Is Silence truly golden?
When it comes to difficult conversations at work, there can be a temptation to remain ostrich like, head buried in the sand. Often it can feel easier to hope the issue blows over without there ever being a need to raise or tackle it head on, certainly not by you at any rate.
The colleague delegating all the tricky tasks your way; the partner getting an equal cut yet pulling less than half their weight in work; the vocal minority using unacceptable and discriminatory language; the bullying behaviour towards more junior colleagues by a senior leader. The list goes on.
Tackling the elephant in the room
The trouble is, avoiding an issue doesn’t make it go away. We know that ignoring it can actually prolong it.
Work-related problems like those described above might even cause career progression to stagnate. Worse, they tempt us to consider opportunities elsewhere rather than getting to grips with the thorny issues right in front of our noses making us want to leave in the first place.
Psychological safety
I accept it can be a particularly problematic challenge to take the lead on these types of conversations in organisational environments lacking psychological safety, which I’ve written about before (https://nikkialdersoncoaching.com/psychological-safety-in-a-virtual-world-5-strategies-to-lead-your-team-to-remote-psychological-safety-in-law/). But remaining silent is tantamount to acceptance or, to use the words of Einstein, complicity.
How can we nip issues in the bud, then, to reduce the toxicity of any such behaviours before things descend further, by having the courage to start difficult conversations well, and still coming out of them unscathed?
5 Strategies for navigating difficult conversations at work
1. Prepare, with both perspective and an objective
Before entertaining engaging in any such conversation, prepare. Understand as much as you can about the challenging scenario, who it affects, what others feel about it, and whether others agree or disagree. Whilst hard, it’s important to consider a range of perspectives concerning the presenting behaviour which inevitably exist.
An NLP coaching technique encourages us to consider whether there might even be something about you or your own approach driving the poor behaviour in others. What might this be, and how might that be addressed? This isn’t a question of allocating blame, rather more exploring better understanding of the scenario and why it might present as challenging at all
Think about what you might like to achieve by way of end objective too. As Franklin said, “by failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail”.
2. Pinpoint the pinch points
Identify the salient points central to any awkwardness or sources of conflict, whilst remaining cognisant of other, more positive, areas of agreement. This will help to maintain the perspective I mentioned earlier, and ensure any challenge stays focused on only very narrow areas of controversy.
3. Communicate confidently and clearly, staying focused on facts as opposed to feelings
Remain confident in your ability to navigate the tricky conversation in a collected, and non-emotive fashion. You will then enter into them readily, more calmly and with increased precision, with a focus on objective facts rather than subjective feelings.
By maintaining composure in this way, you will avoid descending into emotional outpourings which will lead to an unhelpful loss of perspective. Furthermore, this lessens opportunities to get sidetracked and swerve the most important issues.
4. Listen respectfully and with empathy to discuss not attack
Listening respectfully and with empathy not only demonstrates your ability to remain calm, impartial and fair, but also ensures the conversation remains a discussion, as opposed to a dispute or attack.
5. All’s well that ends well
Remember those with whom you are engaging in these difficult conversations are highly likely to remain long term colleagues. Therefore, it’s necessary, wherever possible, to retain functional working relations with them. Having gone in with a game plan, and remained solution-focused, you can assess whether it’s object achieved.
Either way, control the controllable: you decide your response. You retain the ability to end the conversation well. Growth and development come through such exchanges.
Extricate yourself safe in the knowledge you’ve done the difficult thing. You articulated your concerns, whilst remaining professional, assertive and authentic. Hopefully, you’ll not only reach a positive conclusion to those discussions but also achieve your objectives thereby.
Happy endings or moving on
Occasionally, just like lancing a boil, pain is necessary before sweet release. Tension may be directly reduced as a result of engaging in those difficult workplace conversations. Consequently, professional relations will be restored to their former, and more effectively functioning, glory.
Certainly, that’s the hope.
And even where those happy endings remain unattainable, agreeing to disagree can prove useful. Issues having been aired, at least now everyone can draw breath and move on.
Sometimes it’s necessary to start a process like this before you truly feel ready. How about it? Is it time to bring your head from out of the sand?
Nikki Alderson Biography
Nikki Alderson, specialist coach, speaker and author, and former Criminal Barrister with 19 years’ experience:
- supports organisations, law firms and barristers’ Chambers to retain female talent; and
- empowers female lawyers to achieve career ambitions.
Nikki specialises in 3 areas:
- Women leadership transition and change;
- Enhanced career break returner support; and
- Workplace resilience, mental toughness, confidence and wellness.
She is the author of Amazon No.1 Bestseller Raising the Bar: empowering female lawyers through coaching, (https://amzn.to/3fodKQX) nominee for the Inspirational Women Awards, Champion of the Year Category and finalist in the 2020 Women in Law Awards, Legal Services Innovator of the Year and 2019 International Coaching Awards, International Coach of the Year Category.