Having Difficult Conversations

Welcome. This is JLC Media. My name is Ray Jorgensen, and I have some of my friends and colleagues with me today, and we're going to work on how to have a difficult conversation. And thanks for coming. I think you're going to really love this. And before I set the stage for this conversation, I'd like to get my friends and colleagues to introduce themselves to you. So, Nicole, why don't you introduce yourself and then hand off? And it's nice to have a vice president with us.

I'm Nicole Lyons. I'm the vice president of strategic marketing efforts and branding here at Jorgensen Learning center, as well as an executive coach and consultant. And I'm excited to be here for this conversation on Hard Conversations today. And I'll hand off to my friend Joe.

Hi. And I'm Joe Marshall. I'm an executive coach with jlc. My background and experience is I was in the Navy for 25 years, and then I spent about 20 years in the civilian government and in the DoD government. DoD, part of the government. And privileged to be working here to help people with their executive challenges. And I'll pass it off to Colleen.

Yeah, thank you. I'm the chief operating officer here at the Jorgensen Learning center, as well as an executive coach, and I'm really looking forward to learning from my colleagues. I think that we have a depth and breadth of experience in not only facilitating difficult conversations in our professional lives, but also supporting executives as they facilitate difficult conversations as well. Julie.

And I'm Dr. Julie B. Wise. I have my Ph.D. in literacy. And when I first started being an executive coach, I was still working with administrators and teachers in education. And then Ray invited me to start to work with the military, and I was like, oh, my gosh, I don't know anything about the military. And interestingly, of course, literacy is about reading, writing, speaking, and listening. So all of my experience as a teacher, I was able to actually use very easily when we were talking about difficult conversations, because that's what literacy is about. How can we communicate clearly? And how are we hearing what people say to us?

I love it. We're all about linguistics. Well, thank you for being here. And the reason why we're going to do this particular podcast today is to just model. And it'll not be perfect. It's just a model. And all models are wrong. Some are interesting, some are useful, but it's a model that will allow you to, if you choose to use some of the methods that I'm going to use with one of my friends. And at the end of this, you will completely understand. What did you do, Ray? What were the big chunks of what you did? So that if you want, each of you that are listening will be able to practice this yourselves going forward. So, Colleen, what did you hear me say we're going to do?

Sure. I heard you talk about that you are going to offer a model and all models are flawed, but it is one way, not the only way for people to engage in difficult conversations. And so at the end of this, if people choose to apply this particular model moving forward, it is designed to really help them, let's just say a better difficult conversation.

Nicely stated. Joe, did you hear anything more or different?

No, I didn't hear anything. I think more different. But I do think this is something that the people I coach anyway are very much interested in. Difficult conversation seems to weave its way into almost every session and people struggle with how do I have effective conversations? And you know, what should the timing and the content and the format of that be? So hopefully we'll touch on those things today.

Hopefully I will do my best to surface them. And if I don't, then I know I have resources with me, the four of you, that will help me surface those going forward. Nicole, did you hear something more or different?

Not anything different per se, but just building on what Joe was sharing. I think oftentimes leaders avoid having those difficult conversations. And in the avoiding of the difficult conversation, they create new problems, new and new difficult conversations that need to be had. So I'm looking forward to sharing a way that our leaders that are listening to us today can move forward and have those conversations and feel really comfortable. Not comfortable, it's not going to be comfortable. But they feel more confident perhaps in having those difficult conversations.

That's beautiful. I love your language, too. Linguistics is everything in this work and it is a way, not the way. This is a chance for those of you that are listening to get better and feel more confident stepping into the difficult conversation. Thank you, Julie. Hear anything more or different?

I just wanted to add that that's one of my favorite parts of executive coaching is role playing. The conversation that they need to have. And oftentimes if you role play it and I get to play the really difficult employee who doesn't understand, or I pretend to be the supervisor or the administrator and they get to play the difficult employee and you get some insight on who you are as a leader or maybe even the struggles that this person that you need to talk to is having from those role plays. So even though we aren't maybe talking specifically today about a difficult conversation that you need to have. Just the fact that you are listening to us have a conversation will help you prepare for a conversation that you may need to have in the future.

That's beautiful. And you, all of us. And you heard how elegantly the gang has stated this. It's a model. They're all flawed. And you'll make it better when you make it your own. And anytime you hold one of these conversations, at the end, you get a chance to debrief yourself and figure out, what did I do that went well? What did I learn? What will I do differently? So this is really just a chance for me, in my own way, to come up with a conversation with one of my colleagues. So I'm going to ask Nicole, Joe, and Colleen to blank their screen so I can talk to Julie. And then when I ask her for feedback, you come back in again. Okay.

