Have you ever been faced with having a difficult conversation with an employee but you weren’t sure how to proceed? Rest assured you are not alone.
Most of us were never given the tools or techniques on how to navigate having difficult conversations with employees and feel a little lost when it needs to happen. Luckily there are many ways to show your employees that although it’s not a fun conversation, you are actively listening to them and their concerns and that you are there for them.
Tip number 1 is to make sure that you listen to your employee with sincere curiosity. This means that you need to give them your undivided attention. For example, if you’re talking with your employee and you’re constantly looking at your cell phone for text messages, the latest news, or your favorite team’s score, your employee may feel that the phone is more important than what they have to say.
When it comes time for one of these types of conversations it is best to either turn off your phone, put it away in a desk with the sound off, or if you’re too tempted, put it in your car for the duration of the conversation.
Show Transcript
In this video, I’m going to talk about how to have difficult conversations with your employees. Hi, everybody. I’m A.J. Grossman, divorce lawyer, and owner of Leap Frog Divorce.
So a lot of us never learn tools or techniques or a strategy on how to have difficult conversations with employees. And those difficult conversations can be about just about anything. So let me offer some tips. So tip number one is to make sure that you can listen to your employee with sincere curiosity. So what does that mean? It means doing things that convey to your employee that you sincerely care about what it is they have to say. Here’s a quick example. I know many of you have probably been in meetings, either with employees or somebody else, maybe your manager, your boss, and the person you’re speaking with has their cell phone. And during the meeting, they check their cell phone, maybe frequently, maybe they’re looking at text messages. Maybe they’re checking who’s calling when the phone rings.
What does that do? Well, for me, and a lot of people similar to me, it conveys a message that I’m really not that important and that the cell phone or the text messages are actually more important. So it’s one quick thing you can do. Turn off your cell phone, put it down, leave it in another room, leave it in your car, and don’t have it with you when you’re meeting with an employee. That will help convey to them that you sincerely care about what they say. And you really want to listen and hear what it is they have to say.
So there’s a lot more about having difficult conversations with employees. That’s the first tip I wanted to give today. If you’ve liked this video, please consider subscribing. I’m releasing new videos all the time. Again, I’m A.J. Grossman, Leap Frog Divorce. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out and contact me. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye.
