422: Turn Uncomfortable Conversations into Just Conversations with Amy Jacobson

0:00I can just feel it in my stomach, that uncomfortable queasiness that appears before a difficult conversation. And you know what I'm talking about. Maybe it's that your hands start sweating or your shoulders tighten. Whatever it is, humans were designed to avoid difficult conversations. And yet, we have to have them. Today's guest is breaking down why these conversations are so uncomfortable and what we can do when someone is underperforming to turn a hard conversation into just a conversation. Today's guest is Amy Jacobson. Amy is an emotional intelligence and human behavior specialist, delivering emotional intelligence programs, keynotes, and workshops across Australia and internationally.

0:42She's a twice widely published author of Emotional Intelligence, a simple and actionable guide to increasing performance, engagement, and ownership, and her new book, The Emotional Intelligence Advantage, Mastering Change and Difficult Conversations. Every week, I create an episode guide with the key takeaways from our conversations. This way, you can reference the insights without having to take notes. Join my newsletter to get episode guides delivered to your inbox for free. Go to themodernmanager.com. And while you're here, hit the follow button so that you never miss an episode. Now here's my conversation with Amy.

1:18Thank you so much for joining me today, Amy. I'm so excited to talk about difficult conversations because despite having years of management experience and studying all of this, I still find difficult conversations to be one of the absolute hardest things that I have to do. And I know for my clients and for managers everywhere, those difficult conversations

1:38Amy Jacobson: are just, oh, for so many of us. So thank you for joining me today. Thanks so much for having me on the show. It's certainly an area I think that most of us avoid at all costs. Yeah. Well, I think that's a good place to start with this avoidance that we just don't want to have these conversations and yet we have to. Can you talk a little bit about that instinct of avoidance and the excuses that we make to kind of get out of those conversations? Yeah. Look, it is completely normal. I think it would be very rare to meet somebody in this world who says that they enjoy a difficult conversation. and I'd probably be a little bit concerned if somebody did, but it's completely normal for us to try to avoid.

2:24Amy Jacobson: And it's that whole fight, flight, freeze, right? That kicks in when a difficult conversation kind of raises its head. And the main reason for that is it's the fear within us. So it's the natural response from our emotional brain, which is our amygdala to choose that fight, flight, or freeze response when we do not know the outcome of a situation. So the key fear that kicks in is actually fear of the unknown. And it's that fear of not knowing how is this person going to react to what I'm going to say? Because if we look at a difficult conversation, if you were about to have a difficult conversation and I could 100 % say to you, the person you're about to deliver this to will be completely fine with it.

3:09Amy Jacobson: They'll say yes, they'll accept it and they'll do whatever it takes to get the right solution. Then all of a sudden, it doesn't become a difficult conversation. It's just a conversation, right? So the reason why we avoid it at all costs is because we don't know how they will respond. Will they get angry? Will they be upset? Will they be confused? Will they understand? What is that emotional response that's going to be put in front of us? And because our mind does not have the answer to that, it goes into defense mode. And that's completely normal with how our brain is wired, right? It It takes us back to the old, you know, hundreds of years ago, if we were faced with the tiger, it's the fear, we're going to die.

3:52Amy Jacobson: How do we get ourselves out of this situation? How do we protect ourselves in this situation as best we can? We know that our mind is still wired that way, but it's no longer a tiger. It's a difficult conversation that we're faced with. And our mind will do everything possible to remove us from that fearful situation. So that is the main thing. and we tend to find that the freeze and the flight comes in first, right? A lot of us will just freeze and kind of pretend like it's not happening or it doesn't exist. Or we will go into the flight mode and just try to get out of the situation, get away from the situation, hope that it solves itself and maybe it's not that big a deal.

4:33Amy Jacobson: But by the time we get to the point where we know a difficult conversation has got to be had, there's only one response left. and that is fight. And this quite often is the natural default when we get nervous or we are fearful, our defense mechanism comes up, which then triggers a battle, an emotional battle between the two people about to go into a conversation. I love the way that you put this into the fight, flight, and freeze mode, because I think the flee is what I see a lot, which is making excuses of, well, I'll deal with this later. I don't have time for this right now. I have all these other things.

