Читать книгу Dealing With The Tough Stuff - Sean Richardson - Страница 8

As a leader, supervisor or manager, there's one inevitable task you will encounter: the tough-stuff conversation. Whether it's addressing underperformance, critiquing work or dealing with heightened emotions, some situations with some people will be tough – there's no escaping it.

Given that we can't avoid the tough conversations, a clear choice remains. The fact that these conversations are inevitable leaves us the options to:

▪ passively ignore them

▪ actively avoid them

▪ have them reluctantly

▪ get good at them.

We think the last option is by far your best choice if you plan to stay in a leadership or management role for longer than the next month or so, particularly if you want to be a leader with influence. If, on the other hand, you're a few weeks away from handing in your notice and heading to Tuscany to eat, drink and generally be merry, then perhaps you can get away with the first three options.

For the rest of us, who have to make do with reading about Tuscany (and occasionally sitting through a bad romantic comedy about a 50-something woman rediscovering her life) and turning up to work each day, there really isn't much choice. It's imperative to get good at the tough-stuff conversations because, quite simply, your leadership legacy is defined by how well you handle them.

The two steps to getting good at the tough conversations are:

▪ building a better understanding of human behaviour

▪ learning how to modify and influence the behaviour of others.

These are foundational skills that underlie the strategies and practices, but before they can be applied we need to unpack some basic principles about why we do what we do.

Why do we do what we do?

Human behaviour can be mind-boggling at times. For every example of strength, bravery, courage and heroism in the world there are as many acts of stupidity, irrationality and downright bizarreness. Yet all behaviour can be understood in the context within which it's exhibited. At some point in our lives we have all been flabbergasted by someone's behaviour and asked ourselves, ‘Why do people act this way?' or thought, ‘I don't understand why they have done this'. But it's worth considering the broader context to understand the why behind the what.

ABC model of human behaviour

Understanding why people behave the way they do can be tricky and has essentially spawned the science of psychology. Despite human behaviour being incredibly complex and diverse, the building blocks of behaviour (what we do) are best understood through a simple yet effective tool known as the ABC model.

The ABC model breaks down and segments behaviour in order to understand it better in the same way that an editor pulls sentences apart and considers each word on its own. If you've ever studied psychology or read books on behaviour modification, you will have encountered this model. It's back-to-basics psychology, but it provides a great platform for investigating what else is at play when we're exploring human behaviour. When dealing with the tough stuff, understanding the context of someone's behaviour is important and will lead to greater success in your ability to influence that behaviour.

The ABC model of human behaviour (see figure 2.1) considers behaviour across three elements: