Scripts for difficult conversations: Giving hard feedback, navigating defensiveness, the three questions you should end every meeting with, more | Alisa Cohn (executive coach)
Executive coach Alyssa Cohn shares specific language and frameworks for leaders to navigate difficult conversations, including performance feedback, promotion denials, and firing. She also provides strategies for effective meetings and a "founder prenup" for co-founder alignment.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
The Challenge of Difficult Conversations
Script for Delivering Performance Feedback
Strategies for Handling Defensive Reactions
Script for Communicating Missed Promotions
Script for Pre-Termination Warnings
The Importance of Specific Positive Feedback
Understanding a Leader's True Job: Driving Results
Recognizing Leadership Blind Spots and Process Needs
Three Essential Questions to End Every Meeting
The 'Founder Prenup': Aligning Co-Founder Expectations
Alisa Cohn's Personal Stories of Failure
Differentiating Between Patience and Process Problems
Advice for Aspiring Coaches
7 Key Concepts
Observable Facts in Feedback
Focusing on observable data and expectations rather than judgments or feelings makes feedback easier to give and receive. This approach promotes neutrality and clarity, helping the recipient understand the specific behaviors that need to change.
Leader's True Job
A leader's primary role is not to make employees happy, but to drive towards results and create a winning culture. This involves ensuring everyone understands their role and its impact, leading to engagement and ultimately company success.
Specific Positive Feedback
Giving praise that is as carefully constructed and specific as constructive criticism. This means highlighting exact actions and their benefits, which is extremely motivating, helps employees see their progress, and builds a reservoir of goodwill.
Reinventing Leadership
The tendency for founders and new leaders to initially reject traditional organizational structures like process and hierarchy, aiming to do things their own way. However, they often eventually realize the necessity of these well-trodden methods for effectively organizing people to achieve success.
Founder Prenup
A set of crucial conversations and questions co-founders should discuss before starting a company. This process helps align on core values, vision for the company's success, conflict resolution styles, and decision-making processes, preventing future relational and operational conflicts.
Values Clarification Exercise
A process of identifying and prioritizing one's core personal values, typically by selecting from a list and narrowing down to 3-5 key values. This exercise helps individuals gain self-awareness and allows co-founders to compare their values for alignment or potential areas of conflict.
Personal Operating Manual
A tool for team members to articulate their individual working style, communication preferences, pet peeves, and delegation expectations. Sharing this information fosters better workplace harmony, reduces misunderstandings, and saves conflict for truly important issues.
5 Questions Answered
Leaders often dread difficult conversations because they worry about making people sad or upset, dealing with emotional reactions, or feeling like they might be wrong, which can create additional work or drama.
A leader's primary job is to drive towards results and create a winning culture where people understand their roles and the impact of their work, rather than solely focusing on making employees happy.
A 'founder prenup' is crucial because 65% of startups fail due to co-founder conflict, and it helps align co-founders on values, company vision, conflict resolution, and decision-making before issues arise.
Leaders should intervene and investigate process issues when there's an uncomfortable silence, a lack of a clear plan, or a feeling that things aren't coming together, rather than just hoping for the best.
Aspiring coaches should practice listening more deeply and asking deeper questions, going beyond surface-level responses to understand the underlying motivations and perspectives of others.
25 Actionable Insights
1. Align Co-Founder Values
Engage in a values clarification exercise with co-founders before starting a company to understand each other’s core values (e.g., excellence vs. work-life balance). This helps prevent future conflicts by addressing potential misalignments early.
2. Align Company Vision
Discuss and align on the vision for the company’s success (e.g., independent business vs. big venture outcome). This ensures co-founders share a common understanding of what “winning” looks like, preventing painful reckonings later.
3. Understand Conflict Styles
Discuss how each co-founder handles conflict, ideally with input from close contacts for self-awareness. This helps prevent “conflict over conflict” by understanding preferred approaches (e.g., immediate discussion vs. processing time).
4. Pre-Define Disagreement Resolution
Establish an upfront process for how decisions will be made when co-founders disagree (e.g., whoever cares most wins, best expertise wins, or alternating wins). This provides a clear framework for navigating inevitable disagreements productively.
5. Align Company Culture
Discuss and align on the desired company culture (e.g., family-like vs. results-focused). This prevents the emergence of “two different companies” with conflicting standards and expectations among teams.
