WEBVTT 00:00.240 --> 00:00.480 You. 00:06.080 --> 00:09.960 We created this course because we believe that your success in 00:10.460 --> 00:13.760 both your personal and professional lives is correlated very 00:14.260 --> 00:17.440 directly with the number of difficult conversations that you have. 00:18.240 --> 00:21.480 Our lives are full of difficult circumstances, challenges to 00:21.980 --> 00:25.480 overcome, and a lot of those are driven and solved by difficult 00:25.980 --> 00:29.510 conversations. If we shy away from those, then we're not giving 00:30.010 --> 00:34.230 ourselves the opportunity to overcome them, and we're just accepting fate 00:34.730 --> 00:38.710 as it arrives, as opposed to taking a control and an ownership 00:38.790 --> 00:41.910 over what happens to us. This course is all about 00:42.410 --> 00:45.910 doing that. It's about understanding that difficult conversations can be 00:46.410 --> 00:49.990 prepared for. Difficult conversations can be thought about beforehand, 00:50.310 --> 00:54.120 can be planned, prepped and entered with a mindset that 00:54.620 --> 00:57.800 makes them productive and the preparation that 00:58.300 --> 01:01.520 makes them effective. This whole course is designed 01:02.020 --> 01:05.880 to walk you through that process with various examples of different 01:06.120 --> 01:10.280 difficult conversations. Some of them are related to leadership. 01:10.780 --> 01:14.320 Some of them are related to your life as an 01:14.820 --> 01:18.450 engineer or a BA or somebody on a project that needs to 01:18.950 --> 01:20.690 have difficult conversations with the rest of their team. 01:26.130 --> 01:29.490 Nobody is going to tell you that difficult conversations are easy. 01:29.730 --> 01:33.170 Nobody's going to tell you that difficult conversations are something 01:33.670 --> 01:37.450 which you can just walk into. And so we find ourselves 01:37.950 --> 01:42.090 ignoring them. We find ourselves delaying them. We find ourselves procrastinating 01:42.590 --> 01:45.870 and doing anything other than. Than hitting that challenging 01:46.370 --> 01:49.910 conversation head on and dealing with it. And what happens 01:50.410 --> 01:53.390 then? Well, things fester, things build. 01:53.550 --> 01:56.910 Things don't get resolved. The story 01:57.410 --> 02:00.190 that I always come back to here is many, many years ago, when I was 02:00.350 --> 02:04.150 first driving a car. I was driving down the 02:04.650 --> 02:08.430 road and I heard a noise. And I ignored the noise because I didn't know 02:08.930 --> 02:12.440 what it was. And then a week later, the noise started getting louder 02:12.940 --> 02:15.480 and I still ignored it because I didn't know what it was. And a week 02:15.980 --> 02:18.520 later, the noise got louder and louder and louder. 02:19.000 --> 02:23.400 A week after that, I was driving down the motorway and the 02:23.480 --> 02:27.040 whole bonnet started having steam coming out of 02:27.540 --> 02:31.040 it. I had done the unthinkable. I had done the one thing you 02:31.540 --> 02:34.600 can do to a car that is so difficult to undo. 02:35.100 --> 02:38.640 I'd blown the head gasket. This was me, 21 years 02:39.140 --> 02:42.240 old, parked on the side of the road, waiting for recovery, knowing that my 02:42.740 --> 02:46.080 car was totalled. What would have happened 02:46.240 --> 02:49.760 if three weeks previously, I'd have taken it to the garage 02:49.840 --> 02:53.080 and have had them to look at it? They would have spotted the problem. 