Mastering Hard Conversations
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What is not loving is what happens most of time. And that is they are not performing well and you're frustrated and you don't say anything about IT and they're not performing well and you're frustrate and you are saying about IT, then eventually, you complain your spouse, you complain to other team members, which is not appropriately like this guy, he's that and she's not.

And you you go weeks and weeks and weeks and finally, you can take IT anymore and you come in and you yell at them or you fire him or whatever you like. But why I do you know this gone on. So what you're doing is actually very, very loving by telling them the truth.

Hey, frage, everybody for another episode, the trade roll shell leadership podcast. I'll tell you honestly, I feel generally call to help you get Better in your leadership because we know that everyone wins when the leader gets Better and we're doing something different. Normally, we dropped a new episode on the first thursday every months.

We're going on crazy around here right now. We're onna do a new episode every week for a while as we're doing a little bit of a series around your questions. I want to talk what you want to talk about, and you got some great questions.

We have people ask about developing emerging leaders and giving feedback and team building and creating culture and burnout and self care. Today, let's focus on leading up. And how do you give feedback? And h, my goal is to bring you high value content.

If you don't have the leader guide, get the leader guy, go to live out church lesh leadership podcast and we'll send that to you. Also, if you can rate or review the content means a lot to me. His subscribe, i'm going to work hard to bring you valuable content of a value time. My goal to give you the hight value of content per minute of any podcast you listen to.

So with that, start with manuel, who asked the question, how do you have hard conversations in a way where someone will listen and grow and not just think that you're being critical with a lot of you ask questions like this, like how do you give feedback without hurting people's feelings? A really good question and something that we all experience. I've got a book i'll recommend to you at the end that may be helpful on the subject.

But first, let's acknowledge that for many leaders, especially newer leaders, are really any any season leader, receiving correction can be difficult. And that's what IT naturally feels. But I promise you, IT doesn't have to be painful.

So let's start with what you ask manual. You said this. You said, how do we have hard conversations? And I would suggest a very small, weak. And IT doesn't sound like a big deal, but IT actually could make a big difference.

You said, how do we have a hard conversation? I suggest, instead of saying, how do we have a that difficult, dreaded, chAllenging, hard conversation, let's reframe IT and say, how do we have a developmental conversation? In many ways, it's the same thing that by calling IT a developed middle versac, that it'll actually change your mindset and how you approach someone else.

Why does that matter what we call IT? Because the way we frame something determined is how we feel about IT. If we call a difficult conversation, what was happening? We're nervous and we're actually focused on more how we feel about IT.

I'm nervous about this, and I don't want them to feel bad about IT if we call IT a developing middle conversation. We're reminded here I care about my team member um i'm having this conversation because I believe in her and I want to help her get Better. I have their best interest in mind by framing the conversation is developmental IT gives you more confidence that you're there to help.

So how do we approach this development dal conversation? I want you to think about a couple of variables, and I kind of address both of consider two things. First of all, consider how big of an issue are you correcting? Is that something minor not a real big deal? Or is a major how big an issue is IT? And then what's your relationship to the team member?

First of all, how big of an issue is that? Is this something relatively minor? It's like a small behavior is easy to correct.

Maybe is something that they don't know that they're doing and with one little suggestion, they can they can make a significant change? Or is IT a big deal? Like is that one of those like you don't work hearing more if you don't change the type of the issue? Uh, why does that matter? The size of the issue, because the size of the problem will shape the direction of your approach.

The size of a problem will shape how you approach the situation. If it's a small problem, just a little issue, you can have a quick, very intentional development of conversation, but I can almost be like an aside, like, hey, by the way, you're spend some time together, I saw something and IT doesn't have to be formal. You don't need to schedule a time.

You don't need to document, the conversation is just more natural. And the spirit of IT is you don't care about you and I want to show you and something small that will help you get Better. That's kind of the tones.

If it's a serious issue, this is a different thing and why we're qualifying IT, if it's like a real big development of issue, you don't want to plan a meeting and you are going to want to put a lot of thought into IT. You might want to have someone else in the meeting. Often times when it's a difficult conversation, you want someone else to be in there just to be as either support and or a witness.

And if is a real serious conversation, you going to want to documented and sometimes, and this sounds cruel, but is actually fair and loving as you want to, you know, document how the person sign if you do an, uh, performance improvement plan and such. So you come on to do how seriously an issue is this and then anyone to ask what your relationship with the team member know, like if this your first week of the job and you're trying to correct your supervisor, right? I don't do that right.

