Brad Wyant (00:00)
Good morning and welcome to the Management Under Construction podcast. I'm Brad Wyant.
Dee Davis (00:04)
And I'm Dee Davis.
Brad Wyant (00:05)
And we're here today to talk about difficult conversations.
Dee Davis (00:08)
I can see people just squirming in their seats already going, no.
No one wants to have a difficult conversation, right? As humans, we naturally shy away from things that are uncomfortable and difficult conversations are one of the most uncomfortable things that we do at work, especially, but sometimes also in our personal lives. So whether you're having lunch with a friend, it's a work situation or even one of your kids, sometimes a complete stranger you have to have a difficult conversation with.
Any aspect of our lives that involves other people, there's difficult conversations. What's the most difficult conversation you've ever had at work, Brad?
Brad Wyant (00:46)
I had a really difficult conversation at the end of a project with my whole contractor team and one of our subcontractors, whole team about cost and everyone knew leading into the conversation that it was not going to be a happy one, that there were going to be issues that we had to resolve that had big dollar figures associated with them. And during that conversation, it was important to everyone feel heard and feel
Like there was a collaboration that was to be had and that it wasn't just a zero sum game of we're going to get as much as we can and get out and never talk again. It was, was important to make everyone feel respected and heard and that, in that conversation, but it still a tough, tough day.
Dee Davis (01:29)
Yeah, and there's a lot of stress that goes with going into a really difficult conversation like that. I had to have a very difficult conversation with an employee one time about their performance. And performance reviews are often the source of a lot of angst and stress and anxiety in the workplace.
it's either going to go well or it's not going to go well. The person that's getting the review is anxious because they don't know how this is going to go, or maybe they know it's not going to go very well or the way they want it to go. And the person giving it maybe has some difficult things to say. we are going to talk about what makes conversations difficult and how to have a better difficult conversation.
So first let's examine what makes a conversation difficult. And then we'll talk about how to overcome it and nail it in your next difficult conversation. So personality styles, we've mentioned this in other episodes of the podcast before. So I'm just gonna give you like a real quick overview here. Based on the disc tests and that's DISC disc tests. If you've never had one, I highly recommend
It's you can self administer it and it gives you some really quick feedback on what personality style you have. So there's four basic types and we're all some kind of blend of these four. And some some being high peak. So when we say like a high letter, that's that's a dominant one for you. Or if if it's low, but we all have DIS and C. D is for dominant or driver.
That's like a type A personality. That's someone that's very, might be in your face. They might be forceful. They say what they think that kind of a style. Me. I'm to be that way. My D is quite high. Influencing or inspiring. These tend to be people that everybody loves. They're sales people. They're people people. That's what our high I's are. They get along well with people. They love being around people.
And they have a lot of influence because everybody loves them. S is a steady or stable. These are people that are just, you know what to expect all the time from these people. There's no surprises. They're very thoughtful type of people. And then there's C, which is a correct or compliant type of personality. And my C is also quite high. And these change over time. So
The attention to detail, I was recently told nothing gets by you. Well, I don't know about that, but that kind of person where you feel like they never miss a thing. What do you think your personality style is, Brad?
Brad Wyant (04:00)
That's a good question. Yeah, I think I'm probably some combination of the I and the S, the influencing, inspiring. think I'm sort of the, I like to think I prize relationships first and try to form that with somebody before going into the meat and potatoes of any conversation. And the steady stable, try to be pretty consistent. I'm definitely not the dominant driver, but I can be correct and compliant. One of the comments I got in engineering school, I went to school out in California, was that I was
Commensurately polite. Everyone referred to me as polite Brad All my professors heard me that way and I thought that was interesting.
Dee Davis (04:34)
That's not a terrible moniker to have polite Brad I like it My husband was a pipe fitter. He's retired pipe fitter and they used to call him helpful Mike my husband is very much an SC very Very very steady. I'd say his ass is probably his his highest. Yeah, he's never taken a DISC test But we've been married for 25 years so I can I can tell you without him taking the test
he can be quite influential because he doesn't talk a lot. When he does talk, people listen. Unlike people who talk too much like me, I was I was that kid in school. Talk too much, too much. Yappity yap So
We're all some combination of D, I, S, and C, and it's a matter of where our peaks and our valleys are. And this does change over time. I've taken the DISC four or five times in my career and purposely worked on the different aspects that I wasn't happy with. I worked on my eye for a long time because it was very, very low the first time I took it. And that is not the kind of leader that I wanted to be.
So the number one thing that makes difficult conversations difficult is fear. We are afraid. you're thinking, I got to have this difficult conversation with my sister, my brother, my employee, my friend. The number one feeling we feel is fear. So what are we afraid of? Our brains immediately go to the worst case scenario.
yelling, screaming, crying, arguing, denial, hurting the relationship. Maybe you very much value the relationship and that can make having that difficult conversation very, very hard or making things worse. So I'm going to tell you about one difficult conversation I'm avoiding right now. I'll get to it eventually, or I'm just going to suck it up and deal with it. I have to choose. And it's stupid. It's stupid, but it bothers me.
My neighbor, every summer, he loves music and every summer he opens his garage door, blasts his music while he's doing stuff in the garage on Saturdays. It drives me absolutely batty I think it's disrespectful. It's not being a good neighbor. I don't care if you listen to music. I don't even care if your music's good. I don't want to listen to your music.
So have I had that difficult conversation with my neighbor? No, I haven't. Why do I keep avoiding it? Because I'm afraid it's going to make things worse. I'm afraid he's not going to react well if I don't approach it the right way and at the right time and all these factors that we're going to go through later in the cast. If I don't do it just right, it's going to make it worse. And now I'm going to have a neighbor that I don't get along with, which is not something that I'm looking forward to.
Brad Wyant (07:10)
We're very much status quo organisms. want things to stay the way they are. The risk of going beyond what we know of making things worse than they are is something we put a lot of negative emphasis on. We don't put as much positive emphasis on how much better things could be when it's a risky situation like that. It's just a pattern of thought that our brains are wired for biologically.
Dee Davis (07:33)
Yeah, I mean, we have a tendency to avoid this topic, difficult topics of any kind. We have a tendency to avoid. What other kind of factors make these difficult conversations difficult, Brad?
