48. Navigating Difficult Conversations

Connor: Welcome back to the Driven Leadership podcast, everybody. We have a special guest that has come back to the show. Her name is Mary Belden McGrath. Welcome back, Mary. How you been?

Mary Belden McGrath: Good, good. Yeah. It's been a while. I was like, oh, we're still doing podcasts.

Connor: We are still doing them.

Eric: Yeah.

Connor: It's been the Eric and Connor show for a while.

Eric: Yeah. Connor and I are holding the fort down.

Mary Belden McGrath: I'm invited.

Eric: You're invited. Every time you find ways not to show.

Connor: I think last time we did sit down to record one, you had to run out to, uh, for a sales call, which, you know, is a reasonable excuse, so. But we're glad you're back today. And of course, as always, we're joined by, uh, Eric and myself.

Eric: I made it to them. I'm just saying.

Connor: And myself, Connor. We are, uh, the Driven Leadership team. Everybody's a little spicy today. It is Friday. We're feeling good. It's October. The moon is full, the eyes are bright. Um, and today we're talking about difficult conversations, um, which I'm sure anybody in leadership listening to this has never dealt with. A difficult conversation. So this is going to be maybe a conceptual combo, uh, for a lot of people. No, I mean, I feel like in leadership, almost every conversation can turn into a difficult one. Um, so it is intentionally broad. We're going to dive into, um, what happens when people avoid these types of conversations. How do you have productive, difficult conversations? What are some tactics or tools or even just mindsets you can go into these conversations with? Um, and of course, this is ahead of our. Let me see, scheduling wise. I think this is coming out the week of our webinar that we're doing a whole webinar on how to have difficult conversations. So it's been, um, pretty relevant for us in the past few weeks.

Eric: Well, and. And Connor doesn't know this, but Mary and I planned this before. And so we thought we'd on air, live, have a difficult conversation with Connor and thought that was the best way to do it.

Connor: Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. Yeah,

Eric: that just.

Connor: That's not discovery that I've had. I've had. That's a. That's a new trigger for me because that some deep panic set in. Uh, very, very deep panic.

Eric: No, but it ties into this because my very first thought, we started talking

Connor: about this sales call. I gotta go. Um,

Eric: my very. My very first thought of this is the more people are prepared and ready for the conversation, typically the better it goes. Not always, but you just saw that. I mean, people do this. There'll be a management, like, I'm gonna have a difficult conversation. And they're completely surprising the other person.

Mary Belden McGrath: Yeah.

Eric: And they go through a whole series of emotions. And now you're managing, you're triaging out of this minefield you just built. Um, but anyway, so it's a good little introduction. I'm glad we got you to panic.

Connor: Fantastic. Yeah.

Mary Belden McGrath: Well, and that actually is what happens in a difficult conversation. And exactly what you just did and said is because we go into that protective mode, it's safety, it's fight, flight, freeze, and all rationale goes away.

Connor: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's. We talked about this before a little bit. Uh, we've been doing the personal masterclass, the breaking through self sabotage. Eric and I just went through it. We've. We're on like, our seventh class somehow of people going through it. And something that came up in our last class we had together was a guy saying kind of like, what have you gotten out of the class? And he realized. He's like, I. Now that I understand what my personal triggers are, he's like, I've realized that that was. Been holding me back from having difficult conversations that I've needed to have. And of course, we're talking mostly in business, but I think that's true in our personal lives as well, where it's like, oh, uh, you're unconsciously triggered by this thought. And so my response is just to avoid the conversation. Or when the conversation does happen, it goes sideways real quick. And like, Eric, you said, now we're in triage mode. We're managing emotions rather than the logistics. And, like, what actually needs to come out of the difficult conversation? Um, so I think that's kind of an apt place to start with this. Why, just in general, why do people avoid difficult conversations? What have you seen? Um, and then ultimately, like, we can move into how do you get to where you're now willing to have difficult conversations with people that are in your business or on your team?

Eric: People are weak. That was a joke. That's a total joke. But I think people believe that. But that's. That's not true. Go go. Marriage more than actually, um, I'm gonna

Connor: clip that, and that's gonna be the clip that goes around.

Eric: Social media are weak.

