Difficult Conversations: How to Grow Through Conflict in Business

Transcript

John: I think it, this is going to be a good one because we're going to be vulnerable in this one. We are. Because this is something I know we struggle with.

Kacie: And I think, I think everybody struggles with this. Most definitely. Even if you're not a business owner. Yeah. Yeah. So what are we talking about today? We are

John: talking about having those tough conversations, making those tough decisions.

Do I hurt feelings or do I not hurt feelings? And how do I go about, how do I go about it?

Kacie: The Business Project Podcast. Business can be complicated. We break it down to regular people like us

John: who can understand and find success. I'm John Crespo, accountant and consultant. I'm Casey

Kacie: Bryant, marketer and event planner. If you run a business or want to run a business,

John: welcome to the show.

What's up?

Kacie: What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Business Project Podcast. Yes. I'm excited about this one.

John: I think it, this is going to be a good one because we're going to be vulnerable in this one. We are. Because this is something I know we struggle with.

Kacie: And I think, I think everybody struggles with this.

Most definitely. Even if you're not a business owner. Yeah. Yeah. So what are we talking about today? We

John: are talking about having those tough conversations, making those tough decisions. Do I hurt feelings or do I not hurt feelings? And how do I go about, how do I go about

it?

Kacie: Yeah, think back in your past couple months.

I guarantee you can think of some time where you've had to have a tough conversation with somebody. Yeah. And I think one of the myths, and we've talked about this on our podcast before, but I think one of the... Misjudgments of, of communication in this way is that a lot of people think that conflict is a bad thing.

It always has to be a bad thing or conflict confrontation. And so they avoid it at every cost, especially these days. We can hide behind our phones and our computer and, you know, be keyboard warriors. And so we never really sit down face to face and have these hard, tough conversations. And then it turns into something.

a lot of times way bigger than it would have been if you just nipped it in the bud at the beginning. Right. Is it nipped it in the butt or the

John: bud? Nip, nip it in the bud. In the bud. Maybe it is butt.

Kacie: I don't know. What is it? You'll let us know in the comments. And where did that come from? Anyways, what were you gonna say?

John: What was I gonna say? Sorry. I was gonna, oh yeah. I was gonna say that, uh, problems don't just disappear. No. Right? If you don't address problems, then they fester. Right. And it gets worse. So, um, I think, but the fact that the majority of people are, are anti confrontation, right? Like you said, they hide behind, we hide behind our phones.

We, you know, if we have to have a tough conversations a lot today, it's through a text message or something like that, you know? And, you know, if you're a, if you're like a person just in general, right? Wanting to navigate through society and life. Um, in, in a healthy way and you're a business owner at that.

You gotta have those face to face conversations.

Kacie: And it's gonna happen. I mean, you're gonna have confrontation. There's gonna be things come up with both your customers, with your employees, with people that you work with, contractors or vendors. I mean, that's part of life and I think learning how to navigate these tough conversations and handle them in a productive and a healthy way, it, when you do that, it turns out so much better in the end.

I mean, you, you use this as an opportunity. You have an opportunity to actually grow through this and have a better relationship than you did before.

John: Yeah. But you know what? I think it's, uh, and I've got, I'm going through this and I've gone through this, right? Um, most small business owners. Right? Or a lot of them, either employ family, friends, right?

Or some acquaintances that they know and have a relationship with already, right? Because, um, you bring those people on board because you want to give them a chance, you know, you think that it can help support the business, but God forbid it doesn't go the way it's supposed to go. Which most of the time it doesn't.

Which most of the time it doesn't, exactly. And it's your business, because if the business fails or succeeds, it's on your shoulders. But you don't want to hurt feelings. Yeah, because these are people that you you, you know, you have Relationship with these are my family members at that like you probably have to go home to them At the end of the day and good friends that you're gonna see all over the place and all that So, how do you overcome that feeling of not wanting to hurt?

Somebody's feelings is is something that I think a lot of us

Kacie: Yeah. Well, and even if they're not your friends or family when you start, a lot of times if you are a small business owner, if they've worked with you for an amount of time, they become your family or your friends. Yeah. So then it's really hard to be like, you're doing a terrible job.

Yeah. Exactly.

John: Yeah. They're going to look at you like, what are you talking about? And you know, and it's, and it's. Then you then you have to get into

Kacie: the conversation, right? So I think as long as you are doing a good job as a business owner to create processes that are helpful to create accountability to make sure that they're Position is clear.

