Course Description: How to Have a Difficult Conversation

Master Essential Workplace Communication Skills with ProSkills

Are you among the many who dread difficult conversations, yet recognise their undeniable necessity in the workplace? Whether it's navigating challenging team dynamics, delivering critical feedback, or discussing sensitive matters with leadership, the ability to handle these interactions effectively is a cornerstone of professional success and healthy relationships. Avoiding them can lead to inflated problems, costly misunderstandings, and missed opportunities for growth and positive change.

ProSkills.training presents "How to Have a Difficult Conversation," a comprehensive online course designed to empower you with a proven four-step methodology for transforming daunting dialogues into productive discussions. You'll learn what to do before, during, and after your discussions to confidently engage colleagues, foster mutual understanding, and successfully overcome workplace issues, achieving the best possible outcomes.

What You Will Learn: A Structured Approach to Conflict Resolution & Effective Communication

This course guides you through a practical, actionable framework, ensuring you're prepared for every stage of a challenging conversation:

• Step 1: Prepare for Success

  • Strategic Mindset: Gain clarity by gathering your thoughts, considering all angles of an issue, and adopting the right mindset. Learn to manage emotions like anger or resentment to ensure constructive dialogue.
  • Issue Definition: Accurately identify the core issue by focusing on facts and specific behaviours, rather than personal interpretations or perceived faults. Prioritise positive, long-term outcomes to stay focused on resolution, not just avoiding short-term discomfort or a desire to be liked.
  • Proactive Planning: Develop foresight by anticipating potential reactions from the other party and practising your responses for both best-case and worst-case scenarios. Discover how to brainstorm and offer support or alternative solutions, especially when delivering unwelcome news or taking something away from someone. This step helps you understand the situation, your motives, and how to resolve the issue, without aiming to "win".

• Step 2: Frame It Effectively

  • Impactful Beginnings: Understand that "It's What You Say and How You Say It"—the initial framing of your message sets the tone for the entire conversation and can profoundly influence the other person's interpretation of everything that follows.
  • Relationship-Centred Techniques: Master strategies to open, rather than close, lines of communication. This includes reasserting shared goals or interests, highlighting strengths before addressing weaknesses, acknowledging challenges faced and expressing genuine appreciation, and demonstrating vulnerability by admitting your own part in a problem.
  • Empathy in Practice: Learn to consider the other person's perspective and assume good intentions, fostering an environment of understanding and collaboration.

• Step 3: Discuss the Issue with Clarity & Active Listening

  • Two-Way Dialogue: Engage in discussions that are genuinely "a Discussion—Not a Lecture", providing ample space for both parties to express their feelings, interpretations, feedback, or disagreement.
  • Structured Conversation: Apply a clear, three-part structure: start by stating the facts with a specific example of the behaviour you wish to discuss, share your interpretation or the impact of the situation, and then invite the other person's view, listening carefully to understand their context and interpretation.
  • Active Listening Mastery: Cultivate deep listening skills by avoiding distractions, maintaining an open mind free of judgments, focusing entirely on the speaker and not on your own response, and refraining from interruptions. Show you're engaged through nonverbal cues like nodding or leaning forward, brief positive prompts ("Uh-huh," "Mm-hmm"), paraphrasing to confirm understanding ("My understanding is..."), and asking relevant, clarifying questions to encourage expansion. You'll learn to listen to understand, not just to reply.

• Step 4: Wrap Up the Discussion Effectively

  • Strategic Conclusion: Recognise that "Timing Is Everything". Knowing when and how to conclude a conversation is crucial to consolidate progress and ensure all important points are covered, without letting dialogue drag on or ending too early. You'll assess the right stopping point by confirming both parties have shared, you understand their view, and your questions are answered.
  • Consensus & Next Steps: Learn to summarise key outcomes, insights, and agreed-upon action items. Confirm the other person's comfort with the plan and address any remaining concerns.
  • Follow-Up Planning: Understand when to set a time for follow-up discussions, acknowledging that complex issues may require multiple conversations for full resolution.
  • De-escalation: Identify signs that a conversation is becoming too heated (e.g., distracted body language, one-word answers) and when to suggest pausing to continue at a later, calmer time.

Who Is This Course For? This essential professional development course is perfect for anyone in the workplace—from individual contributors and team members to leaders and managers—who seeks to enhance their communication skills, build stronger relationships, resolve conflicts, and confidently address challenging situations.

Key Benefits & Outcomes: Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Transform potential conflicts into opportunities for self-awareness, improved relationships, and positive organisational change.
• Confidently initiate and navigate difficult conversations, ensuring mutual understanding and effective resolution of issues.
• Minimise the risks associated with conflict avoidance, such as problem inflation, misinterpretation, and missed growth opportunities.
• Apply structured communication techniques and active listening skills in various professional scenarios.

Course Details:

• Provider: ProSkills
• Format: Online Course
• Lessons: 7 lessons
• Content: 9 pages of content
• Assessment: Graded assessments are included to test your understanding.

Enroll today and empower yourself to master the art of difficult conversations, turning challenges into pathways for growth and success!