Why avoiding difficult conversations is costing your team more than you think — and what to do instead.

Picture this: someone on your team has been arriving late, missing deadlines, or generally operating at the energy level of a dial-up modem. You’ve noticed. Your team has noticed. The office plants have probably noticed. And yet… nobody’s said anything.

Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Most managers find difficult conversations genuinely uncomfortable — and that’s not a character flaw, it’s just human. But avoiding them? That’s where things start to get expensive.

The Real Cost of Saying Nothing

Here’s a number that might make you sit up straight: a single underperformer can reduce overall team output by as much as 30%. Thirty percent. That’s not a rounding error — that’s a significant chunk of your team’s potential, quietly evaporating because a conversation didn’t happen.

And it’s not just about productivity. When problems are left to fester, one of two things tends to happen:

• The underperformer eventually leaves — but only after months of friction, frustration and drained morale.
• Your high performers leave — because they’re fed up of carrying someone else’s weight while management stays silent.

Neither outcome is great. And poorly handled conversations carry their own risks too — from damaged team culture all the way to grievances and employment tribunals. So the stakes, it turns out, are real.

So Why Do We Avoid Them?

Let’s be honest about it. Difficult conversations feel risky. What if the person gets upset? What if they argue back? What if it makes things awkward? What if I say the wrong thing and it all goes horribly wrong?

These are all completely understandable worries. But here’s the reframe: avoiding the conversation doesn’t make those risks disappear — it just trades a short-term discomfort for a long-term problem. The awkwardness of not addressing something tends to compound interest. Fast.

The good news? Difficult conversations are a skill. And like any skill, they can be learned, practised, and genuinely improved. Nobody is born knowing how to have them well — that’s a myth we’re firmly putting to bed.

What Does a ‘Difficult Conversation’ Actually Look Like?

Difficult conversations come in many shapes and sizes in the workplace. They include:

• Addressing underperformance or missed deadlines
• Giving negative feedback without it landing as a personal attack
• Managing behaviour that’s affecting team dynamics
• Navigating disagreements or personality clashes
• Having honest conversations about role fit or progression

What they all have in common is that they feel high-stakes, emotionally charged, or just plain hard to start. Which is exactly why having a structure and some practical tools makes such a difference.

Three Things That Actually Help

Without giving away everything (there’s a whole workshop for that), here are three principles that consistently make difficult conversations go better:

1. Lead with curiosity, not conclusions

Before you go in with a verdict, go in with a question. “Help me understand what’s been going on” will open a conversation far more effectively than “Your performance has been poor.” You might even learn something surprising.

2. Be specific, not vague

“You’ve seemed a bit off lately” is hard to respond to. “I noticed the last three reports were submitted a week late” is actionable. Specifics create clarity, and clarity creates the possibility of change.

3. Separate the person from the behaviour

You’re not telling someone they’re a bad person. You’re addressing a specific behaviour that needs to change. Keeping this distinction clear — in your own head and in how you communicate — changes the entire tone of the conversation.

A Note on Timing (Because It Really Does Matter)

Raising an issue six months after it started isn’t a difficult conversation — it’s a breakdown. The longer you leave it, the more entrenched the behaviour becomes, and the more the other person will wonder why you didn’t say something sooner.

The kindest thing you can do as a manager — for your team member, for yourself, and for your team — is to address things early, calmly, and clearly. Think of it less as confrontation and more as course correction.

Managers Are Made, Not Born

At GrowHow Learning, we believe that the best managers aren’t the ones who were somehow born with all the answers — they’re the ones who kept learning, practising, and being willing to get a little uncomfortable in service of their teams.

Our Difficult Conversations 101 workshop is a 90-minute virtual session designed for exactly that. In a small group of managers and aspiring managers, you’ll explore the different types of challenging conversations you face at work, understand why having them actually matters, and leave with a toolkit of practical techniques you can use straight away.

No jargon. No role play that makes you want to hide under the table. Just real-world guidance, delivered by friendly trainers who’ve been in the trenches too.

Ready to stop avoiding the elephant?

Find out more about Difficult Conversations 101 and our oth