Mary Belden McGrath: No. Difficult conversations are. A lot of times, because we make it about ourselves, we, uh, get uncomfortable. We're afraid of what people think. Are we going to say it right? We're afraid of losing or hurting the relationship. We're afraid of being vulnerable. What if we do it wrong and into the triage. If we come in, you know, I say all good intentions, sometimes the intention is there. And yet we do something that actually upsets people. And uh, we say it's not our intent, it wasn't our intent, and that's not what they hear. So when we have time and we can set people up for success, it can help. But we also have to recognize people are getting triggered. Uh, we don't feel safe. We have to build. We're actually doing the five behaviors right now. And that's been top of mind, that vulnerability based trust. When we have trust, it, it actually allows us to have better, difficult conversations.

Connor: Yeah, well, I actually don't know if we've talked much about five behaviors. So what is vulnerability based trust compared to just regular vanilla trust is. What's the, what's that delineation look like?

Mary Belden McGrath: I feel safe with you. I feel safe to say to be. It's not going to come back. Um, you know, we talk about character competence and vulnerability competences. I believe that you can, you have the skill set. You can follow through with the task because you have the skill set. Competence is. You have the integrity. I trust you to follow through with your word. Vulnerability really is. I feel safe with you and I can be real and authentic.

Eric: You generate a vulnerability, a vulnerable conversation by admitting weaknesses or, or challenges or where I'm not perfect or where we kind of drop the guard of the, the shroud we put up of whether some people it's perfection, some people it's dominant, some people it's whatever. And we, we drop that and we let people pass that guard. And when we do in that conversation, uh, the trust that comes out of it is more authentic. It's more, we feel more connected in it because someone has entrusted us to get there. You got to trust somebody else to let them pass a guard that they're not going to use that in some way or look at us different or judge us or all those type of things. Uh, and it's a hard thing for a lot of people to do. And I put me in this category. Mary's better at it than I am. But for me, especially as a new kind of leader and manager, I thought I was supposed to put up a Persona. You know, I'm supposed to have all the answer. I mean, we teach leadership and management training. I feel like I battle this from time to time where I'm like, I'm supposed to know the answer to that when I don't. And so now I feel like I'm a lot better at it. When I don't know, I don't even say, well, I'll find out for you. I'm like, man, I have no idea. But that's a really good question. Let's figure it out together, you know, And I, and I kind of. Because to me, I don't have all these insecurities underneath. I'm good at certain things. I know what I'm good at. I'm generally know what I'm bad at. And, and so I'm okay with owning that. But when I was younger, I didn't really know what I was good at and I didn't even know what I was going after in life. And I didn't. There was all these unknowns. So I'm like, I don't want people to uncover that I'm a little lost here or I don't know the answers there. And by doing that, I wasn't safe being vulnerable. When we're not safe being vulnerable, we have trouble building trust and connecting with others. So now you go build a team without vulnerability. What you get, you can get performance and short term goals, but you usually don't get the long term. I'm in this fighting for the person next to me because I care about them. We get something different.

Mary Belden McGrath: Well, and that goes the managing difficult conversations is usually they go sideways. We lose connection so we're not connected to that person. We're into survival, we're into protection, we're into assumptions. Our judgments, we get triggered. And we're waiting for them to either back up the story that we're telling ourselves or they're waiting for this, you know, to back up the story that they're telling themselves. And when I think about having a real good conversation where you have to create, you know, connection, you want something to happen and to shift it has to start with trust. How do we connect first so that we can actually have the conversation and they hear us?

Connor: Yeah.

Eric: Yeah.

Connor: So what does this look like for, for leaders who are struggling with this? Maybe struggling to like sit down and have these types of conversations with their team because, and it's funny because, I mean we're talking to myself like 10 years ago. Right. The avoidance of having conversations like we're talking about was heavy. So what is some um, like real, real life skill or advice that, that you guys can give to somebody who's willing to start this path but they don't know how? What does it really look like and feel like to have to start with this vulnerability based trust at this, at the top of difficult conversations.

