Episode 1: How Your Approach to Hard Conversations will Unlock Your Leadership Superpower
Episode 1 Transcript
Cathy Maday: 0:00
I’m going to work them out of the equation, and then I’m just going to go handle it. Okay, well, now the consequences get even bigger. Welcome to Leading Without the BS: Unfiltered, unapologetic, unstoppable performance. Today we’re talking about…
Ivan Konermann: 0:12
Talking about approaching hard conversations. We see this every day in the sessions we have with leaders where people will say… I don’t know how to have this conversation with my team member. I don’t know how to have this conversation with my peer. I don’t know how to approach this with my manager.
Cathy Maday: 0:29
Yeah, yeah. Or even on the home front
Ivan Konermann: 0:31
Yeah, good call.
Cathy Maday: 0:33
A lot of times it’s also combined with accountability. I’ve got to hold this person accountable and I don’t want to confront him. Yeah. I spent some time supporting a leader just last Friday around this.Ivan Konermann: 0:49
Yeah. Yeah, it’s a common, probably one of the biggest things that we end up talking about with leaders is how to jump into these difficult exchanges.
Cathy Maday: 0:58
For sure. Well, the amount of angst and stress and wasted time that people are creating accidentally and certainly in some cases, even unknowingly, really takes its toll on their, not only on their performance and results at work, also on the home front, with their most important people.
Ivan Konermann: 1:20
Yeah. And what happens, certainly you and I have both done it and then also seen it with our the leaders we work with is a lot of times folks just won’t have those conversations and then they’re pissed or they’re frustrated or they start to build this narrative in their head of, well, this person’s a dick. He doesn’t care because he’s not doing anything about this. And this has been going on for so long. Well, they haven’t said anything to them.
Cathy Maday: 1:41
The other person can be completely oblivious as to what’s happening. Yeah.
Ivan Konermann: 1:45
I was that guy. I was a completely oblivious guy. And so he came and told me, I was like, oh man, I wish you had told me. They’re like, yeah, without being a jerk. I was like, no, I
Cathy Maday: 1:52
didn’t. And I was the avoiding person. I would end up just working around the person. And then, of course, that brings in a whole other host of autopilot problematic behaviors that I’ll just do it myself.
Speaker 01: 2:06
Oh, yeah. I’m
Cathy Maday: 2:07
going to work around. I’m going to work them out of the equation, and then I’m just going to go handle it. Okay, well, now the consequences get even bigger.
Ivan Konermann: 2:14
Yeah. And it gets really hard where there are some team members where you… are going to find it exceptionally difficult to work around them. You’re going to have a hard time working around your manager. You’re going to have a hard time working around the person who’s the project manager for this really big project or big implementation. There’s only so much working around you’re going to be able to do. And that’s where for folks watching, this is the spot to realize, yeah, I want to approach this conversation and I want to do it in an honest way. I want to do it in a thorough and honest caring way, not just for me, also for them and also for the team and the business, because you all are all working on important stuff.
Cathy Maday: 2:53
Oh, that’s a perfect segue into how do people get there in the first place? Because you’re talking about what people want. We help people get to what they want.
Good call.
Cathy Maday: 3:01
So let’s cover the ways that people will get themselves there in the first place. They’re avoiding, they’re delaying, they’re wasting a bunch of time creating stress for themselves, slowing down progress. So what’s one of the ways?
Ivan Konermann: 3:16
Yeah, I had a flashback to a leader I worked with, golly, six years ago. And She was frustrated with what one of her team members was doing. And I kept saying to her, I’ll call her Amy because that’s not her name. I said, Amy, it’s time for you to have this conversation. What’s going on? You keep delaying this. She’s like, I just don’t know. I’m just so afraid that he could do this or he could do that. So she was so over-indexed and focused on how the conversation could go poorly and what she didn’t want that she was backseating all the things that she did want to create. for him, for her, for the other team members involved.
Cathy Maday: 3:56
Well, that’s so common also is, and this is applicable in so many different situations for all of us. I tend to focus on what I don’t want. And that’s I mean, that in general. And then what happens to the more we’re focusing on what we don’t want, then we just start to get a little momentum. We start spiraling.
