How to have a difficult conversation

Welcome to today's episode where we are going to jump in a leadership question and pull it apart as we do in every episode, the focus, giving you tools and tactics that you can take away and immediately apply back at work. So today's topic, if you haven't gleamed from the title is around how to have a difficult conversation. Now, this topic is topical. But no apologies. It's topical. Because it's something that we're really struggling with, as a modern culture in organizations. I think people with social media have forgotten how to speak to each other. We've forgotten how to have robust debates, let alone deliver poor information or answers that people don't like poor news, poor things, things that are bad or might not be taken, well, we really struggle with that. And good kind leaders are struggling even more. So I'm finding it normally in the coaching practice, people are like, Ah, I don't know if I tell them that they're not going to be 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 to say, all these doubts creep in. And but what you're seeing by not doing it is worse, right? We don't know how to have healthy debates. 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. So that poor performer who is always late, people notice the rest of the team notice and they one of two things will happen. Either they become disgruntled and unhappy with your leadership and the fact that you're not managing that person. Or they go, Well, f*ck it, I'll do it too. That's obviously the standard. No one cares if we show up on time. It's one of the two, they're either frustrated, or they become apathetic and drop to that standard. Neither of those are good situations to be in because the first reflects a view of your leadership and becomes your reputation. The second is an extension of your your reputation, but also affects the immediate performance of the rest of the team, both for poor outcomes, right. So what are some examples of bad behaviors you might be seeing where you go, Oh, this is Travis, as soon as you said that, that's a conversation I know I need to have, but I've been avoiding. So some common ones. First, tardiness, we've just spoken about that. But it's worth mentioning in tardy team members. Second, poor meetings, meetings that shouldn't be run the way they're run. Third, poor performance people just not delivering not being accountable, not reaching the standard that's been set. Forth. This one's really tricky, because these are the first three you might call it's mostly my team, I can kind of do it because there's a bit of a power dynamic, which is a whole different episode. But forth could be peer to peer or person you report to conversations around their behaviors. So what happens if you've got a another director, your director, and there's another director who is bad at their behaviors, they show up and people get uncomfortable, or they're aggressive or pushy, you don't have formal power to tell them, hey, you must stop doing this because I'm your boss. But you're not off the hook for having that conversation. When I run difficult conversations, trainings, actually run a workshop. I built this over the years I've refined, refined, refined, and I'd say it's like 99.99%, there's, there's like a comedian, you're always cycling out some of the jokes. But the reason I say that is there are a list of behaviors that we talk about. And one of the case studies 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 problem. And you're going to have an open conversation as if you're having this exact problem happening. And I know people go oh, roleplays, it's not really a roleplay. Because most everyone has worked with someone who fits that exact bill, and I go have the conversation you would have had. So they have that conversation, maybe goes well maybe doesn't go that well. And then I go now have the conversation using this framework. And that's the framework I'm going to give you today. Now obviously, as I mentioned, this is a half day workshop. So it's normally quite built out. There's a lot that goes into it, I'm really building you up to understanding where the pain points are coming from, and then helping you understand how you're driving those behaviors and how you're reinforcing the behaviors while doing any of that work today, but I'm still going to give you the really specific framework we use that just helps you articulate the issue to begin with, and then start to solve it. So those are some of the examples now to throw a bit of humor into this. If you really want to see how effective you are at being uncomfortable and having a conversation. The classic one I give everyone is that they get two scenarios both are really uncomfortable. One is about attire for the opposite sex, so you have opposite gender. So someone who is female or whatever you identify as but someone who doesn't dress like you Do you have to have that conversation? So let's say someone wears skirts and they're too short, or they wear a business shirts, and they're unbuttoned too much, you have to have that conversation with the opposite person who dresses differently than you, and what who is not within dress code. So that's interesting. But the really uncomfortable one is body odor, get people to have a conversation where like, look, we have no issue with how people choose to live their lives as a company, but what has been reported to you by 80% of your team 90% of your team, whatever number is that this person is so pungent in the meetings. That to ignore, it would mean people are going to have to stop coming to the meetings are going to only dial in. That's pretty serious. So we do that, and the what I'm not, I'm not looking for people to tell people how to live their life. But what we're looking for is, How comfortable is that person delivering really hard, difficult news to give and how caring and balanced are they in doing that some people go, I'm just going to rip the band aid off, and they go super aggressive, that obviously has an impact, and you know, people have gone, I would be so offended, never come back to work. And then some people are so gentle in the message that the person never actually hears what they're trying to say. So we need to find that balance in between. But if you want to try a challenging one, try having a conversation with someone who you know, but isn't a close friend about body odor, really shock you and if you laugh by one rules, if you laugh, you restart again, because it means you you're uncomfortable, the laughter is hiding the discomfort that's really there. So what's the approach? Now I put 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 of it? I've had enough of it. I'm tired of it. So the words are Oh, fit of it. Now, what does that mean? Have it spelled out? So the first bit the observations? What are you seeing? Not? How are you feeling that? What have you heard, but what are the observations and they can be from other people, but you need to make an effort to validate those. So if three people said, oh, this person is always doing XYZ, you