Episode 67 Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just make sure you’ve been clear by the time you walk out about what needs to happen, by what support, if they need any check in. Hey, do you need any help with that?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi everyone. Rob Kropp and Dan Stones here from Pravar Group and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den. Good to have you back, Dan. Looking forward to part two.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yes, good to be back. Rob. Hello everyone. Part two should be a cracker. I’m really enjoying what we did in part one and looking forward to really getting in today and talking around, well, how do you have these conversations? What do you say with the difficult conversation and how do you deliver it in a way that lands and creates the changes that you’re actually wanting rather than just sort of getting something off your chest?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
If you haven’t listened to part one of this two part series, please make sure you do go back and listen to that and complete the challenge at the end of that episode because what it’s going to do is set you up for this second part. They work together these two episodes and getting through part one is really going to get you in the right headspace and it talk through the different types of difficult conversations, how to acknowledge when you might be avoiding them, and then getting the preparation and the environment and the place. So make sure you go back and listen to that because today’s a really important part of adding to that on the nitty gritty of the actual conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, for sure. Now, assuming you’re all keen listeners, you’ve done your homework, you’ve done everything, all the great clients that we’ve got that do exactly what they say in coaching, let’s get into today’s part two. When we do this, we’re going to break it down and again, I’m sorry, I’m going to use the same words, but we’re going to have it in two parts today as well. There’s a little section we’ve got to cover off and then we’re going to give you an actual framework that you can use over and over again. But there’s two parts to when you decide how you’re going to have this conversation and what we’re going to do is talk through pretty much top to bottom when you get into that room, when you get into that situation or the place that you’ve put in for the conversation, this is how we’d recommend it roles, but we’re going to give you sort of a behind the curtains, look at the steps that are involved. So this is a little part one of the meeting. It’s like act one if you like, and we call this setting the scene and meeting the person where they’re at. Lead us away, Rob, with setting the scene.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Setting the scene is about, what it does is it establish intent for the conversation and what it enables you to do is it somewhat sets the tone and lowers defensiveness of the person you’re having the conversation with. So what I mean by that is, is that you’re setting the intention, you’re setting the tone, you’re starting on the right front foot, but it also disarms them so that they’re somewhat receptive to the conversation you’re about to have.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Too often people get into these difficult conversations and because they’re difficult, because they’re uncomfortable, people just jump straight into it and sometimes the person on the other end doesn’t even really have time to find their feet and know what it’s about. They just know that it’s bad. They know that they don’t like it and they want to get out of it. So when you do this, what that sounds like is your aim is for absolute clarity not to raise conflict. That’s really, really important.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
And I think what happens is because you might be a little bit nervous around having this conversation, maybe you are all over the place with my voice at the moment you’re unsure about what to say and when and you are either going, guns are blazing or you’re not confident and they’re two ends of the spectrum and how you might be handling this conversation. The worst place that you can go in it is all guns blazing and just go whack from the beginning because naturally when someone goes too hard, too fast in conversation, the recipient of that just bang shut, just shuts down, arms crossed, closed ears, and they do not want to be hearing what comes next. And so you’ve wasted your opportunity to have a constructive difficult conversation.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, so what this sounds like when you do this, if I was sort of role playing this out, I always start with setting the scene is something like, well hey, thanks for making the time or thanks for coming in or thanks for meeting me. I want to have a quick conversation about something that’s come up. Now the goal here is we’ve got to talk about it and you can then drop in. This is a performance conversation or whatever bucket you’ve got from your steps that we did in prep. The goal here is to talk about performance, but I want to talk it through really quick. I want talk it through really clearly and I want us to have a positive outcome at the end. So I want this to be a two-way conversation that sort of sets that tone in a way that it’s like, alright, I know what’s coming.
