Coding, Managing and Christianity

Facebook ruined my day

Not really. It was more like me ruining my own day. About half an hour into driving our son back to Montreal for his final semester my wife suggested to use Facebook messenger for family chats instead of WhatsApp. She didn’t even finish her sentence and I blurted out “No way!” In a split second a friendly chat turned into a crucial conversation. One, I must say, I didn’t handle well.

I rarely use my Facebook account and have thought several times that I should cancel it but never seem to get around to it. I understand that I pay for many free services with my personal data, that then gets analyzed, repackaged, and sold. There are several services where this is perfectly OK because I get fair value in return, such as Google calendar or LinkedIn. At Facebook the scale is totally tipped onto their side. They get a very complete picture of who my friends and family are, my demographics (age, family status, race), what I like and don’t like, and even bio-metric markers of my face in pictures. What do I get in return? - Text messaging and the ability to see what others are up to. That doesn’t not seem like a fair deal to me.

Back to the conversation in the car. Crucial conversations are conversations where the outcome matters. It is also the title of a book from Kerry Patterson at Amazon and practically all following thoughts have their origin there. One sentences in the summary says it well: “Ironically, the more crucial the conversation, the less likely we are to handle it well” [Patterson, Pg 17]. Such conversations often cause stress or fear. These are natural reactions and we have built-in fight-or-flight instincts that trigger the release of Adrenalin. The body’s physiological response is to increase blood flow to important muscle groups while reducing supply to none-essential organs, such as the logical-thinking parts of our brain. We operate on half our brain. Ever wondered why you couldn’t remember even half of what was said in a heated argument, or responded with “I would never say something so stupid” when someone told you? This is why.

The same thing happened in the car. My wife expressed that she didn’t feel considered and shut down. I reacted with anger first and then with drawing back. Not the way to do it. Even after I blurted out “No way!” there would have been plenty of opportunity to salvage the conversation and make it a productive interaction. So here is what I should have done.

1. Get a hold of the stories I tell myself and master them to get my aggravation under control - She isn’t saying that I’m an inconsiderate, selfish husband. She only said she didn’t feel considered by my outburst.

2. Apologize for my outburst and made it clear that I that her opinion and concerns are important to me.

3. Ask, trying to understand what her objectives and motivations are, by using active listening (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening) - Having a way to communicate as a family that works reliably without yet another IM program.

4. Realize what my objectives and concerns are - Have a reliable way to communicate as a family without giving more personal data away.

5. Establish a common ground and work together on a solution - We both want a reliable way to text as a family. Start brainstorming other solutions.

Kerry Patterson calls these steps “Make it safe,” “Master my stories,” “State my path,” and “Explore other paths”. He discusses them in detail with many good ideas worth remembering. “Master my stories” is something I often forget. When something happens, such as someone saying something, the first, subconscious response is that I create a story that interprets the event. This story determines how I feel about the event and the feeling largely determines how I react. The event is totally outside of my control, but I can influence how I feel and react in response to it, by managing the story I tell myself.

As I said in the beginning, I didn’t handle this one well, but there is always another time where I can do it better. I now what is need and getting in the habit of applying it comes with practice. There will always be set backs, but it will get better over time, as long as keep trying.