12 Don’ts of Tough Conversations
Success includes not shooting yourself in the foot.
12 Don’ts of Tough Conversations:
- Don’t use “we” when you mean “you”.
- Never allow fuzzy language. Exercise candor and precision when fuzzy feels safe.
- Don’t press through when emotion is high. Emotional stress limits creative solution-finding. Self-justification is inevitable.
- Don’t drag things out. Take a break for emotions to cool (#3 above.), but don’t wait till next week. Urgency is appropriate if it’s an important issue. Why all the emotion if things can drag out for a month or two? Emotional stress may indicate that things have dragged on too long.
- Never have the same conversation three times. Unacceptable behavior becomes acceptable when allowed to persist. Impose higher controls and granular accountability if problems persist.
- Forget about offering options when you aren’t willing to discuss them. If you’re going to give direction, do it.
- Don’t adopt an adversarial posture. Help teammates get what they want. You lose when you try to win a tough conversation.
- Don’t take responsibility to fix someone. No one enjoys being fixed. People grow. They don’t need fixed.
- Don’t expect someone to excel where they lack aspiration, talent or strength. If this is dragging on for months, adjust their responsibilities, reassign them, or manage them out.
- Never offer suggestions before others design their own. Don’t solve problems for people. “What would you like to do about this?” Develop three or four possible solutions and choose one.
- Don’t keep controlling. Give freedom as you see progress. The rule of thumb is controls go up as problems persist and down as progress is achieved.
- Don’t speak down. Poor leadership skills contribute to nagging issues. Maybe procrastinating – on your part – has made the situation worse. If you think you have it all together, you don’t.
What should leaders avoid during tough conversations?
“If you think you have it all together, you don’t.”
Life reminds me of that everytime.
Maybe when we think that everything is OK we somehow relax e then mistakes happen. Or we never really had the situation under control. Anyhow, you got to always keep up the work and know that there is no finish line. Is that why we got to pursue perfection even thou we know we will never get there?
Thanks for the post, Dan. Everyday I read you before my day starts. E more often then not you help me throu the struggles that I face.
Sometimes people don’t understand that silence means something. I have to think things through before I speak. I can’t take the words back once they’re out. Enjoyed the post.
“Don’t expect someone to excel where they lack aspiration, talent or strength.” So true. How often are managers tasked with trying to get an employee to be someone they are not? If the job is not a good fit for an employee, there is no benefit to the team to keep trying to “mold” them. Thanks for another great post!
And how often are managers in the same boat … Promoted beyond their talent to the point of incompetence! And without humility, vision of insight. (My experience working with a number of organisations!)
“Don’t avoid the pain, lean into it.”
An organization will never grow beyond its leader’s ability to endure the pain that comes with leadership; it’s part of the deal. When you reach the point that you can’t endure it any longer, you’ve peaked.
Love the post! Successfully conducting these tough conversations is one task where leaders really earn their pay. From my own experience and from that of other leaders I talk with, as a general rule (and I know those can be dangerous) the “tough conversations” seem to be tougher in many public sector organizations. Absent a profit motive and given the often static and hierarchal structures present in the public sector, other factors (politics, nepotism, cronyism, organizational inertia, etc.) often muddy the waters of what should be straightforward personnel decisions. It is tough for a manager to have an honest conversation about “unacceptable behavior” by someone who has “protected status” and will likely not be “managed out” unless they commit a felony. I liked “managed out;” I used to say, “given an opportunity to excel elsewhere.” I was also unfamiliar with the term “granular accountability,” but looking it up led me to several interesting articles. Thanks once again!
Love the”given an opportunity to excel elsewhere” line! Have worked within the sort of organisations that you describe. In one case awesome vision and very long history of kicking goals as a NFP. But a ‘dysfunctional family’!! Should have given ‘myself’ an opportunity to excel elsewhere much sooner! All grist to the mill …
Enjoyed this one as it put it all together perfectly. All the examples on Leadership Freak help frame my discussions with my teammates at school. Unfortunately, we can’t ‘manage out’ people so easily when teaching in a public school!
Difficult conversations are a reality. Nobody likes them but all of the above are true and will help avoid disaster. Great list.