Starting Up

Digital Revolution

Emerging Technologies

Cybersecurity

Essence of Agile

Regenerative Farming

Rethinking Health

AI for built environment

How to have difficult conversations

Introduction to inclusivity for knowledge workers

Focus training for knowledge workers

Feedback for self-organizing teams

Facilitation as a skill for forward looking teams

How not to burn out in the tech industry

Trustworthy AI

Advanced trustworthy AI

Elements of AI for Business

Sometimes things don’t go smoothly. Being a lead – either by title or by general attitude and way of working – calls us to get on top of these situations. With knowledge, preparation, and practice difficult conversations become just another day at work.

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Having difficult conversations comes with the job

Potentially difficult conversations for a lead

Expect the unexpected from the start

Leadership in difficult conversations

We can do a lot to make the difficult conversation go smoother before we even meet the person. Preparing, setting the intention, and thinking about the possible outcomes help get the conversation off on the right track. Our attitude might become a self-fulfilling prophecy, so we need to be mindful of what we’re expecting to happen.

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Setting the intention of the conversation

Preparing for the conversation

Inviting the participant in a psychologically safe way 

How to prepare for a difficult conversation

Before beginning the difficult conversation, we need to check that there are enough listening tools in our toolkit. We can’t prepare and plan the whole conversation; it will go one way or another. What we can prepare for, though, is keeping on top of the situation with excellent listening, question-asking, and emotion-handling skills.

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How to listen like a hostage negotiator

Echoing, naming, and summarizing 

What listening is not and how to listen empathetically

Listening is the key 

We can probably recall a situation where we would have needed to say something, but the words just haven’t come out of our mouths. We waited for the right moment, and all of a sudden, the opportunity passed. Having a script you can adjust to your needs helps a lot to get a difficult conversation started.

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Easy roads lead us astray

Three different conversation openings

Yes, and… lets us down easy

Opening a difficult conversation

Here we go. We have prepared, opened the discussion, and now we’re in it. We can’t predict nor control what is going to happen next. Yet we can affect it and stay on top of it regardless of the twists and turns it might take.

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Tame an angry person

Keep the conversation going

How to end the conversation?

You thought it was over, and it wasn’t – starting the conversation again

You’re ready to have the conversation

Navigating in the stormy conversation

References

Learn to discuss difficult topics in a psychologically safe way. This course provides practical tools for managing your own emotions and preparing for others’ feelings. 