Ever since becoming a manager, I was thrust into the following difficult conversation scenarios:
1. During the first few weeks into my role an internal client complained to me about my subordinate, difficult to work with and "likes to taichi". Later, I received complaint about another subordinate pula.
2. In our feedback exchange, one of my subordinates initiated giving "constructive feedback" by personally attacking my credibility and questioning my qualifications
3. At one high level meeting, our department was under fire for underperforming in one critical area, and when the chairman aggressively demanded some answers, the manager responsible had threw my team under the bus, and specifically mentioned my name in that meeting - even though our company guidelines clearly stated it was his/her responsibility
4. I was given the mandate to a defend a proposal on behalf of my team lead, and was met with heavy criticism by the high-level leaders. I had to resist the temptation to “give in”, and stick to my mission of carrying out the trust of my team, to the point I was openly blasted “listen, I am the customer and you are the client. You need to listen to ME!”
5. An SME from our centre team would always displays a very condescending and hostile attitude against me during meetings, often questioning all my suggestions and sometimes even belittling me in front of my subordinates
6. A subordinate complained about a toxic colleague who us causing conflict and sparking teamwork issues
7. I was tasked to be the bearer of bad news to our team when a company restructuring would force some of our team members to make difficult personal decisions for splitting them away from their family
8. Our operating partners from another company was "bullying" us and forcing us to do work that was draining our resources in fact brought no business value to our company
9. One subordinate tendered his resignation, in the middle of a very challenging work assignment that he is leading
10. During my first performance appraisal as a manager, I wanted to do things right and personally tell everyone their performance ratings and why they received that. I have to own up to my decisions, give them honest feedback, and resist the temptation from making the lazy response of saying “it was a management decision”.
How should we respond? What should we do in the heat of the moment in these tense situations?
All these ten scenarios are just the tip of the iceberg, happening within my first year alone in this role as a manager. Many others which I prefer not to mention to honour confidentiality and respect of our colleagues.
How we respond in the heat of these moments, sometimes can make or break our morale, relationships, professional reputation, and/or even our organizational culture as a whole. If done well, we can turn the ship around and transform these situations into beautiful outcomes - as what I personally experienced happened in some of the scenarios above.
Reflecting back on how I performed on all of these made me realized how unprepared I was, how I could have done better, and how much in need we are to equip ourselves with the tools to handle them in the future.
Crucial conversations - defined as those which have strong emotions, high stakes, and opposing opinions - they are unavoidable fact of life, especially if you are holding leadership roles.
Instead of avoiding them - as we always tend to do - we need to have the knowledge and courage to confront them and handle them well. If we continue to ignore or dodge them in the spirit of “maintaining harmony” or purely because we didn’t have the guts to confront them, then not only are we procrastinating/avoiding the solution, but we are actually making the problem worse in many ways.
Consider all the other crucial conversations we encounter in other aspects of our personal lives - with family, wifey, friends, local communities, da’wah, social media circles, whatsapp groups!
And that’s why I decided to enrol for this 2-day leadership course, Crucial Conversations. Based on the book of the same title, the course is aimed towards upskilling ourselves with the right attitude, tools and mindsets towards "difficult" dialogue scenarios that happen every day.
Looking forward fo Day 2!
Had any crucial conversations lately? How did you do? Which crucial conversations have you been avoiding but need to have?
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