Difficult conversations™ are any conversations you experience as stressful, from giving a negative performance review to managing complex outsourcing relationships and strategic partnerships.

 

Why bother getting better at managing difficult conversations™? At one level, it's a simple matter of reducing anxiety in your life. No small benefit.

 

But it goes far beyond that. Especially for people who work in a collaborative environment, the ability to communicate clearly and powerfully, and to manage conflict with confidence and grace, are no longer just good ideas. They're integral to management competence.

 

Conflicts that are handled badly or avoided altogether, sap creativity, tie up energy, destroy teamwork, and lower productivity and morale.

 

In contrast, when conversations are handled well, collaboration and productivity are enhanced, morale goes up, and better decisions result.

 

Every organization wants to think of itself as a "learning organization." But organizations where people avoid engaging with tough communication issues can't learn.

 

People can't learn from their mistakes because they have incentives not to discuss them; they can't learn from each other, because too many managers avoid giving difficult feedback. Short-term comfort too often trumps long-term improvement.

 

In personal relationships, too, the fallout from poorly managed conversations is all around us. Trust diminishes, intimacy suffers, misunderstandings multiply.

 

Relationships that are supposed to nourish us end up eating away at us. Improving how we handle our most difficult personal conversations is at the very heart of what makes these relationships satisfying.

 

We can help you approach these situations in ways that can greatly improve the chances that these conversations will go well. That's why we've established Triad Consulting, and that's why we wrote the book, Difficult Conversations.