Think how you feel when you agree to do something you don’t want to do for someone you resent, or when you give up your time to meet the demands of others instead of attending to your own priorities. Stressed!

Learning how to say no is one of the best ways to reduce your stress level. Learn it and use it. The longer you allow others to assume that you are always available to fit in with their plans and demands, the more difficult it becomes to change your behaviour – and theirs. This is true both at work and in your personal life.

Sophie has allowed her manager to assume she is regularly available for work on Saturdays, but in the conversation below she resists a request that they meet on a Saturday morning because of a commitment she has already made.

Notice how she checks that she understands exactly what her manager wants and acknowledges its urgency, then explainsthe commitment she has made to her family calmly and without apology.Silence can be very powerful in difficult conversations. Sophie uses it to resist pressure to change her plan but softens her refusal by offering a compromise.

When Sophie relocated she planned to get home at least once every month. She knew that her boyfriend and her family missed her, but she had been finding it useful to use some of the weekend to catch up on emails and plan for the coming week. Several times previously she and her manager Julie had met on Saturdays mornings. This week she had worked late every day to be sure that she could fly home on Friday for a weekend at home.

On Thursday afternoon, the phone rang.It was Julie. ‘Listen, Sophie, I need some figures for the executive meeting on Monday morning, so I thought that we could get together early on Saturday, to go through everything.’

Sophie listened carefully. ‘Julie, can I check that I’ve understood what you need? I want to be sure I’m clear. I know the meeting is important.’When she understood the detail of information that was needed, Sophie took a breath and said, ‘Julie, I’ve booked a flight to go home tomorrow evening. It’s the first weekend I’ll be home in six weeks. I’ve been missing my family and I’m looking forward to seeing them all again.I can get this to you tomorrow, before the end of the afternoon. My flight is only at six o’clock. But I won’t be able to meet with you on Saturday. I hope you understand. I’ll be available on my cell over the weekend, and we can also talk on Monday morning if you need to.’

‘Well, I suppose so,’ Julie replied after a pause. ‘I was hoping you’d be around on Saturday, so we could discuss any final details. I didn’t expect you’d be going home.’

Sophie stayed silent, resisting the temptation to offer to postpone her flight and after a moment Julie continued, ‘I suppose it will do if you get it all to me tomorrow afternoon.’

Saying no can be simple and easy if you resist the temptation to give excuses and apologise unnecessarily. Rehearse what you will say the next time you are confronted. Be sure the person knows you have listened to and considered their request. Presentthe reasons for your decision clearly, so they are able to understand and respect the basis for it. Say no. Then feel your stress level start to drop.

Click to see the latest Straight Talk book: How to manage conversations that scare you, filled with conversations like this one.

The consequence is that we do things we don’t enjoy with people we don’t like; we put ourselves out for people who don’t appreciate our efforts; and we spend our time on their wants and demands when we could be pursuing our own needs.

Playing nice to gain approval comes with a downside. You have no time or energy left to follow your own dreams or desires, if you could even remember what they were. You feel bitter and resentful about the lack of appreciation from those you have helped, and as your true feelings start to show, you become negative, critical and even spiteful. Your self- esteem drops further and your stress level rises. Depression and physical health issues are sure to follow.

Being able to say no is one of the most important skills you need to keep yourself in a good space. It helps you get a life.  It’s the way you do it that matters. Use the acronym CARE to organise it properly.

C is for clear

Start by finding out exactly what the other person wants from you. Ask for the details of what, when, who, why and how much. Make sure you are clear about what you are getting into.

A is for acknowledge

Acknowledgethe request. Make sure the person knows you have heard and understood what they want, and that you are in a position to consider it fairly. It means that if you decide to turn it down they can be reassured you have not done so thoughtlessly or without listening. You might say, ‘So let me check. You want me to…’ or ‘Okay, you’re asking if I can…is that right?’

R is for recognise

Before you make your decision, stop and recognise your own needs, resources and skills, constraints and priorities. Do you really have time for this? Do you have the skill to do it? Would you enjoy doing it or is it something you dislike?

If someone wants to push you into doing something that suits them but not you, be prepared for them to pressurise you to agree immediately. Don’t be afraid to take time to make a decision that is good for you.

