Hello, everyone. Welcome to how to give difficult feedback to your employees. This is the next topic in the 2023 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate Webinar series. This is a series we've been doing for many years. And for those of you that aren't familiar with the series, if this is the first time you're joining us, it's a four part series, a quarterly series that provides for different topics throughout the year.

And those of you that complete all four topics in person like today or by viewing the recording link, which is an option as well, you'll receive at the end of 2023 the Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate. And so we have awarded that certificate I believe to more than 2000 people over the years. And so if this is of interest to you and you've missed the earlier sessions this year, back in February, we had how to effectively supervise a hybrid work team. We followed that up in May with how to become a more effective manager. And of course, today is how to give difficult feedback to your employees.

If you missed the February or the May topic-- again, February was how to effectively supervise a hybrid work team, may was how to become a more effective manager-- all you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and ask our staff just to send you a copy of the recording link. Again, you'll get credit for attending. Even if you miss the live session, you can still get credit for attending by watching on demand or the webinar link, the recording link on demand whenever it's fit your schedule. So again, you can just reach out to our staff and let them know that you missed one or both of those. We'd be happy to send you the links to both of those.

Now in terms of today, folks, as most of you know that we're talking about how to give difficult feedback to your employees. Participants will be in listen only mode, which means, of course, you won't be able to audibly ask questions during the formal part of the presentation, which really should probably last about 35 minutes today, give or take. But your questions are important to me.

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All right, let me begin today with the importance of having a collaborative relationship with our staff. Or let me say it another way-- the importance of having a collaborative approach to communicating with our staff. And so most of us recognize that when our supervisor partners with us, whether we're talking about correcting performance or solving problems or dealing with the difficult issue, if our supervisor or if our leaders approach us in a more collaborative way and treat us like a partner, we're going to feel more respected and probably much more motivated to get engaged in whatever the issue is that our supervisor wants to talk to us about. So I want us to be thinking about that.

If we're too direct when we approach our staff, especially when we want to get difficult feedback or talk about a difficult topic, the staff member may not feel-- if they're being talked at, they may feel like they're either being micromanaged, or maybe they won't feel as respected, or maybe they'll feel like they're being talked down to. People typically don't receive messages as well, especially difficult messages, if they're too direct. And so people will generally, as I know you all know, people will generally be much more open to having a good conversation with a leader or to receiving difficult feedback if the conversation is more collaborative.

And so let's be thinking about that-- if we're too direct in our approach, a lot of times, that can cause an employee to feel defensive, they may not be as open to receiving that message, and they may not feel that you're particularly being respectful in how you're delivering the message. But if we're interactive, if we're very collaborative, if we're treating the employee as a partner and having a two way conversation with them, employees typically will feel more respected and more valued during that conversation, which can lead to them receiving that message more comfortably, make them feel more a part of the conversation. So let's remember that, folks. Let's remember to be as collaborative as we can when we interact in general, yes, of course, but especially when we're giving difficult feedback or having a difficult conversation with the staff member.

All right, so let me talk a little bit about why some difficult conversations don't go very well. And so the first reason we've already discussed is if we're too directive, one of the problems I had early in my career-- I've been in leadership now for about 30 years, folks. Early in my leadership experience, I was a pretty directive supervisor. And this is about 25 years ago. I was pretty direct.

And so whether I was assigning work or whether I was talking to an employee about a difficult issue or even correcting their performance, I tended to be real direct. If I brought someone in to talk to them about some work that was subpar, I would be pretty direct about it and say, hey, that report you turned in just wasn't up to par. And I need you to take it back. And I need you to correct it and I'll give you a couple more days, but I need you to fix it and do X, Y and Z with it.

Now I wasn't being mean spirited in my approach. But I found that by being so direct, oftentimes employees would look uncomfortable, they would get argumentative, they would push back more often, they would get defensive, and my messages weren't being received very comfortably or very effectively. And I realized I needed to change my approach. And so I did get better training and learn to be more collaborative and more conversational in my delivery. And it's really improved the receptiveness that employees have when I have those difficult conversations.

And so that, of course, is one reason why difficult conversation may not go very well is if you're just to direct. It might just be uncomfortable for the employee to receive the information that way. Another reason why some difficult conversations don't go well as if either you and/or the employee are feeling a lot of stress. Now that can go with the territory.