02:53.580 --> 02:57.040 They would have solved it easily at that point. What if I'd have 02:57.540 --> 03:00.360 taken it to the garage two weeks before? Still would have been a challenge, 03:00.860 --> 03:04.240 but they, they still could have solved it. But Taking it to the week before 03:04.740 --> 03:09.280 I'd had the problem. They probably would have told me that this was unsalvageable 03:09.780 --> 03:13.040 at that point. But at least I would have known. At least I wouldn't have 03:13.540 --> 03:16.880 gone on a long, dangerous journey without having the 03:16.960 --> 03:20.200 confidence of a fully working vehicle. So I say 03:20.700 --> 03:24.120 this story because difficult conversations are like that. The longer 03:24.620 --> 03:28.400 we leave them, the harder they get to resolve, the more expensive in 03:28.900 --> 03:32.220 terms of time or the trust that we have to spend. Remember, 03:32.720 --> 03:36.500 trust is a currency, and if you're using that trust to overcome a difficult 03:37.000 --> 03:40.940 conversation, then you can't spend that elsewhere. So every 03:41.440 --> 03:45.140 time we delay a difficult conversation, we end up in a scenario 03:45.460 --> 03:48.900 where we cannot solve it as easily 03:49.400 --> 03:51.620 as if we'd have just dealt with it in the beginning. 03:53.140 --> 03:56.500 So difficult conversations, when you look at the statistics, 03:56.900 --> 04:01.090 around 8% of workplace scenarios 04:01.490 --> 04:05.010 require a difficult conversation to resolve them. This is 04:05.510 --> 04:09.250 even higher if you're a manager. If you're a leader of a team, somewhere between 04:09.490 --> 04:13.570 20 to 80% of your daily 04:14.070 --> 04:17.930 conversations are difficult in some way or another. So these are 04:18.430 --> 04:22.370 skills that we need to learn as we move into leadership, but are still just 04:22.870 --> 04:27.210 as important when we're part of a team. And actually 04:27.530 --> 04:31.330 I said before that dealing with difficult conversations sometimes 04:31.830 --> 04:36.010 allows us to spend trust. This is true. But if you deal with the conversation 04:36.090 --> 04:38.650 earlier, you can actually gain trust. 04:39.290 --> 04:42.810 Doing difficult conversations can be a way of building trust with our 04:43.310 --> 04:45.770 teams. I'll talk about that in the next section. 04:49.930 --> 04:52.410 Every time we go into a difficult conversation, 04:53.200 --> 04:56.920 it's our opportunity to build trust with those around us. It's our 04:57.420 --> 05:00.760 opportunity to demonstrate who we are, who we can be. The type of 05:01.260 --> 05:05.000 person that understands that these are things which happen in 05:05.500 --> 05:08.520 day to day life and that we have to work through them and that we 05:09.020 --> 05:13.000 have to deal with them head on. Every time we shy away, we potentially 05:13.500 --> 05:17.200 lose trust. Every time we go forward, we build trust. We all can also 05:17.700 --> 05:21.420 build respect with people. The respect that you build by 05:21.920 --> 05:25.660 people knowing that you're somebody who engages in these things, 05:26.160 --> 05:29.180 somebody who doesn't hide the truth from the people around them. 05:30.700 --> 05:34.860 One of the other benefits of dealing with difficult conversations is 05:34.940 --> 05:36.860 they can lead to better results. 05:38.220 --> 05:41.980 If we don't engage with the people around us on an even level, 05:42.480 --> 05:45.900 if we don't bring our thoughts to the table, and if we don't encourage them 05:46.400 --> 05:49.860 to bring their ideas, then we're not going to have the best solution. 05:50.360 --> 05:53.820 At the end of the day, a meeting, a discussion, 05:54.320 --> 05:57.700 a collaboration where everybody gets into a room together, 05:58.100 --> 06:01.700 one person has an idea. And then everybody else goes, 06:02.180 --> 06:06.260 great idea, let's do that. That's not a place where the 06:08.020 --> 06:12.100 best ideas win. That's the place where the loudest person 06:12.600 --> 06:15.950 or the most senior person wins. Those types of 06:16.450 --> 06:20.030 environments, actually, if you engage with them in a, in a 06:20.530 --> 06:24.350 way that is productive, can lead to better outcomes for you, but also 06:24.850 --> 06:27.550 better outcomes to your, your project, your team, your business. 06:28.350 --> 06:32.030 And so difficult conversations have many, many benefits 06:32.530 --> 06:36.350 when you tackle them. There is something to be said, 06:36.850 --> 06:40.270 though, which is it's never going to be that 06:40.770 --> 06:43.990 easy. Difficult conversations are always going to have an edge of challenge with them. 06:44.230 --> 06:46.950 And we're going to talk about that in the next section. 