Your ability to engage and execute effectively in the most difficult of one-on-one and group situations directly impacts your career success!
Do you regularly encounter these types of challenging conversations?
- Uncomfortable feedback conversations
- Difficult performance discussions.
- Important coaching conversations.
- The need to ask for budgets or resources.
- The need to communicate organizational or strategic changes to your team members?
- The need to say “no” and allow your team to focus.
- Invitations to present to senior executives or board members.
Almost every manager is putting off one or more challenging conversations.
100% of my executive coaching calls involve helping clients prepare for a challenging conversation.
Unfortunately, few of us are trained on how to succeed with these discussions, yet as one manager suggested, our working lives are punctuated by an endless series of challenging conversations.
The Five Big Issues with Challenging Conversations:
- Developing the self-confidence to conduct them.
- Learning to develop and deliver crisp, clear messages in stressful situations.
- Uncovering interests instead of arguing over positions.
- Recognizing that nearly every situation is a negotiation and knowing how to guide these discussions to successful outcomes.
- Leaving every discussion with all parties in a better situation than where they started.
What you need is help learning to design and conduct effective discussions in the most challenging of circumstances.
This is where I help!
Succeeding with Challenging Conversations Professional Development Program
In my Succeeding with Challenging Conversations program, I work with you through a series of webinar-based workshops plus live “Ask Art” sessions and a one-on-one jumpstart coaching call to teach you the tools and approaches critical to succeeding with the most difficult discussions.
Topics of focus include:
- How to prepare for challenging conversations (message and mind)—I teach you the clarifying power of message mapping and I help you prepare to confidently open and lead the discussion.
- Delivering effective constructive and positive feedback—I teach you the key ingredients in every successful feedback discussion and the processes to develop and deliver both constructive and positive feedback that gets results.
- How to navigate when discussions get emotional—Your ability to defuse and redirect emotional discussions is critical for performance feedback and negotiations. We explore a variety of tense situations and teach you approaches for success.
- Surviving and thriving in difficult discussions with your boss—From issues around resources and priorities to raises, every successful professional must learn how to navigate the most challenging of bosses.
- How to communicate effectively with executives—Whether you are presenting to a group or engaging in a hallway conversation, you need to leave the right impression. I share secrets to successful executive communication.
- Negotiating for resources and budgets—Just about every conversation and issue in the workplace is a negotiation. I teach you how to optimize results with your workplace negotiations.
- Talking effectively on change—Your most difficult discussions will revolve around change. I share strategies for helping get the fear out and gain support for organizational change.
- Coaching and developing team member—I teach you the key questions and approaches critical for supporting the performance and growth of your team members.
The Program Includes:
- 4 information packed webinars—all recorded for viewing on demand
- All slide/worksheet content from the webinars
- 2 live group “Ask Art” sessions where your questions drive the agenda.
- A one-hour, one-on-one jump-start mentoring call with me
- Unlimited e-mail access for Q/A
- BONUS! Feedback Planning Worksheet.
- BONUS! Message Mapping template and instructions.
Program Dates:
- Thursday, 1/25/18 at noon central.
- Thursday, 2/8/18 at noon central
- Thursday, 2/22/18 at noon central
- Thursday, 3/8/18 noon central
All sessions are recorded and links distributed the same day as the live event, in case you have a schedule conflict.
“Ask Art” live sessions to be scheduled during program period.
You and I work together to identify a time-slot for your Jump-Start Mentoring Call during the program period.
The Bonus Worksheet:
Effective Managers focus on feedback.
Sadly, most professionals have received very little or no training on how to deliver constructive or positive feedback. Many of us avoid delivering feedback simply because we are uncomfortable conducting this version of a challenging conversation. Our human fears (not being liked, fear of response, fear of upsetting people) coupled with our lack of training makes this tough for many.
When feedback is given, it is frequently watered-down or sugar-coated to the point where it is not clear whether someone is being praised or criticized.
Feedback is a major tripping point for everyone from first-time leaders to top executives. In my surveys, over 50% of the respondents indicate that delivering constructive feedback is their single biggest weakness.
Preparation is key to effective feedback discussions. As a bonus for joining the Succeeding with Challenging Conversations, you’ll get my Feedback Planning Worksheet for FREE. You can use the worksheet that’s full of questions, reminders and tips to help prepare your discussions.
Who Should Consider This Program?
Succeeding with Challenging Conversations is ideal for:
- First-time supervisors or managers
- Experienced managers of all levels and titles
- Project Managers
- Product Managers
- Shift Supervisors
- Production Managers
- Team Leads
- Any person in a client supporting role
High Value, Reasonable Investment:
I work in my Succeeding with Challenging Conversations program to help you learn to break down the issue into component parts and then build a strategy for success.
- We focus on understanding and leveraging the psychology of the situation.
- I help you assess what the true interests of the various parties are (including your own).
- I teach you to avoid the traps, including the most common source of poor conversations: anchoring on positions.
- I teach you how to map out the discussion before it even occurs.
- I show you how to open up and steer challenging conversations using a variety of techniques.
- I work with you to recognize and avoid the common traps and tactics that derail tough discussions.
- And finally, I help you learn how to assess your performance and identify where and how to improve with your next opportunity.
The approaches work great for:
- Succeeding with tough performance (feedback) discussions.
- Navigating difficult coworkers and bosses.
- Helping frustrated customers
- Negotiating with peers
- And there’s one other discussion that most managers and leaders either dread or recognize they can do better: communicating change.
As a wise person once offered, “Only babies like to be changed.” The rest of us, not so much.
In a world filled with nothing but change, it’s essential we learn to level-up our ability to navigate change and to get those around us informed, inspired, and committed to the hard work involved in any change process.
A good part of this program includes helping you design and deliver discussions on change that quickly move people from fear or defend mode into discovery mode.
Once you’ve got them in discovery mode, you’ve succeeded.
Now, let’s help you succeed with challenging conversations!
For this webinar series, I am offering the Succeeding with Challenging Conversations program for just $297 per participant. For groups, e-mail me for special pricing.
What People Are Saying:
“The coaching conversation alone is worth the price of admission. And then there’s all those ideas in the webinars! Art has me rethinking my approach to leading, guiding, and communicating with my team.”
–Alan M., Operations Manager
“I want to share how valuable your webinars have been to me personally and the potential benefit they could be to my fellow managers”
–Lorie F
“I told my supervisor how valuable I thought that one hour was and how I’m already using some of the conversation to shape other conversations. I’m happy to report that one of the staff who has been a bit of a challenge was completely open and receptive at our meeting today, even asking how I was doing and how she could support me. It was fantastic!” Robert A.