I'm nervous.

We're still here.

Well, you should be.

No, you can't see us.

We're still here.

So they're with you. Julie, thank you for taking time to come in. And I know I did send you a note and ask you to get into this conversation with me on Zoom. And what I'd like to do today is have just a little chat with you about something I've noticed over the last four weeks and to see whether or not you see it the same way. Because I may have incorrect conclusions, incorrect data about what I saw, and if we understand together what is going on, then each of us would know what to do moving forward. What are you hearing me say? I want to talk with you about today, Julie.

You've seen possibly a pattern over the past four weeks, and you want to talk to me and see if there's anything that you're missing on my perspective. And hopefully together we can come together with an agreement moving forward.

That's exactly right. And before I. I do that, let me just check with you and see. Is there anything you're worried about or concerned about? Is this making you anxious? Just because I asked you to meet with me about something? Is that anything?

I think I'm perfect. The fact that you're seeing something. But at the same time, I'm looking forward to the opportunity, too, because I do know that even though it does make me nervous, usually the insight that you provide me does help me be, you know, more effective and better in what I do. So I appreciate your willingness to give.

Thank you. And my distraction is I don't want to do anything at all. That would damage our relationship professionally. And sometimes when people have given me feedback in the past, I have not been appreciative. I felt I was being criticized. So this is an opportunity for us to meet on a level playing field so that we can talk about something that is a little challenging to talk about and resolve it together. Anything else you're thinking right now?

Nope. I'm ready to get it.

So here is the situation as I've seen it over the last four meetings and they were all Zoom meetings with our team. What I noticed is that you were late by a couple of minutes or many minutes to the last four. And so the situation is we meet regularly on Zoom to kind of get stay together on the promises we made one another and for whatever reasons. And tell me whether you. I've missed this. It seems to me that you have been late or missing in the early part of the. Of these last four meetings. And so let me just stop there and see whether you concur that that is the situation and that is. And that has been your behavior.

That's true. I have been late.

Okay. Is there something that's going on that you need support upon or is there something that I can do to help you? Do whatever is necessary, provide a resource to make sure. Because that time for us really is sacred.

Yeah, I just, I mean, my first reaction is to give excuses. Right. So it's, it's the summer and my kids are at home and we always have our meetings at the exact same time, 12 o', clock, which is our lunchtime here in Pennsylvania. And that's when my kids want to eat and it's difficult to. You never know what the drive thru is going to be like or whatever. And oftentimes I'm doing my best to try and come back and sometimes there's traffic and things and so it's an excuse. But at the same time we always have our meetings at 12.

I really hear that loud and clear. So you agree that is a situation. Your behavior is as described and what you did is gave me an explanation of some things that are going on with you personally that's impacting your professional appearance, Is that right? Well, let me just ask one thing of you then, so you can kind of just step outside and hover above self for a minute. What is the, in your opinion, what is the impact of your behavior on our team?

I never really thought about how me not being there right away in the beginning impacts because we all do our check in and so it's like I know we don't always talk about the most important thing right away. And everyone's always happy when I get on. And so the impact is that I'm not. Well, first of all, I interrupt the flow because I come in late. I miss what others share in the check in, so I miss the opportunity to develop relationships with them. And I think the biggest part probably is that I'm modeling that I don't value or respect other people's time like everyone else is there on time. But Julie, she can just. She just rolls in whenever she wants and it's going to be okay.

All right, temporary timeout, gang. Come back online and we're going to put a pause here. So I did a very specific set of things and I'd like my colleagues and Julie, you don't feel damaged yet, do you?

Not yet.

So not yet. I'd like you all to pick up on what I did there. Really, the use of the language was very deliberate and it is something many, many, many times, either in my professional capacity as leader, I needed to perform, but certainly in helping people deal with difficult conversations. I'd like to see what you picked up on that. Nicole, you want to start?

Yeah.

I noticed, one of the things I noticed was you were. You said what you noticed and then you asked if that felt true for her. Like, is that, is that true? You know, are you noticing the same thing? I know you didn't use those exact words, but really confirming, like, here's what I noticed. Is that also what you're experiencing?

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. So there's a piece of creating space for her to acknowledge the words that I produced and getting her to confirm those words so that I didn't launch into this situation, behavior, impact until we had some kind of common understanding that what I was seeing was actually something she agreed. There was an agreement, a confirmation that that was actually happening. Great catch, Joe, what's one of your catches from that?