Brad Wyant (07:46)
Well, one of them is definitely discomfort. If we know that what we're going to talk about is something personal or sensitive, it's difficult to broach that with somebody we don't have those kinds of conversations with often. Conversations about an employee's income can often relate to the employee's performance. So your example from the beginning of that performance review, because we usually spend our work days talking about the basic
facets of our work and not about how much we're being paid for it, all of a sudden when you have that conversation, it becomes a lot more uncomfortable.
Dee Davis (08:20)
is a pretty personal topic, Right. Your idea of what you should be paid and somebody's idea of what they should pay you for it might not line up. So that can be really uncomfortable.
What other kinds of things?
Brad Wyant (08:31)
Another one is saying the wrong thing and no one wants to say the wrong thing in any kind of conversation and make things work. There's always something you know you want to say that perfectly captures how you feel about some problem, but that you know is going to come across a certain way that person. Perfect example of this is I had a roommate up until a week ago and I love to cook. I have some nonstick pans and there's anybody who
cooked with a nonstick pan knows the Teflon coating, you're not supposed to use metal on it. And at beginning of our roommate relationship, he didn't really know that. And he used metal on one of my pans and just scratched it all the heck. It's very bad to use a pan that's been scratched like that because the Teflon can get in your food and that's very bad for you. So I said, hey, don't do that again. This is a really dangerous thing. And he was like, okay, fine. Sorry, my bad. And then at the end of our
roommate relationship when I was moving out, I packed up everything but one frying pan so I could fry some eggs in the morning and leave the next day. He used the pan and used a fork because I'd packed up all of the rubber and wooden utensils I used. And my first emotional reaction was, okay, you're just doing this to piss me off. You're just doing this because you know that it's going to make me mad. But then I realized, no, that's not what's going on.
But the first inclination I had of saying that wrong thing, I knew that's the way I felt about it. And then I reined it in and said, I don't want to do that. I don't want to have that be the first thing comes out of my mouth, even though I'm emotionally hurt because I felt like you should have known that this was something that I would take personally, that I would take offense to. Saying the wrong thing, you still have to say something because it's still a slight and it's still
a sign of disrespect, but you have to say something that isn't going to lead down that emotional road. You have to find a way to frame it in a different way. And we can talk more about the way that I addressed that later on in the cast,
There's a lot of drama that can be created if you frame the conversation the wrong way. If you come out of the gate guns blazing, if you label emotions, if you take it the wrong way.
Dee Davis (10:38)
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it's a confrontation of sorts, just the mere act of bringing something up with somebody else, especially if it's behavior related or performance related or action related, it's a confrontation of sorts. And confrontation is a confrontational word. mean, people hear that word and they go, I don't want a confrontation. Nobody wants a confrontation.
when we start doing anything emotional, we start throwing blame or fault around that becomes a problem. now we're in an argument, which we go right back to the top. What are we worried about? What are we afraid of? we're afraid this is going to escalate. We're going to afraid this is going to get emotional. But very much how we approach this will determine whether or not it gets emotional. We can decide that.
it to some extent, you can't control how other people react, but you can set a stage that is going to be a good stage and highly reduce the likelihood of having a big emotional outburst and walking away from a situation with a problem.
Brad Wyant (11:42)
Exactly for me in that situation it meant processing my emotions and understanding where those were coming from before assigning an emotion to somebody else so. my first instinct was to blame and to say you did something I said not to do you are coming after me rah rah rah rah rah
he had his own needs. He needed to cook the frozen food that he had in the freezer and that it probably didn't even enter his mind that that his actions would be taken as an emotional attack on me. He was just trying to do what was best for him in that moment. It's still a selfish action and it's some disregard for the rules that we set up, but it's not disregard out of.
purpose to harm. It wasn't his intent just to make me mad. It was his intent to get what he wanted and breaking that down, understanding what assumptions you're making about somebody else's intent is a key part of setting yourself up to succeed in these kinds of difficult conversations. Not everyone is a supervillain out there trying to push your buttons and ruin your day. They're probably just acting in their own best interest without
as much regard as you would like for your interests. So the lesson there is try not to assume anyone else's intent unless they state it. They may not mean to hurt your feelings. It's not necessarily all about you. It's probably more to do with them and their issues and their needs than it is about yours.
Dee Davis (13:10)
Yeah, and it's not all about you. I say that a lot. It's not about you. It's not about you as a leader. Very little is about you. We're selfish, self centered humans. And we like to think that everything is about us. And I remember having a conversation my husband and I were discussing something that was going on in the family recently. And I said, gosh, I wonder why that person's doing that. And I said, you know,
I think maybe they're doing that because, know, da da da da da, which is, you know, me, me, me, self-centered. And I said, you know, it probably has absolutely nothing to do with that. It probably is something else entirely that I'm not seeing and I don't understand. And I need to not worry about that. I need to just take a step back. And that's hard because we have a tendency to think that everything is about us. We are wired that way.
And it's very, very difficult, but that is one of the things that has helped me a lot in my career, especially when I'm working with a very forceful person or a very in your face kind of person. I asked myself, what do I think that person intended? is it something that they're doing to me or trying to do to me or towards me, or is this
about me or is this just who they are? And that helps me a lot back off the emotional ledge when somebody is really ticking me off at work.
Brad Wyant (14:35)
Well put.
Dee Davis (14:36)
OK, so going back to the DISC really quick, the DISC test again, it's D, I, S, and C. The Ds, the high Ds, or the dominants, and sometimes high Cs also, I've seen this in a few high Cs that I know, in C's are compliance, are less fearful of confrontation. They're the ones that are most likely to jump straight in head first, and that's good and bad.
It's good because they're more likely to have that difficult conversation and not shy away from it, but it's bad because they usually don't go in with a well thought out plan and they just dive in head first and guns a blazing, which is not how we want to approach these difficult conversations.
Brad Wyant (15:16)
I was just going to say, think that that's a really important thing to call out. The high D's have a need to flex, have a need to exert their dominance and say, well, this is the way this conversation is going to go. And I'm right, yada, yada, is the tendency a lot of us can fall into if we're getting in a dominant perspective. I guess, advice that I would try to offer based on the reading I've done about
Difficult conversations, there's a book called difficult conversations that a lot of this cast is based on that is worth reading. Try to acknowledge the emotions and the positions and the reasons for having the conversation as opposed to leaping into the points and issues involved. That's a good way to.
enter confrontation on the right terms with the different parties who are involved.
