REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

Course Dates

Course Description

DID YOU KNOW?

  • 69% of managers reported that they felt uncomfortable communicating with employees. 37% of managers feel uncomfortable giving direct feedback and criticism about an employee’s performance they may respond negatively to.
    (Harvard Business Review)
  • 1 in 2 surveyed American adults have left their job to get away from their manager to improve their overall life at some point in their career. (Gallup)

 

Managers are communications hubs within any organization. Disagreements and difficult conversations are inevitable within any workplace, as are conversations about performance. 

Understanding concepts like psychological safety, unconscious bias, and the dangers of poor communication will enable you to take a thoughtful and respectful approach to tricky or sensitive topics. In a guided process with peers, you will use the course learnings and co-create a tool kit of communication strategies, frameworks, and techniques to handle difficult conversations as well as foster a workplace culture that boosts team cohesion, growth, and performance.

Direct Access to Industry Experts

Our Live Learning Workshops offer you direct access to our practicing industry experts. Bring your questions and scenarios to examine during our intensive workshops for direct feedback and advice from your instructor.

Our 3-hour workshop includes collaborative exercises, tangible takeaways, key insights, and instruction by our experts in employee experience, workplace culture, and organizational development.

Who Is This For?

  • Middle managers, supervisors, and team leaders responsible for maintaining a healthy and productive workplace

  • Managers from the private or public sector as well as from any industry will benefit from attending

Benefits For You

  • Understand and explore the concepts of psychological safety and unconscious bias

  • Co-create a toolkit for respectful conversations

  • Identify types of difficult management conversations and explore communication strategies and skills to handle them effectively

  • Create talking points and processes to use in difficult conversations

Instructors

All of our instructors are experts in their fields and practicing consultants, bringing you the latest insights and best practices grounded in research and current trends.

Alison Marshall

Principal Consultant and Senior Instructor
MBA

Alison Marshall has over twenty years of consulting experience supporting public-sector and non-profit organizations in strategic planning, organizational design, and change management. With both an MBA and a BA in Psychology informing her approach, Alison is uniquely skilled at helping institutions identify opportunities, navigate challenges, and optimize strategies to support their mission. She has worked at Realize Strategies for fourteen years and is an expert in facilitating in-person and virtual sessions with Boards, leadership teams, and management groups. Alison’s people-centred method to strategy and development ensures that the most valuable resources of an organization, its employees, are considered throughout the process.

Laurie Wilson

Consultant and Senior Instructor

As a social scientist, Laurie Wilson takes a people-centric lens and uses organizational psychology to design resilient and adaptive organizational frameworks. Applying her expertise in risk and resilience, Laurie partners with organizations to assess and manage risk, develop people systems and behaviours that foster long-term growth and resilience, and cultivate powerful employee experiences. As a consultant with Realize Strategies, Laurie helps clients to enhance their organizational capabilities and adaptive capacity; identify strategically-aligned leadership candidates; augment their knowledge management; and optimize their organizational structure.

Course Topics

  • The Role of the Manager

  • Dangers, Biases, and Impact

  • Communication Strategies

  • Timing and Preparation

Open Sessions

Respectful Conversations for Difficult Topics (Fall 2022)

Nov 1, 2022 | 9AM - 12PM PDT

REGISTRATION CLOSED

Respectful Conversations for Difficult Topics (Winter 2023)

Jan 24, 2023 | 9AM - 12PM PDT

REGISTRATION CLOSED

Respectful Conversations for Difficult Topics (Spring 2023)

May 2, 2023 | 9AM - 12PM PDT

ENROLL TODAY

Private Workshops

We can bring our expertise directly to your team or one on one, in-person or virtually. Each workshop can also be customized to fit your team’s unique needs or structure.

Contact Us