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Your baby is ugly
B efore entering executive life, I worked several years as a finance lawyer. In that life, I had to capture the dreams of my clients and convert them into investment worthy business plans. Successful leaders have to be able to deliver tough messages. Use these six strategies to navigate difficult conversations.
health. The issues arise from such situations as receiving feedback from an unhappy client about a team’s performance, a company executive’s industry group presentation that landed poorly, or a manager’s obnoxious behavior that is causing “Candor and smart choreography of difficult conversations, hard as they might be, will lead to more productive results and justify the pain of getting there.”
Part of that job included delivering tough messages few people wanted to hear. For example, I had to tell two company founders that their cherished project had been rejected by regulators because of their past poor handling of the agency relationship. I informed another client that despite his loathing of a customer, he had a contractual obligation to deliver a prototype or face being sued. Then there was conveying the accountant’s opinion that despite millions of dollars of private investment, the company didn’t qualify as a “going concern,” making it ineligible for a planned public offering. I enjoyed lawyer work, even with the frank messaging part. It prepared me for executive life where you frequently have to deliver unwelcome messages. While they might not have an immediate impact on the life or death of a company, they nevertheless matter to business
Julie Benezet
low morale and retention problems. Successful leadership requires effective
communication to motivate people to do their best work. That means providing candid feedback,
See JULIE BENEZET, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER December 2, 2019, ISSUE 1322
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