When it comes to having tough conversations with a spouse, friend, fellow believer, or co-worker, some are willing to sail right into the storm and throw everything on the table. Others, by contrast, are terrified in approaching any discussion that’s remotely uncomfortable. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, God’s Word gives clear principles to guide our hearts and words as we prepare for difficult talks. 

 

In this podcast, Scott Brown and Jason, joined by guest Taylor Tsantles, discuss these principles. The first is to love sincerely from the heart. We should strive to have this relationship equity with others, even before challenges arise. This will help smooth the way when tough conversations are necessary, because they know we care about them as a person. The second is to avoid harmful communication patterns such as using harsh words or tones, refusing to listen, and trying to force outcomes. We should instead be filled with the Spirit and be on a mission to bless—even when sharing hard truths.  

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Hey, we're going to talk about having conversations, tough conversations, consequential conversations, where emotions are involved and all that kind of stuff in your family, in your church, and in the workplace. And We've got a really neat guest who's doing all these things in a really good way. Hope you enjoy the conversation. Well, Jason, we have Taylor Santles to talk about having tough conversations.

How about that? I'm glad. I'm glad we're here. It's a worthy topic and we've both known Taylor for a long time. A long time since he was nearly a baby, not quite a baby.

Taylor was actually one of the first interns around here at age 13. OK, he's not 13 anymore. No. But we've had a lot. We've had a great time walking together through life with Taylor.

You go to your his pastor, You're like, you go to church with him. Right. And he, and he, and I used to be his pastor before we planted that church. Right. But anyway, so Taylor sent Taylor, welcome to the podcast.

Yeah. Taylor is the CEO of a design company called Steadfast Design. And he actually married my daughter, you know? She's being treated like such a princess. I'm so.

Anyway, so, Okay, why are we doing this? We're doing this because we want to talk about having tough conversations in the workplace, but I want to frame this whole discussion. This really came out of a book that I've recently written called When Talking Gets Tough, How to Have Important Conversations. And I wrote this book because started out while I was writing a book on the government of the tongue, but, I started talking about it publicly, particularly in marriage situations and marriage conferences, because over the years, it's a quick learn to know that a lot of couples don't know how to talk. That is a marriage skill.

That's a marriage skill. And so many people, you know, they're just, they're, they're driven into isolation because they never learned how to talk. So I started giving this kind of stuff from scripture at marriage conferences. Then we were doing a singles conference when you're at Ridgecrest. And I'm realizing a lot of these young people are having difficulty talking to their parents about changes that are there or maybe modifications of their views and things like that.

And, and the children haven't been really trained how to talk and they're not helping. And the parents are in the same boat. And so, you know, learning how to have tough conversations. Well, it's kind of easy if you have the Bible because the Bible spins it all out. So I wrote this book when talking gets tough, but because one of the most important things you ever do is to learn how to talk.

And parents need to teach their children when they're really young how to talk. So anyway, Taylor, I know that you've had lots of tough conversations, redemptive conversations. I've always appreciated the way you've handled difficult conversations. So that's why we're here, to talk about some of the principles in this book and also how they might apply. So Taylor, how have you processed the biblical principles, you know, in your own business?

No, it's a great, as you've said, it's an incredible topic and the tentacles are broad in terms of what communication, what the tongue and governing the tongue touches in our lives. So you mentioned the family, you mentioned marriage, and I have the opportunity to lead a team. And so there are actions and things that you model through your behavior, but there are also words and words that count and matter and how you relate to people and lead people. And we've had many great conversations about that. And I think as I read through many of the points in your book, you mentioned obviously some of the landmines to avoid and approaching tough conversations.

And then I love how you touch on what are the biblical principles for how we approach those and some of the things that you do preparing for that. For me, in thinking about our podcast today, I wanted to back up one step from that. And that's, I think, how do we think about, with the people under the sphere of our influence and leadership, how do we think about our relationships with them and the biblical principles of love and sincerity that can even help lead to some of those critical conversations that we have with people. I think of it as a bank account. And for the people on my team, am I investing in them in a way that is sincere, in a way that shows I have your best interest at heart?

