Chapter Summary

Describe the Gap

We ve finished working on ourselves and are now speaking for the first time. Our overall goal is to confront with safety. Rather than leading with unhealthy conclusions or making accusations (both make it unsafe for the other person), we simply describe the gap. From there we listen carefully to see which branch of the model we ll pursue . Is the problem due to motivation, ability or both?

• In this chapter we explored the first words out of our mouth. Our goal has been to make it safer to deal with problems by mastering the critical first moments of a confrontation. We ve suggested the following:

• End with a Question

Additional Resources

To see good and bad examples of describing the gap, visit crucialconfrontations.com/book. There you ll find video exam-ples of how not to start a conversation as well as how to do so effectively.

What s Next?

The other person is about to explain why he or she let you down. This means that you have to know what to do if the other person isn t motivated or isn t able or maybe both. This will take more than a well-crafted sentence or two.