Getting to grips with Difficult Conversations

Elif Shafak argued recently in The Guardian that in Britain we no longer dare to talk about difficult things. The Bath Inter Faith Group (IFG) feels the same.

Globally nationally and locally the reality seems to be that we fail to have effective conversation whether about climate change, inequality, Brexit, Russia and Nato, Israel/Palestine, gender and sex equality, immigration, the rising tide of hatred and intolerance and a host of petty domestic matters from relationships to house chores.

We’ve let ourselves become divided, labelled and locked in opposition. Ideally we’d broach difficult topics with courage and care, listen respectfully even to people we disagree with, accept the complexity of other peoples’ life experiences and views and manage to enlighten each other without causing undue hurt or conflict.

To tackle that locally Bath IFG decided to commission our own Difficult Conversations training. We worked with the highly charismatic and energising Exeter-based Methodist Minister Leon Dundas, who already does courses for Wodebrook College. This was really immediate and stimulating session. Guyana-born Leon Dundas grew up in a society of many faiths and cultures, as well as the legacy of colonialism and enslavement. He speaks powerfully about privilege, power, justice and restitution, building bridges with radical inclusiveness across faith and cultural divides.

This took more the form of an energetic talk with participation. To summarise thoorougholy what he said would make for a proper long-format article. It’s the start of work we plan to continue. But Leon set out some problems to avoid such as

Assumptions: you need to be explicit. There are so many possibilities for misunderstanding
blame culture, because it puts peoples’ back up. Move towards accountability
Instead of relying on single stories about the lives of others tell the truth about yourself
Interrupting: just don’t
God-statements; don’t assume your view is the only one.
labelling or “othering”

Leon also used innovative techniques to energise and bind us all online. We ended up singing

Identify the problem
Focus on the problem
Attack the problem and not the person
Listen with an open mind
Treat their feelings with respect
Take responsibility

In summary: broaching difficult conversations is hard. It’s something we avoid, or do badly. But it’s terribly important: the more you look at our challenges local national or global the more our inability to have difficult conversations looms as a recurrent theme. But there are techniques, and there are people who are good at it. So let’s learn, and start to try to put those lessons into practice. Bath IFG is just doing post-event survey and review. It’s very likely we’ll come back to this work.