5:18Like, I'll just do this with our next one-on-one. And we kind of avoid in a way that feels like we're not trying to avoid it. We just have all these other things. And so, of course, we are going to put this to the side because it's not that important, which feels very different than what you described as the freeze of, I'm just going to kind of pretend like this isn't happening or this isn't a big deal and kind of just like hope it disappears without me having to really do anything about it because it's just it's not really it's not really there yeah that makes a lot of sense to me

5:48Amy Jacobson: it's it's that changing a priority right yes can you say more about that yeah sure so it's it's the mind is always going to analyze the the mind it analyzes and weighs up with everything that we do what do we stand to gain versus what do we stand to lose and based on that gain and loss it will prioritize what we actually choose to do. So when we're talking about that kind of, you know, that flight or that flee space, it is our mind deciding that there's not a huge thing for me to gain here, but there is a big part for me to lose. And that is I could lose control of the situation. I could lose credibility as a leader.

6:26Amy Jacobson: I could lose a relationship. I could lose a friendship. There's all of these things that kind of pop up. So therefore our mind will then go, okay, it's the whole ROI, right? The return on investment, the value adds. So therefore it deprioritizes that conversation or the need to have that conversation. And that's when we start to justify it. It's not that big a deal. It'll be okay. It can wait until tomorrow. And we justify that in our mind, knowing that deep down it really needs to be had, but we will find a way to make it okay to avoid. Yes. All right. I feel like we should pull up for a second and talk about the different situations that we're really referring to when we're talking about these difficult conversations.

7:08What kind of falls into this bucket?

7:11Amy Jacobson: So the difficult conversation, anything that you feel awkward or unsure or fearful of going into, and as I said, this is going to be different for different people, but basically it is a conversation where you do not know how the other person is going to respond. And it might be something that you feel a little bit uncomfortable. So we're talking things like in a workplace, we're talking underperformance, we're talking redundancies, we're talking behavioural issues, we're talking actually terminating somebody, someone not being successful for a job application, something that's been done incorrectly.

7:48Amy Jacobson: So those things that naturally as human beings, we don't want to hear. It's the stuff that nobody wants to deliver and also nobody wants to hear them as well. So that's where I'd put a difficult conversation. And I'd also even break it down to there's a big difference between a difficult conversation and a difficult delivery or statement. So a difficult conversation is when you still have answers that are required. So you need to understand why there needs to be further conversation to and fro into it, as opposed to the point where it might be the third or the fourth warning or the third or the fourth conversation.

8:29Amy Jacobson: It's no longer a difficult conversation. It's a difficult delivery because it doesn't matter what they say. It doesn't matter what they respond with. There is nothing that they can do that is going to change the outcome. You are simply just delivering a difficult outcome. So there's a little bit of difference between those two as well. And we tend to find that people are usually a little bit more confident and better when it is a difficult delivery or outcome because they know what the answer is. They know at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how this person reacts, this is going to happen regardless.

9:04Amy Jacobson: I've just got to make it through. Yeah. It's so helpful to separate out, especially when it comes to performance issues, the first situation, the first time something's happening, the first time you have to acknowledge this and bring it up with someone. And then the repeated behaviors and kind of follow-up conversations. They feel very different and we cannot treat them the same way. Can you talk a little bit about how we approach, let's start with first that initial conversation and then we can talk about those deliveries that go into the future. So let's use the example of underperformance because it's usually something that most people can relate to.

9:43Amy Jacobson: When we are having the first initial conversation when it comes to underperformance or any difficult conversation, the number one thing we should be focusing on is understanding why, understanding why this is actually occurring. Now, what makes a difficult conversation usually starts with us. So when that fight or flight or that freeze kicks in and we've already gone through the other two options and now we need to actually have the conversation, the protective side of our mind to protect us in that fear and help us to feel safe. What we do is we tend to over prepare. So that's the first thing that I would say when you're going into that very first conversation, don't over prepare.

