How confident do you feel in having a challenging conversation?
The desire for change cannot come only from you, it must come from your team as well, or there won’t be any progress.
Enabling someone else to change their behaviour means you will need to challenge them, and that means have open and honest conversations that both you and your staff member may find difficult. However, it is only by having these conversations that you start to discover what is going on for someone on the inside.
Just for a minute, imagine you are a fly on the wall observing your team, then answer the following questions:
What behaviour are you seeing?
Would you say your team is exhibiting a high, low energy or medium level of energy?
What conversations are you hearing?
Is your team making positive or negative statements?
What banter do you notice between your team members?
Would you describe it as healthy or stale?
It’s important that you take time out to complete this exercise throughout the day. If things are going well, celebrate this and be part of it; after all, as the leader, you have made this happen.
If you decide there are issues or negative behaviour you need to address, take it up with the member of staff in question by having a challenging conversation.
How confident do you feel on a scale of 1-10 in having a challenging conversation with an employee who is disengaged in the business?
What are you going to do to raise their awareness of their behaviour's impact on the team?
Preparing for challenging conversations
Before going ahead with challenging conversations with your team, you need to prepare.
Remember the 5Ps: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance (Charlie Batch).
Think about the following questions to help you prepare:
Where are you going to have this discussion?
The environment you choose to have any conversation will have an impact on it. At this point, you probably have no idea how your team member is going to react to the conversation that is going to take place. You are likely to be discussing an emotive subject, so make sure you have tissues available in case they get upset. They may also get angry, so talk in private as you don’t want to cause a scene in front of the rest of your team. They already have you as an audience, so make sure there is nobody else as a witness to their feelings. What they have to share may be extremely sensitive or confidential, and they may be embarrassed, so give them time to process their thoughts and respond to your questions. What do you want to say? Work this out carefully, so you feel confident and in control before you begin the conversation.
What are the key points you want to get across? Again, get clear on these and how you are going to present them before you begin.
What evidence do you need to gather before the conversations takes place?
Keep some written notes so you can be specific and accurate when addressing particular incidents. There is nothing worse than not having all the facts during a discussion, as the leader, you are a credible force, so this is key to your success. If possible, keep things brief. These discussions can take a matter of minutes when you are clear on what you want to discuss, and you know what message you want to get across. A lot of time can be wasted if you skirt around the issue. When raising someone else’s awareness of their behaviour, you want the employee to be focused on solutions, not problems. If the solutions come from them, they are more likely to implement those ideas because they own them. They will be empowered by this and feel encouraged because they will be thinking for themselves. What powerful questions could you ask? Remember, you want them to do the thinking, but you need to be able to provide relevant information and prompts in case they get stuck. Make sure you are prepared with some killer questions, as these can get to the bottom of issues quickly.
Here are a few powerful questions to get you started.
What could be affecting your performance?
How do you know this is the case?
What do you think about your current business performance?
What’s your view of your current business performance? (Good if they are visually led.)
How do you feel about your current business performance? (Good if they are kinaesthetically led.)
How does that make you feel?
What needs to change for you to be able to improve your performance?
What help and support do you need to make it happen?
Sometimes just having a few questions prepared, listening closely and knowing what you want to talk about will enable you to come up with the most relevant questions. Some of the best questions I have asked have come in the moment when I have truly understood the person in front of me, and I am genuinely interested in them. By now, you should have done sufficient observations and reflections to understand the correlation between the intent and impact of your employee’s thoughts and feelings on their behaviour. You should have some questions to get you started when having challenging conversations. By being a role model and being prepared to change your own behaviour and by addressing your team's behaviour, you will demonstrate that you are prepared for a challenge and not afraid to do what you ask of others. If you come up against problems recognising and understanding behaviour, don’t be afraid to be vulnerable and ask for help. There are coaches, mentors, peers and consultants who would be more than happy to help and support you.
Remember, a day without learning is a day wasted.
This is a great opportunity to grow and shine, so seize the moment to unlock your own potential as well as that of your team