What do you have to do to get bigger better buy-in from your employees?

Feelings are an unavoidable part of every difficult conversation.

Fail to get your colleague to express their feelings and they will not hear you.

In fact people stop listening because they are thinking about how they are feeling.

The cost of asking someone to share their feelings can be risky as you are unsure of their emotional response. Some will be measured, some upset and some seemingly non-existent.

Unexpressed feelings stop the conversation from moving forward and block our ability to fully listen and appreciate the other persons point of view.

If unaddressed feelings will either leak out or burst out. Feelings are often at the heart of every difficult conversation.

A successful learning conversation is peppered with feeling statements and questions, for a successful discussion about feelings you must be open and honest and have a genuine curiosity about how the other person is feeling.

A willingness, and an ability to listen to what they are saying and not interject with your own feelings when the atmosphere is highly charged will reap dividends many times over.

It is important to remember that these feelings are natural and normal and show that the person actually cares about the situation. Appreciating the feelings of the other person can help dissolve your difficult conversations.