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Effective Strategies for Successful Difficult Conversations in School

Learn why successful difficult conversations are crucial in school settings, explore the three core components for successful talks, understand how to initiate and structure conversations, ensure your message is heard effectively, and get tips for handling various levels of difficulty with kindness and success. Enhance your team's performance, behavior, and attitude through improved communication skills.

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Effective Strategies for Successful Difficult Conversations in School

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  1. Successful difficult conversations in school – Improve your team’s performance, behaviour and attitude with kindness and success Sonia Gill, Founder and Director, Heads Up Please note the content herein does not constitute legal advice.

  2. We’ll be looking at 1. Why are successful difficult conversations so important. 2. The three core components for successful difficult conversations. 3. Starting the conversation. 4. Making sure your message is heard. 5. Structure the conversation for success.

  3. Why are successful difficult conversations so important: Tuckman’s theory of group development

  4. Stage 1: Forming A group or team forms, they come together and they go through a ‘getting to know you’ phase. Conversation is around friendly factual information to build up a picture of the person or organisation.

  5. Stage 2: Storming But the honeymoon ends and storming begins. This is when the team start to test the metaphorical boundaries:  Is it okay to be late?  Can I wear jeans?  What if I don’t do that bit of work on time?

  6. Stage 3: Norming Once the team has stormed they will have established some norms, hopefully good norms, of how their team behaves and works. Good norms support the team to do well; bad norms hinder.

  7. Stage 4: Performing Once the team has normed they are ready to really start performing. This doesn’t mean they haven’t performed and delivered up to this point. But now a lot of the team dynamics have been established and their energy can be more focused on their work and performance.

  8. One stage is more important than all the others

  9. The three core components of successful difficult conversations

  10. Examples of getting the conversation started: I, issue, the outcome Low-level difficult conversations  “I notice you have been late four times over the last two weeks and the school needs you to be ready to work at 8:30am every day.” Mid-level difficult conversations (performance issues)  “I’ve seen from your data that your class are not making the expected level of progress and I need you to find a way to ensure that they all make at least expected progress by the end of the school year.” High-level difficult conversations (staff conduct)  “I feel you can come across as rude to parents at times and I would like you to express yourself in a positive manner throughout the school day, especially to parents.”

  11. This mistake within the mistake  People will often say their sentence either:  Without an outcome, or  State a solution instead of an outcome  This is the mistake within the mistake of not planning your opening sentence.  Having an outcome:  Reduces the likelihood of the issue dragging on  Stops the conversation being pulled off track  Increases the chance of success

  12. What to do when a conversation lands on you: Work out their ‘I, issue, the outcome’  Parents often come with the solution:  Move a child to another class because their child is being bullied)  The real outcome might be:  ‘I want my child to be happy at school and be able to learn in every lesson’. Often, the stated outcome is not the real one; it’s a method they think will lead to the problem going away but, without a clear understanding of the outcome, you can find that trying the supposed solutions won’t get you any nearer to the problem being fixed.

  13. Making sure your message is heard: It’s not what you say…it’s how you say it

  14. Four Ss  Stance – sit or stand like they do  Say – use their words, it shows you’ve heard them  Signal – use their gestures (but in a way that is authentic to you)  Summarise – summarise back their main points

  15. Structure the conversation for success: STORM 1. State the issue (‘I, issue, the outcome) 2. Their side – what do they think? 3. Options – how could they achieve the outcome? 4. Resolution – what will they do? 5. Move on and follow up – arrange a time to check progress Find out more on how to structure a difficult conversation for success with this free e-course: https://ukheadsup.com/storm/

  16. Get a weekly 2-minute top tip to help you have more successful difficult conversations Got a question about difficult conversations? Ask Sonia and she might make a 2-minute top tip from it. www.ukheadsup.com/headsuptv/ www.ukheadsup.com/asksonia/

  17. Good luck! Sonia Gill, Founder and Director, Heads Up

  18. Successful difficult conversations in school – Improve your team’s performance, behaviour and attitude with kindness and success Sonia Gill, Founder and Director, Heads Up Please note the content herein does not constitute legal advice.

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