Dee Davis (15:58)
very good perspective. And not everybody in the room is going to have the same personality style. this is when we've talked about this in other casts, when you're on one end of the spectrum and somebody else is on the other end of the spectrum, it's even more important to take a step back and make sure that we're prepared for these difficult conversations. People that are high eyes, influencers, often salespeople,
They're peacemakers a lot of the time. They just want everybody to be happy. They want everybody to get along. They don't want confrontation. That's why everybody likes them. They never do or say anything that can be considered confrontational, generally. In the steadys the SCs tend to be in the engineering world.
And they'll often do anything to avoid a confrontation. I have some SCs in my family. Now, they get fed up enough. You might want to take a couple steps back. That D part of their personality will come out eventually. But we have a number of SCs in my family and they're high in both steadiness and compliance. They sometimes can erupt and do a high D.
in the right situation.
Brad Wyant (17:06)
My dad is a high I as well. He's a salesperson. So classic, perfect example. And the advice there is that if you are somebody who wants to minimize or mitigate confrontation, sometimes it's about accepting that there's a healthy reason that confrontation has to occur and that unaddressed, the problem will become worse and worse and worse, even though confrontation is
emotional and tough and takes a lot of work as we're to talk about there are some strategies, but it's still is going to take a lot of your mental space to get through this kind of thing. Mitigating it now, having the confrontation, going into it and doing it for the right reasons now is better than having that high D blow up later on, because then you're going to be out of control. You're not going to be able to influence. You're going to be able to just.
blow your emotions out and it's going to be a lot worse of a conversation than it could have been.
Dee Davis (17:59)
Yeah, I think we call that nipping it in the bud, right? taking these issues and dealing with them sooner rather than later is better because once something goes on for a long time, whether it's a bad behavior in the workplace or lack of performance or something like that, it's not going to improve on its own. Something that we have to remember is that none of us has a crystal ball. We always assume
that everybody knows what we're thinking and feeling and sees the same things that we see. And that's not true. SCs have a tendency, especially Ss have a tendency to think that everybody knows what they want.
And high D's have a tendency to do this as well. Everybody knows what I want. I'm showing you what good looks like. You should just do it. You should just comply. And that's not what happens. You have to tell people in words what you want, what you expect. If you run around and just expect people to know, you're going to be disappointed a lot of the time.
So I don't think there's any coincidence that the extremes of personality can often have a difficult time getting along. High Ds can scare the daylights out of the people who will do anything to avoid a confrontation. I've been told by more than one person in my life that when I first knew you, you were kind of scary because you're just so like right there. And you just say what you think. Like I wish I could do that.
You can. some of it's confidence. a lot of it is just that, I'm less concerned about what people think. A bad thing? Maybe.
Brad Wyant (19:29)
It can be and it can't be. think that having the courage to have the difficult conversations important, but when it's to the extent of scaring the other people that you need to have that conversation with, which I've never felt that way. I don't think D scares anybody into a position where they wouldn't have the conversation in the right way. Maybe it's more of like a jolt that people get out of D. like, okay, we're doing that now. That's the feeling I felt being in the room with D sometimes. But the...
The advice there is if you're somebody who tends toward that dominant perspective, you want to acknowledge if you're having a conversation with people who are less dominant, people who are more high on the I and the S, that we're going to have a difficult conversation out. Put your difficult conversation hat on. Here's why we need to have the conversation here. The outcomes that I think are my goals. Get ready. Here we go.
Letting people have that 10 seconds to put their frame of mind in a different area to have that conversation or giving people context, giving people a lead up is going to help them prepare to have that difficult conversation as their best selves, which will inevitably lead to better outcomes.
Dee Davis (20:38)
my friend Karine likes to call herself version one and version two, one of the things that she does in her trainings is administer these DISC tests to her students and then we discuss what they mean and not only is insightful about you, but it helps you understand how to deal with people that have different personality types and she likes to call herself Karine version one and Karine version two
She talks about how she was in a very, very high D and she was hard to get along with And then she started working on it and now it's she's got version two. I never heard anybody describe it that way, but I absolutely think I kind of had the same thing happen to me is it was very startling when I had my first disc test and had the D was extremely high and the I was extremely low.
And I was in a leadership position and that was unacceptable, completely unacceptable to have my people skills be that low. So anybody out there that's thinking, that could be me or, perhaps I need to look a little bit closer at what's going on. You absolutely can change and influence these outcomes for yourself.
And sometimes having these difficult conversations with other people, if they're not aware of what they're doing, you might be able to help them become aware and then work on it for themselves. Think of it as coaching. So what do we tend to do when a difficult conversation is in front of us?
absolutely nothing because it's scary, it's icky, it's uncomfortable. We don't want to do it. But what we need to do is we need to have thoughtful, difficult conversations. And especially as leaders, it's super important that we get this right. Our people are counting on us to get this right. So we're going to go through some pointers here on how to have a difficult conversation.
So you kind of hit on it a second ago, Brad, define why you're having the conversation.
Make sure that you are crystal clear as to why this conversation is happening and what is to be gained and by whom. Is this about you, like me and my neighbor? This is all about me. That difficult conversation is 100 % about me and the fact that I don't like what he's doing. Is it about his behavior and maybe being a better neighbor? Yes, but the reason that I'm having the conversation is all about me.
So am I ever gonna have the conversation because it's all about me and I know that? Maybe I need to just let it go.
Maybe I need to just accept it for what it is and let it go. Maybe I need to eventually figure out how to have that conversation properly. We'll see. So are you helping the other person or are you helping yourself? Well, I would say in that particular example, I'm more helping myself than the other person. And you got to prepare for the meeting in a way that is keeping the best interest of the other party at the forefront. So I can't.
arrive at that place for this particular conversation. That's why I keep saying, I don't know if it's ever going to happen because it feels like it's all about me. I'm uncomfortable with that.
Brad Wyant (23:37)
But sometimes when it's a conversation, all about us. mean, I've often put myself in position where I felt like, well all about me. So I just shouldn't, have the conversation in this situation with the neighbor life will go on, there are other issues where if you're trying to advocate for yourself at work and it is all about you, but you need things to be all about you for some time, you've got to find a way to frame that or at least
Enter that conversation in a way that's that's healthy and positive. There's a great technique from a book called.
