As a manager, you face enormous communication pressure day in and day out.
Team meetings, Zoom calls, conversations with employees, reporting to colleagues, brief team addresses – and in between, emails, messages, and hallway conversations. All these different forms of employee communication bring particular challenges with them. In an era where many managers communicate far more than 80 percent of their professional day and where leadership increasingly has to function in a hybrid and virtual manner, the demands on managers’ communication skills are higher today than ever before. Mastering difficult conversations with employees becomes key for successful management.
Difficult conversations are among the most demanding tasks of a manager. They can weigh heavily on you for days, causing stress and uncertainty. Nevertheless, they are an essential part of the leadership process as they lay the foundation for change and improvement. With a few key techniques, you can approach difficult conversations more clearly, focused, and confidently.
Rhetorical Preparation to master difficult conversations
Practice shows: Most managers prepare excellently for difficult conversations in terms of content but often neglect the rhetorical component. To always approach challenging situations confidently, confidently, and goal-oriented, you should prioritize rhetorical preparation, allocate time for it, and continuously work on improving your communication skills.
I often hear from leaders that there is simply not enough time for a really good conversation preparation. That’s understandable. Yet, even under time pressure, you can prepare efficiently and effectively for a difficult conversation – by asking yourself the right questions. With the following five preparatory questions, you can focus on the essentials in a few minutes, clarify your goals, gather relevant facts, and plan your messages precisely. It is often helpful to briefly note down the essential points or sketch them in a mind map.
- What is the goal of the conversation?
- What is my core message?
- How do I want to come across
- What convinces the other person
- What needs to be clarified?
Use these five questions as a guide for targeted conversation preparation. Simply by repeatedly asking yourself these five questions before challenging conversations, you approach discussions more clearly, structured, and focused, thereby increasing efficiency and conversation outcomes.
Now add these five steps and you start a difficult conversation well-structured and with the highest possible clarity. What may seem unfamiliar at first can quickly become an extremely useful habit with some practice:
- A brief small talk,
- Embedding the conversation in the overall context,
- Defining the conversation’s goal,
- Conveying and elaborating on the core message,
- Transitioning with a question .
Of course, the entire conversation management should be adapted to the employee and the specific situation. A clear, concise, and respectful conversation opening lays the foundation for a constructive and goal-oriented conversation.
Give these techniques a try in your next difficult conversation and share your experience with us! We’d love to hear how they work out for you. If you seek additional tips and training, reach out to us as we design and deliver bespoke workshops for managers.