How to have a difficult conversation

In today's episode, I'll walk you through how to have a difficult conversation, including tips for getting it right.

We'll unpack the question, discuss strategies and give you practical tips to take away and apply back with your own team.

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:01):
Welcome to today's episode where we are going to
jump in a leadership questionand pull it apart as we do in
every episode, the focus, givingyou tools and tactics that you
can take away and immediatelyapply back at work. So today's
topic, if you haven't gleamedfrom the title is around how to
have a difficult conversation.
Now, this topic is topical. Butno apologies. It's topical.

(00:26):
Because it's something thatwe're really struggling with, as
a modern culture inorganizations. I think people
with social media have forgottenhow to speak to each other.
We've forgotten how to haverobust debates, let alone
deliver poor information oranswers that people don't like
poor news, poor things, thingsthat are bad or might not be

(00:49):
taken, well, we really strugglewith that. And good kind leaders
are struggling even more. So I'mfinding it normally in the
coaching practice, people arelike, Ah, I don't know if I tell
them that they're not going tobe happy? Or what if they quit?
Or what if the rest of the team,you know, hears that I said
something that I didn't mean tosay, all these doubts creep in.
And but what you're seeing bynot doing it is worse, right? We

(01:12):
don't know how to have healthydebates. We don't know how to
approach these conversations,bad behaviors leach into the
team. And they're like mold,they spread and infect all the
surfaces of everything we do. Sothat poor performer who is
always late, people notice therest of the team notice and they
one of two things will happen.

(01:34):
Either they become disgruntledand unhappy with your leadership
and the fact that you're notmanaging that person. Or they
go, Well, f*ck it, I'll do ittoo. That's obviously the
standard. No one cares if weshow up on time. It's one of the
two, they're either frustrated,or they become apathetic and
drop to that standard. Neitherof those are good situations to

(01:57):
be in because the first reflectsa view of your leadership and
becomes your reputation. Thesecond is an extension of your
your reputation, but alsoaffects the immediate
performance of the rest of theteam, both for poor outcomes,
right. So what are some examplesof bad behaviors you might be
seeing where you go, Oh, this isTravis, as soon as you said

(02:17):
that, that's a conversation Iknow I need to have, but I've
been avoiding. So some commonones. First, tardiness, we've
just spoken about that. But it'sworth mentioning in tardy team
members. Second, poor meetings,meetings that shouldn't be run
the way they're run.
Third, poor performance peoplejust not delivering not being

(02:39):
accountable, not reaching thestandard that's been set.
Forth. This one's really tricky,because these are the first
three you might call it's mostlymy team, I can kind of do it
because there's a bit of a powerdynamic, which is a whole
different episode. But forthcould be peer to peer or person
you report to conversationsaround their behaviors. So what

(02:59):
happens if you've got a anotherdirector, your director, and
there's another director who isbad at their behaviors, they
show up and people getuncomfortable, or they're
aggressive or pushy, you don'thave formal power to tell them,
hey, you must stop doing thisbecause I'm your boss. But
you're not off the hook forhaving that conversation. When I
run difficult conversations,trainings, actually run a

(03:21):
workshop. I built this over theyears I've refined, refined,
refined, and I'd say it's like99.99%, there's, there's like a
comedian, you're always cyclingout some of the jokes. But the
reason I say that is there are alist of behaviors that we talk
about. And one of the casestudies I give them and by case
studies, we don't do like, hey,read this and go figure it out.
It's read this now as a group,you're going to solve this

(03:42):
problem. And you're going tohave an open conversation as if
you're having this exact problemhappening. And I know people go
oh, roleplays, it's not really aroleplay. Because most everyone
has worked with someone who fitsthat exact bill, and I go have
the conversation you would havehad. So they have that
conversation, maybe goes wellmaybe doesn't go that well. And
then I go now have theconversation using this

(04:04):
framework. And that's theframework I'm going to give you
today. Now obviously, as Imentioned, this is a half day
workshop. So it's normally quitebuilt out. There's a lot that
goes into it, I'm reallybuilding you up to understanding
where the pain points are comingfrom, and then helping you
understand how you're drivingthose behaviors and how you're
reinforcing the behaviors whiledoing any of that work today,
but I'm still going to give youthe really specific framework we

