Are you afraid to speak up?

There are many conversations that most of us find difficult.

• Speaking up to people in authority
• Dealing with those who show us disrespect
• Speaking to loved ones whose behaviour is hurtful
• Saying "No" to someone who really needs help
• Speaking up when you have made a mistake

And every manager and supervisor is familiar with the problem of giving critical feedback to people who don't perform!

We try to avoid these conversations. If you speak up your emotions might get the better of you. You're scared you'll say something you can never take back. You'll look stupid. You'll get embarrassed. You'll create conflict.

But the problem doesn't go away. You bite your lip and hold your tongue, convinced that if you speak out, you'll do more harm than good. You become more frustrated, more hurt and more stressed. The situation gets worse as the person carries on with their behaviour, unaware of how you are feeling.

One day it all becomes too much. You cannot contain your emotions any longer and you burst out with anger, blame and accusation.  Afterwards you have only a dim memory of exactly what you said, but the emotion of the conversation burns deep.

Everything eventually settles back into the pattern it had before the outburst. Then the emotions start to build up again. Some of our relationships follow a pattern in which problems are never resolved and recurring emotional outbursts take the place of conversation. In others, there are no outbursts, and virtually no emotion. Issues are swept under the carpet, sometimes for lifetimes.

When we don't speak up about things that concern us, results and relationships both suffer. At work, poor performers continue to perform poorly; productivity drops; good people are punished with more and more responsibility; relationships become strained. In our personal lives, we blame each other for our lack of communication and often agree to live in what we call companionable silence. Neighbours don't speak; friendships come apart; children are distanced from parents; marriages become cold and unsatisfying.

It doesn't have to be this way. Stepping up to difficult, emotionally charged conversations, saying what is on your mind, and managing your emotions, involves a specific set of skills. You can learn them, then practice until you are confident that you can step up to almost any conversation with a plan for how you will handle it constructively.

You can learn how to communicate with others in ways that help you develop open, trusting, satisfying relationships. You can have relationships in which you speak up with what is on your mind, in which your feelings are known and considered and in which you are able to agree on solutions to problems.

Using Straight Talk you can learn how to

• Open a difficult conversation by setting the right tone from the very start
• Put the facts on the table clearly and precisely
• Explain what is on your mind without blaming or accusing
• Make it safe for others to speak to you about how they feel
• Negotiate a solution to a problem, so you will both be committed to the outcome.

You will always choose your battles. Sometimes the stakes are just too high, or the situation is too emotional. Your career, a relationship, or the results you currently achieve may be too much at risk. Straight Talk helps you make decisions about when to confront and when to walk away knowing that you have made a competent decision, not merely run away because you were scared.