This is just the biblical principle of love your neighbor. Is that clear and demonstrated through my day-to-day action so that when we approach those rocky periods, they know this is someone who has the best for me in mind, who is wanting the best outcome for this particular situation. And while I can't always control that, they know the place from which it comes. There's a couple of verses on this that I think stood out to me. Romans 12, 9 says, let love be sincere.

Biblically, your love is demonstrated, obviously, through what we do, but also through sincerity. And people know whether you're selfish in your motives, especially in the workplace. Hey, am I building my empire? Are you just a cog in the wheel? Or I want to see someone come here and I want to see them develop and grow in their character and in their skills.

So sincerity is a big part of that. In 1 Peter 1, 22, this is talking more about the body of Christ, but it says, love one another from the heart. And so everything, and we know this about the Christian life, flows from the heart. And so, I think in leadership positions and in approaching tough conversations, we ought to have the sort of relationships with people where they know where we stand in relation to them, and that's that we care for them, we have their best interest in mind, and that we're driven by this biblical principle of love and sincerity. So that's the precursor, I think.

If you don't start with that and your account's in the red, going into some tough conversation... And listen, it's not always in your control. The more people you have to manage, the more people you're connected with, your account may just end up being, you know, your account may be in the red, and you may need to sail into a difficult conversation. But if you can be prepared biblically and have that model of love and sincerity, I think it helps a lot moving into those. You know, in the book I talk, I list, I think, 19 unprofitable ways to have a conversation.

And it's, they're the fastest ways to blow up that capital, right? And frankly, I've used every one of these, you know, I've, I violated every biblical principle of conversation, you know, and, but, you know, here, here's some of them, here's some of the ways to, to blow up the capital and not allow, you know, a a really profitable conversation. Interrupt the other person mid-sentence. Abruptly contradict them. Presume you understand what they're saying.

Focus on winning. The minute you start with focusing on winning, you've lost the conversation. Make threats, name call, discredit, label, objectify, blame, all these, these are the kinds of really unprofitable but natural communication patterns that we have. Right. Yeah, and I think you'll find, you know, depending on your personality and bent, there are different ways people approach things like this.

There are the people who are willing to sail right into the storm and throw everything on the table, and you may have to dial that back in some instances and learn patterns of love and grace and care for people in that. And then there are other people who are terrified of approaching anything that's remotely uncomfortable. And we're all going to fall on different areas in that spectrum, but the Bible has to guide and direct how we approach these things. And, you know, for me, I think in the workplace especially, some of the most difficult conversations I've had to have are ones that maybe should have happened sooner or maybe, you know, clearer before. And I think you find that the things that you are not willing to address head on are things that are holding you back and holding the person in your care back in a big way.

And so we talk about this principle of the second commandment being love your neighbor and extension of that is Sometimes that is tough love. Sometimes that's being willing to You know sail into the storm a bit and and work through that with them with their best interest at heart, So wherever you fall on that spectrum, one side or the other, you need to be calibrated by the word of God and what it says about these things. So, yeah. So let me give you a proverb. This is Proverbs 15.1, tremendously valuable.

Soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. So what you'll notice about this verse is there's nothing about content. There's nothing about the what you say. It's about how you say it. Is it a soft answer or a harsh word because you get very different results.

You've heard fight or flight, right? So you go into a hard conversation and people are going to have one of these two impulses. What's the ratio? Most people are not wired for fight. Most people are actually dreading hard conversations and they hate the thought of fighting and they would rather just head, head for the door, their flight, which means tone is really, really important because one of the best ways to have a successful hard conversation is to extend it and get it to be long.

