[00:00:00] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Hi, I am Andrew. Welcome to the Work Unravelled podcast. In each episode, we break down a piece of the workplace puzzle, providing practical insights, fresh perspectives, and actionable solutions to help you navigate the ever-changing world of work. 

[00:00:15] **Scott:** And I'm Scott, whether you are a leader, a professional, or simply curious about what makes organisations tick, this show offers strategies to think smarter, work better, and lead boldly join us as we turn workplace complexity into clarity.

One episode at a time.

This week we are talking about difficult conversations at work. Andrew, can you tell us about one of your biggest difficult conversations at work? You can remember?

[00:00:42] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think if you work with me, I think you probably think most of my conversations are difficult and it's probably, it's probably me that makes them difficult. But yeah, in all seriousness, I think that often workplaces are stressful and I. They can be stressful just 'cause of the level of work and the volume of work.

But you are dealing with human beings and you've got human beings and their emotions and very often, those conversations go in the wrong direction. They, they, they become very stressful, very difficult, and um, they are painful. And I think a lot of people are in workplaces where.

They are avoiding conversations sometimes that they should have or they have a conversation that that goes very badly wrong. So yeah, I've had, I've had a few Have you.

[00:01:29] **Scott:** Most of my career in, um, in organizations was as a, as a manager and as a leader, and I was certainly guilty of delaying and putting them off because I am, I don't think I'm as much as I used to be. Luckily, I don't have conflicts these days as much, but. Tend to not like conflict. So certainly earlier in my management career, I was too scared almost to have those, 'cause I wanted to be liked by the team. And it was like, oh, they're not really pulling their weight. Maybe they'll just, they'll just improve if I just drop hints or if I just pretend and hope that they realize themselves More often than not, that doesn't pan out. So yeah, I think certainly for me, and this may resonate with listeners as well, if you, sometimes you, it's very easy to avoid it because you don't want to upset people.

You don't want things to get stressful or tense at work, especially if you are a leader having to speak to a difficult member of staff who's not

[00:02:32] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:02:33] **Scott:** And obviously we're gonna explore that today around some tips and techniques to, to get round that, those fear,

[00:02:39] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah,

[00:02:39] **Scott:** of conflict.

[00:02:41] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** yeah, I think, I think there are various types of difficult conversations you can have. I. We started off here with talking about underperformance, for example. That's a difficult conversation and, and I've got a story I can share about somebody that was underperforming, but there are other difficult conversations you might be having.

For example, there's the, I dunno if you've ever made anybody redundant. I've, I've had the unfortunate, um, a job of having to make somebody redundant, which was, which was really difficult. So that, that's obviously a difficult conversation. You've got conversations where. I dunno if you've ever stepped in where colleagues are disagreeing with each other.

If I've, I've, I've had situations again where colleagues I, I've worked with them or, or supervised them and they're not getting on. So I think when we talk about difficult conversations, there's a range of difficult conversations and of course everybody's different and a conversation I might find difficult to initiate or be part of somebody else.

Won't be.

Have you got an example of, uh, you talked about under performance there, how did you approach it? What was the, the sort of scenario or or background to that, to that difficult conversation?

Have you got more than one?

[00:03:52] **Scott:** There's one main one that that sticks with me, and it's kind of tied into the avoidance of conflict that I talked about. So this is quite early on in my career, managing a team of developers. And there was a particular developer who was not a team player. They just wanted to work on their own, headphones on, do everything their way and, and not work with the others. And we were a team that needed to work together and without. Going off on a tangent too much about software development. It's actually good to collaborate, get second pairs of eyes on the code that's being produced 'cause you know, make sure there's no bugs, work together, share ideas, all that kind of good stuff. some developers do just wanna sit and do it on their own. And unfortunately, this person was pretty much set in their ways with that, despite our attempts to say, right, we want people to work side by side, work together.

[00:04:47] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Okay. Mm-hmm.

[00:04:49] **Scott:** they would resist that. And over time, that built a lot of resentment within the team and it created a bad atmosphere in the office when this person was in and when this person was off on holiday, the atmosphere was completely different.

[00:05:01] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:05:01] **Scott:** I wasn't this person's direct line manager, I was their second line manager, and I would spend

[00:05:06] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Okay.

[00:05:06] **Scott:** with this person's line manager saying what are we gonna do, this is frustrating. We were both like debated for far too long in hindsight about what we were gonna do with it. Finally, we. Plucked up the courage.