E is for effect

Think through the effectof your decision. If you say no, will it have a negative effect on an important relationship or your career? Will you become stressed and exhausted or will the request fit easily into your schedule?  Decisions have both short and long term effects. Think of both before you make up your mind.

Finally, when you decide to say no, first explain what you have considered in arriving at your decision. Be brief. Be honest. Don’t apologise and don’t explain unnecessarily. Simply allow the other person to see that you have made your decision thoughtfully and carefully.

They might wish you had said yes and been a pushover, but if they have any care for you at all, they will respect your decision and the way you made it. Sometimes you may be able to offer a compromise. If not, simply say you cannot help.

Think of all the times that saying yes got you into stressful situations that were beyond your capabilities and responsibilities or not in your best interests. Next time, try saying no and notice the positive effect it has on your stress level.

The diverse, democratic societies of today require communication that is more thoughtful, tolerant of difference and open to negotiated solutions. Communications technology has got smarter, but our communication is less effective than ever.

In Business Day, 25 January 2012, Bobby Godsell writes that successful societies in the 21^st century need rapid and sustained economic growth, combined with effective social cohesion. This is true wealth, unlike the wealth that took us into the economic implosion of 2008/9.

Social cohesion starts with individuals and the way they relate to each other.

Personal success used to come from being clever, being right, and being able to push others to agree with your point of view or action plan. In families, social groups,organisations and governments, people used power and control to get things done. There was little real personal or social cohesion. When you’ve got power, you don’t have to worry too much about creating it.

It doesn’t work like that any longer: today, no-one can have it all their own way. Today’s society is democratic, as well as socially and culturally diverse. The most successful people will be those who are able to find common goals and help people listen openly to various points of view; then negotiate solutions and obtain real commitment to action.

The stakes are high; the potential for at best, disagreement and at worst outright conflict, is enormous. If ever we needed all the emotional intelligence we can muster, it is now. Good relationships are vital; between individuals, within groups, and across continents.It’s not to say that having personal characteristics such as intelligence, technical ability, creativity, and perseverance are unimportant. They still matter. What is undeniable is that the effectiveness with which we are able to apply these characteristics depends more and more on how well we build relationships and work with others.

Relationships are built conversation by conversation. They take place between individuals, often in groups, increasingly in writing. The quality of the conversations determines the quality of the relationships.

You would think that as communications technology gets better and faster the quality of our communication would improve. In practice it seems to be having the opposite effect. We’re becoming more adept at uploading, messaging, networking and typing with our thumbs. But while we communicate more widely, we do so less thoughtfully. We use electronic mail and messaging instead of taking time to meet with people. And there’s so much of it, often going on simultaneously, that almost nothing gets our full attention.

It’s no better when it comes to the content of what we communicate. We continue to cling to old familiar styles. We go into conversations knowing that we know what is going on, what is right, what is wrong, and what we want other people to do to fix it. We tune out or shut down the contrary opinions of othersand then use persuasion, power, and if necessary threats, to get our own way.

The outcomes are predictable. Arguments become endless, but they resolve nothing and relationships are damaged. Eventually, people shut down and opt out. We mistake their compliance for commitment and then wonder why, a little way down the track, we’re back where we started.

If we continue communicating like this, we’ll have even poorer relationships and the notion of a cohesive society will be farther away than ever.

How to manage change effectively

Almost all organisations undergo extensive change at some time in their history. It may come from a merger or acquisition; new leadership, change in processes, technology or systems. Sometimes the change is anticipated and planned well in advance. At other times organisations have to react quickly in response to the arrival of a competitor, or change in market and economic conditions.

In spite of all the practice we have had in managing change, and the clarity of the principles that are involved, it’s often handled very badly.

Strange though it may seem, we can learn as much about handling change from a 15th century political philosopher as we can from a Harvard Professor of Leadership. What both have in common is an awareness that coping with change is a personal and emotional process.  When a change project plan ignores these personal factors, a newly structured and engineered organisation may well find that it is littered with the human carnage of anxious, depressed, exhausted and demotivated people.

