Courageous Conversations

We all find ourselves in situations where we need the ability to be honest and have difficult yet necessary conversations about our working relationship with others.

Giving feedback constructively and positively whilst maintaining open dialogue when emotions can run high is challenging and uncomfortable for many people; as a result, these important conversations are often mishandled or avoided altogether, which benefits no one. They take courage to address, and skill to handle well.

Allowing these situations to fester can be a short fuse to disaster – not just for the people involved but for their other colleagues as well. This can eat away at the smooth and efficient working of an office or department, becoming the elephant in the room that blocks productive work.

We recognise that one needs courage to even start this process, so we support and help the initiator.

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STILLHR’s workshops engage delegates in identifying difficult conversations needed with others while maintaining the integrity of the relationship and achieving win-win outcomes for everyone. The key content of our all-staff workshops includes:

• Identifying interpersonal situations they find difficult
• Recognising why they avoid having the conversation
• Appreciate the benefits of personal feedback
• Understand why their best efforts to deal with these situations are often ineffective
• Establish conditions that will enable people to act with higher levels of honesty, respect, and responsibility when they engage in challenging conversations
• Develop precise questions to conduct a skillful conversation
• Engage in conversations with people in higher positions of authority so that critical, hierarchical communication remains open and productive
• Be better at giving personal feedback to colleagues
• Appreciate our responsibility to the other when giving personal feedback

Developing the ability to effectively communicate in these challenging situations leads to greater satisfaction in relationships, team culture, performance, and results.

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