Difficult conversations are common, whether in your personal life or your work life. Establishing boundaries kindly and respectfully can take practice, and delivering tough feedback needs to be personalized for every person. Similar to Mckinsey’s OILS framework, here’s how I approach them:

Strategy #1: Pretend there is another person in the room

Before a conversations gets heated or fraught, pretend there is a third person that you respect watching your 1:1 meeting. Would they approve of your conduct, tone, and word choice? If not, you need to take a step back and rethink your approach to this meeting.

Strategy #2: Offer the chance to hear about extenuating circumstances

Legally, you cannot ask if there is something wrong in a person’s life that is impacting their work. However, you can offer to listen to something they might want to share: “Before I deliver the serious feedback I have for you, please let me know if there is anything you would like to share.” We are all people, and life happens. If an employee is underperforming due to a death in the family or another extenuating circumstance, perhaps you should pursue unpaid leave instead of a performance improvement plan.

Strategy #3: Rectify asymmetrical knowledge

Next, your job is to remove any informational asymmetry in the situation. Align on the facts and what feedback you have collected. Ask them to respond to any accusations another employee has made. For example, “John has let me know that you have not made sales quota this quarter, you have dressed out of dress code, and that you have arrived late to several team meetings. Are these three things true?”

This is a time to understand honest mistakes and miscommunications.

Strategy #4: Practice empathy and a collaborative approach to solving the shared problem

Once you’ve aligned on the problem, communicate to the other person that this is a shared problem and you’d like to problem solve together. If you are the manager in charge of an underperforming employee, as with our prior example, you’ll need to take the lead in making a plan to solve the problems, but you’ll also need to motivate your employee and ensure they are on board with the plan. Establish times and goals to check in on the plan together.

Strategy #5: Follow up with written expectations

Lastly, follow up immediately with written expectations such that there is no confusion of what has been decided in the difficult conversation.