Recently, I was perusing the titles in the “Self-Improvement” section of Barnes and Noble for books that had been written on effective communication and conversation. I was surprised to find that some titles described how to have “fierce,” “toxic,” or “difficult” conversations. My first thought was why would I want to hold a conversation that was “fierce,” “toxic,” or even “difficult”? The former two titles would be conversations I would avoid at all costs. And to approach the topic of a “difficult conversation” elicits a degree of reticence and anxiety. Why would I want to engage in a conversation that was difficult if I thought I wouldn’t succeed?
There was another title on the shelf that referred to “courageous conversations.” What if an individual didn’t have “courage”? I couldn’t determine if reading the book would create enough courage to face one’s fear and actually have the conversation. Finally, I came across Crucial Conversations. It dawned on me that not all conversations are “crucial,” yet they still may be extremely important, even though they are not fraught with “strong emotion” and “high stakes.” Outside the marketing hook of the title, I found something was missing. I was disappointed because the content mainly focused on the “explicit” aspect—the specific words used to make the conversation more effective—rather than the “tacit.” I found this to be true of the content in all the works I was reviewing.
Let me explain the difference between the “explicit” and the “tacit” aspects of conversation. Most of us are familiar with the illustration below that was drawn by Leonardo Da Vinci.
Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man