This is a reviewed and extended version of a series of posts already published on my friend Luca Cipriani newsletter.
In the book “The chimp paradox”, Steve Peters describes a mental model using an interesting metaphor: it explains that in our minds we have the Human, our conscious self, and the Chimp, our emotional self.
The Human is rational, can elaborate data, and understand actions and their consequences.
The Chimp, when engaged, is way stronger than the human, and it is unable to act rationally: it starts screaming, launching objects, and making a mess (metaphorically speaking).
While having difficult conversations, you should always try to consider this duality.
Keeping the chimp at bay
There is a sort of language that excites the Chimp, being judgemental for example.
If you are saying “This code sucks!”, there are good chances to engage the other person’s Chimp. And, interestingly, the other Chimp emotional reaction can easily trigger your own Chimp!
To avoid accidents with our primates, you can use a communication framework designed to resolve conflicts: NonViolent Communication (Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D).
This framework forbids us to be judgemental, to make demands (“you must ...”), to deny our own possibility to make choices (“I have to...”). And it is designed to speak with the Human, and keep the Chimp under control.
The message to deliver should contain 4 parts: observation, feelings, needs, request.
- The observation is expressed in a neutral way, without any evaluations: “In the last two days you showed up 5 minutes late to the stand up”
- Your feelings are based on the observation: “I am concerned that we won’t be communicating effectively this way”
- your needs connect to your feelings: “I need the communication to be effective”
- the request is asking for a specific action: “can you please be on time from now on ?”
The observation, not being charged with judgment, should engage the Human. You state your feelings to elicit natural empathy from the other human being. You give a way to make you happier and fulfilled. Then you close with an explicit request.
Also notice. The framework forces you to be the object of the message. You are talking about what you see, how do you feel about it, and what you need.
How to use it
You should not use this technique every time, but when you have to deliver a "difficult" message, it can help to keep things cool, and improve the outcomes that the message is received positively.
Let’s see how to tackle an unruly engineer who doesn’t like writing tests:
I noticed that there are no tests in the codebase, I am afraid we won’t progress as fast in the next quarter without test coverage. I would feel relieved if the code was tested. Can you please add tests?
I know that this might seem to be a bit redundant. But that forces you to not to leave anything implicit and to send across a clear message.
Closing
Conflicts are a natural and positive part of teamwork. Putting conflicting ideas in relation and coming up with the best possible outcome, is not easy. In particular, if emotions are involved. But using a good communication framework can make a huge difference.