Last month’s newsletter focused on Step 2 for holding tough conversations, which is to identify your intent and desired results. Is your purpose to improve the relationship, improve performance, stop an unwanted behavior, etc.?

Step 3 involves preparing and writing down what you will actually say during this conversation. This can be broken down into three parts:

• Be prepared to share your intent that you identified in Step 2 (last month’s newsletter) with the other person.
• Use the Situation – Behavior – Impact – Request (SBIR) feedback model from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) to give feedback to the other person about the specific troublesome Situation, his/her specific Behavior that is causing the issue for you, the Impact that his/her behavior is having on you, the team or another individual, and your Request for what you would like him/her to do differently in the future.
• Invite the other person to respond by saying, “Help me understand what’s going on from your perspective.”

Stayed tuned for future newsletters which will cover each of the next steps in detail to help you be more prepared and effective in holding difficult conversations.

“One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” – Arthur Ashe

“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” – Bill Gates