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Essential Conversations

How to Have Effective High Stakes Conversations

An Essential Conversation is any conversation between two or more people where the stakes are high and “agree to disagree” is not an option. Whether it’s confronting a team member about problematic performance or poor behavior, negotiating with clients, or struggling with the board or boss, it’s possible to turn difficult discussions into essential conversations that resolve issues and build better relationships.

The Workshop Overview

In this program, we focus on preparing and delivering Essential Conversations about work behaviours and attitudes. Specifically, discussions that are needed when challenges or problems are noticed – with a goal of improving things.  Essential Conversations are not disciplinary conversations but rather seek to avoid ever having to get that far.  A leader’s career is full of situations that require them to engage in conflict, initiate hard conversations, and model effective communication skills, some examples are:

  • Performance problems.
  • Addressing misalignment or competition among staff.
  • Addressing inappropriate behaviour with colleagues.
  • Negotiating with clients and stakeholders.
  • Initiating conversations around power and privilege.

Your team members will learn how to stop avoiding difficult conversations and start tackling the elephant in the room. We believe that having essential conversations and building strong relationships are core competencies of leadership. By combining theory and technique, participants build confidence and skill as they learn and practice how to have better conversations to enrich relationships.

Essential Conversations is designed to facilitate good confrontation and to search for the truth(s) by being genuinely curious. Fully understanding a situation is the first step to dealing with it effectively. Ultimately, participants learn how to address negative behaviours to avoid those becoming the norm. We built the program on the model of Fierce Conversations and then brought in other models to help provide a more fulsome tool.

What Participants Learn

Participants learn a model for one-to-one essential conversations and will have an opportunity to plan, practice, and engage in essential conversation scenarios. Included is a handbook to guide you in practicing the critical skill of having hard conversations, which are essential to a productive team.

During the Essential Conversations workshop, your team members learn how to:

  • Have the conversation that is needed to address and change behaviours and attitudes, both one-to-one and with a group.
  • Avoid the common errors that we see in challenging conversations.
  • Use curiosity to ask questions that stimulate wisdom and tackle problems with information.
  • Know when feedback and coaching is no longer appropriate, and confrontation of issues is needed.
  • Conclude the conversation with a stronger, enriched relationship.

This Essential Conversations workshop is designed to facilitate effective communication and to discover the truth(s) and perceptions of others. This workshop is an opportunity to give yourself and others the benefit of being genuinely curious. Fully understanding a situation is the first step to dealing with it effectively. Ultimately, you’ll learn how to address negative behaviours to ensure those behaviours don’t become the norm.

Before and After the Workshop

In many ways, the follow-up effort after a workshop is just as important as the workshop itself. Your participants will have a great day of learning in the workshop but it’s how they apply that learning back at work, in the real world, that is going to make the difference and boost your ROI.

Setting Up Success before the Workshop

Padraig’s online learning portal is at MyLeadershipTools.com . Participants are given access to pre-workshop materials there, allowing them time to prepare their thinking so they get the greatest benefits possible out of the workshop.

Applying the Learning after the Workshop

To ensure we deliver the most success for your participants, Padraig follows-up the workshop with a number of methods including:

Follow-up emails reminding participants of different parts of the curriculum and prompting them to think about that content and to apply it in that moment at work.

Each follow-up touch point also includes tools the participant can download to apply the learning.

Other Programs You Might Find Helpful

Essential Conversations helps managers and leaders get through difficult conversations about problems.  But, what about day-to-day conversations with staff? Do your managers and leaders know how to adapt their style to each staff person? Flexible Leadership helps with that.

To go deeper into communicating with staff, check out The COACH Approach to Leadership.

Earn Credentials

All Padraig leadership courses lead to digital badges. Completing collections of specific courses lead to Digital Certificates.

Learn More

Ready to talk?

We offer this workshop privately for your organization either on location or virtually. To learn more (with no obligation) or to schedule the program, please reach out to us.

Telephone Toll Free:  (855) 818-0600 ext 101

E-mail: coach@padraig.ca

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Ready to register?

Many Padraig leadership courses are offered for public registration – meaning you can register one or more of your staff for the course, without arranging a private session in-house.

If you would like to register someone for this course, in one of our public cohorts, click here.