Ever walk up to someone with spinach in their teeth and freeze?  Your mind races – what do I do – what do I say?”  And you let that person go on with spinach in their teeth.  Later you think “Why did I do that?”

Now let’s imagine a harder scenario:  a member in your organization uses poor/offensive humor.  What do you do?  What do you say?  Her bad humor is distracting, its a problem, but it’s also sensitive, you don’t want to hurt her feelings and most of all, you don’t want her to think you don’t like her.  You really do like her, or at least you did like her, but now you are also really annoyed with her and now you start to feel that annoyance turning into anger.  What do you do?  How do you continue to work with her? How do you stem your tide of negative feelings before they turn into resentment?

Providing others feedback can help move mountains, but it can also feel awkward, scary or even threatening.  Most of us have not been taught how to be comfortable with “conflict.”  Our emotional reactions often get in the way of honest, kind and clear communication, on both sides of the equation.

And as humans accepting feedback, we need good vibes.  It can be hard to hear that we have offended someone or made a mistake.  It’s so much easier to hear that we are good team members, that we have excellent skills, that we are appreciated for wrapping up a great project with expert precision.  But how can we also be really good at receiving feedback that something we did was not so excellent?

We all want to do better. People seek feedback and guidance. People crave advice on how to improve. From basic presentation skills, to improving confidence in a business, folks want to get better, and do better. So giving people feedback may be helpful and even sought after, but knowing this often isn’t enough to ease our worries as we move into having that hard conversation.

“Having Hard Conversations with Good People,” is a Sociometric training by GreenstoneXP on March 6th, from 9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.. part of our 2020, “Exploring Workplace Dynamics,” professional development series.

The training will normalize the difficulty of having these conversations, and in doing so allow some breathing room for exploring how to do them better.  Participants will hear and see what others struggle with and how it is similar and how it is different from their own personal struggles.  Participants will have some needed opportunities to practice having difficult conversations.  As a group, we will come up with fictional scenarios that could happen at a workplace and be directed through an enactment of these scenarios.  The facilitators will allow for ample switching of roles and perspectives to allow participants to fully experience what it feels like on both sides of the equation.

Participants will walk away with an increased sense of comfort and confidence in their ability to broach difficult subjects in the workplace.

And who knows, you may not skip a beat the next time your boss has spinach in her teeth, as you expertly, fluidly, and kindly, let her know there may be a reason to check the mirror before her next meeting.

We invite you to join recognized experts from GreenstoneXP on an interactive, engaging, and useful workshop.

Now excuse me as I find some floss……

How to have hard conversations with good people.

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