FBI hostage negotiator, Chris boss. The name of the book was never split the difference. He gives you this great framing tool to overstate how selfish the conversation is about to be. He goes along the lines of, know, you're by the time we are finished with this conversation, you're probably going to think I'm a selfish.
nosy neighbor, Karen, but I really have something I want to talk to you about that. That would be a way of dumbing down the person's expectations for the conversation they're about to have. Then when it's something as simple as, Hey, sometimes I'd like it. you close the garage door on Saturdays, when you're listening to your music, then it's like, well, that's not the most Karen thing I've ever heard of. It's a technique of.
kind of over anchoring how bad the conversation is about to be and then pulling it back. And it can be useful in having those kinds of conversations. Another example that might be if you're somebody who is starting out in a new job and you've been there for a year and during your performance review you have to say, hey, you're probably going to think I am some selfish employee trying to squeeze every penny out of this company that I don't care about.
My future here, I just want every last dollar right now because I'm about to ask for a raise. But what I really want is to build a career with this company and to have it end in a great career for both of us that pays off for the organization and for me. But right now I'm facing some financial difficulties because I just had my first child or because rent is getting more expensive in this area and I really need your help. Those kinds of frames for those difficult conversations, even though it's a selfish thing.
overstating how selfish it's about to be can really help set you up for success there.
Dee Davis (25:44)
I love that. That's a really interesting way to look at that you're throwing the anchor out and then pulling it back a little bit and telling them, look, I know that this is all about me and that's okay. it's an example of a stupid petty complaint really. And purposely I'm using that example as a low level
I could choose to just not deal with it and life would go on and it's not really that big of a deal. It's a minor annoyance, but most of the stuff we're talking about the the truly difficult conversations are difficult conversations that need to be had. They're about performance. They're about behavior that is a problem. And. not having these conversations is far worse than having the conversation and just getting over.
that stress and anxiety of having it. When you're preparing for this conversation, you have to take the other person's personality style into consideration, especially if they are opposite of you. If you have two high Ds, they know how to communicate with each other intuitively, good, bad, or indifferent. They can do it intuitively. So can two high Ss.
But if somebody is your opposite, you really need to be careful because you need to make sure that you are choosing your words carefully and tempering down the conversation to avoid things escalating. If you're in a leadership position or even just senior to the person, maybe you're senior to them, but not their boss, they might still be looking up to you.
So your words are gonna have more impact just because you're senior to them. So you need to be very, very careful, which leads us to words matter. Planning what you're gonna say and how you're going to say it, especially if it's a really, really tough one can be paramount to success. One of the most difficult conversations I ever had with an employee
It was going to be a go, no go. if I couldn't correct this, this was not going to work out kind of a thing. And this guy is a great engineer, very, very smart. I wanted to keep him, but there were some behavioral issues that were causing a serious problem on the site. having conversations with people about
how they are, how they act, how they interact with other people is extremely sensitive. And this person was an extremely sensitive person. They wanted to please. And I don't think that they were really aware of most of the behaviors that were a problem. So I spent weeks figuring out how to say what I needed to say so that this didn't escalate and go badly.
Brad Wyant (28:23)
think that it's very hard to put yourself in somebody else's shoes as far as judging what their emotions would be, but you need to try to make that effort. It's a lot like chess. I am a terrible chess player because I'm a commensurate engineer. I just want to build my strategy and not think about how the other person would react to it. But when I'm playing chess at my best, I'm thinking about how each of my moves will impact
my opponent, what they're going to think I'm thinking and how my next moves need to be able to react to their reaction, which is a long way of saying when you're planning out a conversation like this and you are going to say something, put yourself in the other person's shoes and think about how they're going to react to it so that you can understand the frame of mind they're going to be in for the rest of the conversation.
If that frame of mind has to be, we're having a difficult conversation, there are areas you need to improve on. Find a way to understand how that's going to make that person feel. Are they going to be anxious about their job? Are they going to be anxious about their income? What can you or can't you say in those circumstances to keep the conversation on topic for the sake of trying to improve the situation? If you want to say,
Don't worry your job's not in jeopardy to calm the person down, but you can't say that because their job might be in jeopardy. Know that and know that that's a road you can't go down. Set yourself up to succeed by thinking about how your. Partner in conversation is going to react and acknowledging that in your strategy.
Dee Davis (29:55)
Yeah, and keeping it on topic is really important. Don't let it become the traditional marital argument where you bring up something that happened a long time ago that's completely off topic. Don't do that. That is not productive. It's not helpful. Especially when you're talking about a performance review or performance situation,
The first place people's minds go is, my gosh, I'm about to get fired. And that was exactly what happened. When this whole thing went down, I spent weeks taking painful care to figure out how I was going to approach this topic, what words I was going to use, what the setting was going to be, all those things. And
That was exactly where their mind immediately went. That was a piece I didn't prepare for. And they said, my God, are you going to fire me? Are you going to fire me? And I said, OK, stop. I'm not firing you. Nobody's saying those words. What I'm saying is we have things that need to be fixed. If we don't fix them, if we don't solve this problem together, not just you, but together, then we could be looking at a situation like that. Like, yes, it's that dire.
But that's not what's happening today. Today we're talking about what the problems are. And then we're going to talk about some strategies of how to fix those problems together.
Brad Wyant (31:14)
I think that the two things that really stand out to me about the way that you're emphasizing that is that there are stakes here. You need to pay attention because it's, it's not just us having a conversation to have a conversation. There's something going on here, but also that you're going to be a partner to this person and you're going to work with them. That's not just all on them because that kind of pressure in that kind of circumstance might make that person feel attacked when it's you jumping into the hole with them to help find the way out. That's going to make them feel more at ease and more
like they have a path forward as opposed to they're being attacked as opposed to it's all about them and they don't know what to do.
Dee Davis (31:50)
You as a leader have to be a partner with your people. You have to be part of the solution. if they've got like a home problem, that's different. That's not something that you can necessarily help them with, except to be there as a resource, to be there as an ear, to let them lean on you as appropriate in that relationship. But
when it's a workplace performance issue, yes, you need to be their partner. You need to be the one that helps them recognize when they're doing that behavior that's unacceptable because in the midst of the day to day, we might not quite see it. And if we can't see it, we can't correct it.
we also have to prepare in advance for actions, reactions, objections, and even emotion. Emotion often in these situations will come out as anger. It'll come out as lashing out. It'll come out as anger. People get defensive automatically. But it can come out as crying. And who wants that at work?