You know, if you've been on the team for a long time, you might be coaching a peer and you're come in with one mindset to appear or direct report or maybe someone you're close to or someone that you barely know. But again, your relationship will shape the style of your approach. Your approach, a friend one way appear.

You know, someone who's level with you one way, a boss with a different mindset, or someone that you oversee with, again, a different mindset will come back a little bit more that in a bit. But first, and most importantly, so important in any conversation, you want your team members to know that you care about them. You want them to know that you believe in them.

And this is kind of the safety net because at any time you're going to say, like you're not doing this great, you can do this Better. You want the safety net of them knowing that everything that you say to them and said out of love and out of value and out of belief. And then what I say is going to sell.

I'm contradicting myself, but i'm actually not when you start the conversation, don't be around bush, just be very, very clear. Get right into IT. Let's assuming you're correcting something that's relatively small.

Just just say hail thinking and just say be direct, be clear, be honest, if it's appear, you might just get into IT like this. Hey, I remember time when someone gave a helpful suggestion. I want to do the same for you.

You're not beating around the bush. You're you're just getting into IT. If you're the boss, you're going to start with something like, hey, you a great job because you're valuable part of the team and you're important to me. I want to invest a bit more in you and show you an area where I think you can get Better.

You just get them right into IT, tell them directly honestly don't hold back you you don't want you to be disguised kind like a bitten switch like yeah we're hanging out for lunch and then sing boom you know when to drop something on you you're gone to tell them, hey, i've i've got a suggestion and on something you can do Better and you will be pretty direct then give them the feedback can be really, really clear. Here's what you can do Better as often as you can be specific, be specific like a someone's got a bad attitude to meeting. I don't want to see a bad attitude.

What what does that mean? Does that mean you're shown up late? Does that mean you're sitting in and they're scaling?

Does that mean that you are shooting down every idea? What does that mean? What is a good attitude mean that?

Does that mean you're, you're you're smiling, you're contributing, you're not sulking. Your um you're coming in early. Your you're asking just be as specific as you can on the feedback. What is the exact behavior you want to see or what is the outcome that you need to see? You you want be really, really, really, really specific, take that part slow, assume they may not be understanding, and once you've kind of say what you need to say, then you want to real sincerely ask, like what questions or thoughts do you have about what I said?

What questions or thoughts do you have about my suggestions and you want to let them process for a little bit if you say IT and think they heard that you might miss IT when you say again, if you say IT and think they they heard that they might miss the moment that you're common at that there some suggestion their defenses ten to go up, especially if they're not if you don't have a close relationship and you have you like, oh my god and they are starting to be defensive like but you don't understand and kind come up their excuses and so you may be talking but they're actually they are mind to spending. They're not really listened and so you, anna, make sure that they understand you. You might have to repeat IT have to tell him again you might have to tell them different language, two different words um and and you want to make sure that are run the same page so what I Normally do toward, you know two thirds of the conversation and whatever i'll say, like, can you tell me specifically you know what you can do Better in the syria? Can you tell me what you hear me saying? So i'm asking for a clarity to make sure that we are connecting.

You want to make sure they understand and that you're communicating. And then if they do and you see any improvement in that area, you'd jump on IT with, hey, hey, there IT is that's where to talk about. Great job.

And so you want to when they win, you want to celebrate to win if you give him him something small, like you know have a good attitude after the media like yeah that you added value, smile and amazing. You heard the feedback and you did IT was rewarded. IT is repeat.

IT was rewarded is repeat. When you see IT reward IT and then they're off and repeat. Hey, craig, here will get back to the episode in just a minute.

But I wanted IT. First of all, I share a resource that I think you will find for to your leadership. There's a secret that i've learned about leadership, and we know IT the best leaders are almost always the best readers.

why? Because your influence and impact. Or in many ways, a result of the books and ideas that you take in.

So as I look back over my years of leadership, there are forty four books that rise to the top as books that I believe that every leader should read. So our team has created the list and organized IT into the areas that you'll want to grow in. To get this free list, go to live dot shirts slash forty four books.

That's the number four and four lifetouch shirts slash forty four books. And I hope this will be a gift to you to dig into a list of great books, get reading and keep leading. Now back to the epo de um let's say some more serious issue.