Eric: So, so for me, uh, it started with like you're saying it starts with this desire. Okay, so if you got somebody that has the desire to be better at this or work on it, if you have that, the easiest place in my opinion to go is to start by being curious and asking questions. So, so if we're gonna sit down and have a real conversation, it's easy to get really curious about somebody else I think instead of so, so what a lot. So meet high performers and they're sitting down, they're going, okay, this person's in front of me. How do they help me accomplish my objective? And that's, that's the, that's all about me. So what Mary's talking about is it's like it's very me focused. So it's getting out of the me to go, what's happening over there? And getting curious about it. How do they think? Where, where do they go with it? What do they um, why are we handling things this way? What's happening in. You can go, I had somebody in a class recently, we were talking about this and they go, okay, so you're saying to connect with people, to build this vulnerability based trust. Well, do I have to tell them about like what happened to me when I was a kid and I have to go through or the phrase we had on the other podcast, you know, my, my terminology, why my arm fell off when I was you know, 10. He's like, do I have to tell them all that stuff to have a real relationship with him? Because I'm not comfortable with that. I'm like, no, you don't have to do that. Yeah you don't at all. It's a way. But if I'm just getting curious, I mean, um, example actually Kyla, today Kyla handles all our logistics and um, we changed the process for how we're doing our follow ups to Bold and, and it's awesome by the way. We just kind of radically shifted that Mary, Mary did pilot it. It's really cool but we shifted the process and in there at the end of it, uh, she's been putting together uh, Kyla's been putting together a video on uh, kind of how their dirt their journey. We got all these pictures from Bold and put together. Really? Yeah, it's so cool. It's a really cool video. And so yesterday we're doing our first video with the change in sustainability and she didn't do the video and I was like, well so, so me being, let's get it done. High perform. Okay, so what, my natural. Okay, give it five even five years ago, 10 years ago would have been what the. Why, why isn't this done? Why'd you drop the ball? Uh, you know, and it kind of come in. That's all about me. That's a fear of we're not, we're not prepared, we're not this, we're not all that stuff. So instead today I went and I go, hey, what, what happened there? Like, what, what was the thought process? Why do we land here? And. And she had, she's going, man, we changed this whole thing. I thought we dropped this out of it. And it was an assumption, it was a miscommunication. It wasn't anything. But what I would have done prior to that is I would have actually created a distance because I would have come in attacking about my agenda and what's going on. And instead I got curious. I wouldn't say I handled all of it perfectly because I was still kinda like, why do we do that? I mean, it was. She had to kind of explain quite a bit. But the end result is you want to get, you want to start this and you're in that space. How do you get curious? How do you see it from their perspective? How do you learn what their perspective is? And in doing that, people get. Are m. Typically more comfortable talking about them and their work and what's going on in their mindset. I'm not, I, I don't sit down and go, hey, we need to get closer. So like, were your parents nice to you? That's not where we're going. You know, that's not.

Mary Belden McGrath: But, no, but, but with. So with our team and this is with anyone, vulnerability based trust starts with, hey, how are you doing? So that connection, we get to actually know people we know.

Eric: When Mary asked, hold on. Mary sits down and goes, how you doing? I immediately go, oh, I'm not doing well. Well, I didn't know it like, Mary has this ability to ask that question and it like pierces your soul and you're like, amazing. Oh my God. So I, I'm just saying, Mary, it's a little different with you. But anyway, keep going. Sorry I cut you off.

Mary Belden McGrath: No, the. To have the right to actually step in. We get to know our people. The power of connection. Yeah, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Like really do you step in on Monday morning, check in. Hey, how's your weekend? How's your daughter? How's your mom? You know, the, um, the moments to actually connect that creates vulnerability based trust to say, I want to know about you. It's not just, hey, what system, what process are L10 meetings? What do you got going on? What's the agenda? We take the time to connect. So when the difficult conversations show up. Mm, I'm, I already. The assumption is gone. So we use, and I know we've hit this on a lot of our podcasts, we use the intermetrics. Whatever tool you use, when you know people's preferences and how they're taking in information, when you get to know your people, you challenge those assumptions. So something happens for me. Why am I triggered? Because I just made about me.

Connor: Yeah.

Mary Belden McGrath: So the, the conversation. Because since we'll use Kyla and my standards, everyone knows my standards are stupid high. Uh, and I, I look stupid.

