The One Habit That Transforms Every Difficult Team Conversation

How many important conversations do you have in a week? A month?
If you lead a team, the answer is probably “more than I realise.”

Every week, you’ll have moments where a colleague needs support, a performance wobble needs attention, or a behaviour needs a gentle nudge in the right direction. These conversations shape your culture far more than the big strategy days or the annual away-days. They’re the day-to-day touchpoints that build trust, shift habits, and set the tone for how your team works together.

Yet even with the best intentions, most of us walk into these conversations carrying more baggage than we notice.

We join the dots.
We fill in the gaps.
We assume.
And before we know it, we’ve created a whole story in our heads about what’s going on and why.

It’s human nature. When something happens, the mind loves certainty, so it takes the facts we know, adds a layer of guesswork, and then turns it into a neat narrative. We do this without realising we’re doing it. The danger isn’t the instinct itself – it’s when we forget the difference between what’s true and what we’ve imagined.

You’ll have felt this before. A team member is quiet, so you assume they’re disengaged. Someone misses a deadline, and you jump to “they don’t care enough.” A receptionist snaps at a colleague, and you decide they must be underperforming again.

By the time you sit down to talk it through, you’re not responding to what happened. You’re responding to the story you’ve unknowingly created around it.

And that’s where conversations can go off track.

When we bring assumptions into a high-stakes conversation, we’re less present, less open, and far more likely to judge. The other person feels it, even if we never say it out loud. The energy shifts. The conversation becomes about defending positions rather than understanding what’s actually happening.

But when we enter those moments with clarity – separating fact from fiction – everything changes. You become calmer. You listen better. You ask smarter questions. And the person sitting opposite you feels respected rather than judged. The tone of the whole exchange shifts.

This week, try something simple.

When a situation crops up, pause and ask yourself three short questions:

1. What do I know as fact?
   Not what you think you know. Not what someone hinted at. Only what you can confirm.

2. What assumptions have I just made?
   Be honest with yourself. If you’ve filled in any gaps, name it.

3. What story am I beginning to build?
   Once you notice it, you can set it aside.

Then walk into the conversation with as clean a slate as possible.

No judgement.
No pre-built narrative.
Just curiosity and clarity.

The more we strip away our own internal stories, the easier it becomes to understand what’s really going on. And the better these conversations become – for you, for your team, and for the culture you’re working so hard to build.

Great leadership isn’t about avoiding tough conversations. It’s about entering them with a clear mind and a steady hand.

This week, give yourself that advantage.