06:52.710 --> 06:55.670 Be comfortable being uncomfortable. 06:56.470 --> 07:00.310 Difficult conversations are always going to be uncomfortable. 07:00.630 --> 07:04.390 I must have had hundreds of difficult conversations in my career. 07:05.280 --> 07:08.840 I never go into them thinking, this is going to be easy. I never go 07:09.340 --> 07:12.480 into them going, oh my God, I'm worried about what the outcome of this is. 07:12.980 --> 07:16.360 I never go into them thinking, I don't care what anybody else thinks. I'm just 07:16.860 --> 07:20.400 going to push my agenda because I'm right. The moment you end up in 07:20.900 --> 07:24.480 that place mentally is the moment you've actually disengaged from the difficult 07:24.980 --> 07:28.160 conversation. If you go into that conversation thinking, 07:28.320 --> 07:31.760 I'm going to say this thing, I'm going to get somebody to 07:32.260 --> 07:35.280 understand something, or I'm going to push my agenda, 07:36.000 --> 07:39.520 that's when you're approaching it wrong, and that's when you're not being 07:40.020 --> 07:43.320 respectful to the people in the room. So that means there's always going 07:43.820 --> 07:47.360 to be this edge of unease when you're approaching these circumstances because 07:47.440 --> 07:50.880 you can prepare for them, but there's another human being 07:51.440 --> 07:54.920 or many other human beings involved in this. And so there's always going 07:55.420 --> 07:59.090 to be unknowns and unease. So this course 07:59.590 --> 08:03.090 is not about being comfortable in difficult conversations, 08:03.490 --> 08:07.210 because I hope that never happens to you. If you've got a difficult 08:07.710 --> 08:10.530 conversation where you're giving somebody a performance review, 08:11.570 --> 08:14.370 or even worse, you're letting somebody go, 08:15.090 --> 08:19.090 if you're comfortable in that scenario, you don't care about the other 08:19.590 --> 08:23.090 human being as much as maybe you should. So we're not focusing on 08:23.590 --> 08:27.100 comfort in this course. We're focusing on confidence. 08:27.740 --> 08:31.100 I want you to feel confident approaching these 08:31.600 --> 08:35.620 conversations. I want you to feel confident that you've got the best mindset and 08:36.120 --> 08:39.620 the best preparation to have a productive conversation with 08:40.120 --> 08:41.020 this difficult conversation. 08:45.420 --> 08:47.980 There's a few ways to approach difficult conversations. 08:48.620 --> 08:52.570 The first way is not to approach them at all. You is just completely 08:53.070 --> 08:56.290 ignore them and let them fester the second way is just 08:56.790 --> 09:00.610 to barrel into them at a million miles an hour, your mouth open 09:01.110 --> 09:05.370 and a direct connection between your brain and your tongue, and to just blurt 09:05.870 --> 09:09.730 everything out. The third way is to sit back, think about 09:10.230 --> 09:14.010 what's happening, spend the time preparing, spend the time getting yourself 09:14.510 --> 09:17.250 in the right mental state to approach this, 09:18.380 --> 09:21.660 then to go into the difficult conversation. I think 09:22.160 --> 09:25.780 it's pretty obvious which one this course is about, because it's the one we 09:26.280 --> 09:29.500 think is going to give you the best end result. 09:30.460 --> 09:33.900 It's the one which means that you're going to feel confident 09:34.400 --> 09:38.220 approaching the conversation. It's the one that means all of those fear 09:38.720 --> 09:42.500 and stress and anxiety. We're going to reduce them as much as we possibly 09:43.000 --> 09:46.260 can. Like we said in the last section, they're still going 09:46.760 --> 09:50.220 to be there. They're not going to completely disappear, but we're going to hopefully minimize 09:50.720 --> 09:54.260 them. So let's go through the two 09:54.760 --> 09:58.700 steps that I talked about. We've got mindset, which is how you think 09:59.200 --> 10:03.180 about the difficult conversation. This can really affect 10:03.680 --> 10:07.460 your emotions and your anxiety. If you're the type of person that 10:08.180 --> 10:11.540 gets the heart palpitations or the butterflies in 10:12.040 --> 10:15.790 the stomach or, you know, can't focus. When you're approaching these conversations, 10:16.030 --> 10:19.070 mindset is going to be the one for you to focus on. 10:19.630 --> 10:23.590 The second one is preparation. So this is the logistical 10:24.090 --> 10:27.510 stuff, the operation stuff, the data, the information, the things 10:28.010 --> 10:31.630 that you need to gather and collect to support the difficult conversation. 