 Today we're diving into the evil genius leadership mailbag and answering a question from one of our viewers about how to start a difficult conversation. Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. We'd love to hear from all you viewers out there and today we're answering a question from Felix M. Thanks for the videos. I'm a young supervisor at 25 years old. Sometimes I struggle with beginning a conversation with my team on a corrective action or complaints from other team members. Can you possibly do a video on this? We sure can Felix and helping young leaders answer these kinds of questions is exactly why we started evil genius leadership in the first place. There are a few reasons why starting these kinds of conversations can be difficult. Sometimes we want to be liked by our team members or be perceived by them as being fair. Other times we're afraid that they're not going to like what we have to say or not going to like what they have to do after the conversation is over. But we can't avoid these difficult conversations because ignoring these problems lets them compound and just prevents us from finding a long-term solution. The key to starting a difficult conversation is to prepare and have a plan going into it. New jerk reactions to situations are rarely helpful to ourselves and our team so even taking just a few minutes to prepare what you're going to say can get you in the right mindset to go in and have a positive and productive discussion about a bad situation. Step one of building this plan is to fully figure out the message you want to get across to your team. Think through all of the main points you want or need to make as part of the conversation. Fully address the issue including why you made the decision you made, all of the factors you considered and the expectations you have for your team going forward. If you need to make notes or a list to get through all of it without forgetting go ahead and do that. Next determine who needs to be part of the conversation or hear what you have to say. If this is corrective action for an individual a one-on-one conversation may be best. If this is to address a common complaint among your team you may want to address the entire team at once. Just like you're consciously choosing the audience for your message be sure to consciously choose the location where you deliver your message. For a one-on-one conversation trying to find a private office where you can speak privately and openly is probably the best bet. If you're trying to address your entire team something like a conference room or public area will probably work best but try to choose locations that don't have a lot of distraction. People moving through the area actively working or places with TVs or radios on can distract from the conversation and the message you're trying to get across. Timing is also a very important consideration for your conversation. You want to have the other members of your conversation focused on what it is you're saying and the message you're trying to get across so try to avoid catching them as they're walking out the door for lunch or getting ready to go home for the day. Putting it on the calendar ahead of time and getting people to confirm that they're showing up is a great way to make this happen. Now that you've got your plan it's time to execute. Get to the meeting place a few minutes early. Make sure there's room for everyone to sit comfortably or there's room for you to stand if that's your choice. Take a few deep breaths and get yourself in the right mindset to speak calmly and confidently. Make sure you have everyone you need before starting if possible. If someone key is missing you may have another difficult conversation to have immediately after this one. And now it's time to start your discussion. One thing that can be helpful is to ask everyone to hold their questions or comments till the end until after you've made all the key points you need to make. Then you can give your team time to voice their questions and concerns. Be sure to cover all your main points including how you arrived at your decision, any other factors in play and what you expect from your team going forward. Now is the time you can open up the floor for questions and to address concerns. Be sure to listen genuinely to what your team has to say and answer their questions honestly because they may have input that can help make the situation better. Ultimately the decision and the way forwarder up to you but taking the time to listen to your team's questions and address their concerns will help them understand that you're trying to act fairly and in their best interests and it'll help make your next difficult conversation go a little more smoothly. I hope this answered your question Felix. If you've got more questions or you want to dig a little deeper into this just drop us a line and we'll be glad to help you out. And if you found this helpful we'd love to answer your questions for you as well. Send us your questions on Twitter and Facebook or even post something on our YouTube channel and don't forget to join us every Friday at 10 a.m. pacific time for a live leadership discussion on BLAB. Don't forget to click off on that globe to the right that'll get you subscribed to our email list and bring all of our content direct to your inbox. Thanks for watching I really appreciate it and remember the future is out there. 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