Nobody wants to have a dissolved employee in front of them when you're having one of these difficult conversations dissolve into emotion. But it happens. And you need to be prepared for that. There may be reasons that you're having these issues with somebody that have nothing to do with work. Maybe they've got a really tough situation going on in their personal life. And when you bring up
this performance issue, they may already be aware that they're having trouble performing at work. And it's because of a very emotional situation at home. And that might be why you're getting an emotional reaction. It's not comfortable at all for anyone. They don't want to do it. You don't want to do it. But it happens. And you need to be prepared.
Normal human response. We're dealing with people. No matter how much we'd like to deal with robots, we're dealing with people.
Brad Wyant (33:36)
And it's important to, in the age of AI, where we're increasingly going to be dealing with robots, robots are going to take our jobs.
The silver lining of working with people is that if you have these emotional moments with your coworkers, with your boss, with your employees, and you can navigate them successfully, you're going to build a bond with those people that supersedes a lot of the trivial surface level things. If you can find a way to have these kinds of emotional conversations successfully with your employees to get through
a crying breakdown with them and make them feel heard, make them feel listened to, make them feel a part of your team and a worthy part of the organization. That goes beyond how much salary you can offer them or how many benefits you can give them, how much accolade you can lay at their feet. Because we all are people, we all are going to have emotional moments. Boys don't cry, whatever, fine. But
If you can find a way to create a space that's safe for people to have their emotional human moments, that's a place they're going to want to be.
Dee Davis (34:36)
I think we've talked about this before, nobody wants to have that kind of emotion at work, but it happens from time to time. And yeah, don't make that person feel uncomfortable because they had a human emotion at work that wasn't anger. You know, they acted like a, like a person and not a robot and never, ever blame.
Don't place blame and be careful with the language that you're using when you're having these conversations. You don't want to make somebody feel like they're blamed. I had that happen to me one time where I inherited a project from someone else. It was in a bad shape, not good. was bad from the estimate. Then there were some bad buyout decisions before I ever got there. And the job ended up
losing money. I spent my entire time on that job just trying to stop the bleeding. That was, EMT time. I was just trying to stop the bleeding as much as I could. And that year at a company event, the president of the company stood up in front of everyone, didn't use my name, but used my project as an example, blaming that project for a bunch of
bad things that happened in the company that year. And I've never been so angry in all my life. got up and I left. I was so angry I felt like, of course, again, we're making it all about ourselves, right?
I felt like everybody in the room knew he was talking about my project, even though I still don't really feel like it was my project. I feel like it was a project that I inherited and I did the best I could with. It made me feel like it was all my fault that the company had a bad year. And it's not okay to make people feel like that. So we have to be very careful.
When we're in leadership positions and we're talking to people like that, did I eventually get over it? Yeah. I still, feel like that was the wrong approach? Yes, I do. From a leadership position, that was a wrong approach. And it didn't make me feel good. I don't think anyone even noticed. I noticed. I don't think anybody else did. There's a right time and place.
stage at a company event in front of hundreds of people, not the right place. This is really, really critical that picking the right time and place to have a difficult conversation is crucial. It's not a time for raised voices. It's not a time to play the blame game. And it's certainly not a time to perform in front of an audience. Have you ever seen that happen before where somebody does this in front of a bunch of people?
Brad Wyant (37:03)
It's not something I've seen very often, in the few instances I have seen it, it's the kind of thing that permanently ruins a relationship between people. If somebody decides to make an example out of someone, for instance, they're just going to go after them. They're going to do what you just said, effectively, put somebody on blast for a behavior that they want to curb and single a person out. That person that got singled out,
is never going to listen to that person ever again. It's like, well, you don't respect me enough to come to me individually. You don't respect me enough to do this in a different way. You would ruin my reputation to achieve your own goals. It's over. You've killed your chance of having a relationship with that person. It's a terrible, terrible choice. And it never gets you what you want. If your objective is to curb behavior that you see your employees taking on,
that you don't want to see happen anymore. Find a different way to stop it. Don't think that making this threat using someone as an example that way is the right way. It's just going to ruin your reputation among your employees. Not only will the employee that you singled out never trust you again and hate your guts, the other employees who are listening to you do that will see that you
would do that to them too. And the trust in you is going to evaporate in that instant.
Dee Davis (38:26)
And you're going to look like a jerk. Absolutely praise in public. That's what we do in public praise in public. We correct in private. Always in private. So let's talk about location. if you're talking about I gotta have this really tough conversation with somebody, especially if it's an employer employee relationship or supervisor employee relationship of any kind.
You need to pick a neutral location. You never want to be sitting behind your desk and having them sit in your desk chair for this conversation. There is an implied.
pecking order, if you will, when you're sitting behind your desk and the person sitting on the other side of that desk, I'm the boss and you're not, is what that tells people psychologically. So you never want to have this kind of conversation at a desk like that, preferably not even in your office, or even in the office workspace. If you can go,
outside and sit at a table away from other people, take a walk, something like that, but not in public. So this happened to me one time.
I was the one getting the performance review and I had been asking for a promotion and my boss was going to tell me that I wasn't getting the promotion I've been asking for. So he took me out to lunch at a crowded restaurant.
to tell me that I wasn't getting anything I asked for. No raise, no promotion. And he threw in a few items that he thought I needed to work on that had never come up before. this is just me talking now, but I think they were put there as a justification for no raise and no promotion, right? Because they were things that had never come up on any previous performance review.
this person did it because they knew I was not going to react well. And they figured, well, if I do this in a really public place, She's not gonna get mad or get upset. Not the right approach. did I get mad and upset? Sure I did. And that that's really was an avoidance technique.
I think about that situation often because it was very clear to me that's not usually the type of place and situation that we would have performance reviews in. I think it was chosen very specifically to avoid dealing with the reaction that I was going to have to the bad news, to the situation. I was still mad. It didn't stop me from getting mad.
And yes, we had the conversation, we just had it later. And it made me even matter, to be honest.
