What’s the Best Way to Encourage Challenging Conversations? Look for Models

What’s the Best Way to Encourage Challenging Conversations? Look for Models

CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONS ABOUND: You may need to terminate an employee, give a workplace friend painful feedback, settle a dispute with an aggressive colleague or any number of additional tough conversations. Regardless, you need to constantly seek ways to improve your skills.

KEEPING THE FAITH: Whether you’ve had dozens or maybe it’s your first, one way to ensure these talks happen is to look for models of what others have managed to do.

MY FAVORITES: I talk often about famous models I’ve used to keep me inspired to resolve conflict: leaders like Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa and the like; people who had to forge a path where challenges abounded and they constantly needed to upend convention through tough dialogue. Yet my personal model for courage is my grandmother. Raised in the Basque provinces of Spain in a family of nine, she set sail on a steerage ship in the early part of the 1900’s, speaking neither Spanish nor English, but only Basque. She had grown up on a subsistence farm with little education and certainly no worldly experience. Her two sisters in Salt Lake City, who worked as maids in Basque boarding houses, summoned Isadora Ansotegui. Unfortunately, I don’t know how she found her way through Ellis Island, New York City and the trains across the country, but I’m sure she arrived exhausted and terrified. I can only imagine what courage the journey required.

What Should You Do?

TAKE HEART: Whether it’s your first challenging conversation or your hundredth, you will need a dose of courage before you begin. While I’ve written about other preparation tips, remembering your own models and heroines can help.

How to Tackle a Tough Conversation by Breaking it Down
A Systematic Approach to Creative Conflict
Have I Told You Lately That You Bug Me?

Even though I’ve frequently placed myself in risky or new situations, I can’t imagine anything I’ve done that has rivaled my grandmother’s leap of faith in setting out across oceans and continents with so little in the way of preparation, training or support. Yet sail and arrive and thrive she did. Remembering her, who am I to complain that I can’t rise to a challenging occasion?

MODEL FAMOUS PEOPLE AND MORE HUMBLE: Courage is everywhere if you look for it. Don’t just check the news or best-selling biographies but think of your own friends and relatives. Who do you admire for stepping up in challenging circumstances? Who can you remember as an image of grace under pressure? Who inspires you?

SHARE YOUR STORIES: A large key to leadership is the ability to inspire those who follow. While we may try to encourage those we lead with our vision or other abstractions, the ability to tell a relevant story works much more effectively.

What Do You Think?

Have you had experience with these kinds of situations? Call or write us at: 303-216-1020 or Lynne@workplacesthatwork.com