A lot of times, when we're talking to someone about a difficult or uncomfortable issue like subpar performance, people naturally are going to be a little uncomfortable when they're being talked to about their performance or having their performance corrected. That's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be a difficult message to hear. We all take pride in our work and it's not an easy thing to do to receive negative feedback about work that we've done, right?

And you as the supervisor could be feeling stress as well, especially if you're dealing with someone that's hard to have difficult conversations with maybe from past experience. You recognize this particular employee tends to be kind of difficult or is kind of argumentative or pushes back a lot. So you might be feeling some stress going into this next conversation with the employee.

And so let's just recognize that when we're stressed, when our stress level is higher-- and typically going into a difficult conversation, stress levels are higher for both the supervisor and the employee-- that could get in the way of us using our best interpersonal skills. Last but not least, some difficult conversations don't go well because one or both parties are feeling emotional. Again, when you're dealing with a difficult topic or correcting an employee's performance or those kinds of things, the employee can get upset, they can feel anxious, they can get angry, and you might be frustrated.

Let's say you're talking to an employee about performance, you've had to talk to the employee about three or four different times, and they're just not correcting their performance, and now you're frustrated. And you go into that conversation kind of emotional out of that kind of pent up frustration. That can get in the way of us staying calm and effectively delivering those messages.

And so, of course, as a result, because these conversations are difficult and they can be hard to either provide feedback or receive feedback, some people avoid these conversations. I have to admit, earlier in my career, I did. I sometimes put these conversations off. And sometimes, it was because I just didn't feel comfortable. I didn't have a comfortable approach.

My direct approach that I had years ago, and that really was my approach. I was pretty direct. And because oftentimes that directness wasn't received well by the other person, I would not have positive experiences which would cause me to hesitate to go back into that situation with the same person after that. So I might put that off.

I found, since I've learned a more collaborative approach, I'm less likely to put the conversation off because I have a more comfortable way of handling that. And I'll get more into that here in a moment. It's human nature to try to avoid or procrastinate around areas or topics or doing things that are uncomfortable or that may not go very well that may be stressful.

And these are difficult conversations. They can take a lot of time and effort, they can create a lot of stress and anxiety, which can trigger the fight or flight response in us. So that can feel uncomfortable. Even thinking about, hey, next week, I got to go talk to so-and-so about this difficult topic, even that can give you some anxiety when you think about that conversation next week.

Now of course, these conversations can be emotionally taxing. Challenging interactions, especially giving difficult feedback to people that don't take it very well, or if you're not comfortable doing that very effectively, it can be exhausting, it can be a very uncomfortable conversation to have. And then last but not least, we may be afraid of offending or losing the approval of the other person. And so it is human nature to put off things that are uncomfortable or that we don't feel like we've got a handle on or that we have a good rhythm in.

Now the turning point for me in terms of learning to be able to have these conversations more effectively and be less likely to put them off was when I learned to be more of a collaborative communicator. And so I did really study this, and I took a lot of classes, and I really did practice trying to go from being direct to being more collaborative. I learned a lot about instead of telling someone something, asking them instead. You're bringing them into the conversation to take directive conversations which tend to be one way where one person is talking at another person to make the conversation more of a collaborative conversation, more of a dialogue.

I learned the skill to ask people a lot of questions and bring them into the conversation. So we were talking together instead of me talking at them. And so as I learned to talk more effectively with people and engage them more in the conversation and use a more respectful collaborative approach, I recognize that people receive the messages, even difficult messages more comfortably. They were less defensive, less argumentative typically, making the interaction less difficult.

And as a result, I started to have more success in those conversations and I was less likely to put them off because, of course, we don't want to avoid having difficult conversations with employees. I think most of us recognize that if you've got an issue with an employee and you don't address it because that person might be hard to talk to, maybe kind of defensive or argumentative from past experience, or just because you don't feel comfortable having that conversation, doesn't make the issue go away. As a matter of fact, if we put off having conversations around performance issues or those kinds of things, those issues can get worse.

So we don't want to be in a position that we're putting off important conversations or conversations we need to have with employees just because we don't have a comfortable way to approach them. That's why I've really come to embrace a collaborative approach. It's a much more comfortable way to have a difficult conversation with anybody.

