Why We Avoid Difficult Conversations at Work, And What It Really Takes to Change That Behaviour

There is a persistent assumption in organisations that difficult conversations are primarily a communication problem. If people had the right wording, more confidence, or better training, they would speak up.

It is a neat idea. It is also incomplete.

My research into difficult conversations at work suggests something more complex, and more useful. People are not simply deciding what to say, they are deciding whether it feels safe, worthwhile, and manageable enough to say anything at all. In other words, difficult conversations are not just a communication challenge. They are a behavioural decision.

That shift matters, because it changes how we approach them. Instead of asking, “How do we train people to have difficult conversations?”, we need to ask, “What enables or prevents people from taking action in the first place?”

This is where the COM-B model becomes particularly powerful.

Moving Beyond Communication: A Behavioural Lens

Across my research, spanning qualitative interviews and quantitative scenario-based studies, one finding consistently stood out:

People often know what they should say. They just do not feel able to say it.

Employees described rehearsing conversations in their heads, delaying them for weeks, or avoiding them entirely, not because they lacked the words, but because the perceived risk felt too high.

Those risks were not abstract. They were deeply personal and situational:

• “What if this damages my relationship with my manager?”

• “What if I am seen differently after I disclose this?”

• “What if it makes things worse?”

This aligns directly with a behavioural framing: action is not determined by knowledge alone, but by a combination of internal capability, external conditions, and motivation.

What Is the COM-B Model?

The COM-B model, developed by Susan Michie and colleagues, provides a simple but comprehensive way to understand behaviour.

At its core, it proposes that behaviour (B) occurs when three conditions are met:

• Capability (C) — Do I have the skills and psychological capacity to do this?

• Opportunity (O) — Does my environment enable or constrain this behaviour?

• Motivation (M) — Do I want to do this, and does it feel worth the risk?

If any one of these components is insufficient, behaviour is unlikely to occur.

This is critical when applied to difficult conversations, because it immediately challenges the idea that training alone is enough. Communication training typically targets capability.

But if opportunity and motivation are not addressed, behaviour does not change.

What My Research Found: COM-B in Action

Using a mixed-methods approach, my research explored how people experience difficult conversations and what drives their decisions to engage or avoid them.

Three consistent patterns emerged:

1. Difficulty Is Not Random, It Has a Profile

Certain conversations were consistently rated as more difficult than others. In particular:

• Conversations with managers (hierarchical risk)

• Conversations involving personal topics (identity exposure)

• Conversations about oneself (self-disclosure)

These were not just “harder”, they carried different types of perceived risk.

This is where COM-B becomes particularly useful. It allows us to map those risks onto behavioural drivers.

Capability: It Is Not Just About Knowing What to Say

When people think about difficult conversations, capability is usually the first focus. This includes:

• Communication skills

• Emotional regulation

• Ability to structure a conversation

These are important. But my research suggests capability is often overemphasised.

Participants rarely said, “I do not know how to have this conversation.” Instead, they said things like:

• “I know what I want to say, but I cannot bring myself to do it.”

• “I would not know how to handle their reaction.”

This points to two distinct aspects of capability:

Psychological Capability

• Emotional readiness

• Managing anxiety or fear

• Cognitive clarity under pressure

Behavioural Capability

• Structuring the conversation

• Choosing appropriate language

• Responding in real time

Key insight from the research: Capability matters, but it is rarely the primary barrier.

Opportunity: The Invisible Constraint

Opportunity is often the least discussed, yet one of the most powerful drivers of behaviour.

In COM-B, opportunity refers to external factors that enable or constrain behaviour, including:

• Organisational culture

• Power dynamics

• Psychological safety

• Timing and context

My research found that opportunity-related barriers were pervasive.

Participants described:

• Fear of repercussions when speaking to managers

• Organisational norms that discourage openness

• Lack of safe spaces for difficult discussions

In many cases, avoidance was not irrational, it was adaptive.

Key insight from the research: People are not just avoiding conversations, they are responding to their environment.

Motivation: The Core Driver of Action (or Avoidance)

Motivation emerged as the most influential component.

In COM-B, motivation includes:

• Reflective processes

• Automatic processes (e.g. fear, anxiety)

My research showed that motivation is largely driven by perceived risk:

• Emotional risk

• Relational risk

• Identity risk

• Outcome risk

When these risks outweigh the perceived benefits, avoidance becomes the most logical behaviour.

Key insight from the research: People do not avoid difficult conversations because they are incapable. They avoid them because, in that moment, it does not feel worth it.

Why Traditional Approaches Fall Short

Most organisational interventions focus on:

• Communication skills training

• Scripts or frameworks

• Confidence building

While valuable, these approaches assume capability is the primary barrier.

COM-B shows us why this is insufficient.

Applying COM-B: Turning Insight Into Action

Understanding behaviour is one thing. Changing it is another.

The value of the COM-B model is that it gives us a practical diagnostic tool.

If the answer to a COM-B question is “no”, that is not failure, it tells you where the barrier sits and what to do next.

A Practical COM-B Reflection Framework (With Action)

Rather than just asking reflective questions, we need to pair each one with targeted action.

1. Capability: “Do I feel able to have this conversation?”

If the answer is no, the instinct is often to delay. But the more useful response is to ask: What specifically is missing?

If the barrier is emotional (e.g. anxiety, overwhelm):

• Reduce the emotional load: Do not start with the hardest version of the conversation. Write down what you want to say first to externalise it

• Rehearse under realistic conditions: Not scripting perfectly, but practising starting and responding

• Name the emotion: “I am avoiding this because I feel anxious”. Labelling emotion reduces its intensity and increases control

If the barrier is skill-based:

• Use simple structure instead of scripts: What is my purpose? What do they need to understand? What outcome am I aiming for?

