Say what needs to be said with these 8 transitions
You can say dang near anything if you nail the opening of your conversation.
If you’ve worked with me in a live training, or you’ve been receiving this newsletter for a while, you’ve heard me talk about Transition Statements largely in the context of feedback conversations.
Today I’m expanding the use of Transition Statements beyond simply feedback.
My hope is you steal today’s language to increase the impact of your communication, particularly in difficult interactions.
(PS - these work over Slack/Teams as well!)
Communicating Directly
It’s not uncommon that I work with a manager or leader who has been told they need to soften the edges of their communication. In short, they’re told they’re too blunt, or too direct.
I don’t believe it’s a directness problem. I believe it’s a set up problem. It’s the difference between coming in hot vs bringing people along with you.
Try these the next time you notice you’re at risk of being interpreted as too direct:
Because I value everyone’s time and effort here, and please forgive my bluntness, here’s what I recommend we do…
My intention here is to help us get to the root of the issue, so please know the directness I’m about to share is coming from a good place…
Forgive me, I’m struggling to wrap my head around how this was a miss. Can I be direct and ask a few follow up questions?
Approaching Conflict
In my 10 years at Yelp, I trained hundreds of folks on the art of saying No. We were a Customer Success team who had to say No to our paying customers ~75% of the time.
We had to do it with care, grace, clarity, and honesty, all while not losing their business.
Some of my favorite transitions in cases of conflict:
There’s an 85% chance that what I’m about to say is going to feel disappointing, maybe even frustrating. If at any point you want me to stop, just say the word. Here’s the answer to your question…
Before we jump into it, I do want to say how much I value you and our working relationship. What I don’t want to see happen is for you to walk away feeling…
Thank you so much for sharing. I’m appreciative of the situation you’re in. Here’s what I’d love to do now…with your permission, I’d like to talk you through the challenge at hand, then get into our available options, so we can both walk away taking action that will help us move things forward. Does that sound fair?
Addressing Disappointing Performance
When it comes to managing performance and results from our people, the hardest part for most is knowing where to start.
Consider these as ways to directly, and with care, open a conversation. A confident, kind tone will go a long way.
I wouldn’t be doing right by you if I didn’t shine a light on an area that is getting in the way of your broader success.
Because I care about you and your future success, I need to candidly say that I believe you’re capable of more than what I’m seeing with this latest project. Let’s you and I sit down and chat through what I’m noticing and identify how to raise your own bar of excellence.
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That’s it for today!
Short and sweet. Which of these will you be stealing first?