Your expectations are clear to create a way to track, you know, what they're actually doing to create healthy ways of communicating in between. So like, how do we, you know, once we get here, let's have a conversation. Once we get here, let's have a conversation. This is how you could do this better. This is going great.

As long as you have all of that in place, we're talking specifically with your employees right now, and we'll get into some other relationships, but, um, when it. I think that one thing that happens is we let it go too far, too long and it drowns the rest of the company. It drowns us emotionally, it drowns us financially, and it honestly becomes probably a toxic environment for the rest of the people on your team because they're not dumb.

They can feel it. They know what's going on. They know who's pulling their weight and who's not. And so I think, um, You know, just recognizing when it's time to finally have those tough conversations and making sure that you're having them.

John: Yeah. And, um, you know, it starts with how serious do you take your business?

So I, um, we have to really take a deep look at ourselves sometimes and say, all right, how, what do I want my business to accomplish? People don't start businesses just because you want to start a business. Um, people start businesses because you want to create something for your family. You know, you want to create something that's going to make a difference in the community.

You want, you know, you want to, you want to generate revenue. You want to be, you want to do better, right? So if that's the purpose of starting a business, Then we have to be able to approach our team in a way that supports that vision, right? And that starts with, like you said, setting the processes in place, but I think also, you know, So, right, setting the expectation up front.

I struggled with that.

Kacie: Yeah, that's hard. Like, a lot. Cause I think a lot of times we don't even know what our expectations are when we bring on a new person, especially if it's a new position. It's like we're still trying to figure out. So true.

John: Yeah. So true. But you know what? I think we spoke about it a couple.

Uh, episodes back where, um, as where when we just first starting out, you're first starting out a business, you're probably, you're for the most part doing it all yourself, right? Um, and while you're doing it all yourself, you have to kind of like document what you're going through before you even think about hiring somebody, right?

Right. So you're, you're building your business yourself, start documenting those processes so that when it comes time to hire somebody. It gives you something to help set the right expectation in the upfront, right?

Kacie: Yeah You already know what the job entails and what the expectations are and how long it takes to do something because you've been doing it Yourself.

Yeah.

John: Yeah, don't be like me and having to go back You know and and document stuff now that I should have been documenting later So I can then start the setting expectations now that I should have set Later, right, you know because then you're playing catch up and you're trying to reset What was the reset habits right because bad habits are gonna be formed when you're not doing it right in the beginning you get a Reset all that stuff and that is tough.

Yeah, it takes time and that takes energy and stress and you just name it It's

Kacie: like giving somebody a raise. You can't take it back. It went to once you go there. It's really hard to get it back So I just thought of a really good analogy with just handling Tough conversations and conflict and confrontation and all that if say you have a rotting tooth Right?

Your mouth, you have a toothache and you have a tooth in your mouth that is bad. And this could be any type of, you know, tension or conflict with your employees, with your customers, with your friends. You know, there's something that's irritating, right? And, and it's a little painful and it's uncomfortable.

And so you feel it. Well, the longer you go without addressing that. The worse it's gonna get, right? And it might be four years, it might be four months, but that tooth is eventually gonna rot more if you don't take care of it. So, you have to get to a point, the sooner you're like, okay, I feel this pain, this uncomfortableness, the sooner you get to it, you might be able to still save the tooth.

Because you've addressed it quickly enough and so, you know, figuring out what exactly the problem is And that might even take going to a dentist or going to somebody that knows more than you do about, about your tooth. Seeking professional help. Yes. It's so good. Going to your friends and, you know, doing things like that.

Analyzing it in the mirror and really sitting down and, and digging into what's wrong. And. And if you can catch it quick enough, you might be able to fix it. If it's too late, then you might have to pull the tooth because if you don't pull the tooth, then it's going to rot out the rest of your teeth. It's going to spread right to the rest of your teeth.

And I think that that is a great, just visual realistic example of what happens when conflict arise or when tension arises issues in our business. We just let that tooth continue to rot. Yeah, We want to ignore it. Yeah. And then it gets to a point to where that tooth affects so many other places of our business.

It affects, it affects, it affects our finances. You know, it might roll into your finances. It might roll into your home life. You might be grumpy when you get home because this is just irritating you all day long. It might affect, you know, your team, your other, your other employees. And so... Pull that tooth either fix the tooth or pull the tooth.

That's

John: so good. Like I'm I'm feeling a pain right now Just thinking about it Have you ever had a toothache? Oh, yeah, so bad If it's one of those things if if you don't you're right if you don't take care of it Early on like it'll start you'll start feeling pains all over the place You know, that's one of the worst pains to go through is a toothache Um, so that's a good analogy.