The Harvard Professor of Leadership is John Kotter, who in his book Leading Change, writes from his extensive first-hand experience of the human anguish and waste that are created in organisations as they attempt major transformation. In his book he offers an eight step process that helps avoid some of the damage and ensures that change is more successful. Six of his eight steps focus specifically on helping people understand, accept and adapt to change in organisations.

In a very different context, Machiavelli, the 15th century Italian writer, is considered one of the main founders of modern political science. In his book, The Prince, he writes about the arts a prince should employ to stabilize a new regime and build it into an enduring structure. He says that cruel actions - and there is no doubt that plant closures, retrenchments and restructuring can be considered as cruel acts - may be morally acceptable as a means of achieving good results, so long as they are decisive, swift and effective.

Perhaps the best guidelines for any transformation process come from combining these two very different sources of wisdom. There must be a clear battle plan, and that plan must be actioned decisively. At the same time, care must be taken to attend to the needs of the people who survive the cruel act, so that they have the strength and motivation to carry the new regime, or re-created organisation, into a prosperous future.

Organisations that find their people responding to change with low motivation and poor performance might ponder some other Machiavellian words.

‘Princes [should not] complain of the faults committed by the people… for they result entirely from their own negligence or bad example’.

How to use facts in conversations

When you open a conversation by putting the facts on the table you create a solid foundation for the discussion. By themselves, facts are not accusing or blaming. They’re just facts. If you describe them clearly and simply, the better they will be. If you can substantiate them with computer records, registers or other documentary evidence, even better.

Once the facts are on the table, people can give their different interpretations and opinions, without changing the facts themselves. Without facts, conversations can become slanging matches where the person with the loudest voice and the most strongly voiced opinion wins.

If you want to improve the quality of conversations in which you are trying to exert influence or be persuasive, start by working on the way you handle facts.  It will make more difference, more quickly, than anything else. We commonly say, ‘Just give me the facts’, or ‘Let’s get the facts on the table’, but in practice we tend to handle the facts rather badly in conversations.

• We delay talking about things we find upsetting or frustrating to the point where our emotions take over and drown out the facts. We are so choked up that we cannot be rational or speak clearly and whatever facts we do have are lost. IT’s better to speak up sooner, before you get choked up and unable to speak competently and rationally.
• Presenting your own opinions as if they were facts may fool some of the people some of the time but is more often the basis for an argument than a rational conversation. Remember that feeling strongly about something does not make your opinion anything more than just an opinion. When you plan a conversation, take time to distinguish the facts from your opinions, then be sure to present the facts first.
• Facts that are vague or irrelevant do not help make a case. Facts should provide a rational foundation for a conversation. Select your facts with care so they support your view of the situation. Use the best facts you have and only enough to make your case. Too many facts come across as accusation and lead to argument. At the very least, they weaken and confuse the issue. Select just the strongest facts that support your case and use no more than are necessary.

A few minutes of thoughtful planning around the facts of the matter that you are dealing with, before you go into a conversation, can make all the difference to the outcome you achieve.

How to start over over in a relationship

Relationships can get stuck. Conversations end in argument; the same buttons get pressed; the same accusations are thrown; you don’t listen to each other. You want to resolve the problems so you can move on and you’re tried everything you can think of; but you end up in the same place every time. You’re locked into a loop. Your frustration grows.

Computers get stuck too, but the solution can be quite simple. Control Alt Delete: reset: reboot: start over. It works for computers. Why not in relationships? Sometimes the quickest and simplest way to move on in a relationship is to press the reset button. It allows you to reset the ground rules and start over.

There are some clear signals that tell you it’s time for a reset. Listen out for these phrases.

We keep talking about this but nothing changes.

What’s the point of talking? You always do it your way!

Things change for a while, but then we’re back to the same old…

Every time we discuss this, we end up arguing.

Pressing the reset button in a relationship means changing the ground rules for the way you relate and communicate. It takes place in conversations that start with: Can we talk about, how we communicate: or, where we’re going in our relationship: or, the way we give each other feedback: or, our relationship with your mother…

It includes ground rules for the conversation itself, for example: Can we start over with this and help each other focus on the facts. Or you might say: Can we agree to hear each other out, without interrupting. Or, Can we agree that if we start to get emotional about this, we’ll take a break before we say anything we’ll regret.