Cathy Maday: 4:17
because then we keep we keep focusing on the worst case scenario.Ivan Konermann: 4:20
Cathy Maday: 4:21
And here it goes another day, another week. We haven’t addressed it.
Ivan Konermann: 4:24
And I say to folks, I said, you’re, you’re letting us build into a, into a monster. It’s like when a child hears something in the dark and they go, Oh, there could be a monster in the closet and just gets bigger and bigger and bigger each day and each week. And the fangs get longer and the claws get sharper. It’s totally understandable because our ancient ancestors on the African safari, like they were Savannah, whatever the thing is called. They, they had physical threats around them every day. And if they were, if they had a false, I believe it’s called a false positive or false negative, or they said, oh, there’s a rustling in the bushes, that’s probably fine. And then a tiger jumped out and ate them. Well, they were out of the gene pool. It’s the people who said, oh, that rustling in the bushes, crap, that’s probably a tiger is going to eat me. And they beat it and got out of there. They’re the ones who lived. And so we have this tendency to look for the problems, the negative things, see where it could go sideways.
Cathy Maday: 5:15
For sure. For sure. I mean, our Our brains are eight times more wired to identify threat, danger, threat. pain for us to avoid than it is for pleasure or desire, what we want to have happen. So the other thing, too, is that sometimes people will, you’re talking about how we’ll get some momentum and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Some people start off with it being bigger in their minds because of the language, what they’re telling themselves. So the language that they’re putting on it, I’m calling it I don’t want to confront him.
Yeah.Cathy Maday: 5:51
I don’t want to have this confrontation or I don’t like conflict.
Cathy Maday: 5:55
Like as soon as they start attaching those words where instead of it just being a conversation. Yeah. They start attaching those words all of a sudden, like it’s amplified right up front.Speaker 01: 6:05
Cathy Maday: 6:06
And then of course, avoiding. I don’t want to be in a conflict with Jim. I got a thing. I got something else to do.
Ivan Konermann: 6:13
Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really good point that for everyone watching or listening. To remember that words matter. And when we use words a little bit carelessly, we use them without…
Cathy Maday: 6:26
Habitually.
Ivan Konermann: 6:27
Habitually, yeah. They’re just habit. Yeah. Just habit. It’s habit. It’s also just not accurate. Because if we think about what conflict really is, there’s plenty of, unfortunately, plenty of places in the world we can see what conflict really looks like. And that’s not what’s happening when you go to approach Sally from finance about this expense report that hasn’t been… processed or whatever it is. So it’s, it’s a very different way to help people think about it differently and say, and I’ve had plenty of conversations as I’m sure you have, or have a set of folks. Well, what’s, what is it you really are wanting here? Well, well, I want this to get processed. Okay. That’s it. Then, then, then use that language for yourself. Hey, we have an overdue thing that it’s time to, to address. Awesome. It’s not conflict. That’s not, I’m going to go pick a fight with someone.
Cathy Maday: 7:11
Well, yeah, even further and the work setting going further into what’s accurate. It’s not even, what are you wanting? It’s what’s expected, what’s required of the person in the role. We can go even more accurate than that. So you’re saying it’s not exactly, focus on what you want. Because again, tied to that first thing we covered is that most people will focus on what they don’t want. well, now it’s not just what you do want. It’s what’s expected. So like whether you’re an entrepreneur, you know, a business owner, sometimes your team includes contractors. They don’t necessarily report to you. And so you’re managing the performance and the output, the results of those contractors. Well, it’s using language. So as are like in the past. So as are, you know, director of marketing, or as the, you know, reference the role, you know, you’re responsible for you’re required to, so it’s, the language can get even more accurate. Yeah. Which, by the way, that’s, that’s part of I’m jumping ahead a little bit, because that’s part of what you can do to help yourself, you know, stop avoiding, or sometimes, sometimes stop Overcompensating. Sometimes a person will get themselves into a professional will get themselves into this place of other kinds of problems because they don’t avoid it. They wait, they wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait till they feel justified. And then they go because they They like the confrontation. They like the sparring. That’s a whole other kind of problem in terms of having difficult conversations. Now, it’s those… individuals that have a tendency of saying, Oh, I’m, I’m brutally honest. I’m so direct. I’m honest. And I say, I say the truth.
Ivan Konermann: 9:06
I say exactly what I mean.
