At CaPeesh Consulting, we help grow minds and hearts. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been working with teams to teach them how to have hard conversations. I even reached out over social media and polled people on the question, “What’s so hard about having hard conversations?” Here are a few good responses I received:
Karelin said, “For me, it’s owning up to the fact that things aren’t working or something has gone wrong—and now I have to ask for change.”
Shawna said, “I think it comes down to fear. Fear of being judged, challenged, not knowing what to say, making someone feel bad, or feeling bad myself.”
Many people are fearful of hard conversations not because of the conversation itself but because of the uncertainty and risk of emotional exposure. If that’s the case for you, that simply means you care. When something is classified as “hard,” it means there’s an opportunity; when you learn how to navigate the hard parts, you are actually tapping into a key part of your deepest power— your heart.
Here at CaPeesh Consulting, we help transform leaders and their teams into courageous folks who know how to have hard conversations. We do this through experiential methodologies that benefit people by helping them:
- Stop gossiping and go straight to the source.
- Feel heard and seen, which then leads to better relationships. And as I’ve said in a previous video, it’s hard to leave an organization when we love the people we’re working with.
- Begin to trust more and take more risks.
So where do we start? We start with increasing awareness of our tolerance for vulnerability, then practicing proven frameworks that turn hard conversations into honest ones. Then, those interactions can become less scary.
You can do this! Let’s stop avoiding those hard conversations and lean into that vulnerability. If you have any questions or would like assistance in overcoming your own fears about having hard conversations, give me a call or send me an email. I’d love to help you. Salamat Po, and take care of yourself!
