The Profit Builder Unscripted

Best Of: The Graceful Path to Having Hard Conversations

• Vicki Suiter • Episode 75

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If you’ve been hesitating to address something with a team member, you’re not alone. Most owners wait because they don’t want to create defensiveness—or damage the relationship. This episode gives you a clearer path forward.

In this episode, we cover:

  • how avoiding the conversation creates more stress (and more assumptions)
  • how to get back to facts instead of stories in your head
  • how a hard conversation can actually clear the air and improve the working relationship
  • how to move forward with a productive next step instead of lingering frustration

Simple takeaway: A hard conversation done the right way creates clarity—and clarity creates progress.

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/9KAEFk7pSUA

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Welcome back to the profit builder unscripted. I'm super glad that you're here today because today we're going to be talking about how do you address issues with your team when things aren't going very well without having it be a conflict. All right, let's jump in.

Today's episode, we're gonna be continuing a conversation that I started a little while back that is specifically around this topic of building great teams and getting teams to take more ownership and getting teams to really own their role in a business and allowing us as business owners to be able to step away and know that things are handled without us.

But more importantly, the thing that I know about growing a business is that our ability to be able to grow our business is directly related to our ability to be able to grow our teams and our ability to be able to have our teams take on more ownership and to be accountable for a result in our business as opposed to what oftentimes happens. And I've been accused of this myself that we treat them like helpers and

What I'm, you know, this, this series that I'm talking about right now is about a journey that I'm going through with my team, where I realized not long ago that I needed to shift the way things were happening in my business because A, it was not getting me where I wanted to go. It wasn't growing. And it wasn't, I was ending up doing things that I wasn't having fun doing. And

I was finding myself tethered to working a lot of hours on things that were not bringing me joy, that were not ⁓ really the best use of my time and talents. And maybe you can relate to that in your business. And I've been talking to contractors and business owners about this for years. And I've gone through different iterations of this for myself over the years as my business has grown and I've made changes, but I've found myself back in this place of, ⁓ my team has a greater capacity and greater capabilities. But we all know that sometimes getting our teams to take ownership feels like it's a struggle, right? Or like the experience that I've been going through is I'm noticing certain things like last time I shared, a couple of episodes ago, I shared about It was hard to completely let go and I found myself needing to gain control again. ⁓ And I guess I should back up for just a second because what I did is ⁓ there's this big project that I have been managing. This is part of doing my business. Part of it is I had a blog now doing the podcast and it was a project that was consuming a lot of my time.

And I realized that I wasn't tapping into what my team could actually do and how they could actually take ownership of it and manage it and really run it without my having to be such a micromanager about it and my being in the middle of the weeds of it and so on and so forth. And what I realized is that there's multiple steps to doing this, right? I first had to make the request, which I did. I asked them if they were willing to do that and they agreed. 

And then I've noticed over these last several weeks as we're embarking on starting, even just starting this podcast ⁓ and having them take on the different parts and my saying, hey, this is yours, that there were things that were ⁓ missing in our plan that I was not ⁓ completely giving up ⁓ micromanaging it, that I was still doing some of that, that I was ⁓ not ⁓ giving my team all the information they needed to be able to be successful in what they were doing. you know, what it reminded, and it's been such a great ⁓ opportunity to reflect on how I talk to contractors about how to build great teams and noticing how some of the things that I tell people to do, I have not been doing myself and noticing where the struggles are and the challenges are. in this reason I'm recording sort of this series is because I wanted to share with you my own experience as I'm making this transition, but also some of the things that I'm learning and discovering along the way.

You know, if I had to say one thing, it would be that I have been very mindful of noticing what's happening, that the whole ability to be able to observe when there's a breakdown, but then be able to stand back from it and not just be irritated by it or like, ⁓ like I'll take it back, but to be able to stand back from it and look at it, which is what I've been doing and go, all right, like what's missing? Like what's working, what's not working, what needs to be different? And trusting that I know that my team absolutely has a commitment to doing a good job, that they care about what they do, that they want to be successful, that they wanna take the next hill. Like I believe that about every one of them. And that their behavior in my perception hasn't always shown up that way.