(04:40):
I know it’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be hard, but that intention, like you said, Rob is an intention that’s positive. There’s an outcome that’s going to be reached where there’s a way forward. Sometimes depending on the conversation, the person doesn’t even know if there’s an out to this, am I getting fired? Do I get to live for another day? What happens if you can say it like that and practise it, get comfortable with what you’ve got to say in your own words. If you set the scene that way, you disarm the situation, you put them in a place where there is a way forward, which is really important.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, I want have a conversation about X, Y, Z, I want it to be positive and I want to be able to have a positive outcome at the back end of it and something for us to be able to move forward. And so by saying that that structure of that conversation is you’re really clear upfront what you want to talk about. You’re alluding to that you want it to be a constructive conversation and to have a positive end because if you are having a difficult conversation with someone, the thoughts that are rolling around in their head going, do I have a job? What am I going to do tomorrow? How am I going to tell ’em am I getting fired? Am I being, get me out of here? If you don’t set the intent of the start of the conversation, right, they’re not listening because you haven’t opened the conversation correctly.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah. Now obviously this is the first time, maybe you’ve addressed this, maybe the second you haven’t had this sort of conversation with them before. If it is a second or third, and there’s always that, right? Someone’s out there listening, no doubt going, Hey, I’ve spoken to this person three, four times about this. You’ve still got to set the scene and you do that by saying something along the lines of, Hey, thanks for meeting me today. Now, this is something we have spoken about before and I want to be really clear today on what needs to change from here. That language again sets the tone, but you’re taking it up a notch for either the severity or the need to have the change made. So there are ways to do it, but you’ve still got to cover off that point. Even if it is the second, third time, even if it is something that’s probably not always just going to be, Hey, let’s see if we can find a way forward.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And what I liked about your tone then was it was firm going to be fair, but you are firm. You would direct, Hey, we’ve spoken around this before and what we’re going to be speaking around again today is this and you are confident in the way that you did that. Now I know that you’ve had probably 1,000,001 difficult conversations, Dan, but this comes through practise, but compare that coming into, oh, Dan, I think we’ve spoken around this before, mate, today I want to, that doesn’t have confidence and your message is not going to land well, is it?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
No, you’ve got to have your prep done. That’s why we spent a whole episode going through those six steps on prep to be able to get you to a point where at least you’ve got some basis for what you’re going to talk about. The second part of part one that we said, setting the scene and meeting them where they’re at now, this is a game changer, this one when you do this because what you’re trying to do most of the time is yes, you’re going to get your point across and as a business owner, you hold the keys to the kingdom. It’s your business. You always have the authority, you have the higher ground, you’re always the person that can pull rank. That’s always in your back pocket, but too many people are too quick to pull rank on others that they’re talking to in this situation because they do sound like you said, they sound unsure of themselves, they don’t sound confident, they struggle to put together what they’re trying to really say.
(08:08):
When you go to this part and you say, well, I’m going to take a breath here, I’ve set the scene, I’ve said what the outcome’s likely to be or where I want to go with it, I want to draw them into the conversation. And you do that by meeting them where they’re at. Now this sounds like really tricky, but really before it, it sounds tricky, but it’s really easy. So let me give you the example first then Rob jump in and tell me what you think of it. Before I jump in and we start the conversation though, I want to know where do you think things are at right now? How do you think things are going? Asking a question of them that they have to respond to. It’s got to be open-ended. It can’t be a yes no. You want them to draw into the conversation, where do you think things are at right now? How do you think you’re going that will invite them to have the conversation knowing it’s still a positive conversation, it’s difficult, but they’ve got a role to play in it. What do you think about meeting them where they’re at?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
There’s two things around why this is important, and number one is it gets them engaged because otherwise they’re going to sit back defensively going, alright, here we go again. I’m just going to copper hiding and they’re sitting on the defence. But if you ask a question, questions, what draws people in? So number one, it creates engagement. Number two, what you’re doing is testing their level of self-awareness. And what I mean by that is if they go, I think things are great, things are awesome, I’ve gone really well in my role, blah, blah. You can tell that they’ve got low levels of self-awareness around the reality of the situation that’s going on and then that sets up another start of a conversation. But if they lead in a little bit and go, yeah, you know what haven’t been going great lately and I haven’t been doing this and haven’t been doing that and they’ve kind of led with vulnerability and honesty, then bang, they’re disarmed and you can have a completely different conversation with them because they’re somewhat speaking the truth. So I like that it creates conversation and it tests their self-awareness around the situation.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
