Preparing for Difficult Conversations

Confronting performance problems, giving tough feedback, being candid about smoldering conflicts, delivering bad news: these are the impending conversations that keep you up at night, or that wake you up in the morning. They occupy your mind while you’re trying to do other work. You wonder, “How am I going to bring it up?” Your mind makes movies about what will happen, with you in the leading role: confident, wise, compassionate, firm. But at the end of each film, you still feel uncertain about how you’ll break the news in reality, and how you’ll deal with the other person’s reactions. When you finally do confront the issue, you feel unprepared. Things rarely go as you expect; it’s a wild ride with an uncertain ending.

"Talent is only a starting point in this business. You’ve got to keep on working that talent."
- Irving Berlin

$350 Billion...

...is the estimated amount of money, according to a recent Gallup Poll, that disengaged employees cost U.S. companies through lost productivity. It is estimated that 20 percent of employees are actively disengaged. How much money is this costing your company?

Top 3 Ways to Design Success into Behavior Change

Why is it that even easy behavior change efforts sometimes fail? Too often those who design the change forget to include three factors that dramatically improve the odds of successful change:

1. Quick Wins
People become demoralized if results take a long time to show. Help them experience small successes along the way and they’ll be far more likely to persevere.

2. Simplicity
If they don’t get it, they won’t do it. If possible, design the performance process from the end-user’s perspective. Even if that isn’t possible, make sure the training is user friendly and easy to understand.

3. Interaction
Change is too often one-way. If people get stuck and can’t figure out what to do next, change stalls. Follow-up is key. Make it easy for people to get the answers they need to succeed.

Course Spotlight

People Skills for Difficult Conversations

When it comes to difficult conversations, most people manage by avoidance. This avoidance has its own costs in terms of money, morale and a manager’s time. Avoiding difficult conversations hurts morale for both manager and employee. Most managers lack the people skills to address the difficult issues. In this course managers learn to:

• create and reinforce high-commitment performance agreements
  
  
• manage conflicts to defuse emotions and focus on real needs
  
  
• hold people accountable when performance goes off track

For more information on this and other courses go to the courses section of our web site.