'cause part of this was a fear of it getting worse actually. What if this individual just made everything even worse in the office? Plucked up the courage, had the conversation, professional conversation. This individual just kind of listened and accepted, didn't really challenge. And then within a few weeks later, they handed in their notice

[00:05:39] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Oh wow.

[00:05:40] **Scott:** and. The day they left, it was a completely different office. Now, we didn't

[00:05:45] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I bet.

[00:05:46] **Scott:** that meeting other than give them the feedback and say, look, we've got some action steps we'd like you to do. We need you to work closely with other team 

members

[00:05:52] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:05:52] **Scott:** want, you know, follow the stuff that we're trying to do in the team. They obviously made the decision themselves that that wasn't the place they wanted to work.

Mm.

For us, problem solved because

[00:06:02] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yes.

[00:06:02] **Scott:** weren't going to change. Whatever we did in hindsight and the atmosphere in the office significantly transformed. So my big lesson there was I should have done it sooner.

We should have done

[00:06:12] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:06:13] **Scott:** and addressed it sooner. 'cause those weeks and you know, maybe even a few months of unhappiness in the office because of one individual.

[00:06:21] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Hmm. Create created a lot of stress for ev, everybody else, I guess.

[00:06:25] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:06:26] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Not revealing too many details, but I, I had a, a situation, I was the managing director of this team and we had, uh, a, a job role come up and we, we recruited somebody who was a bit more, a bit sort of, I dunno, her background wasn't ideal, but sometimes if you recruiting, you know, you can't always get the people you want.

So we recruited this person. We had some reservations, but she'd come back into the world of work. Um. After having her children, and she'd probably been outta the workplace for about, I think it was about 20 years, but her previous roles were quite senior. And we, we flagged this up to her in the interview.

You know, look, this, this job you're coming into is, it's not the most junior job in the team, but it's quite junior compared to what you used to do. But she said it was fine. And she came in and we, we definitely picked up almost from day one, that she resented, even though she'd said in interview, I mean, we could do another podcast on what people saying interviews and what they're like when they start the job.

It's often different. But she, she came in and she clearly resented having this junior role that she'd she'd taken on and she was reporting to somebody in the team who was very experienced, a very valued member of the team. But this lady, this woman who I'm talking about, she just. Didn't cooperate. She didn't do what she was told.

She, she just resisted. And we went through about six months. And it's interesting you say taking your time, because often you want things to naturally sort themselves out, that you hope that people will come round. You hope that people are mature. But this woman didn't want to play ball. So eventually through the HR process, it came up to me as MD of, of having to have this conversation with this woman.

It was the final interview that I, as managing director, had to, had to give to this woman. And I was absolutely, well, I wouldn't say petrified, but I really, I remember that morning feeling like a, a sort of bad feeling in my stomach. 'cause I knew how difficult she could be. And I went into that meeting. I had the HR representative there.

I had my, uh, second in command, if you like, there in, in the meeting. And this, this woman was very, very challenging. Uh, she wouldn't acknowledge anything. She wouldn't agree with anything we said. She denied everything that we, we pointed out. It was really. Really tough. And I think for me, this thing about difficult conversations, the research is that managers, as you pointed out, they find this stuff really stressful.

You know, it's a really difficult thing to do. So the, the most common response is to avoid, but what, what's the implication if you, for you, what was the, you, you mentioned about the stress in the rest of the team. Uh, do you think there's any other implications or consequences of, of avoiding conversations?

[00:09:16] **Scott:** If you're a, a. Manager and you've not taken action and other team members maybe even have raised those concerns with you and you don't take action, you are likely to lose respect and trust

[00:09:26] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:09:26] **Scott:** from those individuals because they will perceive you as being weak or being afraid to do something about what's actually causing them stress and an impact on their work.

[00:09:36] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think if, if you don't challenge people when they need challenging, you don't tackle things that need tackling. If you avoid some of this stuff, you credibility as a leader. Is impacted, you know, people are expecting you as the leader, as the manager to tackle this.

And if you are avoiding it because you find it difficult as I did. And, and, and you mentioned you found it difficult. So I think we, we want anybody listening to this, to, to, to realize we're not saying this is easy. This is why these aren't difficult conversations. You know, there's this concern that you have that it's gonna escalate.

Um, you know, the, the people are gonna get really upset that you're dealing with somebody that's going to these days, put in some sort of complaint against you. So these are really difficult things, but if you don't tackle this as a manager, as a leader, if you, you're not, you don't have any sort of techniques, which we can talk about, the rest of the team start to, you know, they start to see you as somebody that cannot do the job, that you lose that respect.

As a leader, you lose that respect as a manager and that has an impact further down the line. 'cause people then start to think, well you are being paid to tackle this. It's your job to tackle this, and you are avoiding it. Difficult conversations are difficult, but it's your responsibility as a manager to be able to do them, but also to learn how to do them better.

Were there any other lessons that you can take from that experience?

[00:11:00] **Scott:** If you don't deal with it quickly, it can snowball, and that was, again, one of the

[00:11:05] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah,

[00:11:05] **Scott:** from that experience

[00:11:07] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I.

[00:11:07] **Scott:** it just got. Worse and worse and worse.

Whereas actually if we'd have nipped it in the bud much sooner, the I I, I describe it as a bit of a bit like a cancer actually. It'll just spread and get worse, whereas the sooner you catch it, the better chance you've got of surviving. So I think the same applies is actually, I. Looking back in hindsight, the conversation was nowhere near as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

And I

[00:11:31] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Mm.

[00:11:31] **Scott:** the case with a lot of these things is

[00:11:33] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yes.

[00:11:34] **Scott:** nip it in the bud quickly. And you know, as we've said, the, the minimize the chance of that causing more stress than is necessary for other team members. Actually, I think some of the individuals who maybe are underperforming or being difficult or whatever they're doing that needs addressing if they don't see you taking action. They'll just carry on doing it. And, you know, think, ah, even if they're conscious of what they're doing, they'll be thinking, I'm getting away with this. So I think there's multiple factors in terms of that, that impact. And the

[00:12:06] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yes.

[00:12:06] **Scott:** is deal with it quickly, easy to say, but as we're gonna explore some of the methods and techniques to help you deal with that.

Getting HR on side, know, getting facts and evidence, all those kind of things. It's a balance, isn't it, between getting that bef and being prepared rather than just sitting on it and hoping it'll go away.

[00:12:26] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah, it's, it's almost a tightrope. I mean, if you're a leader and a manager, you can see something that is, is something you should address. And it might be that you don't understand the background. You know, I, I've made the mistake when I've assumed what I've seen. So I've been walking around the team, I've been walking around the office and I've maybe said something.

That actually I didn't know all, I didn't have all the information. I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. I didn't know what was going on, perhaps with that team or with that individual. So I think you, you have, you know, the expression seek first to understand. I think really as a manager, as a, a leader, if you, if you are seeing stuff, you, you might feel that you should jump in.

And, and, you know, just be careful because you may not have all the facts, but if you are seeing stuff that isn't acceptable or as I had with, with this situation, with this, this person I'm talking about, my junior managers were coming to me with their concerns. You know, they were looking for me to take charge.

They were looking for me to, to sort it out. But as I say, you, you have to see what's going on in front of you. You have to be aware. Now, if you are super stressed as a lead, if you are really busy. You know, it's easy for you to ignore it. It's easy for you to say, well, you know, it'll sort itself out, but as you've said, it, it, it can damage morale, but also it can set a bad example to the rest of the team that if somebody is, if you like, getting away with it, if they're aggressive, if they're, uh, rude, if they're racist, if they're, you know, they're there's sexist comments, whatever it is that people find objectionable and you are letting that go, then other people think, well, if they can get away with it.

well I can do, what I like then, because you don't challenge them, and of course the difficulty is that if you then challenge something that if you like, is easier to deal with, people feel a huge sense of unfairness. I. You know, there's that person over there. You are ignoring her behavior or his behavior, but you've tackled me.

So really as a manager, you, this is so important that you set the standard, you set the standard of behavior, you set the standards for interpersonal relations in the team, and then. You, you do your best to sort of keep that going, but you have to step in. You have to step up to that, that responsibility and, and, and have these conversations.

And I think the other thing you've gotta do as, as a manager is if you are willing to do that in a, and we can talk about how to do this in a professional manner, then your colleagues and your workforce will also have that ability to do it with each other as well. So you set the tone, if, if you can do this properly.

[00:14:56] **Scott:** I, yeah, I was gonna say, it's not just managers downwards, is it? In terms of the hierarchy, it's actually people being able to give. Feedback to colleagues at the same level or even to their boss. Actually, that could be a

[00:15:09] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah,

[00:15:09] **Scott:** conversation for somebody. Again, without going on a tangent onto leadership management styles. But that difficult conversation may be about salary and promotion and, and

[00:15:20] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** sure.

[00:15:20] **Scott:** other things. And as you said, across the organization with different teams, different departments. And if can imagine if, if. There's a culture within the organization and within teams where difficult conversations are avoided and issues are buried, end result is not gonna be good for anybody working in that organization, let alone the customers at the end of it. So, so having that open culture where you can have those safe conversations that actually. You are backed up. If it is a difficult conversation, requires disciplining, for example, HR will, HR will back you up. 'cause I've had

[00:15:55] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:15:55] **Scott:** where I felt HR let me down actually. And I thought,

[00:15:58] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Mm.

[00:15:58] **Scott:** I'm trying to stick to policy here and you are telling me, oh no, we don't want to go there. But

[00:16:04] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:16:05] **Scott:** of policy. And you know, the

[00:16:07] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:16:08] **Scott:** not backed me up. I've seen that a few times.

[00:16:10] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Oh yeah, I, I, I, I think as well, I, I be careful not to be too hard on hr 'cause they have a difficult job and there's so much legislation for HR to deal with, but I've, I've seen where the HR person or the somebody in the, in the rest of the organization knows that when you bring a problem to them that you are correct, that this is a problem, but they are also avoid.

Conflict. They also avoid difficult conversations. So even if in black and white, what you're seeing is incorrect and, and, and people are, are doing stuff that they shouldn't be the person you are asking for help, they don't want the conflict. So yeah, you, you sometimes you, you look around the organization for help and people are also avoiding it.

So yeah, it, it's, it's, it can be a minefield, particularly with, with legislation, HR regulations and that culture of. Don't challenge people because you're going to get in trouble. And, and that's a real shame because the research suggests that if you can have a culture, as you mentioned of open dialogue, you get increased productivity.

I think Gallup did some research that cultures with open dialogue and, you know, uh, cooperation within the team have a 68% increase in productivity. You also get lower turnover. So if you get a culture where people feel that, you know, things that need to be said are said, they will stay in that culture.

I dunno about you, but were you ever trained or taught on how to do these difficult conversations? Were you haven given any sort of instruction, for example?

[00:17:41] **Scott:** No,

[00:17:42] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** No. Neither was I.

[00:17:45] **Scott:** no. And I guess that stuff, again, permeates from what you know, doesn't it, in terms of if your experiences, you've had a line manager that's had a difficult conversation with you, that will form your opinion on maybe this is how I should conduct them. And again, it's this, is it training? Do hr, we're not bashing HR here, but you know, is the organization putting things in place to enable those and to train you and to educate you?

Or do you have to do that kind of research yourself? Of course, people listen to this podcast are gonna learn a lot. 'cause I think we're gonna go into some tips soon

[00:18:17] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah,

[00:18:18] **Scott:** effectively conduct these.

[00:18:20] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think what we've got to this point then is we, we acknowledge that organizations often need to have these difficult conversations, managers and leaders. I. Often, myself included, put my hand up here. We'll avoid having those difficult conversations.

But the benefit to the organization is, is very, very broad. You know, that open dialogue, that open culture, people feeling, they're being treated fairly, so it's, it's a really healthy thing for managers and leaders to learn how to do this. One thing before we move on to the tips, I think, is there's definitely something around you as an individual and how you approach conflict.

Now some people, like I think I mentioned earlier on, are actually okay with conflict. They perhaps from their childhood and, and a lot of this is tied up to. Your personal experience as a, as a child,

if you as a, an individual had parents that avoided conflict, that's what your perhaps style might be influenced by. Of course, you may have come up through, uh, childhood and, and previous experiences where conflict was very much about. You know, it's quite heated. So I think before we start talking about the sort of workplace, it is also worth self-reflecting.

As an individual, how do you feel about conflict? You know, do, do you approach it from that sort of avoidant perspective or are you somebody that gets very quite irate and you know, you can raise your voice and get quite cross. So I think before we start looking at the workplace, that's important to recognize yourself as an individual.

How do you feel about conflict?

[00:19:51] **Scott:** Yeah. So the first thing we've, we've mentioned it previously briefly, is being prepared. So actually, I. to, it's impossible to predict how the conversation will go, but you'll have an inclination from the, we're, we're making the assumption here. Let's look at it from a, a manager's perspective,

[00:20:07] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Hmm.

