Balancing Polarities in Difficult Conversations

We balance a lot of different polarities when we have difficult conversations.

Sometimes we need to focus on dialing up assertiveness, risk, and speaking up… but this doesn’t mean that we need to totally let go of empathy, safety and deep listening. We can do both.

These polarities may each be balanced differently at any given moment during a difficult conversation. The trick is to try and do this consciously instead of falling into our regular patterns by default.

What polarities do you balance during difficult conversations?