All right, next, let me talk about a 3-step collaboration model, folks. And so what I mean by a 3-step collaboration model-- this isn't a script. I'm kind of a visual person. And so as I was trying to learn how to be less directive and more collaborative, have more two-way conversations, I realized I needed to have some steps to follow so that I could create a new habit of having these conversations more effectively and more comfortably.

And so as I got into it, I started feeling that if I do three things when I have a difficult conversation. One is that my role-- step one would be my role in initiating the conversation. So let's say I've got an employee who has had a performance issue, or let's say they turned in some subpar work. And so I would call them in and I would start, in step one, just by talking about why I called them in.

And it's sort of setting the stage. It's more of facilitating a conversation and introducing why you need to have the conversation. So I would bring them in and say, hey, the monthly report you turned in this month, I noticed it didn't have the usual charts and graphs and support materials that your normal monthly reports have. And I was wondering why. And give the employee an opportunity to tell me why.

And let's say the employee said that I really had a busy month and I just didn't have time to be as comprehensive as normal, but I didn't want to be late with the assignment. I know that those reports are important to you. So I just wanted to get it done and get it in. But I'm sorry, I didn't have as much time to work on it this month, but I wanted to meet the deadline.

And so that's step one is you introducing to the employee what you want to talk to them about. Step two is the most important part of a collaborative conversation. Step two is when you would ask the employee, what do you think you could do if I give you a couple more days.

So basically, I would say to the employee, but as you know, these monthly reports go directly to upper management. And so it's really important that we make them as comprehensive as possible and have all the necessary support material for the reports. And if I give you a couple more days, what could you do to bring this report back up to the level that you normally submit? And then just turn it over to the employee in step two and give the employee an opportunity, instead of me telling them how to correct the performance, give the employee an opportunity to say, well, if you do give me a couple more days, I think I could probably take a step back and put aside some of my other deadlines and go a little deeper in the narrative and add some more support material to it. Let the employee come up with the performance improvement.

And what I found is if the supervisor is coming up with the performance improvement plan all the time, again, the employee may feel like they're being taught that, like you're prescribing what they need to do to correct their performance. And that can be uncomfortable. It can be like you're being told what to do.

But if you bring the employee into the conversation and say, hey, yeah, this thing isn't as comprehensive as normal. And if I give you a couple more days, what could you do to bring it up to the normal level. Let the employee come up with the performance improvement plan or what they're going to do to correct that issue.

Typically, they're going to take more ownership. They're going to probably spend more time focusing and doing better work. They'd be more motivated to do better work because you've brought them into the solution and you're showing respect for their ideas. You're showing respect that they know what to do rather than just dictating it.

Again, if you dictate, people, again, feel like they're talked at or talk down to or they may even feel like they're being micromanaged. But if you point out what the deficit is and ask the employee what they could do to correct the deficit or to bring it back up to an acceptable level, oftentimes the employee not only would be more comfortable receiving that message, but they'll take more ownership in the corrective action. And so that's the second step. And the most important step in a collaborative conversation is giving the employee an opportunity to weigh in and give you their opinion.

Step three would be the back and forth. So if the employee is saying, hey, I think we ought to do A, B, C, to correct this, and you only agree with part of that and you say, well, A and B would be fine, but I don't think C's going to work here, what if we did A, B, and D, now you're going back and forth and coming up with a collaborative decision. And two heads are better than one and coming up with an action plan to correct their performance together. That's a compromise solution that builds on each other's on each other's ideas.

And so that's the three step collaboration model. And that's different, of course, than my old way of doing things, which really was to be pretty direct to-- what I used to do in the old days is if someone's performance was subpar, I would call them in, I tell them that their performance was subpar. And then instead of asking them for their input, I would prescribe. I would kind of do all three of these steps myself.

I would prescribe, well, this is what I need you to do to fix it, and do you have any questions. And so I would take full control of the situation and I would dictate. And again, I would find sometimes employers would be uncomfortable, sometimes they would be defensive, they would be argumentative or try to justify why they did what they did or try to sell their idea to me. And it just didn't flow very well.

And I've come to realize that's human nature. No one wants to be taught that. We want to know that the people that are leading us respect our ideas, value our input, and want to have conversations with us, want to make us a part of things, want to give us a voice. And that's what this is all about is giving the employee a voice.

So I'm going to give you a couple more examples of this here in a moment. I do want to drill down on the idea of building on each other's ideas. It's a key collaboration skill. And so you never want to-- and I want to go back up for a second.

