Preparing for a difficult conversation at work

🎯 Goal: To identify the steps to form a constructive response. (20 minutes)

Facilitator to introduce the topic.

Imagine you are at a new job, and one colleague has scheduled to collaborate/meet with you several times and then cancelled at the last minute. You need to meet with this person to take the next steps in the project you are both working on. Use the list below to prepare for your conversation with her. Discuss as a class what you would say to your colleague.

• What is the key problem to be addressed?
• What impact does this have on you/the team/work?
• What responsibility are you going to take for your part?
• What do you want to achieve by the end of the conversation?

Tip for the facilitator: ensure everyone is invited to talk, especially the quiet ones. If possible, get 2-3 people to answer each question.

Preparing for a potentially conflicting situation at work

🎯 Goal: To practice difficult conversations by role-playing through different scenarios. (35 minutes)

Introduce the exercise and read the scenario (5 min)

Work in pairs. Use one of the below scenarios where you need to have a difficult conversation. If you finish your first scenario and still have time, choose another one.

1. You are a developer in a team, and a very important project has been presented; however, you have not been assigned to it. The person working on this project is a peer who you think isn’t as competent as you. You want to question that decision with your manager.
2. You are working on a team with a person you have had issues with before. You think they are not doing their share of the work on purpose because they dislike you. You want to talk to this person about it.
3. You have been working hard and would like to get a pay rise. Have this discussion with your manager.
4. You think that the project you have been allocated to is impossible and it can’t succeed and you are worried you are being set up to fail. You want to talk to your Product Manager or Product Owner about this.
5. Someone in your team isn’t doing their share of the work, and you want to talk to them about it.
6. You have been receiving positive feedback all year, but you didn’t get a promotion. However, your peer did. You want to talk to your manager about it.
7. You have been working on 3 different projects and you just received an e-mail asking you to support a 4th one and lead a workshop next week. You want to talk to your manager about your workload.
8. Your company had an internal job opportunity that you applied for. You weren’t the one chosen and never got feedback. So, you arranged a meeting with the interviewer to get feedback on your performance.
9. You start your new job and 1 month in notice that the tasks you are given do not align with what was on your job description. You want to talk to your manager about it.
10. You are given a bad performance review. You want to talk to someone in your team to get more information and specific feedback on improving your performance.

Activities:

• Role-play the conversation as a group (10 min)
• List your emotions that you associate with that moment whilst doing the activity
• Discuss with your partner how that conversation could have been better if you could take the emotion out of it. (5 min)

Have one group for each scenario to share their thoughts with the class. (15 min)