Eric: Strong word there. Stupid high. Sometimes it just, yeah, over the top high.

Mary Belden McGrath: And I had a training I was doing and I went straight from the training into this, my sustainability. Well, in the back of my mind, I'm like, I don't see the video, but in what. And to Erica's point, what I've done in the past, because I don't have that connection, the assumption would come out. I get pissed. And I didn't. I walked down and said, hey, you know, where's it at? Cool, can we just have it? And then I actually went back, which you didn't know. Eric and I had the conversation later and asked questions and got the same thing. I assumed. And she said, you know, I shouldn't assume that. I go, it's not about. Shouldn't ever should. It's okay. Like, I get it. And just from this point forward, just ask questions if you're not sure. Assumptions assert. Assumptions are the termite of every relationship. And when we get into difficult conversations, the things that happen is we get triggered. We're making assumptions. We make it about ourselves and we don't feel safe. Yeah. So once we can take all of that off, ask questions to Eric's point, get so curious. Curiosity. Questions are the answers. So how we do it, how we ask the questions, are we inviting or questions, you know, telling, Um, a little pointed.

Connor: Tell me why you messed up so much. Explain to me why you thought that was a good idea. Yeah. Um, is it, is it worth in this conversation talking about triggers? Because we've thrown it around a lot about like knowing when you're triggered and feeling triggered. So react a different way. Um, I mean, how do you, how do you begin managing that and understanding As a leader, as a person, like what your triggers are so that you can manage them better. I don't know if this is a tangent we should go on in this whole difficult conversation, but we've just referenced it a lot at this point.

Mary Belden McGrath: You know, it's interesting because I. The way we used to teach triggers was not near in depth, as we do with personal mastery.

Connor: Oh, uh, yeah.

Mary Belden McGrath: And when you understand your triggers, and especially when I look at the six cognitive distortions, I pick it up everywhere. Did I just personalize that? Am I catastrophizing? Are you catastrophizing? Get, uh, stuck in the shoulds. Right. The black and white thinking. When you see those triggers are unaware or you see it with other people. The stop method. Stop, pause, whatever. And you are in emotional state. And this is anytime we're having a conversation, and I always tell people, do not make. Do, uh, not have that conversation when you are emotionally hijacked. When we are triggered, when there is deep emotion, if you can pause and wait 90 seconds, they say research shows if you don't feed it more thoughts, the emotion starts to calm down.

Eric: If you go to have that stop stand for again, I always, always mess it up. It's. It's stop, take a pause, spot the trigger.

Mary Belden McGrath: So you have to know your trigger. Right.

Connor: Okay.

Mary Belden McGrath: Um, take a pause.

Eric: Pause.

Mary Belden McGrath: And knowing that 90 seconds, whatever you do, breathe, optimize your nervous.

Eric: Optimize. That's. Yeah.

Mary Belden McGrath: The butterfly that freaks people out. Or just your breathing.

Connor: Yeah.

Mary Belden McGrath: And then proceed with intention. And so many times I love one of my personal, uh, mastery classes. The gal said, well, I just do S and P and I forget about the T and the L. It's like, I'm just, like, triggered. And then I proceed, but not with intention.

Connor: Yeah, well. And I think it's important to note there because this was my first response when I heard the whole stat method of like, well, if I'm in the middle of something, and I'm like, uh, like, uh, for this conversation, I'm in the middle of a conversation that's going sideways. Uh, I can't just stop for 90 seconds and breathe for three minutes and all that stuff. But I think, like, I think you can. I think there's moments in conversations when they get maybe to the point of, like, being out of control or when you feel yourself getting triggered, you can call a timeout, especially if you're in a position of a manager or even if you're a position of a team member or you're. You're talking to your direct report. I don't know. Any time that I've heard of people calling a timeout and it not being respected, and at least where it's like, take a breath. Let there be an awkward silence while you just gather yourself so that you can move forward with intention. Because. And I literally was talking to a friend of mine last night where he was having a conversation with his direct report, his boss, about pay, which is really sensitive topic for a lot of people. He got triggered, and he said something that he had promised himself that he wouldn't say, but in the moment, he just said it because he was triggered. He got upset, he got emotional, and then said it, which happens so often. And it could be about dumb stuff about what shelf should this box go on in the warehouse, or stuff like that, where it's like, I think I deserve a raise, and I don't know why I'm not getting. Um. And so, yeah, I love the stop method. And you can take it to where it's like three seconds, 15 seconds, or the full 90, you know, three minutes, whatever you need.

