Blog 69:  Executive Edition: Part 1 – When uncomfortable conversations are just becoming unbearable.  Who else is finding themselves having polarising conversations with staff?

This blog is part of an Executive Edition Series.  It is specifically written for the Managers, Principals and Executive Leaders who struggle with the hard calls.  You are the meat in the sandwich.  Above you are a CEO, Board Chair, District or Regional Office.  Below you are the team you lead.  Sometimes the desires and goals of those above and below you are incongruous or in conflict.  These challenges lay within an ever changing world that is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) . . . and where you are required to make some uncomfortable calls.   

We work for the same organisation, we are heading in the same direction, we have the same goals . . . so why is this so hard?

Who else is struggling?

• Implementing their supervisor’s orders or directions for staff?
• When following your supervisor’s instructions just doesn’t feel right
• With feelings that their values are compromised
• When your supervisor’s instructions are too hard . . . or too soft

It can take many forms:

• Perhaps it’s having to stand down staff
• Maybe it’s a reprimand or formal warning
• It could take a form of micro-managing
• Or it could be a ruling that is too soft, and you feel someone’s been let off the hook.
• . . . and you just feel like the meat in the sandwich

In all of these instances (and more) there are difficult conversations both upline and downline.  This blog series aims to provide clarity of action in the midst of the messiness and uncertainty of complex situations and conversations. 

This series will focus on processes you can put in place and a culture you can build that can drive good outcomes.  As is the case with Your life caddy blogs, the key lay in the reflection times.  Each of these blogs are released weekly to provide you time to reflect and ponder on the input.  Don’t race ahead and gobble all this input up.  Diary these weekly inputs . . . they’ll be short and able to be read in 10 minutes.  Or subscribe to Your life caddy to make sure you don’t miss out.

Make sure you give yourself some space to work through this series and apply the activities designed to build you.

This Blog (PART 1) will aim to provide you will a tool to seek clarity on the situation.  We will encourage you to select a real issue from your workplace (past or present) that you can use to gain a greater benefit from the processes shared in these blogs.

PART 2:  will provide you with some process tools to build a healthy workplace culture (both up and downline), knowing that the more trusting and growth-oriented environment your workplace can be, the more fertile ground you will provide for these difficult conversations.  For that to happen, you are going to need to be clear on your delegations and boundaries. 

PART 3 and 4 will examine processes that will build a culture where trust builds and feedback is a normal rhythm or work life.

So, success in this field will involve a combination of building a healthy, trusting culture with clear lines of delegation and understanding of boundaries.

Let’s understand the situation.  First, let’s take a higher viewpoint. 

Try to be as objective as possible.  What’s happening?  What’s the issue?  Remember, in this blog we encourage you to select a real issue from your workplace (past or present) that you can use to gain a greater benefit from the processes shared in these blogs.

Try and get the objective facts down on paper – 1 page, so you can see it all at a glance.  What do you KNOW (the facts) and what needs (or needed) further investigation?  Remember the rule of ABC:

• Assume nothing
• Believe nobody
• Check everything

This process works best if you can trial it in a real situation.  So let’s do that now.  Let’s stop at this point to give you a chance to not only reflect on the process we will enter, but also to develop your one page overview and provide space to check your facts. 

Next week, in PART 2, we’ll do some work on clarifying your delegations and boundaries.  Until then . . . reflect on your chosen situation.

Your life caddy

Your life caddy . . . when you need coaching, whether that’s life coaching, business coaching, entrepreneurial coaching or mentoring . . . to reset those attitudes, gain strategies with data driven approaches or build new habits and rhythms to give yourself that performance edge . . . Your life caddy is here for you. Subscribe now to keep up to date with weekly blogs, each one based on burning questions from professionals like you, seeking help.