It really does. It sets up the conversation. It’s called a calibrating question in technical terms, you’re judging the situation where they’re pitching themselves their own performance. If it’s a performance conversation, their own awareness, like you said, if it was a safety issue or something like that, you’re getting the read from them and you’re dealing with it from that point. You can always go hard. Like we said, you’ve always got the keys to pull rank, but if you can do it this way, you’ll get a much better result. It gives you a real time insight into where their mind’s at for the conversation you’re about to have. How hard do you have to go? How quickly can you move to next steps? How quickly can you find a solution?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
This is a bit of a fork in the road type of moment. And what I mean by that is because if you position the opening statement saying, thanks for coming in today, today, I want to be able to talk to you around your tardiness in terms of your start times and then that’s the positioning, then how do you think you’re going with this, mate? My I think I’m going great. Bang, you are down that line of Well, we’ve got news for you buddy.
(11:14):
Absolutely. But if they’re then going, actually, you know what? Yeah, you’re right. Over the last couple of weeks I haven’t been great, I’ve been late. Then you can then go down the line. Well, tell me more about that. And then there’s two completely different styles of conversation. Now you can still have the technique that we’re going to talk about next, but the tone and the conversation of that technique is really dependent on how you open the conversation and that’s why it’s important. It helps you determine how hard, how fast or how soft you need to have the clip technique technique, which is what we’re going to talk about next.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, critical. So that’s part one, get that out. That’s mandatory every difficult conversation by the way, and it’s a game changer, like I said at the beginning, part two, as you said, we’ve got a technique we call the clip technique. We’d like to think it’s because you’re clipping the issues early before they grow into something. But you and I both know when we came up with this, giving someone a clip is what we had in mind and that was sort of the difficult conversation we said, right?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, it’s just given a clipper of the year, but you can’t do that in today’s world and it’s important that you don’t, but we are clipping the issue before it turns into a bigger issue.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Bigger, yeah, absolutely. So let’s lay it out. I’m going to give you the clip what it all stands for and means. Then we’ll break down each one of these. So C in clip is for context, the situation if you like. So context is c, l is look at the behaviour I is insight and P is pressure point or an impact. Now what we’re trying to do here is really make this clear and user friendly. It is to remind you that there is a technique really, and you’ll probably say it to yourself and we hear it all the time, I need to give this guy a clip. It does have a purpose metaphor. Yeah, metaphorically, please don’t go in and think we’re being absolute on that, but yeah, giving someone a clip, whatever it is. But if you can get that clip acronym in your mind, once we roll through this, it’ll at least remind you that there’s a structure, there’s a way to have this conversation. It shouldn’t be just ad hoc shoot from the hip like we said. So let’s start with the first letter as we said, which is C, which is context. Let’s walk through the situation if you like.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
We spoke around in the preparation work that you would’ve done based on the previous episode is you’ve got to make sure you lead with the facts, not lead with a emotion or judgement of what that person may or may not have done. And so what you want to be able to do is when you’re leading with context, you are describing the when and the where. So I want you to be able to think about those, really anchor onto those two words, the when and the where and being really specific around those things there and leading with facts rather than emotions.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Being specific’s absolutely key. If you’ve got any sort of misunderstanding around what it is, you’re going to end up going down the weeds and arguing about context when you can really set up the conversation with a very clear specific set of events, circumstances, feedback, whatever it might be, you want to be as specific as possible to set the context for the rest of the conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, there’s an issue when it comes to difficult conversation called problem stacking. And what I mean by problem stacking is you did this and you did this and you did this and you did that, and there’s an example where you should have had four conversations, not one, and stacked everything on top because when you’re problem stacking, it’s a symptom of failing to have the conversation. You’ve avoided it, now you’ve got frustrated, you’re stacking them all on top of each other and you dilute the impact of that conversation trying to address everything rather than the specifics of something. And that’s why when we’re specific is the key to really high levels of context around that situation.