Harvard Business Review Press - Communicate Better with Everyone

Communicate Better with Everyone

HBR WORKING PARENTS SERIES

Tips, stories, and strategies for the job that never ends.

The HBR Working Parents Series supports readers as they anticipate challenges, learn how to advocate for themselves more effectively, juggle their impossible schedules, and find fulfillment at home and at work.

From classic issues such as work-life balance and making time for yourself to thorny challenges such as managing an urgent family crisis and the impact of parenting on your career, this series features the practical tips, strategies, and research you need to beand feelmore effective at home and at work. Whether youre up with a newborn or touring universities with your teen, weve got what you need to make working parenthood work for you.

Books in the series include:

Advice for Working Dads

Advice for Working Moms

Communicate Better with Everyone

Doing It All as a Solo Parent

Getting It All Done

Managing Your Career

Suceeding as a First-Time Parent

Taking Care of Yourself

Two-Career Families

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For details and discount information for both print and ebook formats, contact .

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The web addresses referenced in this book were live and correct at the time of the books publication but may be subject to change.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Harvard Business Review Press, issuing body.

Title: Communicate better with everyone.

Other titles: HBR working parents series.

Description: Boston, Massachusetts : Harvard Business Review Press, [2021] | Series: HBR working parents series | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020054250 (print) | LCCN 2020054251 (ebook) | ISBN 9781647820831 (paperback) | ISBN 9781647820848 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Interpersonal communication. | Business communication. | Work and family. | Work-life balance. | Parenting.

Classification: LCC HM1166 .C6525 2021 (print) | LCC HM1166 (ebook) | DDC 302.2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054250

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054251

ISBN: 978-1-64782-083-1
eISBN: 978-1-64782-084-8

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Publications and Documents in Libraries and Archives Z39.48-1992.

CONTENTS

Find the right words when discussing what matters most.

by Daisy Dowling, Series Editor

With your boss, your children, your partner, and yourself.

Joseph Grenny and Brittney Maxfield

Scripts to help you draw the lineand stand behind it.

Priscilla Claman

Using your listening ears is not enough.

Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman

Have better conversations with venters, belaborers, and condescenders.

Mark Goulston

Get beyond pleasantries.

Deborah Grayson Riegel

Grown-ups shouldnt point fingers or call people names, either.

Amy Gallo

Reframe to see a partner, not an opponent.

Monique Valcour

Twelve questions to help you consider what to sayor whether to delay.

Deborah Grayson Riegel

Howand how muchto disclose.

Sabina Nawaz

Its much harder to talk about than carpal tunnel surgery.

Barbara Ricci

Adopt a problem-solving approach.

Denise M. Rousseau

When they all seem to be lawyers-in-training.

Mary C. Kern and Terri R. Kurtzberg

Lighten the load of bad bosses, looming layoffs, and crazy-making clients.

Rebecca Knight

And a few things you definitely shouldnt say.

James M. Citrin

...

Hush harsh inner dialogue.

Alice Boyes

Dont let fear and self-doubt have the last word.

An Interview with Tara Mohr by Sarah Green Carmichael

Our children are our best and most honest judges.

Jelena Zikic

INTRODUCTION

Can We Talk?

by Daisy Dowling

Y oure no beginner when it comes to communicatingyou wouldnt be where you are today if you didnt know how to talk to people and get your point across, and how to listen, too. Over the years, youve fielded tough interview questions and still gotten the job, dealt with prickly coworkers and managed to keep the peace at work, and both delivered and received your fair share of difficult feedback. Its no different on the home front, either. After navigating your familys gettogethers during the holidays, you could probably teach a diplomacy class. And you know how to be kind but firm with your children, and how to really listen when they talk (or babble, if theyre small) to you. Of course, just like everybody else, you find your palms getting a little sweaty before you speak to a crowd, but for the most part, both personally and professionally, you know how to communicate.

But what about those times when the personal and professional intersecthow good are you at communicating then? As someone who wants to succeed on the job and be a loving, present, nurturing father or mother, how confident are you in having important conversations that cover both at the same time? Maybe, like so many of the working parents Ive coached over the past several years, youre grappling with how to:

• Explain your working-parent schedule to a new boss or skeptical coworkers.
• Write your annual self-review in a year when you went to major lengths to take care of business at home so you could keep performing at work.
• Find the right words to tell your colleaguesnone of whom have kidsthat youre expecting your second child.
• Figure out a way to talk to your partner about all the extra hours they have been putting in recently, without it starting a major domestic skirmish.
• Ask your childs caregiver to stay late when you suddenly have to work overtime.
• Renegotiate your work responsibilities, hours, or location while advocating for an (overdue and well-deserved) raise or promotion.
• Talk to yourself about how youre handling working parenthood instead of falling into the I feel guilty trap, again.

... or similar. If so, Im sure your intentions are good. You want to have an effective dialogue; thats not the issue. Yet the stakes are high, the situation fraught, and despite all of your professionalism and parental love and that presentations skills class you took a few years ago, its extremely hard to figure out how to say what needs to be said. Theres a very real and disconcerting risk that the conversation doesnt go well, and youre left sitting across from an unconvinced boss, an angry partner, or a confused child. Or worse, youre not heard at all, or are heard but misunderstood. If you need to have a hard talk about work with your family or about your family while at work, youre probably also worried and unsure of the right next steps.