Think of the last time you knew you needed to have a challenging conversation. A moment when you knew you should speak up but felt uncomfortable because you thought ‘this isn’t going to be easy’.

• Maybe it was a time when you needed to have a conversation with a high performer in your team whose behavior you were finding difficult?  
• Maybe it was a time when your boss asked you to do something that you didn’t understand or even agree with?  
• Maybe it was a time when one of your peers took some action you didn’t really think was right?
• Maybe it was a time you wanted to ask for a rise or review of your role?

Close your eyes and connect to that moment.

Does that feel uncomfortable?  I’ll bet it does.

We all create reasons to avoid difficult conversations, we’re pros at it. Our excuses come in a range of formats; ‘It’s not the right time’, ‘I’m too busy’, ‘I won’t say the right thing’, ‘Maybe it’ll just blow over.’

The list of these anxiety fuelled excuses is endless.  

Do you relate?  Maybe you see a culture of walking past opportunities or ignoring bad behaviour in your business?  Would you like to get better at having courageous conversations and encouraging the people around you to also speak up? 

What are courageous conversations?

Courageous conversations are usually emotionally charged for one or more of the people involved. It could be high stakes for one or more parties, or feel like it is. 

There is no denying these conversations are difficult and they call for a combination of courage and confidence - two of the most important skills we’ve found underpin career success. 

It’s so much easier to avoid a challenging conversation.  We can always think of a reason why it’s not the right time or place. When we know we’re tackling a topic that is sensitive, high risk, emotionally charged or high stakes it’s understandable why even the thought of it can be overwhelming. 

Some conversations demand courage for some people and not for others. If our confidence is at a low ebb, any conversation that requires some form of challenge can seem extremely difficult, even when it’s with a colleague we know well. 

But it’s important to remember that emotions aren’t facts. Emotions are there to inform and warn us, they don’t have to dictate our behaviour.  We can feel fear and take action anyway.  And this is a muscle we can build through practice and repetition.  The more often we take the step to have a challenging conversation, the more we will build our confidence that it’s possible to feel the fear and still take action. So building our confidence is crucial to having courageous conversations.

Sometimes it’s the anticipation of the conversation that stops us in our tracks, even when we know the damaging consequences of not speaking up.  Embracing and navigating the unknowns so that we can have challenging conversations is a skill we can build with the right support and tools.  Often our fears are exaggerated and as we delay speaking up, we give our brains more time to catastrophize about the possible negative impact we could create.

It’s important to remember, however we think the conversation will unfold, we could be wrong. We could always be surprised, pleasantly or unpleasantly. So it’s important to pause and prepare, think through our approach, consider the possible responses and outcomes and then take action! 

Confident, challenging conversations

Turning a challenging conversation into a confident conversation can feel impossible. 

It’s hard to know where to start, what to work on, and what to aim for. For many of us, challenging conversations are simply that, challenging. If we’ve never experienced a successful challenging conversation it’s hard to know what good really looks like.  And that often means we avoid, delay or ignore the need to have them!

Challenging conversations require work. But this work will reap rewards in terms of better outcomes and improved relationships at home as well as at work.  Challenging conversations crop up everywhere, so knowing how to tackle them is an important life skill! 

Confidence acts as the bridge between the emotion we all naturally feel in challenging or ‘high stakes’ situations and our ability to take action anyway.  Confidence doesn’t neutralize the fear or discomfort that’s involved in having courageous conversations - but it does enable us to be brave, to find the courage to do something that feels inherently scary.

In Susan Scott’s book, ‘Fierce Conversations’ she talks about how we are constantly building influence and creating a reputation, one conversation at a time.  Scott reminds us that this isn’t about one massive courageous conversation once or twice a year, it's about our ability to have lots of different courageous conversations every day. 

This is how we make a difference and create culture through role modeling.  It can be difficult to start, but by having courageous conversations we are not just building our own skills and driving for better outcomes, we are also influencing the people around us.  

We have seen time again and again how courage is contagious.  

These conversations often have a big impact on people who are not involved at all… because they set a precedent. By using your voice you encourage others to also speak up.  For example, asking to change your working patterns so you can spend more time working from home may seem like it’s purely personal but realistically there are likely a lot of people who would love the opportunity to do the same but simply don’t have the courage or confidence to ask. 

How to get started…

If you’d like to have more confident, challenging conversations we have a gift for you.  

We’ve compiled the best tools and advice from decades of experience of working with people in large organisations who want to make a positive difference to their own career and the culture they work within.  

We’d love to share this Guide with you.  

Download our Guide on Confident Conversations

At Nkuzi Change we help leaders in large organisations unlock the brilliance of their people, so individuals and the businesses can thrive.

Learn more at www.nkuzichange.com

If we’re not already connected on LinkedIn find me here Kate Franklin and please connect with my co founder Elise Finn