Using reset at work deals with expectations, boundaries and acceptable norms of behaviour. Resetting personal relationships covers much the same issues. It allows you to step back and clear a safe space in which you can hear all sides of the issue. Then you can try to reach agreement on future behaviour or future ground rules to which you both commit. When you get it right you can go a long way toward creating a basis for conversations that will be safer and far more productive.

When you find that you are locked into a pattern of poor communication and bad behaviour or you are in a dysfunctional relationship, try pressing reset. It breaks the cycle and gives you a chance to start over on a new footing.

What makes a high performing team?

There is a lot of talk about high performing teams: but talk is cheap. Building up a high performing team is often a slow process and many of the influencing factors are outside the control of the team manager.

It starts with recruitment and placement of the right people in the right jobs; it requires that the functions and structure of the business unit within which a team operates are clearly defined and realistic. When these factors are in place high performance then depends on how a team is managed and motivated to achieve results.

How well does your team measure up to these standards of high performance?

1. Roles, accountabilities and the standards of performance which are expected are clearly communicated. People understand how they will be measured and are committed to their targets.

2. There are regular formal reviews of performance against targets. These include feedback and assessment from various sources, for example, from clients and 360 assessments.

3. Everyone has a regularly updated personal development plan and has a clear sense of a longer term career plan. Personal guidance is provided by coaches or mentors in a structured process.

4. There is a clear link between performance appraisals and subsequent personnel decisions such as promotions, transfers, change of career direction, disciplinary action and rewards.

5. Good performance is properly recognised and rewarded both with monetary and non monetary means.

6. People are forgiven if they make mistakes, but there is zero tolerance of ongoing poor performance. Feedback and coaching are used to bring performance up to standard. Where necessary, sanctions and discipline are applied.

7. Managers rely more on ongoing day to day feedback to manage the performance of their people then they do on formal appraisals.

8. People are accustomed to receiving as much, if not more, positive than negative feedback.

9. Team leaders and managers receive regular 360 feedback.

10. In evaluating overall performance, outputs are distinguished from behavioural inputs and competencies. Good results are not allowed to excuse bad behaviour.

11. Coaching is goal oriented and time bound, directed at improvement in specific areas and with clear objectives.

12. There is respect in the team, based on the trust everyone has in the competence of their colleagues.

13. Team leaders are skilled in talking to people about their performance.

14. Team leaders are held to account for development of their people.

If you’ve said yes to items 1-5 you’ve got the structural basics of performance management in place, but you may still have some way to go before you can claim to be a high performing team.

Essential characteristics of good leaders

From ancient philosophers to modern scholars and consultants, we have been obsessed with finding out what makes the extraordinary leaders who generate the forces that change the world.

We understand that they have a wide range of personal characteristics ranging from wisdom to bottomless sources of energy; they communicate with vision and passion; they behave ethically and they manage to keep on doing it through change and chaos.

We have also come to understand that at some level everyone is a leader. Leadership starts here, now, with you. But where do you start?

Perhaps Woody Allen summed it up best when he said ‘80% of success is showing up’. The greatest leaders have the capacity to connect with others; to communicate openly and honestly; to be in the moment as authentic human beings.  If we have come through the information age, then the next one is the age of connectivity between each another.

This doesn’t only mean exchanging e-mail and text messages. It also doesn’t mean endless PowerPoint presentations. It certainly isn’t yawning or texting your way through meetings that might, if you woke up and made some constructive contribution to the proceedings, change the way you do business.  And it definitely isn’t biting your lip, shutting down, and pussy footing around difficult issues while you look for excuses, blame others, and say ‘Yes, but’ instead of facing up to reality in difficult conversations.

Showing up as an authentic, connected, human being isn’t just part of your job: it’s a way of life.

It means asking for information and opinions from others; listening respectfully to what they say, even when you disagree; and having the skill to express your disagreement or alternative opinions in a constructive way.  It means taking time to consider the views of people who seem to come from a different planet, but whose unexpected and creative ideas may be just what you need to kick start a new project or the design of a new product.

