Human beings have this natural tendency to avoid conflict and difficult situations. Our first instinct in the most difficult situation is to chicken out and do nothing about it, and it is human nature. We hibernate into protection mode regardless of the difficult situation is personal or on an organizational level. However, there are high chances of you failing in this particular approach.
The truth is that you can not escape from having a difficult conversation in life. We all, nearly daily, have to deal with mild to moderate difficult situations. It could be anything like an employer may keep negative feedback of his employees to himself. You may keep postponing having conversations with your partner if the issue concerns some wrongdoing, financials, or any other emotional issue. A student struggling to tell his parents about how he cannot cope up with his class at school.
You probably can relate to putting off difficult conversations. You must also be able to recognize that putting off difficult conversation deteriorates mental peace. Putting these difficult conversations finds a way to manifest itself in different ways. In the form of aggression, frustration, annoyance, and even reduction in self-worth. Ultimately, putting more stress and anxiety.
Types of a difficult conversation
There are largely two types of difficult conversations:
Planned conversation: These are the conversations that are thought through and have been deliberately put off. They are planned, keeping time, place, and other circumstances in mind. These conversations include asking your boss for a hike in salary or maybe telling your parents you are planning to live somewhere else. These conversations are inherently difficult and can be controlled once given enough thought. You may preempt and prepare yourself for the possible hurdles and arrange accordingly.
Unplanned Conversation: These are the ones that happen in the spur of the moment. These are generally induced by some extreme emotions like anger, which in some cases lead to aggression. Often, we feel a surge of emotions, depending on how conversations went. If it goes too well, it could boost self-confidence, and if it goes wrong, it brings out feelings of regret or shame. It is wise to look back and learn from such experiences. Looking at all the positives and things you could have done better to improve the future difficult conversations.
Some Examples
Politicians: People who are chosen by electoral politics often work in public scrutiny. They are answerable and accountable for a lot of things in our day to day life. Politicians communicate bad news/ report unfortunate events in their jurisdiction, scandals, and failures in departments. Since the electoral process chooses them, they have to keep their image as clean as possible. They hire PR agencies and advisories to spin the news and find positives in potentially bad news. Another common trick used by politicians is to release bad news with some unrelated big story to deviate from bad news.
Doctors and other healthcare workers are responsible for delivering unfortunate news to patients or their families. It could be a prognosis or diagnosis of some severe ailment or even new of death. These professionals are trained to effectively and sensitively handle such news.
Managers: There is bad news in many organizations and certain difficult information that needs to pass down. It could be underperforming staff or redundancies in the job. Managers are expected to inform bad news upwards to executives or board members. This news could be about slumping profits or some failing arm of the organization.
Keeping the control
One critical thing about having a difficult conversation is to keep the control in your own hands. There are five Cs of communication that can assist in conveying bad news.
1. Concerns
It would help if you focused directly on the audience’s concerns or the listener and not on anything else. Do not have the spotlight on your individual loss or even on damage control measures. Make sure you are sensitive while acknowledging the concern of people. It should be clear that you are dealing with the elephant in the room directly.
2. Clarity
You should know that assumptions and loose ends are the worst for any communication. If you leave room for guesses, people will subjectively fill the gaps and reach varied sorts of conclusions. Try and make the messages as clear as possible. It will make people or the audience believe that you are not concealing any facts or hiding anything. If your communication is blurry or vague, people will start to think that you are hiding something or revealing partial information even if you are not doing so.
3. Control
Keep what you say in your control. Once you start to lose control, it just starts to get worse, and you start to give away inaccurate information. Therefore, you should put all possible efforts into keeping your control in the center of the entire communication process.
4. Confidence
The way you convey the message, including how you deliver it, should assure the audience that you are doing what is best in everyone’s interest. Even if you can tell your audience the bad news openly, it is not complete unless you tell your audience that you are doing everything you can to mitigate the negative impact. Make sure whenever you are speaking to your audience, you are not losing your sight of humanity. Know that you are a human and can only do your best in your own capacity. Also, acknowledge what has happened and make ensure people that you are doing your best.
5. Competence
All the above-mentioned points are just futile if you are not looked up to as a competent person. You should be able to effectively convey that you are totally capable of handling the situation (in crisis). Let others know about the support and advisors you have. Make sure you do what you promise to prove yourself.