It's so true, too. It's it's in They turn into infections, right? And then the infections spread. So, wow. Boom. Microphone drop. Are you visualizing that too?

Kacie: Yeah, so, That is a mic drop. That's our, think in your business, think in your life right now, and in your business, and is there, Yeah. Some conflicts. I mean, we, the reason we wanted to talk about this today is because we both deal with this.

We're, this is something that we've been, you know, over and over over the past couple of years. There's been times where we're like, man, we gotta have this conversation and it stinks and it's okay. It's okay to have it stink. Like it's, it's one of those things that you have to push through even though it stinks.

Do it anyways.

John: And it's tough because you know, you and I both have small businesses, right? And we both build relations with the, like relationships with the people that, that work with us. So it's hard to have those conversations because we don't want to hurt their feelings. You know, we don't want to hurt people's feelings.

Um, but at the end of the day, right, who's the one responsible for the business? Who's the one that's really going to suffer if the business is not doing well because we're not able to address our problems in an efficient way. You know, and accomplish that and that's, you know, I'm really, I'm still working through it, you know, and, um, and, and kind of like navigating through this whole mindset change of, um, addressing things quickly so that the business can move efficiently.

Like that's, it's a, it has to be like constant. You have to constantly have that, um, at top of mind, you know, like how I got to, if something comes up, let's address it. Right away.

Kacie: Don't let it sit. And that, let's get into, um, customers really quick, because I think there's a lot of times when we have to have these difficult conversations with customers also, and I think training your team, creating this, you know, this open communication and not avoiding tough conversations and creating an example for them.

And this is how we be grownups and talk about our problems. Um, I think, You know, when it comes to your customers, I've had to fire several customers because just like that toothache They started just creating a pain in our business And if you don't address the pain right away, it just gets bigger and affects so many other things.

So I think it's okay Just exactly like we talked about when you have employees, create expectations with your customers, you treat your, you teach your customers how to treat you. So if there's a certain way that multiple treat customers are treating you, whether it be not respecting your, you know, your business hours or.

Um, complaining about your price or wanting more than what you provide, um, or what they pay for. Then there's probably a problem with the communication that you're giving them, a problem with your systems. But if this customer is just continuing to take up your time, to drain you of energy, to be negative in your business, sometimes you just got to pull that tooth.

John: For sure. I am so on board with that, so on board with that, you know, and it, I think it comes to understanding your value. Right. Understanding your value, your business's value and what your business provides to the customers or clients that you're bringing on board. So if you're building a strong team, right, if you're handling conflicts quickly in your team, you're creating an environment of growth.

Because believe it or not, your team is going to adapt to that and is going to start bringing on those habits. Right. So that relays over that flows over to the communication with your clients. So it kind of goes hand in hand, um, setting the right expectation with your team up front. You go to start setting the right expectation with your clients up front.

You know, those, those, um, processes and those, um, policies and those standards kind of go flow together. And so, yes, it allows you to make those decisions quickly. On when you need to let a client go or a customer go and when not to because you put yourself in the habit of addressing those situations quickly.

You're

Kacie: being proactive and thinking ahead versus reactive. Yeah. And not all the time. We're not saying that every single time a customer is difficult, you need to pull the plug. I mean, that's something that we've had happen in our businesses, too, is there's been a difficult client, but it gives us an opportunity to grow.

So instead of. Letting them go. We, we create policies and procedures around setting expectations for them and setting boundaries so that we can grow together. So don't always think that you have to pull the plug.

John: Right? No. Yeah. Addressing your conflicts, addressing, um, disagreements or misunderstandings quickly allow you to build better relationships with your clients.

Right? So you're, you're addressing that stuff upfront. Clients respect that. Like, they expect you to address issues quickly. So if you're doing that, then you're building respect from the clients that you have. And the ones that don't, um, kind of reciprocate, then you know which ones to keep on and which ones to don't.

Kacie: Right. Yep. So we're going to get into, we also need to talk probably about specific ways to address conflict. Yeah. So should we do another episode? We'll do that in the next episode is specific. So you know that you have to have a difficult conversation. So what do you say? Right. Cause that's the hard part is okay.

We know what we have to do, but how do we do it? Yeah,

John: I agree. That's going to be another good conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Next

Kacie: episode. So catch us next week. We'll talk about how to address Difficult conversations. Yes,

John: what steps to put into place? Yeah,

Kacie: that's gonna be a good one. We all need that Alright, you guys have a good one