Brad Wyant (40:50)
It's a weak cop out. It's the kind of technique that prolongs action rather than mitigating it. Just putting somebody in a public place where they can't react emotionally like that doesn't mean that they won't later, that it won't blow up later. You're just forestalling the inevitable. And it's a, just a weak strategy. If your goal in getting away from the job site or the office, for instance, is to have privacy,
Then that's a good goal. But like you said earlier, going for a walk where you have privacy. And not public social pressure to behave a certain way is a good idea. I think another interesting aspect of going for a walk with somebody as opposed to sitting across from the table is that you're both walking the same direction on a path as opposed to facing each other. There's something about the physical orientation.
of those circumstances that lends itself to better problem solving and better teamwork than the confrontational nature of we're across the table from each other. I want what's in the middle and you want what's in the middle. We both have to pull and fight for it. So going for a walk is great idea. I think that's a really clever frame to use for those kinds of difficult conversations.
Dee Davis (41:59)
Yeah, in the last five years or so, I've used the going for a walk strategy for not just difficult conversations, but problem solving. When there's a problem happening on a job, and I need to talk to so and so about it, I say, let's, if possible, let's go for a walk. And you're right, instead of that facing each other, which is almost not really intentional, but it's like an opposition.
where if you're walking together, you're walking in the same direction, you're doing this together as a team. And it inherently creates a better environment. Not to mention being outside we all behave better when we're outside in nature. We're walking around, there's trees, there's plants, there's critters, we all just calm down. It brings us all down a couple of notches.
which is not a bad place to be.
Brad Wyant (42:49)
Absolutely.
Dee Davis (42:50)
you also have to be present. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I'm having a conversation with somebody and their phone rings or their text message comes in and they stop listening to me and pay attention to their phone. Absolutely makes me nuts.
Brad Wyant (43:02)
It's the best way to signal to somebody that you don't care about what you're talking about. And there are even people who will say put their phone face down on the table and then it'll ring and buzz and vibrate on the table and then they'll go, you know what? I'm not going to answer that. You're so magnanimous. That's so big of you to just look at you, put it in your pocket and then ignore it or put it on silent, put it on do not disturb. Make it clear to the person that you're having the conversation with that
this conversation matters enough to pull all of my focus right now. If, okay, in an exceptional case, if you're a waiting spouse hoping to hear about a delivery or you need to be by your phone.
lead into the conversation with that. If you're a superintendent and you know that you have to observe, supervise a delivery, say, hey, this conversation is really important to me, but I just, know that I'm waiting on a phone call that would interrupt us. Will you forgive me if I take it? And asking for that kind of grace from somebody can endear you to them. There's a saying that goes, friend in need is a friend indeed. We as people want to help each other and asking for help endears us.
to the people we are having a conversation with. Playing the, it's cool, I don't need anything, I don't want anything from you. So, I don't want anything from you either. I don't want to help you either, then this is just very standoffish. If you start out by asking for something small like that, it can actually open the person up to feel like there's gonna be give and take between the two of you.
Dee Davis (44:28)
when it comes to scheduling a difficult conversation like the one that I was talking about where I prepared mentally and emotionally for weeks because this was really, really critical. Finding a time where you're not going to have those kind of distractions is best, but that's not always possible. I mean, especially in the throes of a project, there's a thousand things going on. Like you gave the superintendent example, when is the superintendent's phone not ringing?
it's buzzing, it's ringing, it's blowing up all day. somebody in a role like that, it's very difficult, but you may need to stay. Look, I need 10 minutes of your time, 20 minutes of your time, whatever, whatever the right, don't shorten that. Don't, don't say I need two minutes when you need 20. Tell them I need to carve out 20 minutes of uninterrupted time to talk to you about this and that.
then they can prepare for that and they can say, well, hey, know, Joe, can you take care of this for me? I need to go have this conversation. I've done the put it upside down on the table thing, not because I'm trying to display that. I guess I'm doing it as a signal. I'm turning it upside down for a couple of reasons. Number one, to remove the temptation of looking when it rings or it buzzes, like to see who it is, because it doesn't matter.
But I like the idea better, like you're saying, put it in your pocket. Don't even bring it in the room, even better. Don't bring it in the room. I've had projects where we weren't allowed to bring our phones into the conference room when we go into a meeting. I'm not opposed to that. because people are not listening, they're not paying attention, they're splitting their attention in the middle of a meeting when they're supposed to be paying attention to what's going on.
We'll hit on that more in our next podcast, which we're going to talk about meetings. I know everybody loves that.
Brad Wyant (46:08)
But.
Dee Davis (46:08)
You know, no distractions. Don't, if you're trying to have this kind of a conversation standing in the middle of a job site when there's a thousand things going on and all these people and all this stuff, it's not a good place. Don't do that. Just try to be fully present for the person. That's going to be your best shot at making sure that you have the actions and the reactions that you need to have and have a productive meeting.
Brad Wyant (46:30)
Just to tie onto that, think a lot of us get into the tendency on a construction site especially of, well, but I have to have my phone with me. Something might happen and I might need to react to it. If you put yourself in the shoes of me being at my phone is necessary for the project to continue.
The project's not probably being as managed as well as it could be. Don't put yourself in position where you not picking up a phone could mean the delay of the entire job. Or if that is the criticality of it, you're not ready to have this conversation. There's something else dividing your time, demanding it that you need to schedule around and take those five minutes and say, I gotta avoid the tendency to multitask.
Don't put yourself in a position where you have to do multiple things at once because you're never going to do any of them as well as you could. And once you start doing none of the things you need to do as well as you could, it's going to create more and more problems down the road and you're never going to be able to get on top. You're going to be dragged by the horse all the way to the end. Just my two cents on like trying to be present, trying to not let yourself get swept up into the busy, busy, check the box, check the box, read a email notification every five seconds.
way that we tend to live in this digital age. The anxious generation is a book about why our brains are wired to need those notifications and need to do something about them every time they come in. So don't let yourself fall into that prey brain trap is what I would suggest.
Dee Davis (47:52)
I just want to go back to one of the things that you said. If you're that critical to the job at every given moment of the job, you're not delegating and you're not trusting your teammates. Those are two critical things that you need to learn how to do. Every one of us needs to learn how to do. And there's been so many times that I can
Brad Wyant (48:03)
Totally.
