Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the childhood body for
the project profession. My name is Emma Devita, and I'm
the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host.
In this podcast, I'm speaking to Marie Coombs and Sophie Payton
about that perennial topic of interest, How to have difficult
conversations. I'm sure all of you face this
challenge in your project work, so we've got some advice from
two people who know all about it to help you feel less daunted
and get better at doing it. Marie is the Director of We
Restore Calm and a seasoned expert in HR, conflict
resolution, mediation, and employee engagement, through
which he's won a number of awards.
Sophie is an experienced facilitator and partner at Make
Happy, a consultancy that helps teams unlock their full
potential, solve complex problems and find new ideas.
I got them together to share their inside tips on how to make
difficult conversations less difficult.
In fact, I was told that we shouldn't even describe these
sorts of conversations as difficult, but rather reframe
them as essential. Listen on to some of their other
brilliant insights. Marie and Sophie, it's lovely to
have you here. Thanks for sparing the time to
talk to us about having a difficult conversation.
Thank you for asking. Us very nice to be here.
What makes a conversation a difficult one to have?
Why does it become difficult if it started out OK?
Sophie, maybe you'd like to go first.
My definition of what makes a difficult conversation is anyone
that you're feeling worried about that you're feeling a bit
trepidatious about maybe lying in bed thinking, oh gosh, I
really don't want to want to have to talk to this person
about that. And it can be maybe it's
something really big. You know, we're not going to be
able to deliver this because of one person's inability to
produce what they need to produce.
But sometimes it can be smaller stuff.
You know, it might be that you want to move where your desk is
in the office or something because of, like, a personal
reason to you. But those things can, over time,
become big in your mind as well. And so, yeah, I guess that's
what I'd say is anything that you're worrying about, that's
what becomes a difficult conversation.
OK. And I guess, Marie, you'd agree
with that. I do, yeah, to A to a certain
extent, I have an issue with the word difficult purely because
that automatically puts that reframe that it's a conversation
to be avoided. It's a conversation to be
worried about. And I'm actually on a mission to
try and change the word difficult to essential because
they're conversations we need to have.
And actually what makes them difficult is the fact that we
build them up in our minds as being difficult.
We build them up in our minds as something to be avoided or
that's something that we're not looking forward to.
And that's not saying that doing the reframe, we're automatically
going to look forward to them, but it just shifts something in
our mindset and it gets us looking at that conversation
from a slightly different perspective and a slightly
different point of view. Because when we frame something
as difficult, that activates the fight or flight mechanism in our
brains. So it activates the emotional
centre that automatically tells our brain that the conversation
is a threat. So we then think of it as a
threat. Whereas if we think of it as a
conversation that you know needs to happen, but actually could be
incredibly productive and constructive and actually be a
driving force, if that actually shifts our mindset and makes us
less afraid of it, which means generally it's going to be a
better conversation than the one we probably thought of as being
difficult. I know when we've spoken
previously that you you made the very obvious point that you have
to expect to have conversations like these with other people.
It's just part of life. Everybody thinks that conflict
is something bad, and actually conflict just is.
It's like death and taxes. It's how we deal with it that
decides whether it's destructive or constructive.
It's the destructive nature of conflict we can avoid, not
conflict itself. And that reframe just starting
off thinking about that conversation as being a
conversation that's essential, that makes it more likely it's
going to be a constructive conversation.
And constructive conflict is where innovation lives.
It's where creativity lives. It's where ideas live.
If you go into the mindset of it being destructive, you don't get
any of that creativity because your mind is hardwired for
threat. Sophie, do you have any tips
about how to prepare to have an essential conversation?
I'm rebranding it essential not, not difficult that can help you
go in I guess with greater confidence.
Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with what Marie says there about
reframing it. And I think as well as reframing
the whole idea of the conversation as being essential
rather than difficult. Sometimes you can get more
specific. And you know, if you've got
these thoughts running through your minds like this is going to
be awful to just flip that and say, you know, this is going to
be really valuable. This is going to help me achieve
whatever it is I need to achieve.
And it sounds really obvious and so simple, but actually just by
doing that, you do really start to have a powerful effect.
And as Marie says, so much of why we dread these conversations
is because of our fight or flight response.
And actually reframing your thoughts can be the first step
in starting to regulate that emotional primal response, that
threat detection and system that's being triggered by the
thought of having a conflict with someone.
