It would be easy to fill an office wall with motivational posters that speak to the importance of communication. 

Within the business world, effective communication is a skill that can be learned and it is an integral part to success.

For Asheville communication coach Natalie Micale, it is a topic that she knows can elevate a leader to better their team and workspace.

“I have a full book of one-to-one clients, and a third of my clients are local in Buncombe County, which I love,” she said. “I do corporate consulting and team training to help leadership teams communicate better with each other and develop. I've worked with a couple companies locally to develop their leadership development programs for their mid-level leaders moving into executives. I get flown out to see some of my clients and work with their leadership teams and  it truly feels like a dream. When I started this in 2020, I was like, 'Wouldn't it be cool if one day I could travel the country, doing the stuff I love' and I get to do it now.”

Micale is a former healthcare executive who helped build personal and professional employee development programs within her healthcare system. 

She started her own coaching business in 2020. Yes, she started a new venture while the world dealt with the covid-19 pandemic. “I graduated with my Masters, I turned 40, and I started a business,” she said. “Call it stir crazy.”

As this issue focuses on small businesses, we asked Micale for her advice on several topics that might help leaders in that space.

What is something difficult that business owners must learn to do?

The part I see people avoid most is where personal and professional leadership intersect, especially in difficult conversations that come with running a small business. Those difficult conversations are not going to go away on their own. When there’s anything that feels heavy, anything that feels like there' s a lack of clarity, as small business owners, we tend to be so busy doing 1,000 different things that it’s easy to try to skip over those tough conversations. But if you can’t get to the root of what the lack of clarity or the communication issue is with your client or one of your teammates, it’s always going to drag you down. Those are just the things you cannot ignore. They’re the easy things to ignore and you shouldn’t ignore them.

How can a business owner practice those types of confrontations? 

One of my favorite reminders is, “Expectations on the front end prevent heartache on the back end.” I think about that every single time I’m faced with something where it would be easier for me just to move ahead quickly and wing it and just hope everybody else comes along. Setting expectations clearly with your clients or employees, and making sure you’re asking questions upfront. A lot of people don’t want to ask a whole lot of questions, because, what happens if they get an answer they don’t like? Then you got to address it. That’s really where personal and professional leadership intersect – being willing to wade into those murky waters, have those conversations, ask the questions that you know you may not like the answer to, and then trust yourself enough to be able to handle that. And that just really comes from practice. It’s just you getting better at doing it the more you do it, but you have to have the initiative to hear the things you don’t want to hear.

What can help someone in a large corporation that can also help a small business owner?

Becoming a really, really clear communicator. Being sure that you are being heard and understood by the people you work with. They don’t have to love what you’re here what they’re hearing, but they have to hear it and understand it. So often we shy away from those kinds of conversations, just because it gets really difficult. Practice saying the hard things out loud. This is an example of what I do with my clients when they have to have a difficult conversation, such as they have to report something up to the board that they know the board isn’t gonna like, or they’re having a conversation with an employee that is going to result in some sort of reprimand or termination. Record yourself saying it. Watch yourself say it. Listen to yourself say it. Try not to do it with just a critical eye, but it is okay to have a critical eye when you’re saying something that is quite critical, but making sure you’re practicing saying it out loud.

Practice saying the number out loud a bunch of different times. This also works if you’re renegotiating a contract with a client from a small business perspective or if you’re working out a service agreement. Just practice saying and asking for what you need. Say it to your dog, your spouse, - whoever will listen. The point is to hear yourself say it.

It becomes easier to say as the time comes. You’re also starting to think more deeply about the other person and how they may take it. If you can put yourself into the other person’s perspective to some extent, and try to anticipate what concerns are they going to have, what questions are they going to have. It helps you be more present in the moment, and all the stuff, all the preparation ahead of time isn’t to make you robotic in the moment but so you can kind of bob and weave if things don’t go according to plan. I think the same is true when dealing with difficult clients, difficult employees, difficult coworkers, or just wonderful coworkers and employees during difficult conversations.