Manager's Hot Seat: Managing a Difficult Conversation about Corporate Culture

This activity is important because you will engage in many difficult conversations in your career. Difficult conversations often center on disagreements, conflict, and bad news. Common types of difficult conversations for entry$-$level business professionals include receiving a bad performance review, having ideas rejected, critiquing a colleague, giving feedback to a boss, correcting someone, approaching rule breakers about their behavior, talking to a slacker on a group project, and dealing with office politics.

Principles for managing difficult conversations include the following: embrace difficult conversations and assume the best in others; adopt a learning stance and commit to hearing everyone$$s story; stay calm and overcome noise; find common ground; disagree diplomatically; avoid exaggeration and either$/$or approaches; and initiate the conversation, share stories, and focus on solutions.

You will watch a short video and analyze how this team engages in a difficult conversation. Here$$s a short summary of the situation:

Churnout is a successful online retailer that was forced to oust its previous CEO because he instigated poor workplace behavior. The new CEO is adamant that change is needed, and fast. However, she is facing resistance from a senior leader in the company based on the way she wants to go about changing Churnout$$s organizational culture. Senior leadership is meeting to discuss how to move forward and there is a lot of tension in the room.

The goal of this activity is to demonstrate your understanding of difficult conversations. As you watch this video, identify and evaluate how well members of the team manage the conversation.

Click the $$Play button to watch the video. Then, answer the questions that follow.

At the beginning of the meeting, the new CEO says, $$I$$m okay observing operations for a little while as I get my bearings. But there are some things, like Churnout$$s corporate culture, that cannot wait. We need to determine who we are without Lincoln $($the former CEO$)$ at the helm and broadcast that message swiftly to our employees, stakeholders, and customers.$$

What strategy for managing difficult conversations does this statement by the new CEO most exemplify?