Yeah, I think, I think that establishing that common space and giving others an opportunity to comment on that and also the ability to create that space to say, what do you think is the impact on the group? Because I think virtually, pretty universally, people don't think as much in those terms. In this example, we're talking about being late, but it's because I have things I need to do and it's important that I get those things done. And frankly, if I can't get them done, then I'm going to be sitting in the meeting thinking about other things and I'm not going to Be productive and helpful. So I could make a very defensive argument to say I need to clear these obstacles before I really participate. So I think the. Okay, how do you think this looks to the group? Really has a nice third person flavor to it. That is very instructional.

I love that. And I know you saw this. I said helicopter above self and look down and see how this might be impacting the team. Joe, that was a great set of catches. And so what I really did was a CPO and made sure that I gave Julia a chance to respond to that and notice she was. Even though we were role playing, she was like, she rolled her eyes. Impact on the team. I hadn't thought about that. So a lot of times we live in this world very much self centered. Like, I got to get my shit done, I got to get things done. I got to get to this meeting. Well, no, you don't. You can, you know, there's other things you can do. And shifting to, as you said, Joe, making sure that we had space so that Julie could tell me what she thought the impact was. I have an opinion. It's not useful. Those of you that listening, that are leaders, you don't need to offer your opinion about impact because it won't change anything. It'll be just my boss telling me what they really think and what they want. When you shift it back to the person that you're chatting with about the impact, this could be a kid in the family who refuses to clean a room, refuses to get food, refuses to. There's a million places that this could really happen. Colleen, what'd you take?

Yeah, I think that I looked at it like, you know, you had almost two parts of your conversation. You set the stage. And in setting the stage, I think, you know, you did an excellent job. And my colleague mentioned this, of focusing the conversation and confirming. I think the other part that I haven't heard my colleagues mention yet was when you kind of surfaced and cleared obstacles, you just paused and said, how are you feeling? Are you anxious? Are you nervous? And I think that that in and of itself is very respectful. But it also gives her an opportunity to say, you know what? Just I am right. Because that is going to kind of gauge the next set when you lay down the tool on the table, the sbi. So I think that knowing that is exceedingly helpful. And so I think the other piece that I just want our colleagues and friends listening to notice is a lot of times we avoid these conversations, just like Nicole said. And so because we avoid it, we enter into the Conversation. Let's get it done. Let's jump in, let's tell them these things. Let's tell them what we notice. And so the big takeaway for me is just reminding everyone, don't rush these. If you rush through, you're actually really impacting the quality of the conversation. So those pieces where you set the stage, always set the stage. Take your time to do those pieces. Otherwise, I can't imagine. I mean, it could go sideways quickly. Right. And then Julie's got her dukes up in the conversation, and now she's defending.

Yeah, that's beautifully stated. And notice that as soon as I closed the loop on the cpo, I created the intention for the conversation and did my best to make sure that Julie heard the CPO deeply. I attempted to pivot right into surfacing and clearing obstacles and not make it a. Okay, focus. Okay. Clear obstacles. Okay. SBI didn't do that. I attempted to stay very much conversational through that particular piece. Good catch, Colleen. Julie, how about you? How'd that land on you?

I felt nervous, like I said. And at the same time, it was a space to just be reflective. I didn't feel attacked. Was just sort of like, okay, well, what's happening? Not like, you've been late. I'm going to write you up, and it better not happen again. And if you do it again, then I'm going to dock your pay or whatever. It was sort of like, what's happening? And then that made me feel like you care about what's happening. And it also gave me an opportunity to say, you know, think about it. We always have our meetings at 12, and I'm wondering if maybe there would be another time to have a meeting that isn't always at lunchtime. So I'm.

Sure about how long the chick fil a line is.

