This is part 2 of a series of videos providing tips, techniques, and practical guidance about how to have difficult conversations with employees.
Most people are never taught how to have difficult conversations with other people. For business owners, managers, or anyone else who interacts with employees, it is critical to know some very basic tips and strategies for having these conversations. Your approach to having a difficult conversation with people can mean the difference between building or maintaining a good relationship and destroying a relationship.
In Part 1 of this video series, I shared the critical strategy of approaching your difficult conversations with a sincere interest in truly listening to what your employee has to say. In Part 2, this video reveals the best approach for starting a difficult conversation and demonstrates a hypothetical scenario of what this approach might look like.
Show Transcript
In this video, I’m going to talk about another great tip on how to have difficult conversations with employees.
Hi, everybody. I’m A.J. Grossman, divorce lawyer, and owner of Leap Frog Divorce. All right, so my next tip is how to have difficult conversations with employees. So last time I talked about conveying that you sincerely care about what it is your employee has to say. The second thing is inviting them to share their perspective before you share yours.
So a great way to do this is something like this. And Joe will be the hypothetical employee. “Hi, Joe, thanks for meeting with me today, I perceive that we have a little bit of a conflict between us. And I have my perception, and I know that you have your perception and your perspective. And I’d really like to learn more about what your perspective is. So would you be kind enough to share with me what your perspective is on the conflict that we’ve been having this past week?”
So what does that do? That immediately communicates to your employee, that they are so important that you want to hear from them first. You want to learn more about how they see this conflict. You want to learn more about what’s important to them, long before you ever launch into either defending yourself, giving reasons why justifications for your behavior, or your comments.
Always learn about their perspective first. I think if you try this, it will help a lot. And the other key is to invite them. It might be a bad time. So definitely ask them or say I’d like to invite you to share with me more about your perspective on this conflict we’re having is now a good time and see what they say.
So I hope you’ve enjoyed this video. I hope that you liked that tip. If you do, please consider subscribing. I’m releasing new videos all the time and if you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out. Thanks so much for watching. Have a great day and be well.