In step three, that would be one you would build on each other's ideas. So that would be if you said to the employee, what do you think we should do here. And the employee says, I think we should do X, Y, Z. And you're feeling like X and Y could work, but Z maybe not. So you definitely don't want to completely dismiss the employees' ideas.

A lot of times, unfortunately, if we don't have those skills and we disagree with an employee, and you say, what do you think we should do here, and the employee says X, Y, Z, and you say, no, I don't think that'll work, here's what you should do-- that, again, is going to make the employee feel like you're micromanaging the situation, you're dismissing their idea and dictating what they should do. And that, again, can make employees very uncomfortable. So we want to make sure that we're working together with the employee. If we're solving problems, if we're creating work plans, or if we're correcting performance as examples, we want to make sure that we're working with the employee, that we are giving the employee an opportunity to weigh in on those kinds of situations.

And so, again, let me use this three step collaboration model for assigning work. I mean, do another example here. Let's say you're assigning a 30 day project to the employee. So you call them in and you say, hey, step one, you're facilitating, you're giving the background, you're letting the employee to why you call them in and tell them about the assignments that you're going to give them, and why you think they're going to do a great job. That's part one.

But don't go farther than that. A lot of supervisors have the habit-- and this was my problem 25 years ago-- of telling people what to do and how to do it. That can be perceived as micromanagement. So you don't want to say, well, hey, here's the assignment, and I want you to do step one, step two, step three. That, again, can make the employee feel like you're dictating how they do their work. And that can be uncomfortable. That can make someone feel like you're micromanaging the situation.

So you definitely want to-- after you tell the employee the scope of the work and maybe you tell them it's a 30 day project and here's why it's important, step two should be, you have a lot of experience with this, what do you think we should do to complete this work, what do you think our project plan should be, and let the employee give you their ideas, make them a part of it. They're our subject matter experts. We hired them to do the work. We should let them-- I think a good rule of thumb for supervisors when they're giving assignments is we should be talking about the what and the why, but we should always give the employees at least some input into the how.

We hire them to do the work. We should be asking them, how do you think we should get this done. And allow the employee to give you their input into what the work plan should be or the project plan should be. Or if we're talking about a problem that's come up in their area, instead of us telling them, hey, I've noticed that there's a problem and I need you to do this to fix it, which is a directive, again, a directive approach, why not say to the employee, hey, I notice there's a problem in your area, and I wanted to brainstorm with you how we can address this, what do you think we should do to fix this. And give the employee the opportunity to fix it.

Folks, that's the key here. The key is to engage the employees, when you're having a difficult conversation or talking about a problem, talking about a performance deficit, even talking about a difficult assignment, to make sure you're giving the employee an opportunity, and step two is the most important part of this model, to give their input, to give them that voice, give them the opportunity to weigh in. Whenever you do that, employees are naturally going to feel more respected by you, they're going to feel more engaged in the process, they'll typically take more ownership and typically be more motivated to follow up in any solution that you come up with together.

And then step three again is the back and forth. Two heads are always better than one. And very seldom that one person can do 100% of the work. If you and an employee are trying to come up with work plan together, and you give them input, and you don't agree 100% with what they're suggesting, try to agree in part. That's the beautiful thing about building.

You may not think about communication in terms of building, but I bet you you do this on a regular basis. All of us do as we build on each other's ideas. So if the employee says, hey, I think here's how we should correct this problem, and you're thinking part of that would work, but you have another idea to add to that, I would say to the employee, hey, that's a great idea, I like the first part of what you said, let's go with that, but how about if we add this other thing that I was thinking about to that, what do you think about that, do you think that could work. So you work together to come up with the best way forward. It's a brainstorm. It's going back and forth together and exchanging ideas and coming up with the best way forward collaboratively.

All right, so that's the collaboration model. And that's opposed to the direct model, which would be you would call the employee in and tell them, hey, there's a problem, and I need you to fix it this way and let me when it's fixed or let me if you have any questions. And again, when we're too direct, folks, employees typically won't feel as respected, they won't feel that their ideas are as valued, they won't feel as much a part of the process. And so we want to really try to avoid being overly directive and dictating too much, prescribing too much, and spend much more of our time interacting with employees, having two way conversations, and giving it giving the employee a voice at least in part of what you're talking about interaction by interaction.

