Society trains us to not hurt peoples feelings. Everyone at some point gives bad news with a silver lining or delays breaking the bad news until the last possible moment hoping that it will go away or get better. We avoid those tough conversations and it doesn’t help anyone except make us feel selfishly better.
As a professional services providers our job is to sometimes tell clients what they are doing wrong or that they are making a poor decision. It doesn’t help the client to just ignore the issue and let them eventually find out on their own. It does nothing for us if we don’t at least try to address it and help them along.
The same is true with colleagues. Some hard conversations must be had and avoiding them hurts everyone. It may be around their skills or an area where they have issues but the conversation will help them ultimately. Not having it leaves them where they are with no improvement.
Don’t get me wrong, there are right ways to have the conversation and there are wrong ways. But tough conversations are necessary. It strengthens relationships. But always telling the truth and getting it out of the way may be one of the most difficult skills to ever learn.