"tbh" or The Art of Being Honest
Honesty. We all say we want it. 'No sugar coating for me!" Most of us claim (in our world view) to practice it. "I'm honest to a fault." Too often though, unintended outcomes follow expressions of honesty because we don't know how to effectively employ it.
Difficult conversations are uncomfortable because there is no hiding place from the inevitable truth and the responses it may provoke. Honesty is frequently a portal to vulnerability. Being totally honesty is much easier when it won't cost us something, often that being how others see us or how we see ourselves.
Giving Bad News. Delivering bad news involves a perception of loss in some form for the recipient. Loss is anything that requires letting go of something, usually involuntarily. Response to loss is directly related to the recipient's meaning narrative and meaning is what drives reactions. "You're being let go" scenes in the movie 'Up In The Air' serve as great examples.
Think You Can Avoid Honest Conversations Forever? A serious illness or a terminal prognosis, a legal defeat, euthanizing a pet, addressing conflict, making an apology, delivering a death or injury notification, breaking up a relationship or explaining an imminent divorce to children are all examples of tough convos. Unless you're living under a rock, a tough conversation is going to happen for you or to you at some point, and most likely not just once. It's a part of life.
In the workplace, lest you think difficult conversations are limited to termination, performance and discipline issues or informing someone they have a body odor problem (yes, that really does happen and in college dormitories too), workplace suicide saw a 12% increase in 2013 and it’s only become more prevalent. Envision the difficult conversations following an incident like that. Management and HR professionals have their work cut out for them.
Think about a time in your life when someone was being really ‘honest’ with you about an issue that was life changing or disruptive. Did the way they handled the conversation help or make it worse?
As a communication consultant it's been my experience that no matter the industry or occupation, personal or professional, the following challenges are universally reported by those initiating a sensitive conversation:
Anxiety; discomfort both emotional and physical
Fear of the unknown; fear of response
Fear of losing control of the situation
Fear of failure (in giving the news or being seen as one because of it)
Discomfort with causing distress; fear of losing 'helper' status
Avoidance to the point of inertia
Does this Sound Familiar? Having observed countless difficult conversations within business, legal, social service, healthcare, law enforcement and crisis response settings, not infrequently the facilitator’s personal discomfort hijacked the conversation resulting in unsatisfactory outcomes for both parties. Invariably, the initiator shut down which they commonly described as 'distancing myself’ so they could either ‘do their job’ or ‘get through it '.
Effective development and use of discomfort management tools liberates the initiator from the distraction of personal anxiety, affording better outcomes without the need for distancing and fear of diminished performance. Delivering bad news can feel like pushing someone off a cliff. We may not be able to control the consequences of the news itself but we can manage how we convey that news.
You Need A Plan. A Child Protective Service client had to deliver an unexpected and immediate death notification to a troubled teen with a history of violent and sociopathic behavior. Understandably, the caseworker was anxious about the impact of this news and concerned for her personal safety and that of a young intern accompanying her. Within 1 hour, we formulated a plan for: controlling the message, the location, seating arrangements, phrasing, body language and transitioning. In spite of the news, her successful facilitation of the plan resulted in a newfound confidence for this caseworker, a teachable moment for the intern and a deepened trust level with the teen.
No matter how immediate a difficult conversation must be, it's always possible to stop and think. 'Winging it' is not a plan.
Long-Term Impact. Research and anecdotal reports tells us that in particular, employment termination and death notification can cause increased heart attacks, trauma, violence and Post Traumatic Stress in both the notifier and recipient. An FBI study on active shooting incidences in the U.S. between 2000-2013 reported that 17% of active shooters had been terminated from employment on the day of the shooting.
TMI? If you're struggling with 'how much is too much' information, a close cousin to 'TMI' (Too Much Information), ask yourself these questions: what will be helpful? what will be effective? what is necessary? Leaning towards omitting information to quell your discomfort? Honestly ask yourself: Is my personal discomfort influencing this decision? What will be the consequences when the whole truth is revealed (and it always comes out eventually) and how will I explain withholding it? Just sit with those questions a moment.
Here's The Key. You can tell people the truth without bashing them over the head with it. Brutal honesty is just that, brutal and unnecessary.
The virtue of honesty does not bestow license to injure or be careless with someone else’s heart or their dignity.
So, If "tbh" has been the precursor to unsatisfactory outcomes for you, rethink your delivery. Because your words matter.