The 1 Solution for the 3 Most Courageous Conversations

This is episode 236 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Hello. Hello and welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast. We are on for our monthly topic. It's a brand new month and as you know, in our, or maybe you don't know, in our Empowered Team, we dive into a new monthly topic and we go deep into it and learn the skills to navigate whatever it is so that we can grow as leaders. That's what we do in our group coaching program. So this month our topic is Courageous conversations and specific. Specifically, it's the three most courageous conversations and the one solution, the number one solution. So listen onward here because I think that by the end of this podcast, you will have greater clarity. You will also have a key skill that you can always lean on for any of the most difficult conversations. And I'm talking about all of them. Whether you have to tell somebody that they're getting, whether you have to ask for forgiveness, whether you have to find out awful news that you didn't anticipate receiving. So any of these things put you into a challenging position and often a really challenging conversation. And we're going to choose to call them courageous conversations. So I'm going to tell you a quick story. Years years ago, I don't, gosh, over 20 years ago, I'm sure I was in a situation where I had my dream job. Now most people will go, well, what's the problem? You've got your dream job. Well, the problem was that my dream job didn't pay very much. And when I say it didn't pay very much, even though this is 20 years ago, it really didn't pay very much. It, I think my initial salary was $27,000, maybe $28,000 for the year for my job. And I was in a managerial position, meaning I was the head strength and conditioning coach for multiple national teams. I had two assistants. I, I had a full time job, I had benefits. And yet my salary was really low. Now I was living in a part of the country that had a fairly low cost of living, but still for the role I had, for the education and certifications, I had the experience, experience I had. And what I was managing and dealing with is it was very low salary. So what happened though was that I had no idea, I had no idea that I had no idea how to negotiate for more of a salary. I had no idea that My salary was so low, I had no idea that I needed to advocate for more. I didn't have parents or older peers who could help me navigate through this. I worked in a culture that we did not not share our salaries. And there wasn't a standard across the board for how people got raises or where starting managerial roles were. And in fact, I didn't think highly enough of myself to ask the previous person who was a friend, the previous person who was in that role, who was no longer in that job, and what they got paid. And so here I was realizing that I'd been in my position for, I think at that time it was at least, at least two years and I was actually taking on other clients or athletes on the side because my full time role didn't pay very much. And yet I was working my butt off. I was putting in extra hours, I was creating projects that were above and beyond my role. And it was, it was a lot. And I figured that I would be in. I figured actually originally what I thought was I was going to be able to receive a raise because they would be approaching me and giving me that raise because of the incredible work I was doing. I know I did so much more than other people were doing. I know I was bringing in greater value. I had metrics to show it. I was just like, I was working it. So I thought that I would be offered a raise after a year and perhaps two years. And I think I did get a small raise after a year. But I also realized, having worked with other peers in the industry, I was working with people who were at the Australian Institute of Sport, the Canadian Sport Institute in Calgary, the Canadian Sport Institute in Toronto. And I was realizing there were some things that they had that I didn't, whether it was equipment, whether it was the position, the title, another degree in education. And when I was realizing these things, I was realizing that I was probably due for more pay. But the thing that made me take action was the general manager who hired me was moving on to a completely different role. This general manager was moving to Athletics Canada and this person hired me. And I was terrified that the new person coming in wouldn't know all of the work I'd put in. They wouldn't know everything I had done and they would simply not give me a raise. So I was in a panic to meet with this general manager. I knew when he was leaving. Meanwhile, he was so busy trying to tie things up. So we made a meeting and he cancelled it. We made another meeting and there ended up being a Conflict. He couldn't make that one, or he traveled, he canceled it again. And now I'm really panicking because I'm not even going to get in front of him to have the conversation. Conversation I'm even terrified of having. So finally we get the meeting. I end up traveling to the other office, which was difficult for my work schedule, but I was going to do anything I could to meet with him. I meet with him, and I'm there all prepared, putting in my reasons why I think that this would be amazing for the Sport Institute, amazing for me and all these things. And he basically says, yep, and we'll increase it to this. So I went from that conversation from a salary of, I think, 27 or $28,000 a year to a salary of $35,000 a year. Now, this wasn't a lot of money, but for me, it felt like a big difference. And at the time, I was a single mom. I had a house and a mortgage, and I was paying for childcare. I didn't have support. And