6. Focus on Results, Not Happiness
Shift your mindset as a leader from primarily making employees happy to driving towards results. While engagement is good, focus on creating a winning culture with clear expectations and roles, as this ultimately leads to genuine satisfaction and company success.
7. Embrace Difficult Conversations
Recognize that discomfort in difficult conversations often stems from fear of upsetting others or creating extra work. Lean into these conversations, understanding they offer opportunities for growth, revelation, and stronger relationships.
8. Right Mindset for Feedback
Before a difficult conversation, get your mindset right by clarifying your intention (e.g., helping them improve, not venting). This ensures your feedback is delivered constructively and helps you stay even-keeled.
9. Deliver Performance Feedback
Start by stating what you’re hearing or observing (e.g., “I want to chat about the way you’re interacting with peers. What I’m hearing is…”). Use phrases like “we both know” to establish shared understanding, and clearly state what needs to change by the end of the discussion.
10. Use Observable Facts
When giving feedback, focus on observable facts and specific reasons, not judgments or feelings (e.g., “What I’ve observed is that they can often be not as structured”). This makes feedback easier to give and hear, and less likely to be perceived as personal.
11. Build Relationship with Positive Feedback
Regularly provide specific positive feedback to build trust and a “reservoir of goodwill” with your team. This ensures that when difficult conversations arise, employees perceive your intent as helpful, not critical.
12. Pause Defensive Conversations
If someone becomes defensive or emotional, pause the conversation and remind them your intention is to help their career. Offer to continue later if needed, using phrases like “the energy has changed” or “this is really upsetting you” to acknowledge their state without escalating conflict.
13. Communicate Promotion Denial
Be upfront about the decision (e.g., “I know this will be challenging to hear…”). Provide clear reasoning for the decision, and crucially, offer hope for the future by outlining opportunities for skill development and career advancement within the company.
14. Handle Promotion Disagreement
If an employee disagrees with a promotion denial (e.g., “I do have those skills”), acknowledge their perspective (e.g., “I understand you believe…”) but reiterate the decision and your reasoning. If pushback continues, pause the conversation and offer to revisit it later, while affirming the decision stands.
15. Give Clear Pre-Firing Warning
Before firing, have a “crystal clear” conversation stating the specific, repeated issues and the consequence if they are not fixed within a defined timeframe (e.g., “fix this within the next 30 days. Otherwise, we’ll have to part ways”). This ensures no surprise and gives a final chance.
16. Execute Firing Conversation
Once the decision is made and legal/HR consulted, keep the firing conversation simple and direct. Remind them of previous warnings, state the decision to terminate, and introduce HR to discuss logistics.
17. Close Meetings Effectively
To ensure forward progress and continuity, end every meeting by asking: “What did we decide here?”, “Who needs to do what by when?”, and “Who else needs to know?”. This clarifies outcomes, assigns responsibilities, and ensures information cascades.
18. Operationalize Meeting Follow-Up
Assign someone (the “meetings owner” or “follower-upper”) to capture and articulate the answers to the three end-of-meeting questions. Make this a ritual, dedicating 5-10 minutes at the end of each meeting to ensure follow-through.
19. Provide Structure & Accountability
As a leader, recognize your job includes structuring the team, holding people accountable, setting goals, and course-correcting. While vision is important, ensure these foundational elements are in place, potentially by partnering with a COO if it’s not your strength.
20. Adopt Proven Leadership Practices
While first-principles thinking is valuable, recognize that effective ways to structure groups, establish hierarchy, define roles, and set goals (e.g., OKRs) are often “well-trod.” Get through the experimental stage quickly to avoid constantly reinventing leadership wheels.
21. Discern Patience vs. Process
As a leader, develop the wisdom to discern if a project delay or issue requires patience or indicates a “massive process problem.” If you lack a clear plan, hear uncomfortable silence, or haven’t investigated, it’s likely a process issue requiring deeper engagement.
22. Share Your Operating Manual
Develop a “personal operating manual” (or “read me”) that outlines your preferred working style, communication preferences, pet peeves, and delegation style. Share this with your team to foster better workplace harmony and save conflict for truly important issues.
23. Practice Deep Listening (Coaching)
If aspiring to be a coach, practice listening more deeply and asking profound “why” questions (e.g., “Where is that coming from?”). This helps you go beneath the surface and determine if you enjoy the process of truly understanding people.
