Hard Conversations

I admittedly used to be pretty awful at having the hard conversations. I had an old boss that would always say that I was too nice and needed to be more of an asshole at times.

There may be some truth to that statement, but it’s not something I can or will ever be good at — I just can’t be an “asshole”. It’s not who I am, now or likely ever.

One thing I’ve learned in my life is that we should always play to our strengths and mitigate my weaknesses.

If being stern is one of my weaknesses, then I’m going to mitigate it with my strengths of being trustworthy and honest at all times.

This came into play later earlier today when I had to have a hard conversation with someone. I knew it was going to be a tough conversation due to a few layers of issues.

It was beating me up for a couple hours as I thought about different solutions and ways to attack the conversation. At the end of the day, the solution was simple: do the right thing and explain the situation in brutal honesty.

The conversation couldn’t have gone better and everyone walked away in agreement and a plan of action going forward. I’m not sure how it would have gone if approached any other way, but I do know who I am and what works for me.