I am a big believer in providing great work environments for your staff, and for spending the time on hiring people who are the right fit for your business. I’ve outlined these key factors to having a fantastic culture in your business here, here and here if you want to dig a little deeper. But I think it’s all well and good to say you have a specific idea on how these things should be developed in a business, it’s another thing to deliver on them. Learning how to navigate difficult conversations is a fact of life and can be either a detrimental factor to your business or an effective way of developing a good culture.
Difficult conversations can be with your wife or partner, and can affect the way you interact in the workplace, or they can be interactions with staff and clients directly. By ensuring you tackle these conversations head-on and not avoid them is an approach that will benefit you in the long run. Difficult conversations in the workplace can take many different forms. Being in the accommodation industry, you do at times need to deal with situations that are tense, be it a guest or another team member, and having emotional reactions to these situations can impact the way the business operates.
Recently I had a team member who was a great all-rounder. They were dedicated to their job and always put in that bit of extra effort that is typical of someone who wants to get ahead in their role. I understood and could tell early on that they aspired to move into a management role.
The only thing that stood in their way was the way they dealt with tense situations that happened at work. My team member approached me and told me about the frustrations they had in moving up in their role after just missing out on a promotion in the business. Knowing how good they were in all other aspects, I took the time to talk to them about the observations I had made on their reactions when tense situations had happened during their work.
Explaining to them why having to deal with conflict was an important element of a higher position and learning how to distance yourself from these conversations was an important element in taking on a higher role. They took the feedback on board and overtime could demonstrate changes on this issue, finding ways to have these conversations without affecting them too much.
Keeping your conversations flowing and investing your time in your staff will always benefit your business. There is always a two-way street in communication and by putting yourself in your employee’s shoes from time-to-time will generate benefits for everyone. Most people are conflict averse. Recognising this and realising that it’s OK to talk about it can alleviate a lot of the flow-on effect of a tense conversation for your team members.