[00:20:07] **Scott:** having a potential disciplinary discussion with a member of staff

[00:20:10] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:20:11] **Scott:** the most common. Hopefully you've been gathering some evidence over time, so. Personally, I would use something like OneNote as a notebook to record date and time. And what we want to do is be recording the behavior and try and take the behavior, separate the behavior from the individual. So say actually, you know, on this day, on this time this happened. So starting to build that, that evidence and actually think about what you want as an outcome of that meeting before you go into it. So what. What do you want the individual to do differently take away from that? So be clear on that upfront. So do a bit of preparation and hopefully that will help as well with feeling a bit scared or a bit unsure actually, you're going in kind of forearmed in terms of you've done your

[00:20:57] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:20:57] **Scott:** got your evidence, and you've got the the outcomes that you want to happen.

That'd be the

[00:21:01] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yes.

[00:21:02] **Scott:** suggest.

[00:21:04] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Absolutely. And I think you, you want to go into that situation. You wanna make sure that it's a good, a good time for you. You don't have distractions. It, you don't wanna squeeze it in between a, a quick meeting. You wanna have plenty of time to do this. You want to create that. I. If you like, safe space.

So going out, uh, to a,, you know, a meeting room or a boardroom where people aren't gonna overhear you, uh, making sure the person is ready to have that conversation. So you might be prepared as a manager, you've, as you say, you want to gather the evidence, you want to have some sort of facts. You want to get HR involved if you can, if they can also attend the meeting, although that in itself can become too heavy handed.

So you have to be, play this very carefully, but you want to be prepared. But I think it's also fair to the other party that they're ready to have that conversation. So if you're going to say to somebody, I want to talk about this issue, you need to know, you need to be clear that this is what we're gonna talk about.

'cause I, I've had, uh, experiences where myself, I, I got, uh, brought into a meeting and I, it was quite a sensitive subject that we were talking about, and I had no idea before the meeting,

[00:22:09] **Scott:** Oh

[00:22:10] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I had no idea.

[00:22:11] **Scott:** Where, or just at the calendar invite that just says, we need to chat almost.

[00:22:15] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:22:16] **Scott:** then you get that immediate sick feeling in your stomach. Because we naturally default to negative. What have I done you know? So yeah, giving them a bit of a heads up to prepare.

It

[00:22:25] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** absolutely.

[00:22:26] **Scott:** but better than

[00:22:27] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:22:28] **Scott:** blind. 'cause then they're

[00:22:29] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:22:30] **Scott:** on the defensive even more so. And unwilling to listen to, you know, what you're trying to help them with.

[00:22:36] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I, I think so, and I think, as I say, both parties need to be prepared and, and if this person's. Had some previous discussions with their supervisor. For example, going back to my example, this person I'm talking about had gone through the entire, we'd escalated all the way from informal chat with, with supervisor to more formal chats with supervisor.

This person knew I. That the meeting with me was going to be quite serious.

So yeah, we are talking about being prepared, having your notes, having the evidence, making sure you've read all the policies. So if you know that there's something you need to address, you, you are clear yourself as a manager, as a leader, what the policies are.

The worst thing is to go into a meeting and find out that the, the person you're talking to knows more about the HR policies than you do. And, and you can be caught out there. So I say it is being prepared, allowing that person to also prepare themselves. But let's imagine you've got in that room with that person.

What, what are we gonna do? What's the first sort of, first step with that person you wanna have that conversation with? How would you approach it?

[00:23:40] **Scott:** I initially try and build some rapport and try and make them at ease and, you know, express to them that. I'm here to support you. I'm here to support your, effectiveness at work and, you know,

[00:23:50] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:23:50] **Scott:** anything I can do to help. Because often we may not, the manager or leader may not know what's going on with this individual.

There could be something at home, for example, or something in their personal life that is affecting them. So it's important to, to try and tease that out and to, make it a safe place where they can share that with you. Now, some individuals may never wish to do that and will keep it to themselves,

obviously why you are there as well. So make it really clear, here's what I'm hoping to achieve, is there anything you want to achieve from this?

So open it up to them. So it's a two way as well.

[00:24:20] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah, I think, I think you've gotta be completely transparent. This is why we're having this conversation. And, and, and we also mentioned this idea of separating out from the behavior in the person. You know, you're not their parent, you are their boss, you are their manager. So you're always talking about the behavior and the impact.

It's called the SBI. Um, model the situation, the behavior, and the impact. So this is the situation. You know, we, we, um, you didn't deliver the project on time. Uh, your behavior was that you seem to interrupt people, and the impact was we upset the client. So you're trying to separate from the person. And their behavior and the impact.

. I think the other thing to do is to expect that this is gonna be difficult for both of you. And we're talking about, you know, as a manager and a leader, this is difficult. This is gonna be difficult for them as well. So I think you need to be prepared for the other person's emotional response.

