How to Navigate Difficult Conversations with Employees

If you’re avoiding a hard conversation at work, you’re not alone. A recent survey shows that more than 80 percent of employees procrastinate on necessary yet difficult discussions. Forty percent admitted to even putting them off for six months.

Most hope the issue will resolve itself, but that’s rarely the case. The longer the conversation festers, the more resentment tends to build, and the harder the discussion becomes once you’ve worked up the courage to start it. That avoidance impacts your team. A study by the Society for Human Resource Management reports that 40 percent of employees say their manager fails to engage in honest conversations about work, leading them to disengage.

Hard conversations are an inevitable part of leadership and management. Maybe you need to deliver tough client feedback, reset an employee’s expectations, or give a poor performance review. Whatever the situation, there are tactics you can leverage to navigate difficult conversations with employees effectively. Below are tips to help you get started.

How to Have Difficult Conversations with Employees

1. Prioritize Building Trust

Building trust and cultivating connections are activities you should practice daily. This will help you both gain influence in your organization and develop mutual trust and understanding with your employees. When a tough conversation arises, it will be easier because your colleagues will be less likely to assume negative intent.

One effective way to build trust is by exercising emotional intelligence and projecting warmth and competence. This combination signals you have good intentions and the skills to act on them, which can help you navigate challenging conversations with your team.

2. Consider the Conversation’s Layers

“We can divide any difficult conversation into three layers,” says Harvard Business School Professor Julie Battilana in the online course Power and Influence for Positive Impact. Those layers include:

1. What happened
2. How we feel about what happened
3. How the incident intersects with or threatens each person’s identity

What Happened

Amid a hard conversation, it’s tempting to describe your perception of the situation as absolute truth and place blame on the other party. In doing so, you assume their intentions, which you can’t predict. Instead, speak from your own perspective, acknowledge your role, and describe how the incident affected you. This creates a safe space for the other person to share how they perceived the situation and its impact on them.

How We Feel About What Happened

Difficult conversations tend to conjure strong emotions. It’s tempting to vent your frustrations or take your feelings out on others. While some may say to remove emotion from the conversation entirely, it’s better to address how both parties feel without judgment. You can then understand where the other person is coming from and reach a resolution.

Related: The Impact of Emotions in Negotiation

How the Incident Intersects with or Threatens Each Person’s Identity

Everyone has a self-image they’re trying to protect, and that often feels threatened during a difficult conversation. Perhaps you feel like someone is questioning your expertise or work ethic. It’s understandable that you might get defensive.

But, you’re not the only one in the conversation; the other person is coming to it with their own identity issues. Consider whether the situation threatens both parties’ self-image. Once you understand what’s on the line for each of you, it’s easier to relate and find common ground.

By recognizing these three layers and shifting the discussion, you can have a much more productive, honest conversation.

3. Actively Listen

Imagine you’re giving a performance review and offering constructive criticism. How do you hope the other person reacts? They might jump to justifying their actions to protect their self-image. In the process, it’s hard for them to internalize feedback because they’re trying to explain away the issue.

Instead, you’d want them to listen—which is what you should be doing during difficult conversations. Stop and aim to understand where the other person is coming from. If you don’t, ask clarifying questions. No matter what side of the conversation you’re on, it’s important to focus on what the other party is sharing rather than internally drafting an immediate response.

It’s helpful to summarize out loud what the other person is communicating. That shows you’re listening and can also help clarify any misunderstandings.

4. Speak in Specifics

During difficult conversations, the more specific you can be, the better. For the other person to change their behavior, they need to know how they could have been more effective in particular situations.

Focus on facts and examples instead of your employee’s personality or unique traits. Practicing this will help ensure your personal biases don’t creep into the conversation. When choosing examples, use more recent ones. Rather, if you’re delivering an annual performance review, don’t rehash issues from the year before. Present a specific situation from within the review window, detail its aftereffects, and share how you’d advise your employee to approach the situation moving forward.

5. Brainstorm Solutions Together

You may come to the conversation with an end goal in mind. Yet, to make the most of the discussion, brainstorm a plan for how to move forward together. The process might surface stronger solutions to the problem or help you reach a better understanding.

By making the difficult conversation a collaborative one, you can both leave knowing you did your best to reach a resolution.

Navigate Difficult Conversations Effectively

Although you may be tempted to avoid hard conversations, they’ll only become more difficult with time. If you approach these discussions with mutual trust and honesty, avoid passing judgment, actively listen, and speak in specifics, you can reach a positive conclusion and make the process easier moving forward.

Are you interested in learning more about how you can develop power and influence to make an impact within your organization and professional relationships? Explore our six-week course Power and Influence for Positive Impact—one of our online courses related to business in society—and download our free guide on becoming a purpose-driven, global business professional to learn more about how you can make a difference.