Taking responsibility for your contribution up front prevents the other person from using it as a shield to avoid a discussion of their own contribution.

Focusing on the contributions of both the boss and the assistant – seeking understanding rather than judgment – is critical. This is not just good practice, it accords more closely with reality. As a rule, when things go wrong in human relationships, everyone has contributed in some important way.

It means letting the other person know that what they have said has made an impression on you, that their feelings matter to you, and that you are working to understand them.

When your real goal is finding the dog, fixing the ceiling, and preventing such incidents in the future, focusing on blame is a waste of time. It neither helps you understand the problem looking back, nor helps you fix it going forward.

Of course, in advance, we don’t know what we don’t know. But rather than assuming we already know everything we need to, we should assume that there is important information we don’t have access to. It’s a good bet to be true.

Use questions when you want to learn and statements when you have something to convey. Ultimately it is the combination of assertiveness and inquiry that helps us pool our insights, learn things we didn’t know, and lay the foundation for creative and effective problem solving.

Talking successfully about feelings requires you to be scrupulous about taking the judgments, attributions, and statements of blame out of what you are saying, and putting the statement of feeling in.

The Third Story would remove the judgment from the description, and instead describe the problem as a difference

A significant pattern we’ve observed in our coaching involves the sometimes elusive relationship between the two skills. When people are having a hard time listening, often it is not because they don’t know how to listen well. It is, paradoxically, because they don’t know how to express themselves well. Unexpressed feelings can block the ability to