How to Handle Difficult Conversations

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1:52Hi there, you're listening to High Performance with myself and Damien Hughes. Hey Damien. Hey Jay. How are you, mate? Very well, thanks. Very well indeed. So today, we're going to delve into something that you, in your droves, have told us you struggle with. Having difficult conversations. I can't tell you how often you're reaching out on LinkedIn, on Instagram, you're direct messaging us to say that you've listened to loads of episodes of High Performance. You've learned so many things from the incredible guests that we've had. But still, when a difficult conversation with a child, or a partner, or a parent, or a boss, or a colleague looms large, you just struggle with it.

2:28So I suppose the first thing we should talk about, Damien, and you've got so much lived experience of this because you've worked with many of the biggest sports teams on the planet, is why is it so often so difficult to have hard conversations when we know that often the hard conversation is the route to greatness that we're all searching for? Yeah, well, Gordon Ramsay said it best to us, didn't he? Where he said too many of us take feedback personally, not professionally. So often we're worried about the nature of our ongoing relationship, rather than people receiving it in a way that they can do something useful with it.

3:02So Damien, like why is this such a massive issue for the high-performance community? Part of the answer lies in a landmark study that was done by Levy and Gigi in 2016 that found that people who avoid emotionally charged situations actually have higher levels of stress. So avoiding having these conversations actually amplifies our anxiety. You know, avoiding having the hard talk with somebody doesn't keep the peace. It just stores it up where it's likely to explode in a more uncontrolled way later on. So learning how we can do precisely this is a skill that actually not only keeps the peace over the long term, it allows people to be able to improve and get better.

3:44And is there any research into the types of coaches or the types of leaders that do encourage people to speak up and be honest? Well, yeah, I mean, we go back there to the work of Amy Edmondson, the organisational psychologist who she was involved in a study called can your employees speak freely found that employees that have leaders that give them candid and respectful feedback tend to trust them more even if you don't necessarily like what you're hearing so if there's anyone listening to this that is in a leadership position that's thinking about how can I be a bit more diplomatic or how can I couch my words just sometimes understand as long as you do with the right intention, but you're honest and candid with people, they'll trust you.

4:29Well, I'll tell you what, Damien, we've spoken to loads of guests on high performance around this topic. So how about we just give people the kind of the headlines from some of the best guests that have spoken about this on our show? What do you reckon? I'd love that. Almost like a jukebox, a high performance jukebox. Right. Let's start then with the author Charles Duhigg, who wrote the book Super Communicators. This is what he told us. the first is asking those asking more questions and asking deep questions right just turning to someone and saying what do you make of this like why is this important to you turning to your kid and saying i hear that you had a bad day today like what was it about the day that made it bad like what what are you feeling right now what are you thinking so just asking more questions asking a bunch more questions and then number two when someone says something proving to them that we're listening?

5:19And if it's a tough conversation, we can do that looping for understanding, right? It's kind of formal. We can repeat back, did I get that right? But sometimes we show we're listening just by asking a follow-up question. Just by saying, oh, what I hear you say was this, I'm wondering, what do you think about that? Like, what happens next? If we ask questions and we prove we're listening, what's going to happen is they inevitably will want to listen to us in return. They will start asking us questions. It might take a little while with my 12-year-old, It definitely takes a little while. But eventually, we have this innate need for reciprocity.

5:54They will start asking you questions about yourself. And then you have a conversation going. So the first thing about having these difficult conversations is following Charles' advice of looping back and then asking deeper questions. So replaying what you've just heard and then pursuing it a little bit deeper and asking, well, what did that mean for you? How was that difficult? or what did you learn from the experience? These are all ways in which we can sort of explore at a deeper level what is it that we need to get to the heart of. So one thing that we've heard from a number of footballers on the podcast has been looking for the intention of the person delivering the feedback.

6:31What might appear harsh can still have a really positive outcome. Let's first of all listen to Jolly and Lescott explain the role of Terry Connor and his strident feedback in his own career journey. like my coach TC was like the biggest influence on me Terry Conner as a coach and football influence he used to challenge me all the time like to the point of where I couldn't stand him and we're really close and I have so much respect for him but I used to think I'm going to prove you wrong that was my motivation and and funny because fast forward to when I retired he did a podcast for Wolves and he was talking about me and he was like I knew from the first time I'd seen him he was going to be a professional or I'm going to push him because I know he wants to be a footballer.

