If you’re like the school leaders I’ve met, you’ll find difficult conversations tend to come at you, from all angles, many times a day.
What counts as a difficult conversation?
A ‘difficult conversation’ is a dialogue about a situation where something needs to improve (results, performance, working relationships etc) and where voicing the issues is likely to upset someone to some degree.
If you’re sure someone won’t be upset then it’s unlikely to be a difficult conversation.
Common difficult conversation topics in schools
1. Books not marked frequently or well enough
2. Poor teaching and/or poor planning
3. Not working as a team
4. Bullying behaviour
5. TAs not working with a child or class well enough
6. Year/subject leaders not driving performance across their year/subject
7. Missed deadlines or failure to carry out agreed actions
8. A brusque receptionist
9. Lateness
10. Laziness
I’ve witnessed a lot of difficult conversations – thankfully not all my own – and there are three common problems I see repeatedly, no matter what the topic. Maybe you’ve also experienced some, or all, of the following…
Problem 1: They don’t hear your message
You raise an issue with someone, you’re as clear as you can be and you give your message in several different ways, but when they walk away, you feel like they didn’t hear what you were telling them.
In fact, you might feel they’ve heard something else. It’s frustrating, and can you make you feel like it wasn’t worth having the conversation in the first place.
Problem 2: Things get emotional
When we’re giving a message that’s hard for someone to hear, emotions can increase. Maybe they cry, withdraw or get angry.
This can be hard on us as well as them. We didn’t give them the message to cause distress; we gave it to help them improve. But we’re human, and we can react emotionally.
Emotions come into play before, during and after the conversation. Have you ever worried about a conversation you knew you needed to have? Perhaps you’ve played it over in your mind, or it’s become the low point in your week ahead.
After the conversation, have you ever re-played it, re-lived or even re-invented it, imagining what you could have said and then how they would have responded, even though the conversation is over? If so, you’re not alone.
The problem with these emotions is that they can be exhausting and use up a lot of your energy, which means there’s less energy for the rest of school and your home life.
A memorable example of the impact that emotions can have was with a school leader that I trained. As we started the day, she told me how she had a difficult issue with a woman in her school, and that she took this woman on holiday with her. She was by the pool, at dinner, on the beach, always with her.
I remember thinking ‘Why would you take this person on holiday with you?’. Then I then realised that she wasn’t physically with her – the woman had been in her head throughout the holiday.
This school leader was reliving, replaying and reinventing the conversation she’d had with her colleague, and it was ruining her holiday.
Problem 3: Nothing changes
Finally, problem 3 is when no change happens. You know this situation – you have a difficult conversation with someone and they agree with what you say, including what they need to do next.
But you’re pretty sure none of the changes will actually happen. This means that despite putting yourself through a difficult conversation, sadly, you might as well have not bothered!
How to have difficult conversations
Another senior leader I worked with had exactly this problem. For a year he’d been repeatedly asking a capable team member to complete some necessary paperwork. However, for that entire year, the paperwork hadn’t materialised.
We worked on the three core components of successful difficult conversations. After a subsequent conversation, this previously uncooperative member of staff produced all the paperwork within eight hours.
So what are they? Three core components that, when all in place, will dramatically increase the success of your difficult conversations, no matter what the topic. Taken together, they tackle the three common problems discussed above head-on.
Structure – Ensure your message is heard
The problem of someone not hearing your message is down to your message being unclear.
You might feel like that you’ve been crystal clear. However, I’ve seen hundreds of school leaders who believe they have a clear message when in fact they do not.
It’s the single biggest mistake I see in around 70% of difficult conversations.
Emotional management – Prevent exhaustion
Emotions are exhausting and can derail a successful difficult conversation, as well as making the conversation occupy too much of our internal thoughts before and afterwards.
Emotions are, however, an important and inevitable part of having these conversations, so learning how to manage our own and the other person’s emotions is crucial.
Trust – Increase the likelihood of positive action
When the other person doesn’t take action following the conversation, whether they said all the right things or not, is due to a lack of trust.
I’m not talking here about trust that you might have built up from knowing someone for a decade, or perhaps from having grown up with them.
I’m referring to the trust in the interaction itself. Often, we’ll inadvertently sabotage trust through our non-verbal communication. This reduces the effectiveness of our conversation.
Why these strategies work
When a team, such as the SLT, middle leaders or year group leaders, understand these three components of successful difficult conversations, they can reflect and analyse their interactions more effectively. They have a framework and language for difficult conversations.
Without this knowledge, the analysis of a conversation will tend to be unhelpful, taking the form of ‘I said…’, ‘He/ she said…’ or ‘Perhaps if you’d said…’.
This won’t enable you to have more effective conversations. With this knowledge, teams are better able to support one another with their difficult conversations.
To draw a parallel, this is akin to what you can do when you’ve observed a lesson where you know what was (or wasn’t) working, and can explain this clearly.
This is the level teams get to once they understand the mechanisms at work in a difficult conversation.
Sonia Gill is director of the school leadership training provider Heads Up. The article is an edited extract from her book Successful Difficult Conversations In School.