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah. This is the reason why we don’t like having performance reviews in spaces because you can’t avoid it. You’re going to go through everything that’s come up in the space between that conversation and the next. Now to give you an example of how you’d be specific, again, it’s not trying to read the law to anyone. All you need to do is say, Hey, we’re going to be talking about what happened yesterday morning. You’re on site at this time and X happened. That’s it. But that frames the conversation to where and when, and that’s really all we’re trying to do is box it into that one situation so we can come back to the situation at hand. That’s going to be the conversation we’re going to have. The next one we want to look at is look at the behaviour. And this is a really important thing and this is where people tend to go off a bit because once you get into the conversation, you start reliving the context, you start to have some emotions coming in. So what we need to do as part of Al is look at behaviour.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
This is a really important one because you want to be able to focus on what they did and the specific behaviour or action that they demonstrated, not who they are as a person. So you don’t want to be attacking them, you want to be addressing the behaviour and focus on what they did rather than who they are.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
The other thing with that, I think most people are probably okay with that unless you’re really dealing in emotionally charged things, it gets away from you pretty quick sometimes, but it’s also avoiding labels assumptions. It’s avoiding talking in absolutes. Everyone does this, no one does that. You are the only one that does this. Sweeping generalisations aren’t going to help you when you get into the conversation. It makes us feel better because we feel we’re not attacking someone outright because we’re talking generally it waters down the conversation. If you don’t look at the behaviour, you’ll naturally go into watering it down. So it’s really important that people avoid making sweeping generalisations about the person or specifically pointing fingers and attacking the person, which you can’t do anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
And again, let’s use an example. While you were on X, Y, Z site, I saw you not wearing the appropriate PPE as per our company policies. So you were very clear on the context, the time, the situation, where it was and what was the behaviour that they were demonstrating, which was the incorrect PPE as per the company policies.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, good example. Have you got an example of what that would sound like in the opposite if you went the other way around it?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, the worst thing you can say is Bob said he saw you not wearing your PPE, and he came back and told me and mate, better than that. And what you’re doing then is it’s through a third party, you’re not sticking to the facts and it’s hearsay. And so you never want to get caught into that. You’ve got to stick to the facts, stick to the situation, and stick to the behaviour that you saw or have as appeared to be demonstrating.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah, absolutely. That’s great. So C and L are down, we’re up to I. Let’s go into insight, which is in other words, what we’re talking about is your assessment of the situation, the context and the behaviour that was exhibited. So insight or your assessment.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
This one is the insights for them to give somewhat your welcoming feedback for them to absorb what you’ve said. And I suppose once you’ve described the situation, you’ve encouraged them to be able to think and they’re probably sitting there racking their brain thinking about it depending on the severity of it, and it allows them to understand in their own mind the impact of the behaviour that they’ve demonstrated, absorb it. But then you want to be able to welcome their feedback to be able to go, well share your thoughts, what’s your side of the story around this situation? You don’t want to just go in guns a blazing hitting with this and clipping a mirror and throw everything down their throat. You want to be able to let them share their side of the story around a reasonable scenario around why they did or didn’t demonstrate that behaviour.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And the reason why you’ve got to stick to the behaviour because you need to come up with this, you want to get this two-way dialogue happening once you’ve laid all these facts out. So being able to ask the question, how do you do this? If you’re wondering, all you need to do is ask a question. How do you think this is the behaviour that we exhibit here? How did you think that was? Okay, asking a how question like that, how do you think this was okay, how was that appropriate for the person you’re speaking to? Ask that question and wait for the answer really is the secret to this step for the insight. You’ve got to wait for it to come rather than it just being your interpretation. It’s called the insight from the person that you’re talking to.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Why do you think it’s really important for them to express their insight, do you think? What does that allow them to do?