it was a major challenge and a major victory in my eyes. However, this conversation could have gone a number of different ways, and I could have helped had I had the skills, help myself and that person navigate this conversation in a better way. And I'm not going to go into every one of those steps. I'm going to go into the key thing, the one solution for any courageous, any challenging conversation. So first, this particular conversation falls into a bucket. There are three main buckets that I believe every single challenging conversation falls into. And the reason that I say this is because I am coaching or consulting with leaders or business people every single day. And what happens is almost every single challenge that they bring up for me to help them with or help them solve has to do with something that's going to either require a different difficult conversation or. Or they had a difficult conversation and we're going to reframe them into courageous conversations, because they're not really a difficulty. They actually provide something so valuable. When people go through them, when they face them, when they work on their own skills, when they work on connecting with the other person, those courageous conversations turn into something that creates trust, rapport, connection, future, respect. Because two humans, whether they disagree or agree or have a major rift, if they can get through a courageous conversation, it builds something. It builds something greater than those individual humans. It builds a connection that creates reliance on not only the individual being able to have the skill and ability to go through a courageous conversation, but it actually creates something between the two people. Whether they like each other or not. So these are the things that people are navigating every single day. And when we think about these difficult conversations, they're things like delivering bad news. It might be a death or an illness or a job loss. You have to tell a family member about any of these things. It's challenging. It's challenging for the person who's receiving it. And usually the person delivering it has a hard time. It can be things like ending a relationship, breaking up with somebody that you've been with, or ending a friendship or even a business partnership. These are emotionally difficult, and they challenge the conversation. How do we communicate this thing that can be so painful for ourselves or for the other person? Even addressing conflicts, some disagreements, how do you resolve that conflict between the other person or giving feedback. This might be in a work setting where we're giving feedback to another person and it's so uncomfortable because we don't want to upset them or disappoint them. We can even find the same thing in addressing our own challenges. We've maybe turned the mirror on ourselves and we realize that we're difficult, we've done something wrong, and we have to address it with another person in order to restore our own integrity. All of these fall into these three buckets of our courageous conversation. We might also be discussing a sensitive topic, such as politics in the family over the holidays. We could be asking for forgiveness. We could be asking for help. We could be negotiating like I was for a better salary. All of these fall into these challenging conversations. And especially if we're in a role where we're used to performing our best and perhaps even people, pleasing another one is challenging authority. All of these are difficult. All of these require courage. All of these fall into three buckets. And bucket number one I call truth telling. So truth telling simply involves telling what we perceive about a certain thing. Maybe it's our opinion about the politics, maybe it's what we believe happened in a certain conflict, and maybe it's our feelings that we are experiencing. But one bucket of all of those challenging conversations encompasses truth telling. The second bucket is truth receiving. This is when we have to hear from someone else their opinion about our work. Suddenly we're getting feedback. And maybe it's hard for us to hear. We're receiving information about a death in the family or the loss of a job. We're receiving information in the world that maybe we don't want to hear. We don't like what we're hearing about some tragedies in the world. All of These fall into the bucket of truth receiving when we're interacting with another person. And the last bucket is a little bit different. And this is the example that I shared earlier. And it is what I call the bucket of the worthy request. And this is where we're asking someone else for something that we value, something that we need, something we want, something that's important to us. And this is the worthy request. And in my example, I was requesting for a greater salary and it really mattered to me. Like I said, I was a single mom and I needed the money. But more importantly for me, it was about my integrity and how hard I worked and the value I was putting into the job. And I ultimately was feeling that I was being undervalued. So again, those three buckets are the truth telling. So whenever you have to tell the truth to someone else, the truth receiving when we need to hear something uncomfortable from someone else. And then the worthy request, a worthy request can also be asking for forgiveness. That can be another very courageous conversation. So when you look at either a challenging conversation that you've had recently, or one that you know that you need to have in the short term, chances are that challenging or courageous conversation that fits into one of those three buckets. And that's what it's gonna take, is courage to have it. And in all of the conversations that I've had with