The 5 Step Framework for Addressing Difficult Employees

talk is the same. So today we're breaking down the five types of hard conversations you'll face and how to approach each one with clarity and confidence, because when you know which type of conversation to have and win, it helps you communicate the problem clearly. Keep your team on the same page and make those tough moments a lot more productive.

Ramsey's chief technology officer, Brendan Mochko, joins on trade leadership's John Falcons to share some practical ways to handle these moments well. So you can lead your team forward instead of avoiding the tension. So Brendan, we've talked a lot about how to have a difficult conversation and we've got resources on that.

So if people want that, they can click the link in this show notes. But today we really want to get into the different types of difficult conversations.

“So could you help us unpack what those different types are?”

Yeah, usually when people ask me about uncomfortable conversations, it's all about how to have them, like how to have a successful uncomfortable conversation.

And the reality is that there's not just one.

What I found is there's five distinct kind of uncomfortable conversations. The first one is what we call first contact. So first time you actually address a problem with someone, right? And in that conversation, like, I mean, the biggest thing is just to make sure that you really clearly state the problem in a way that they understand what the problem is.

Okay. You know, I always joke around and say, like, you're our articulation or the problem should be so clear, like your fourth grade, you know, English teacher should be proud of you. Right now. The reading levels should be a lovely reading level should be low and the statement should

be really short. Okay. And it should be about observed behavior. Like, John, I see that you've been showing up late to work. And that's not okay.

Yeah. This is getting personal fast. Right. Yeah.

“I mean, it's, you want to be really clear on the problem.”

The second part of it, you want to make sure that they're really clear about the process

you're going to walk out next. Okay. Because you're typically not having uncomfortable conversations the right way when you sit down with somebody and you kind of like swoop and poop. Like if you, you know, if you swoop into the situation, you kind of drop a problem on

their lap and then you're gone. It's not a productive uncomfortable conversation, because the person, if they just become problem aware, it doesn't mean that they know what to do. It doesn't mean that they're going to get the coaching they need. It doesn't mean that the problem's actually going to get fixed.

It all means as you drop to 10, 10 ton, you know, concrete block on them, which is, you got a problem. And so in that first contact conversation, we want to make sure that we really clarify the problem. And we want to help them understand like what happens next.

Okay. And usually in that conversation, I'll say to people, like, listen, we're going to walk through a series of like coaching conversations because it's, it's great that in this conversation, this first contact conversation that we made the problem clear, yeah. But I'm actually going to separate the coaching to a different time.

And the reason for that is because like, people just get into it like an overload. You generally want to keep these conversation short because if you load in too much at one time, they're simply, they're going to go to a fighter flight and they're not going to remember. Yeah, they're not right.

Right.

“The contact conversation is, what's the problem, what do we do next?”

Then we walk into that second kind of uncomfortable conversation, which is coaching. And the whole point is, we want to reiterate the problem, but we also want to give the person tools about how they can fix it. The number one mistake that leaders make in coaching conversations is they make the conversations unnecessarily adversarial.

Okay. Here's what I mean. It's really easy as a leader to kind of put yourself in the situation where it's like, me versus you. Yeah.

The person wrong, and now you got to meet my expectations, right? And that might actually be ultimately true.

The reality is it's like, you actually have to help the person understand one, how people

around them are experiencing them, right? Because if I'm just saying how I'm experiencing you, it's almost immediately a me versus you thing. Yeah, I'm just curious if it, if you've ever seen this where the leader might do everything really well in that setting to not set it up me versus you.

But the person has got a lot of experiences where regardless of what the leader has done. Yeah. That's how they're coming into it. Is that fair? Yeah.

It's totally fair. Okay. So there's two things I do in this coaching conversation that are not obvious. The first thing is I actually want to go to other leaders, and I want to number one check to make sure that they've all experienced that kind of same problem that I'm addressing.

And then get some of their feedback. What? Why do you do that? Well, because really it really melts down the me versus you. Now, more of what it's about is, hey, this is me helping guide you through the resolution

of this problem. Okay. Right. And if you're working with somebody that reminds you of the kid to be up on the playground at school, all this, you know, like, again, this is getting very personal right now.