10:32.350 --> 10:36.430 Having this here means that when you're in that discussion and 10:36.510 --> 10:39.910 somebody says something or, you know, somebody challenges a 10:40.410 --> 10:44.050 point, or somebody asks for further clarification, you don't have to stutter and 10:44.550 --> 10:47.810 stammer and worry that you're. Do I give an 10:48.310 --> 10:51.810 incorrect answer and seem confident or give 10:52.930 --> 10:56.690 an answer to say you don't know? Obviously, we'd encourage the second point, 10:57.190 --> 11:00.490 but when you're in that moment, sometimes we don't always make 11:00.990 --> 11:05.090 the best decisions. So preparation is all about trying to reduce those 11:05.590 --> 11:09.170 as much as possible, trying to make sure you've gathered all of this information before 11:09.670 --> 11:13.180 you start the difficulty conversation. So mindset and then 11:13.680 --> 11:13.820 preparation, 11:18.300 --> 11:21.820 mindset and difficult conversations is all about focusing 11:22.320 --> 11:25.500 on the positive outcomes of having this conversation. 11:25.660 --> 11:28.980 It's all about making sure that you understand why you're doing 11:29.480 --> 11:32.580 this in the first place and the outcome of having this and 11:33.080 --> 11:36.620 the impact that that has on your team, on yourself, on the person you're 11:37.120 --> 11:40.640 having the conversation with, on the business. So mindset is really 11:41.140 --> 11:45.320 the way that we reset ourselves to approach this in a positive 11:45.400 --> 11:49.240 way. There's a few ways we can do this, and I've got some questions 11:49.720 --> 11:53.280 to think about to help you with this. Because at the end 11:53.780 --> 11:57.000 of the day, we can do all the preparation we're going to 11:57.500 --> 12:01.440 talk about in the second section here. But the thing 12:01.940 --> 12:05.480 that really puts us in the right place to think through that preparation 12:05.980 --> 12:08.400 and to approach the conversation is the mindset. 12:09.360 --> 12:12.560 So these are the questions I want you to ask yourself when you're 12:12.960 --> 12:15.920 thinking about approaching a difficult conversation. 12:16.800 --> 12:20.160 Why is it in my own best interests for me to 12:20.660 --> 12:24.560 have this difficult conversation? So really, really nail down the 12:25.060 --> 12:28.560 selfish side of this first. Really think about why it's important for you. 12:28.720 --> 12:32.080 What are you going to get after this? What outcomes do you want? 12:32.480 --> 12:35.120 How is it going to change your life? How. How is it going to make 12:35.620 --> 12:39.640 your life easier or better or more complete? This is 12:40.140 --> 12:43.320 a pretty easy one. Often if we're having a difficult conversation, 12:43.880 --> 12:47.080 then, you know, focusing on ourselves first helps. 12:49.000 --> 12:52.440 Then turn yourself 180 degrees and think about the other person. 12:54.120 --> 12:58.000 How is it going to affect them? Why is it in their best interests 12:58.500 --> 13:02.410 that you have this conversation with them? Almost always when 13:02.910 --> 13:06.210 we're having difficult conversations, it's going to be in the best 13:06.710 --> 13:09.570 interest of the person we're having it with. Because, you know, 13:09.890 --> 13:12.930 we want to do the best thing by everybody. We're good people. 