It can be useful to plan a little bit so to have in your
mind what your goal for the conversation is like, what do
you actually want to achieve? And then maybe jot down a few
points of kind of essential points you need to get across.
But I think, again, tying into what Maria was saying about when
you let it start to go over and over and over in your mind is
not to expend too much mental energy in the preparation, sort
of thinking how it's going to go, because you never really
know how the other person is going to react.
And you can use up a lot of emotional energy kind of
thinking about it in advance. Are there any tips about going
into a conversation and when you're preparing to think about
what are the outcomes you'd be happy to have and should you be
a bit flexible about that? So should you have almost like
best case scenario and a worst case scenario?
Yeah. Interestingly enough, in the
mediation world we, we have 3 phrases, Batna, Watna, malatna,
which is best alternative, worst alternative, most likely
alternative to what it is you want to get out of that
conversation. So we use a lot of that in the
conflict resolution world and the conflict transformation
world to get people to think about, you know, what's the
worst case scenario? How do I feel about that?
What's the best case scenario? Is that actually achievable?
And what's the most likely scenario that's going to happen
in that situation? And if you go in prepared for
those 3 eventualities, actually that conversation just becomes a
lot easier because you're not trying to think in the
conversation what those things might be.
So my advice would be any preparation.
They're really the three key things to think about it in
terms of what your outcomes are going to be.
What are those potential outcomes?
And that could be, again, apologies for for chucking in
acronyms. Mediation world's full of
acronyms as I'm sure project management is as well.
Yeah, they love the acronym. It's catchy, though.
That's the sort of things, you know, if you feel nervous and
everything just flies out of your brain.
But if you can cling on to something, that's always
helpful. Sophie, was there anything you
wanted to add? For me, I think the most
important thing going into a conversation, I mean, you're
kind of mentally thinking about how you're going to approach it
is that you also have to be willing to listen and you have
to be willing that actually your outcome might not be the outcome
that's reached and you might actually not be as right as you
think you are. And I think that's a really
important part of preparing is to say this is going to be a two
way conversation. It's not just going to be me
getting my way. And you know, obviously ideally
both people go into the conversation with that mindset
as well. But definitely the bit you can
control is your own approach. I don't know if you've read
Nancy Klein time to think. It's about really creating the
optimal environment to do great for human beings to do great
thinking. One of the things she says,
which what really resonates with me is that because of the way
we're educated and then we're managed in the workplace, often
when another person is speaking, we're not really listening and
processing what they are saying. We're actually just formulating
our own response in our mind. And, and I think we can all
reflect on ourselves and our experiences and when we do that
quite a lot. And so to try and dial down that
in a voice that's maybe mentally rebutting what the other person
is saying as they're talking and just actually listen and try and
understand and look for meaning in what they're saying is a
really, really important part of having a great conversation with
someone. So try to be a great listener as
much as worrying about what you're trying to get across.
Thank you. Is it natural to want to avoid
difficult or essential conversations and is that a good
strategy? Yes, 100% normal.
And no, it's not a good strategy.
It's a very, very simple answer. It's really, really interesting.
I was running a training course yesterday and every single
person in the room, when I said to them, if you ever had any
training on conflicts, the answer was no.
Because it's one of those topics that we never really get taught
how to do. We just expected to do it.
And what generally happens is you pick up how to deal with
essential situations. We pick up how to deal with that
from our parents, from what we learn as children, and then we
take that into adulthood. So from my perspective, I got
bullied a lot as a kid. I was always told by my mum,
walk away from those bullies because they'll stop if you walk
away. So I had the mentality until I
did my training in 2014 as a mediator.
I had the mentality of walking away from a difficult situation
or an essential situation was the right thing to do because if
I walk away from it, it goes away.
Spoiler alert, it doesn't. It never goes away because if
nothing else, it builds up as an internal conflict, even if the
other person isn't aware of what's going on.
And we sometimes forget that conflict isn't just between two
people. It's also internal as well.
It's that self talk. It's that building up a
situation to be worse than it is and avoiding it.
What we tend to do is we tend to build it up so that when we see
that person again, we're already in a situation where I'm
dreading seeing this person because of that build up in our
minds. So but it's not about going in
or guns blazing as well and saying, you know what, we just
need to crack on with this and fix it.
And it is about that listening and picking up on on what Sophie
said. Stephen Covey also came out with
a very, very similar line. We spend our lives listening to
respond rather than listening to hear.
