There’s a moment in every difficult workplace conversation where you feel it—that slight tightening in your chest, the careful recalibration of your words, the split-second decision about whether to say what you really mean or what you think someone wants to hear.
I’ve spent my career watching these moments. More than that, I’ve lived them.
And here’s what I’ve learned: the conversations we avoid don’t disappear. They accumulate. They calcify into resentment, they manifest as “that’s just how things are here,” they become the unspoken rules that everyone follows but no one can quite articulate.
The Real Cost of Silence
Let me give you some numbers that should make us all uncomfortable:
Workers who call their workplace “uncivil” are three times more likely to be unsatisfied with their jobs. Three times. Not 10% more likely. Not marginally more dissatisfied. Three times. They’re also twice as likely to leave within the next year.
But here’s what the statistics don’t capture: the quiet erosion of possibility that happens when people stop believing their voice matters. The innovations that die in the parking lot because someone decided it wasn’t worth the fight. The talent that walks out the door not because they were looking for something better, but because they were exhausted from not being able to be fully human at work and that work align to purpose.
We’re Teaching the Wrong Skill
Somewhere along the way, we decided that the measure of professionalism was the ability to avoid difficult conversations. We learned to smooth over differences, to “keep it positive,” to save the real talk for after the meeting, in the parking lot, in whispered asides to our trusted colleagues.
We became experts at the performance of harmony while the foundation cracked beneath our feet.
The skill we actually need? The ability to have difficult conversations well. To dig into important topics while maintaining civility. To disagree without dismissing. To hold people accountable while honoring their humanity.
This isn’t about being nice. It’s about being real.
The Big Three (Or: Everything You Need to Know About Civil Discourse)
After years of mediating conflicts, facilitating difficult conversations, and yes—failing at plenty of my own—I’ve distilled it down to three core principles:
Active Listening is the intentional process of listening to understand, not to respond. It’s being fully present. Using verbal and nonverbal cues. Paraphrasing to clarify. It’s not interrupting, multitasking, or responding defensively.
Real talk: this is harder than it sounds. Your brain is fast. It wants to solve, to defend, to prepare its response. Active listening requires you to quiet all that noise and actually hear what’s being said—and what’s not being said.
Empathy and Understanding means keeping an open mind and seeking to understand others’ perspectives without judgment. It includes acknowledging emotions, validating experiences, and presuming positive intent.
But here’s the thing about empathy that nobody tells you: it’s not the same as agreement. You can understand someone’s perspective deeply and still disagree with their conclusion. That’s not a failure of empathy—that’s the whole point.
Acknowledging and Valuing Others is recognizing and appreciating people for who they are, their perspectives, and their contributions. It’s creating space for diverse voices. Respecting boundaries. Expressing gratitude.
This one trips people up because we confuse acknowledgment with endorsement. You can acknowledge someone’s experience without agreeing that it’s the only valid interpretation. You can value someone’s perspective while still advocating for a different approach.
The Question That Changes Everything
When I’m training HR professionals, I teach them a phrase that feels almost too simple to be powerful:
“The story I’m making up is…”
“The story I’m making up is…”
This phrase, borrowed from Brené Brown’s work, does something remarkable: it names your interpretation as an interpretation, not as fact. It creates space for correction. It invites dialogue rather than demanding defense.
“The story I’m making up is that you don’t value my contributions” lands differently than “You don’t value my contributions.” One is an opening. The other is an accusation.
Try these instead:
- “I’m curious about…”
- “Walk me through…”
- “Tell me more…”
- “Help me understand how this doesn’t work for you.”
- “What problem are we trying to solve?”
These aren’t scripts. They’re invitations. They signal that you’re entering the conversation with genuine curiosity rather than predetermined conclusions.
When Things Go Sideways
Here’s what nobody tells you about difficult conversations: even with the best intentions and skills, they can still derail.
Watch for these signs:
Circular arguments that repeat without progress
Emotional escalation (raised voices, sarcasm, tears)
Personal attacks or shifting from issues to character judgments
Stonewalling or complete shutdown
When you see these signs, you need real-time de-escalation strategies:
- Pause and ground the moment: “Let’s take a breath before we continue.”
- Validate without agreeing: “I can see this is really frustrating for you.”
- Name the emotion, not the behavior: “It sounds like you’re feeling overwhelmed” rather than “You’re being aggressive.”
- Offer a physical reset: Suggest a short walk or water break.
- Redirect toward shared goals: “We both care about making this work—let’s figure out how to move forward.”
The Empathy-Accountability Paradox
One of the most challenging aspects of my work is helping leaders understand that empathy and accountability aren’t opposing forces—they’re partners. You can acknowledge someone’s difficult circumstances and hold them accountable for their commitments. You can validate someone’s emotional experience and address the impact of their behavior. You can create space for someone’s struggle and maintain boundaries.
The key is this: lead with curiosity, not assumption. Name the impact, not just the intention. Use “supportive boundaries” language that frames structure as support, not punishment.
Instead of: “You need to improve your communication or there will be consequences.”
Try: “I’m holding this boundary because I want you to succeed. Here’s what improvement could look like—and I’ll help you get there.”
See the difference? Same message. Different energy. One threatens. The other partners.
Resolution vs. Agreement
Here’s something that took me years to understand: resolution doesn’t require agreement.
You don’t need to agree on the cause of a problem to resolve how to move forward. Resolution prioritizes action—defining next steps, clarifying roles, establishing boundaries. The goal isn’t that everyone walks away thinking exactly the same thing. The goal is that everyone walks away with clarity about what happens next and confidence that their perspective was genuinely heard. That’s the difference between performing unity and building actual trust.
Resolution vs. Agreement
Here’s something that took me years to understand: resolution doesn’t require agreement.
What This Means for You
If you’re in HR, you already know that workplace incivility costs organizations approximately $2.1 billion per day in reduced productivity and absenteeism. You’ve seen the turnover rates—48.4% at companies with poor culture versus 13.9% at companies with healthy culture. But statistics don’t change behavior. Stories do. Conversations do. Small moments of genuine connection do.
So here’s my challenge to you:
This week, have one conversation you’ve been avoiding. Not the big, career-defining confrontation. Just one conversation where you’ve been choosing smoothness over honesty.
Use one of those rumble starters. Practice active listening. Acknowledge without agreeing. See what happens when you bring your full self to a difficult moment instead of your professional persona.
Because here’s the truth: We don’t change workplace culture with policy memos and annual training sessions. We change it one conversation at a time, with people willing to choose discomfort over dysfunction, honesty over harmony, connection over compliance.
The work is hard. The stakes are real. The cost of avoidance is too high.
And the conversation you’re avoiding? Someone else is waiting for you to start it.
What conversation have you been avoiding? What’s it costing you—and everyone around you—to keep avoiding it?
Dr. Darryl S. Diggs, Jr.
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