Mary Belden McGrath: And you're letting yourself know, hey, I recognize right now I'm triggered. My amygdala is firing. I'm in fight flight freeze. I'm in protection. I see it. And right now, I'm just gonna calm it down. I'm gonna ask myself and. And look for the assumptions.

Eric: Yeah, my. Uh. And I mean, this serious. I don't mean this as a joke. So Stop method. I can't ever remember the words to it. So for me, stop. So. But. But for me, it's been. It's become. Stop digging a hole. Stop making it worse. Stop overreacting. Um, stop being frustrated. You know, and those are all the things to stop doing. And then there's a whole. Start doing. Take a breath.

Mary Belden McGrath: Yeah.

Eric: Calm. Calm the f down. Listen, um, to what's being said.

Connor: Yeah.

Eric: Hear the other perspective. Right. And. And this. The stop method helps walk through it. You know, it's funny, though, we were talking about difficult conversations, and then we've moved to triggers. And why when difficult conversations show up is because a lot of times we're triggered in the difficult conversation or defensive, or we're fearful, or there's heightened emotion. That's why. That's why they're difficult conversations. And then we're talking about triggers and. And managing those while we're in there and tools to do that. Okay, so got that pathway. But I still. I still feel like there's a big part to difficult conversations that is planning yes. And, and it's so there, there's the. What do we do when we're in it? Yes, we're self managing, we're listening, we're being curious. Um, we're using, there's all sorts of techniques we can use in difficult conversations, know their personality, all that. But what I find is difficult convers, unprepared and unplanned. And that's actually why I started there. Just kind of messing with you at the beginning. The more planned, the more prepared we are, the more we kind of in our head a little bit, kind of think this through and kind of, okay, where do I want this to go? How am I going to stay calm? And I'm even picturing myself, you know, we do this with athletes, they go into sports, they go into their game and we're like, okay, picture yourself. How do you want to kick the ball or throw the ball or whatever it is? Um, how are you feeling? How are you managing yourself through it? And all these things that we help them with, how to deal with stress and anxiety and pressure. Why don't professionals do that in other areas? You know, why aren't we visualizing the outcome that we want? Why aren't we practicing before? Why don't we center ourselves? We know a difficult conversation is coming in. Why aren't we going for that run or hitting the gym or doing whatever to help us get our nervous system in the right place? And it's such a big deal. And then planning. What are my key points? What do I need to do? Um, and I want to hit, I want to hit something else, but I don't know if you have something there, Mary, on the planning part that you want to add in.

Mary Belden McGrath: Well, I do actually. In our lead speak, there's ah, a whole tool that they walk through and one of them, um, was how can I blank while not blank? So you're looking at having a conversation with someone and it is the planning. You're planning to have that conversation. So what do I need? What needs do I need met that are not being met? What needs does the other person need met that might not be met? What assumptions could be happening challenge my assumption? What assumptions could they have? So how can I have this conversation? How can I get my ideas out clearly without shutting them down? So how can I blank while not blank? And that alone starts to create this, this ah, plan. And I have people map it out. So visualizing to your point and in mind, when I'm done with this conversation, what do I want to. I, uh, what do I want them to feel? Not necessarily me. What do I want them to feel? What do I want them to see? What I want them to do. Yeah, because in that if I say what do I want to feel, what do I want to see? I mean about me, right? But it's about the other person. So how do I connect? How do I truly bring true connection? And I understand that, you know, hi C needs facts, data, information. So in that planning stage, I know that I have to have my research done at the same time. How can I get this point across or ask for this without hurting them or shutting them down?

Connor: Yeah, yeah, the, the how can I not. Or uh, how can I blank, while not blank is, is such a crazy simple tool, but it is so powerful because I mean like with all leadership it just forces you to be intentional with, with what you're going into a meeting for. And in the, the, the blanks there can be, I mean absolutely endless. Like with, with the example with Kyla, it's like how can I understand what happened while not shutting her down and making her feel like.

