Exercise
2-Minute Hard Convo Prep
Two minutes, one note: the three things you want to get across, and the three emotions you want to bring into the room.
Use it before any hard conversation that's already booked — underperformance, cofounder tension, board pushback, letting someone go. Hard conversations rarely fail on content; they fail because the message wanders and the emotion in the room is whatever you happened to walk in with.
The two lists
Three things you want to get across
Not everything that's true — the three messages that must survive the conversation. If they only remember three sentences, which three?
Three emotions you want to bring
You'll bring three emotions either way; the only question is whether you chose them. Name the ones that serve the conversation, and glance at the note before you walk in.
Worked example
A founder is about to tell a loyal early engineer that the Head of Engineering role is going to an external hire. Two minutes before the call, the note reads:
| Three things to get across | Three emotions to bring |
|---|---|
| The decision is made: we're hiring externally for Head of Engineering. | Warmth — five years together has earned that. |
| This is about the stage of the company, not your performance — here's what you've built. | Steadiness — no hedging, no reopening the decision mid-call. |
| I want to design your next chapter here with you, starting this week. | Genuine curiosity about what they want next. |
Without the note, the same call drifts: the founder over-explains, softens the decision until it sounds negotiable, and the dread they walked in with reads as coldness. The prep doesn't make the conversation pleasant — it makes it land the way you meant it.
Source / credit
Outstride original
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