Kay:
Hey there, family, and welcome back to the Kay & Shi Show.
Shi:
This week we’re going tough stuff. We’re talking all things like tough conversations, tough business situations, tough motivational moments, and tough moments of leadership. We’re excited to get into the tough stuff this week.
Kay:
Look in the 19 years of business that we have had we have experienced so many hard things and we’ve learned a whole lot along the way.
Shi:
We’ve also made a lot of mistakes along the way, blew our emotional lid a couple of times. Okay, a lot of times…
Kay:
A lot of times.
Shi:
….along the way and have just had some fall on our face moments. And we want to share a little bit of all of those with you this week because we think when we are able to talk about the tough stuff, we can help others have it not quite so tough.
Kay:
So today in part one, we’re going to talk about hard conversations. Now, chances are, if you’re a human being, you have experienced a difficult conversation at some point in your journey.
Shi:
Right. The fact that we have business experience has given us more opportunity for exposure to these hard conversations, but you’ve had them as well as Kay just mentioned. These are those conversations where it’s time to address a friend about misaligned values. It’s the time when you have to go over feedback and critical input from a supervisor, or maybe you are in the management position and you’re having to give that to somebody else, or maybe you’re even having to fire someone or let them go or talk to a loved one about a tough situation or a difference of opinions. All of these are examples of hard conversations and I know in the past I look back and there’s some of them, I shake my head about like, man, I could have handled that a lot better.
Kay:
You know, one of the words that are coming forward to me in this is recalibration. Hard conversations happen in times of recalibration. Like Shila just said, if it’s talking to the loved one about misaligned values, that’s recalibrating back to either being on the same page or walking in separate directions. Recalibrating the expectations of a relationship, especially in the workplace is this breeding ground for hard conversations
Shi:
Right. So, out of the hard conversations that we’ve had, one thing that has been clear and of course, you know we are eternal optimists so we’re always coming at you with that “the good news is,” and silver lining approach that every time after you have one, especially when it’s been productive, you feel so much better. It’s like what we call the pressure valve has been released. Everyone feels back in alignment, back in vibration, back in agreement, and in frequency, and understood, and heard. That’s the goal and you feel better afterward. So, we’re always looking to try and see through the tough part of that and on the other side of that relief and that realignment which can help motivate us to go into the hard conversation I think with the right mindset.
Kay:
So, what’s the worst thing that you can do in regard to a hard conversation? Not have one. If you avoid a hard conversation it ends up creating dissonance and terrible energy that just sits inside of you without that form of expression. Now, what we know about energy that sits inside–especially negative energy–is that it’ll simmer, simmer, simmer, simmer until you hit a boiling point and then a hard conversation becomes a full-on blowout when it didn’t necessarily need to get to that point in the first place.
Shi:
Right. There’s that difference between responding and reacting and the more you can go into response mode, the better you’ll feel after and the more relief you’ll get like we were talking about. So, one of the ways that we found can be helpful going into that hard conversation and with that right mentality is one, have it written down the key points that you need to make. Have that with you and in front of you, ideally, especially if it’s in a work environment, you’re going to have some kind of paper or documentation to accompany your conversation. But know what it is precisely the points you need to make because if you just think in general terms I need to talk to this person about that behavior. Then afterward you might think, “Oh, I forgot the really important perspective about,” or the piece of, or one of those things and now the hard conversation can’t just be solved and has to be continued or continued to be resented and nobody wants that. So, know what you want to say going into a hard conversation and then we’ve found it best to say plainly the hardest part at the very beginning of the meeting. It’s kind of that rip-off Band-Aid approach, but whatever it is that is the hard consequence, the tough thing, the real essence and crux of the issue you’re bringing forward, say it early and say it plainly.
Kay:
Now, there is a lot of rhetoric out there around kind of what is known in the corporate world as ‘the compliment sandwich.’ Giving them something loving and then giving them the hard part and then loving on them again. But what we found is that oftentimes people can’t even get past any bit of loving anything, or they feel like that other shoe is going to drop. So, bringing forward that most difficult piece upfront and up first and then allowing the conversation to be about working through the solution versus attempting to sugarcoat or pre-sugar the difficult pill to swallow.
Shi:
You think about the energetic stance of what the word ‘but’ does and you’ve heard about this a lot and if you’ve followed us, you know we’re big advocates for switching the word ‘but’ with ‘and.’ But if you think about how you use that word, you could say, look, “You’re a really great worker but you’re always late and that’s impeding on your performance”. The tone of that conversation has now become the disempowering second half of that sentence and the first half is ignored. Whereas if you just change the order of it, the energetic signature is different. “You’re often late, which is affecting your performance, but you’re a really good server.” We still used the word ‘but,’ but we allowed the hard part to come first. And then the second piece to come in and allow us to express or have the final landing point of our expression be our overall belief in the person or the relationship or the challenge at hand and makes it a more productive landing. So, you can think about that energetic shift of just putting the hard part first allows you to bring that nice part forward or that dimension forward that demonstrates the good part before you pass them the ball because that’s inevitably what’s coming next.
Kay:
So, a reminder on the three main points around hard conversations.
- Have them, don’t avoid them.
- Say the hard thing first and then allow the conversation to be about the solution and
- Use inclusive language like the word ‘and’ versus exclusive language like the word ‘but’ that stops you energetically in your tracks.
Next up we’re going to talk about negotiating.