But it's given me the opportunity to reflect on it and ask the question, all right, like what was missing? Like what was missing at the front end that caused that breakdown at the back end? And, you know, it's sort of no different than a construction project, right? Like, and I've really been thinking a lot about this in this last couple of weeks too about how when we don't have a really good plan at the front end that it can cause breakdowns at the back end.

And I'm actually gonna talk about that some more in the next podcast, because I'm kind of in the middle of that right now and really working through looking at what was missing, what could I have done differently and how do we shift going forward? But I will talk about that. But today what I wanna talk about is this whole thing of how do we, when things don't work well with our team, how do we have the conversation in a way that addresses a breakdown, but does it in a way that doesn't put somebody on the defensive? Like one of the things that I think is true for a lot of us is that we tend to not want to have what I call the hard conversations. Like when something is going wrong, ⁓ sometimes what I notice is that we'll wait and we'll wait and we'll wait to address it. And then we wait until we're to the point where we're super irritated, super ticked off.

And then we kind of blow up and then it ends up not being a great conversation. And it ends up being this thing of you're wrong, I'm right. And it's just not a very good feeling, which is part of why we end up avoiding the conversation from a lot of times, right? Have you ever noticed like that we end up in those places where we end up having a hard conversation, ⁓ an ugly conversation anyway.

I had an experience with somebody on my team. ⁓ I'm not gonna mention their name, but I will just say it's somebody who I've worked with for a long time, somebody who I really trust, somebody who in the past has really been someone who's like very much a go-getter, like looking forward, staying in front of issues, but I've noticed lately that that's not been the case and that when I've made a request about something that was a more complicated project ⁓ or a complicated issue that I've gotten this argument back about why it won't work and it's really time consuming. there's just been this very defensive response. One of them had to do with the project we're working on now. One of them had to do with a completely different issue that had to do with a breakdown around some email stuff. 

And I was just noticing that my, was starting to second guess this person. was starting to think, I started to have all this head trash conversation about her in my head about, well, maybe she just doesn't care anymore. Maybe she doesn't want to be working here anymore. Maybe she's just got, ⁓ you know, maybe she's done, right? Like she's just ready to not be doing this. 

And I was getting irritated and especially at one of our last conversations, not our last one, because I'll tell you about our last one in just a second, but it was a conversation before that when she was really pushing back at me about something and telling me all the reasons it wouldn't work. And I'm like, just go find out the next piece of information. But I hung up from the conversation really irritated. And it was a conversation that should have taken five minutes. It took like 20 minutes.

But she just went on this rant with me. And I stood about it for a while. And then I was making up all this stuff in my head about like, maybe she's ready to be done. Maybe she doesn't wanna do this work with me anymore. Maybe she is moving on, like all this stuff. And I noticed that my communication with her was a little stilted. I was very cautious about what I asked her. 

It was just, was not, ⁓ it didn't feel good. And I stopped one day and I just went, all right, I need to have this conversation with her. And I need to have what I call the hard conversation, the hard conversation, which is before I get to the point where I've made up all this stuff and I've started looking for somebody else, I need to just go have a conversation and go, what is going on? And as I, sat down with her and I thought for sure I was right about my perspective about what was going on with her. We started the conversation and I just said, hey, there's something I want to share with you. And I've noticed that there's something going on with you that when I make a request, you're like you have all these reasons why it's not going to work or you're really defensive. And even at that moment, she started to defend the last conversation. And I said, hold up just one minute. I said, just let me finish. I said, what I notice is it seems like you are ⁓ super defensive when I ask you about something, when I ask you to do something, you know, and I cited these few examples.