And if, if you've done this in a very transparent, mature way, hopefully they should also be mature and calm. I think you've also gotta be aware that if they start to. You know, if they start to feel very stressed is, do you then say, let's just bring this to a close and let's come back to this? 'cause some people could react very, very badly.

[00:25:30] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:25:30] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** what are you gonna do in that situation?

[00:25:32] **Scott:** Hmm.

[00:25:32] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** But also as a manager, how are you gonna manage, manage your own emotions? Because you're gonna probably feel very, very stressed. You're gonna feel very tense if you're not careful. So this, this is something we need to think ahead, we need to plan, and we need to perhaps run through with a colleague.

We could do some role playing. For example, you could practice this with hr. But this is something you need to learn how to do, and it's, it's not easy,

[00:25:54] **Scott:** No,

[00:25:54] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** essential.

[00:25:56] **Scott:** and there'll be different dynamics at play depending on the situation of the individual. So to some individuals this could be a complete shock. They could be completely unaware, obviously. Hopefully you've been giving them feedback. You've been trying to address the issue before having this, but there's some people that would just think they're doing nothing wrong, or

[00:26:14] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah,

[00:26:14] **Scott:** why?

Why am I here? And

[00:26:16] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** that's right.

[00:26:17] **Scott:** who are expecting it and there'll be maybe something in between, or they don't realize how bad it is and well, so-and-so's doing it as well, so why have you got me in here? And all those kind of things could play out as well. So it's trying to be prepared for that. again, that will come down to the individuals, come down to the circumstances.

[00:26:34] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** You, you want to come into that room with an open mind. And as you mentioned, there could be something really bad happening at home if you are a good manager. If you're a good supervisor, you, you probably know that anyway. But they might reveal something in this conversation you've never heard before.

So before you've, you know, passed judgment and you've convicted them. You know, you, you do need to be very good at listening, and this is a key skill anyway for managers. Good quality questioning, but also really good listening with empathy.

[00:27:03] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:27:03] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** let's imagine then you've done that conversation, you've got things out.

What's the next step? You've, you've had that sort of open dialogue, any sort of final steps, um, for the next phase with that person.

[00:27:14] **Scott:** so I would always look to summarize at the end and say, well, this is, I just wanna make sure that we both understand what we've agreed here, what the next steps are, and maybe set some timelines as well. So this is about smart. Is it achievable, measurable, and say, actually, here's the things. I'd like to see, and we'll revisit this, we'll check how your progress is doing,

[00:27:34] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:27:34] **Scott:** what I found useful as well I would summarize the discussion and the bullet points and the actions, and then send that to that.

Individual afterwards so that they've got that record as well.

[00:27:45] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:27:46] **Scott:** that also puts a bit of a slight formal on it as well to actually, this is in writing, so you know that this is

[00:27:53] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yes.

[00:27:53] **Scott:** that we're having this and it's been recorded.

[00:27:56] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think that's really good. I think, I think what you'd want is by the end of that conversation, these, these don't have to take very long, that you've been very clear, you've been very open, you've been very calm. Ideally, both sides have been very calm, but you reach a positive outcome where you agree what the next positive steps are.

What are we, and it's about we. What are we going to do? So you might offer extra support, you might offer extra coaching, they may need more time off. They may, they may have revealed something about their, you know, their care situation at home or something. So you want to end that meeting on a very positive note.

And I think going back to what you said before we finish is often, and again, I've, I've had this experience as a manager, you think, gosh, why did I wait so long? You know, some of these meetings, some of these conversations can literally be a very, very good turning point where you send, you know, people off in a, in a better direction.

So we shouldn't delay them. We should, we should do them sooner, and we should learn how to do them better.

[00:28:51] **Scott:** Exactly. And from that employee's perspective, it may be an opportunity for them to speak to you that they needed all along and or almost didn't need know that they needed. But after the

[00:29:00] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yes, I.

[00:29:02] **Scott:** actually quite glad we had that conversation

[00:29:04] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** you want the manager to think, I'm so glad we cleared the air and I, I, I asked some questions, but also for the employee or the, or the person to go. I'm, I'm really grateful for your time.

Thank you. You've really helped me. And that's, that's the, that's the, the outcome that we've looking for.

Thank you for listening to the Work Unravelled podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to the show so you don't miss the next one. 

[00:29:28] **Scott:** If you'd like Andrew or me to help you or your business, whether it is for team productivity, leadership, coaching, or communication skills, our website addresses are in the show notes.

Thanks, and until the next time.