Owning your truth or having self-knowledge is key to communicating with eloquence and clarity. Difficult conversations call you to courageously express your views and feelings in a way that both you and the other party feel empowered after the conversation.
There are two critical questions I need to ask myself before I have a conversation:
What is the message I want to get across?
How will I express it?
Difficult conversations are a challenge because many are fear-based. Our hearts start racing, we get into our heads about what could happen, it also creates duality thinking (good/bad) and we could have the tendency to procrastinate and keep this dilemma for a more appropriate time (better safe than sorry attitude).
You will proceed in having a difficult conversation only when you believe you and the message you have to transmit is important enough. Yes, there is risk, a risk of showing your vulnerability and what your limits are. The benefits of doing so are a feeling of being heard and understood, increasing the potential of having a trusting relationship.
In certain instances, we think we are 100% right about a situation and later find out we were missing some pertinent elements to help us communicate. Difficult conversations permit us to get to those facts and communicate our own beliefs and misperceptions. In this comic strip, the employee says yes, when in reality, the employee is just overwhelmed. If the employee would ask fact-finding questions, he could have gotten precise information on how long the report should be, is the report used in another meeting or was it for personal information only, etc.?
Use facts (dates, people, tasks) when conversing (not opinions).
Ask the other person to paraphrase what they understand, “I just want to check if I’m making any sense …”
Kathleen Sears – Business Coach (CHRP)
Kathleen coaches Executives and Managers on their leadership and communication ABILITIES, so that their teams become remarkably productive in providing high quality outcomes, so that the executives have the freedom to work on strategy and not micromanaging their teams.