Role of Body Language while having a difficult conversation
Difficult conversations are an inevitable part of everyone’s life, both at the workplace and at home. This is the type of conversation which makes us really uncomfortable. You, more often than not, will find yourselves dodging from being part of any difficult conversation. The fact is that you have to deal with it, maybe while signing a contract with your vendor or client, dealing with a hostile customer, or while giving someone feedback after they have given a poor performance at work.
In an ideal situation, you can deal with all the aforementioned situation calmly without a problem. But, quite often have these convoluted feelings of nervousness, stress, jealousy, and anger. No matter how much you try to conceal or hide it, these feelings get to the surface. These get reflected by your body language, and it applies to every other person.
You can figure out if someone is disinterested, disengaged, or gloomy by merely taking notes of their behavior, gestures, and even posture. Look out for the following cues and behaviors:
- Arms crossed in front of the body
- Minimal or no expressions on the face
- Constantly staring at something or even blank space
- The body turned to the other side
Just being aware of these signs can help you go a long way. It can help you calibrate your thoughts better before you say something to someone. You can make the other person feel receptive and special by showing that you understand their viewpoint.
Dealing with a difficult conversation
You must realize the need to balance communicating something difficult and being sensitive. It is wise to have a plan ready before starting to have a difficult conversation with the concerned person. Some of the tips below might seem contradictory as you have to find the right spot between being firm and gentle in your approach.
1. Gathering Information
Before you even think of dispensing any information, make sure you have gathered every bit of information in its entirety. Know all the facts straight, what are you going to say, and even why you will say it. Preempt questions based on the information you are going to put forward. If you have a difficult conversation on an organizational level, you must anticipate questions beforehand. Even decide the medium, if you will do it in person or through a particular form of media. Whatever it is, make sure you have thought it through.
2. Being Assertive
Once you have decided to have a difficult conversation, make sure you have it assertively. When we plan to have a difficult conversation, our mind tries to think of all the reasons why you should not have it. Do not change your mind or back down the midway unless you have a great reason to do so.
It is all about hitting the right balance between your right/ wants/ needs and considering the other person’s needs/ wants/ desires. When you display assertiveness, you make sure you get your point across firmly in an empathetic manner.
3. Be as Vocal and Clear as you can
The last thing you want while communicating hard news is to make it even worse. You can do it by not being clear with what you have to say. Make sure you communicate effectively and put out all the details that are there around the issue. If at all, there is anything that you can not disclose, be honest about that too and give your rationale as to why you can not disclose. In case if you do not know something, be honest about that as well.
4. Be Empathetic
Always express and recognize how the other person feels about the given situation. After taking the other person’s point of view into the perspective, express what you need. Put yourself in the place of the audience and imagine how you would react. Keep the reaction in mind and deliver the message in the most sensitive way possible. Try and use the emotional element, acknowledge it, be humble, and use “I” language. Also, try and focus on the positive without actively pressing the negatives.
5. Mind the words you choose
Like I mentioned before, speak as clearly as possible. Try to give absolutely no scope of open interpretation. Make a point that you do not use jargon and abbreviations. Use culturally appropriate language, know that some words can have slightly different meanings and shades may vary. Remember not to use confrontational language.
6. Listen
When you are stressed and communicating difficult news, it is often important to listen to what people have to say or the person in question. When you are done communicating, take a step back, relax, and listen. It is imperative to pay heed to the feelings and emotions of the other person. You must reflect and demonstrate that you are listening. In certain scenarios, it is best if you let people take questions.
We human beings have this inherent need to be heard, and we tend to forget it while conveys difficult news. It is super frustrating when we feel that there is no one to listen to us. Kids scream about it, teenagers act fanatically, families break down, and even big organizations collapse. The biggest reason difficult communications fail is that listening is not given due importance. People generally do not think of listening as something that needs practice or something that we need to learn.
7. Stay Focused
Okay. It is a no-brainer that communication becomes easier if you are calm in your head. Practice breathing exercises to maintain your calm and build an air of calmness. If you are calm, chances are others too will be calm. Keep your focus in place; do not deviate from important things. Chances are you will feel deviated from your primary path and even distracted, but you should not forget the reason you are communicating.