One question that seems to come up most when I am working with my leadership clients is how to handle a difficult conversation. We know that communication is crucial for all leaders, but the ability to successfully conduct difficult conversations in the work place can make the difference between success and failure. As a leader it’s your job to share information, provide feedback and deliver important messages. This is simple enough when the message is positive, however when the information could have a negative impact or contains what we perceive to be bad news, the task becomes a bit more complicated and difficult.
In all my years of leadership development and coaching, I have never met a leader who actually enjoys initiating a difficult conversation. Some leaders will actually avoid these interactions as much as possible. These leaders are usually the ones that hate confrontation in all walks of their life and rather than addressing an issue head on, will find all the reasons in the world to procrastinate. Their reasons can range from things like, it’s not the right time or the employee is too valuable or even something like the team just needs to get along. Whatever the reason, this avoidance of difficult conversations can be a costly mistake that leads to persistent performance problems.
While some leaders avoid confrontation, others may enjoy that confrontation and engage in it willingly and forcefully. While they are having the difficult conversations no good is coming from it, there’s no change in behavior or performance, because they are coming across as critical and harsh. Even though this style is one that brings things to the surface, it can lead to other costly issues like employee disengagement, absenteeism or even employee turnover.
Each of the above examples illustrates an extreme way of handling difficult conversations. As a leader, it’s imperative that you learn to have these conversations in a way that surfaces the issues without leaving bodies in your wake. There is a better way to engage in these difficult conversations! While there’s no way to guarantee a particular outcome or reaction from the other party, we can find a better way to manage these conversations. Today I am sharing three tips for handling difficult conversations.
- Identify what’s at stake. If you have a situation where you think a difficult conversation might be in order, take a moment to assess the situation to determine what’s at stake if you don’t have the conversation and what’s at stake if you do have the conversation. Often times, you’ll find that not having the conversation is actually worse than having it.
- Decide on your intention. When entering into a possibly difficult interaction it’s important that you are completely clear in your intention. Think about why you want to have the conversation and what you want to happen as a result of it. Determine the outcomes you want to create and decide how you want to show up in the conversation. Most of the time we don’t intend on showing up passively or showing up aggressively and just by setting your intention, you can help ensure you have the impact you intend.
- Prepare for the conversation. Many times, leaders will prepare a script when they prepare for a difficult conversation because it makes them feel like they have reduced their uncertainty about what might happen. This leads to one-sided conversations. The best way to prepare for the conversation is not to create a script but pursue a dialog (an exchange of viewpoints) with the other person. While a dialog might feel a bit riskier, it does involve a bit of uncertainty and requires a lot of patience, it’s your best bet for getting the outcomes you seek. You can prepare for an effective dialog by doing the following:
- Being transparent about your goals.
- Sharing your observations and testing your thinking without jumping to conclusions.
- Asking questions to better understand.
- Addressing the impact of behaviors.
- Owning your contributions to the problem.
- Making your requests and commitments clear.
No matter what your style, you can successfully navigate difficult conversations. While no difficult conversation is easy or perfect, these three tips will help you engage in these interactions with confidence and grace. If you are interested in learning more about how to handle a difficult conversations, check out Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott or Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler.