Eric: Exactly.

Connor: How can I uh, go. How can I, you know, we just did our quarterly. It's like how can I build smart revenue based rocks while not shutting people's ideas down? And it's like there's so many options you can go and it forces you to sit down and be like, okay, so how do I do that? What is the. And it allows you to be in such more self control going into conversations. Um, yeah, I love that tool. It's such a, I mean it's like five words, two blanks, endless possibilities. So

Eric: all right, that's a scary quote that just happened. Or movie trailer.

Connor: Um, what was that other thing you were going to go into?

Eric: Well, okay, so, so, so a couple things. One, um, the, the, the what you guys were just talking about, I always think of the ands versus ors. And I know we've talked about that before but it's like to your point, okay, so I'm talking, talking to Kyla this morning and it's like how do I understand this and have this conversation and not shut her down? And I think a lot of people look at this as well. I need to have this conversation. If it shuts her down, whatever, it becomes a, um, it's not a. And I want all of it. I want to have a great conversation. I want to get my point across. I want to understand what's taking place. And, and, and I don't want to, I don't want to shut her down. I want her to feel empowered to be able to do things afterwards. Like all that. It's all. And but what people do is they make it an option. It's like, well, I'm gonna have this conversation and my end is I'm gonna feel good when I walk away. Wherever she's at, uh, well that's her deal, you know. And we don't focus on bringing more possibilities.

Mary Belden McGrath: We get our needs met and we don't worry about other people getting their needs met.

Connor: I mean I think I've literally heard it from other, from other leaders where it's like, yeah, I'm gonna go have this hard conversation and it's either gonna go good or it's gonna go bad and they're not gonna be here tomorrow. It's like, okay, what? Those are crazy options. Like what if we just stick to the more positive.

Eric: And they're always. Those are always the options that is possible. It's how do we uh, go in with bigger goals than that?

Connor: Yeah, well.

Mary Belden McGrath: And how do we go in with even more empathy? So talking about triggers and personal master being so front and center, we dive into Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The very first class and understanding. Then when someone's need is not being met or we perceive our need is not going to be met, we go into self protective mode. And so there's triggers, there's self sabotaging behaviors that show up for anyone. And that connection when we're talking about vulnerability based trust first, how do we earn the right to have a conversation and come from that place of. And while understanding some of their fears are going on.

Eric: Uh, I think these are also. We're talking difficult conversations with people that we want to continue to enhance the relationship and continue building from where we are. So which should be in. I did a should but in most cases will be the people that we work around on a daily basis. There are times where we're setting a boundary that either needs to change or we need to not move. So. So it's like we may be less connected in some of those conversations. But this, this was the other part I wanted to talk about was um. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna. So we, we also own ah, a company called Facial Lounge that we're part owners in it that is uh, day spas in Southern California. Awesome company. And they've got um, some of the team members that are over there. We had a new manager who was getting started with us and she's awesome, really good at connecting with People and working with them and really cares. And I think that's where it comes from. And when she had to have a difficult conversation, what would happen is she would, this veil would go over and all of a sudden she became like. All that I can picture is like the big HR company who has no, uh, or big company with hr. And HR comes in and they're just kind of sitting there and like you and it's so professional.

Connor: Yeah.

Eric: Right. And so there is. I just say we can have really hard conversations that are setting boundaries, even write ups.

Connor: Mhm.

Eric: And we can still be connected while being firm and strong. It just, it just sounds a little different. So, so I guess I'll uh, do my best with this. But it's like this, what we would. I see this often is that people put on that, you know, distance they're walking into. It's a difficult conversation. So I'm going to keep a distance in here. And in doing so, it actually makes the conversation typically a lot harder.

Connor: Way worse. Way worse.

Eric: Right.

Connor: Because now it's like you, if you're a person, like I imagine you're talking about uh, somebody who's very relational day to day with people coming in, finger guns, hey, how's everybody doing? And then, and then you sit down and it's like this like stoic, you know, on the other side of the table they're like, what is happening? Like, am I getting fired right now? Like, and they, their assumptions start coming up, they may be getting triggered and all this stuff happens.