(04:27):
use that just helps youarticulate the issue to begin
with, and then start to solveit.
So those are some of theexamples now to throw a bit of
humor into this. If you reallywant to see how effective you
are at being uncomfortable andhaving a conversation. The
classic one I give everyone isthat they get two scenarios both

(04:47):
are really uncomfortable. One isabout attire for the opposite
sex, so you have oppositegender. So someone who is female
or whatever you identify as butsomeone who doesn't dress like
you Do you have to have thatconversation? So let's say
someone wears skirts and they'retoo short, or they wear a
business shirts, and they'reunbuttoned too much, you have to
have that conversation with theopposite person who dresses

(05:10):
differently than you, and whatwho is not within dress code. So
that's interesting. But thereally uncomfortable one is body
odor, get people to have aconversation where like, look,
we have no issue with how peoplechoose to live their lives as a
company, but what has beenreported to you by 80% of your
team 90% of your team, whatevernumber is that this person is so

(05:32):
pungent in the meetings. That toignore, it would mean people are
going to have to stop coming tothe meetings are going to only
dial in. That's pretty serious.
So we do that, and the what I'mnot, I'm not looking for people
to tell people how to live theirlife. But what we're looking for
is, How comfortable is thatperson delivering really hard,
difficult news to give and howcaring and balanced are they in
doing that some people go, I'mjust going to rip the band aid

(05:54):
off, and they go superaggressive, that obviously has
an impact, and you know, peoplehave gone, I would be so
offended, never come back towork. And then some people are
so gentle in the message thatthe person never actually hears
what they're trying to say. Sowe need to find that balance in
between. But if you want to trya challenging one, try having a
conversation with someone whoyou know, but isn't a close
friend about body odor, reallyshock you and if you laugh by

(06:17):
one rules, if you laugh, yourestart again, because it means
you you're uncomfortable, thelaughter is hiding the
discomfort that's really there.
So what's the approach? Now Iput this together as a short
acronym for you to remember,it's of it. So have it or Oh,
fit but have it like I'm sick ofit? I've had enough of it. I'm

(06:38):
tired of it. So the words areOh, fit of it.
Now, what does that mean? Haveit spelled out? So the first bit
the observations? What are youseeing? Not? How are you feeling
that? What have you heard, butwhat are the observations and
they can be from other people,but you need to make an effort
to validate those. So if threepeople said, oh, this person is

(07:00):
always doing XYZ, you need tomake an effort to be clear and
have those observed as much aspossible, some evidence of them.
So observations, we're notstarting with emotions, we're
not starting with theories andbusting people up, we want
facts.
And then we move to feelings,the F is feelings, how might
that person who's doing the badbehavior be feeling when you

(07:23):
give them this news when they'redoing the bad behavior, etc? But
also, how are the peopleimpacted feeling?
Then we move into is what's theimplications? What's happening?
Like, what are we seeing as aresult of this? So if someone's
always late to meetings? I'llgive you an example in a moment,
but we'll use that one. But whatare the implications of that?

(07:44):
And then T is for target targetoutcome, like what are they
actually going to commit todoing? What are you asking them
to do instead of that badbehavior or that poor behavior.
So let's work through thatframework. Because it might
sound simple, but it gives you areally good frame of reference.
And then I'll give you some tipsafter on how you can practically
apply this back at work. Butthey Oh, so let's work through

(08:05):
with a person who's late tomeetings all the time, for you
and for your peers. And for yourdirect reports. observations, we
noticed that they're late allthe time, right. So they're
specifically late to meetings,they were late to the last three
meetings on these dates andtimes as observed by XYZ.
Feelings? Well, when you show uplate to people's meetings, it

(08:27):
can send the signal that youdon't feel like it's important
or you don't care, or you'redisorganized, or whatever it is,
but the feeling of the personimpacted is that, oh, seems like
it's not important. Or we shouldjust wait for you, which isn't
fair to everyone else, you don'tknow your time. And for the
person who is late, you know, itmight be interesting to find out
from them. You can't know thisin advance. But it might be
interesting to see do do theywant to be late? Or is it

