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Read time: 3 mins
Did you know that before the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded in 1986, NASA was warned repeatedly that the O-rings were likely to fail?
One of the engineers sent detailed reports warning of the potential disaster to his superiors that fell on deaf ears.
He actually told his wife the night before the mission that NASA had just made the decision to kill 7 astronauts.
The next day, he was proven right.
Speaking up and being heard can be one of our hardest professional challenges.
And while it’s not always life and death, knowing HOW to communicate effectively is crucial for your professional success.
Today we’re sharing our 3 favourite tips for having tough conversations successfully.
Let's get into it:
Whether you’re not getting along with your colleagues, your boss ignores your ideas, or you know a space shuttle is about to explode and no one is listening, communication is HARD.
You need to:
️✔ know what you want to say,
️✔ the words need to come out clearly,
️️✔ the other person needs to choose to hear them,
✔ they need to interpret them correctly, and then
✔ they need to choose to DO something with that information.
There’s opportunity for failure in every single step of the process, and that doesn’t even account for when there’s heightened emotion, ego, or power dynamics involved.
How do you navigate all this?
Try these steps to better set yourself up for success:
3 FAVOURITE TIPS FOR HAVING TOUGH CONVERSATIONS SUCCESSFULLY
1. Listen first
Barrelling in with your opinion is a great way to get people offside from the get go.
Instead, start by getting curious.
Before sharing your views, ask questions, and listen to make sure you understand the context, the problem, and other people’s perspectives.
2. Clarify your perspective
Once you understand their perspective, use it to examine and clarify yours.
This is important because there's a much higher likelihood of a resolution if you are clear on your own perspective and can communicate it so others can understand it.
If this is tricky, try writing down your thoughts, no matter how messy they are.
Once you’ve written down your perspective, examine it:
- In what ways am I being biased?
- What have I ignored or discounted?
- What do I really believe is true?
Then, summarise your opinion and the 2-3 reasons you’ve come to your conclusion.
3. Communicate with care & courage
When you have listened first and clarified your perspective, then it's time to share it.
There’s a magic formula for this:
Care + Courage = Successful Tough Conversations
Care means explaining your perspective in a way that shows respect and empathy for the other person and their views.
Your success increases when you proactively share a positive intent, highlighting goals and benefits either for the individual or the broader team/business.
Last, care needs to be genuine, and not just shown during the conversation. This means demonstrating care before, during, and after difficult conversations.
Courage means explaining your perspective clearly and without apology.
Be direct and articulate your message succinctly and openly.
Marrying care with courage creates the opportunity for a tough message to be received in a more understanding manner.
This is not easy!
But a commitment to following these steps will always get a better result than flying off the handle or avoiding the situation entirely.
Imagine if the engineers working on the Challenger program had successfully navigated the difficult conversations they needed to have?
For the action takers:
Think about the next difficult conversation you’re likely to have and prepare for it using our 3 tips:
- Listen first.
- Clarify your perspective.
- Communicate with care and courage.
What kind of difficult conversations do you have going on in your life right now?
Let us know and we’ll be happy to provide support and advice.
Speak soon,
Lynne and Steve
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TLDR
- Navigating difficult conversations is, no surprise, difficult!
- It's an essential skill to learn because the consequences of not being able to have these conversations can be so severe.
- To approach a difficult conversation, (1) listen first, (2) clarify your perspective, then (3) communicate with care and courage.