Today we'll talk about not only how to have a difficult conversation, but how to minimize or even prevent them in the first place.
To start, you should recognize that the reason you are having to have this difficult conversation is most likely because someone is resisting you in some form or fashion.
And there's a reason for this. I believe that when we can't make progress with someone who is resisting us, it comes down to one thing.
Every person on earth has a need to be seen and heard and know what they said mattered. They want to be validated.
Now this doesn't mean people want to always have their own way, or that you have to agree with them to move forward and make progress.
You are more likely to get someone to commit to you if you give them a chance to hear what they have to say. Then you consider it when you are making a decision and even if you decide against the path they wanted to go, I believe they will be more likely to commit if they were seen and heard and concerns considered than if they were not.
It also increases the likelihood of them committing if you explain why you decided on the path you did and how their input was taken into consideration. For example you weighed the pros and cons of their approach.
Now that we have an idea about why someone is not committing, let's now talk about how you minimize or prevent even getting to the point where you have to have a difficult conversation.
Chances are that there is some activity that you want this person to do, and you've given them a task or some activity to do. If they don't know "why" they are doing this they are automatically demotivated. People want to be seen as adding value so simply being told to do something some may perceive that you are wasting their talents or expertise
But let's actually keep working this backwards. Before one can answer why, we must have to answer "what". What is typically a strategy or an objective. Let's keep going backwards. If you are in a position to need a strategy or an objective, then there must be a problem to solve.
THIS is the first thing to start with. And remember, if you want buy-in and commitment, as much as possible, get buy-in every step of the way. Give people an opportunity to be seen and heard.
Imagine being able to sit down with that person who is resisting, and you can backup time, and you both sit down and you gain agreement on the problem. BTW, when you talk about the problem, I want you to define three things always.
1. What is the situation
2. Who is involved, and
3. What is the pain point?
Always define your problems this way. Now get their take on each of these. If could very well be that why they are resisting is because they don't understand or agree with one of these points.
Once you have the problem defined, next you come up with your strategy or objective - the What. Again, this is another point of divergence. There are tons of different ways to solve a problem, so again, get their input.
At this point, the only thing left to solve is the How. How do you achieve the objective. What are the activities that must be done and specifically what are their activities. A magical thing is happening at this point. This is where you unlocked empowerment, innovation, and motivation. They feel as though they are in the loop, they are empowered to apply their talents and skills, and they know how their activities fit into the bigger picture of the mission at hand.
If they said something along the way and you listened to them and considered their input, even if they disagreed on any of the above points, I truly believe there is a higher likelihood they are willing to commit to those activities at this point than if they were not consulted.
I'd like to add here, while I am explaining this, I don't want this to seem like a long arduous process. Yes, it is a process, a set of steps, but they can happen at the coffee machine in the breakroom (well not anymore), but you get this point. This doesn't have to be some big formal meeting where you have a facilitator come in.
So that in my opinion is how to minimize or prevent people from resisting you. Now let's say you did all that, now what. Well, honestly, the first thing I'd tell you is to honestly assess how well you did the things we just talked about. How "effective" were you in the process.
But let's assume you were as good as you were going to be and you still need to have this difficult conversation. How do you do this.
We'll use a model called AFIRM. It's an acronym that spells out the steps you should take. Here is what each of the letters of the acronym stand for.
A = Ask
F = Fact
I = Impact
R= Request
M = Mutuality
Remember what I said in the beginning. You will get resistance if people don't feel validated, so when you are going through the AFIRM model, don't ram your view down their throat. You need to solicit their view and thoughts on each and every one of these points.
Let's start with the Ask.
The purpose of this step is to be able to broach the conversation with them in a manner where they will not be defensive and be open minded. This is probably the most difficult of all the steps. Chances are that they know there is tension or friction between the both of you, or not. So let's look at both scenarios. If you know they feel tension in the relationship consider the best time to even broach the ask. Right after the meeting where the big boss chewed the both of you out may not be the best time for you to say "Hey, can we talk about what went wrong!".
I get that timely feedback is important, but in this scenario, I'd let someone cool down first. Once they have cooled down, I have always found a good opener was to simply ask them about the topic or situation that you need to have the difficult conversation is "How do you think it's going? or if it was the scenario above where the boss chewed everyone out, "How do you think that went?" And make sure you are doing this in a tone of empathy and compassion. People can tell when they are being asked setup questions to get hammered later when they answer. So the most important goal of this step is to be able to have a conversation about the rest of the steps when they are not in a defensive mode.
Phew, now that we have the hard step out of the way, now comes the easy part. The facts. Don't first launch in with your version of the facts. Ask them what they think the facts are. And we need to distinguish between fact and opinion or judgment. For example, saying "You were rude to Bob'' is a judgment or opinion. Saying something like "You cut Bob off and did not let him finish" is a fact.
The goal that you are trying to accomplish here are the facts about their behavior. Remember, the reason you are having this conversation is because they are exhibiting behavior you feel needs correcting. It's the behavior they are exhibiting when they are resisting. So the facts you want to get on the table are the facts of their behavior. Things like, "they did not complete the assignment on the agreed upon time", or "they did not follow the agreed upon process",
These are all facts. If they don't offer up the facts of their behavior after you asked them, then you can then chime in with things like "what I observed..." or "what Bob reported was..." Now this part also helps. If you are going to cite hearsay, give them a chance to tell their side, but... get them to describe how they responded.
Once we have the facts established. Now comes the "impact" of their behavior. The goal of this step is to help them understand the negative consequences of the behavior you established in the fact step. Share what you think is the impact of their behavior, but also be prepared to hear their side. You can say things like "I noticed so and so, .. What do you think?" or "I thought thus and such... How do you see it?" or "I felt this way.... how do you feel?"
Once they understand the negative impact of their behavior, you should make a request of them. Be clear about the outcome you want. This step is what most people jump to when they launch into difficult conversations. Hopefully you can see how futile it is to start here. I want to come back to the request. It should not be a specific how? Like, Never talk to Bob that way again. Going back to what I first talked about, you're just telling people what to do. A better way is to express the outcome you want and have them figure out how to accomplish it. You Can say things like, "I want Bob to feel like we are a trusted partner that is willing to collaborate". A way you can start the request is by saying things like "Let's talk about what you can do differently next time.. do you have any thoughts?" It's good to close this section with an emphasis on how important achieving this request is to you. You can simply say things like "It's really beneficial to you and our group if Bob sees us as a trusted partner so this is really important.
Finally the M in AFIRM stands for mutuality. At this point, you have not yet gotten their commitment. So the goal of the Mutuality step is to get that commitment. Think about it. If you go through everything we've talked about so far. If they commit at this point, they are much more likely to follow through because they have fewer unresolved feelings. That said, if they continue to fail, despite their commitment, you might have a competency problem, but that's a different podcast. Back to Mutuality. What you want out of this are specific actions and the time those actions will be done. You can start by summarizing the request by saying things like "So from what I understand... then you can say "next time let's do so and so...." and close with "How does that sound?" Specifically get them to commit. When someone give you their word, it's really hard to go back on it. But if they are the type of person who can easily go back on their work, the fact that you went through this process now makes it easy for you to hold them accountable for their commitment because of the process you followed and the commitment they explicitly gave.
I know your situations are more complicated than I explained, but I hope this model gives you at least a framework on how to prepare and broach difficult conversations. If you are still with me, I thank you for your time.