But yeah, it is good for that reason to kind of get that collective wisdom from a group of people, right? You get that. And I bring that into the uncomfortable conversation. I'll say, like, hey, this, there is a behavior that I'm seeing, but hey, it's just,

It's a couple of us that are seeing this.

And by the way, when I say a coaching conversation, there's not typically one of them. Okay.

“Like, you have to coach somebody through the behavior that's a problem, right?”

And so I can't tell you exactly whether you should have three coaching conversations with somebody or 33, like it's, it's a little dependent on the circumstances, severity of the thing. Yeah. And that receptivity, right?

Right. But I will say, like, if I had to pick between three and 30, it'd be a whole lot closer to three. I don't want to be having, like, unending, you know, coaching conversations with somebody. But the other thing of the coaching conversation that's really critically important, you've

got to really tell them where you stand. And so I use this thing called the table metaphor. What I would actually say to the person is, John, you and I are on the same side of the table. And this problem that you're having is on the other side.

And my role is to coach you in such a way where we can get rid of that problem, and we can go back to the way that we all want things, which are things that are just flowing and going normally, right? But I'm going to ask you to do two things. I need you to share my urgency and apply my coaching.

But if at any point, we kind of get off track with you either not sharing my urgency or applying my coaching, I'm going to be forced to reevaluate where I am at the table. Gotcha. And I don't want to go to the other side of the table.

“But I think we both know that if I go to the other side of the table, what that means,”

and we both don't want that. But again, the coaching conversation is I like to bring in the feedback of other leaders and have that table, put that table metaphor in place so that the person that you're talking to actually understands, like, I'm actually working for you against this problem, unless your receptivity or your action really drops.

And then I'm going to have to get on the other side of the table. So you're having this coaching conversation, right?

That's the second type of conversation.

Yeah. And you said, they got to share the urgency and they got to apply the coaching. What happens if I don't do that? Because sometimes that happens. Hopefully you clean the situation up and no big deal.

But if you got to escalate it farther, the next thing is something called an emotional firing. Okay. Talk about that. Super intense. Yeah.

It's actually just giving the person the last opportunity to turn the situation around before their jobs actually on the line. And so, you know, somebody will come in and they'll think that, like, okay, we're going for our fifth or third coaching conversation. I got to reset their expectations bouncing along like this is status quo.

And so, you know, I'll say to the person, like, hey, listen, I feel like you're either not sharing my urgency or not applying my coaching.

“And I just need you to understand like the heat on this situation is turning up, you know?”

And usually in that first contact conversation, I will have also put some timing around

this situation. Right? So let's say we set the expectation like, hey, this behavior needs to change in 30 days. Well, hey, you know, John were at day 25, we've had like three coaching conversations. We had an initial conversation where we're working things through.

I feel like you're not sharing my urgency, you're not playing my coaching, right? I just need to let you know that we're now in a situation where I'm moving to the, like, I'm considering moving to the other side of the table, right? And to like, your job might actually be on the line, okay, right? And so there are some choices that we need to make.

Now, let me just say, you say those words, those alarm bells are going to go out of person's head, right? And isn't that what you're trying to do? I mean, not manipulatively, but you want them to understand how serious they need to understand, like, this is a last ditch effort to save this situation. And they should feel that and they should feel it.

Now, I will say that if you start to see somebody space out and you can, you can tell, right? They'll start to get a little disassociated or they'll start getting emotional. By the way, if somebody cries, that's fine. Like, people are a lot of cry. People are allowed to have emotions, right? The thing that you've got to help them with in the moment is if the emotion gets to the point

where they can no longer hear you, then you've got to kind of like step into that, got situation in the moment and get them back to a place where they can hear you. So the trick for that is if you start to see somebody's like emotions get to the point where they can't hear you, the key phrase is remind them of their, their need for dignity. Okay, so if they start to get overwhelmed, the thing that I found is if I just say to them like,

"Hey, John, I know this is a serious conversation. I know it can be scary." Yeah. And listen, emotions are totally okay, but when you and I both look back at this conversation a year from now, what I know is both you and I want to remember it is a dignified moment. Yeah.