Okay? So that's really good. So those of you listening, notice creative focus through CPO surface and clear obstacles. We are together. We create a common understanding by using a very simple, very simple conversational tool. Situation, behavior, impact. I have watched a commanding officer in one of our activities do an SBI with the bot. What was happening is the board of directors in this particular activity, when they checked in or they checked something they did during the meeting, they just said, nothing to pass, nothing to pass, nothing to pass. No one said anything. There was no development of common understanding about the intention or the situation that was going on. So the boss did an sbi. He said, here's the situation. Every time we meet, at least two thirds of you tell me Nothing to pass, which means I can't learn anything about what's going on in the activity. If you continue to behave in that way, what do you think the impact is on me as commanding officer? But the impact on us as a team isn't that interesting. And there was an immediate shift in the room. Oh, we did not mean to do that. We just were trying. We think time is valuable. We're just trying to hurry through. I don't think my words matter. All that kind of stuff unfolded. And when the boss did that, when the commanding officer used the SBI as a way to set up that conversation, he said for the rest of his time there, the board meetings were different. So very good catch. So notice, focus, clear the obstacles, make sure we build common understanding using situation behavior, and then impact. And again, I urge you, although you have an opinion, as the person facilitating the conversation, leading the conversation, you have an opinion about the impact, don't say it. Invite the person you're talking to to say it. So we'll click to the last part of the meeting. You guys can stay online. And the only thing I would do at the end then is get to this place. The fourth step. So, Julie, thank you for your complete openness and your willingness to share with me what's going on. I'd like to be able to move forward in this conversation. So is there something that you think I should do differently? And I think I did hear the meeting time. That kind of struck you that in the summer, when you have the kids at home like you do now, that meeting time might be at issue. So it is something, something I could talk with the team about, and with your permission, I'd be willing to do that. I'm wondering if there's something you could do differently or do you need me to broker a resource to support you?

Well, if you would like to pay for grubhub to deliver Chick Fil a to my house so I don't have to go pick it up, that would be great. No, seriously, we have meetings at noon three times a week. And so then there are two days where I could certainly work with my kids and say, hey, these are the only two days that I can go and pick it up. Because my intention really isn't to be late. Like, I really go, you know, it. Open lunch starts at 11, and by the time I get out there and get back and blah, blah, blah, sometimes I am late. And so I could definitely do that. That only go pick up things and then have them eat lunch here on the days that we have our meetings.

Gotcha. So I'm hearing your willingness to do that and I'm going to write that down and capture that promise. And I'm writing down my promise, which is to talk with the team about a slight adjustment in time. And I hope you won't be late for that conversation so that you can add your 2 cents in about what it is you think we should do differently around the timing of the meeting. So. Well, thank you for that and let me kind of just do a quick check out with you. What is what was most surprising to you in this conversation, Julie?

That you noticed that I was late four times a week, like for the month. You know, it didn't. I knew that, you know, I was late sometimes, but I didn't realize that for the past four weeks I've been late. So that sort of surprised me that there was a pattern.

Interesting. What I found most surprising is, and something I felt about you always as someone on the team, that you recognize that if I'm late like this and you surfaced all the potential impacts that I didn't have to do a thing. You understood completely what was going on and what might happen moving forward. Well, thank you. I will schedule a time for that meeting and I look forward to you taking care of the promise you made to me on your end and I'll see you at the next meeting.

Okay. I appreciate the conversation.

So that's real and that's probably what can happen. But I want you to notice that we both had something to do. It wasn't. Julie, you need to fix this. That a lot of times we don't even realize that we're providing a situation or a climate or a culture that makes it harder for people to participate fully. When you talk with the gang and tap into what's going on for real, there's a very different conversation that unfolds. Okay, final thoughts about this. What's your biggest takeaway? I'm going to start with you this time, Joe, and you can hand it off to one of your buddies. What's your biggest takeaway from this?

I think the thing that I would most want people to take away from this is the idea that the boss has to work to create this space for this conversation. Without the setup it is, it is likely to fail. And I think most employees think of their boss as a judger. As a judge. And many bosses think of themselves as a judge. That their role and their constant output has to be decision making and providing people feedback, however unpleasant that might be. And so I Would like to encourage bosses to think more of their judgment as a very discreet thing, more like a laser that they periodically turn on when they need to measure, when they need to know. Exactly. But to create that environment otherwise that says, okay, I'm looking at the team and this is how the team is operating. And at least these are my observations and these are my sources of information. And again, we talk internally about the ladder of inference, but this is directly where it ties in. And it's a very supple application to say, as you did to Julie. My observation is that this is what is occurring. And then to have a conversation around that to discover more. Many times, Ray, when I coach people, the role playing, as Julie says, which is always very effective with people that I have with this is, you know, I do the 22nd role play of, okay, I'm your boss. You're late to meetings. That's not going to work for me anymore. So you're going to be on time from now on or else. Got it. Thanks. Okay. Because I think virtually everybody has had that conversation at some point. And when you compare that with this. And again, we're using an overly simplified example on being late to a meeting. But the same thing would apply with performance, that. Okay, we're changing the template for patient appointments. I said I wanted that done by March. It's now July. What's holding us up? As you said, what resource do I need to broker? What more effort do we need? But we just don't seem to be moving ahead. That clear implication that says we're in this together and we're working it through. It's not, I said you didn't do it. You failed me. You're bad.

Beautiful. Yeah, that's. SBI and ladder of inference are absolutely, incredibly important. Hand off to one of your partners, Joe. Thank you. Magnificent.