Cathy Maday: 9:07
Yeah. I say the truth, no matter if it hurts. Well, okay. You’re still diminishing and, and sometimes damaging, not only what can be co-created in terms of the work and the results, also the relationship for sure.
Ivan Konermann: 9:21
Yeah. Which, which is a great point. I want to stick in the tiny piece, which is for everybody. This isn’t just though, if you’re in a big organization or or you’re an entrepreneur on your own or a small business owner, this also works if you just interact with somebody. You go to the dentist, you have the plumber come over. All of these tools work equally well in those situations. So if you’re expecting something, even at home, you paid someone to do something and they’re missing a piece, just having that honest conversation to say, hey, will you please be sure to do this piece before you wrap? whatever that is. And then that way you’re, you’re, you’re speaking up. It’s a great spot to practice. I found the more I could find little places like that to practice, the easier it got all the way around, both on a personal front and on a professional front.
Cathy Maday: 10:08
Yeah. Well, and so that’s, I’ll cover the last thing that we were going to talk about in terms of how does a person get themselves here where they’re, they’re not approaching difficult conversations productively or effectively is they simply wait too long.
Cathy Maday: 10:24
So that’s often a byproduct of these other things that we’ve talked about, what you’ve been telling yourself, focused on what you don’t want, getting that momentum, the habits around how we’re thinking about it. Yeah, just the waiting, waiting, waiting. I love this quote from Mike just when we were in India. He said, I told him that I was going to steal it and that I would give him credit. He said, good news is good news. Bad news is good news. No news is bad news.
I love the way you said that because it just sticks.
Ivan Konermann: 11:00
That’s pretty advanced and high-level ownership and openness to… what’s happening. I want to go back just a tiny step, though, because what you described of the wait, wait, wait, this is where, and I wasn’t the best kid, my dad would level two intensity conversation with me, level two intensity conversation with me, level two intensity conversation, and I was still being a dipshit, and then it would pop to 14, and I was all surprised, and my dad had the long fuse, so if, again, for people watching or listening, just know that I’m having a long fuse, I’m keeping it, and a lot of people will say is, I want or want to keep it an appropriate level of language. Man, that’s such baloney because all that’s actually happening is you’re squishing down that intensity and the kicker is the other person is just going, well, Kathy don’t seem that upset about it. Maybe there’s something that big of a deal. It’s not a time for me to change. And so it looks, their intensity looks like a hockey stick. It’s flat, flat, flat, boom, and then it spikes up.
Cathy Maday: 12:00
I’m so glad you’re bringing it up. Because leaders that we work with, entrepreneurs, business leaders who act like entrepreneurs, just that ultra high level of ownership. Here’s the thing. You’re risk takers, you’re hard chargers, high achievers. And so what that means is you’ve got that unusual endurance at that high level of intensity. You operate awesome under pressure. Well, a lot of times when it comes to some of these things, you’re so composed.
overly composed.
Cathy Maday: 12:30
Yeah. Like you’re, you’re saying like your dad had that short fuse. I’m overly composed.
Ivan Konermann: 12:34
Long fuse.
Cathy Maday: 12:35
Doesn’t seem, and, and at the same time, you know, it all fricking matters. You know, this is, this is my baby. This is my business. It all matters. And so I’m like low composed, you know, actually I can be, I could be guilty of this one. I’m not showing it, not showing it, not showing it. And then all of a sudden, you know, like, and I’ll be, you know, my top will blow. And that’s, that’s common with the leaders that we work
Ivan Konermann: 13:03
with. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So, so one thing that I worked, I think about it as a stair step. So if I have a low intensity conversation and for me, I, I, it’s easier for me to go the other direction or I have high expectations. I’m, I’m, I’m, I like things to be done well and done quickly and done on time, et cetera, et cetera. And so it’s easy for me to go to a seven intensity when really it’s the first time. And if I go to a seven or an eight, the other person’s like, dude, this guy’s on
Cathy Maday: 13:32
his, like calm down, Conor men.
Ivan Konermann: 13:37
You do say that. You do say that a lot.
