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July 29, 2025 • 28 mins

How to Start Tough Conversations Without Triggering a Blow Up

📌 Episode Summary
Most leaders avoid difficult conversations—and it’s costing them more than they realize. In this episode of The Business Mechanic Show, Vaughn Sigmon reveals why managers procrastinate tough talks, how silence signals approval of bad behavior, and the exact 3-step framework to handle any hard conversation with clarity, confidence, and calm.

You’ll learn the psychology behind defensiveness, the Gallup data that proves employees want more feedback—not less—and why switching from monologue to dialogue is the key to earning trust and creating lasting behavior change.

Vaughn also shares specific language, real-world scripts, and body language cues to watch for in emotionally charged conversations. Whether you're addressing underperformance, conflict, or broken expectations, this episode gives you the blueprint to lead with impact—not intimidation.

✅ What You’ll Learn

  • Why leaders avoid hard conversations (and how it backfires)
  • The cost of silence: what you allow, you endorse
  • Gallup data on feedback and employee engagement
  • The Jefferson Fisher 3-Step Setup for better conversations
  • Why you must shift from monologue to dialogue
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