“Can you pause the recording?”

OFC, I replied.

We were mid Coaching Clinic — implementation sessions held after workshops where participants get real one-on-one feedback — when the request came in.

Turns out the requester knew where the conversation was about to go, and as she privately messaged me, shared, “This is about someone on the team…I don’t want them to see the recording.”

It made sense at the time — or as much sense as things can make when I’m trying to give undivided attention to the coachee while reading chat messages. (Multitasking is a lie.)

Later, it struck me. Wait, is someone going to have the conversation WITH this person about their behavior? The rest of the team on the call knew precisely what the situation was and who the perpetrator was, and everyone spent time discussing this scenario…but we had to pause the tape so the person who was exhibiting the bad behavior wouldn’t hear about it?

It made no sense.

It happens ALL THE TIME.

We talk about the person instead of to the person. Everyone on the team has an opinion about the situation. There is energy in getting thoughts and feedback and discussing and processing and ruminating and stressing and being aggrevated about the behavior and consequences.

So much energy used. So much capacity taken. So much exhaustion.

And the behavior persists!

Because we are not having direct conversations with the person.

The reasons we don’t are multiple–pick your poison: I’m afraid of how they’ll respond. I’ve already talked to them about it once and they didn’t change. I don’t like them. I don’t want to seem mean. They won’t listen. I don’t want to hurt their feelings (not thinking about the impact their behavior is having on all of your feelings…) And on and on and on…

To be clear, I’m not saying that having conversations through watching a recording is a way to confront a conversation. First, if the person is not aware of the offending behavior, chances are they aren’t going to self-identify in watching the video.

Second, who actually watches the recordings? 😉

The solution: we have to engage in conversations.

You engage and tell them, directly, that what they are doing isn’t working for  you. The impact it’s having. How it’s making you feel. Then you tell them what you need from them objectively and clearly.

I guess the point of the session was to learn how to talk to people about these things…so if they already knew how, we wouldn’t be there…

That pause-the-recording request snuck up on me as a way to avoid these conversations.

Who are you avoiding? What conversations are you putting off? What sneaky ways are you hiding behind/making up/not realizing that are stopping you from talking to the person instead of about the person?

The convo might not be easy. It might not be a one-and-done. However, when you engage in these conversations, chances are REALLY HIGH that the emotional exhaustion, rumination, wasted time, wasted energy, wasted bandwidth, and wasted breath will come to an end.

And you can back to working on the fun stuff.