Cathy Maday: 13:39
Bring it down a notch
Ivan Konermann: 13:41
or, or, or five. Yeah. So, so that’s it for me. If it’s easy for me to flop to the, to flip to the high end of the scale and, Because I’m used to higher intensity, just for whatever reason, I am. So for me, it’s more of a point of how do I intentionally bring it down to a lower level when it’s the first time and then meter it up gradually so that I’m helping this other person understand this is a big stinking deal. Don’t misunderstand that everything’s cool. It’s not. This is a problem for you. And this is your part. And then if that doesn’t work, then I can go a little bit higher before I continue to raise them. At that point, it’s pretty clear. I’m using very deliberate language and also working to prep for those conversations. So we haven’t even really scratched that piece of it yet about how important prep is.
Cathy Maday: 14:27
Well, let’s get into that. And I know when we talk about intensity, of course, leaders who’ve been working with us for at least several months understand what that means. In the Wingspan system, we get into a range of intensity. intensity, which is really powerful, except it takes a little while to get some of the foundational tools within the wingspan system under your belt before you really start working on range. They’ll come back to you. So let’s start giving them a couple things that they can immediately put into practice.
Ivan Konermann: 14:57
Yeah. So first off, the intensity piece, think about everyone from a 1 to 10. That’s just the easiest framework to use. And so where most people operate is a 2 to a 4.
Cathy Maday: 15:09
Well, there’s a group. So
Ivan Konermann: 15:11
we’ve got groups who, like I was saying earlier, groups are those who really operate well under pressure.
And so they’re really even keel.
Cathy Maday: 15:21
So there are groups that are down at a low range of intensity, two, three, or four band. And then we’ve got a smaller group who often, like I think about… Don, like you, y’all like idle up at the higher
Cathy Maday: 15:38
It’s this mid range that people
Ivan Konermann: 15:40
most people are missing. That’s a really good point. It’s a really good point. So, so for everyone, again, listening or watching a couple of things that the first thing to do, and we’re getting into the, to the practice that you all could begin to put into place for yourselves is the first thing you do is to prep for these conversations, right? Because I’ll tell you, it’s easy to feel something and then roll in. And then my biggest sin is I’ll overshoot. I’ll bring out the howitzer round for a mouse. And then afterwards, I’ll feel like a dumbass because it was overkill or I pissed the other person off or they’re like, I’m never working with you again or whatever else.
Cathy Maday: 16:17
That has happened. That’s happened a couple of times. A
Ivan Konermann: 16:21
few. A few. I’m still working to learn that part.
Cathy Maday: 16:24
Well, here’s the thing, though. Just making a decision to start practicing your prep, that in and of itself, sitting down, pen and paper, in and of itself, you’re automatically interrupting your own autopilot. You’re interrupting your autopilot language of how you’ve been talking to yourself, how you’ve been talking about this experience. Quote, unquote, conflict or confrontation. So I want to point that out. That’s really, really important is that how are we interrupting our own autopilot around
Ivan Konermann: 16:58
this. Which is where the– so sitting down with pen and paper, fantastic, first step. The second thing is to ask yourself questions. And so one of the– I had a conversation with a leader last week who said, well, so-and-so is doing this. And I just said, how do you know? They said they’re thinking this. And I said, you’re making an assumption about a motive. So for everyone to know that the first thing to do is to capture what’s actually happening. And the word actually is like in my mind, bolded, underlined. There’s there’s asterisks around it to really get attention because this is where it’s important for me to challenge myself and not say, oh, I know what that that person’s up to. I know what they’re going for. And it’s important that I back out of that. a motive-driven narrative, and I go to, what’s the externally observable behavior?
Cathy Maday: 17:41
That’s just it. So when Ivan’s saying, actually, this is a core component in the Wingspan system because we focus on behavioral performance. And so every single day, we’re helping leaders to translate what their frustration, what they think is happening into, what is the observable behavior? The more observable behavior, or the more you’re articulating it, in terms of observable behavior, then the more objective it is. If I were hanging out with you in the same room, I would see the same thing you’re seeing. Well, now you reduce the room for misinterpretation and you start to turn some of that frustration you’re having into facts. And that’s the other piece too that I would say in terms of that prep is definitely writing, taking notes and getting really clear on what’s actually or what’s observably happening. And then And also, don’t ignore your frustration or your anger. As we say at Wingspan, your emotions have critical information. And so really what you’re doing is you’re getting to the facts in your feelings. And that’s really powerful, rather than just pretending that you’re not frustrated.
