#13 Trouble is a possibility (Eng & Fra)

Who said peace was the usual state of things?

Thank you so much for being here. If you like this letter, please forward it to your loved ones and help me spread the rodeo spirit.

I teach young students about “the rules of the game” at a communication school in Paris. I love teaching them and I love teaching that because I love their fresh take on the issue still untouched by experience good or bad. I love that they never heard of “impostor syndrome”, “good student syndrome”, and I love that they disagree with me when I say that they should say “I” when talking about their work (“but what if we worked in groups?”).

My job with them is to break them free from misunderstandings that might hold them back later: the quest for perfection, trying to please at all costs, vertical relation to manager, expectancy.

But then the other day, another of those misunderstandings hit us in the middle of the class, a sneakier but also more profound one, rolled up around most of us like a snake.

Aliénor d’Aquitaine (1124-1204) Queen of France then Queen of England knew one thing or two about trouble: how to cause one as well as how to get out of one. I really like her because she was strong headed, a true ruler and a friend of the arts. She outlived her husbands and some of her children and ruled over the most powerful Kingdom of her time. What would interest us even more here is she was a warrior, always ready for battle. I really like that about her, she certainly was not perfect as a person but she was very brave. And I take bravery as a cardinal vertue.

I was riding my favorite horse, talking about the necessity to use our voice. Or how saying is existing, not saying is fading. How making one’s voice resonate out loud is one’s best if not only tool to make one heard and understood in order to get what we want, hope, or refuse because nobody reads our minds. I was reversing one of the greatest traps of the professional world, the idea that if we don’t make fuss, people will like us and if they do, they’ll help us, while actually the exact opposite happens in their brains: if you’re silent, you’re happy.

Then rose an objection: “but then the other person might be upset”.

The statement sounds innocent but behind lies the very well know fear of conflict.

And here is the misunderstanding in question: we want to believe that peace is the usual state of things. That in a “normal” unfolding of events, conflict, or in a lighter form, frictions with others are not part of the picture, and that if we do everything right, we should not have to go through any unpleasant moments where a conversation is not a pure moment of shared harmony. And that if it does, something is off.

That the norm is smooth and soft.

Truth is trouble, if not desirable, is a possibility. Bad moods, frictions, unpleasant interactions, bad conversations, if I don’t wish them to anyone, I know are part of it. And not necessarily the symptoms of a toxic environment.

So let’s get this straight:

90% of negotiations end up in refusal and generally are not such a good moment to go through, on either side of the table.

Frictions appear.

Sometimes people are bad tempered, and sometimes they get rough.

In many team meetings or meetings with clients people get tense hence unfriendly, it’s not personnal, it’s just ego talking.

Bad interactions are part of the picture. One hopes to encounter them as infrequently as possible, but must know there might be one around the corner.

And that’s ok. You can get through it, you have enough thick skin.

You don’t provoke it of course. But if it comes your way, you can handle it.

You can answer to it or decide to let it pass. You can dive in the friction or let it slide on your feathers.

They are not necessarily fires that need to be put down, and it’s not always your reponsibility to solve them immediately.

Tensions can hang in the air a few hours or a few days, and then fade and disappear.

You can also agree to disagree.

And you can accept the uncertainety of what may arise from those tensions - including the good things (thinking of a tense conversation about money for example ;).

Let’s not let fear of trouble cage us in a mummified unexisting version of ourselves. As long as we are self-assured about our work ethics, values, bahaviour, there is nothing to fear and only a handful of uncomfortable moments to pass.

Now, on your saddle, and off you go.

Clara

J’enseigne à de jeunes étudiants “les règles du jeu” dans une école de communication à Paris. J’adore enseigner, et j’adore enseigner cela, parce que j’adore leur regard sur ces questions, encore intact, pas encore biaisé par l’expérience bonne ou mauvaise. J’aime le fait qu’ils n’ont jamais entendu parler du syndrome de l’imposteur ou du bon élève, et j’aime qu’ils me contredisent quand je leur dis qu’ils devraient dire « je » en parlant de leur travail (« mais si on a travaillé en groupe ? »).