Dee Davis (48:12)
proudly say that I've been I've been able to walk away from a project for a period of time because of a personal emergency or something happening and I'm like my team's got it. I'm not worried about it. That's a great place to be. You just gotta you gotta get there. The next point we want to hit on in a difficult conversations is stay calm.
You're initiating this difficult conversation. You set the tone. So calm, keep it professional. Again, don't make any of this personal. remain calm, remain professional. And remember our number one fear. Our number one fear is how the other person is going to react, right? So how you act is going to influence how they react.
So if you're raising your voice, what do you think they're going to do?
And then you always have to remember to be human in these conversations, be human. No matter what we do, we are always dealing with other people and not everybody is like you. So if you would react a certain way and you're thinking this is no big deal, this is not a big deal, I wouldn't even react to this. That doesn't mean the other person won't. So think about that other person and what their DISC might reveal if they had one.
Brad Wyant (49:23)
that there's an interesting interplay between the two of those. Staying calm is important and you should not let your emotions get the better of you, but being human means acknowledging your emotions. There's a difference between suppressing your emotions and controlling to the extent that they don't have their rightful say in the conversation, but you can't let your emotions control you either. finding a way to
Listen to your body. Listen to the way that you're reacting. Acknowledge the emotion. Find the source of it and then talk about the source of that emotion as opposed to the emotion itself, as opposed to acting out of the emotion and only the emotion is key. So a good example of that was going back to that frying pan that my roommate scratched. When I saw that the first step of my emotional processing was God mad that he did that. That just really makes me frustrated that he would
disrespect me in that way. And I stopped there and I said, I want him to realize that he upset me and that he was wrong. I want him to realize that he was wrong and I was right. So I had the conversation this way of trying to bring him down this road where I was boxing him into I'm right, you're wrong. And so the way I did it was I said, Hey, I noticed that you used the frying pan this morning. And he said, yeah, I did. I said, did you maybe use a metal utensil
to cook whatever you were cooking. said, yeah, I did. Did you remember that at the beginning of our year together that I said, I would rather you not use metal on these surfaces because it's going to scratch them and damage them. And then he said, yeah, I remember you saying that. And then I showed him the pant with all the big scratches. Like, what do you think's going on here? He said, yeah, I guess I'll pay for it. And it stopped there. And I said, great, fine. I'll send you a link. And then I realized that's not what I wanted. I didn't want the money.
out of the conversation. wanted him to acknowledge that
His actions unintentionally probably had caused me to feel disrespected and that I wanted him to apologize for a behavior that was selfish, that didn't acknowledge my needs. And by leading him down this path of you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.
I was just calm, but I wasn't being human. wasn't dealing with my own emotions and I wasn't realizing that I was putting him into a box where the only reaction he was going to have was to just shirk out of it and find a way to leave a little dignity. So I guess the moral of that story I'm trying to make is when you're having these conversations, process all of your emotions.
in your humanity and then come up with a plan before just suppress it. Because what I did is I suppressed my need to feel heard and to feel like my personhood, my due respect had been.
Disregard it had not been respected if that makes any sense. Am I making that clear? You think D?
Dee Davis (52:01)
Yeah, I think you are. I guess part of me is saying, know, good on you for having the guts to have the conversation, because I think most people would just avoid it. And then what happens? We get angry, we get resentful. you walk away angry and, maybe you're not angry for a long time, but, I could just see you're unpacking your new place and you see the scratch pan and you're thinking, man, that guy.
I told him, and you're holding onto it, which is just really unhealthy. It's better to get it out of the way. And like you said, you didn't even get the result you wanted, really, which was for him to go, man, I'm so sorry. I didn't even think about that. That was the result you wanted.
Brad Wyant (52:42)
Exactly. wanted him to acknowledge how his behavior impacted me and how I viewed it in our relationship and not taking the time to process my emotions. Just pursuing the I'm right, you're wrong of it was I still was calm. I was still level headed throughout the whole thing be human with yourself.
Think about is this really what I want out of this conversation? Do I really want more money? If I'm having a conversation with my boss about getting a raise, if that's what I really want, let's explore that. Is it because I'm worried about the financial security? Is it because rent's really high? Is it because I feel like I'm not being valued enough at this organization that I deserve more money? Where is this coming from? And then if you can break those down to be prepared to explore those things in the conversation with those as the higher objective,
that references the medium objective of getting a raise, then you're going to leave that conversation no matter what your style is, having a better impact on that person, building a deeper relationship with that person. If I had been my most present and best self, we would have a conversation to the effect of, I know that you react this way and kind of are selfish and often pursue your own interests without considering the needs of others, expecting them to push back. That's not my style.
I need somebody to have a little bit more empathy for me and to come to a relationship in a different way. And when you did this, it made me feel like you didn't respect my stuff and me through that. So let's have a conversation about that and why we both view that action differently. Because for this relationship to continue, I need to feel like you respect me. And then it would have been a more meaningful conversation that we could have had a better friendship, better relationship come out of.
and we would have been in a better place, the $70 wouldn't have mattered. It would have been, oh, we've just taken a big step in our relationship that we didn't know we had to take that deepened our friendship, that deepened the bond between us.
Dee Davis (54:33)
this kind of goes back to the why you are having the conversation, right? Defining your why are you having the difficult conversation? We keep using these like everyday kind of petty examples of like the neighbor playing his music too loud and the scratch frying pan. Like we realize these are not capital difficult conversations, but we're using them as ways to illustrate.
what might be a much more difficult conversation in the workplace with a family member, or a friend can happen anywhere in your life. And sometimes they are kind of smaller things like that, but oftentimes they can be really big items in your life. An important thing to remember is people can't read your mind. Nobody's got a crystal ball. Okay. If you are just sitting there thinking,
They should know what I want. They should know what I like. And ladies, I'm here to tell you, most men spend zero seconds thinking about what you want or what you like or anything else. You need to use your words. We're talking about like relationship relationships. I think most men spend zero seconds a day thinking about what
you want. So I hear that mostly from women to be honest, although I think I've heard it several times from men too that, well, how, did they just not know? How did they just not know what I expect? And again, whether this is personally or professionally, I have had some guy friends that, say, well, I don't understand why they don't know what I want. Well, did you ever tell them? Well, no. Okay. Well then we're asking people to have a crystal ball.