• Prepare anchor points, not full sentences: This allows flexibility in the moment

• Focus on the opening: The hardest part is often starting, not continuing

Key shift: Capability is not about perfection. It is about being able to stay in the conversation when it becomes uncomfortable.

2. Opportunity: “Does my environment support this conversation?”

If the answer is no, this is where many people feel stuck, because it feels outside of their control.

But opportunity is not fixed. It can often be shaped.

If the barrier is timing or context:

• Choose your moment deliberately: Avoid high-pressure or emotionally charged environments

• Create a contained space: Even a simple “Can we set aside some time to talk?” can shift the dynamic

If the barrier is power dynamics (e.g. speaking to a manager):

• Reduce perceived threat through framing: Position the conversation as constructive, not confrontational e.g. “I wanted to raise something that I think could help us work better together”

• Use shared goals: Align the conversation with team or organisational outcomes

If the barrier is culture or lack of safety:

• Start smaller: Test the waters with a less risky version of the conversation

• Build evidence of safety over time: One conversation rarely changes culture, patterns do

Key shift: Opportunity is not just about the environment you are in. It is about how you navigate and shape that environment.

3. Motivation: “Does this feel worth it?”

This is the most critical question, and the one most people do not explicitly ask.

If the answer is no, avoidance will almost always win.

If the barrier is fear of negative outcomes:

• Make the risk visible: What exactly am I worried will happen?

• Reality-test the worst-case scenario: How likely is it?If it did happen, how would I respond?

If the barrier is relational risk:

• Reframe the purpose: Is avoiding this actually protecting the relationship, or eroding it over time?

• Shift from confrontation to clarity: The goal is not to “win”, but to increase mutual understanding

If the barrier is low perceived benefit:

• Ask: What is the cost of not having this conversation? Ongoing frustration?Misalignment? Resentment building over time?

• Identify the smallest meaningful outcome: The goal does not have to be resolutionIt might simply be starting the conversation

Key shift: Motivation is not about forcing yourself to act. It is about changing how you see the conversation.

Bringing It Together: From Avoidance to Action

When you apply COM-B in practice, the process becomes:

1. Identify the barrier: Is this capability, opportunity, or motivation?

2. Target the barrier directly: Do not default to “I just need more confidence”

3. Lower the threshold for action: The goal is not a perfect conversation. It is a first step

This is how behaviour changes, not through intention alone, but by reducing the barriers to action.

What This Means for Leaders: Moving Beyond “Have the Conversation”

Leaders are often told to “encourage open conversations”.

But encouragement without infrastructure does not change behaviour.

If we take COM-B seriously, leaders need to actively shape all three components.

1. Building Capability (Without Over-Relying on Training)

Instead of one-off communication training:

• Normalise imperfection: Make it clear that difficult conversations will not be polished

• Model it: Show how to navigate challenge, tension, and difficult conversations in real time.

• Create opportunities to practise: Low-stakes conversations build capability for high-stakes ones

Practical example: In team meetings, explicitly invite challenge:

• “Is there anything we are not saying here that we should be?”

2. Creating Opportunity (This Is Where Leadership Matters Most)

This is the area with the greatest impact, and the greatest responsibility.

Leaders shape:

• What is safe to say

• What happens when people speak up

• Whether conversations lead to action or consequence

Practical actions:

• Respond well to difficult input: Even if you disagree, acknowledge and explore rather than shut down

• Close the loop: Show that raising issues leads to something meaningful

• Make conversations routine, not exceptional: If difficult conversations only happen in crises, they will always feel risky

Key point: Psychological safety is not created through statements. It is created through repeated experiences.

3. Shaping Motivation: Reducing the Perceived Risk of Speaking Up

Leaders cannot remove all risk, but they can significantly reduce it.

Practical actions:

• Acknowledge difficulty explicitly: “I know this might feel like a difficult thing to raise”

• Reward openness (not just outcomes): Recognise the act of speaking up, not just whether it leads to change

• Avoid unintended consequences: Subtle reactions (defensiveness, dismissal) can increase future avoidance

Key point: Every response to a difficult conversation teaches people whether it is worth doing again.

What This Means for Organisations: Designing for Behaviour, Not Hoping for It

At an organisational level, the shift is from:

“We train people to have difficult conversations”

to:

“We create conditions where those conversations are possible”

This includes:

Embedding COM-B into practice:

• Capability: Ongoing development, not one-off training

• Opportunity: Structures that enable open dialogue (e.g. regular check-ins, feedback loops)

• Motivation: Cultures that reduce fear and increase perceived value

Designing systems, not just skills:

• Performance management processes that support honest conversations

• Leadership expectations that include how conversations are handled

• Clear pathways for raising issues safely

A Final Practical Reframe

If someone is avoiding a difficult conversation, the question is not:

“Why are they not doing it?”

It is:

“What is getting in the way, capability, opportunity, or motivation?”

And more importantly:

“What would need to change for this to feel possible?”

Difficult conversations do not happen because people are told to have them.

They happen when:

• People feel able (capability)

• The environment allows it (opportunity)

• And it feels worth the risk (motivation)

If we want to change behaviour, we need to work on all three.

Because in the end, difficult conversations are not just about communication.

They are about whether someone decides to act at all.

Need Support Navigating a Difficult Conversation?

If you are preparing for a difficult conversation, whether as an individual, manager, or organisation, you do not have to navigate it alone.

At Elevation Occupational Psychology, we support people to:

• Understand what is driving avoidance

• Build readiness (not just preparation)

• Navigate conversations with clarity and confidence

If this resonates, feel free to reach out or explore how we can support you.