13:13.650 --> 13:17.450 The person we're working with is a good person as well. Always start with that 13:17.950 --> 13:21.570 premise that the other person is a good person as well. And so, 13:22.070 --> 13:25.930 you know, thinking about what's in their best interests can help you realize why it's 13:26.430 --> 13:30.110 important to them that you have this difficult conversation. 13:31.550 --> 13:35.270 Then we can open a little bit wider. You know, we've got this starting 13:35.770 --> 13:39.950 point, we've got us, it's got them. Let's open wider. Let's think about the 13:40.190 --> 13:44.270 team, the project, the company. Let's think about the benefits 13:44.770 --> 13:47.590 to that. What are the things which are going to change in the lives of 13:48.090 --> 13:51.750 our peers or our direct reports or our bosses, you know, 13:52.250 --> 13:55.030 the people that we work with on a day to day basis or, or our 13:55.530 --> 13:58.590 friends, our family? If you're thinking about this from a personal point of view, 13:59.070 --> 14:02.510 how is this going to make their lives better? How is it going to impact 14:02.590 --> 14:05.950 them? So we've talked about all the positives 14:06.450 --> 14:09.790 there. We also need to hit the negatives. Sometimes you 14:10.290 --> 14:12.990 need that little hit of negative just to get you over that bump. 14:13.870 --> 14:17.910 So focus on what will happen if you don't have 14:18.410 --> 14:23.140 this difficult conversation. What are the negative consequences to 14:23.640 --> 14:27.660 you, the other person, the team, the company, the client. 14:28.380 --> 14:32.780 If you don't have this difficult conversation. So positives 14:32.940 --> 14:36.380 and negatives, write it down 14:36.940 --> 14:40.620 and read it back to yourself a few times. You have to 14:41.120 --> 14:45.420 believe this. You have to spend the time really truly thinking 14:45.920 --> 14:49.470 through this, expressing it. Do it for a few minutes. 14:49.970 --> 14:55.270 This isn't a quick write it on a post it note. This is think 14:55.770 --> 14:58.550 about it, write it down, read it, 14:59.430 --> 15:00.230 believe it. 15:05.670 --> 15:09.270 So we should be in a nice positive frame of mind from 15:09.770 --> 15:13.270 our preparation work. So let's focus on the things we can do to 15:13.820 --> 15:18.060 prepare the preparation we can take before approaching the conversation. 15:18.700 --> 15:22.060 This is going to change drastically depending on the type of 15:22.560 --> 15:26.140 conversation. The trick here is to really think about the 15:26.640 --> 15:30.780 different ways this conversation could go. To think about the 15:31.500 --> 15:34.900 questions that the people you're in 15:35.400 --> 15:38.900 the conversation with could ask, to think about the claims 15:39.400 --> 15:42.870 that they're going to make, and to think about the perspectives 15:43.370 --> 15:47.150 that they may have and also the biases that 15:47.650 --> 15:51.630 you may be coming into this conversation with. So the preparation is 15:52.130 --> 15:56.549 all about plotting this out and then finding those 15:57.049 --> 16:01.430 data points, finding those external opinions and 16:01.750 --> 16:04.950 external viewpoints that could help you with this. 16:05.670 --> 16:08.860 So this is going to take a while. There is going 16:09.360 --> 16:12.900 to be a point of diminishing returns on preparation. There is such a 16:13.400 --> 16:17.380 thing as spending too much time preparing for something and then you never actually have 16:17.880 --> 16:21.380 the conversation in the first place. So try and recognize when 16:21.880 --> 16:26.060 you're approaching that diminishing returns point, but do spend 16:26.380 --> 16:30.180 a significant amount of time or a reasonable amount of time doing the 16:30.680 --> 16:34.830 preparation. Got some questions here or some some 16:35.330 --> 16:38.070 starting off points to help you think about things you could prepare for. 16:38.710 --> 16:42.470 So gathering data to back up any claims. If we're using 16:42.870 --> 16:46.390 wishy washy words or we're using about or 16:46.550 --> 16:50.549 you know, a lot or you know, those kinds of things which are not 16:51.049 --> 16:54.670 particularly clear, numerical or specific, 16:55.170 --> 16:58.510 they're pretty general. Chances are somebody's going to challenge us on 16:59.010 --> 17:01.590 that. If we say a lot or almost, 17:01.990 --> 17:05.070 somebody's going to say how many? Tell me, tell me 17:05.570 --> 17:09.350 the numbers. And so let's have the numbers don't need to remember them. 17:09.850 --> 17:13.190 You can have them written down or easily accessible. 