Honest conversations

Giving and receiving feedback – with confidence, grace and clarity

Few of us are naturals when it comes to having honest conversations, especially around giving and receiving feedback.

We struggle to find a path between being too direct and confrontational, as against softening our message so much that it gets lost in an emotional fog.

We need to structure information in a non-emotive way, giving clear feedback and delivering messages with empathy and compassion. We need a toolkit we can use on a day-to-day basis to build an honest, open working culture with those who report to us – and, indeed, with those to whom we report. This very popular programme is the answer.

What’s in it for you?

  • Understand what honest conversations are and why they’re important
  • Be able to identify and manage your emotions
  • Be able to use a variety of techniques for structuring honest conversations
  • Learn how to get key messages across, with empathy and compassion

Workshop outline

(Full-day version, 9.30 – 5.00)

1 What’s a difficult conversation? What’s an honest conversation? And what’s the difference?

  • What makes a conversation ‘difficult’?
  • What makes for an ‘honest’ conversation?
  • Why they’re not the same

2 The role emotions play

  • What neuroscience tells us about how our emotions work
  • How certain situations can prompt strong reactions
  • The NLP model of communication and how our brains will delete, distort and generalise information based on our own unique map of the world
  • The belief cycle
  • Techniques for identifying your emotions and managing them

3 Understanding your purpose

  • Where most conversations go wrong
  • Are you looking for them to change behaviour, to understand new information, to influence them or to express your feelings?
  • The A to B model for structuring your honest conversation

4 Giving and receiving feedback

  • The benefits of giving and receiving feedback
  • How emotions play a role in feedback
  • How to structure feedback using the See/Saw Model
  • How giving positive feedback can be just as difficult for some people
  • How to manage your emotions and accept feedback with grace
  • Keeping focused on the positives

5 Raising issues

  • How to build up to an honest conversation
  • Maintaining rapport while raising issues
  • The LADDER model for planning and executing the discussion

6 Empathy and understanding others’ perspectives

  • How a perceived lack of understanding and empathy raise the temperature
  • Practical techniques for ‘standing in the other’s shoes’
  • Effective questioning and listening
  • The role of positive intentions and values in honest conversations

7 Making sure you get it right

  • The ‘must haves’ for effective honest conversations
  • Unconscious biases
    • Affinity bias
    • Attribution bias
    • Conformity bias
    • Confirmation bias
    • Gender bias
  • Factual inaccuracies
  • The Ladder of Inference as a model for taking a fact-based approach

8 Actions and next steps

  • Review
  • Personal action planning
  • Next steps

To discuss which management and personal effectiveness modules would best suit you, just give us a call on 01582 463460 and we’ll be happy to talk you through the options.