A Recommendation for Difficult Conversations
Approach matters to build receptivity to feedback
Knowing how to successfully interact with employees in hard discussions is a critical skill that requires poise, better knowledge and a tamer, more humane approach.
“It’s important to treat these (types of) conversations as a dialogue, not a top-down lecture, and to seek a better understanding of where the other person is coming from,” Edward Mady told Fast Company magazine’s Julia Herbst in her article, “How leaders should approach difficult conversations with employees.”
“Difficult conversations are hard for both sides,” says Chris Wong, an executive coach at Leadership Potential and a licensed therapist whose specialties include working through difficult conversations and resolving unproductive conflict.
“There are so many factors that are present for both sides,” he says, adding, “primarily the fight, flight, freeze response that causes people to either get defensive or run away.”
That’s why communicating with each other and not at one another is vitally important. The former can assist a leader with one key task that largely influences the outcome of a challenging talk.
“The more we can treat the conversation as a dialogue and create psychological safety for the everyone to engage, both sides can actually find ways to co-create a solution,” Wong says. “As a plus, the better we can understand where the other person is coming from, the better we can find ways to create a resolution that makes sense for everyone.”
It’s important that leaders regularly think about, and communicate, an employee’s strengths, not just their mild areas for improvement or clear, glaring weaknesses.
"Remember, your job as a manager is to assess their strengths...” Mady says.
“Managers generally are pretty good at assessing the strengths of each employee, and when given support, they are able to divide and assign tasks to build on people's strengths,” Wong asserts.
“Where I find more limitations is either managers are hesitant to acknowledge employee's weaknesses or areas of development or companies put too much on the plate of all employees, overextending everyone and not allowing people to work on tasks and priorities that build on their strengths,” he adds.
It creates a predictable problem: “This only frustrates employees and managers,” Wong says.
Superiors can communicate in a way that is received respectfully and benefits the employer and the organization.
“The best thing leaders can do is to learn how each person prefers communication and instead of spending time talking, spend more time asking and listening,” Wong advises.
In addition, he recommends thinking about personality and presentation.
“Learn how the people prefer communication: Direct or indirect, details or big picture,” Wong says.
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