Vistage Meeting – Courageous Conversations: How to Motivate and Influence Change

Do members of your team struggle with inconsistent performance, broken commitments, and unmet expectations? When leaders notice performance problems like inconsistent follow-up, poor attention to detail, and missed deadlines, they are often hesitant to address these challenges head-on.  

The lag time between identifying and discussing problems continues to increase due to a lack of assertiveness skills, fears around being conflict-avoidant or unsympathetic, and being perceived as a micromanager. Our Courageous Conversations program teaches leaders to develop essential dialogue and influence skills to proactively hold difficult performance conversations and close the gap between actual and expected behaviors. 

Takeaways:

• Solve the actual problem not the perceived one
• Know the right questions to get to the root cause(s) of the actual problem
• Respond to deflections and excuses
• Facilitate a conversation that creates cooperation and doesn’t force compliance
• Understand what motivates people to change beyond consequences and rewards