Challenging Conversations

As leaders, we will need to have many different challenging conversations. The more we practice these conversations, the easier they become. Having these conversations in your everyday life will enable you to have better conversations in the workplace. When we know we have a challenging conversation coming up, it is helpful to prepare your mindset, reflect on what you want to say and plan out the conversation in your mind before speaking or putting it in writing. It’s important to focus on the task, outcome or work and not the person. Focusing on what happened, rather than the feelings/emotion attached to the person or situation. It’s important to remove the emotion and focus on the task/outcome.

It’s important to refer to tangible examples such as feedback, discussions, productivity or data to support your discussion. This enable you to focus on the what and then you can discuss the why, and work together to put together a plan to help with areas of improvement. When we can collaborate with our teams and work together to achieve the common goal(s), it ensures we reach them faster. It’s important to understand your purpose. Is it an issue that needs to be raised or is it something you can observe for a little while. Think about what can be accomplished by having the conversation. It helps to focus on shifting your stance as a leader to support learning, sharing and problem-solving. When raising a difficult issue, it helps to approach it as if a neutral party is observing and leading the conversation. It helps to describe what has happened and to include both viewpoints as part of the discussion. This allows you to create a whole picture and you’re willing to work through the situation together.

Actively listening to the other person’s viewpoint is important. Ensure you are framing the conversation around the truth. It’s important to reframe any assumptions, misunderstandings, accusations and feelings. As humans, we’re messy due to emotions which can get in the way of talking through challenging situations. When we understand feedback is to hep you improve, then we understand that these challenging conversations are beneficial for us and others. These challenging conversations often happen because previously, a better conversation didn’t. Being proactive and nipping things in the bud, will help prevent issues from escalating and reduce the need for performance management. When we provide feedback in order to help our team improve, they understand where there areas of improvement are and how they can get to the final outcome. This contributes to the overall team’s effectiveness and productivity. When we allow our people to shine, it reflects positively on us as leaders. As leaders, it is our role to create new leaders. Think about challenging conversations you have had or avoided – how can you improve them to promote psychological safety at work and help avoid triggering the fight/flight response?