10:27Amy Jacobson: Now, let me specify, I'm not saying don't prepare at all because that would be crazy. Make sure you know why you're having the conversation and where you're coming into it. But what I mean by don't over prepare is do not let your fear and your emotional brain take control. And all of a sudden, you've built this ammunition pack that has every example, every statistic, every report, every case study, everything possible to throw on the table in front of them and tell them why they are underperforming. That should never, ever be your first initial conversation. When you go into this conversation the first time, there should be more questions asked and statements made.

11:06Amy Jacobson: Because if we take underperformance for an example, there is a very big difference in the conversation that will flow if you find out that somebody is underperforming because they are lacking training or they are lacking skill set or they are lacking confidence as opposed to somebody who is underperformed because they don't care or somebody who is underperforming because they're over their job or they're in the wrong job and they just couldn't care less. So the most important thing to do in that first conversation is to have a pure, honest, you know, like go in with a curious mind more than anything to understand where this person is at and what is causing the underperformance at this point in time.

11:53Amy Jacobson: Now, sadly, as we were saying, a lot of the times we avoid this conversation. And this is the conversation that is the most beneficial and best difficult conversation that you can have because this is where you'll actually get the two of you working together to come to a better outcome because what you're doing in this conversation is you're looking for their emotional intelligence to kick in and you're giving them the chance to own it themselves. So I would cite this conversation very much with questions around always the question, how are you first? Because you should always be checking what's going on in somebody's life and in their mind before entering into a difficult conversation or any serious conversation.

12:35Amy Jacobson: But then you should follow it with more questions. And it might be simple questions like, how do you feel you're going with your job at the moment? Do you still like your job? What is it that you enjoy the most about your job? How do you feel on a Monday morning coming in? You know, is there anything that you would prefer not to do in your job? Like you're really throwing the questions at them to understand what their relationship with their job is like at the moment. And based off those questions, you're looking for the reason for that underperformance. So they might be saying, you know, actually, now that you mentioned, I'm really struggling at the moment.

13:11Amy Jacobson: And all of a sudden you go off down that tangent and say, okay, talk to me about what are you struggling with specifically? How can I help you with this? How can we help you to, you know, to get to that next level. Or they might be turning around and saying, actually, I'm really bored. And because I'm bored, I'm losing focus. And I know I'm not performing at my greatest. Or you might have somebody that turns around and says, I'm doing amazing. What are you talking about? Like, I'm your star performer. So the answers to those questions are vital to guide the rest of the conversation. And that's why we should always start with those questions and always start being curious because then it's going to be a different approach and you're going to use different skill sets and you're also recognizing the emotion that the person is actually feeling in front of you right now.

13:59All right, two things. So first is this does not sound like a difficult conversation to have when you go in with that mindset and with those kinds of questions, right? Like now you're not having to deliver some terrible news. you're going in and having a nice conversation with a team member to understand where they're at. So I just, I love that this suddenly just takes off some of that pressure to feel like I have to say this really hard thing. And instead it's like, no, I have to go in and explore something here. And that's a conversation that I have all the time in the workplace, conversations for exploration, right?

14:37So that's the first piece. Second is if someone doesn't identify that they're struggling, whether it's because they don't feel psychologically safe to report that or because they honestly don't think they're doing so poorly, and you do need to raise up some particular issues like the quality of work or they're missing deadlines or they're unresponsive to team members or whatever it is, their behaviors for whatever reason are not meeting the expectations, can you then ask them about that? Do you frame it in the same way? Did you notice? Did you see like, how do you approach that kind of part of it?

