Difficult conversations are an inevitable part of life. The blog of
Harvard Business Publishing recently offered a simple three step checklist to keep tough conversations productive, not combative:
- Decide on a realistic outcome. Remember, you and your counterpart may want different things. Think about your desired outcome rather than accomplishing everything on your personal agenda.
- Focus on the future. What is your ultimate goal? Describe it and the benefits of your vision. If this is a review conversation, explain how you'd like to work with your employee going forward.
- Identify what's in the way. With the future as your backdrop, articulate what is interfering with reaching the goal. This helps to keep the conversation away from personal barbs and focused on making positive changes.
This checklist keeps us looking in the right direction - the future. How often are our own conversations mired down with recounts of past hurts, problems, failures? It is easy to forget that we can't change the past, but we can most definitely effect our future. Central to effecting this change is, of course, our own mind/body state. The more we choose to breathe and to center ourselves, the easier it will be for us to do the above steps, to move to a place of greater perspective.
Judy Warner
0 comments:
Post a Comment