How to Master Difficult Conversations

As a leader, whether in business, your family, or any other relationships you may have, finding yourself in tough conversations is a struggle. Today, I’m going to share 3 very simple tips that you can use to have difficult conversations with anyone in your life.

As the world around us becomes more stressful, more emotionally charged, and increasingly hard to have necessary conversations, right now is the best possible time to get better at communicating with clarity and direction.

Don’t be the person that avoids productive conflict and instead, leaves things left buried in the sand, failing to move forward.

Instead, use these three key strategies to set yourself (and the person you’re communicating with) up for success from the start.

Remember the ‘why.’

Most hard conversations are over before they even start.

In fact, most difficult conversations begin with frustration, defensiveness, and the people having the conversation rarely even hear each other.

When you take a step back, you often realize that the very reason you're even willing to have the conversation in the first place is that you care, at some level, to maintain the relationship with the other parties involved.

Whether it’s a working relationship with a team member, your romantic relationship with your spouse, or your parental relationship with your children, we rarely bother to have an uncomfortable conversation with someone we don’t care about enough to have it with.

Right?

If you’re willing to have a hard conversation to begin with, it's because there’s a reason you care to have it in the first place.

That being said, starting the conversation off by acknowledging the elephant in the room is key.

Don’t be afraid to set the tone by calling out the obvious. “Look, this is going to be a tough conversation” is something I often start with.

What immediately follows is reminding everyone involved that the whole reason you’re having the conversation in the first place is that you care and if you didn’t, you likely wouldn’t even be having the conversation.

Work on reminding yourself constantly in the midst of a hard conversation why you’re even there in the first place.

Begin with the end in mind.

As with anything in life, if you have no idea where you’re going, how could you possibly know what steps to take along the way?

Oftentimes, the difference between a conversation going the way we’d like it to and becoming a complete dumpster fire instead is determining what the ideal outcome would be and working backward from there.

Establishing an outcome at the beginning of a hard conversation is essential for several reasons:

• Clarity: By establishing an outcome at the beginning of a hard conversation, all parties involved can get a clear understanding of what the discussion is about and what needs to be accomplished. This can help prevent misunderstandings and keep the conversation on track.

• Focus: Knowing the desired outcome can help everyone involved to stay focused on the key issues at hand, rather than getting sidetracked by unrelated topics or emotions.

• Preparation: Setting an outcome also allows all parties to prepare for the conversation mentally and emotionally. By knowing the desired outcome, they can be better prepared to handle any difficult or uncomfortable situations that may arise during the discussion.

• Accountability: Having a clear outcome established at the beginning of the conversation can help hold all parties accountable for their actions or decisions. It also provides a basis for evaluating whether the conversation was successful in achieving the desired outcome.

Overall, establishing an outcome at the beginning of a hard conversation can help ensure the conversation is productive, efficient, and focused on achieving a specific goal.

Set proper expectations.

A favorite quote from one of my mentors, Alex Charfen, has always been “Communication is always the responsibility of the communicator.”

Way more often than not, our expectations aren’t met because we failed to communicate them in the first place.

If you have an expectation of someone, it is 100% your responsibility to communicate those expectations.

If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that uncommunicated expectations will always end in disappointment

Having a tough conversation is one thing, but if you fail to set the right expectations on how to move forward once you have it, you will continue to run into the same issue repeatedly.

If you set the proper boundaries and guardrails, it is way more likely that you won’t run into the same thing twice.

Well, that’s it for today.

TL;DR

1. Remember why you’re having the conversation in the first place.

2. Begin with the end in mind. If you know what you’re working for/towards, the conversation will likely result in a way you’re hoping for.

3. Make expectations clear for everyone involved.

3 super simple tips but if you remember these things when you’re navigating a hard conversation, it will make all the difference.

See you next week.