7:19He wants to be a professional. And I was like, TC, man, if you would have told me that, I already knew you couldn't break me before that. Like, I was determined to be a footballer so we could have had a better relationship if you would have, if I would have known they were the reasons you were challenging me all the time. Great clip there. Here's another footballer. This is England legend Les Ferdinand on a similar theme. I've worked under some great coaches in my career, but a fella called Bobby Campbell came into KBR. And I always remember this. He would shout my name like you wouldn't believe.

7:59But to the point where the boys at the club were saying, at some stage Liz is going to have to chin him. Really? Yeah. He's been critical. if we played a game of football we played 11 v 11 or whatever it was my name was being bellowed out my name was being bellowed out what sort of things was he saying oh you move your ass here you move your ass here you do this and it got to a stage where even when I I used to play reserve games my dad would come and watch the reserve games at Loftus Road and he'd sit in a stand on South Africa Road stand he'd sit in a stand and he'd go why's this geezer only calling your name he said I come every week and all I hear is your name.

8:41And I actually loved, I actually loved Bobby. He's a great fella and I remember him pulling me one day and he said, son, he said, I've heard rumours that, and Bobby was a hard man. Bobby was a hard man. And he said, I've heard rumours that you might be looking to knock me out. And he said, and you might do that. He said, but I want you to understand something. The reason why I belly your name out is because I think you can go to the top. people that I don't think can go to something I don't bother with. Which is, I think you've got everything, you've got every attribute to be a top player in this division.

9:19And straight away, I went, okay, like that. And he said, I just want you to know, if you did try to knock me out, I would have to fight with you.

9:30And finally, here's England superstar striker, Gary Lineker. Can we talk about when the football career started then and you ended up at Leicester and Jock Wallace was the man in charge what did that period teach you Jock was great for me yeah I mean I tactically it was you know from a bygone age and it was you know long ball and and but you know up and at him stuff but he's a hugely significant person in my career he was a terrifying individual he came down when I was, I think, about 17, 18, starting to make a bit of progress. And the first time I ever saw him was, I think he got the manager's job on a choose.

10:19And then we had like a Wednesday night reserve game at Filbert Street. And we'd play in the game and it came in at half time. And then Jock came in at half time and this huge imposing figure. And he walked through the door and he was cursing. you useless little... And I was thinking, and he was looking at me and he walked up to me and he picked me up behind the scruff of the neck and put me against the dressing room wall. He's going, you get running, you wee lazy English little shite, you all this stuff. And I was going, I wouldn't have minded but I'd scored two goals in the first half. We were 2-0 up.

10:58And needless to say, I didn't do much in the second half. I was a gibbering wreck. And then at the end of the game, he came in again and he went, my office nine o 'clock in the morning no forgive me for the terrible just Scottish accent it's not bad so he said so I thought I thought that was it I thought my career was gone thought I was finished but I got there about quarter to nine and I sat outside his office like a naughty boy waiting to see the headmaster and eventually 15 minutes or so later he said laddie go in sit down so I sat down like this and he says and I was trembling trembling and he just said I want to say one thing you were magnificent last night I said I beg your pardon you were magnificent he said but I just wanted to make a wee point Maddy that you've always got to give a little bit more let that be a lesson in life and I thought oh my god I thought you could have told me last night I'm really glad we played those clips actually Damien because I think one of the big blockers for people is this feeling that having a hard conversation is going to be horrible and not very valuable for the person that you have in the hard conversation with but the truth is it's in the way that you have the conversation and i know that you know normally um this is your world but can i talk to you about um a little bit of work that was done by harvard well so harvard actually created you i think you will love this actually they created the difficult conversations project led by the psychologist sheila heen and basically people are trained to shift from blame to joint contribution so i think one of the problems people have is this is going to hurt the person that I'm speaking to.

12:32So they might think that it's really hard to say, this is what you did wrong. So what Sheila and the team at Harvard would say is instead say, you know what, let's explore what happened and what all of us brought to the table that led to this thing not working. And it showed improved listening, lower defensiveness from the people they were talking to, and a better resolution in the end. So I think helping people understand how you enter the conversation shapes everything and the reason why we decided or you decided to play the crypts from those footballers i guess is a reminder that even when it's delivered in a really harsh and not very nice way in a in a difficult unforgiving environment it's still in the end can be a moment that someone reflects on and goes do you know actually i think that was that was a good moment for me yeah definitely i think there's other research jake that says that how you enter a debate determines how useful it is to people so if you enter it with how can I win it you're looking to score points off somebody if you're looking to say how can I learn from this you're open to new ideas and conflicting views and that's exactly what Jolly and Gary and Les all demonstrated there they went in with this how can I learn rather than how can I win this conversation I'm now going to take us to a very different part of the world I want to introduce Emily Maitlis to people of course the journalist who did the most famous interview with Prince Andrew and she spoke to us about establishing facts before asking tough questions.