And that is usually what happens when we do go in or guns
blazing. We go in with our own
preconceived mindsets of this is how the conversation's going to
go. And it becomes more complicated
when we don't get the response we've expected to get.
So we're spending our time thinking of what a new response
is going to be rather than listening to hear essentially.
So yeah, walking away. There's lots of different ways
people deal with conflict. Walking away from it, not
dealing with it at all, going in all guns blazing, phoning
people, pleasing, you know, just capitulating because it's easier
than having the conversation. When actually the keyword is
collaboration. It's about getting in there and
having a two way conversation. That is the way to deal with
essential situations. OK.
That is some really excellent and thoughtful advice.
I think I would just like to go in and ask you there for how do
you try to have the best conversations you can have when
you're talking about something difficult or something
essential. So kind of what are the do's and
then we could maybe move on to the don'ts.
We've already covered quite a lot in terms of thinking about
the conversation and preparing, but Sophie, what advice do you
give to your kind of clients about having conversations like
this? The number one thing that I
think makes the biggest difference is actually just
breathing, which might sound strange, but again, you know,
going back to what Marie described about the our nervous
system being triggered in these conversations, our bodies are
just being pumped full of adrenaline.
And just as Marie said, it produces these responses,
whether it's avoidance, withdrawing, fawning, coming
out, fighting, whatever it might be.
And none of those are going to help you have a good
conversation and help you achieve what you need to
achieve. Something to really help you
regulate that is just breathing. Because it's a two way dialogue
between that kind of nervous response and your brain.
And if you can start to just slow your breathing down and
regulate your breathing, then that sends a really strong
signal to your brain that actually you're safe and it
starts to give you a bit of control and it starts to dampen
that adrenal response and that's happening in your body.
We recommend sometimes using a technique called rectangular
breathing, which some people might be familiar with.
There are lots of different breathing techniques you can
use, but with rectangular breathing, you can find a
rectangle in the room and try and breathe in as you run your
eyes up the short side of it and breathe out as you run your eyes
over the long side of it so that you're just deepening that out
breath and you're just slowing your breath down.
And just even doing that for half a minute, a minute, you'll
start to notice in your body. Maybe your heartbeat starts to
slow down. Maybe if your hands a bit shaky,
that will start to calm down. You know, maybe you're feeling a
bit sweaty, all these things that really, really common.
Maybe you feel a bit nauseous. That will all just start to
settle. And it's such a simple thing to
do. But again, going back to Marie's
point, we're just not taught, we're not equipped with any of
these skills really quite simple steps we can take to create
better conditions for a conversation to happen.
OK. And Sophie, what about when
you're in that conversation? Is there any tips on how to
start a conversation like that? Maybe you're the one that's
asked for the meeting or perhaps you're not.
How do you try and get it off on a good foot?
I mean, there are a few different things.
Again, something quite simple, it's just about your body
language. So are you kind of keeping your
body language open? Again, you're showing to that
other person. Just as you want yourself to
feel safe in the conversation, you want the other person to
feel safe too, and to send a signal to them that their flight
or flight system doesn't have to come into action.
And a really immediate way of doing that is just by having
open, relaxed body language, you know, not folding your arms over
your chest, not kind of clutching a folder in front of
you. And also linked to that is just
thinking about where you sit in the room, you know, to maybe try
and sit next to the person rather than across from a table
to create that mental shift that you're not in opposition, you're
in partnership. And the problem is, you know,
external to both of you and you're working together to solve
it, rather than the problem being the other person.
That's a very good point, Marie. What would your kind of tips be
for trying to get a conversation like this started Well and and
and to continue? Well, so Sophie's done some
really good stuff there in terms of the body, in terms of
mindset. Going into the conversation,
starting the conversation from a place of curiosity.
If you sit there with just a curious mind, it automatically
changes the tone that you're using because you're coming from
a place of I want to understand rather than you've done this
wrong or we've done this wrong. So that curiosity changes your
tone. It changes your language because
you're coming from a place of seeking to understand rather
than seeking to punish or have a go at somebody.
And it also changes how your body reacts as well, because if
you come in from a place of curiosity isn't a threat.
So it naturally helps in terms of regulating that body as well.
One of the things we do in the mediation room is we have no
tables. So tables automatically create
an adversarial atmosphere. And I'll tell you what, watching
people's panic when they walk in the room, when they see there's
no tables, that is absolutely hysterical because people walk
in looking for that safety barrier, which tells me straight
away that they're coming and thinking this is a threat based
conversation, which automatically changes how I
introduce the conversation because I know I need to make
that person feel immediately psychologically safe.
