Please follow Guidelines and Rubric for this assignment.

Review the company overview and the case study overview in the Final Project Case Study document. Create an outline of the pattern of facts leading up to the case study conflict, including the identification of stakeholders in the conflict. Your outline will help you determine the fact pattern needed to complete Milestone One in Module Three.

Your outline must include these critical elements:

**The pattern of facts leading up to the case study conflict

**Identification of all the stakeholders in the conflict

Guidelines for Submission:

Your outline should be submitted as a Microsoft Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, one-inch margins, and APA formatting. Article: Difficult Conversations: 9 Common Mistakes “When difficult conversations turn toxic, it’s often because we’ve made a key mistake: we’ve fallen into a combat mentality. This allows the conversation to become a zero-sum game, with a winner and a loser.” This article details nine common mistakes made in difficult conversations.

Managers have a multitude of responsibilities, but among the most important is effectively communicating with employees. Situational communication is important; often, this means simple day-to-day instructions, review of projects or work responsibilities, or even daily workplace conversations. When conflict does arise, managers need to resolve the issues and also, at times, have difficult performance conversations. Managers cannot avoid difficult conversations because they are uncomfortable. Avoidance is detrimental to the business, so learning to give feedback and have performance conversations is critical for managers.

What prevents managers from having these conversations? Lack of time, unwillingness to recognize the importance of performance conversations, and fear of conflict are a few of the possible reasons managers might hope that the need for these conversations will go away. But, the need does not go away and it is likely that conflict or performance deficiencies will continue. Unfortunately, this can lead to damaged relationships, poor productivity, and even high turnover.

Managers can effectively separate personal feelings from professional feedback and communication by focusing on the facts of the situation. By eliminating the fear of the conversation, managers will be able to move a step closer to successful conversations with their employees. The ability to understand an individual’s own communication style will also help craft an effective conversation with other employees. A managers’ ability to identify her or his style can promote productive conversation.

Building confidence to confront difficult conversations is a first step to having difficult conversations. Knowing that the conversations must take place helps change a manager’s mindset from avoidance to acceptance. Performance problems rarely solve themselves. It takes communication to bring the issue to the employee’s attention and create an action plan to repair the deficiency.

Managers have to embrace their responsibility to the organization and be honest, open, and fair with their employees, especially regarding performance feedback. Managers can be mentally prepared for the performance conversation journey by managing their own emotions, planning for the conversation, knowing their own communication style and that of their employees, and having their feedback and examples ready to share.