13:58I think Emily's approach to interviewing is something that we can all take into our own everyday lives when it comes to difficult conversations. Here she is. So if I'm doing an interview that leaves people confused, I've failed, right? And if I'm doing an interview which has interrupted or cut somebody short or not got to the bottom of something, I failed. And so the way we prepared for it was, I sort of think, you know, in Lego, like when you're just freestyling Lego, you build your blocks. If I'm making a house, you get your foundations in place. You don't just build one tower up, right? Oh, I'm just going to follow this one thing I've learned until it topples over.

14:49You go, first question, second question, third question, fourth, where's the bridge between that one? How am I building on that? And so there's a series. If you go back and look at the interview, I was just trying to get things confirmed. So did you go there? Did you go to the Manhattan house? Yes, I did. Did you go to the island? Yes, I did. Were you on the jet? Yes, I did. Because if at any point the answer's no, then 10 questions you've got don't work so if he'd suddenly said to me i was never in the house in manhattan i was never in the epstein house suddenly i'm thinking oh blimey i've got to rethink that and you've got to recalibrate really quickly so part of an interview is you explaining to the audience what you're doing i'm just checking that i've got my facts right on that I'm checking I've got my facts right on that.

15:41Then you did that. Is that right? Yes. Then I think it was 2018. You did whatever it is. And you're building the structure of the narrative that everyone understands. So all that is not difficult stuff, but it's slow. And if somebody had said at that point, you've only got five minutes, the whole thing would have been over because I couldn't have ever got to a place where I was asking, as it were, the bigger questions. You know, the fundamental questions, the allegations that I was putting to him only worked once you had the whole structure sort of solidly in place. Emily Maitlis there. Look, Damien, you've worked in some incredible environments with some very well-known people and some of the biggest, most famous sports teams on the planet.

16:28How would you approach tough conversations in that situation? Because some people I've heard have said, right, you need to get straight to the point. you need to just do the big reveal as soon as possible and say this is the situation other people kind of believe a bit like emily there that you need a solid foundation you need trust you need clarity you need to prepare the ground so you can ask those difficult questions what has stood you in the best stead in your career so a single word that has a huge impact it's called entrainment it's almost like the science of getting into sync with somebody so it's how we fall into a step or a rhythm or more importantly into connection with other people around us so what we're looking to do there is find some common ground and this is what emily was describing in the way that she did it you know if you remember she gave us that great example when prince andrew said i didn't have a party and she felt a little bit frightened that she'd made a mistake and she then realized that his definition of a party was having a thousand people turn up at his house whereas her definition was having six people so it was simply making sure that you were entrained that you're in sync with another person and when they know that they can trust you then you can start to push a little bit harder so i think there's something around being patient with this and trying to establish a relationship before we necessarily go after those hard questions trying to convince them that we're in step or we that we see the world from a similar perspective because often you need to have a difficult conversation when two people see the world through a very different lens this is james vals who at the time was working for the mercedes formula one team and back in 2016 lewis hamilton and nico rosberg had a coming together on the track and james was part of the management team that had to try and find a way forward and this is how he told us they dealt with that huge moment in the mercedes formula one team everyone remember 2016 barcelona you're talking about when lewis and nico crashed into each other.

18:29Yeah, absolutely. Still sticks in my mind today because you're taking two elite sportsmen that were constrained within their boxes and just got frustrated. But actually, what you do at the time is you don't back off, you double down and go, this is how it's going to be. I think the biggest takeaway there from James Vowles is the fact that what you need to deliver sometimes is absolute clarity. And it's amazing, you know, Damien, the number of times I've had conversations with people and I've said a certain thing. And afterwards, when I've heard what they've told other people or when they've come and spoken to me about the conversation that we had, they've heard something totally different.

