Letter 016 (Weekend Edition): Slowing Down Time to Create Space During Difficult Conversations
Thoughts on Conversational Clock Management for the weekend
Tl;dr - While we aren’t like Neo from the Matrix, you have the ability to slow down time when you need some extra space to process how to best respond during challenging situations with others. I’ve called this “Conversational Clock Management” (yes, I love the word management — i’ll find something more creative/differentiated later).
What I listened to while writing this (after I pasted this link, Anderson said, “Ima leave the door open, girl…” and I want to be clear that this post is not about romance — not going to dive into that genre of writing… ……..yet)
Clock management can be helpful in both challenging situations and every day life
I use Clock Management almost every day of my life. Most of the time it’s in perfectly normal situations, usually when I’m trying to maximize inclusivity during meetings. What’s a great way to make sure everyone’s voice is heard? Ask everyone to think about something for 1-2 minutes in silence, and then get everyone’s opinions after that momentary time of stoppage.
Sometimes, however, clock management is a way to get through a particularly difficult conversation in a way that you can feel proud of after the fact.
Have you ever totally lost your shit while arguing with someone else? (If you haven’t, please confirm that you are: (A) human, and (B) please tell me how you do it). It doesn’t feel good to respond poorly to a situation involving others. Yes, it’s bound to happen, because we are not automotons, but you can minimize the frequency of this by being comfortable both with silence and asking for processing space.
Here’s a story about a time where creating space allowed us to get to a resolution + feel proud of how we showed up
One of those times was as we were getting ready to load all of our boxes into a truck for our cross-country move last January. After barely sleeping for days while we power packed, we were finally ready to go. The dark grey skies of Seattle prevented nature from letting us know if it was 8am or 8pm. The feeling of melancholy setting in, with a vengeance. Boxes all around us. Our dog aggressively trying to murder the tape gun. The last time we’d get donuts from our favorite shop on the block.
The movers arrive, and the truck is mighty small. Wait, it’s really small. Too small. Oh God. This is not going to fit our stuff… Our flight leaves early tomorrow morning. It’s a global pandemic, flying feels super risky to us. What are we going to do?
Fast forward an hour, and Simi and I are locked in an intense negotiation (read: argument) with the moving company, who at the very last minute decided to multiply the cost of our already-expensive move by four times, despite our confirming the inventory / scope three times in the weeks before. As we reached a point of the conversation where both sides were quickly losing any sense of decorum, we decided to manage the clock. The conversation went something like this:
Moving Company Guy insinuates that we’re trying to defraud them
We get incensed at this suggestion and start raising our voices (here, we are starting to lose our shit)
Moving Company Guy gets even more incensed.
Tears start flowing
Intersection Point: We decide to manage the clock a little bit
I say to the guy, let’s call him Johnny, something along the lines of: “Johnny, look. I need some time to process. You’re upset. We’re upset. Clearly we both are not in a productive space. Let’s take a pause for five minutes to rebaseline a bit, and then let’s continue the discussion. I know we can find a way through here. We have to”
This is the key point, where we decided to not only get our wits about ourselves but to also provide some space to the other person in the situation
We also acknowledged both sides of the situation
We also controlled the pace of the conversation and entered a break on a positive note
We take 5-7 minutes…
The Return happens, where now we can help direct the narrative
We lay out the unfortunate situation and how it impacts both and propose a middle ground, appealing both to business logic and this person’s sense of decency. We state that we think this is fair, and that finding something near this middleground will prevent a far more costly issue from arising for both of us. We then give them time to process — “take some time to think this over. We’ll be here on mute.”
Eventually the situation gets resolved. We did end up having to pay double what we had originally planned, which really, really sucked. But we were able to get our things moved that day. We remained adherent to our timeline. We found our way to arrive at a compromise that was just-barely satisfactory enough for both parties. But it was enough for us to get through it, and for both parties to acknowledge each other and apologize for heated words exchanged + to thank each other for having the patience to come to a resolution.
Still, we had just depleted virtually all of our savings to fund a down payment on our first home, and did not have much wiggle room left to move our life across the country. This situation pushed us to an extremely uncomfortable position in the near-term, but after it happened we gave ourselves even more space yet to process the situation, to reflect on how much worse it could’ve been, to appreciate the lesson learned, and most importantly to give ourselves some damned credit for handling a really crappy situation well (all things considered). Since then, whenever we get to and overcome a tough situation, we always say that “We’ve built character.” It’s a bit of a reward for persevering through something unpleasant… And while this might not be sufficient for some, it is something we value highly.
The last night in Seattle, after our last drive through Magnolia, we reflected on our growth over a glass of red wine, which certainly helped smooth out a stressy day. We flew out the next morning, feeling financially depleted, but spiritually full.
In moments of extreme stress, when you have the option of helping to slow down the pace of a situation, take it. You do need to be cognizant of taking too much time, because too much time spent in uncertainty can stress both parties out even more. One of my friends once told me, seemingly quoting some psychology course, that: “waiting is the worst state of being" I try to remember this whenever you’re about to suggest a slow-down of a situation. The way I’ve mitigated this in the past is to clearly explain the purpose of taking a time-out.
Notice in the situation above that we explained why we were taking a break, and offered an indication that a resolution was on the horizon…that this unpleasant scenario could come to an end. By doing this, we were trying to provide a sense of relief to the other party, to grant them more space to focus on a solution (as opposed to more reasons to screw us over even more). I wanted the last thing that guy thought about before he was in his own head for five minutes was my optimistic message. Let that reverberate; not ill wishes.
Is the above too abstract? Not specific enough? Let’s go a level deeper to help you feel confident when managing the clock.
Take Deep Breaths often during conversations. When someone is waiting for you to respond, it’s okay to take a big deep breathe
Give very clear indications that you are thinking. My colleagues hear me say, “i’m processing….” “I’m thinking…” frequently.
Suggest that everyone involved take some thinking time. If you’re in my organization at work, you have probably gotten used to me saying things like, “Alright, now take three minutes, write down your thoughts, and then we’ll continue…” — this is me trying to slow down time, to give you all space to think :) …This also works in challenging situations.
“OK, everyone here is clearly upset. Nothing’s going to take away what was said. Let’s each take 5 minutes to go take a walk, and then when we come back, we’re going to spend some time writing down our thoughts on the optimal path forward for all parties” === something along the lines of what I told my team as we sat in the office at 11pm in the middle of a Philly snowstorm
Think about professional sports teams, who oftentimes — especially near the end of a game — will “manage the clock” to minimize time for the other side to come back. That is NOT what I’m suggesting you use clock management for at work, but I can certainly appreciate when LeBron hangs out in the backcourt, assessing the situation ahead of him, carefully managing his energy, and finding extra space to process how to get the jam
Hope you all have a wonderful month ahead!
Michael