 I said, you know, I love working with you and my experience of you in the past has been you're always like a yes, I can do it kind of person. And you're usually very, you know, very ⁓ proactive and very much, ⁓ yeah, let's figure it out. But that's not been my experience lately. And what I've made up over here is that you've decided you don't want to be here anymore. And I could be completely wrong or maybe there's something else going on, but I'm just trying to understand what's happening over there because this is not the relationship I wanna be having with you. And it's really counterproductive or like those that was not a good conversation, the last one we had it and I would really like to figure out a way to have it be different. And at that moment she was like, all right, well, let me tell you what's really going on for me. And it was this whole other thing that had nothing to do with me had nothing to do with our business, had nothing to do with the projects. It had to do with what was going on with her and feeling, and I don't need to go into the whole story about it of what was going on with her, but she just, you know, as we talked through it, I was like, okay, let's figure out a way to support you right now. And how can, maybe do we need to take some things off of your plate? Do we need to, you know, push some deadlines out, so on and so forth? 

And if you need to put a pause on working with me, you can do that. Like, and so it was like my willingness to go all the way to the place of A, don't us, you know, be honest and authentic in the conversation. B, that I was willing to just like open it up for, hey, whatever it is that needs to happen, let's talk about that. And it was scary for me because she's an important person on my team to even A, take the risk of that relationship blowing up, but B, also that I was willing to say to her, listen, if it's not working, it's okay. Like it'll all be all right. Which didn't end up happening. I'm thankful for she's somebody who, like I said, who I really respect. I value a lot, but it was just like that whole interaction was a stumbling block in the middle of this project that is a big project and getting this podcast off the ground and getting my team to like really drive it and own it. But it was also just the whole ⁓ opportunity that it brought to be able to have that hard conversation with her. like that, you know, she said to me several times at the end of the conversation, I so appreciate this conversation. I so appreciate us talking about this that she was able to air what was going on with her and that we figured out a few things that needed to shift. But also it gave her an opportunity in us to just talk about what was going on with her, that I could give her some input and advice. I wasn't trying to ⁓ be the solution for her, but just talking about it was really helpful. It just reminded me

Like I said, that sometimes we avoid hard conversations and maybe we don't need to. That willingness to go into a conversation with that I was willing to be honest, I was willing to be authentic, I was willing to tell her about what was like how it was showing up for me. And that I was willing to really listen and hear whatever her answer was as much as I knew that that could have been a very difficult answer to hear. And sometimes I think that when we're willing to have those conversations, it builds deeper relationships with people, right? I think that it built more trust in her relationship with me. I think that it built more ⁓ allegiance to working with me because I cared enough about her to have the conversation and...

that my whole orientation about it was what's going to be best for you. I'm willing to support you in whatever's working, whatever's going to be best for you. And also being clear about what I needed ⁓ in terms of her and her support in that role. But that also being willing to have some flexibility about it right this minute because of stuff that she's got going on. 

I wanted to share this piece of it because I think it's hard managing people. And I think it's hard having those conversations when we perceive that there's going to be a conflict and that leaning into it and being willing to just start with, here's what's going on for me. And this is actually something, this expression, here's what I'm making up between my two ears. Here's what I'm making up over here. ⁓

What I love about that term, and I will tell you, I didn't make it up. I got it from Brene Brown. I think she's brilliant. But what I love about that term is it allows me to keep my ownership and responsibility for that part of my experience over here and for me to take responsibility for it and to not assume that it's actually true. And what I find is that that ability to be able to have those hard conversations are so much easier when I am willing to take full responsibility for my own experience and not lob it over there and make it about somebody else. Because what I find is that it just creates that opening, which thankfully that's exactly what it did with her. ⁓ Just create an opening for a different kind of conversation and a better conversation and one that allowed us to work through something to get to the other side of it.

So I'm going to keep sharing about my experience and my journey ⁓ of making this transition with my team of having them take more ownership and my getting out of the weeds of micromanagement and ⁓ how I'm navigating that process and what I'm learning along the way. Because I think that it's what we all struggle with as business owners, as we're trying to grow our businesses and grow our teams.

And make sure to check out down below, there's some other links and resources to things that you might find helpful of offers that I have or things that I do. And we'll look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks for being here today.


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Vicki Suiter

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