Unlocking the Superpower of Shouting "Bananas!"

We've all experienced it.

You're in a conversation. Maybe it's at work, maybe it's a personal conversation. Wherever it is, it's not going well. Tensions are rising, and as your blood pressure increases, it's more and more difficult to maintain a cordial tone. You're not an angry person, but the situation is getting more and more hostile.

The person you're talking to...they...just...AREN'T...GETTING...IT. How can they be so dense? Why can't they just understand? What are they even talking about?

You can feel in your bones that the conversation has turned, and you just don't know what to do about it.

Bananas. Bananas are the answer.

Earlier this year, I was working with a small business and found that in a lot of circumstances, the challenges they were working through were causing their communication to collapse. They would start talking about an important issue, and the conversation would start to devolve. If agreement wasn't quickly reached, the conversation would morph into a debate over longstanding sacred cows or a host of other unproductive topics. Tempers would flare, and the end result was that everyone would get angry, and nothing would be done.

When we started talking, I introduced them to bananas.

I know, you're wondering what bananas have to do with bad conversations. We're not talking about the fruit, we're just talking about the word bananas.

Negative conversations can get into a downward spiral, where the participants can feel the conversation careening out of control but they don't know how to stop it. Their emotions start getting triggered, and they can't shift to a positive mindset that will enable a constructive resolution of whatever issue is on the table.

What they need is a way to pause the conversation, to acknowledge the downward spiral, to reset. What they need is a banana.

In the context of the small business, I told them all about bananas. I said that whenever any of them felt the conversation going south, if they couldn't turn it around quickly, they should say "bananas." The ground rules were simple: when anyone called bananas, they had to take a pause--take a few minutes away from the conversation, evaluate what they were doing and how they were interacting, and try to shift to a more constructive mindset. They all had to agree to honor the bananas rule; when anyone called out this term, they wouldn't disagree or critique it. They thought I was crazy, but they agreed to try it.

In the first week after we talked about it, one of the employees called bananas in a conversation that was going south. Another employee who was in the conversation called me shortly after, to tell me--rather excitedly--that it worked. Taking a few minute pause allowed everyone to recognize that they were getting into a negative pattern. That allowed them to stop the negative pattern. The person who was brave enough to say bananas the first time was announcing that they weren't comfortable with the discussion. The other participant in that conversation received immediate, clear feedback that the person they were talking to was uncomfortable. (And ultimately, they later determined that everyone in the conversation was uncomfortable and unhappy with the direction that the talk had gone, not just the person who called bananas).

The word bananas is a non-sequitur. A non-sequitur is a statement that doesn't logically follow from the previous discussion. You could use any word--the point is to have a word that is a bit jarring, that stops the conversation. Saying "bananas" is a lot easier than saying, "Hey, I'm getting inflamed by this conversation and we aren't being productive so let's take a few minutes to calm down and reconsider where we're at, and continue this conversation when we can be more productive and considerate." But functionally, that's what we mean when we say bananas.

In the first few weeks, bananas was used a lot. It paused a lot of conversations. At first, that seemed really inefficient--was this enabling progress, or was it just making debates take longer?

Over time, it enabled major advances in the communication patterns at the business. The ability to call bananas encouraged people to be more thoughtful and aware of their communication patterns. The willingness to respect when someone called bananas, to pause the conversation and reduce tensions, helped restore trust. At times, a call of bananas even caused people to laugh--to instantly reduce the tension in the room. When you return from the bananas pause, you're aware that the previous conversation stopped because it was getting tense, and hopefully you're in a more positive mindset--focused on resolution and collaboration.

The major advance came when the coworkers could stop saying bananas (or at least say it less often). Because they were becoming more conscious of their tone and conversation patterns, because they were building an atmosphere of respectful communication, and because they were repeatedly reinforcing trust in their relationships, they started modeling more respectful communication all of the time. They started being able to verbalize how interactions were going, and redirect conversations in a more positive direction without having to take a pause.

So the ability to call bananas in a group that understands what you're doing and has agreed to the ground rules--it can be an incredibly powerful tool to help reestablish positive communication norms in that group. But what about outside of groups that know the ground rules? What happens when you are getting into a downward spiral discussion with someone outside your group, who doesn't know the rules?

In that context, shouting out "bananas" doesn't make a ton of sense. But you can still use the rule.

Excuse yourself from the conversation--force the pause. When you feel the urge to say bananas come on, use a more professional way of calling bananas.

"I'm sorry--I really want to continue this conversation but I'm afraid I have to call you back in 10 minutes. I will call you then."

If someone challenges you on the pause, be firm but polite. If they're asking why you need a pause, tell them that you have a personal issue you have to address imminently. (They'll probably think you have to go to the bathroom).

You can use the pause to reset your comms, and to think about how to support a better conversation with the person you're talking to. Hopefully, they calm down a bit as well. When you reinitiate the conversation, you can even call out the elephant in the room.

"I'm sorry I had to step away for a minute. But honestly, things were getting a little tense, so maybe it's good we had a minute to pause. I'd love to talk through the rest of this with you. Are you ready to find a good outcome?"

Note that in learning negotiation, there are some who teach hardball tactics suggesting that backing someone into the ropes can be an effective way of increasing your bargaining power. Using "bananas" to pause a conversation that's in a downward spiral can be an equally effective tool to defang someone's forced hostility or aggression.

Give it a shot. If you have people that you regularly communicate with and things are often getting tense, explain the bananas rule and try it. Or try it on your own--empower yourself to stop conversations that are going south, and use that pause to reframe your thoughts and point things back in a positive direction.

BANANAS!