Ivan Konermann: 18:56
Let’s shine a little more light on… a motive-driven narrative versus an externally observable behavior-driven narrative. So let’s pretend Joe continually shows up late. We have meetings with Joe. Joe shows up late. We could make assumptions that Joe doesn’t care. Joe thinks we’re not important. We could make all these assumptions about what’s going on. Joe
Cathy Maday: 19:18
thinks he’s more important.
Ivan Konermann: 19:20
Yeah, ooh, really good one. So we can make all these assumptions around what’s happening inside of Joe’s head, and we don’t have any— We’re not really sure. Like I said, we don’t have any. We’re not really sure what is in there. All we know is the externally observable behavior is Joe showed up late to seven of the past eight meetings that we’ve had. If that’s a fact, that’s a fact. So that’s really key because that gets back to what you said is what’s the information in our emotions? I like to think of it as a pearl. What’s that piece of sand that’s at the middle that we start to layer stuff on top of?
Cathy Maday: 19:55
Yeah, for sure. And you also started talking about asking yourself questions. So that’s a really powerful way to get to the information in your frustration or in your emotion is to start asking yourself what we call advancing questions. So you said, what actually is happening? Or what’s the observable behavior? That’s a good question to ask yourself. How long? How long has this been going on
Cathy Maday: 20:25
really good. Who Like, who cares? Sometimes I’ll ask myself the who cares just to prompt, for me, prompt, what’s the impact? What’s the cost? What’s the impact? Because any time that you are finding that you’re frustrated, you’re angry, it’s not for no reason.
Ivan Konermann: 20:43
Yeah, there’s a cost there.
Cathy Maday: 20:45
Yes, there’s a cost that you’re concerned about. And there can be an impact on your business, on your credibility, on Well, you’re
Ivan Konermann: 20:54
going to feel it for you first and foremost.
Cathy Maday: 20:55
Well, what you’re talking about reminds me of, again, just last week, I was encouraging this leader. We’ll call her Amy again. Amy’s going to be excited that we’re using her name in today’s podcast. In terms of stopping and prepping,
Cathy Maday: 21:16
I also encourage her to prep is going back to how people get themselves here in the first place is I helped her to start identifying what is some of her bubble wrap and what are some of the things she’s telling herself that where she’s rationalizing and or what is she telling herself in terms of what she doesn’t want. And what I encouraged her, and this is why I encourage all of you in terms of your preparation, starting anytime that we are frustrated or worried or concerned, or sometimes just downright afraid to have this difficult conversation, when you’re stopping to prep, and you start to focus on what you don’t want. First of all, it’s common to focus on what you don’t want. Of course, you’re going to start there. It’s a perfect place to start. Start there with what you don’t want. It gives you clarity on what you do want. Just make sure you’re walking it forward to get explicitly clear on what you do want. That’s what helps you to get back to your intent, which is that’s something you really focus on with leaders is identify your intent.
Ivan Konermann: 22:29
Yeah. And a lot of times that intent wells out into two ways. So when I sold… I sold software for 17 years, as you know. Some of the folks watching and listening may not know. And one of the things I asked myself, well, once I got better at doing that job, one of the things I asked myself was, how do I want this person to be different when they walk out of the room from this conversation? And, of course, I knew also I wanted them to do something. I wanted them to approve a sale. Sometimes I would also just call someone else and say, oh, yeah, we’re using this. This is really good. I encourage you guys to take a look at it. So there was a technical outcome I wanted. And then what I realized was if I showed up with a really specific intent for myself and how I was doing my part, then it made it easier to get to that technical result. So, for example, if I said to that person, hey, imagine, Kathy, go back five years ago. Think about where you were with what you were doing. How much help would have been for you to have heard from someone else that they’re doing this, that this is the direction they’re going in? And so it was working to pull on that previous frustration or touch that pain point they had. That’s how I could show up in that conversation to help that person decide to go in that particular direction.