And If you put somebody into flight mode, you can't have a long conversation. What's the benefit of a long conversation? It means that you have time to actually get to the bottom of what you actually both mean. A lot of hard conversations go bad because you misinterpret, misunderstand, mischaracterize, And you need a long conversation to get to the bottom. You said this, did you mean this or that?

But when you put somebody in flight mode with a harsh word, and so my problems in hard conversations are when my tone has been bad. I'm typically go into those conversations knowing exactly what I want to say. So I know the substance And I've thought through the substance carefully, but when I've gotten in trouble, it's because the tone has been terrible. The tone has been sinful. And, and when the tone is sinful, no matter what the substance is, people, it can be impossible for people to unhear, unfeel the tone, unhear the tone.

The wrong, the wrong tone erases the right message. And, that's, I think that's really the problem. That's why Proverbs 15, 1 is so critical. It's very interesting. The proverb is, you know, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

And then Solomon says, the tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly. You know, so you have this scene going on in the head of a person, you have knowledge of something, something's going on, it's real. But the tongue of the wise uses that knowledge rightly, you know, with the right tone. And I can't, you know, think of how important it is for children to learn this really early on. Parents need to train their children so that when they get to the teenage years, when they get into their marriages, they actually know how to use tone rightly to be a blessing.

And I think in approaching a conversation in that way, you have to ask what's governing you. You know, the Bible commands us to be governed by the Spirit, right? And the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, all of those things, and that relates directly to our speech. When you're governed by fear, you're going to approach a conversation the wrong way. When you're governed by anger, you're going to approach a conversation the wrong way.

When you're governed by anger, you're going to approach a conversation the wrong way. And so, like you said, and this is where even in my life, my wife's been amazingly helpful to me is know the substance. For me, I write it down. I have to write down exactly what I think. I need to see it 20 different times.

I need to make sure I'm thinking about that clearly. But then in getting to that conversation, my wife's always said, know the facts, know what you want to communicate, communicate it clearly, but speak from your heart. These are people, you know, in most cases, these are people you really, you are, this is not going to be your last interaction with them. Hopefully you're not, not your last interaction with them. And the tone, like you mentioned, and how you approach that is, is going to be in large part how it's received or not.

And so, yeah, completely agree. Great insight and verse on that front. You know, I remember there were times when my son was growing up, that Deborah would come to me and she'd say, Scott, did you, did you know the tone you were speaking to him? She said, she would say something like, you know, you would never talk to somebody like that if he was your friend or somebody from the church, but here you are talking to your son that way. And she would say something like, you know, you're talking to him like he's still five and he's not five anymore.

I thought, oh, there you go. We're talking about tone here. It's really important. Right. So, if you don't mind just shifting to another point in the book, you talked about, you know, controlling outcomes.

I think this is another critical part of tough conversations. And this is something that I've struggled with and approaching many of them is the tendency to want to play God and pretend we're all knowing about how will this be perceived? How will it be received? What is their reaction? What's going, what's the fallout?

What's the, and we can run through And we can run through a million and one scenarios in our head, But this links back to how do we trust God and how much do we value obedience in our life to God out of care for someone else? Are we willing to set aside, here are the five different ways this can play out and how that impacts me or how that impacts them, and be purposeful, yes, and have maybe an objective in mind, but to trust the Lord ultimately with where that goes. I've put off hard conversations asking the what if question before, and I just don't want to encourage people on the podcast if that's and if you have one in your mind the back of your mind right now and you're playing the what-if game you know don't play that game many times the uncomfortable pain or or or even just discomfort associated with a tough conversation is quickly followed by either relief of, yes, this person's heard and we have now something to move forward with or at least resolution around something. So be willing to trust the Lord in that process and not write the story.

Now that ties in perfectly with a couple of phrases from Ephesians chapter four. So I want to give you these two phrases. Ephesians 415 has this phrase that you're very familiar with speaking the truth in love. So sometimes actually the truth can be weaponized and it's, it's not in love at all. People always know it when that's happening.

