Honestly speaking: The healing power of honest conversations

As much as we might all acknowledge the unmatchable power of honesty to mould relationships and achieve a lasting resolution to problems, we should ?also acknowledge that most people ?are terrible at it.

Honesty - as an expression of personal integrity - is a powerful management tool, and perhaps nowhere more so than in professional services, where everything is dependent on personal interaction. The more those interactions are cluttered with misinterpretation, dissemblance, avoidance, editing and downright dishonesty, the more difficult interpersonal relationships become.

Honesty is the foundation of good relationships, both with clients and colleagues, and the inverse is, naturally, true too. Time and again, honesty/integrity scores highest on management surveys of peers and clients, above any other factors such as technical ability or speed of response, while failure to be honest in a timely manner is among the highest-scoring criticisms.

Honest conversations can transform areas such as marketing and business development, pitching and business winning, professional profile building, recruitment, resource allocation, integration of hires, team effectiveness, career/performance management, feedback and appraisals.

The need for honesty is, in fact, so self-evident that we would waste time discussing the benefits of being honest with people; let's just take it as understood that you: a) need to be honest; and b) should want to be honest with clients and colleagues. Instead, let's look at the reasons why you might find it difficult to be honest with people and how you might change your behaviours so that it happens.

Challenge of honesty

There are a number of reasons why ?we might find it difficult to be honest ?with people:

• we don't wish to upset them;

• we don't wish to antagonise them or cause conflict;

• we find it difficult to deliver criticism or what might be perceived as criticism;

• we are afraid that we will be challenged (and may, in turn, be found wanting);

• we feel it would be better for them not to hear the truth (the 'white lie');

• we doubt their ability to change, so why bother telling them the truth?; and

• we are afraid that, if we are honest, we will disadvantage our own position.

In the case of lawyers particularly, honesty may be blocked by that simplest of enemies: fear. Lawyers are trained to spot every eventuality and to get things right, 100 per cent of the time, with the consequences of getting it wrong potentially catastrophic.

Lawyers like to operate within their area of knowledge and to minimise (or, better still, avoid altogether) risk. Honest conversations involve an element of risk - how will the other person react? Where will the conversation go? Will I be able to control the outcome? Will I get the outcome I want or will I win?

With most lawyers, all of this is so deeply ingrained as to be second nature, and most lawyers would admit that this extends into every aspect of their behaviour, both at and outside of work. It is often said that one overriding feature of lawyers is insecurity. In this case, it is driven by the fear of getting it wrong or not knowing where the honesty will lead, and so not being willing to take the risk.

Transplant that into the honest conversations area for a moment and it is easy to see why being direct and honest could seem so uncomfortable. It may be an honest conversation with a client to say that you've missed something, or that your cost estimate is out-of-whack. But, it could equally be with a colleague, whether a superior, direct peer or subordinate.

Lawyers are also inclined to be unhappy about receiving criticism themselves (suggesting, as it does, that they may have done something wrong). This often gets in the way of them delivering criticism to others in the form of honest or 'difficult' conversations - just ask your HR director what he or she thinks of your partners' abilities in this area.

Work that muscle

It is important to stress that the impulse to be honest is not, generally, an active one. We are usually not honest by omission. The expression 'being economical with the truth' is particularly resonant here. It's what we don't say, or feel we can't say, that creates the grey area in which that absence of honesty lives, grows and festers. And yes, festers - it does get worse over time.

If you miss the opportunity to feed back honestly and directly in an appraisal, you will send that person away thinking he's done ok. If you fail to tell your client exactly what is going on today, it will be ten times worse next week ("why didn't you just tell me?" you'll probably hear). Your failure to tackle something will get worse over time.

'Getting honest' is not the act of flipping some kind of internal switch and seeing an overnight change. Think of it instead as a muscle, something that needs to be trained and will improve over time, and the training will become easier in due course. Getting honest is a matter of both practice and preparation.

Two things are important on this journey. The first is putting yourself in the other person's shoes. Here's a helpful little mantra that you can use before any conversation about which you are feeling any degree of trepidation, whether it be a report to the board, an appraisal meeting with a staff member or a meeting with a client. Ask yourself: "what would I want to know, if I were that person?"

