You will prepare a full conversation plan, rehearse it with a partner, hold the real conversation and review it.
Most people have one conversation they have been carrying around for weeks or months. The colleague whose work keeps landing on your desk. The manager who keeps moving your deadlines. The friend who still has not paid back their share of the holiday, say S$800. You have rehearsed it in the shower and on the bus. You have not had it.
This project is where you finally do. Over the next two weeks you will put module 6 together into one plan, rehearse it with a partner, hold the real conversation, and write a short review. Set aside about 45 minutes for the plan and the rehearsal, plus the conversation itself.
Pick one real conversation you have been putting off. It should matter to you, involve someone you will keep dealing with, and be something you can raise within the next two weeks. Avoid the hardest conversation of your life for a first attempt. Something with moderate stakes, where the relationship matters, is ideal.
The finished project has three parts: a written conversation plan, one rehearsal with a partner, and a half-page review written after the real conversation.
The plan covers seven things, in the order you will use them.
The facts: two or three things a camera would have recorded, from lesson 6.1. Your story: the conclusion you have drawn, softened into something you can say tentatively. The shared purpose: what you both want, from lesson 6.2. Your opening line, with one contrast statement in it. Your view: the facts and story in no more than five sentences, from lesson 6.3. Your question: the genuine question that ends your view. Your request: specific, doable, positive, and honest about whether a no is acceptable, from lesson 6.4.
Add two more lines that are not part of what you will say. One is your if-then plan from lesson 3.4, Write if-then plans for your top triggers, for the moment you are most likely to lose your footing. The other is your best guess at the other person's view, using the three questions from lesson 4.2.
Here is a condensed version of Jia Hui's plan for her conversation with Ben. Facts: his section came in on the 7th, 8th and 6th; she stayed until nine twice. Story: maybe the report isn't a priority for him. Purpose: the report out on time without either of them getting buried. Contrast: "I'm not saying you're not pulling your weight." Question: "How does it look from your side?" Request: section by the 4th, or a message by the 2nd if it is at risk; a no is acceptable. If-then: "If Ben gets defensive, then I will stop, repeat the purpose and wait." His likely view: buried in the client project and unaware of the cost to her.
Ask a friend, partner or trusted colleague to play the other person. Brief them in a couple of minutes on who the person is and how they tend to react. Then run the conversation from your opening line to your request, out loud.
Ask your partner to include the reaction you fear most. If you are dreading tears, anger, silence or a cold "fine, whatever", ask them to give you exactly that at some point. The purpose of rehearsal is to practise staying steady when the conversation goes off script, and you cannot practise that if your partner is kind throughout.
Jia Hui rehearsed with her partner over dinner. She asked him to play Ben as defensive. At the line "the timing of your section keeps leaving me stuck", he snapped, "Well, I didn't ask to be on the client project." Her first response was to argue. They stopped, she used her if-then plan, and they ran it again. The second time she said, "I know. I'm not trying to make this your fault," and waited. It felt awkward. It also worked.
After the rehearsal, ask your partner one question: where did I sound like I was attacking, and where did I sound vague? Change those lines.
Choose deliberately. Private, so neither of you has an audience, which matters more in teams where face is at stake, as lesson 5.3 explained. Unhurried, so you have at least twenty minutes and nobody is watching the clock. And not at the end of a bad day, theirs or yours. A quick check of their calendar, or a simple "are you free for a coffee on Thursday morning?", is worth the effort.
Jia Hui asked Ben for a coffee at 10am on a Tuesday, a week before the next report was due. Not at the end of the month, when they would both be stressed, and not on a call, where it would be harder to read each other.
Hold the real conversation within two weeks of writing your plan. Leave the paper at your desk and carry the plan in your head. If the conversation goes somewhere unexpected, follow it. The plan is preparation, and the other person's answers matter more than your script.
The same day, write a half-page review with three parts: what went as planned, what surprised you, and what you would change next time.
Jia Hui's review noted that the opening went as planned and that Ben did get defensive once, briefly, which she handled. The surprise was their manager's "some flexibility" message, which she had not known about. Next time, she wrote, she would raise it after the first late month instead of waiting for the third.
A finished project has a written plan covering all seven parts plus your if-then plan and guess at their view, a note that you rehearsed it with someone who played your feared reaction, and a half-page review written within a day of the real conversation. The conversation does not need to have gone perfectly. It needs to have happened, and you need to have learned something from it.
Choose your conversation now, and put a date on it before you start the activity below.
Complete the conversation plan, rehearse it once, hold the real conversation within two weeks, and write a half-page review.
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