Difficult Conversations at Work

This movie I chose as an example is “The Other Guys”.

These two detectives are at their office and share a work space. Mark Wahlberg’s character is clearly annoyed at Will Farrell’s characters humming. Wahlberg demeans Farrell in multiple ways by insulting his character, his job responsibilities and calling him names. Wahlberg then walks away and quickly storms back to advise Farrell that he wanted to talk behind his back, but chose not too (not sure if he was trying to apologize in a rude way because of his guilty conscience, or because he was just so upset he wanted to continue giving Farrell a hard time). Farrell remained calm until the second time Wahlberg started the argument; Farrell then gave Wahlberg a taste of his own medicine and basically shut Wahlberg up.

Wahlberg did NOT display effective principles for communicating at all. He displayed a judgmental stance the entire time. He was frustrated and lashed out at Farrell from the beginning. He could have asked him nicely if he could stop humming, and maybe explained that it was distracting (although he was only playing Solitaire). Wahlberg called Farrell a “moron” and blatantly told him that he didn’t like him. He didn’t respect personal space because he was extremely close to Farrell, egging him on to get a reaction. He threatened him and made analogies describing that if they were in the wild he would attack Farrell.

Farrell on the other hand was completely opposite. He was very calm and respectful (up until the end). He took most of what Farrell dished out and was in control of his emotions (very self aware).

One strategy that Wahlberg could have used would be to initiate the conversation in an effect way (as stated earlier). Although, Farrell was willing and did in fact stop humming, that wasn’t enough for Wahlberg as he was already annoyed. Wahlberg could learn to practice self awareness.

Another strategy he could have used would have been to avoid exaggeration. Once he started to exaggerate and create stories is the point where Farrell couldn’t keep his composure any longer. All in all, I believe Wahlberg hit every negative aspect/behavior of difficult conversations, aside from physical assault. His character would benefit from taking a professional communication or organizational behavior class!