Difficult Conversations: holding the room when stakes are high

Patterson et al.'s published taxonomy of how people leave the pool of shared meaning under stress. Silence (masking, avoiding, withdrawing) keeps information out of the pool by holding back. Violence (controlling, labeling, attacking) keeps information out of the pool by forcing your view in and crowding others out. Both feel justified from inside, and both produce the same result: less shared meaning, worse decisions.