I am still receiving replies to my invitation for people to tell me about conversations that they find scary.
Here is a sample of the suggestions I have received.
At work many of the conversations involve speaking up about decisions you feel are unfair, or about someone’s less than tolerable management style, even when you have been asked for feedback.
Some of you don’t know how to go about asking for a salary increase.
Many managers find it difficult to give critical feedback to staff members who have become friends. Some people feel harassed or disrespected on the basis of race or sex and are scared that speaking up may jeopardise their careers.
Then there are the people whose managers still feel it is OK to give negative feedback in public and at the top of their voices. Speaking up to them may have you on the receiving end of the same style of feedback!
Conversations between colleagues or friends are needed when you feel someone is taking advantage of your kindness: or of your hard work, and taking the credit for it too. Other conversations involve issues of disrespect, negative attitudes and how to handle the people who hog every conversation with tales of their sick children, errant teenagers, and ex-spouses or those soon to be ex.
Conversations in families are even more hazardous: with grandparents and in laws, when you hold very different views of the world: with sons and daughters who want to make decisions about career or marriage with which you disagree strongly: and with ‘cuckoo’ children who enjoy free board and lodging far too much to ever fly the nest.
I’m not promising that I have the solution to every one of these problems: remembering that one of the Straight Talk principles is to choose your battles. But they give me wonderful material around which to structure a book entitled Straight Talk: conversations that scare you!
If you have more ideas, do send them to me at maureen@gateways.co.za