And if they don't change this area, the performance they don't get to work here, are they going to change roles at that point? If you're their boss or supervised, you're coming in with a different tone. And this is this, this matters. I often say the hat you are determines the emotion they feel ah there's a friend hat, there's a boss hat, there's a peer hat, there's a coach hat. Yeah, this is the boss hat.

We're come in the meeting as a boss and I suggest you set beating with a specific time and maybe not a week early you don't tell him is a difficult developed, no conversation but maybe the morning of, hey, today we're going to talk about something serious so they know they're coming into meeting. You're not going to blind side them. And if you're tracking something small, IT can be casual. But if it's something big, you wanted to be a little more formal with intentionality.

Now very important, when the meeting starts, don't beat around the bush and don't say, hey, how's your family? What are you doing this weekend? No, they set down. You sit down and you tell them directly, we're going to have a developmental conversation. This is the most loving thing you can do.

Get to straight into a and then I use acknowledge this may not be easy for you to hear, but i'm telling this because I I believe in you and I want to help you succeed. And so i'm going to tell them that when I go slow into IT and whenever you're expressing care at the beginning of IT, take your time, but be direct. We're not playing around today.

We're going to talk about a serious issues can be a real development of conversation. And as we get into I once, you know, I really, really, really believe in you take your time and then you're going to say four things, and you say in your own words, not in these words, but you you going to say some form of these things. You going to say things not going well.

Here's what specifically needs to change in by win. Here's how we're going to help you succeed, how might help you. And if you don't get there, we're going to make a change in your role.

Let me said again, things you're not going on. Well, here's what you need to change. And by when here's helm and help you succeed.

And if you don't get there, we're going to make a change. Sometimes again, you going to want to put this in writing. You're do a performance plan and this is what needs to happen.

And if it's to that level, don't be afraid to put in. Writing is important to document what you're doing. And again, that's actually loving to do what is not loving is what happens most of time.

And that is there are not performing well and you're frustrated and you don't say anything about IT and they're not performing well. You're frustrate and your saying about IT, then eventually you complain your spouse, you complain to other team members, which is not appropriate like this guy, he's that and she's not. And you you go weeks and weeks and weeks and finally, you can take IT anymore and you come in and you yell at them or you fire him or whatever you like.

But why I don't know this, go on. So what you're doing is actually very, very loving by telling them the truth. Now with all that said, and you go through IT and you say, hey, things aren't going and well, you're not gud's done.

And then what you can do to be really, really specific here is the type of behavior that we need to see. And we need to see IT by a certain time and then tell them what you're going to do to get there. Meaning like we're going to put in a class and get you a book, get you a mentor.

I'm going to meet with you every friday for hour. I'm going to review this or whatever. And you need to get to this point, this kind of behavior or this kind of outcome by this time. And they're are going to meet in ninety days and ninety days, we're going to make a decision.

Well, ninety days from now when they walk into the meeting or sixty days or whatever, as you put on IT, they are pretty much no house going to go because you are really clear and you are really loving. If they're nail in IT, that means going be easy. Hey, we told you hear what you had to do, and you did IT well done.

Good job. Let's go. If they're not, the conversation is actually not really difficult is, hey, now we met, I told you get to make a change.

We worked on IT and he didn't quite get there. And for the sake of the whole team of the organza, and we have to make a change. And that's not easy, but it's easier. Now with all that said, your biggest goal is something that many people don't ask about.

And I want to to to which the biggest goal is this is so important in any kind of organizational al development is you want to create a culture that gives and craves helpful, timely and honest feedback, which you go do. You want to create culture that gives feedback, the crave feedback that gives them away. That's helpful, a way that's at the right time.

And this very, very honest. And this is ridiculously important because anyone who excels in any air of life got there because they had helpful coaches and mentors and voices in their life. They never see a pro athlete.

They didn't have coaches. You'll never see a professional violinist that didn't have instruction. You'll never see a top CEO that didn't receive minoring and coaching and help along the wait.

So what you want to do, if you want to have a great team, a great productive organization, then you want to create a culture that gives increase helpful, timely and honest feedback. Now how do you do that? Well, the answer is, you do IT intentionally.

You never get there accidently if you just let people get feedback when they feel like that most people are conflict resistant and not going to do IT. So you want to develop the skill and the appetite for and the ability to give and receive helpful feedback. We do IT in many ways here.

If I had more time and i'll a bunch of them, i'll take one of my favorite ways we do IT. And the church I lead currently is in forty five locations, about a thousand employees. And that includes those on the church teams, the central team, collection of bible labs and other ministries as well. But on the campus teams, the church at local churches, they will meet regularly and do what we call stage drills, what are staged drills. They'll be a team of the, say, fifteen people.

