In today’s volatile work world, managers’ communication skills are critically important in supporting employee productivity and driving business performance. Yet constructive conversations — especially about difficult or sensitive topics — confound many managers, leaving many of them considering challenging discussions the hardest part of their jobs.

Managers often avoid difficult conversations due to various challenges, including overseeing hybrid teams and navigating complex workplace dynamics. The result? Many managers opt out of talking with direct reports about inappropriate behavior, lax work habits, performance shortfalls, looming layoffs or other touchy topics. The failure to address difficult issues poses serious risks to morale, engagement, organizational culture, productivity and the bottom line.

Why Managers Avoid Uncomfortable Conversations

Despite the risks that may result when managers sidestep uncomfortable conversations with employees, many do just that. Managers, like most people, often hesitate to engage in difficult conversations, whether with peers, bosses or direct reports. This reluctance persists even when they recognize that addressing these issues is crucial for work outcomes.

Atana’s research revealed potential barriers that stymied participating managers’ uncomfortable conversations with direct reports:

• 63% of managers agreed that feeling nervous hampered efforts to initiate uncomfortable conversations with direct reports.
• 36% cited schedule pressures that limited time for productive conversations.
• 32% said their direct reports didn’t receive feedback well, making sensitive conversations difficult.
• 22% noted that addressing uncomfortable issues caused more conflict.

The most telling reason for avoiding difficult conversations is that many managers simply don’t know how to effectively plan and carry out such discussions. Fortunately, lack of knowledge is a problem that the right kind of training can solve.

Training on How to Have Difficult Conversations Is Crucial for Managers

Senior leaders know that communication skills are important. Despite this, they often prioritize other training initiatives over communication training. Sometimes, too, leaders may assume that individuals who rise to management positions already possess the skills required to handle difficult conversations.

Consider this example: Aiming to establish a respectful workplace, an executive team invests in sexual harassment prevention and anti-discrimination training. However, because the firm selects training that does not teach and track the behaviors and attitudes necessary to effectively address harassment and discrimination, managers are uncomfortable confronting direct reports about unacceptable conduct. When managers do attempt difficult conversations, they handle them poorly, resulting in little or no impact on bad behavior.

Not only is the intended outcome of the harassment prevention training negated but also the bad behavior still present in the workplace puts the company at serious risk for potential financial and reputational damage. In this sense, failed uncomfortable conversations — due to a lack of manager training — can result in extraordinarily harmful and expensive errors, making manager training even more critical to business success.

Training Is Only Part of the Answer

Equipping managers with the know-how and confidence they need to plan and conduct constructive conversations about challenging topics offers learning and development (L&D) teams an opportunity to strengthen vital workplace relationships and support better individual and organizational performance outcomes.

Effective manager training must center on well-designed, engaging and readily applicable content. Context-based behavioral analytics are critical, too, as they demonstrate behavior change, accomplish benchmarking, identify successes and areas requiring further attention, and measure organizational progress over time.

Further, L&D must ensure organizational support for difficult conversations training initiatives and assume accountability for follow-through.

These seven strategies will help drive success:

7 Strategies for Successful Communications Training

1.    Get executive sign-off and support.

Senior leadership buy-in for any initiative rests on a compelling business case. Examples and cost/risk/opportunity assessments help drive data-based decisions and executive endorsements by demonstrating that the ability to have difficult conversations is an ultimate driver of better business outcomes.

2.    Get managers on board.

Gain managers’ buy-in for difficult conversations training by integrating the training into the organization’s overall manager and leadership development programs. This formal structure will help ensure that all leaders build communication competencies and eliminate barriers to conducting effective uncomfortable conversations.

3.    Ensure culture alignment.

Reinforce training success by confirming that all elements influencing organizational culture (such as communication norms, business ethics, inclusion activities, etc.) consistently promote and support open, honest interactions and respect as core company values.

4.    Set employee expectations.

Use new-hire onboarding and ongoing informal performance discussions to teach employees to expect respectful and honest conversations with managers and to initiate or request such interactions when appropriate.

5.    Select training designed to impact attitudes and behavior.

Choose a behavior-based training program that leverages the latest innovations in behavioral science and instructional design to develop managers’ ability to navigate challenging workplace conversations effectively. This comprehensive approach will ensure both knowledge gain and measurable behavior change in the workplace.

The program should provide:

• Best practices and techniques for initiating and conducting the conversation with empathy and respect — and keeping it on track.
• Vicarious learning through relatable video scenarios that help managers connect with characters, gain new perspectives and apply improved communication skills.
• In-context surveying, or embedded assessments that measure learners’ attitudes and behavioral intent concerning target behaviors as they’re learning about them.
• Integrated behavioral analytics that track real-time improvements in managers’ communication skills and attitudes while generating data-driven recommendations for ongoing development.

6.    Measure outcomes.

With a comprehensive training solution, L&D leaders have at their fingertips the ability to view and report on the training’s behavioral and cultural impact. Rather than rely on post-training sentiment surveys or simple knowledge questions, the data collected in the flow of learning should reveal what employees really think and are likely to do. Factors influencing behavioral intent — either negatively or positively — provide a robust dataset of strategic insights.

Behavioral insights from the data enable L&D to link communication skills training outcomes to organizational competencies and business success factors such as proactive leadership, accountability and fostering inclusivity. Shortcomings are caught and addressed before they become problematic.

7.    Take the lead on follow-through.

L&D demonstrates strategic value by assuming accountability for post-training follow-up: identifying managers who need further instruction or support, sponsoring events that reinforce the training, recognizing managers for growth and stronger performance, and monitoring long-term training success.

By leveraging these seven strategies, L&D professionals can significantly enhance workplace communication across their organizations. This approach fosters a culture of open dialogue and accountability, and can drive measurable improvements in engagement, productivity and retention. The result is a healthier, more effective work environment where challenges are addressed proactively.