(08:49):
something where they feel reallyuncomfortable having to be late
all the time, because maybethey're not managing their time
effectively. So that's apotential opportunity to
investigate further as a leaderand go, Oh, $hit, there's,
they're not late because theydon't care. They're late,
because their life's a mess,like, let me help them get back
on track. So you can already seethere's potential ways this can
take us that aren't as cut anddry, but yield much more

(09:10):
powerful outcomes. implications.
So saying, you know, when you'relate, it means that people
either start late, so they'rebehind in the meeting, or they
start without you, and you'remissing inputs and
opportunities. So that's animplication, which is poor for
them. And ultimately, if youdrive drive that out further,
it's like, well, it could meanthat the project suffers, etc,
etc.
And then targets like, whatwould we like to see and said,

(09:31):
Well, I'd like to see you in themeeting room, two or five
minutes, whatever it isbeforehand, ready for the
meeting, so that when themeeting starts, you're there.
And there might go well, yeah,but I'm rushing from this to
this. Great. Let's talk abouthow we can start to fix the
problem of why you're alwayshaving to run from one meeting
to the other. What do we need todo to look after you to make
sure you've got what you need.
And what we want here iscommitment. So in the targets

(09:53):
eye, we want commitment fromthem to that new target
behavior, targetbehavior whereafter. So if you
think about that, we've toldthem what we are saying we've
told them the impacts tothemselves and people around
them, they might have sharedsome insights. We've talked
about what that has meant,what's the implication of all of
that. And then we've set a newstandard for what we want to see
done as a result of it. Now, Idid say to you, there's some

(10:17):
tips of how to use of it. Andsome of the tips are treated as
a loop is the first one, Ialways say it's a conversational
and behavioral loop, they willprobably go away and try part of
it, and then they'll likely dropback to their old standards or
behaviors, you have to counterthat by coming back around and
going, hey, just a reminder, wehad this conversation. And
here's what we talked about. Orwhen they do it well going, hey,

(10:39):
you know, Joe, fantastic. Like,I saw that you've been at the
meetings five minutes early,every time looks like it's going
well, people have been reallyhappy, great. Like, do not just
let it drop off. But also, ifthey're not doing what you've
agreed to do, you have to holdthem accountable. Because people
say, oh, you know, I had adifficult conversation and it
didn't work. Well, when did youhave the next conversation that

(11:01):
No, I haven't, you can, if youhave a conversation, once people
are busy, they might have takencertain things from it, not
heard other things and they goaway and certain things change
or don't change, it comes downto a series of reinforcing
communications that we need todo.
And then the last thing, lasttip on this is to focus on

(11:21):
saying it enough. Sometimes wethink because we said something
once or because we mentioned itcasually in passing or send an
email to everyone's like, hey,just a reminder to be on
meetings on time is not that'snot enough. And it's not
specific. You know, there havebeen clear examples, literally
here an example today wheresomeone said all there was a
note that went around sayingstop stealing people's lunch

(11:43):
from the break room and theperson who was known to have
stolen the lunch, but theyinstead wanted to send this
email around to give them achance said, Oh, who's stealing
lunches?
And you could argue what theyprobably know. Or maybe they
don't maybe they're just sounaware that that's that it was
them that they've eaten someoneelse's food. So you can't assume
that because you said somethingonce that it's been landed and

(12:05):
reinforced and that peoplereally get it. So say it enough
that people here treat this as aloop. Don't let it go after the
one conversation, make sureyou're reinforcing those
accountabilities.
Great. So you've got thatframework. That's of IT
framework. If you want moretools and tactics, and we do run
coaching and workshops on thisstuff, it's really powerful. I

(12:25):
think, as a leader, if you canhave effective, difficult
conversations and move theneedle forward on those
behaviors, you'll be much muchfurther ahead than most people
because people really strugglewith this. They don't know how
to have difficult conversationsand they avoid them.
That's it for today's episode.
If you want to check out moredefinitely subscribe to the
podcast. We're back to doingdaily episodes out of the office

(12:48):
doing a full week of strategicplanning for clients. So it was
not in the actions and lastweek, but we're back into it
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(13:09):
subscribe to that by headingover to
teambuffalo.co/newsletterAwesome. Thanks for tuning in.
Keep being an amazing leader andI look forward to seeing you in
tomorrow's episode. chat soon.