17:13.990 --> 17:18.230 But do the research, do the preparation so you've got those easily accessible, 17:19.750 --> 17:22.470 gaining outside opinions and viewpoints. 17:23.110 --> 17:26.150 So here's a news flash. You might not be right. 17:26.689 --> 17:30.049 Your viewpoint, your opinion is based upon the 17:30.369 --> 17:33.649 experiences you've had and the biases that you bring into 17:34.149 --> 17:37.169 a particular circumstance. Everybody has biases. 17:37.729 --> 17:41.329 Know what yours are. Seek to challenge those by getting 17:41.409 --> 17:45.409 external viewpoints this can be for people involved 17:45.569 --> 17:48.929 in the situation you're having a difficult conversation about. 17:49.729 --> 17:53.550 But remember that this could be seen as gossiping. 17:54.190 --> 17:57.590 So take that under advisement and really think 17:58.090 --> 18:01.310 about it before you do that. Or it could be from a trusted coach or 18:01.550 --> 18:04.910 mentor, somebody that you know, you've got that, that level 18:05.410 --> 18:09.710 of trust, that level of confidentiality with thinking 18:10.210 --> 18:13.990 through possible objections. So if you were in 18:14.490 --> 18:18.270 their place and you said the things that you're planning on saying, 18:18.780 --> 18:21.060 what do you think their objections are going to be? What do you think the 18:21.560 --> 18:25.700 things that they're going to suggest or the things that they're going to question are 18:26.200 --> 18:29.700 going to be? If you think about this first, then you can prepare for 18:30.200 --> 18:32.860 it. If you think about it first, you can go, okay, well if I say 18:33.360 --> 18:36.740 this, they're likely to say this, and therefore I need to have this piece of 18:37.240 --> 18:40.540 information. You're less likely to be able 18:41.040 --> 18:43.900 to respond to this kind of thing in the moment. So the more preparation you 18:44.400 --> 18:47.340 do beforehand, the better. Again, 18:48.060 --> 18:51.940 diminishing returns. Chances are these you know, best difficult 18:52.440 --> 18:55.980 conversations last a few minutes. 20 minutes 18:56.480 --> 19:00.020 is a difficult, a long, long, difficult conversation. So you're 19:00.520 --> 19:04.060 likely not to get into the, into the real nitty gritty, 19:04.560 --> 19:07.740 multiple layers down. And once you are multiple layers down, 19:08.140 --> 19:11.840 you're perfectly within your rights to say, I don't have that information, 19:12.240 --> 19:13.840 let me get it and get back to you. 19:15.760 --> 19:19.280 And this also feeds into the multiple plans. So once you've got the data, 19:19.780 --> 19:23.280 you thought about their objections, you can think about how those things fit together in 19:23.840 --> 19:26.959 potential pathways through the difficult conversation. 19:27.920 --> 19:31.120 The exact weighting and the exact importance of these will 19:31.620 --> 19:34.640 change drastically depending on the exact difficult conversation you're having. 19:35.760 --> 19:39.790 So think about what were what with your plans. Think about which things 19:40.290 --> 19:43.190 would have the most impact on the success of the difficult conversation. 19:43.510 --> 19:47.510 The examples we're going to go through, we'll take you through some more specifics of 19:48.010 --> 19:53.430 these. Try and think about it in general and think about the groups 19:53.930 --> 19:56.790 of difficult conversations and the types of plans you need to have. 19:57.990 --> 20:01.310 So we'll go through the worksheet next and I'll 20:01.810 --> 20:05.870 talk you through something that you can use to give 20:06.370 --> 20:08.390 you the jumping off point for these questions.