Difficult Conversations
Shawnee Love •
April 1, 2014
Managing people requires difficult conversations. Even the best performers occasionally need reeling in or a push in the right direction from time to time but it is the other 90% of the team that most of your difficult conversations will occur with.
Difficult conversations occur about:
- Attitudes
- Appearance
- Grooming
- Habits
- Language (verbal and body language)
- Quality of Work
- Pace of Work
- Personal Tics
- Skills such as communication, organization, negotiation, etc.
Under those broad categories are a myriad of ways employees can fall short of standards at work, and as a manager, it is your job to ensure people meet standards.
I find it helpful to plan out the conversation before I have it, by answering these questions:
- What is the problem behaviour?
- Why is it a problem? E.g., what is the consequence of the problem existing?
- What is the right way or the standard to be met or what outcomes are required?
Once I have the answers to these, I will build my script and arrange a time to meet. Come back next week for tips on acing the meeting itself.