Communication can be difficult. Communicating with difficult people can be almost impossible. What makes a difficult communication difficult? Is it fear? Is it the past history of trying to communicate with someone who seems to personify tyranny?
How we approach the communication will have a big bearing on how it culminates. If our voice is full of sarcasm, then the result will be a repeat, at best, of past communications with this challenging person. If we approach the communication with open-mindedness, then the response from the other party will more likely be open-minded as well.
I like what Emerson said: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.” Make it your mission to find out in what way this person is your superior and see what you can learn. This approach will help motivate you to come into the situation with a positive mental outlook.
One of the first jobs I ever had was selling newspaper subscriptions. And even though it was several decades ago, I still remember this conversation because it was such a challenge. But it offered me a great lesson that has served me well ever since.
My conversation was with someone I called on the phone. When he found out what I wanted, he started yelling, calling me every name in the book. First, he told me he had recently canceled his subscription and he requested that no one call him again. “What the hell are you calling me for? Don’t you know how to listen to your customers?” He told me of all his problems with the newspaper, how the deliveryman threw the paper in the flowers, and despite making numerous calls to customer service, the paper landing in the flowers continued. Then he excitedly told me how once he called to stop delivery while he was on vacation but no one suspended it. The papers piled up in his front yard while he was away, so every burglar in the area could see that they were out of town. He went on for 20 minutes, complaining not only about the delivery, but also about the ads, the editorials, and the fact that his favorite comic strip was no longer in the paper.
It was then that I had a flash of insight: If he talks like this to everybody, he probably doesn’t have any friends. I’ll do what probably nobody else has ever done: I’ll just listen.
He went on and on, and finally he settled down. I had not argued a single point that he had raised. I gave him empathy for the way he felt. Then he said, “I like you. You’re respectful. I’ll take a subscription.”
If someone is angry, there is probably a good reason for it. Listen and empathize. Then they will be in a receptive mood to listen to you. Keep the goal in mind — good communication. Your anger may be justified, but it won’t be conducive to good communication.
Find the common ground
In the early 1960s, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were at an all time high. Fear of all-out nuclear war was a concern for the whole world. That was the backdrop when President Kennedy spoke at American University on June 10, 1963. In this speech Kennedy called on the Soviet Union to work with the United States to achieve a nuclear test ban treaty and help reduce the considerable international tensions and the specter of nuclear war on the horizon.
Chairman Nikita Khrushchev, who in 1960 was pounding his shoe in a rage on a table at the United Nations, was the epitome of the difficult person. And yet when he heard JFK’s speech, he had the Soviet government broadcast a translation of the entire speech, and allowed it to be reprinted in the controlled Soviet press.
This was a complete turn-around of the usual jamming of United States fed broadcasts of Radio Free Europe. What did JFK say that made Khrushchev so responsive? It was primarily these words of Kennedy:
No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements – - in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.
Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique, among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland – - a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of Chicago…
So, let us not be blind to our differences – - but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.
So what was the result of this speech as far as communicating with a difficult adversary? A dialogue was established and the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed in August that summer by the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom.
Do you see any lessons to be learned from JFK’s speech? I do. He recognized not only the strengths of the Russian people, but also acknowledged their suffering. In essence, he showed to them and the world that he didn’t see them as demons, but as human beings. And he focused on what the two countries had in common-that we all inhabit this planet, that we all breathe the same air, we cherish our children’s future, and that we are all mortal.
Instead of antagonism and threats, it was a speech of compassion. It was a step towards oneness. Whenever we can accomplish that, divisions become weaker and dialog becomes stronger. Communication can take place and succeed in ways we never thought possible.