15:15Amy Jacobson: Yeah. So a simple method that I use called ask, ask, tell. And what that is, it's about, as we said, going into that conversation and asking the right questions. We ask more than one question. You'll know how many is the right questions to ask based on their answers, whether there's more to hear or whether they've given you enough. Once you get past that ask phase And the reason why we do that ask phase is because we hope their emotional intelligence kicks in. But we know this is not going to be the case with everyone. There are going to be some people that, as you said, are going to be oblivious to it or they're not going to want to take ownership with it.

15:50Amy Jacobson: Once you get to that point, you have got to flick from ask into tell mode. And this is exactly the same framework that I would use if you got to the third conversation with them. So if your first conversation went great and they said, oh, I'm really glad you brought this up. I've been struggling and you put a plan in place to help and support them and then you met up again two weeks later and they're still struggling so you put other things in place and then you met up a third time and you know nothing is going to change your situation. So same framework, when you get to the point where you realize that they are either oblivious to it or they are not capable of it and you've got to flick over to that tell mode, that is when we get factual and to be emotionally intelligent in those situations, we actually have to remove the emotion from the conversation.

16:39Amy Jacobson: So at that point in time, if I was speaking to somebody about underperformance and they said, Amy, I don't know what you're talking about. Like I'm doing great. Like I'm doing exactly what you asked me. I feel like I'm one of the strongest in the team. Then at that point in time, you want to take that emotion out. And the reason why we take that emotion out is because you want the person to feel safe, to feel as if they're not being attacked, right? So the more grounded you can make this conversation in actually making it more generic and not about, well, you are a failure, you are not good at this.

17:16Amy Jacobson: Let me tell you all of the examples. What I would be more doing is being able to talk about the role that they're in. So say for instance you're with somebody who is a sales assistant then I would be approaching the conversation by saying okay let's talk about the role that you're currently employed in. This is a sales assistant role. Here is the expectations of what we expect from all of our sales assistants. So this is kind of how the job works. We expect this and we expect this and this and this and this and this is how it meets the criteria of a sales assistant. For you at this point in time, let's talk about how you're performing up against these expectations.

17:55Amy Jacobson: Okay, your current performance is showing this, this, this, and this, and you'd go through some of those very factual statements with them. And then you might ask them a question to go, does this seem right? Does this seem accurate to you? Do you agree with the statistics? Do you agree with the reporting? So we're going back into that ask us tell framework again. Now, at that point, after asking a couple of questions, if they say, yeah, that is right. And I thought that was okay. Then again, you've opened up a conversation knowing that the expectations of the role were not clear to them. So that's going to take you down one path.

18:35Amy Jacobson: If the other path they said, well, yeah, that's just a glitch. So, I mean, I'm still doing my job. So what are you going to do about it type thing? Then you're in a conversation to be able to really stay in that tell mindset. and say, here are the gaps between where you are currently performing and the expectations for the role. Let's together create a plan to bridge those gaps because to keep you in a role as a sales assistant, these expectations must be met. So let's create these steps together, these goals, these timeframes, let's talk through their actions to make it very clear and also be able to put an actual consequence around it to say, you know, to meet these expectations, we're going to need you to meet these expectations in within three months or six months or whatever that timeframe is to keep you in that sales assistant role.

19:27Amy Jacobson: So really you're, what you're doing is not pointing the finger at them and saying they're a failure. And the reason for this is that I truly believe that everyone is a superstar in the right role. And sometimes you will have somebody in a sales assistant role that is not meeting the expectations and will never be able to meet the expectations, but you put them in the right role and they can become a superstar. So this isn't about, you know, making someone feel like they're a failure or they're incapable of something. Sometimes they're just in the wrong job. Sometimes they're leveraging the wrong skills.

20:07Amy Jacobson: So you want to work with them to be able to get them to understand what makes them tick, what are they really good at, and how can you help them either get them into the right role within your organization or the right role in another organization. So that's why you detach from the role and them as a human being. Oh my gosh, I love this so much because again, it feels like it takes some of that pressure off and that sense that we're like judging somebody else and pointing out other flaws and instead saying, here's the role and here are the expectations and here's where you are and let's see how these things are lining up and where there's gaps and how we can help you fill into those gaps and grow into those spaces and develop and now you know the expectations.

