by Mike Nitzel,
Principal
Thomas Jefferson
Elementary
Rock Island-Milan
(IL) Dist. 41
Milan, IL
Difficult conversations are a part of every leader’s
responsibilities. However, difficult
conversations need not be confrontational and the goal every difficult
conversation should be to enhance relationships and/or improve outcomes. The following four rules can help you achieve
these goals.
1)
Be
cognizant of timing. Not every difficult conversation needs to be had
immediately after a particular incident.
Sometimes time is needed, particularly if emotions are involved, to remove
some of the emotion and allow cooler heads to prevail. Your own professional judgment and knowledge
of your staff will help you determine when to hold your conversation.
2)
Be
compassionately honest. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,
brutal honesty is usually more brutal than it is honest. Say what you have to day, but utilize your
compassion. To do otherwise will damage
relationships in the long run. Remember,
people may not remember what you said or what you did but they’ll certainly
remember how you made them feel. This is
never more important than in difficult conversations. And if you are confronted
with emotion, meet it with reason.
Reason and compassion are not mutually exclusive.
3)
Think
Win-Win. Stephen Covey is right
on the money on this one. When dealing
with a difficult conversation, you’re usually dealing with a situation in which
someone has not met your expectations or the expectations of your
organization. As a leader, it is your
job to find common ground with those who work with you that will allow both
parties to walk away with something in the win column. Much of the time, people just want to be
heard. By giving them a respectful
audience, you’ve provided them with a win.
You win when you get an agreement that they will respect your
expectations or that of the organization.
4)
Walk away
with common understandings. Ambiguity and uncertainly will do nothing
but breed additional problems. Come away
from your difficult conversation by making sure that both of you understand
what each can expect from the other. As
the leader, sometimes those understandings must be imposed by you. But those are likely few and far between. By reaching mutual understandings after a
conflict, future problems can be minimized.
These are just four overarching rules that I follow when
dealing with difficult conversations.
I’m sure you have others. I would
love to hear them. Please feel free to
comment on this post and, as always, thank you for taking time out of your busy
lives to read this. I genuinely
appreciate it.
