talk about in part 3) and creating mutual purpose by understanding the purpose behind their objectives and where they’re coming from so you can find a mutual purpose together.
One last thing I will note in this section is that in a difficult conversation then adrenalin is high and even when safety has been re-established it might take some time for adrenalin to come down so that emotions can come back under control. If you need to take some more time to re-establish the safety, then take some more time. It’s okay and it’s worthwhile.
Taking that time to picture the scene in your minds eye can help ground you, focus you into the moment instead of the swaying emotions running through your brain.
Part three: The Double Empathy Problem
If you’re not already familiar with the double empathy problem, the underlying principle is that if people who have very different experiences of the world interacting with each other, they are likely to struggle to empathise with each other. We hear this more commonly in the world of autism, where much of the past discourse has put the onus on the autistic person being at fault. They don’t know how to communicate. The autistic person needs to learn how to communicate with neurotypicals better.
However, studies have shown that this is not a problem with autistic people, and autistic people are very capable of communicating with each other just like allistic, or non-autistic, people are, and that the problem actually arises in cross-neurotype conversation, meaning both parties are at fault, instead of the onus being on the autistic needing to change.
What this means for a neurodivergent person in a difficult conversation with a neurotypical person is that double empathy problems may be creeping into the conversation in ways that are hurting the conversation further, so clearing up any misunderstandings is incredibly important.
One of the tools suggested by Crucial Conversations I think is particularly pertinent to it and they call this one contrasting. The basic idea is to say “I’m not saying *the thing they think you’re saying* but I’m actually saying *the thing you’re actually trying to say*”.
So for example, if your direct report is constantly missing deadlines and you raise it with them, they might respond in a way that suggests you think their work isn’t good enough and you could be arguing about different things in the same conversation. In this case, contrasting would look like this:
“I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate the work you’re doing, actually I’m really pleased with the work you’re creating because it’s always to a very high standard. What I would like to address though is that in missing deadlines, we’re getting behind on other projects and will struggle to catch up, so I’d really like to help you in figuring out ways that we can hit those deadlines so we perform to an even higher standard.”
Of course safety here, as we discussed in the previous part, is incredibly important here so it doesn’t leave the person thinking you might be being sarcastic or that this is a backhanded compliment. If you don’t have safety in the difficult conversation then it’s going to be game over.
I spoke recently with someone who said they use contrasting all the time but were fed up with how exhausting it is. Much like masking, it’s a tool to use tactically as and when needed but not something you should feel you have to implement all the time. Sometimes it’s okay to let others work it out.
Part Four: Passion and Sense of Justice.
The book contains an interesting quote, it says: “The more you care about an issue, the less likely you are to be on your best behaviour” and I think that’s particularly important for us neurospicies because many of us are passionate people and we also tend to have a strong sense of justice.
What that means is that we want to stand up for what we believe in, maybe we slip into that black and white thinking I mentioned earlier believing that there’s a right and a wrong and we’re on the correct side. This can cause us to fiercely advocate for what we believe in, but while our passion is admirable, it’s often not the best way to get someone onside.
Crucial Conversations offers a five point acronym here but I don’t think it really works to separate it all up like this so I’m going to talk through the concepts in their totality of how to advocate in a way that brings people onside instead of causing them to cling stronger to their own opinions.
The first point is to share uncontroversial facts removed from any conclusions. This last part is important because sometimes we present things as facts that aren’t actually facts, or are so entwined with the conclusion to be loaded and put people on the defensive.
If we think about the example I gave earlier about the person continually missing their deadlines, you might say a fact is: “You always miss your deadlines”. Now this is loaded because it comes across as an accusation and also it might not be a completely true fact, they may have deadlines in previous jobs or outside of work that they do actually achieve. To be a fact, we need to be more objective and less attached to a conclusion (that they miss their deadlines in this case).
A fact is something more like: “The most recent project was a week late and I know this happened with a project in May as well”. These are facts. The most recent project was late. So was the one in May. But we’re sharing them just as they are; facts without the assumed conclusion that the employee always misses their deadlines.
The next stage is to explain your story, but it’s important to do this tentatively. These were points two and four in Crucial Conversation’s acronym but in my opinion these two things go together so I’m talking about them together.
It’s at this point that you connect the dots to your conclusion but it needs to be tentative. The language needs to be soft, non confrontational. It doesn’t need to be full of doubt, you have evidence to back up your conclusion, but you’re not looking to put them on the defensive.
This is then a case of: “I am wondering if this is starting to indicate a pattern”, rather than “These missed deadlines are a clear pattern”. But it’s also not: “I may be wrong so you tell me what the real answer is but I think that I might possibly be seeing a pattern here”.
Finally, we invite others to share their point of view and we have to encourage that. We need enough safety in the conversation so that they’ll have courage to express their views instead of assuming you’re asking for them as a tick box exercise, that your mind is made up but you want to be able to say you considered other people.
In fact, if no one is speaking up, the book even recommends to play devil’s advocate against yourself so that you encourage other views instead of just your own.
Neurodivergence could be an advantage here because we’re often curious people and that curiosity can help us in exploring others points of view. It can enable us to gain an understanding of what their argument is in good faith so that they feel safe in the conversation.
From there we can move towards a resolution and the book suggests to tackle that in three phases: First, agree on what you agree on. Most of it you will be in agreement and the remaining differences of opinions will be on the last 5-10%. Next, build from the agreement. If there are gaps in their understanding or things they hadn't considered, use what you agree on to build over that gap and close it.
Finally on aspects where you disagree you need to stay curious and explore the disagreement together, working towards your shared mutual purpose to come to a resolution.
See, these guys are sat side by side to show that they’re working together now, not adversarial with each other!
Part 5: Conclusion
So this is where we finish for the day, acknowledging that our neurodivergent tendencies for black and white thinking, emotional dysregulation, the double empathy problem and our passion and sense of justice can make difficult conversations a challenge. However our curiosity and I would argue our divergent thinking can also be an asset in these situations to come to resolutions much quicker.
If you’re facing your own difficult conversations, particularly in the workplace, and need some personalised support to help you out with this then this is something I often cover in my individual coaching where we work through the challenges and situations that actually affect your life right now instead of me telling you general things that might be beneficial. If you would like to learn more about the coaching I do, hit the link in the description to find out more.
If this resonates with you and feel you would be interested in talking to an adhd and autism-friendly coach, feel free to get in touch. If you’re looking for more blog posts, you can find them here.
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