leaders, the solution finding I've been a part of, with business people, and the personal challenges that I've had myself, all of them can be served or solved with one solution. All of them can be smoother, more connecting, more trust building with one solution. And it seems so simple, and yet it has such depth that it's so easily overlooked. And it is a thing that is always referred to in communication. And when I looked at the solution, when it became apparent, as I'm researching and accumulating my experience and digging into the research, and this one thing keeps coming up. Even though in any of those three buckets, the truth receiving, the truth telling, or the worthy request, even though there could be a list of 20 things that can really make that expansion experience much better and much more effective, there is one that tends to hold so much more weight, and it's this active listening. Active listening is something you may have heard of. Active listen listening is necessary in all forms of meaningful communication. And active listening is critical. Critical in these three buckets of challenging conversations so that you can turn them into courageous conversations, so that you can turn them into something that actually builds you as a communicator. Builds you as someone who is a connector with other humans, and builds your skills in relaying your truth while receiving someone else's and being able to negotiate anything that you want in the world. So if you've never heard of active listening, and there's another layer to it that's called deep listening, if you've never heard of active listening, it's pretty simple, but can be a little complex when you actually start to practice it. But the simple version is that it's listening actively and attentively to these conversations, these courageous conversations, in a way that's paying attention to the other person so closely that you're experiencing. You know, what is their eye shift. You can pay attention to their reactions, their body language, their words. But more importantly is that you're responding appropriately for what you're reading into that particular scenario. So for instance, if you notice that someone keeps dropping their shoulders when they're relaying something to you based on your response, every time you respond, they drop their shoulders or they grit their jaw, or they. They turn away, they likely are not feeling understood in some way or another. You may not know exactly what the thing is, but if you're active listening and you are trying to read their signals, you are trying to listen beyond their words that they're saying, then you will read something else that's there and you can gently point that out. It seems like I said something that you don't like. I didn't mean to cause any problems here. Can you share with me what's going on here? Your tone is matching what you're reading from them. Active listening can be extremely powerful. It's not just their reactions, it's not just their body language, also what they're saying. It's also asking clarifying questions so that you're trying to understand, especially in areas that you don't. More importantly, you're still asking those clarifying questions even if you think you understand. Because it's more important to really understand than to assume that you understand what they're saying. Clarify. Take that time to fully understand the information that they're trying to impart to you. So how this works, when you think of active listening into the bucket of truth telling, you are telling something to someone that is really challenging for you to deliver, and it might even be more challenging for them to hear. And if you employ active listening, what you're going to do when you're telling them that thing is see and hear exactly how they're responding and then use the act of listening to clarify. Do you Understand what I'm saying and then empathize. Because the act of listening is bringing you and the other person together. You're making an engagement with the other person. You're not just throwing something at them. So when you clarify and you ask the question, you're getting the feedback so that you can work with them and be empathetic and compassionate. Because if you're telling your truth that might be hard for them to hear, they may not be able to receive it in the next bucket. In the truth receiving again, the act of listening is critical. Now, here's a space where you might have to take pause. If you've heard something that's been unexpected, surprising, challenging for you to receive, then the act of listening that you're doing, you may have to take a pause. You still want to do the active listening. You still want to be able to receive what they're saying and fully understand it. But if you can't emotionally handle it at the time, you may have to take a pause to stay calm, to take a break, and then check back in. Okay, for. For me to really understand what you're telling me about what you think about how I've been conducting myself in my role. I. I'm hearing that you're not liking my performance at all. Is that what I'm hearing? And they may say something further. Well, you're right. However, we really appreciate this, this, and this. So use your active listening. When you are truth receiving, it might be someone else's opinion on politics or the state of the world. And you may have to actively listen to receive their truth so that you can stay open and understand instead of shut it down completely and not hear what they have to say and be stuck in your own truth. Just because it's someone else's truth doesn't mean we can't active listen. Be open and practice receiving what their opinion or their thoughts or their truth is. So active listening, both in truth telling and in truth