When “We’ve Talked About This” Isn’t Working
When the behavior continues, the impact changes. Your conversation should too.
Most of us are pretty comfortable with a feedback conversation about a specific, discrete moment.
The missed deadline.
The meeting where someone lost their cool.
The email that was unnecessarily sharp.
The time they went to your boss directly without looping you in.
These are concrete. They feel discussable. You can point to what happened, talk it through, and walk away hoping it won’t happen again.
And sometimes it doesn’t.
But often it does, because the real issue isn’t just that one incident. It’s a blind spot. A habit. A growth edge. A way of operating that keeps showing up across situations.
That’s where a simple diagnostic can help prevent you from getting stuck having the same conversation.
The CPR diagnostic (Content, Pattern, Relationship)
A widely taught framework in the Crucial Conversations/Crucial Accountability tradition is CPR: Content, Pattern, Relationship. It’s a way to identify what kind of conversation you actually need to have when something isn’t improving.
Content (C): The specific instance, what happened once
Pattern (P): The repetition, what’s happening over and over
Relationship (R): The impact on trust, respect, and the ability to work together
The key move is this: As the issue repeats, you often need to change the level of the conversation.
The Content conversation (“This happened.”)
A Content conversation sounds like:
“In yesterday’s meeting, when you interrupted me multiple times, it made it hard to finish my point.” OR
“When you emailed my manager directly about the project without looping me in, I was caught off guard.”
This is where most feedback starts, and it’s often the right place to start. It’s concrete, direct, and it gives the person a chance to adjust.
The Pattern conversation (“This keeps happening.”)
If the same thing happens again, or shows up in a new form, you’re no longer dealing with a one-off. You’re dealing with a pattern.
Now the conversation becomes less about that one moment and more about what is repeating:
“This is the third time you’ve gone directly to my manager without looping me in. I want to zoom out and talk about what’s driving that.”
A lot of people hesitate here because they don’t want to “pile on.” They may choose to focus on one recent example so they don’t sound like they’ve been keeping score.
That’s often well-intended. It can also backfire.
Patterns rarely change just because we talk about one example. Patterns change when we name them as patterns, get curious about what’s driving them, and make a clear agreement about what will change going forward.
The Relationship conversation (“This is affecting trust.”)
Here’s the part many people avoid.
Sometimes, even when the Content and Pattern conversations are handled carefully, the behavior continues. Feedback is dismissed. Nothing shifts. Or the person agrees in the moment and then does the same thing again.
At that point, the problem isn’t only the behavior (or the pattern).
The problem is what the ongoing behavior is doing to the working relationship.
For example, it’s not just that someone keeps looping in your boss without telling you. It’s that after you’ve raised it more than once and they keep doing it anyway, it starts to communicate something bigger:
“Your perspective doesn’t matter.”
“Your request isn’t important.”
“I’m going to do what I want regardless of what we agreed.”
Whether or not that’s their intent, it becomes the impact.
People often say, “I don’t want to make it personal.”
But working together is personal in the way all interdependent relationships are personal.
We’re not robots executing tasks near each other. We rely on each other. We need to be able to trust that what you say is congruent with what you’ll do, and that when something matters to me (as your colleague, manager, or direct report), it matters to you enough to respond.
When that breaks down, you’re no longer just solving a workflow or competency issue. You’re addressing a trust issue.
That’s the R conversation.
A practical frame (Behavior, Pattern, Impact)
To keep CPR grounded, I recommend this simple sequence:
Behavior: What happened?
Pattern: What’s repeating?
Impact: What is this doing, to outcomes and to trust?
In a Relationship conversation, the impact isn’t only operational (e.g., confusion, inefficiency, missed handoffs). It includes relational impact:
Reduced trust
Lowered confidence
Damaged respect
Uncertainty about whether you can rely on this person long-term
This is the moment where leaders (and colleagues) quietly begin telling themselves stories like:
“They don’t care.”
“They’re ignoring me on purpose.”
“They must not want this job.”
Once those stories harden, the path forward gets much narrower. That’s why if you need an R conversation, you usually need it sooner than you think.
How to start an R conversation without being harsh
A Relationship conversation doesn’t have to be dramatic or accusatory. It works best when it’s calm, specific, and direct. Here are a few starter scripts.
Name the gap between agreement and behavior
“We’ve talked about this a few times, and I’ve been clear about what I’m asking for. Since the behavior is continuing, it creates a gap between what you’re saying and what’s happening in practice.”
State the relational impact without mind-reading
“I want to name something harder: when this continues after we’ve discussed it, it starts to affect trust for me. I find myself wondering whether my requests matter to you.”
Say the hard part out loud (without accusing)
“I know this is likely not your intent, but when you do the opposite of what I asked, it makes me feel like you don’t respect our working relationship.”
Put the real question on the table
“I’m trying to understand whether we can work well together long-term if this doesn’t change. I want that to be the case, and I need to see follow-through.”
A simple diagnostic that you need an R conversation
If you keep having the same conversation where you bring a concrete example, you’re clear about what needs to change, and the person leaves the meeting and continues doing the same thing, that’s not a content issue anymore.
That’s data that the working agreement is not holding.
And the longer it goes unaddressed, the more likely you are to interpret it as willful and the focus shifts from problem-solving to conclusions.
An R conversation is often the last best chance to keep the relationship from reaching the point of no return.
What if you have the R conversation and nothing changes?
Sometimes the most clarifying thing you can do is put the full impact on the table, respectfully, clearly, and without threats.
If the pattern continues after that, you have important information. Even when the stakes were made visible, including the natural consequences to trust and the long-term viability of working together, the person still couldn’t or wouldn’t adapt.
At that point, you may be facing an end-of-the-road decision. Those decisions are hard. They’re often harder when there’s lingering inner conflict:
Did I do enough?
Did I say it clearly?
Could I have done something different?
Naming the Relationship impact earlier reduces that uncertainty. It helps you know you were honest about what was happening, and you gave the person a clear opportunity to meet the moment.
A closing question
Do you need a Content conversation, a Pattern conversation, or a Relationship conversation?
And if it’s a Relationship conversation: What do you feel hesitant to say, that the other person needs to understand in order for the relationship to recover?