When and How You Should Confront Someone
A colleague recently made an important decision that affected me without asking for my input. It wasn’t the first time this happened and probably won’t be the last. It seems to be a pattern, to make decisions without involving others when the decisions impact others in meaningful ways.
The question I’m wrestling with is: Should I confront him with my frustration?
The Rule of Three
Author and executive coach Peter Bregman offers a rule he uses to help decide whether to confront someone. He calls it The Rule of Three:
The first time someone does something that makes him feel uncomfortable or frustrated, he simply notices it. The second time, he acknowledges that the first wasn’t an accident but a potential pattern, and he starts observing more closely. The third time, he always speaks to the person about it.
It’s helpful to have a rule for this because it’s easy to rationalize the other person’s behavior or fester over an ongoing (not necessarily true) narrative.
It is OK to confront the person after it happens the first time but, as Bregman says, “everyone slips once or twice. Just don’t let it go three times without having a conversation.”
Consider Your Personal Tendencies
Personality styles play an important role in comfort with confrontation. My wife’s family tends toward the truth-telling side of the continuum. Confrontation is often rewarded or celebrated. My family? We’re more on the side of “going along to get along.” We tend to place higher value on harmony and social equilibrium.
Neither tendency is good or bad. It’s just that truth-tellers may need to slow their roll, cut people some slack, and hold off on saying anything until it’s happened a few times.
Those who go along to get along, on the other hand, shouldn’t let unwanted patterns go unaddressed.
Consider Their Receptivity
The other factor influencing confrontation is the degree to which the other person seems open to the feedback.
If they have a growth-mindset, if they are humble, if they seem open-minded to your ideas, they’ll be more likely to have a productive response.
When confronting them focus on your observations, not your interpretations, and highlight how their behavior makes you feel. You might say, “I’ve noticed three times in the past month that you’ve made a decision without including me in the decision-making process, which makes me feel frustrated.”
It’s hard to argue with your observations and feelings.
If, on the other hand, they don’t seem open to self-confrontation, be ready with a workaround. You know, like a tech workaround. My laptop will no longer connect to an external display using an HDMI cord. Since I do a lot of presentations and I’m not ready to give up this laptop, I need to either send my presentation to someone else to display or I borrow a spare laptop from our office. These extra steps enable me to keep my current laptop.
Along those same lines, if the person in your life who’s making you frustrated doesn’t seem ready to listen to your feedback, consider accepting a workaround — that is, if you want to keep the relationship.
Healthy relationships are full of acceptable workarounds. Perhaps it’s a topic you don’t bring up or a decision to accept them as they are. It’s a choice you have to make about whether dealing with the frustration is worth the workaround.
What will you do the next time someone causes you to feel frustrated or uncomfortable?
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