Okay, I'll hand off to Nicole.

Thanks, Joe. And what you just said is just reminds me of. It's actually an illustration or cartoon I saw just this morning by a really talented artist, Liz and Molly. And you can find their account out there and I can show it to you briefly. But for those of you watching online, it's probably pretty tiny. But it says healthy conflict or unhealthy conflict is you versus me, and healthy conflict is you and me versus the problem. And it immediately resonated for me when I saw it. But what you did hear for us today in this conversation is illustrated or demonstrate how you can do that, how you can be you and me versus the problem instead of you versus me. Like Joe was describing. Here's the problem here. You need to fix it. And that really turns into a you versus me kind of conversation and relationship between you and whoever you're having that conversation with versus creating a space where you can say, hey, here's this problem that I've noticed. How can I support you so that this problem doesn't impact our team's ability to win? And your ability to win, that's magnificent.

That's really, really good. Who did you hand off to?

I'll hand off to Colleen.

No, I really like Nicole, how you added that. It's us versus the problem. Right. So we want to be able to have a conversation about it. Because I'll add a little bit more to Jo's, you know, non example of a quality, difficult conversation. Right. Here's the problem. You need to fix it. Just do it. Think about the impact of that. Now that person's walking out the door going, screw him, and now it's. It's shifted and it's almost embedded even further in their mental model that. That my boss is against me and I'm not a team player anymore because they're sticking it to me. And so it just deepens that whole feeling. So I love both. Jo, Nicole, have they really talked about it is how the leader shows up, sets the stage, and engages. Because sometimes we're so busy. We didn't. We've been on the receiving end and the giving end of that conversation that Joe mentioned. So have we ever thought about the impact that our behavior has? And we probably go, damn, Julie. Why don't she just do what I say? Right? And it continues to spin and I'll even throw drama into the equation. So I think just wanted to add on to those great points that my colleagues have made.

That's fantastic. Thank you. And again, drama is something listeners you can find in our work because it's everywhere, all the time. And rather than commiserating with Julie about having kids and dealing with them at lunchtime, the conversation stayed away from that and stayed in the area of what can we do personally, individually, and collectively to make this better? Really good, Colleen. Thank you. Julie.

Two things. As the person who had the conversation, trust me, trust your employees to handle feedback. A lot of times the leaders are afraid to do it because they are afraid of the way the person's going to react. And then people don't react professionally because the leader isn't modeling it itself. And then the second thing is that oftentimes the leader is afraid to have it. But what happens is the impact on the rest of the team. So the rest of the team now is angry at me and I don't even know it because I never show up. Or they're angry at Ray because he never handles me and says that I'm late. So as a leader, you need to have these conversations to keep the team together. And I have had several conversations with leaders and they were like, I'm afraid to do this. I'm like, well, then maybe leadership isn't the space for you. When you choose to be a leader, your responsibility is to keep the team together and to model the conversations that are going to keep the team moving effectively. And that means that you need to have these. And I'm willing to practice them with you beforehand. I'm willing to. I've been in meetings where I've been the facilitator and helped have this conversation between two people. Sometimes you need to do that as well, is have a third party person having this difficult conversation to make sure each person is heard. But I think it's really important for the leader to understand if you want to be an effective leader, it's important to have these conversations.

It's almost like, you know, if you are truly in love with leadership, that means you're clear about helping the team win. And this is an example of if I don't have this conversation actually encouraging the deconstruction of the team, Whether it's, well, he doesn't talk to Julie because she's cute and he doesn't want to, but he'll talk to me because I'm not really. Where did that come from? One more ladder, you know what I mean? And they start making up reasons and excuses for why Julie's still doing this. It's just awful. So in love with leadership. Help the team win. And you also pivoted to something else. If I don't talk to Julie, my boss is going to talk to me about the situation, my behavior and the impact of my behavior on the team by not talking to someone who isn't performing. Colleen and I had a long talk yesterday about the fact that what's your standard is the performance of your least effective team member. That's your standard. And if that doesn't change, the team will not get better. That is your standard. The performance of the least effective team member. This is very powerful stuff, guys. Those that are listening, please. I'm so grateful you were here. Hope you enjoyed it. Let us know if we can do anything to help you guys out. You can find us@gojlc.com all of our podcasts and YouTube structures and webinars which come out every month are on that site and we would love to have you come join us and love for you to engage with us. Let us be part of your journey and your own personal mastery and your own personal development as a leader. Take care everyone and thank you so much.

Team Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast. The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page@gojlc.com.