Things not going quite right with someone you’re working with but you’re not sure how to broach the topic? Worried about upsetting someone, but feeling increasingly frustrated by their behaviour or assumptions?
Too often we allow things that are not working to continue unchecked for fear of damaging our professional relationships – and yet the longer we leave things, the harder they are to resolve.
Conversations that feel hard to initiate are sometimes referred to as ‘difficult conversations’ but they need not be hard. With a shift in how we’re looking at them and a couple of simple tools we can get things back on track. And if we practise having these conversations more often, before issues get harder to discuss, then we can save ourselves a lot of time and trouble.
Stop calling them ‘difficult’ conversations
If we go into a conversation thinking it’s going to be difficult then it’s often a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead of assuming the other person is in the wrong, and that this will be awkward to discuss, it’s far easier and successful if we approach these as curious conversations.
Rather than assuming the other person is at fault, try staying curious about what the problem is and how it could work better.
Stay ‘curious’
There’s lots of great guidance about effective communication, and I’m a big fan of Marshall Rosenberg’s Non Violent Communication approach from which I’ve extracted some of the key principles into a mnemonic that spells CURIOUS:
Notice context comes first. If we want to resolve the issue we need to avoid the other feeling attacked or blamed, or they are likely to become defensive. If we’ve demonstrated a constructive intention clearly at the outset a (e.g. ‘I’m concerned how X went and I’d like us to think about how we can ensure next time there’s a Plan B in place. When is a good time for you to discuss this?’) we’re less likely to trigger a defensive reaction.
Also don’t skip owning your response. Too often we feel awkwardness about clearly outlining what the issue is for us for fear of upsetting someone. But stating clearly what the impact was on you – what need wasn’t met and how you felt – will help the other understand why this issue is important to you. Without this information there is a risk they might not fully understand why their behaviour is a problem for you and be less willing to change.
Prepare a 3-step conversation
It is useful to think through carefully what we want to say about the impact of the issue on us, and what we’d like to request to be different in future so we can be really clear and avoid inflammatory language that might cloud the issue.
I suggest thinking about a conversation in 3 stages can be helpful:
I don’t recommend that you script the conversation in advance, but a few notes about the key points you want to make and questions you might ask to open up and explore can be helpful.
And don’t forget to wrap up the conversation with some actions: what are you agreeing to? What will each of you do or do differently in future? How and when might you check in that things are working better?
I hope you find these tools useful – if you try them out let me know how you get on. And feel free to share them, please just acknowledge the source and don’t seek to profit from them. Interested to find out more? I run a couple of courses which cover communication skills and styles, difficult conversations and how to give useful feedback – get in touch if you’d like to find out more.
