If you’ve ever been in any hard conversation, this is something you’ve experienced.

You’re trying to get your point across.

But then, the other person goes off topic, or starts talking about something else – or someone else. And all your preparation, all your hard work goes out the window because now you’re:

Frustrated and feeling like this is a waste of time

Anxious about whether you’ll get to share your piece

Impatient as you wait for them to get back to your point

Basically EXHAUSTED trying to balance all this and stay on track.

Listen, we’ve all been there.

But today, I’ve got 3 strategies to help you stay focused in hard conversations – and make it easier to respond when someone tries to derail it.

Strategy 1: Get crystal clear on what YOU want out of the conversation

Before you ever get into the conversation, you should be 100% clear and concrete on what you want the outcome to be.

You’d be surprised how this clarity can shape the conversation.

Is your goal to start an ongoing dialogue?

Is your goal to just vent and yell at them?

Is your goal to get them to agree to something?

Is your goal to just let them know how you feel?

Is your goal to give them critical feedback and agree on next steps?

Whatever your goal is, get laser focused on ONE goal for the conversation.

Once you do that you can go to Strategy 2 –

Strategy 2: Start the conversation by telling them exactly what your goal is and seeing if they have a goal

My podcast co-host dropped this gem the other day on our podcast – 

“Assumptions are the termites of relationships”.

Don’t assume they know what you want, or that they’re even thinking about that.

Instead, tell them directly, “I want to talk about [X]”

“Lucie, I want to talk about the mess in our house and what we need to do to be cleaner”

“Jason, I need to talk to you about some comments you made and how they are inappropriate”

And then ask them if there’s anything they want to make sure y’all talk about too.

Make sure they agree with a verbal “Yes” before you move on in the conversation.

You want to start off with this right away because…

Strategy 3: If they go off track, remind them you started off by agreeing on the topic

That’s exactly why you start by agreeing what you’re talking about

Because the moment they go off track – you can remind them what y’all agreed to originally.

And there’s 2 ways to be diplomatic about it. Either:

A. “I understand you want to talk about this other topic, and we can come back to it. If you remember, we also agreed that we would stay focused on [X] topic.”

OR (this is my preferred way):

B. “Earlier, we agreed to talk about this, and now you’re bringing up a different topic. Is there a reason this is important for you to bring up here?”

Both are fine, but I like option B because remaining curious allows me to figure out why they even went on a tangent in the first place.

There you go 3 strategies to handle people going on tangents in hard conversations.

I’m not going to tell you it’s super easy, but the more set up you do before the conversation and at the beginning – the easier it is for you to address it.

Note – this also works in meetings too.

Cheers,

Chris

PS –

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