So straight away, how are you doing?
What's you know what, what have you been doing before you came
in here today? What did you have for your tea
last night? I immediately go to curious
questions to understand somebody before I get into the meat of
the conversation. And if somebody is struggling to
regulate in the room, I change the environment.
So I have done a number of conversations, not just
mediation, It's just general conversations where I said,
let's go for a walk. Yeah, let's get up and get out
of this room. Let's go and get some fresh,
even if it's just walking down the corridor because what that
does as well, it naturally helps regulate because then the body's
concentrating on movement, not on getting away from the threat.
So it is just several, several little things that you can do,
The biggest ones in terms of mindset, of curiosity, going in
with an open mind and going in from a place of empathy as well.
So there's 2 words that are hugely, hugely important to me
and they are acceptance and agreement.
You can accept what somebody's saying is their truth, but that
doesn't mean you have to agree with it.
And actually what that can do as well is it can change the tone
of a conversation because it's about accepting somebody else's
perspective and understanding of a situation.
But that doesn't mean you have to agree with it because it's
their perception and their understanding of the situation.
All you can do is agree on how you move forward.
And that's where the curiosity really comes into play when
you're starting to agree on how to move forward.
So so your curiosity, open minded empathy are big big
things for me. We're APM, the only chartered
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apm.org.uk. Because when projects succeed,
society benefits. Have you got any advice, either
of you on going into meeting with a, a group of people?
So a team of people? So I'm trying to put myself in
the shoes of a project professional who might be tasked
with delivering bad news on a project to a team of
stakeholders that perhaps it's beyond their control what's
happened, but they are the ones that now have to deliver the
news and fix the problem. And I like very much what you've
just been talking about. You're there together to fix the
problem together to find a solution together.
But I mean, I can imagine how daunting that must be.
And also if it's something that you personally are feeling quite
upset about because it's going to give you a lot of headaches,
but you have to be the face of positivity.
And also, you're going to go into that room knowing that
you're going to have a bad reaction.
You know what you're saying is going to give you grief.
So any advice around handling that situation as best you can?
I support managers doing a lot of this kind of thing and what I
I usually recommend is maybe having some form of pre
conversation, even if it's only sort of 5-10 minutes with
everybody just to say how you feel and this is what's
happened. What are your thoughts rather
than having to do that in front of everybody else.
If you've got any key thoughts that you want to bring into the
room. Is that something you could do
by e-mail, or is it sort of trying to catch people?
I would personally do it verbally.
You don't necessarily do it on a team's call or whatever.
It might just be a phone call. It doesn't have to be anything
to owners. It certainly doesn't need to be
anything more than maybe 5 or 10 minutes.
The problem I have with e-mail is people read emails in the
tone that they receive them in, not in the tone in which they
were sent in, which can often mean that that message is
misjudged or misunderstood. So if you're already feeling a
little bit frustrated or stressed about situation and an
e-mail pops into your inbox from the project manager saying this
isn't going well, I want to get your thoughts.
You may read that in the sense of being stressed and frustrated
rather than coming from a place of curiosity yourself.
So I I'd written communication when there is an essential
situation that needs to be talked about.
Used sparingly. A lot of people use e-mail as a
way of avoidance. And actually it's about picking
up the phone, jumping on teams, having a conversation.
But when you're actually in the room together, for me, it's
about honesty. When we when we start a a
mediated conversation, I will start the conversation with
we're here because we found ourselves in a challenging
conversation. We've found ourselves in a
challenging situation and this is the place to get that out in
the open. So it's not about whitewashing
that conversation and going right, we're here to fix it.
It's about actually acknowledging, yeah, this is
rubbish, but this is our opportunity to flip that and put
that in a place where actually we can move out of it.
So actually highlighting the fact that it's challenging
bringing that out into the open rather than hiding it is often
the first step in those conversations.
And that can shift things on its head because everybody kind of
goes, all right, OK, yeah, we've acknowledged this, rub it.
OK, let's just talk about it then.
OK. And Sophie, what would your
advice be for these situations? Well, I think Marie's imparted
so much wisdom there, and I totally agree with everything
she said. I think the challenge in those
group situations is often what happens is they've got eight
people in the room. There are three people who are
very comfortable talking, and then there are five people who
aren't. So the conversation gets
dominated by the three loudest voices in the room.
And if those three voices are not feeling positive about the
situation, then that can really shape a negative outcome for the
whole conversation. So I think it's useful, just
building on what Marie's saying, to think about ways that you can
make sure everyone's able to contribute equally.
Have you got any practical tips? Any advice about doing that?
We use a couple of different techniques, one which is going
to sound really zany, which I'll say second.
The first one is using rounds. So just literally, you know,
whether you're posing a question or you're explaining a situation
and you're asking for people's ideas or response.
And just to go in turn, one by one, people have, let's say a
minute each to share what they want to say.
And then there's no rebuttal. So people don't disagree or
respond. It's just about giving each
person an allotted spot to make their contribution.
And you're not getting into a back and forth.
And that's really useful techniques.
It means everyone is given the option to contribute.
You can also give people a bit of thinking time before they
share. So those people who might need
just a bit more processing time before they're willing to
contribute have that, and then they're given an allotted space
to speak. So if you are more reserved,
it's really hard to interrupt when you've got those dominant
voices going. So by giving everyone their own
space, you create the best conditions to get the most out
of everyone. What we sometimes add on to
this, which is the only part, is that we sometimes get people to
build their response with Lego. They have 5 or 6 minutes
building time, they can process, they can think, they create this
kind of visual artefact of their idea, and then one by one people
explain the story behind their model.
There are lots of reasons why it works really well.
Partly it's the thinking time, partly it's the doing something
with your hands which activates different bits of your brain and
makes you a bit more creative and opens new ideas.
But also it again externalises the problem.
So you're talking about a model, you're not talking about the
fact that you know Sandra never gets her reported on time or
whatever it might be. So you try and avoid that kind
of flame game. How should you handle negativity
from people in a meeting or maybe even aggression?
So I think there are a few environmental things that you
can try and do from the outset to make people feel calmer.
You know, we have a tendency to have meeting rooms that are in
the middle of a building. They've got no natural lights.
You're under some kind of strong strip lighting.
You're sat at a table just like Mary was talking about earlier.
And often you're really crammed into a tiny room.
None of those things are going to help people feel calm and in
a good place. If you can have a more spacious
room, if you can have some natural light, if you can think,
you know, being able as Marie has to have no tables might not
always be possible. But as much as you can, if you
can get people sitting around in a circle in chairs with no
tables, that's going to be such a better environment for a good
conversation. Also, I think you can.
I think it is useful to sometimes give people a space at
the beginning to vent so they can put out all the things that
they're feeling annoyed about, that they're feeling frustrated
about. And you get that out on the
table at the beginning. You give them that space to just
get everything out that they need to and then you can turn
the conversation on to, OK, we've talked about that.
So now what are we going to do? Because if you don't give people
that space, they keep coming back round to that stuff
throughout the conversation. So they've got to get it out.
Do you ask people then at the beginning of the meeting, like,
so how do you feel about this? And then everyone that's out,
their frustration, anger, whatever.
Yeah, there's. Kind of a, there's kind of
another step to come after that as well, because it's great to
allow people to vent In the mediation world, we call that
uninterrupted speaking time. So we have a much more unwieldy
word for it, but I quite like rounds.
I might have to go back. I might have to use that
instead. But we have the uninterrupted
speaking time, which means that not only it's, it's that
listening to hear rather than listening to respond in action
because you're having, having to listen knowing you can't
respond. So it, it, it changes the, the,
the way that people listen in the room.
But the other side of that is whoever's leading that meeting
acknowledge that emotion. So it's not just about about
allowing that emotion out and somebody saying, you know what,
I'm really frustrating and there being no response to that.
It is about the person leading that session to go.
You know what, I hear that frustration and I'm sure it's
shared in the room. But thank you for giving us your
perspective. And it's about voicing that
we've seen it because people will hold on to emotion.
And this is one of the key parts of empathy that people don't
realise and people hold on to emotion because they're waiting
for somebody to either bodily or verbally say I've seen it, I'd
love to know more about that. So one of the key things do to
help people step away from that emotion, which eventually will
potentially lead to aggression or the opposite, which is
withdrawal, is to actually say I've seen it, I'd like to know
more. It's that curiosity piece again,
you know, I'd like to know more. And another way you can set that
up as well is make it very, very clear in an agenda, even if it's
a very, very loose agenda that we're going to set this time
aside for talking about the past.
So this is the stuff that's gone wrong.