So the contents of what you're saying is absolutely true, but you're actually using it to needle someone. It's actually an unkindness. So the truth needs to be spoken, but it needs to be spoken in love. But then Ephesians 4.25 says this, therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor for we are members of one another. So it's actually a call to truth telling.

And Taylor, I think that's what you were just saying. Sometimes actually, as a Christian, as a friend, as a help to another person, we actually have an obligation to speak the truth. Sometimes love ought to cover a multitude of sins. You don't speak to anyone about everything that comes across your mind. And that's appropriate.

But sometimes you know in your heart of hearts, you know that you know that you're the person, something needs to be said and you're the person to say it. And so don't try to project outcomes. Like Taylor was just saying, go and speak the truth and love. Yeah. And there's a, there's another side to this.

I talk about in the book, because you can't control the outcome. You can't, you're not in control and you're not a fortune teller. You're not a prophet to know exactly where something's going to go. At the same time, there's, there's, there's another nuance to this. And that is you should set objectives, biblical objectives.

Like, why am I doing this? Well, I'm doing this to gain understanding. I'm doing this for reconciliation. I'm doing this to help that person. So, you know, having those kind, you know, like to say, okay, when we get on the other side of this conversation, here's where I want us to be and pray that way.

Now, it may not turn out that way like you said, because you're not sovereign. And it may cause blow up and it may cause reconciliation and all the improvements that you want, but you don't know, but you got to do it anyway, regardless. You know, I try to identify really life giving patterns. The first one is to prepare your heart when you're getting ready to go into a tough conversation, prepare your heart above all else guard your heart, you know, for in it is the wellspring of life, you know, which is, you know, in Proverbs four 23, but getting your heart ready and then, and then to be on a mission to bless. I think that's part of the objective.

You are on a, you personally are on a mission to bless. Now, it might not be taken as a blessing, but that's your mission. And you've got to get your heart right in that way. So there are a lot of kind of heart preparations that should take place when you're going to go into a tough conversation where there are consequences, where there are emotions, you know, where there are significant impacts and even relational, and possibility relational difficulty possibilities in the conversation. And I will say, you know, sitting on the table between two men who've been privy to some hard conversations I've had to have and have given counsel, seek counsel, you know, be judicious in what you share, especially if this is a close relationship.

But in many contexts, in the work situation in particular, when I'm dealing with a situation that I need to check, you know, the perspective on, and am I seeing this right, or what are the variables involved? Go talk to people who are older and wiser than you, seek their counsel. Sometimes that doesn't even have to be specific. You may not need to name a name. You may need to give the facts of a situation and see what the perspective is, but wage war by a multitude of counselors when appropriate.

And not so that you can bolster your own sense of, okay, I'm rah rah, I'm ready, I've got my opinion right, and I'm gonna go into this. But we don't always see the way we should in these circumstances, and it's very helpful to have your thoughts calibrated by wise counselors. Or people that have had experiences that you haven't with some of these types of situations. You may be navigating something entirely new to you that someone older and wiser has been through 10 different times and may be able to help give some insight. So, you know, one of the most harmful ways that we go into conversations is when we're not really prepared to listen.

But, You know, the best conversations happen when you are prepared to listen. And, you know, that means that we often have to ask questions rather than presume, you know, just to draw someone out. You know, the Bible says that that's what a wise man does. He draws, he draws it out of a person. Have you ever been in a tough conversation and you find yourself wordsmithing your next response?

Oh, What did you just say? I was wordsmithing how I'm going to crane you in my next response. This is not good. Yeah, I think of it as listening to respond and counter instead of listening to truly hear, understand. There's a swordfighter fencing analogy somewhere in there of, okay, what's your next move?

I'm anticipating that so I can counter it. But if that...and that goes back to posture, that goes back to what are we being governed by in that. And the reality is, through the course of a tough conversation, you might be governed by 10 different emotions and feelings ranging from dread to anger to whatever it may be. But be cognizant of that and be prayerful, as you said, that God would govern that and then allow you to listen well and engage well through it. You know, we also, we have these default expressions that we use that are really harmful, you know, inflammatory default expressions, you know, give me a break, you know, are you serious?

