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

‘Honest conversations’ is one of our most popular ‘modules’ and Scott Rumsey is one of our most popular trainers. See some of the feedback he’s had recently from delivering this module both virtually and face-to-face:

  • ‘Scott creates a lively session!’
  • ‘A very useful webinar, shows the maximum that webinars can offer.’
  • ‘The training course is a fantastic way of gaining more knowledge and brings confidence when putting the new skills to practice.’
  • ‘Great learning.’
  • ‘Scott was great as always.’
  • ‘This workshop reminded me how to focus on having a productive honest conversation in a situation that may be uncomfortable for one or both of us.’
  • ‘This short informative webinar provided me with invaluable tips on how to have difficult conversations with compassion and integrity.’
  • ‘Scott Rumsey explained memorable, practical scenarios and gave personal coaching advice with interactive chat room features personalizing the webinar experience to his audience.’
  • ‘This workshop offers conceptual understanding, underlying challenges, models we can apply – and hands-on case study!’
  • ‘Really practical tips, covering the full range of what makes a conversation difficult, from where to meet, through emotions to consider, to what to say.’
  • ‘It made me think about the analytical v emotional side of giving/receiving feedback and how to deal with negative news.’
  • ‘Engaging!’
  • ‘A very useful insight into how to handle difficult/honest conversations with helpful tools that can help with this.’
  • ‘Good content delivered in a bite-sized session.’
  • ‘Informative & easy to digest.’
  • ‘Practical advice on addressing the issue of difficult conversations with a great case study.’
  • ‘Great basics for having these conversations and great tips to point you in the right direction.’
  • ‘A useful webinar for planning an approach to difficult conversations in the workplace.’
  • ‘Case study is great!’
  • ‘Great – info-packed session, useful tips.’
  • ‘Great tips from beginning to end. Very helpful practical advice and guidance.’
  • ‘Really insightful, good approaches, great collaboration with the participants for Q&A.’
  • ‘Good short introductory course.’
  • ‘Excellent course.’
  • ‘Really good overview on how to have honest conversations with some practical guides to do this.’
  • ‘Really helpful.’
  • ‘Great insightful information. A good brush-up!’
  • ‘Engaging.’
  • ‘Scott, this was excellent and timely. Loved it!’
  • ‘Great! Scott’s wealth of experience and personal credibility shone through.’
  • ‘Scott was kind, intelligent, experienced, and informed about the subject-matter.’
  • ‘Awesome trainer.’
  • ‘Just the right person.’
  • ‘Clear communication, no waffling.’
  • ‘Scott managed to present the content and be really engaged with the chat messages which is quite an achievement! I liked how the time was managed: in a 45 minute webinar we got through a lot of information which we can now take away, think about and practise.’
  • ‘Very knowledgeable, engaging and easy to listen to.’
  • ‘Definitely engaging!’
  • ‘Very good, seamless links between chat and facilitation.’
  • ‘Excellent.’
  • ‘Enthusiastic and engaging trainer.’
  • ‘Very knowledgeable and handled questions and interactions on zoom very well!’
  • ‘Excellent trainer.’
  • ‘Lovely guy, very personable and easy to understand.’
  • ‘Patient, friendly, perfect.’
  • ‘Good presentation style – clearly experienced and knowledgeable.’
  • ‘Scott was great and really kept an eye on the chat!’

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.