20:54And also, if this isn't the right role for you, that's okay. Like we don't need to force people into jobs that aren't the right fit for them. And it's so liberating to be able to say, I see your strengths. They're just not the right match for this role. Exactly. I want to take a minute and just hear a story or something from your life or a client's life where you've taken this approach and it has surprised you at the outcome of the conversation or how this approach really changed where the conversation would have headed.

21:26Amy Jacobson: Yeah, beautiful. I was actually speaking about this with a client today and it was a client I had a few years ago and the reason why I was speaking today because I was speaking to a new client about a leadership program that we're running and with this we have an organization that has grown substantially in a short period of time and they have a lot of green leaders that have ended up in like middle management, middle to higher management. And a lot of these people have ended up in this role because they were really good at the technical side of their job and therefore they've defaulted into a leadership role, which is very common, right?

22:07Amy Jacobson: I guess the risk and the warning I gave to them before we head into a leadership program, and it's a risk for everybody out there when we start to have these conversations, is that sometimes when we start to teach people to be great leaders and teach them leadership skills, we actually realize that they don't want to be leaders. And this is really common. So the example that I was talking to them about, as I said, happened quite a few years ago. I walked into an organization where they had a couple of leaders who really weren't performing. They were kind of, they were snapping at their teams. They were constantly on edge.

22:46Amy Jacobson: They were high pressure. They just wanted to do their own thing. And when things weren't working, they kind of just grabbed it all back and did it themselves, but didn't really offer the support for their team members. And when I sat down to speak to each of these leaders individually, what become really evident to me was they were technical experts at their industry and they loved that. They absolutely loved that. But what had happened is the minute a nice higher up the ladder job title was waved in front of them and said, do you want to be a leader? People naturally think that the way to be more successful is to climb into that leadership role.

23:28Amy Jacobson: But after speaking to them about it and kind of saying, okay, what is the parts that you love the most about your job? And it was technical, technical, technical. I said, what are the parts that you enjoy the least of your job. And it was the people side. And that opened up a really big conversation, right? Because I said to them, you are in a middle management to a higher management leadership role. Your number one focus is people. If you don't like the people side of your role, then there's a chance you're in the wrong role. And that doesn't make you bad at your technical experience. That doesn't make you a failure.

24:08Amy Jacobson: It just means that you've chosen the wrong path for your career. So actually sitting down and speaking to them to get them to understand that the answer to this isn't to force them to love people and love people leadership. The answer to this is to find what their true strengths and what their true passions are. And the more that I spoke to them, It was very evident that the most experienced person in the team had become the leader, while there was another person in the team who had the foundations, like the brilliant foundations of being a really good leader, didn't have as much technical experience.

24:49Amy Jacobson: What I was able to do was to sit down with that executive group and say, here's a situation that you've got. You've got a person in a leadership role who doesn't love people leadership. They're in the wrong role, but they're a technical expert for you. They are so good at what they do. Their IQ is extremely high. Their knowledge is extremely high. You've got this other person who actually hasn't worked for you for that long at all. Their expertise is not at top level, but their leadership skills are brilliant. You have an opportunity here to slightly change your team structure and have a leader in there and a technical expert and have them work hand in hand together so that you have the expertise support that's coming across the team, but you also have somebody who loves people leadership to actually do those foundations, to do those one-on-ones, to create those development plans, to empower people, to help them become better at who they are.

25:48Amy Jacobson: And to the credit, the executive team absolutely took it on board and actually made the changes within a couple of weeks. And not only did it turn two people into so much higher performers, but it also gave a ridiculous amount of clarity to the team because the team then knew and the team liked both of these people, but were struggling where that leader wasn't delivering because that wasn't their specialty. So this is how you can take a very, what I was sent in to do was a very difficult conversation to kind of say, you're underperforming, what is going on? Why are you not a great leader? And even that leader come into the conversation, that little bit defensive to try and justify why they hadn't done this or why this hadn't worked out well.