Speaker 1 (20:25):
One, I think it allows them to take responsibility for their actions. And regardless of whether you end up in a way forward, it’s the third time, the fourth time, one of the biggest things we can do, and it happens as a parent, as a boss, as a manager, a leader, whatever it is, is help people to understand that they have to take responsibility or the power of taking responsibility for your actions. And when you ask a question like that, the responsibility for the answer is not coming from you. It’s like you’re saying, and this means and that’s that, and I’m in charge and I’m pulling rank and this is all my way. You’re actually inviting them in to develop as a person. And I think as a good leader, a good manager, that’s part of your role. You want the team to get better as a result of the conversation, not just be more fractured or more conflicted if you like.
(21:11):
So being able to ask that question is really, really important. So I think it gives them responsibility or helps ’em take responsibility. It also offers them a chance to turn the corner with you if they’re really interested in moving forward, like you said at the outset, when you set the scene, this is their first test of that. Are they willing to move forward? Are they willing to learn from it and grow and get better or are they going to harbour a grudge? Are they going to come back? Now, if you asked the question to me and you said, Hey, I forgot to talk about the behaviour and I talked about them, all they’re going to do is defend, defend, defend, deny, deny, deny. I didn’t say that. Bob’s a liar. What would Bob know? I don’t care what Bob thinks. Why are you trusting him? He didn’t wear hiss the other week. All that shit starts, right? So it’s really important when you do this, you follow each step because it naturally leads to the next step in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
And the key word you’ve used there is conversation. Because if you don’t let them absorb what you’ve said, they’re going to feel like you’re just talking at them, not talking with them. And so in this, if you skip this step with the eye and you just go context, look at the behaviour commitment, you’re just going to talk at them, tell them what they need to do, move on out of that conversation. You’re trying to rush it. This is like a wedge step in there where they go, oh, okay, cool. Yep, I get it. Yep, I remember that. Yep, yep, yep. Okay. Well this is my side of the story conversation and it also means that when you do get to the P part is it enables you then to have a better conversation around the pressure or the impact of what they’ve done and get a better commitment from them out the back end because they’re buying into this conversation rather than be talked at.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
The difficult conversations like a JK or a V, if you like in your mind you get into it and it sort of sucks and it always feels pretty shitty, but you’ve got to turn the corner at some point and you want to have that upward inflexion take off and the momentum to grow from there. So being able to get to this point and really giving them that opportunity to do that, you’ve got to do it at some point. And if you’ve got everything in a row, this is that point. This is where you can start to make that upward tick in terms of the conversation. The next thing is P, and it’s our last letter in our little clip and the last thing you need to do, but we call this pressure point, and this is either the pressure point or the impact and what we’re talking about really is almost the ripple effects of everything we’ve talked about so far and sort of checking in there.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
This one’s a really important one because you’re almost driving in the point that little bit harder. You’re really putting the piling on the pressure. Now why around the context that we started with. And what I mean by that is what you’re doing is making it aware to them of the real impact that it’s had to the team, to the business, to clients, the potential cost, the impact on the potential loss of contract. If it’s that severe, it’s really the consequences. What you’re doing is really highlighting to them not what personally it’s done to you, the impact that it’s had to the business and everything around them, and you’re really driving that point home. Then it’s like, mate, you’ve stuffed up here and this is the impact and it really drives it home, the point you’re trying to make.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Yeah, I really like what you said there. It makes it feel real. It makes it feel like it’s not about me or my feelings. Yeah, I’m pissed, but it’s not about me being pissed off about this and I’m getting it off my chest. It’s about there’s a real reason for having this conversation and you can think about that right performance. There’s impacts, there’s consequences of what you’ve done that are way beyond you. It’s way beyond just someone else’s feelings there. There’s real will consequences that need to be talked about. And I think a lot of time we don’t make that step either, and we just sort of get into this idea of, well, now you’ve pissed me off. I’ve got to get this out. Like we’ve said a couple of times, getting it off your chest isn’t the aim of the conversation, but getting the lesson out is really important, correct.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
