Having difficult conversations with employees

The ability to talk about sensitive and emotive issues can be critical to managing performance, minimising workplace conflicts, promoting attendance and improving team dynamics, yet many leaders feel ill-equipped to handle them either through lack of training or experience.

Although instigating a difficult conversation can feel daunting, especially if it may become uncomfortably confrontational, ignoring problems may simply escalate issues, impacting your team members and making any issues even more difficult to resolve. Addressing problems at an early stage will prevent the situation from deteriorating, help find a solution and maintain good working relationships with colleagues.

By adopting the right approach, preparing yourself carefully and developing the right skills, mindset and behaviour, your ability to handle the conversation effectively and steer it to a mutually acceptable conclusion is greatly improved.

What is a difficult conversation?

A difficult conversation is one where the subject matter may prove contentious, provoking strong emotions and necessitating a sensitive approach to avoid escalating conflicts and achieve a productive outcome.

Most people tend to avoid tough conversations because of the charged emotions they provoke and fear of how people will react. Feeling vulnerable or concern about a loss of control in the work environment can make us feel anxious and reluctant to address an issue.

Research conducted by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) showed that 57% of respondents would do almost anything to avoid a difficult conversation, while a study by coaching and training specialist Braveley showed that 53% of employees handle “toxic” situations by simply ignoring them.

Reluctance to tackle an issue directly can impact your team. The longer an issue remains unresolved, the more resentment may build, resulting in a highly charged conversation that is much more difficult to navigate.

What is the cause of a difficult conversation?

Deciding how to navigate a potentially challenging conversation depends on its root cause. This could be:

• performance review (poor performance or conduct)
• attendance and punctuality
• giving negative developmental feedback
• managing stakeholder expectations
• sensitive personal problems and issues
• complaints, grievances and disciplinary process
• unacceptable behaviour
• change management
• behavioural concerns eg bullying
• redundancy
• workforce personality clashes
• rejecting employee requests eg flexible working or requests for annual leave
• breach of company policies.

Our tips for navigating difficult conversations

Having a difficult conversation is an essential skill that requires effective leadership skills which can, with practice, be learnt. Whatever the situation, there are tactics you can leverage to navigate difficult conversations effectively.

These tactics include:

• Cultivate connections – build trust and gain influence with your employees so that when a difficult conversation arises, you can navigate it successfully
• Prepare for the meeting – establish the facts, reflect on the individual, get any necessary support and check company policies and procedures
• Recognise the importance of conversational structure – for a productive and honest dialogue. Harvard Business School Professor Julie Battilana suggests that difficult conversations can be divided into three layers:

1. What happened – recognise your own perspective may not represent the whole truth. Acknowledge your role and how the incident affected you and allow the other person to talk about the issue from their point of view
2. How we feel about what happened – Challenge your own assumptions and beliefs, address how both parties feel without judgement to reach a mutually acceptable resolution
3. How the incident threatens each person’s self-image – having your expertise or work ethic questioned can be threatening and make you defensive. Recognise that both parties come to the conversation with their own identity issues to make it easier to relate and find common ground.

Additional tips:

• Actively listen – think about how you communicate both verbally and through your body language.  Focus on what is being said and don’t jump to an immediate response. Ask the right sort of questions, clarify misunderstandings and demonstrate you are listening by summarising what the other person is saying
• Empathise – to foster a more positive and constructive atmosphere by acknowledging emotions and express understanding
• Avoid personal bias – focus on specific facts and examples to enable your employee to understand how to be more effective
• Leverage the Reflective Leadership Model for an empathetic and constructive approach to resolving conflicts. Use this model to examine and evaluate your decisions, broaden your skills and understanding and gain insight into your emotions, biases and triggers before engaging in challenging discussions
• Stay in control – set the tone of the meeting, control how it progresses and focus on the behaviour not the person by avoiding judgemental language, demonstrating how the behaviour has impacted goals and taking time out where necessary
• Collaborative solution – brainstorm ideas to make a tough talk a collaborative one and to reach an amicable solution
• Follow up – provide support and resources to help effect the agreed action plan and schedule a follow up meeting
• Document agreed actions and share with the employee to ensure mutual understanding of next steps.

Summary

Open and honest communication is crucial for any successful workplace. Although it may be tempting to avoid a difficult conversation, any issues will only become more intractable, impacting both your team and your company’s wider success.

Equipping yourself with the right skills and strategies will enable you to effectively navigate difficult conversations and bring them to a positive conclusion, fostering a stronger team and positive workplace environment and contributing to your organisation’s performance.

Related resources and courses

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