Managing Difficult
Conversations
Key areas for today
‘Our lives begin to end the day we become
silent about the things that matter the most’
Martin Luther King
What does difficult mean?
Not easy
Hard to be done
Arduous
Demanding considerable effort
A conversation is a talk between
two or more people in which
thoughts, feelings and ideas are
expressed, information is exchanged
and questions are asked and
answered.
Think back to any conversations that
you have had (or avoided) that you
considered difficult and discuss:
•What were they about?
•What made them difficult?
These situations usually have several
things in common:
What were the main reasons for
putting it off?
• Didn’t want to create a bad atmosphere
29%
• To avoid confrontation 18%
• Didn’t know how to say it 16%
• Worried about the reprisals 11%
• Thought it might make the situation worse 11%
• Didn’t want to upset someone
8%
• Other reasons
7%
- lack of back up, lack of time
Did the issue:
• Resolve itself
4%
• Get worse
43%
• Stay the same 49%
The other 4% reported that someone else
had tackled the issue
Have you ever:
Preparation
Evaluate and Explain
Translate and Label
Observable Behaviour
What is happening?
Preparation
Shift from the Blame to
Contribution
What do I want?
What do I want?
Preparation
The Framework
Opening the conversation
The 30 second introduction
•The 60 second introduction
The 30 Second Introduction
Invite discussion:
- Tell me how you see the situation?
- How do you feel about what I have
just said?
- What is your perspective on this?
- What do you want to happen?
- How do you feel we could move
forward from here?
- What options do you think are
open to us?