24. Learn from Failures
In moments of failure or low points, actively seek to learn from the experience and use it as “fuel to build your skills.” Recognize that even significant setbacks can be transformed into opportunities for growth and improvement.
25. Consistent Action Overcomes Fear
When facing fear or uncertainty, especially in challenging new ventures, commit to consistently taking action, regardless of immediate wins or losses. This persistent effort will eventually lead to progress and desired outcomes.
5 Key Quotes
If you can see your path all the way through to the end, you are following someone else's path. Your path only becomes clear moment by moment as each foot hits the ground.
Joseph Campbell (quoted by Alisa Cohn)
The only way you're going to be able to help someone like grow in their career and become the best person they can be is by leaning into these tough conversations.
Alisa Cohn
What you resist persists.
Joe Hudson (mentioned by Lenny)
Your talents are not going to make up for these two deal breakers.
Alisa Cohn
I just think we should end this offsite. I just think we should just decide it's over and it's not working.
Alisa Cohn's client (quoted by Alisa Cohn)
6 Protocols
Performance Feedback Script
Alisa Cohn- Start by stating the intention: "I want to chat with you about [specific behavior/interaction]."
- Present observable facts: "What I'm hearing from them is that you're missing deadlines and not letting them know, and not fully keeping your team up to speed." (or "What I've observed is that [specific behavior].")
- Connect to expectations/goals: "We both know that the most important way you can be successful here and achieve your goals is to make sure you are working with your peers in a consistent way they can count on."
- State the desired outcome: "The most important thing is that we leave this discussion knowing how you're going to make sure you're keeping your peers and team in the loop."
- Offer support (if applicable): "Look at these examples of others doing it well, and let me know if you need additional classes or help."
Handling Defensive Reactions During Feedback
Alisa Cohn- Pause the conversation: "Let's pause for a second."
- Reiterate positive intent: "I want you to know that I'm telling you this to make you better, because I know how important your career and success are to you, and it's important to me as your leader."
- Acknowledge emotion (gently): "My observation is that you're getting a little bit emotional/heated/upset, or the temperature between us has changed."
- Offer a break: "I want to know if we can continue having this conversation now, or if we need to pause it and come back."
- Reaffirm necessity: "At the end of the day, we really have to have this conversation and I want to see you make changes, but I understand you might need a few moments to digest it."
Delivering News of Missed Promotion
Alisa Cohn- Be upfront and direct: "I know this is going to be challenging for you to hear. I know you were hoping to get that promotion, but I want to let you know that we are going to be looking for an external candidate."
- Provide clear reasons: "I want to give you a few thoughts about why. First, we need someone who has done this role multiple times and has that experience. Second, they need expertise in a specific realm we've identified as important."
- Offer hope for the future: "It's really important to me that you're able to succeed in your career here, and I want to continue to help you find opportunities to build your skills and advance."
- Highlight future support: "When we bring this person in, I'm committed to finding someone who's a great people leader and will help you build those skills."
- Suggest follow-up (optional): "Let's digest this and talk about it again next week to see what you've come up with and how you feel."
Pre-Termination Warning
Alisa Cohn- Set clear expectations: "We have to have a difficult conversation right now."
- Recap past discussions and lack of change: "I've talked to you multiple times about [specific issues, e.g., coordinating with peers, keeping team in loop]. After six months of these conversations, peers continue to feel you're operating alone, and your team isn't on the same page."
- State the ultimatum and timeline: "I need you to fix this within the next 30 days. Otherwise, I'm sorry to say we're going to have to find a way to part ways."
- Reaffirm potential while clarifying consequences: "I know you have it in you to change. I value all you bring to the table. But if you don't fix these things, we're not going to have a future together."
Termination Conversation
Alisa Cohn- Be direct and concise (after consulting HR/legal): "Matilda, we talked about this multiple times. Last time we had this conversation, I told you I needed you to make these changes. You haven't made these changes and we're going to part ways."
- Introduce HR/logistics: "I have here Sarah from HR, and we're going to talk through logistics of that."
- Reiterate decision: "I'm happy to have a longer conversation with you, but I want you to know we've made the decision to terminate you."
Three Questions to End Every Meeting
Alisa Cohn- "What did we decide here?"
- "Who needs to do what by when?"
- "Who else needs to know?"