Avoiding Difficult Conversations?
When you are working with a performance related issue with a member of your team, it is difficult to be open to their concerns and to fully engage with them rather than avoiding contact or taking an aggressive stance at the outset. Mindfulness techniques that you will find here will help you to be more effective in the face of difficult thoughts and feelings you may feel in these situations.
Mindfulness does not present a soft option. On the contrary, being able to hold a difficult conversation by listening with openness and curiosity and then determining the best course of action is certainly not soft. Mindfulness simply gives you the tools and techniques to be present in the discussion and not weighed down by the narrative of past events or possibility of future problems. It is an effective alternative to our fight and flight reactions when faced with a threat.
At the outset, difficult conversations are difficult because we perceive them to be that way. We can get ourselves anxious and stressed well before the event which results in a less than satisfactory outcome for both you and the other party.
As a leader when we prepare for a difficult conversation, especially about performance or poor behaviour a lot of time can be consumed collecting facts, identifying scenarios, making assumptions about motives and identifying possible outcomes and consequences.
For some the very thought of having these conversations can create anxiety and a stress reaction brought on by lots of mind chatter that is mostly negative and unhelpful that can create significant discomfort. Will I get it right? Am I good enough to do this? Will I get a good (or even reasonable) result? Is this the right approach? and so on.
This struggle with anxiety and stress leads to avoidance or in some cases the adoption of an attacking approach. However, both of these approaches will generally lead to poor outcomes.
In neurological terms your mind is being cluttered up with these unhelpful thoughts which can simply get in the way of focusing and listening. By entering a conversation in this way we are actually priming ourselves both cognitively and emotionally. We actually prepare for things that may never get said or perspectives on issues that are simply incorrect. Worse still, our thoughts and emotions builds a filter that can prevent us from understanding what the true story is and what next steps will be required.
Remember that as important as the practical elements of meeting preparation are, we know that in many meetings the preparation doesn’t match the reality. As the discussion deviates you can find yourself trying to claw back your position, worrying about possible unforeseen outcomes, perceiving your position as leader is under threat or simply feeling you no longer in control – in other words more discomfort.
Having the awareness and skills to manage strong feelings and emotions mid meeting is essential to being able to focus and attend to the new information that is emerging. Without this focus you will be less likely to be able to distill the additional complexity down to its key features.
Add Mindful Preparation
Mindful preparation actually allows you to enter a conversation in which you can be more present and skilled emotionally. This is a simple, practical and effective way to develop your emotional intelligence in real time. By simply adding mindfulness as part of your routine, the conversations you have will be more productive, you will be more effective and the other party will feel they have been heard. You will also learn something that you otherwise may have missed (an important piece of information, an emotional trigger or a perspective that you hadn’t considered).
This allows you to be present 100% with no agendas allowing you to notice what is happening in the conversation with respect to what is being said, how it is said and the associated body language. You can also attend to you own feelings and connect with your emotional core, giving you further insights and information. In this mode it is also OK to challenge, clarify and reconfirm what you have heard.
This mode shows you genuinely want to get another’s perspective or point of view. It is also a useful framework for an investigation. For your next difficult discussion reframe your purpose around investigating for the truth rather than getting your way.
January 9, 2017
