Difficult conversations
The conversation you’ve been putting off, prepared properly and delivered well.
It’s not the decision that’s hard
A difficult conversation is any exchange where the relationship, the record, and the outcome are all at risk at once. We prepare the person who has to have it, and sit in the room when that helps.
- The actual words, not a framework to fill in
- Checked against your policy and your last decision
- Rehearsed, including the reaction you’re dreading
You’re probably looking at this because
Not every organization needs this work, and the ones that do usually recognize themselves in one of these before they can name what’s wrong.
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It should have happened weeks ago
The decision is made. The meeting keeps getting moved. Every week it waits, the harder it becomes to explain why it waited.
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You know what to say and not how to say it
The facts are clear. The wording isn’t, and the wording is the part people remember and repeat afterward.
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You’re worried about the reaction
Tears, anger, a threat, a recording app, or complete silence. Most preparation covers the message and almost none of it covers the response.
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It has to be consistent with the last one
Somebody else got a warning for this. Somebody else didn’t. Whatever you do here becomes the precedent for what comes next.
What our difficult conversations work covers
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Structure, evidence, and language
What you’re going to say, in what order, with the specific facts behind each point and wording that holds up if it’s quoted back to you.
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Policy and consistency review
We check the decision against your own policies and against how you handled the last one, because that’s where most of the actual risk sits.
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Delivery and de-escalation coaching
We rehearse it out loud, including the reactions you’re dreading, and then work on what you do when one of them happens.
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Documentation and follow-through
The record made at the time, the expectations set afterward, and the follow-up that decides whether any of it worked.
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Support for individuals
We also work with people preparing for a hard conversation of their own, including one with their own employer.
What working on difficult conversations looks like
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01
Tell us what the conversation is
What happened, what you’ve decided, and what you’re worried about. Same day where we can.
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02
We prepare it with you
Structure, wording, evidence, and a policy check. You leave with the actual language rather than a framework to fill in later.
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03
We rehearse it
Out loud, with the reactions you expect and the ones you haven’t thought about yet.
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04
We’re there for the aftermath
Documentation, the follow-up conversation, and what to do if it goes sideways.
Frequently Asked Questions
Got a question about our difficult conversations approach? Here’s a list of common questions we get asked.
Why is the practice called Third Voice?
Because two people in a difficult conversation rarely hear each other. The third voice is the one that’s not defending a position: it prepares the message, keeps the process fair, and stays steady while the other two aren’t.
Will you be in the room?
If it helps, yes. Sometimes that’s the right call and sometimes an outside presence changes the meeting in ways you don’t want. We’ll give you our honest read either way.
How fast can you help? This is happening Thursday.
Say that when you write. Preparing a single conversation is often one or two calls, and we deliberately keep room for them.
Is this only for terminations?
No. Most of the work sits upstream of that: performance warnings, a decision somebody will contest, a complaint about a colleague, telling someone they didn’t get the promotion.
Can you help me if I’m the employee rather than the employer?
Yes. We work with individuals preparing for a conversation with their own manager or employer. We’ll not work both sides of the same matter.
What if I have already had the conversation and it went badly?
That’s a normal place to start. There’s almost always a second conversation available, and it goes better with preparation.
Do you write scripts?
You leave with specific language rather than a fill-in-the-blank script. A script that doesn’t sound like you falls apart the moment the other person responds off-plan.
Not seeing an answer to your question? Our expanded FAQs page covers how we work more broadly, or start a conversation and we’d be happy to answer it directly.
Our other services
Most situations touch more than one of these, and you don’t have to work out which before you write.
Whatever it is, it’s probably not the first time we’ve seen it.
Tell us what’s going on and we’ll tell you honestly whether we’re the right people for it.