Cathy Maday: 23:45
Well, what I love about that is the focus on the person. And so a lot of times leaders will avoid a difficult conversation because they are focused on, well, I don’t want want him to think I’m a bad person. I don’t want people not to like me. As an entrepreneur, oh my gosh, sometimes the difficult conversations are with customers, with clients. And so, oh my gosh, I don’t want to lose this business. There’s a lot of I don’t want to. When you really zero in and use that to get clear, bring it forward on what you do want. And what you said, what do I want the person to think? What do I want them to feel i want that person to know i’m here i’m having this conversation because i care about what we’re creating together i care about the impact to them as well as the impact to me and of course that’s that’s another model within the wingspan system we call it think feel say do
Cathy Maday: 24:48
do i want them to think feel say do
Cathy Maday: 24:50
i don’t want to get into any detail around that though that’s another really critical piece in terms of that preparation
Ivan Konermann: 24:56
yeah and just for one second to hit on something where when I’ve had this conversation with leaders before, sometimes what they’ll say to me is, oh, well, it sounds like you’re manipulating the person. And I’m like, no, that’s actually not it. Because if you think about what manipulation really is, it’s I win, you lose, haha, sucker. And that’s not at all what you’re doing in this case. So if I’m helping somebody with a good intent for them, it could also benefit me. It could also benefit the company or the business or whoever the heck else. Okay, that’s fine. It’s just, it’s very different. It’s
Cathy Maday: 25:28
actually the most responsible thing that we do. On my side of the equation, I’m going to be thoughtful. I’m going to make some notes. I’m going to get really clear on what do I want for them, want and expect. Also, what do I want for myself, for my business? It’s actually much more responsible. It’s how I can be responsible for myself.
Ivan Konermann: 25:52
As we’re wrapping a Great place for folks to start. So everyone listening or watching, great place to begin is when you’re running into this conversation, start with some questions for yourself. What is it that’s actually happening? How do I know that that’s-
Cathy Maday: 26:08
Observably
Ivan Konermann: 26:08
happening. Yeah, externally observable behaviors. Thank you. So give myself some time and space and really write it down. So externally observable behaviors is a difference between Joe doesn’t give a rip about this meeting and it turns into Joe’s chronically late for this meeting. It’s happened X out of this many times. Yeah. Okay, good. So we got that. What else would you add in besides externalizable behaviors?
Cathy Maday: 26:33
Well, I would say even before that, it’s pay attention to how you’re feeling. Once you start to get a rub, get annoyed, get a little impatient, like pay attention, then get the information there. Because one of the big problems around difficult conversations is people wait too long.
And that comes from a lot of times people don’t pay attention to how they’re really feeling, that’s the place then also to ask some really good questions. Like, what’s going on today? What exactly am I getting annoyed about? That’s the place to start.
Ivan Konermann: 27:09
Yeah, awesome. So how am I feeling? What’s actually happening? And then a third place is, what is it I’m working to accomplish? What’s my intent for this exchange? And that’s where… Getting into that awareness of, hey, I want to be honest with this person. And it can be multiple things at once. This is what’s so cool is you can have… Even three or four intents. I want to show care for this person. I want to show respect for what they do. And I want to let them know where they’re getting off track with something.
Cathy Maday: 27:34
And I want us to have a stronger relationship.
Ivan Konermann: 27:36
Solid.
Cathy Maday: 27:37
Yeah. And again, as you sit down and prepare for that, those are things you could say out loud
Cathy Maday: 27:44
conversation. A lot of times we don’t say out loud exactly what we’re aiming for, what we’re wanting to co-create.
Ivan Konermann: 27:51
Yeah. Yeah. Which is awesome. We can go into this next time. That’s such a great reminder of the assumptions we tend to make. And then we forget to say things out loud. And then we’re shocked that the other person doesn’t know. Well, I’m saying this because I care about you. Like, well, you didn’t say that out loud. So they may not be as clear about it as you are. Yeah.
Cathy Maday: 28:08
So super common, that super common topic. You’ve got some things to put into practice. You better put these into practice. We didn’t show up just to have a nice little chit chat. Yeah. And what else would you offer for today?
Ivan Konermann: 28:21
That’s it. That’s it. Those are good places to start. Those are good places to start. Keep it simple. Let’s roll into this. Because honestly, also, it’s not the volume of things that someone practices that’s valuable. It’s the depth of the practice that’s going to make a difference.
Cathy Maday: 28:35
Yeah. Put it into practice. Go create more of what you want and less of what you don’t. We’ll see you next time.