And there is something that when you say that to somebody, it allows them just kind of collect themselves and kind of snap right back into this. Like 99 out of 100 times that little phrase works. And if it doesn't, then you've got to give the conversation maybe a little space, but usually it works. And so what you're really trying to help the person understand this emotional firing is like, this is a last ditch effort to kind of fix this situation.

And so you're going to give them two options. Okay. You know, you're going to say, you need to make a choice between continuing to try to save your job or call an uncle,

if you decide that you want to try to save your job, I need you to understand, we're moving out of the kind of the realm of coaching. Right. And we're going to write some things down on paper. We're going to give you a written plan of 30, 60, 90 day plan, whatever is right for the situation. You know, let's say a 30 in this situation. I'm going to give you a 30 day written performance plan.

And here's what I need you to hear. It is a zero wiggle room plan. You've got to do this.

Zero wiggle room. Right. It's a do or don't. There is no gray area. There is no kind of. Right. Right. And I got to be honest with you. We've been having three or four of these coaching conversations. And I really think that if this change was going to happen, it would have happened already. Yeah. By virtue of the fact that we're having this level of a conversation,

“I really think you should strongly consider option B, which is tapping out. Right.”

But I'm going to respect whatever decision you may. Yeah. Right. And at this point, I'll ask the person to like actually go home. I want him to get out of the office. Right. I'll tell him, listen, find some people in your life you trust, talk to your spouse, talk to a friend, talk to a pastor, whatever you need to do. Share with them the situation. And like kind of co-authored

that decision with somebody that you trust. Right. And tomorrow morning, we're going to sit down first

thing and I want to hear what your choice is. Stick with it or tap out. Right. Conversation over. Okay. We get back again in the morning. They're going to pick their path. Okay. Right. So they come back. They say, I want to fight for my job. What do you need to be prepared with at that point? Right. So I've already got that performance plan written down. We're going to talk about it. But before we actually walk through the plan, I want to remind them like, look, I respect the decision

that you made that you want to try to save your job. I need you to understand that based on our prior history, I have a very low confidence that this is actually going to work out.

“Why is it? That sounds negative. Why do you have to save that to them? Well, because”

all I'm doing is just telling them what I've already experienced. Okay. You don't ever want to walk into a termination conversation in people like, what? Okay. You know, and like this is the moment, like that's why we call it an emotional fire. Yeah. Yeah. It's because it's intense. Yeah. You know, like, but I want them to know where things stand. Okay. Even when they make the choice of the performance plan, I'm going to reiterate. Great. I'm prepared. I respect your decision. I should

put the plan, but I just want to reiterate. I don't think that we're going to be able to successfully do this. But I'm willing to walk it out. Then we're actually going to walk through the plan. The important thing, the thing that you've got to say zero wiggle room. This is not an negotiation. Because the number of times that somebody will get through a plan, and they'll be like, well, I did most of it. Sorry, dude. Like, this is a scenario that you've put yourself in as an

all or nothing situation, not the scenario I put you in. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, other important tip for performance plans. If you pick 30 days, a performance plan doesn't have to last 30 days. Like, if they're, if they're not sharing your urgency and they're not applying your coaching, they're not doing what's on the written plan. Yeah. We're done. We're done 12 days in. Eight days in. Two days in. Yeah. Doesn't matter. We can be done. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And not waste time. And you typically want to put that in writing in the plan. Okay. Right. That the performance plan can be cut short in any time. Right. Okay. So let's just pretend that we, okay, we've gone through this whole thing, this this 30 day performance plan. It hasn't worked out. I don't know whether we're ending this at day 12 or day 30, whatever it is, but no matter when we end it, it's going to end the same way. Right. So we, we sit down and here is the thing.

Because we've done all of this work. We've done the first contact. We've done the coaching.