This is how we feel about it. This is what we wish hadn't have
happened, right? That's the line.
Now we're going to talk about how we make sure this doesn't
happen again. So splitting your, your
conversation in the past and future.
So it's very, very defined so that people know that, you know,
we've talked about the past, we've emptied that emotion out,
right? How do we now move that forward
and how do we agree on what the next steps are going to be?
So for me it's about splitting it up as well.
When you say dealing with what's happened in the past, that's
when blaming can arise. So how do you stamp out that
kind of blame game that people do, especially if they feel very
under pressure projects? There's a lot of money at stake
and time at stake and serious repercussions.
So although many project professionals want to have an
open, transparent culture within the team, but often it's not
them that this has set the culture of working with people
from from different organisations that have their
own way of doing things. How can you deal with that issue
of blame as it arises, and how, As a corollary to that, how can
you set up a meeting where that blame is just not allowed to
happen? I think one thing that can be
really useful is to set ground rules for any meeting or
conversation you're having. So right at the beginning, often
as the facilitator, you might have your own set of ground
rules. So that's, you know, this is not
going to be a discussion about personalities.
This is not going to be about individual accountability.
It's about us taking accountability as a team.
We always say, you know, you have to listen generously,
although whatever your ground rules might might be.
And then perhaps offer the group to contribute a couple of their
own ground rules. And then normally we have them
written up so they're on a flip chart or on a screen in the room
and you get the group to agree. But we are going to abide by
these ground rules to ensure the success of this meeting or
conversation. And then at the point, you know,
inevitably it will slip back at some points into unhelpful
behaviours from people of the group.
You can just remind people, you know, gently, just going back to
these ground rules that we agreed at the beginning, Let's
try and stick to them because they're going to help us get the
outcome that we need. Thanks Sophie Marie, any other
tips you'd add? Yeah.
My very, very first ground role in any facilitated conversation
is speak from the eye. I feel like this because as
opposed to you've made me feel like this or you're the person
that's created this situation. So what we're trying to do by
getting to people to speak from the eye is its natural
accountability and responsibility for how you're
feeling, but it's also about not directing it personally at
somebody else because you're perfectly entitled to feel the
way that you do. And actually that needs to live
and breathe in these conversations, but it's how it's
positioned. So my very first ground rule is
we speak from the eye. If you want to share something,
you need to take ownership of how you're feeling.
And that's one of the ground rules that in any meeting that
I'm running, whether it's the mediation side or the team
facilitation side that I do doesn't matter where it's always
speak from the eye. And I've done some really,
really testy conversations between managers and union
representatives at quite senior level.
And it's quite interesting seeing how quickly people do
regress back into the you've made me feel and the pointy
finger and all the rest of it. And immediately when you say,
OK, the beginning of today's session, we agreed some ground
rules, the first one being speak from the eye.
Are you doing that and actually asking it as a question as well?
Are you doing that? Are you embodying those ground
rules rather than being a bit of a parent and going, you're not
doing this, which is kind of exacerbating that as well, you
know, asking them, are you avoiding by the ground rules?
They all go a little bit. Oh, actually we're not OK,
reset. And another way you can
challenge that as well is just jumping in every so often with
summaries. So as a facilitator, one of the
things I had to learn very early on was how to summarise.
And actually summarising gives people breathing space.
So when they are getting into blaming language, OK everybody
just step back a second. I'm just going to summarise what
I think I've heard and I automatically summarise it in
terms of this person feels like this, this person feels like
this, but this person's frustrated because of this.
So I push them back into that accountability place as well.
Thank you. That's a really useful tip.
We've been talking about conversations where you know
it's going to happen and perhaps you've got time to prepare or
perhaps you're the one leading it.
Have you got any advice for people who find themselves in an
unexpected, essential, difficult conversation like you?
You just suddenly boss says, can you come jump on a call now?
Can you get to my office now and you've got no idea what's going
to happen. Do you have any advice to people
who find themselves in that situation?
Yeah. And I think that's something,
you know, that we've all probably experienced, isn't it?
Just something completely out of the blue where whether it's your
boss or your client pulls you aside and says actually this
thing you've done isn't good enough or we're going to have to
completely change what you think your job is, You know, something
totally unexpected. And I think all those things
we've been talking about are going to happen.
You know, your nervous response is going to be triggered.
Your body's going to be pumping adrenaline into you and you're
probably going to slip into one. What, however you respond to
those situations, whether it's withdrawing, whether it's being
very defensive, whatever it might be.