receiving, is critical for going through a courageous conversation. Now, there's that last bucket, that last bucket of the worthy request. And in the worthy request, we're looking at perhaps asking for forgiveness, perhaps asking for a raise. So how do we actively listen in a situation that we are bringing something to the table? And if I give, go back to my example that I gave about negotiating for a higher salary, there were some things that I could have done at the time that would have employed active listening. And also just a slight difference, which is proactive listening. So what that sounds like in the example that I gave is that in the moment I wasn't doing a whole lot of listening. I was doing more of sharing and making a request. But if I utilized active listening in a proactive way, it would have sounded like this. So I noticed that we canceled the meeting or you canceled the meeting a couple of times. I think that's just because you are so inundated with all that has to be done before your departure. So what I'm doing is I'm listening to the actions that happened before we even met. Even though that person didn't say something to me, I'm actively listening and I'm being proactive by bringing it up when we first meet. So I can say I've noticed that you've canceled a couple of these meetings. And I know I'm thinking I could be wrong here, but I'm thinking that's because you are so inundated with everything you need to do before your departure. I really want to say how much I appreciate you meeting with me because this means a lot to me. And then that gives me an opportunity because I've done that proactive listening of the engagements that were or the interactions I should say prior to gives me that proactive listening prior. Now I'm in a space to active listen because they're going to reply or verbally or with their body language reply to what I just said. In that moment they might feel understood. In that moment they might kind of have a sigh of relief in knowing that I'm aware of their situation. I'm looking to be brief and I don't want to take up any more of their time than possible. So that would have been a way to proactively listen in that request situation that I was in. It also allows for them to and this is really important in these courageous conversations. It allows for them to feel understood. And ultimately the reason that this act of listening is so important in all, all three buckets of these courageous conversations is that ultimately everyone, all of us want to feel heard. So it doesn't matter whether you are truth telling. Typically you're telling it in the hopes that someone will hear it and be able to let you know that they heard it. Whether we are receiving someone else's truth, we're typically hoping that while we're receiving it that maybe they'll hear ours too. This is human nature. Even though we can be a great listener and receive everything, ultimately most of us want the connection that comes from back and forth engagement. Most of us want not a one sided conversation, but something that is received and delivered. So this act of listening as a single solution, because it is so multifaceted in reading another human, in being proactive, empathetic, compassionate, understanding their body language, keeping the rapport and connection, it is, I believe, the single solution that really is the most important, makes the most impact and delivers the most success, effective outcomes ultimately for those courageous conversations. So to really sum this up and answer the title of this podcast and to really prime you for what our topic is this month, it's those three buckets. The ability to have effective truth telling, to be able to receive the truth and be able to make those worthy requests that might be fear of rejections with the solution of active listening, truly understanding the other person and being able to be with the other person versus disconnecting from them and just trying to deliver our message or disconnecting from them when they're trying to deliver their message or not making the connection. If we're trying to make a connect a request, it's all about the connection. It's all about finding a solution. It's all about having courage in the conversation. And really that's what takes the difficulty out of it. So practice the active listening. This is something that does not come naturally for most of us. Most of us do not have great examples of active listening in our families. And it's also something that we can all continually improve. There is no level to be reached on active listening. It's just a practice. And every human is different. So how we active listen with one can be a little different with someone else. The key is just figuring out the cues and asking the questions. And that right there, my friend, will give you so much success in any of those challenging conversations that come up in your life. So practice this. Try it on. Get the results that you really want, which is greater trust, more respect, greater connection with the people that matter in your lives and greater connection with anyone you interact with. All right, everyone step into this month with this new skill by practicing it. You've got this. I know you do. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team is our group coaching and accountability program where we provide the tools, skills and community for you to grow your self mastery as a leader and optimize your results alongside other leaders. The Empowerment Empowered Team runs year round to learn more about our leadership consulting for business and our Empowered Team group coaching. Head to www.theempowered.caempowered-learn-more. That's www.theempowered.ca empowered learn more. We can't wait for you to join us. Let's go.