It means being generous with praise when people do well, and confronting poor performance or bad behaviour as soon as you become aware of a problem.  It means being honest in your feedback, but expressing it in a way that best helps people change or adapt their behaviour without feeling criticized or demeaned. It also means asking for and accepting feedback from others without defensiveness.

And it means using empathy to acknowledge the feelings of others as well as disclosing your own feelings appropriately and constructively.

Importance of managing emotions in difficult conversations

Conversations about performance or behaviour have many starting points but all have an underlying emotional tone. It’s the reason so many of us avoid these conversations altogether or, when we do face up to them, we handle them badly.

• I’m frustrated: you keep getting this wrong.
• I’m disappointed: you’re capable of so much better.
• I was embarrassed by the way you spoke to me.

Most of us only have two ways of dealing with our emotions. One is to try to control them completely by denying and suppressing them. This can work, sometimes for years, but we are always at risk that one day they will explode and take over. Emotional outbursts seldom help in creating conversations in which real problems can be confronted and solutions negotiated and agreed.

One of the most important aspects of becoming emotionally intelligent is to develop skill and self discipline in managing your emotions and communicating them effectively.

When you shut out emotions completely in your interactions with others, you typically describe a situation or a problem and then either tell the other person how you think it should be resolved, or perhaps ask them what they are going to do about it. These conversations are not very effective because when you don’t clearly say how strongly you feel about something, there is little motivation for the other person to take you seriously or change their behaviour.

When you control your emotions to the point of denying them completely you deprive yourself of a very powerful influencing mechanism. You also make it more likely that you will find yourself in situations in which you are unhappy or uncomfortable; but where you are unable to create any change.

When you don’t communicate about how you feel, clearly and strongly, in circumstances that are unhappy for you, over time your negative emotions build up. Finally, when your tolerance and patience and with them your self control, run out, your pent up feelings of frustration and anger take over and you explode. Feelings are hurt and relationships are damaged, but the problems go unresolved. When you don’t have any effective way of dealing with bad situations you are often left with no choice but to cope as best you can.

Keeping feelings completely out of conversations, or letting them take over in emotional outbursts, is both impractical and ineffective. Learning to expressing how you feel in an emotionally intelligent way reduces your stress and makes it more likely you will find lasting solutions to problems.

Make a plan - speak up

Re title: Tips for holding difficult conversations

At one time or another we all face conversations that are problematic, sensitive and difficult. Some have the potential to be disastrous for relationships or career limiting at work. Conversations like this can be with toxic colleagues, disagreeable managers and difficult employees: in families with controlling parents or siblings with whom you don’t get along: and with friends and neighbours where one conversation can make the difference between a smooth relationship and one of ongoing disagreement. Then there are the conversations with your in-laws…

These conversations all have the same characteristics. They are difficult and scary; the stakes are high, and most of us prefer to avoid them.

The first mistake most of us make is to say nothing at all. We hold our tongues and bite our lips, hoping the problems will resolve themselves or just go away. That seldom happens. But what is guaranteed to happen is that our stress levels soar until the pressure cooker of feelings explodes in harsh words and anger. Unfortunately, much of what is said under these circumstances is more likely to make things much worse, not better.

Conversations that take place in the heat of the moment with emotions on both sides running high rarely lead to any rational and constructive conversation. The real issues might not be addressed at all in the flurry of blame and accusation that passes for conversation and it is very unlikely that any solution will be discussed to which both people are in any way committed.

When you face a scary conversation, there are two principles to keep in mind.

The first principle is to speak up sooner, even when it is the last thing you want to do. Speak up before your emotions get to boiling point and render you incompetent to hold even the simplest conversation. Speak up before the behaviour of the person that is driving you crazy becomes entrenched into a pattern or a habit that will be even more difficult to change.

The second principle is to make the conversation as safe as possible. While you need to speak up sooner than later, do not do so in the heat of moment. Start by thinking through what you are going to say before you say anything. Any plan is better than no plan at all. Stick to the facts and remember that feeling strongly about something does not make it a fact, and believing that you are right, does not make you right!

These conversations are never easy, but if you speak up before they supersize, and think before you speak, you may be surprised at how many difficult issues you can talk about in safety without doing any damage at all.