THE HARD CONVERSATION HABIT

The employee whose work has slipped for months. The peer who talks over you in every meeting. The conversation you keep rehearsing and never having. This book ends that pattern for good. Most managers weren't taught how to have hard conversations - they were just expected to figure it out, usually by avoiding them until avoidance itself became the habit. The Hard Conversation Habit replaces guesswork with a structure you can use the same day you read it: a five-step method for delivering feedback, resolving conflict, and holding people accountable, without either softening the truth into uselessness or delivering it so bluntly that it damages the relationship. This is not a book about becoming a harsher, colder version of yourself. Every script and structure inside assumes you actually care about the person on the other side of the conversation - and gives you a repeatable way to turn that care into something clear and actionable, instead of something that quietly turns into silence. What's inside: - The SBI-Plus method: a five-step structure for any hard conversation, from a quick correction to a formal review - Why managers go silent - and the specific, nameable fear behind each kind of avoidance - Full worked scripts for performance conversations, team conflict, accountability follow-ups, and saying no without burning a bridge - How to deny a promotion honestly, without crushing motivation or offering empty reassurance - A structure for ending someone's employment with as much dignity as the situation allows - How to raise hard conversations upward, with your own manager, without unnecessary risk - Building a team culture where direct, honest conversation is normal at every level - not just from the top down