Every manager – HR and otherwise – dreads the inevitable difficult conversations with employees. Here’s a five-step plan for getting through these unpleasant sessions.

Conversations – especially those dealing with emotional issues – rarely follow a logical pattern or system. Every conversation is a little different.

So you can’t shoehorn a conversation into a pattern or system. What you can do, however, is develop a method for getting the other person’s feedback and moving toward a desired result.

Let’s look at a conversation system that’s worked for many managers when they’re seeking a change in behavior or performance.

Our example: dealing with someone who’s always negative and critical of others’ ideas.

The plan:

  1. Use the statement, “When you … I feel …”You can use this to set up the problem: “When you say, ‘That’s a dumb idea,’ I feel as if you’re being disrespectful to the person who offered the idea, and you discourage others from speaking up.”
  2. Wait for their input.This is one of those points when your silence can be golden. Don’t feel as if you have to fill every silence. Let your “When you” sentence hang and wait for a response.
    And here’s where it gets a little tricky, because you can’t be certain of the response. The person may deny it, in which case you’ll have to give examples: “I can describe at least three times in the last week …” Or the person may say, sincerely, “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”
    Sometimes, too, the person will offer an excuse – valid or invalid. For instance, the response may be, “I’ve been losing a lot of sleep because of migraine headaches, so that may account for some of it.”
    If there’s a possibility the excuse is valid, the manager needs to take steps to help or accommodate the employee. Even if an accommodation may be called for, though, you usually still can move on to the next step.
  3. “I would like …”Here’s where you describe, specifically, the change in behavior you’d like to see: “I would like you to come to the next meeting with at least three ideas of your own on how we can improve.” That sets the standard and results in positive terms: “This is what I want you to do.”
    Avoid the statement, “This is what I want you to stop doing.” Consider how that works in any number of conversations involving performance or behavior.
    For instance, how about the person who’s always coming in late? Negative: “I would like you to stop coming in late.” Positive: “I would like you to be on time every day.”
  4.  “Because …”In almost any situation, you have to provide a reason for requesting change (other than “because I said so”). Again, try to stay positive: “Because I know you have a lot of good ideas, and I think we’d all benefit from hearing them.”
    That beats the negative attack mode: “Because we’re tired of hearing your criticisms.”
  5. “What do you think?”You’re asking straight-out for feedback here, and you’re doing so with more than one purpose:
    • You don’t want the person to walk away with the feeling that he or she has been given some iron-fisted orders.
    • You can move toward a commitment from the person to change.
    • You’ll get a real feel about whether the conversation worked and you’re headed toward a desired goal.

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