If you were your client, wouldn't you want to know there was a cost overrun, or that one of your team had really messed up and that you'd failed to spot it? You'd also want to know what you are going to do about it, so think about that too. Equally, team members are only going to be able to improve if they know where they went wrong; you owe it to them to be honest. Wouldn't you want to know?

The second important thing is to take each day as it comes, one at a time. During the day, keep in mind that you are training your honesty muscle and take every opportunity to try it out. Don't go mad, though. If you over-train a muscle you will know about it, so take it gently. If there is a time where you'd usually bite your tongue, try voicing your opinion; if you've been avoiding a difficult conversation, steel yourself to have it, that kind of thing.

And, at the end of the day, think to yourself: "did I do everything I could do today, to be honest with peers, clients and subordinates?" It sounds silly, but this review process genuinely works. If you haven't, if you have ducked the opportunity to say something when you could have, first forgive yourself and, second, promise yourself that you will try to do better tomorrow. The next day, you might find your colleague and say, for example, "John, when we spoke yesterday I didn't comment on your idea, but I've been thinking about it overnight and I have to be honest and say I don't think it's going to work."

It's not what you say...

Language is very important. People who think that other people are going to be offended or affronted if they are honest rarely have a problem when they are honest; instead, their awareness of other people's feelings kicks in and their language follows accordingly.

However, if you are aware that you're perhaps not the most articulate person, or have a reputation for having been insensitive at times, again, put yourself in the other person's shoes and ask: "how would I want to receive this feedback?" and say it like that.

As you practice more, your vocabulary will expand. Another alternative is to talk it through with someone else (selected with discretion) to get another perspective. Try it out the way you were thinking of playing it, including the actual words you intend to use, and then ask for feedback.

Preparing the ground ahead of honest conversations is a good idea, so you might flag, in a very neutral manner, that you want to talk about a particular issue the next time you meet your client/peer/team member, as long as you're not just procrastinating as a method of avoidance.

Think about what you are going to say and how you are going to say it, and make sure you only truthfully reflect your own feelings about the situation - don't try to predict how other people will react. You cannot afford to assume anything around honest conversations. Your honesty may be the key to unlocking stress in another person, something which has played on his mind. Alternatively, it could annoy him immensely. You have no way of knowing, really, so avoid playing the prediction game. Just be honest, as you see it, and stick to your perspective.

One way of thinking about this, particularly when you are delivering feedback, is that all you are doing is offering information - nothing more or less. What the recipient does with that information is up to him.

The curse of the age

Avoid using email for honest conversations. That is worth repeating more forcefully: AVOID email. If you are going to have an honest conversation with someone, have it face to face. Much of communication is non-verbal anyway and, when you're not face to face, you lose something. The telephone is a poor second best, but if that's all there is, it will have to do.

It is very tempting to hide behind email, given that you can 'fire and forget' and do not have to witness the arrival of the information. But, email is capable of being both a clumsy and incendiary medium of communication. A bad phone call you can forget, but a bad email sits there in your inbox and you can read it over and over and over again. Plus, unlike a letter, an email can easily be forwarded to others. So, avoid this in all circumstances.

Also, refrain from gossip during your honesty training. Gossip is like chocolate cake; deliciously naughty, always tempting and ruinous for good training. You don't need to be a gossip Nazi - let other people do it if they wish - just don't get involved. People will soon stop gossiping to you the moment they realise that you are not interested and give no feedback.

Reaping rewards

As with training any muscle, you will find as you go along - assuming you stick to the programme - that training your honesty muscle has its own rewards. You do need to be consistent but, as you do, conversations will become easier. You will become the person with a reputation for speaking your mind and who is not afraid to say what you mean. You will find yourself having to forgive yourself less frequently, too.

Occasionally, you will fall into the odd tricky situation, but stick to your guns, maintain your honesty and you will usually find that others appreciate it. Even those who find it uncomfortable will be won over eventually, if only to grudging admiration.

At a fairly advanced stage of your training, you will come to the point where you are the 'go to' person for an honest conversation, the person that people approach because they know they will ?be told it as it is, rather than sugar ?coated or avoided.

You will also start to find that your behaviour will affect the behaviour of those around you. If you are capable of having a difficult, honest conversation with someone, others will find it easier to be honest with you and, in turn, with their peers, clients and subordinates.

Jonathan Macfarlane is a director at the Professional Career Partnership (www.thepcp.com) and Mark Brandon is managing director of Motive Legal Consulting (www.motivelegal.com)