Difficult Conversations

Catalog description

Successful business relationships require the ability to manage difficult conversations. When managing clients, managing direct reports, or managing up, you will encounter difficult conversations. This course will enable you to effectively lead your most challenging and consequential conversations at work to desired outcomes. You will gain an understanding of the variety of difficult conversations, the neuroscience of what makes a conversation difficult, and the business case for why avoiding these conversations is too costly for employees’ careers and for their organizations’ effectiveness. Through readings, group practice with feedback, analysis of past challenging conversations, and class discussions, you will learn how to use the core communication skills to manage difficult conversations well, and how to identify and manage interests and motivations. You will practice difficult conversations, reflect on these interactions, and action plan for future conversations. As a result of this course, you will be able to identify the personalized mindset and behavior shifts you need to master “crucial conversations” and perform effectively during the most critical moments in your career.