So I think the first step is just practising recognising
that. So to recognise, OK, I'm feeling
defensive right now because I've had this bolt from the blue and
it shocked me and I'm it's triggered my nervous system, you
know, doing the breathing, trying to regulate that, doing
that, you know, even if you have time to do that reframing that
Marie was talking about to be saying, OK, this is unexpected,
but I need to hear this. Just starting to do that to
regulate your response. But I would also say if it's a
total bolt from the blue, definitely listen to what the
person is saying. I think it's totally acceptable
to say this has been a big surprise to me.
I really want to listen to what you're saying, but I need a bit
more time to be able to respond. And I think that is, you know, a
very reasonable request. So rather than being confronted
with something that you weren't expecting and having to respond
right away to say, you know, would it be OK if I go away for
whatever it might be? Obviously really depends on the
urgency of the situation. Maybe it's just 10 minutes,
maybe it's overnight. And can we pick it up again
tomorrow so that you are able to get yourself in a better place
to really listen and be able to have a useful, constructive
conversation? Sophie, that's brilliant.
And Marie, anything you'd add to that?
So taking the break is definitely important because
that actually allows both sides to step back from the emotion of
the immediacy of of that situation because the other
person will be in fight or flight delivering that
information. So, so taking that break is
really, definitely really important so that you have a
better conversation. The thing for me is the more we
practise these skills in situations where we can prepare,
it's a lot easier to then drop into that same behaviour when it
is unexpected. So one of the things that I have
the luxury of being able to do is being able to stay in that
mindset all the time because it's my job.
My job is to listen. I don't have to have the
answers. And unfortunately, when your day
job is having to fix things and having to put things right, it's
very difficult to switch between the two.
So my view would be don't wait to practise these skills,
practise them in all areas of your life because it's not just
about project management, It's not just about the conversation
you have with your colleagues, it's the conversations you have
with your friends. It's the conversations you have
with your parents and your kids. You know when your kids don't
want to put their shoes on in the morning, actually going into
fight or fight with them really doesn't help because all they do
is they become even more childlike and you become even
more parental like and that reinforces those challenging
behaviours. So it is about just taking a
step back, taking time to breathe, all that stuff.
Sophie and I have talked about taking that time to recognise
that for that person that is their truth in that moment.
Whether we agree with it or not is irrelevant, it's the
recognition, it's their truth. Doing that all the time means
that when you are faced with a bolt from the blue, it's a lot
easier to do it because you're not trying to flip into
something you're not used to doing.
How do you become an expert at handling these essential
difficult conversations as well? Most of all, it's about
practising, you know, and if you always avoid difficult
conversations from the little micro, Can you please unload the
dishwasher today? Do the big stuff at work, then
you don't, you don't pick up those skills.
And it, as we've already discussed, it's not something
we're taught at school or even largely in the workplace.
So it has to be something that you kind of pursue yourself.
You do try and address those difficult conversations time and
time again so that you build up that confidence.
And also it by doing that, you disrupt that cycle where in your
head you think this conversation is going to be awful.
So you put it off or you get really nervous about it.
And so then it goes really badly.
So then the next time it comes round in your head you think, Oh
no, it's going to be awful because the last conversation I
had like this was awful. But if you practise and you do
your best to make the conversation as constructive as
possible, as time goes on, you think actually this probably
won't be so bad because the last few conversations I had like
this were fine and we got what we needed out of them.
So definitely practising. But I think in terms of
behaviour with the risk of really repeating myself, the
number one thing you can probably do is just listen.
And that's the one thing that we don't do enough of is just
listening to other people and not always jumping either to
defence or what we often do is to solutions.
Because sometimes, you know, it's actually not helpful to
jump straight to solutions that actually just sitting in the
moment and listening and can be the most powerful thing you can
do. I want to thank both of you so
much for your time and the expertise you've shared with our
listeners. There's a tonne of really useful
stuff that people hopefully will be able to take away and put
into practise from the next essential, challenging,
difficult conversation that will happen.
So thanks so much again for your time.
It's been a pleasure speaking to you.
Thank you. Thank.
You. Thanks again to Marie and Sophie
for joining us and to you for listening to the APM Podcast.
Hopefully you'll put some of their advice into practise, not
only when it comes to thinking about and preparing for tough
conversations, but also how to manage them in a positive way.
Anyway, don't forget to look out for more episodes, all to rate
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