need to make an effort to be clear and have those observed as much as possible, some evidence of them. So observations, we're not starting with emotions, we're not starting with theories and busting people up, we want facts. And then we move to feelings, the F is feelings, how might that person who's doing the bad behavior be feeling when you give them this news when they're doing the bad behavior, etc? But also, how are the people impacted feeling? Then we move into is what's the implications? What's happening? Like, what are we seeing as a result of this? So if someone's always late to meetings? I'll give you an example in a moment, but we'll use that one. But what are the implications of that? And then T is for target target outcome, like what are they actually going to commit to doing? What are you asking them to do instead of that bad behavior or that poor behavior. So let's work through that framework. Because it might sound simple, but it gives you a really good frame of reference. And then I'll give you some tips after on how you can practically apply this back at work. But they Oh, so let's work through with a person who's late to meetings all the time, for you and for your peers. And for your direct reports. observations, we noticed that they're late all the time, right. So they're specifically late to meetings, they were late to the last three meetings on these dates and times as observed by XYZ. Feelings? Well, when you show up late to people's meetings, it can send the signal that you don't feel like it's important or you don't care, or you're disorganized, or whatever it is, but the feeling of the person impacted is that, oh, seems like it's not important. Or we should just wait for you, which isn't fair to everyone else, you don't know your time. And for the person who is late, you know, it might be interesting to find out from them. You can't know this in advance. But it might be interesting to see do do they want to be late? Or is it something where they feel really uncomfortable having to be late all the time, because maybe they're not managing their time effectively. So that's a potential opportunity to investigate further as a leader and go, Oh, $hit, there's, they're not late because they don't care. They're late, because their life's a mess, like, let me help them get back on track. So you can already see there's potential ways this can take us that aren't as cut and dry, but yield much more powerful outcomes. implications. So saying, you know, when you're late, it means that people either start late, so they're behind in the meeting, or they start without you, and you're missing inputs and opportunities. So that's an implication, which is poor for them. And ultimately, if you drive drive that out further, it's like, well, it could mean that the project suffers, etc, etc. And then targets like, what would we like to see and said, Well, I'd like to see you in the meeting room, two or five minutes, whatever it is beforehand, ready for the meeting, so that when the meeting starts, you're there. And there might go well, yeah, but I'm rushing from this to this. Great. Let's talk about how we can start to fix the problem of why you're always having to run from one meeting to the other. What do we need to do to look after you to make sure you've got what you need. And what we want here is commitment. So in the targets eye, we want commitment from them to that new target behavior, target behavior whereafter. So if you think about that, we've told them what we are saying we've told them the impacts to themselves and people around them, they might have shared some insights. We've talked about what that has meant, what's the implication of all of that. And then we've set a new standard for what we want to see done as a result of it. Now, I did say to you, there's some tips of how to use of it. And some of the tips are treated as a loop is the first one, I always say it's a conversational and behavioral loop, they will probably go away and try part of it, and then they'll likely drop back to their old standards or behaviors, you have to counter that by coming back around and going, hey, just a reminder, we had this conversation. And here's what we talked about. Or when they do it well going, hey, 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 really happy, great. Like, do not just let it drop off. But also, if they're not doing what you've agreed to do, you have to hold them accountable. Because people say, oh, you know, I had a difficult conversation and it didn't work. Well, when did you have the next conversation that No, I haven't, you can, if you have a conversation, once people are busy, they might have taken certain things from it, not heard other things and they go away and certain things change or don't change, it comes down to a series of reinforcing communications that we need to do. And then the last thing, last tip on this is to focus on saying it enough. Sometimes we think because we said something once or because we mentioned it casually in passing or send an email to everyone's like, hey, just a reminder to be on meetings on time is not that's not enough. And it's not specific. You know, there have been clear examples, literally here an example today where someone said all there was a note that went around saying stop stealing people's lunch from the break room and the person who was known to have stolen the lunch, but they instead wanted to send this email around to give them a chance said, Oh, who's stealing lunches? And you could argue what they probably know. Or maybe they don't maybe they're just so unaware that that's that it was them that they've eaten someone else's food. So you can't assume that because you said something once that it's been landed and reinforced and that people really get it. So say it enough that people here treat this as a loop. Don't let it go after the one conversation, make sure you're reinforcing those accountabilities. Great. So you've got that framework. That's of IT framework. If you want more tools and tactics, and we do run coaching and workshops on this stuff, it's really powerful. I think, as a leader, if you can have effective, difficult conversations and move the needle forward on those behaviors, you'll be much much further ahead than most people because people really struggle with this. They don't know how to have difficult conversations and they avoid them. That's it for today's episode. If you want to check out more definitely subscribe to the podcast. We're back to doing daily episodes out of the office doing a full week of strategic planning for clients. So it was not in the actions and last week, but we're back into it every day with our leadership question episodes. And if you want to get more topical content, and feedback and tips, our newsletter comes out tomorrow. Once a week it comes out and that's called the leadership edit. You can subscribe to that by heading over to teambuffalo.co/newsletter Awesome. Thanks for tuning in. Keep being an amazing leader and I look forward to seeing you in tomorrow's episode. chat soon.