Eric: So yeah, I just think it, so it goes, it goes something like this. It's uh, this is that conversation. It's like today we're going to be talking about your behavior on August 12, you know, and it's like this thing. Right. And instead it's like I said, you can still be strong. Like it's a hard conversation today. And we're gonna walk out of here and we're still gonna love each other and work together or whatever the right words are. We're still gonna, we're still gonna be going after this thing, but we gotta shift, man.

Connor: Yeah.

Eric: We gotta have a different behavior that's going on. So I'm gonna run through this. I really want you to listen. And let's, let's figure out together how we're gonna move this needle.

Mary Belden McGrath: Yeah.

Eric: You know, and maybe that's not appropriate for all conversations, but that's why leadership is not a uh, cut and paste.

Mary Belden McGrath: Yeah.

Eric: And, and everybody's like, you know, you're teaching leadership. It's here's. Here's five steps to how to do this. And it's like, that's not how leadership works. Uh, leadership is artwork. It is true art. It is taking the person, the situation, who's watching, who's in the middle of it, What's. What's actually going. You. And personalities and. And your skill set and their skill set and your past relationship and where you want this thing to go. And I mean, you. You start weaving all this stuff together, and there's a few key components. And I think that's what we're hitting, is that how do you stay connected and get your point across and not give up your power in the conversation and listen and be curious and be just a good human being with some common sense that's going on in the middle of it. And if you start having those type of things Versus the conversation being, I'm gonna do what I gotta do, and they gotta. And they're. Whatever happens, happens. When we start to add more pressure on us to perform better, the difficult conversations in my mind get so much easier. They do. Because we're coming from care. So if we walk out of the place. Difficult conversation. We walk out and we went in with care and purpose and planning. We did all these things, and it goes bad, which will happen. Then you go, you know, I did my best, you know, and I came from the best place I could, and that's what happened. Okay. Versus I go in and I do the opposite. And then I walk out and I'm like, well, that's what I expected to happen. Oh, well, you know, and put the

Connor: blame on them of like, well, they're just not supposed to be here.

Eric: Oh, it's their. It's always their fault.

Connor: Yeah.

Eric: Yeah, it's always their fault.

Mary Belden McGrath: It's having the intention before. So this is what we talked about, the vision. So the. How can I. Well, not. It is. How can I be strong and firm without losing connection? And if we as leaders go into a conversation and we really come from the place I want to stay connected or, uh, you know, whatever that is. If we come in going, well, it doesn't matter what's happening. We're never coming in with the right intent anyways. So you're not going to manage a difficult conversation to the best of your ability. It's like effort. But if we truly want to and we seek to understand and we do our planning and we ask great questions and we think about, I. Yes, this is what's required of me, yet this is what I want for Them, you know, another. Another element. Sometimes we create difficult conversations. We create the conversation that goes sideways within the. There's a. The helped, hugged, heard analogy. M. So you have two people talking and someone is emotional and they're freaking out. And human nature is. A lot of times we want to come and we fix. It's like, oh, well, I can.

Eric: I never do this. Everyone. Never. Never do this.

Connor: Never fix anything.

Mary Belden McGrath: Yeah, never.

Eric: That might be true.

Mary Belden McGrath: It's not about the nail. We. One of these days we're going to play It's not about the Nail in our podcast, but we come in and we come in with a helped conversation when they just need to be heard. And when they need to be heard and we come in and we want to hug them or help them, um, we shut them down. There's an absolute disconnect. If someone wants to be helped and they're asking for help and someone's not there to help them, they're like, oh, you know, whatever. And they're just like, let's be social. Now you've had a disconnect. So. And I. I'm going to bring that into the, uh, webinar also, because that conversations between people, when you can recognize what they need and where they're at, and we match them. M. It creates connection.

Connor: Yeah. Yeah. I think the. The biggest piece for me as we kind of land this plane here. And this came up again talking to my friend last night who was dealing with that difficult conversation that they had. And it's kind of like, what do you do moving forward from that? How do you, uh, either repair a difficult conversation or, like, what is really. And this is kind of what we're talking about, like, what's the end goal here? And for me, I look at it in the lens and I know we're throwing out around a lot of stuff. Five behaviors. Disc.