And talking about the consequences of their behaviour is what adds depth and weight to the conversation, but it prevents it happening. Again, how many times do we hear it with clients around PPE and safety and not filling out their time cards in their job sheets and all those types of things? If you are repeating yourself around those conversations all the time, it’s probably that. It’s an example where you are not explaining the consequence enough and it’s just not registering in that person’s mind why you repeat yourself.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, it’s important to you but not to the person who’s hearing it somehow, somewhere along the line they’re, they’re not grasping the importance of the issue at hand.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
So a great example, let’s keep this theme around going on with around this conversation at site. A great example might this be is yesterday on site on X,Y Z’s site, you weren’t working, you weren’t wearing your PPE, we spoke around this last week about wearing appropriate PPE in our last week’s toolbox meeting. Then this is the impact and the pressure point. Not only have you broken company policy around that, but someone could have been injured and you could have potentially put this contract at jeopardy, which means that our pipeline dries up and there’s a lot of impact to the ongoing concern of this business going forward. If we lose that contract, yeah, that’s weight, that’s substance, and you’ve got to be able to deliver that with punch a metaphorical punch so that they really then stand up and take notice and go, Ugh, I get it. I know I’ve got to wear my PPE, but I’ve actually got to wear it because there’s all these consequences if I don’t.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, and as you were talking that first bit, if all you even said was the first bit where you were talking about the behaviour and setting the scene, you can hear it in their mind almost as you’re talking. It’s like, what’s the big deal? Just can we just move on? Yep, cool. Get on with it. But this is this step. When you say that thing, you could be injured, someone else could be injured. If you’ve got stories or experiences sharing those makes it real. It adds gravity to the situation and makes it something that has to be paid attention to. So really, really important point.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I love the clip technique. It just, it’s structure, it’s a framework. It helps you deliver the message with impact and it helps you go into it with confidence that you’re going to be able to get in, have the conversation you need and get out and move on.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
And I think that’s the big thing. When you’ve got the structure you can get into and out of a difficult conversation, everyone can get into a difficult conversation. We’ve all done that before. Can you get out of it? Is the real question. And I think there’s one more part to this, Rob that we’ve got to cover off, which is at the very end is commitment and what happens next. And this is part of consequences, commitment, all of that has to be done to tie a bow around this conversation.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And this is a commitment on how you’re going to move forward. And this step is actually really important because if you don’t get this right, what’s going to happen is you’re going to get to the end of the P and then you’re going to be like, oh shit, did I go too soft? Did I go too hard? And then you run the risk of going, but mate, you’re doing a great job. You did an awesome job here. And boom, you’ve just diluted and completely undone the hard conversation you’ve had. So you’ve got to be mindful, you get straight into the commitment of what’s got to happen from here going forward, not undo the hard work that you’ve done in that conversation by trying to soften the blow by giving them positive feedback.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah, there’s nothing worse than hearing someone sitting in on these conversations over the years and you hear someone do all the hard work and then it’s like, but, and the minute you hear the, but you’re like, oh my God, we just wasted all that time. So really, really important. Now, this commitment, again, this is conversational at this point. This isn’t a, Hey, reading the riot act, this isn’t the 10 commandments, this is commitment and what happens next that you’re both jointly agreeing to? So the first step is inviting them to be part of the solution.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I love this because there’s no greater idea than it being their idea. If you tell them what they’ve got to do, they’re going to feel dictated to. But if you ask them, well, what do you think we should do going forward from here? If they give you an answer and it’s acceptable answer, it’s like, great idea.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Job done. This is great. Love it. Let’s do that. So an example of that, how it sounds is something like, so moving forward, it’s clear this needs to change. If I was jumping in on the back of your conversation you just had on the PPE side, so moving forward, this absolutely needs to change. How do you see yourself making that happen in the future? And there’s deliberate silence, right? You have to wait for the answer rather than just telling them, Hey, make sure you wear your PPE gear.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, I love it. Because what it does is it invites them for their input. It allows them to be part of the plan. What are they going to do differently? How are they going to approach it from here? It just enables that part of the next part of the conversation where you can ask them those types of questions to be able to, it’s what’s your plan? How are you going to do this? How are you going to do that? What do you think here? You’re asking open-ended questions, not a yes, no question. It’s an open-ended question to get them talking and explaining what they’re going to do differently.