We've done the emotional firing. We've done the performance improvement plan. Right. There is a ton, a metric ton of clarity for this person about what is wrong and what they're performance. Yes. We've gotten the feedback of other leaders. Yeah. You know, we've been very clear about where we stand with the table metaphor all the stuff. On one hand, to me, that creates a ton of clarity for the person. But as a leader, that's a really good insurance policy. At the

end of the day, I know I've done everything I could to help this person. You can go home with confidence that you tried everything you could and you can actually sleep when you go home tonight. Yes. There's nothing worse than a scenario where you feel like there's something else that could have been. Yeah. You don't want to live with that weight as a leader. And you want to serve people

“well ultimately. But when it actually comes down to a termination, here's the thing you got to know,”

because of all that context, because of all the setup, because of all the time investment we put into things, a termination does not need to be long. You would be stunned how short it can actually be. As a salesist, they're left to say really, right? It's a John. We have had six or seven. Conversations up to this point. I feel like I've been articulating a very specific problem to you for the last 30 days. And I've given you plenty of opportunity and plenty of clarity around what

needs to change in order for you to continue to be with the company. But the decision has been made that today's going to be your last day. What everybody needs to hear is that phrase, the decision has been made is the one sentence that must be included in a termination conversation. Okay. One

walk through a termination and don't actually realize they've been terminated. Okay. It's because

leaders get real shifty and they get nervous and they feel like it's an undignified thing to say

“you're fired. Yeah. Which it is kind of an undignified thing. Right. That's why I say the decisions”

been made that today's your last day. Like I said, it's important because it gives clarity. But the other thing is there is a certain percentage of personalities that will immediately begin to go negotiating. Yeah. They'll say, well, can I have a different job or can I have a different set of

responsibilities or whatever? And at that point, all you have to do is just repeat the decisions

been made. Okay. He's going to be your last day. Yeah. It's over. Yeah. And so really a termination conversation. Honestly, if it's gone much longer than three minutes, it's too long. Okay. Now, I'll also say an termination conversation. I'll usually have a buddy with me. I call him the wingman. Right. And so I'll deliver the hard news and then I'll usually exit the conversation because at this point, I'm kind of the bad guy. Right. And I'll leave the room and then I'll let my

wingman kind of deal with the details. Okay. Like, hey, I need your your keyfaw. I need the, you know, the keys to the truck. Yeah. The logistics of it. You know, hey, I want to let you know that your access to company emails been terminated. Talk to you about medical insurance. You know, like if there's any severance involved, like talk through all those details. Yeah. That's really

“for the wingman. Okay. And you do that immediately right after the termination or I think that's really”

up to you in terms of the culture that you want to create inside your your company. I will tell you the

way that we do it here is the the wingman basically says like, hey, there's there's conversations

we need to have about insurance and severance and what a separation between our two companies look like. Right. We're going to schedule a follow-up phone call and an opportunity for you to come visit. Okay. And so, you know, it's just like how you want to do it. Right. But the point is is keep it dignified. And the last point there that's really important is you don't want to put people through the walk a shame after they've been terminated. Okay. And so oftentimes, I'll have some, I'll say

“to a person, you know, before I get up and leave, I'll say, is there anything important at your desk”

that you need before we walk together out to the parking lot? Okay. Right. Yeah. And I'll typically send somebody else to get keys or a purse or something. And I'll let him know we're going to schedule a time before after business hours where you can come clean out your desk and not everybody's going to be staring at you and we'll do this the right. Really still protecting their dignity. Yeah. Because I mean, it's unfortunate that it ended this way, but we do want to you only

want to protect them and their dignity. Yeah. I love it. So that's it. It's a life. That's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. But I appreciate that. That's super valuable. And I do realize just like we're saying, it's a lot. So if you want the resources to help you go through this, make sure you click the link in the show notes. Listen, having these conversations isn't easy, but it's where real leadership growth happens. And now you've got a strategy to start approaching these conversations

with a right way. Big thanks to Brandon and John for walking us through it. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to like, share, and subscribe for more great leadership content. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey, and this is Andre Leadership.