The Hard Conversations

Abstract

Most organisations that begin this work do not stop because the figures are hard to find. They stop in a room. A board member says, quietly and reasonably, that this is a fashion and the shareholders did not sign up for it. A union representative says that every time management talks about sustainability, somebody's overtime is cut. A supplier says the firm cannot ask questions about wages it is not prepared to pay for. A partner at home says they would rather not discuss the car. Each of these is a good objection, made by someone who is not careless and not hostile, and each can end the work if it is answered badly. This chapter is about answering them well. It takes six conversations in turn, gives the objection at its strongest, describes what is usually going on underneath it, and offers a script: words a leader can say, adapted to their own voice. The scripts are not meant to win. They are meant to keep the person in the room, which is a different aim and a more useful one.