19:03And it's a great reminder that people will often hear what they want to hear in a conversation. So if you say three things during a chat that you really want them to hear, but also two other things that are a bit nicer to them and that don't quite get your point across, you can be guaranteed by the time you finish talking, the two things you didn't want them to hear are the two things they've taken away from the conversation. And you're thinking, and hold on, what about the three things that I told you about? So is there an argument that sometimes you just need the kind of clarity James is talking about there?

19:32It might feel harsh, but it means everyone knows where they're at and there's no confusion at all. Absolutely. There's a study that was done in 2021 at Stanford University that found precisely that, Jake, that when you bring clarity to high emotion conversations, you get to a resolution far quicker and without the levels of stress and anxiety that are often associated with it. So it's similar echo to what Sarah Davis told us, that radical candor conversation that she would have with her employees about tell them just directly, but as long as they know that you care about them and that you're trying to achieve the best outcome for everybody, people tend to remember the key messages.

20:15Right, I think we've got time for one final clip. What would you want to bring us now? So René Mullenstein is famous for being Alex Ferguson's assistant for six years at Manchester United, but before that he was regarded as a brilliant developer of talent. He gave us a really great insight about sometimes it's the subtlety of our language that can allow us to deliver some hard truths. I never used the word change. So I was working to Jago or working with Owen Hargreaves or Wes Brown or anybody. I would never say, Wes, we need to change this in your game. Because the first reaction from Wes would be, whoa, what am I doing wrong?

20:55And what I used to do with those players is, this is great, that's your main position that you're playing in. You know, we've got these and these sessions ahead of us now. I've looked at your game. I've looked at the sort of kind of ones you're getting into. If we can add this to your game, you're going to be more a complete player, therefore be capable in solving those situations better, which is better for the team. So add is more. So all the players then go, oh yeah, what is it? I love that chat with Rene there because it validated the work from Daniel Kahneman and Eamon Tversky two godfathers of modern day psychology that found that when you use additive framing i.e.

21:36what you're going to gain from taking on a new idea it leads to better reception than what you'll lose from it and I think I want to finish by just giving you four things to think about when it comes to having these difficult conversations the first thing I'd recommend is that you tell people what you want. So when you sit down for a conversation with someone, you need to say something like, I want us to work better together, or I want us to find a way to look after that client in a better way, or I want us to be better at communicating with each other. Secondly, I think it's really important that you, as the communicator, acknowledge discomfort.

22:09So I think you'd be honest and say, look, this is a really hard thing for me to say, but I respect you enough to be honest. Or you say, look, I understand that I'm asking big things of you, but I believe you're good enough to deliver these things. The third thing I want you to understand is shifting from accusation to curiosity because i've been in conversations with people where there's been an accusation at some point and it just gets everyone's heckles up it makes everyone angry so instead of saying why did something happen or why did you allow it to happen it's so much better to say can we talk about what happened or can we investigate what you think might have happened or can we work out why things turned out the way they did and then And I think the final thing is to learn to separate intent from impact.

22:50So saying things like, I know you didn't mean to hurt me, but here's how it landed. Or I know you didn't mean to undermine your colleague, but this is how it made them feel. I think those things are really valuable and really useful. Anything else you want to leave people thinking about, Damien? Well, I just want to re-emphasise that final point that you made, Jake, that we can only control our own responses to it. We can't label other people's intentions. so while something might make you feel sad or upset you can't go and suggest that anybody tried to make you feel that way we can only own how we respond not what other people intend look i think the final point is everyone fears difficult conversations or almost everyone fears difficult conversations i think it's a sign that you're um a real human being who has empathy and understanding of others but actually if you are that way inclined let me remind you that i think hard conversations are the price of real connection wouldn't you and your colleagues around you much rather have what's known as radical candor and there's a brilliant book you can read about it in fact sarah davies did a brilliant episode on high performance about this kind of leadership if you want to be an honest leader if you want real connection with people the truth is you have to tell them your truth.

24:05And also, as Damien's mentioned, the science on this is also clear. Silence corrodes relationships. So you need respectful candor. And every time you step into discomfort, if you do it with care and if you do it with empathy and if you do it with understanding, I think you widen your capacity for that trust and that growth to happen. So I hope that this episode has been valuable for you if you're in that kind of place right now. And if it has been and you have to have a conversation and it turns out that the things we've spoken at today have helped you, then we'd love to hear from you. So please do reach out.

24:37Also, it's important to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll be back again soon with another episode of High Performance.

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