DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS

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Workshop Description

Difficult Conversations helps participants build the skills and awareness needed to handle serious differences in important relationships respectfully, routinely, and creatively. Applications include any conflict with the potential to impede personal or organizational effectiveness, such as:

  • Conflicts related to the development and implementation of major initiatives and policies

  • Departmental coordination problems

  • Contract or work rule modifications

  • Dealing with a difficult colleague

  • Addressing sensitive issues involving gender, race or culture

  • Managing and implementing change in a department that likes doing things the old way

  • Personality and work style conflicts

This advanced workshop is an intensive skill-based program providing a systematic framework and approach for handling difficult conversations effectively. Through an examination of a range of communications strategies, the program will help participants to:

  • Diagnose the factors that make a situation difficult

  • Gain awareness of how each participant tends to deal with conflicts and how that approach may contribute to the situation they are trying to manage

  • Align their negotiation strategies with the outcomes they are trying to achieve

  • Frame difficult issues in ways that promote listening, learning and problem-solving

  • Express themselves in difficult contexts clearly and powerfully

  • Deal with strong emotions

  • Maintain or regain a sense of balance during particularly difficult exchanges

This three day workshop is currently offered as a five-day course in "advanced negotiation" at the Harvard Law School. CMG works with each client to tailor the workshop to their specific needs and context. 

Workshop Design

The program involves a combination of presentations, exercises, case studies and discussions. Participants will be asked to prepare a short case based on a real-life situation in advance of the workshop. During the workshop, participants apply the concepts and techniques presented in the program to deepen their understanding of the issues and relational dynamics underlying their situation.  They learn to develop a specific action plan for implementation following the program.

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