All right, let me talk about some other steps that we need to be thinking about that are going to help you have difficult feedback more successfully. Another time is having a good time-- or another important part of this is having a good sense of timing. And I know we all know this. You can have a good-- I mean you can have something good to say, but say it at the wrong time, it won't be received as well, like if the employee is not in a good place or they're busy. Or you can try to have a difficult conversation when you're not at your best.

Some of the worst conversations I've had with employees over the years, folks, honestly were when my timing wasn't very good. I remember one very difficult conversation I had with a direct report about 20 years ago that didn't go very well at all. And in retrospect, the reason the conversation didn't go well is I was having a bad day. I wasn't my best.

And so something came up that was very kind of contentious between me and this employee. And I went and confronted the employee. I probably should have waited till the next day. I was exhausted, I was frustrated, I was not in a good place. And as you might imagine, the conversation didn't go very well.

I learned from that to pick my timing or choose my timing better if I'm not in a good place mentally or emotionally to consider putting off a difficult conversation until a time when I'm more fresh. And I know sometimes things are time sensitive and we have to have conversations right away. But if we can take a step back and think, OK, is this a good time for me or a good time for the employee to have this conversation or would it be better to put it off till tomorrow or later in the day when maybe one or both of us are in a better place. So let's be let's be mindful of that.

And I'll even ask the employees, hey, I need to talk to you about something, is this a good time. And if the employee comes back with, I'm actually on a deadline right now, could we talk about this later, I'm pretty flexible to say, OK, no problem at all, yeah, this is not that big a deal, we can talk about it tomorrow, no worries at all, thanks for letting me. So again, let's try to pick the best time for us and for the other person where the conversation has the best chance of being successful, especially when you have something difficult to talk about.

Now the other thing to think about any time you have a difficult conversation, difficult conversations are harder to talk about, which means stress levels, as I mentioned at the outset today, may be higher. So you may be experiencing a higher level of stress because you're talking to an employee about a difficult topic. They may be feeling more stressed because of the content of what you're talking about.

And so it's ideal to go into conversations calm, if at all possible, to go in calm and to think before we speak to manage our emotions well, keep our stress level under control, and stay aware of what you're feeling. If you go into a conversation with an employee about a difficult topic and it starts to get contentious or it starts to get uncomfortable and you start to feel frustrated or angry, take a step back and pause. Either maybe say to the employee, I know we're both we're both pretty intense about this issue right now, I can tell it's important to both of us, you know what, let's take a timeout, let's take a step back and regroup and let's circle back and talk about this again later on this afternoon, because I can tell right now, I know for my part, I take ownership for my part, I'm feeling kind of intense right now, and I don't feel like I can as calmly talk through this issue as I could, after taking a step back, maybe thinking about it a little bit more, so if you don't mind, let's regroup again later on this afternoon or the next morning.

And that's always something to consider, folks, is-- one HR colleague that I had for a long time, she said to me, I don't why people think if they start a conversation, they to have to finish it, because if it's not going well, trying to force your way through that conversation can make the conversation worse and can result in hurt feelings with you and the employee. It's better to take a step back and say, OK, hey, I know we're at odds about this situation, or I know we're kind of intense about this, why don't we take a time out and circle back tomorrow morning after we both had a chance to step back and think about it a little bit. So I think that's a perfectly appropriate way to do that.

The goal in any difficult conversation is to stay calm and respond calmly and rationally to each other instead of reacting out of emotion. That's the problem with difficult conversations, folks, is they can be very emotional because a lot of times, the content is difficult or it's hard for someone to hear or it's hard for you to share. And as we all know, when we're feeling stress about a topic or content or we're feeling emotional about it, we can become more reactive.

And when we're reactive, sometimes we can say and do things we regret later. And you can get in the way of an effective conversation. It can even damage a relationship if we're not careful. So I think it's very important that we try to go into every conversation with the goal of staying calm and responding, thinking before we speak, keeping our emotions under control, and responding calmly to the other person instead of reacting out of emotion.

All right, the last thing I want to talk about today, then I'll open it up for questions, is managing conflict agreeably. Folks, there are going to be times, even with your employees, when you won't see eye to eye, you won't be on the same page, you won't agree with each other. We're all different people.

