Lisa B. Marshall, a communication expert who helps organizations build stronger teams, manage conflict, create stronger more effective messages and deliver better presentations, has written "Smart Talk."
In today's rapidly changing landscape, global communication fluency is a must have leadership skill. Professionals from all positions in the workplace need to continually assess and re-tool their strategy for ongoing success and career development by learning the latest strategies.
How to have difficult conversations.
You have to tell one of your most productive employees that she dresses inappropriately and unprofessionally. Worse, her personal hygiene is sometimes less than desirable. How do you handle this difficult conversation?
Is it so hard to tell that same person that their twenty-pounds-too-small and twenty-years-too-young shirt is wildly inappropriate for the office?
Difficult conversations cause most of us some level of anxiety. Discussing sensitive topics or delivering bad news is something most leaders dread. Often leaders have to fight the natural impulse to avoid confronting difficult issues.
Confronting another person is difficult. Perhaps, it's because these skills are rarely taught at home or school. And even people with excellent communication skills sometimes retreat when faced with stressful or sensitive communication issues. Yet, when you avoid communication, the vacuum gets filled with negative assumptions and ill will.
If you want to maintain your relationship with the other party, the goal is to encourage a change in behavior, and that means you need to deliver bad news thoughtfully, tactfully and respectfully. When preparing for a difficult conversation, it's critically important to think about the emotional and intellectual perspective of the other person. Compassion helps you to be open to the other person's perspective. Compassion is what reminds us that the other person is just doing the best they can with what they've got.
To manage a difficult conversation successfully, it's important to understand your own conflict management style as well as that of your conversation partner.
For more on smart talk, order the book:
Lisa B. Marshall: Smart Talk: The Public Speaker's Guide to Success in Every Situation
John Agno: Decoding the Executive Woman's Dress Code (FREE)
John Agno: When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women