That's not fair. It's not a fair way to treat people.
Brad Wyant (56:09)
And it is all about each of our own selfish interests to a certain extent. A lot of people, us included, walk through the world with our own needs as number one. Framing your interactions with other people in the context of your own needs will call attention to the fact that ignoring them and that will help them understand that there's an action to be taken. That they've unwittingly stepped on, your ego stepped on
your person has stepped on your boundaries in a way that they shouldn't have. And that's, you need to invite them to understand rather than demand that they always take into consideration your needs as equal as theirs. Cause that's not a realistic relationship. That's not how we're wired. Or at least somehow the 99 % of us are wired. There's some very empathetic people out there, but, and just to defend the, the male species in terms of us not understanding
what women want. think women are much, much better at emotional communication on average and at understanding where the other person is coming from at strategic empathy, whereas men very surface level, we have the conversation about the thing, the words that are said or what we listen to. And then we go off and do it when
A guy hears, I'm fine. Okay, you're fine. And they move on. But we have a harder time picking up on the tone of that. I'm fine. Ask. Okay, no, That's something going on that isn't what the person wants, but they're not comfortable sharing it. What am I doing to make it uncomfortable for that person to share the thing that is not fine? That's the level that you need to get to as a man in a relationship with them to be able to
prosper to be able to have a deeper connection.
Dee Davis (57:47)
Or even as a leader, right? when you know that something's wrong, a colleague even. So I think I gave an example, many episodes ago of a colleague that I'd worked with for years and years and years, always like happy chipper friendly guy. We've done many jobs together.
And I was working with him on this one project and it was an especially large, long, stressful project. And he was not himself. He was not, he was grumpy. He was short tempered. He was cranky. And I asked him several times, Hey, is everything okay? It's fine. Well, that's not a, that's not a good fine. That tone right there. That's not a good fine. that's not a fine fine.
Something was clearly wrong. And so I thought, okay, the first time I thought, well, gosh, I don't know, maybe he's in a bad mood, whatever. And this went on for weeks and months. And I asked him several times, is everything okay? yeah, everything's fine. It's all good. And I'm like, hmm, I don't feel like it is. And then I started asking around to other people who had known him for a long time. Hey, is everything okay with this guy? Like, I feel like, you know, and everybody's like, yeah, I don't know. He's just been really cranky. And I finally
I said it to him one too many times and he yelled at me, why does everybody keep asking me if I'm okay? here's why, something's wrong. Now, will you please come in here and sit down and talk to me about what is going on and come to find out this guy had some really difficult personal stuff going on in his life. like I said, we'd had a long standing relationship and we've gone through some tough times together and
I wanted to give him an audience to talk about whatever was going on with him. And it did, it helped. Like he, got better after that. He just needed to get some things off of his chest and being there for people that are your colleagues like that can make all the difference. And so we don't always know. It had nothing to do with work. mean, I'm sure work wasn't helping, but it was really a personal situation that he had going on.
And at the risk of this being a direct parallel, the next thing is don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong. Now, did my nose belong there? I don't know. As a friend, I felt compelled to at least give him the opportunity to get some things off of his chest. And it did help him and he was better in the long run. But I've had this happen before too, where somebody has called me, them.
them being the non-confrontational type and me being the less worried about that type, and asked me to have the difficult conversation on their behalf. Don't do that. I didn't. I said, no, no, I'm never doing that. It's hard enough to have the difficult conversations that you have to have for yourself.
Brad Wyant (1:00:11)
Oof.
Dee Davis (1:00:22)
But it is not your place to have the difficult conversations for other people. I would call it a landmine. There's only one way that's going to blow up in your face, 100%. And you're enabling the avoider to continue to avoid, which is not helping them either.
Brad Wyant (1:00:39)
Well put, think we've talked about a lot of different strategies for how to have difficult conversations here and how to deal with things that we all know are going to be emotional, that are going to be make or break moments in relationships. How do you want to this, Dee? How do you want to cap off this difficult conversations podcast?
Dee Davis (1:00:58)
My with my rule and I've had to apply this rule numerous times in my life, personal and professional. If it's hard and you don't want to do it, that's how you know it's the right thing to do.
Just ask yourself, why am I feeling like this? That's hard and I don't want to do it. Well, that's how you know you have to do it.
Brad Wyant (1:01:15)
I think a great explicit example of that comes from my earlier career when something big came up at the beginning of a meeting that was obviously going to be a huge emotional deal. And I just said, well, that's awful. I don't know how to deal with it. Let's keep going with the meeting. And I just moved on and I regret it to this day because if I paused the meeting in that moment and said, Hey, we need to talk about that because that's more important than the rest of the meeting.
I would have felt a lot better about how that outcome came to be. I would have felt that I had stood up for myself in a more meaningful way. If you feel uncomfortable with the way things have just gone and there's something that is going on, said, it's not going to get acknowledged unless you bring it up. Have the courage to do it. You're going to be happier with yourself after the fact, bring it up in a good way using the techniques we talked about in this podcast, but don't avoid the difficult thing.
because it's difficult because it's uncomfortable. It's gotta happen and it's gonna happen one way or another. Bringing it up in the moment as opposed to letting it fester, as opposed to letting it pass, as opposed to giving other people time to weasel their way out of things or minimize it. Avoidance is not a strategy.
Dee Davis (1:02:22)
And one of the worst avoidance strategies that I see in workplaces these days is when you have a really toxic employee, everyone knows that person's toxic. Their boss knows they're toxic. Everybody top to bottom knows the person's toxic. And every person in leadership role avoids it. They don't want to deal with it. That person, they're going to yell and scream. It's going to be this big confrontation.
And you know, you can, can be that bad. can be that extreme where that person is single-handedly dismantling your company and your staff and people are leaving because it's so bad because you are avoiding as a leader. are, you are not addressing the problem because it's difficult. It's uncomfortable. There might be some emotions involved, all these things that we were afraid of when it comes to difficult conversations.
You can do irreparable damage to your team and to your entire company if you don't deal with some of these really, really difficult conversations that have to happen. It's part of your job as a leader. So don't let that happen to you. In the show notes, we'll put these steps in there so that you can follow them and prepare for your next difficult conversation. Thanks everybody.
Brad Wyant (1:03:33)
See you next time.
