Tough conversations are… tough
Everybody’s got a part of their job they’re dreading. It’s ok to admit it, we’re all friends here. Think about that one thing that you are just plain not looking forward to. Have you put it off once or twice? If you have, no worries, so have I. So do most people at one time or another. Everyone has a tendency to push out a task that they just aren’t excited about. But as time passes, and it gets later and later, completing the task becomes more and more urgent. Eventually it might even become an emergency, and suddenly you have to drop everything to address it.
As a professional HR partner, I’ve spent a lot of time with leaders helping them get through stuff they don’t want to do. And I will tell you, the number one thing that I’ve spent the most time helping leaders get motivated to do is as simple as having a difficult conversation with someone on their team. Just to sit down, deliver a tough message, and move on. Yup, I know it sounds easy. But it is by far the one thing that many managers dread the most. Tough conversations are not easy, they’re awkward, they’re just… tough. And, as with most things we are dreading, we can tend to put them off. In this case, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is, you do need to have tough conversations occasionally, no matter how much you don’t want to. In fact, as a leader, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll absolutely have to. But, here’s the good news: I’m going to show you three simple tips to make tough conversations easier. But first, cows.
What does this have to do with cows?
We all have formative experiences, and a lot of mine come from growing up on a dairy farm. It’s true, most farmers don’t need to have a whole lot of difficult conversations with members of their herd. But on an operating dairy farm, there’s a lot going on. Frankly, a lot of the tasks you have to complete on a farm can tend to be a bit unpleasant. They’re called “chores” for a reason. You have a million priorities happening all at the same time, and so the one or two things you least want to do may slide down the list. It’s human nature to procrastinate, even for farmers. You’ve got fences to fix in the summer heat or in below-zero weather, you have to drain out a particularly mucky and wet piece of field, you have to thoroughly clean out an area of the barn so you can put your calves in there. And all this is on top of your normal routine of taking good care of your cows, feeding, milking, cleaning up; the list goes on and on.
When I was on the farm, especially when I was younger, I was the king of procrastination. Heck, I was the grand supreme emperor of the universe for life when it came to procrastination. But a good lesson I eventually learned was to resist putting off those things I wasn’t looking forward to. These days, I try to knock them out early, and here’s why: Generally, when you put something off for long enough, it will turn into an emergency. For example, by not putting some time in on that fence you know needs fixing, you’re setting yourself up for a big problem later on. Honestly, I’ve learned from experience that an afternoon spent outdoors pounding in fence posts and stretching wire is vastly preferable to your cows getting out. Trying to drag an animal the size of a small rhino back through a hole in a fence at 1am is not an experience you want to have more than once. Believe me.
Just like not fixing that old fence in a timely fashion, not squaring up and having a tough conversation early can have disastrous consequences. Actually, it’s one of the worst things we can do as leaders. For example, one of the main leadership obstacles we face as leaders is having a corrective conversation with a poor-performing direct report. We overlook mistake after mistake, or ignore poor performance day after day. But although we might look away, usually we’re not really ignoring it. What we’re really doing is making a mental note of each time it happens, time after time, and making an active decision not to address it. We let it go and let it go until we start to get mad about it, and suddenly the problem has compounded to such a point that we have to take drastic action. In the end, we’ve gotten super frustrated and probably made an emotional decision about that person in the heat of the moment. The problem became so big we probably wound up dealing with it, but we dealt with it the wrong way.
I’ve had to have a million tough conversations, and I’ve helped a lot of business partners get through them, too. Remember earlier when I mentioned the good news? We’re about to make these conversations a lot easier. Here’s the secret: It’s all in the planning. When you’re able to plan for these conversations, they become much less daunting. They become just another task on your list, they become easier, you stop dreading them, and you have less of a tendency to put them off.
Here’s some more good news – just by deciding to avoid putting this conversation off, you’ve already made a great start!
The three simple tricks to make your tough conversations easier
Here are the three simple tricks to help you through the difficult conversation you have to have: Know your goal, choose your setting, and plan the conversation.
Know your goal
Firstly, it’s critical to understand what your goal is before going in. When you walk out of the room, what message will you have delivered? Make sure you’re clear in your own mind what that message needs to be. Of course, your main goal is to have the tough conversation and see an improvement in the issue. But be more specific. For example, when you walk out of this meeting, your employee is going to understand that they need to improve their performance, and the way they will do that is by carefully following the path you’ve laid out for them. When you’ve delivered your message and achieved your goal to your liking, you’re done and can move on.
Choose your setting
Secondly, pick your setting carefully. Make sure you control the environment and the timing. It may sound silly, but you’d be surprised how much of a difference this can make. Some of the worst performance conversations I’ve witnessed have been on the fly. Instead, plan it out. Depending on the situation, does it make more sense to schedule a meeting in your office where you’ve got a little more formality, or will that make your employee too intimidated to listen to your message? Is the right timing on a Monday morning during a preplanned one-on-one meeting, or is everyone so stressed from the weekend’s sales that Tuesday afternoon may be better? Does your employee respond better to clear feedback that is delivered in a straightforward way across a desk, or would they rather get a coffee and talk it out informally? Setting the stage will allow you to use the environment to your best advantage to convey your message.
Plan the conversation
And lastly, try to predict for the conversation’s back and forth, and practice what you’re going to say. The last piece in organizing this conversation is the one you may have to put the most thought into. This is the part that requires the most preparation. You’re actually going to map out as much as you can about the upcoming conversation. Yes, there’s going to be some guesswork, because you’re trying to predict how the other person is going to react. That’s ok. The more possible responses you consider, the more you’ll be prepared if they react that way. For example, be prepared for your direct report to become angry — how do you defuse that? Be prepared for them to blame someone else. Be prepared for them to honestly believe this issue is not their fault; how do you explain their performance to them so they understand where you’re coming from? What if they break down and tell you they’re getting a divorce and they’ve been struggling at home, or if they suddenly admit they’re an alcoholic and need help? This way you can prepare your own responses. It might also help to practice how you’re going to say what you’re going to say. You can borrow the ear of a business partner and get some feedback, or just practice what you’re going to say out loud in the car. Personally, I’ve had lots of complete two-way conversations all by myself in the car. I imagine any other drivers who see me assume I’m on the phone. At least I hope that’s what they think. So. But anyway. Practice.
Each of these scenarios may seem a little overwhelming. You might not know what to do in any of the situations I’ve invented about your fictional direct report. But imagine if these things came out during the meeting and you weren’t ready for them. Chances are you’d get through it ok, but you probably would not have landed your message very well. One of the best things about planning out your conversation is that the right answers are prepared ahead of time. If you don’t need to use them, that’s great. For example, you should have quick access to the company’s EAP benefit details in the event they are dealing with something beyond what you can help them with, like a family issue or alcoholism. If you don’t need to use it, no harm done.
The punchline
For a farmer, it’s easy to put off some of the tasks above and beyond the routine, especially if they’re not going to be very much fun. Business leaders are similar, and one of the tasks that tends to get pushed down the list is having tough conversations with other workers. Sometimes, the hardest part about tough conversations is forcing yourself to have them because they can be challenging. But by using the three tips I gave you — know your goal, choose your setting, and plan the conversation – these conversations will become easier. Eventually, you won’t dread having them, and you’ll address tough issues earlier, before they become more of an emergency.
HR leader Patrick Ingham proudly comes from an operating dairy farm in Northern New York, where honey, apples, and maple syrup are also organically produced.