You know, what, you know, this type of thing. Those, we have these things that we developed over time that there are no help at all, because all they do is just pour gasoline on the fire. Can I bring up an unusual situation, but also an important situation from Proverbs chapter 9? I'll read Proverbs chapter 9, 7 and 8. He who corrects a scoffer gets shame for himself, and he who rebukes a wicked man only harms himself.

Do not correct a scoffer lest he hate you. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you." So we've been talking a lot about difficult conversations, but the assumption of everything we talked about up to this point is that the person on the other side of the table is a person of goodwill, who's approaching this reasonably and who doesn't hate you. Sometimes the person on the other side of the table is not a person of goodwill and they do hate you. And if you employ the principles that we've to be talking about, you're actually just arming them. So just understand sometimes there is a time for going into a hard conversation prepared to be as innocent as a dove, but as wise as a serpent.

And if all you do is go into that conversation as innocent as a dove, you are going to get eaten alive. So just, you don't want to, I mean, I, I, I say this sort of with trembling because it's not unusual to jump to the conclusion that this is a person of ill will. So you need to have a good reason to have a high level of confidence that this is a person who I would really only be giving ammunition to. But there is that dynamic. It does exist.

Yeah. Okay, Taylor, so give us some parting shots. Okay, we're going to, we're going to leave it to you to, to kind of drop in some of the last principles and applying all this kind of stuff in a corporate environment like you are now. Because you're taking these principles and you've been applying them for a long time and you're applying them today in your business. Okay, for people who are in the workplace.

In the workplace, a couple thoughts is, go into a conversation with specific things, don't paint with a broad brush, don't say, I feel like you're not 100% engaged. What does that mean? What are the, you know, what are some, I'm thinking in the workplace, you, you need to have, and I'm not saying you're building a list of offenses, but you need to have clear examples that you can provide people. Listen, your, your aim is to help them, hopefully. Your aim is either to help them or to make it clear why you have to make a more drastic decision.

And to do that, you need to be incredibly clear about what you're making the decision around. So be clear, give good examples, give current examples. Don't draw from, you know, four years ago and something you failed to address. That's a failure on your part as a leader. The other thing is, there's probably a much better expression for this, but don't be an onion with layers that people have to peel back.

Don't make it difficult for someone to grasp what you're after or what you're trying to say. And be gracious to the person that you're having a tough conversation with and express what you need to in that conversation. Now there are times where judging how a conversation's going, you may say, hey, this piece I'm gonna hold back, but not for the purpose of, okay, I'm going to get you with it in conversation too. It's tough to be on the receiving end of a hard conversation. Be clear in what you need to express.

Communicate everything, obviously with wisdom in that as you're navigating a conversation, but be clear, express what you need to express, frame it as you said with the right tone and in love, and don't go into that if you can help it. Sometimes you can't help it, but especially I'm talking in my context as a boss and as a leader. Don't go into it with zero relational equity. Don't go into it having drained that bank account in a million other ways and in the red and now having to draw from it even more. Invest in your people in a way that demonstrates your posture toward them is one of care, it's one of sincerity, it's one of not selfishness.

I'm amassing this team for my own reputation or for myself. I want to invest in people and see them do well. And there's a good chance in that, if that's the posture you have towards your people, that even you can navigate some of the harder conversations from a healthy place at the start. So those are just things that I've seen. No, that's great.

Hey, a lot of biblical principles underlying everything you said. So man, thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast.

And I hope you can grab this book, When Talking Gets Tough, How to Have Tough Conversations where there's strong opinions and significant outcomes. I hope it's a helpful book, all drawn from the Word of God, and I hope you can join us next time. Strong families and strong churches. If you found this resource helpful, we encourage you to check out ChurchandFamilyLife.com