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, it also, it does, it obviously builds ownership with what they’re doing. It also, it shows respect for them in the conversation, which I think is important. No one wants to feel belittled coming out of those meetings. All you end up there is just, that’s all you get, right? It’s like, well, fuck you. I don’t care. You’ve just blasted me for an hour. Who do you think you are? The minute I walk out of this room, I’m still me. So it shows respect. And then the other thing it does is it gives you a read on their mindset and their willingness to change, which is what you want to see. You’d rather get that sort of feeling sooner rather than later. You want to be looking at the clock going, Hey, it’s three weeks later, I still haven’t seen it. You might’ve picked that up. If you say, well, what’s your role in this? How are you going to participate in being the change? You can almost judge that straight away. Are they energised? Are they engaging in that part of the conversation or are they still sitting there, arms crossed, get me out of here? That sort of thing. So I think it’s really important that you do that step of inviting them in to be part of the solution. And then we’ve got to turn the screws again, right?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah. And this is where, remember as you said, as the owner, you still hold the keys to the castle. You don’t have to just accept their answer. You might go, yeah, I’m cool with that. Let’s lock that in. If they gave you an acceptable answer or it’s like, yeah, I’m cool with that. I like this part of it, but I think what this is what needs to be added. So you accepting half, adding another part, or if you like 20%, not 80%, you might go, yeah, that’s a good start, but here’s what I think we need to consider for it to be resolved. And you heard my tone change then?
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah. Yep. That’s almost on the back of if someone’s downplaying it again, it’s almost like I’m still trying to not wriggle out of it, but I’m trying to just sort of downplay it like, yep, yep, I’ve got it. I’ll make sure I wear my stuff and I’ll have it with me at all times. You might come up with that thing that you said then, right?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Correct. And so there’s always three responses you’re going to give. It’s like, I’m cool. Yep, 50% good and 50% needs to change, or eh, that was okay, but you know what, we need to really course correct here. You’re way off the mark.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think then you can wrap it up. I think we’ve really turned the corner. Hopefully as you’ve listened to us, you can see how we’ve gotten into the conversation. We’ve turned it around, we’ve come out the other side. I think all that needs to happen then is conclude it with some agreement and some commitment. Just make sure you’ve been clear by the time you walk out about what needs to happen, by what support, if they need any check in. Hey, do you need any help with that? And again, depending on the circumstances, that’s either an appropriate question or not. When are we going to check in again on this? If we need to have the follow up, like we talked about in our prep and what happens if nothing changes? Again, if it’s very serious, it’s something that must change or it’s along those sort of lines, it’s multiple offenders, that sort of thing. What happens if nothing changes? You’ve got to cover that off.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, I love this. And this is really important that you get gain commitment from them. And this is something you might want to consider is getting them to repeat it back to you because if you just say it to them in terms of what needs to get done, true communication is what’s heard, not what’s said. And so you might say something, they might hear something completely different because they either weren’t listening or they listened, heard what they wanted to hear. So if you ask them to repeat what the commitment is, then what it enables them to do is for you to be able to go, yep, yep. Bang on the money, let’s move on from here.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. It has to happen.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Alright, let’s lock this episode down. Let’s finish with practical exercise so rubber can really meet the road based on today’s episode. Where to from here, Dan? What’s a challenge that you can set to those listening today?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah, this is the follow-up, right? This is why the prep’s so important, but now it’s time to turn in and use the clip and commitment framework and then we’re going to draught a conversation. Alright, so I’m going to walk you through the steps. You listen back to this, play it, pause it, do the steps as we outline it. But I’ll run through them now. Go back and do it as you need to write it out, practise it, have the conversation, is the end game here, right? Go and have that difficult conversation that you know probably should have had. Okay, so let’s go through the instructions now. Step one, choose that issue that you planned out in part one. That’s the starting point. Pull out the prep work you did from last episode. Number two, write down your answers for each of the steps. So again, let’s go through clip context. When and where did the issue take place?