And I got a youth pastor, kids pastor worth a pastor, ministry pastor, sociate pater uh host team in such and it'll say to the host team, pastor, hey, why don't you get up on stage in front of all their peers? And announced that we have a volunteer gathering meeting on tuesday night and do not compelling ways so that people show up, or they might say, of the youth pastor, tell everybody we got a parent student conference coming up on such in such a day and you, we want to pitch IT the way this really compelling. Or we might say to a timer, hey, we will present the gospel and tells about the Grace of god in a way that is make sense in compelling and and leads people to the option of making a decision.

And then once you've done like this three minute assignment, they had no preparation for, you can imagine how hard that is. Didn't guess what happens. Everybody there gives feedback.

And so the new youth passage getting feedback, the hosting passage getting feedback, and they are given suggestions. And then another person goes up, and the person who was just receiving the feedback gives the feedback. Now why do we do that? Well, one of the reasons is we want to help people become Better communications, yes.

But what is probably the more important, more strategic reasons is what we're doing is we are teaching everyone there are how to give feedback, how to receive IT, how to develop an appetite for IT. If you want your team to get Better, you're not to teach people to do this because I don't get there naturally. Um if you are the leader and this is super important, you're gonna need to model IT.

If you don't receive feedback, if you don't crave IT, if you don't ask for IT and if you don't take IT and apply IT, your team is much less likely to do so in my world. Every week before I give a weekend message, a sermon, i'll have a team of twelve, probably different people look at the message on the front end and give me feedback before I give IT. Then after I give IT, I have a team of people that I trust come in and say, hey, here's which could do Better and you could change this.

And that would really clear and that was good. And so what i'm doing is the whole organization knows i'm fair game or all fair game. We need IT.

And I I won't preach a message without getting feedback on the front end because I feel too vulnerable. Once you create culture that values feedback, people are going to resist that they are going to crave IT. Super important.

Again, my purpose of this podcast is to develop great leaders. It's no secret that i'm a pater, and so i'll speak not to push this on. You would say from a spiritual perspective, no one's more loving than jesus.

And jesus gave a lot of very loving feedback. Whenever James and john, to be of his disciples, want to be noticed, they want to be promoted. They want to be more important.

They want to more power. Jesus gave them loving feedback and said, hey, if you you want to be great, you serve because the greatest among you would be your servant. When a lady name, Martha, was weakened out with anxiety, she's freaking out of my gosh, was too much to do, too much to do.

Jesus looked there and said, hey, you're worried, said about many things. He gave a feedback and said, there's one thing is more important. This, you can have time with me.

You don't need to worry so much about these things. When the disciples were afraid in the storm one time. Jesus said, really lovingly like, hey, what, jt, more faith in me.

I'm with you in the storm. I'm always going to be with you. And so I want to see that is loving to give feedback manual, ask an important question and IT may not be easy, but IT is loving.

Can blanchard T, A good friend of mine, uh, his author of the classics, one minute manager in the book, lead like jesus. He says this, he says, the key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority. The key successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

And influence is fuelled by love, not power. So important when you get feedback you're doing because you care about people, have the urge to step in and love people enough to tell the truth. And when you do that, guess what they'll give you.

They'll give you the same gift in return, they will give you good, timely, honest, helpful feedback, and they'll help you get Better. And we know everyone wins. The later gets Better.

I encourage to get the leader guide, super important, go to a life of search. Lash leadership podcast will send you additional content and questions if you have not subscribe the podcast and subscribe, if you will, read that right review. That would be a gift to me.

I'm going to work hard for you, not monotoned this. This is my gift to you, if you can, just like, do that small gift to me to make a big, big difference to bring your valuable kind, help you get Better. There's a book that I want to offer to you crucial conversations.

There's like five authors of four of mention, all very, very, very helpful book, if you'd like the chance of winning one of five, three copies, you can hop over to youtube and on the youtube page and type I want to have good conversations in the next episode type and I want to have big conversation next episode um I want to answer your questions about Younger leaders, emerging leaders. How do we develop them? How do gensec leaders need to think? How do we develop jin leader gene leaders? And again, thank you for investing a little bit of time with me, twenty minutes a little bit over.

I care about you have a burden to invest in you. I believe in you, and I believe that you get little Better, Better. And we know that everyone was when you is Better.