You will produce a written account of a real conflict told fairly from the other person's point of view.
Everyone tells their own conflicts in the same shape. You were reasonable, they were difficult, and the facts that make you look bad somehow drop out of the story. Nobody is lying when this happens, because memory simply keeps the parts that fit the version you already believe.
This exercise breaks that shape on purpose. You will write a real conflict from the other person's side, in the first person, as if you were them. It takes about 25 minutes, and it pulls together everything in module 4: understanding over feeling from lesson 4.1, the three perspective questions from lesson 4.2, and the feelings and needs from lesson 4.3.
Pick a conflict that is current or recent and still matters to you. It should be one where you still feel some heat when you think about it, because that is where your own version is most likely to be one-sided. A disagreement you have already resolved and forgotten will not teach you much.
It can be at work or at home. Many people choose a colleague, a manager or a client. Some choose a family member, which is often harder and more useful.
Siew Ling chose the sprint review with Ravi.
Before you write a word in their voice, spend five minutes on notes. Answer the three questions from lesson 4.2 for this conflict: the pressures they are under, what they know that you do not, and what a reasonable, decent person in their position would be trying to do. Then guess their feelings and needs, using the vocabulary from lesson 2.3 and the needs from lesson 4.3.
Finally, find at least one thing you did that made sense from your side but looked bad from theirs. This is the hardest part of the exercise and the most important. If you cannot find one, you have not looked hard enough. Almost every real conflict has at least one.
Siew Ling's was clear once she looked. She had agreed the client's second scope change on a call and only told Ravi's team three days later, in a ticket, without a conversation. She had seen that as efficient, while from where Ravi sat it looked like she did not think his team's view mattered.
Now write about 300 words in the first person, as the other person, using "I" for them and "she" or "he" for you. Cover what they saw, what they felt and what they needed, in the kind of words they would actually use rather than a polished version of them.
Do not make them a saint. The goal is a fair account, the one they would recognise and sign. If they did something wrong, they can admit it in their own way, as most people would when describing an event honestly.
Here is the opening of Siew Ling's version, written as Ravi.
"This month has been the worst of the year. My team worked two weekends, and my director told me to stop the overtime. We are one developer short. Then I find out from the client, not from Siew Ling, that there's a launch date. I'd already flagged in chat that the timeline was risky. She sent a thumbs up and that was it.
Then the client asks for a change to the payment flow, which Siew Ling agrees to on a call. I hear about it three days later in a ticket. That change alone is a week of work and a security review. Nobody asked me. I felt like my team was being treated as a machine you feed requests into.
By the sprint review I was angry and tired. I said it in front of her director because the private route hadn't worked. I probably shouldn't have said it like that. But I needed someone to hear that the dates and the scope were being set without us."
Her full version continued for another hundred words or so, ending with what Ravi wanted: to be in the room when scope changes were agreed, and a realistic date set after that.
Ask a neutral friend to read it. Neutral means someone who does not know the other person and has not already heard your side at length. Ask one question: "Does this sound fair to them, or does it sound like me pretending to be them?"
Listen for two common problems. One is the strawman, where the account is technically in their voice but makes them sound petty or foolish. The other is the hidden defence, where the account keeps explaining why you were right, as though they had written a confession.
Siew Ling's friend said the first draft had one hidden defence: a line where "Ravi" said he understood why she had to agree to the change quickly. She cut it. Ravi would never have said that, and it was her own excuse slipping in.
A finished account is around 300 words in the first person as the other party. It includes what they saw, what they felt and what they needed, and at least one thing you did that looked bad from their side. Someone neutral has read it and called it fair. Underneath, you have written one sentence about something you now understand that you missed before.
Siew Ling's sentence was: "I thought the problem was the date, and it was really that his team had no say in the scope." That sentence became the starting point for her next conversation with Ravi, about how scope changes would be agreed from then on.
Choose your conflict now, while one is on your mind, and give yourself the full 25 minutes for the activity below.
Write a 300-word account of the conflict from the other person's side and note one thing you now understand that you missed before.
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