Mary Belden McGrath: Lead speak.

Connor: Um, lead speak. Like, we're throwing out a lot of stuff. But the conflict modes that we. That we talk about the TKI and using those modes, I think it's. Conversations go from difficult to impactful. When you're sitting across the table from somebody, you're willing to have a difficult conversation. You're willing to go into a competing mode to be like, we're going to talk about this. This sucks. This is a problem. You messed up, I messed up. We have to figure out. So you. But you go from that competing mode and you steer the conversation through curiosity of like, hey, tell me what happened here? Uh, or like, why did we make this decision? What went wrong? What did you understand? And you go from competing to this collaborating mode. And that is kind of where the magic can happen in, uh, repairing relationships. You know, difficult conversations, like we said at the top, is a very broad. And I'm more talking about things that are like, maybe trust is broken and you have to have a really difficult conversation of like, how do we move forward? If you come at it where it's just like, this is where you messed up and this is what we have to do. Xyz, this is the plan I came up with in my office with the door closed and this is what we're going to do. It's just you're not getting the other person on board. And so getting to that sweet spot of being able to collaborate with somebody through a difficult conversation and then you walk out of the room. You're both on the same team, you both have the same vision, you both have the same, uh, agenda. And I mean I know the difference from when I was a young leader to a more experienced leader. And the difference in those conversations is massive because then now six months down the road and as a leader, I mess up, that person can hold me accountable and we have the relationship that is healthy and we can have more difficult conversations on the fly and they become easier and you slip into that mode. Um, and so I think that like, if I had to boil it down of like how to have difficult conversations or really what the end goal is, rather not how to have them, but what the goal should be. It's like, how do you start collaborating with somebody on the issues that have come up on the problem? And I mean, because really how Dr. Kilman talks about collaboration is like, that's when you start getting new ideas and um, like fresh objectives and initiatives to work from. So very cool.

Mary Belden McGrath: Yeah, I just. Doing the. Well, I was just.

Eric: We nailed it.

Mary Belden McGrath: Hold on, I have one more thought. Okay, so what you were saying, because I just did a 5 behavior yesterday, it was on commitment and where true collaboration, where you truly get commitment is alignment. But in order to get alignment, you have to have clarity and buy in. So it's not a one way conversation. It really is what we're talking about. How do you sit down? How do you seek to understand? People will not commit if their voices are not heard.

Connor: Yeah.

Mary Belden McGrath: People will not be open to change and truly buy in if it's coming at uh, them and they're not a part of the solution.

Connor: And I think in this context, literally talking about like, they won't commit to a difficult conversation if they feel like they're just being attacked and like, talked at, you know, and so, so it's, it's about commitment long term, but it's also like, how do you sit down and make sure that like, they, you get buy into the conversation that needs to happen right now, you know, which comes from all this, which is trust, planning and trust and yeah, all those things. So, um, fantastic.

Mary Belden McGrath: This is good.

Connor: I think we can just love how we're self promoting.

Eric: We nailed it. We're good. This is good.

Mary Belden McGrath: If the audience actually knew what happened right before we started, we literally did not know what we were going to talk about.

Connor: We always know what we're going to talk about. What are you, uh, talking about?

Mary Belden McGrath: It wasn't a deep plan.

Connor: We can get on the webinar Wednesday and I think just play this podcast. Everybody sit quietly and listen to it. And I think they'll walk away.

Mary Belden McGrath: Better people not. But they won't be bought in.

Connor: If you're listening to this now on, uh, Monday or Tuesday, October 13th and 14th, you still got time to sign up for the webinar. It's anytime after that. Tough. Uh, no, we, we pre record them. You can still sign up and get the recording and all that stuff. But, um, but thanks for talking through this, guys. It's been a blast. And thank God we did not have a difficult conversation. I did not like that Cutter's still

Eric: spending from the start of this. It's awesome right now.

Connor: Well, thanks, Mary.

Eric: Thanks.

Connor: Uh, we'll see you guys next week.

Eric: Yep.

Mary Belden McGrath: Bye.