Pawndering A Good Start
If you have been following along with recent posts, you’ll know that I believe that there are three basic steps involved in mastering difficult dialogue – Be READY, Get SET, GO. I believe these steps are quite simple but they are not necessarily easy. In this post, we will look at the last stage of the planning step:
Get SET (part 4)
The final stage of Getting SET is to plan the start. Difficult Dialogue is hard to start. If you get the opening wrong, you’ll likely go off the rails pretty fast and you’ll spend time and energy trying to regroup. The key to a good start is to affirm the relationship, communicate “what’s in it for them” and share your positive intentions.
For example, if I plan to have a difficult dialogue (on a performance deficiency) with an employee who reports to me, it is important for them to know that they are an important part of the team and I want to help them to be successful in their role. If I start with the issue and don’t provide this information in my opening, they may make assumptions about my intentions. Negative assumptions concerning my intentions could easily lead to a conversation where they focus on defending themselves versus listening to the message and working together to solve the problem.
Think about difficult conversation that you’ve been a part of. Did you understand the other person’s motives for the conversation? If not, what assumptions did you make? Did you enter into the conversation without first thinking about exactly what you wanted to say at the outset? Did it work for you or did you find yourself having to explain your intentions? How can they be sure that the relationship is important?
I’d love your feedback. For you bloggers out there, when you leave a comment, you will have the opportunity to provide a link back to your own blog but you don’t have to be a blogger to leave your comments! You can also find more information about me by clicking here to get to my website. I look forward to hearing from you.
Dave