26:36Amy Jacobson: But when we had that just humanistic, honest conversation, it became very evident that they were in the wrong job. Wow. So powerful and also such a good reminder to everyone that management is a skill set and that doesn't mean it has a skill set for everybody. There's natural inclinations and then there's the opportunity to develop. But if it's not something you're interested in, if it's not something you feel good and excited to do, then that's okay. You're just in the wrong role and you should lean or think about leaning into a different set of strengths and a different type of role path. So such a good reminder.

27:16Okay. So we spent a lot of time talking about those initial conversations. Let's talk just quickly about the follow-up conversation. So you've brought something up with someone. You've had that curiosity. You designed your plan with them for the support. They know what they need to do. And now it's been a week, a few weeks, who knows how long, and it's not happening. You're not seeing the changes. What does that conversation look like? How do you prepare for that differently or how does that flow differently?

27:44Amy Jacobson: That conversation needs to be completely different and that conversation must be driven by a consequence. And it comes down to that, again, that natural wiring of the mind. When we are faced with change, when somebody says to us, okay, I want you to stop doing that and start doing this or start doing this better, it takes change within our mind. We're talking about rewiring neural pathways. So it is going to take time to do, but the mind first is going to weigh up and say, what do I send again versus what do I send to lose? Now, if there is no consequence and you've told them four or five times and each time when they haven't done it right, nothing has happened, then again, nothing is going to happen again.

28:25Amy Jacobson: You've got to come into that conversation in a tell mode, not in a conversation mode, in a delivery mode. And you have got to let them know what the consequence is and you've got to follow up on that. So I'm going to need you to do this by this date. And if that is not done, here is the consequence for it. And the consequence doesn't have to be they lost their job, but the consequence might be, okay, it will be an official warning or it will be a removal of authority or it will be, you know, whatever it is, there must be a consequence. I love when we have that kind of clarity for ourselves and for other people, because I think the consequence part is really tough at work.

29:04And when you don't know what the default consequence is, and sometimes they're natural consequences, right? If this doesn't happen, then we might lose this potential client or this project is going to fall behind schedule and it's going to cause a lot of pain for a lot of people on the team. So sometimes it's really obvious and you just have to name it. And so I appreciate that knowing that going in so that you can share that because it might not be so obvious to them. Okay. But now we do have to wrap up. So Amy, can you tell us about a great manager you worked for and what made this person such a fabulous boss?

29:41Amy Jacobson: Yeah, I'm even going to call her out actually, because I'm not in that strong a contact with her anymore, but her name was Tina Fisher. And she was the most incredible manager that I had simply because she grounded me. She took her energy and instead of adding fuel to my fire or inspiring me, she came with the opposite approach to me. And I learned so much about myself and it got to the point where even when she was no longer my manager, whenever I was in a situation and whenever that emotional brain kicked in, all I had to say to myself is, what would Tina say? If I picked up the phone right now, what would she say?

30:21Amy Jacobson: And she always found a way for me to calm the emotions and to kick in my logical brain and to really put a bit of a reality check onto situations. That's what made it so good. Oh, sounds so helpful. And where can people learn more about you? Remind us the name of your book and where people can find it. Yeah, so head over to my website. That's the easiest place to find all of the connections with me. So that is amyjacobson.com.au. You'll find the links there to my books. Both of my books, you'll find insights, articles, podcasts, media, all that kind of stuff. And yeah, you'll also find my links to LinkedIn and social media platforms too.

31:03Amy Jacobson: Fabulous. Well, thank you again so much for joining me today. I definitely feel much better about some of the conversations I'm going to have to have in the future. Thank you so much for having me, Mamie. I really enjoyed it. All the links are in the show notes and they can be delivered to your inbox when you subscribe to my newsletter. Plus, you'll get that episode guide with the key takeaways from every conversation. Go to themodernmanager.com to get on the list. Thanks again for joining us. Until next time.