But as long as we go into that conversation respectfully-- and I think that's the key is as long as both parties in the conversation are very respectful. And what I mean by that is listening to the other person's opinion even if you don't agree, listening respectfully to the other person's opinion, giving them a chance to talk even if you don't agree. Stay calm and respectful. Don't be aggressive.

A lot of times, people get into difficult conversations or talking about something that's uncomfortable. And especially if they're feeling strongly that the outcome should be a certain way, they can get aggressive, they can get pushy trying to sell their idea and maybe not even listen to the other person who disagrees, which can end up being a very uncomfortable and ineffective conversation with the other person. It's always better to try to stay calm, be as kind as you can. Remember, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. I know we all remember that saying.

And always be respectful the other person's opinion, even if you don't agree with them at all. To say to the other person, hey, I'm really glad you took the time to explain where you're coming from, that helps me understand your position better, thank you. I still do see it differently, but that's OK, we're two different people. Do you think there's any way we could compromise here? Is there any kind of a compromise solution we could both move forward with? And at least try to work it out amicably and as agreeably as you can.

Again, oftentimes when people are feeling stressed, when they're feeling emotional, which happens more often than not in difficult conversations or dealing with giving difficult feedback, especially feedback that's hard for people to hear, people will get more emotional, their stress level will be higher, and a lot of times, they might be aggressive trying to argue their position or maybe not do a good job of listening to where the other person's coming from. Folks, the bottom line in every conversation-- I know I'm preaching to the conversation about this-- excuse me-- I know I'm preaching to the choir about this. The bottom line in every conversation, bottom line goal should be to work through whatever issue we're dealing with with the employee as respectfully as possible because at the end of that conversation, our relationship with that employee long term-- I know we all know this-- is more important than the result of that conversation like for example, who's right, or who gets the upper hand.

The outcome of the conversation is one issue out of hundreds of issues you're going to deal with in the workplace day in, day out over the course of a year. But the relationship with the employee is something you don't want to compromise. And if we go into a conversation and we're too aggressive, we're too pushy, we're too argumentative, we don't listen very well, we don't treat the employee with a lot of respect, that employee may leave that conversation feeling resentful, feeling demotivated, and that issue might be something that causes the employee to have a hard time interacting with us in the future. And we don't want that.

We want to make sure that every relationship we have with our staff is as respectful and amicable and effective as possible. And so when we have to have difficult conversations, remember, the stakes are higher, our stress levels will be higher, emotions will run higher. We just need to do a good job of managing ourselves, keeping our stress level under control, keeping our emotions under control, and being as respectful as we can with the employee as we're working through that issue because then at the end of that conversation, even if we're not on the same page, the employee is still going to feel like, well, my boss treated me respectfully, and that's the bottom line.

All right, folks, I know we've covered a lot in a very short period of time today. I want to open it up for questions. If you have any questions, please type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.

All right, folks, again, if you have any questions, please type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. As I'm waiting for you to type in questions, I want to remind you all, some of you may have joined us a little bit after the beginning today when I reminded you that today's topic, again, which is how to give difficult feedback to your employees, is part of the 2023 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate Webinar series. This is a four part series that if any of you attend all four parts of the series-- it's quarterly webinars, four per year.

We've been offering this series for many years now. If any of you either attend in person or by reviewing the recording-- we've recorded all of these sessions-- you will receive at the end of 2023 the Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate. We've awarded over 2000 of these certificates over the years.

The first two sessions, in case you missed them-- in February, we did how to effectively supervise a hybrid work team. In May, we offered how to become a more effective manager. And of course, today, how to give difficult feedback to your employees. If you missed either of the earlier sessions, all you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today, and our staff will be happy to send you.

Just tell them what recording you need. They'd be happy to send you a copy of the recording link for either how to effectively supervise a hybrid work team or how to become a more effective manager if you want to still have a chance to review those and continue to work towards qualifying for the 2023 Leadership Certificate. Again, all you have to do in order to request those recordings is just hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation or reminder for today. That goes right to our staff. We'd be happy to send you those links.

I also want to remind you, if you would like a copy of the handout for today, go to the Handouts tab in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. You'll see a PDF for how to give difficult feedback to your employees right there. Just download that PDF, and you will have that to be able to keep. So we're happy to provide that for you as well.

