Getting past a communication Impasse

What do you do when you have a communication impasse with someone?

Arun, Sarva & Srini were colleagues whom I have worked with and have known them for at least a year or more. It's been a hard year for me and I working with them didn't seem to be easy either. The language itself seems very accusing. They could not get what they were looking for in me and I could not get what i was looking for in them.

My last experience saw with Arun, Arun's way of leading has been surprising, for some reasons he feels intimidation, dis-respect and mocking people is the best way. Srini on the other hand believed in micro managing and absolute dictator like attitude without the ability to own. Sarva, I am still to figure out why we could never connect I was performing well doing what I should or so I believed.

All these experience has taken me aback, hurt and questioning my own ability to manage the relations better. I haven't been able to get some of the bickering and pointless, mindless conversations out of my head. Why was it happening to me? I've always believed that if I simply talk things through with someone I can resolve any issue but I have not be able to articulate my words in a very polished manner. Mostly due to immaturity, emotional outbursts and inexperience.

Intellectually, I understand managing business expectation & managing teams are highly emotional, very strained, and extremely difficult job. In that light, my question about their behavior seemed trivial and out of place. But emotionally it felt like a betrayal by all. And it left me wondering: Now what?

I could try to talk with them about it again. But I was pretty sure it would go the same way and I would leave feeling more hurt. I could go around talking to other people about them, getting their perspective, complaining. But that's not who I want to be. I could write them off completely. We live in a small world and in this fast paced life its only getting smaller. I don't want to get that rush of negative adrenaline every time we were in the same room. And anyway, do I really want to write off everyone whose actions hurt me? I'm sensitive; I might end up alone. Finally, and perhaps most important, I really want to work and work to get the best out of me.

My mother is surrounded by people who love her. Recently she told me she was going out with someone who had, quite literally, betrayed her; he went behind her back to buy a rare item that had been promised to her. The seller maintained his commitment to my mother and my mother maintained her relationship with both the seller and the betrayer. How was she able to get over it?

"I know what to expect from him," she told me of her betrayer. "That's the kind of person he is."

"Did you ever talk to him about it?" I asked her.

"No," she said, "Why should I? It wouldn't make a difference. I'm not going to change him. And talking about it won't change the situation."

"But how can you still spend time with him? Don't you get angry when you see him?"

"I'm too tired to be angry every time someone does something I don't like. And I don't want to be alienated from everyone. I enjoy him for his other attributes. But I know what to expect from him."

My mother's insight is profound. Her advice?

Live with it.

Their response isn't about me, it's about them, and I'm living in the space between never speaking to him again and trying to fix things by speaking to them. That space is called accepting people as they are.

Their response informs me about them. They have their own reputation for snapping at people and for using anger to intimidate and avoid. It's just that I would never appreciate it directed towards me. It's a part of their character. They may change but I'm not counting on it. My interaction with them offered me data. Data that tells me more about what I should expect from them in the future and choose whether this is the best way forward.

But snapping at me isn't all I should expect from them. And knowing that lets me appreciate the parts of them I like without becoming distracted by the parts I don't. It lets me accept them fully for who they are, without illusion. And it keeps me safe.

No hurt. No anger. No avoidance. No passive-aggressive comeback. Just acceptance of the situation and of them.

Will my relationship with them be more superficial from now on? I am sure it would. But I'm going to try hard not to let it. People are imperfect. That includes my mother's betrayer, it includes them, and it also includes me.

Which makes it all the more important not to write them off. If I did, then I'd end up writing myself off too. Accepting their imperfection and limitations enables me to accept my own.

Which now includes the realization that no matter how good I think I am at communicating, there are some situations I can't resolve with more communication.

***This was an article published by Harvard Business Review and I found it so relevant to my experience, i wanted to capture it with my own experience and see things differently..