(35:44):
Al look at the behaviour. What did they do? What were the observable facts? Be as specific as you can be. That’s what you need to be doing, right? Insight is I now, what’s your leadership view on this behaviour and what’s that question you want to ask to invite them in to give their insight into that behaviour as well? Then you’re going to do pay the pressure point. What impact? Why is this an important conversation? What impact does it have on the team, the job, the business culture? What happened as a result of the behaviour or the lack of performance or whatever it is that you’ve observed? And then you’re going to go to gaining commitment. And again, this is just simply having that question written down because you’ll lose your thread in the conversation. I guarantee if you’re starting out with this and you’re in the middle of one of these conversations, it doesn’t all just flow off your tongue the first time.
(36:38):
So gain commitment, write that down as you’re heading. Gain commitment, ask, and then you’re going to write down your question something like, well, how do you see yourself turning this around? How do you see yourself improving the situation? They’re just two examples you could use. That could be your questions if it suits, but that you need to have it written down. Then you need to define what has to change by when and what happens if it doesn’t. And you’re not going to just roll into that as part of a script. You’re going to have it written down. So depending on what’s coming back in the conversation, you know where you’re going to take it. If I get where it is, like Rob said, okay, cool, I’m good with that, let’s do it. Let’s meet again in a few weeks and see how that’s gone. I really want to do follow up on this or hey, almost there.
(37:26):
I think we can add a couple of things. That’d be great. And you’ve got your list there now about what must change. You go back to your list and say, well, I hit two out of three, I’ve got to give them the other two. So you’ve got that there. That’s why you have this written down to define what must change by when. When do you want to see this? You’ve got a timeframe on this, right? We need to see it. I need to review it with you. And hey, if this doesn’t happen, this is going to be probably a different difficult conversation that we have in a few weeks.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
What’s important to remember around this little challenge that Dan said in you is that you don’t want to script it perfectly. It’s about getting clarity on what you want to say, being calm and ready and practise it a little bit around the dot points and the key questions. You don’t want to sit there with your notebook in front of you reading it out off the script. You just want to prepare because preparation prevents piss pull performance in the end of the day. And so just remember, it’s not about scripting it perfectly, it’s just about being prepared. And the only way to get better at this management is a learnable skill and having difficult conversations is a part of being a great manager. So lean into this stuff. Use this frameworks, have these consistent clips along the way. Bring people back into line. And the more you do it, the more confident you’re going to be and the better you’re going to feel it doing it, and which in turn is going to give you more confidence to keep doing more. So don’t avoid them, embrace them, and watch the culture and performance of your business. Go to a whole nother level.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, absolutely. Get clear, get calm, and then just be ready for the conversation. That’s really, that’s 80% of the heavy lifting’s done. If you can do that, and those steps we’ve given you will help you along the way.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
If you know that this is an area of weakness and you are looking at taking your management skills to a whole new level, jump across to strategysession.com.au and booking a call and looking forward to talking to you about how we can help develop these skills through some great coaching here at Pravar. Thanks for tuning in today. Looking forward to coming back to you next week with another great episode here at The Trade Den. Until then, see you soon.