All right, folks, we're getting lots of questions coming in. One was do you go back and apologize to the employee. I think what our colleague is talking about-- the context I believe our colleague is talking about is if you had a difficult conversation that you didn't handle very well, do you go back and apologize to the employee. Absolutely. Folks, we should always. It's like in any conversation in any relationship.

We should be courteous. Common courtesy says, if you make a mistake, you go back and you apologize. And I think we all know that. And even though you're in a position of authority, I think it goes a long way when you can go back to the employee and say, hey, I'm sorry. The other day when we were talking, I was getting impatient with you, and I was getting a little bit escalated. And I'm sorry about that. I apologize.

I was overreacting emotionally. That topic's pretty emotional for me, and I apologize. I should have done a better job of keeping my emotions under control. And so I'm sorry. I think absolutely. You will regain a lot of respect from that employee. If you overreact, if you make a mistake, to go back and apologize by all means.

Someone else said, should you have a witness in some of these difficult conversations. That depends. I mean, certainly, you can get advice from your supervisor or from human resources case by case to think if you need a witness. Sometimes, if you have to have a difficult conversation and the stakes are really high and you're really concerned that if it doesn't go well, there could be problems, then you might consider having someone sit-in with you. But if you're not sure if the context of that particular conversation would warrant that, you can always get some feedback and advice again from your boss or from human resources. And they would be happy to guide you.

Here's another good question-- how do you address a person's bad attitude. And so I really do appreciate you asking that question. It's not unusual, folks, as we all know for employees to sometimes have negative attitudes or a bad attitude. It's not, it's not unusual. We live in a very stressful world. And the higher our stress levels have run in the world, the easier it is for people to struggle and have bad attitudes and struggle with negativity.

And so I think we address a person's negative or bad attitude exactly like any other performance issue. You would bring them in-- and again, I would use sort of that three step approach. Let me go back to that three step approach here quickly. I'm gonna put it back up on the screen here, folks.

I would go back to the three step approach. And let's say an employee has become real negative and people have complained about the employees negativity, it's pulling down people around them. I would bring them in and just say-- and I always start with something positive. I think most of you do.

If you bring an employee in you're going to talk to them about performance, I always start with something positive saying, I want you to that I really appreciate your contributions here, you've been here a long time, and I really value your contributions. I do want to talk to you about something that I've observed the last couple of months, and I want to ask you about is that I've seen that you've been more negative in our team meetings than you used to be. And I've seen you've been a little bit more critical of your colleague's ideas. And I just wondering if you were aware of that and why you feel like you've maybe taken a more negative approach in those meetings lately.

And give the employee an opportunity to tell you why their attitude is what it is. And then you can say to the employee, well, I think it's really important in our team meetings, because I want them to be as positive as possible, for everyone to go into those meetings just trying to share a positive energy and to minimize negativity. And I just wanted to ask you, because I think that's important to our team morale and our culture here for us to be as positive as possible when we're together.

Sure, if you ever want to talk about a negative opinion you have, pull me aside. I'm happy to talk with you one on one. But in team meetings, I really need us all to stay as positive as possible just to maintain a real positive environment around here. What do you think you could do moving forward in our team meetings to be more positive? And give that employee a chance to take ownership and give you some of their thoughts about what they would do to be more positive moving forward. Thank you. That was a great question.

I'm getting many, many questions today, folks. And we've had over 200 people on this call today. So we probably won't get to everyone's. But I will try to get to as many questions as I can.

All right, here's a good one. Do you have do you have tips for facilitating difficult conversations between employees who are having a conflict? And how is this different from the manager employee conversations? That's a good point.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, there's a couple of ways to approach that. Now obviously, as their manager, you want your employees to get along well together. It's important to have a good team environment for the team to feel comfortable working together. And so what I would be thinking about is I would first talk to each employee separately because I don't want to necessarily get into the middle of some sort of an issue between the employees and have to be a referee or a mediator. That wouldn't be my initial approach.

But I would want to talk to the employees individually and say, I know you and so-and-so have not been getting along very well lately. Both of you have expressed concerns about the other person. I've noticed some very uncomfortable interactions between the two of you in the office and the team meeting last week.

I mean, the two of you had a very obvious argument in that team meeting. And I'm concerned because you two are both very valuable to this team. And I'm concerned that the two of you are having a hard time getting along as colleagues. And I wanted to ask from your perspective-- and I would do this with each individual one at a time first.