How do you deal with difficult conversations at work? Perhaps you need to tell a member of your team that they aren’t pulling their weight, or a client that you need extra time and/or budget? It’s possible that you even have to terminate someone’s employment.

These conversations can be difficult for everyone involved. They can bring out the coward in us, so that we put them off for as long as possible. And because we expect that, at the very least, things are going to be awkward if not fully confrontational, our defence mechanisms are primed to spring into action at the slightest provocation.

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