The Campbell Academy Blog (100)

Thinking again about difficult conversations

Thinking again about difficult conversations.

As I get older and head towards however many blogs we might have produced, I find myself returning to subjects that we've talked about before but perhaps a long time in the past.

Just recently, though, I've had the need to reconsider the significance and massive importance of difficult conversations.

I believe in culture and culture setting, and I think that culture setting in any scenario is a matter of leadership.

I believe that leadership is just example setting, and one of the most important examples is the willingness to have difficult conversations when difficult conversations are required.

Leadership and culture setting seem like they are the province of the boardroom of the Fortune 500 Company in the United States.

Discussions happen amongst executives at Apple where they try to build a team together to make the money as fast and in as great amount as possible.

That is not the case, in my view.

Culture setting, leadership, and example setting are things that we have the opportunity to do daily amongst our friends, in our family setting, in our workplace and even in the hobbies that we undertake.

If you find yourself as part of a volunteer committee of one organisation or another, the ability to set an example based on the culture and the values that are expected is a wonderful gift to give.

First, I think it's important that we start with our values, and we have to understand what our values are.

Once we have managed to establish that (and there are wonderful tools available to help us to do that), we're then in a position to align ourselves with organisations that share those values or at least similar values.

If we find ourselves in organisations that don't, it causes enormous social stress, and we should change.

If we have the fortune to find ourselves in those circumstances, though and if we have even more fortune to find ourselves in positions of seniority in those situations, then we're in a position to set the standards and to set the example of the values that we hold dear.

This, of course, brings the situation where other people are not living out the values we think are essential, and so comes the difficult conversation.

The difficult conversations about values never have to be unkind, but they do have to be strong, and you do have to be committed, and it often feels like you're wrestling with a pig in sh*t (the sh*t stinks, and the pig loves it) and that's why you can only have the difficult conversations from the basis of your values because it is only if you believe what you're saying deep down in your heart that you can stick to the road that you have to.

When we reach a situation where we're up against someone in whatever situation and their values are challenged, the opportunity for all of us is either to stay on the bus or to get off the bus.

If it's your place, it's your values.

People have to get with your values or get off the bus, but if it's someone else's place and the values are not right, you should probably find yourself a bus stop.