duration

Duration
Half-day

duration

Location
In-house

duration

Availability
Good

Suitable for:       IA What does this mean?

At work, at home – difficult conversations are attempted or avoided every day.

Not having those hard conversations impacts everything – most of the time we don’t see the full extent of the damage. There is a tremendous unaccounted business impact of avoiding the difficult conversations.

Giving a critical performance review. Saying no to someone in need. Confronting inappropriate behaviour. Disagreeing with the majority in a group. Apologising.

All the sorts of things we run round and round in our head, trying to figure out in advance what to say and wondering afterward what we should have said.

  • Read more

    This session will help you understand the dynamics and reasons why these conversations are so difficult. It will help you gain experience in the skills and strategies that are necessary to ensure these conversations go well. There will be time to practise skills and strategies with role-plays and coaching.

    Changing and adapting your style will take time. But the potential rewards are rich. If you follow the steps outlined in the session and put the learning into practice you will find difficult conversations becoming easier and cause less anxiety. You will be more effective and happier with the results.

    The skills you will learn on this course will enable you to say anything to anyone and get a positive result.

  • Our trainers

    Laura Bouttell is passionate about inspiring people, whether it’s to deal with that challenging customer differently, to go out for that first run or to take that creative writing course. Her mission in life is to empower people to become their best.

    Laura is an ex-police officer, who has three degrees. She is a published academic author and editor.

    As a result of her time policing in Chapeltown, her own business and her time at Oxford, Laura has seen the gritty side of life as well as the ivory towers and uses her experiences in these diverse fields to help you achieve your dreams.

    Now Laura works with all levels of Leaders in Business to help them get the best out of themselves and those around them. She has worked with Leaders from the Co-op, Team Leaders from Asda, as well as many SMEs and owner-managed businesses that have gone from strength to strength.

     

    Gavin Hutchinson is a veteran trainer with 22 years of experience planning, implementing and delivering training for HM Prison Service, Police Forces and Local Authorities. He is passionate and highly effective with outstanding success in delivering training over a variety of disciplines and fields.

    He has a deep knowledge of behavioural change, motivational training and development across public and private sectors and thoroughly enjoys seeing the effect of his training on the participants. Gavin uses humour to allow participants to absorb the learning and his sessions are great fun.

     

    Simon Thomas’s passion for Learning and Development comes from the satisfaction of making a difference. Helping people to be at their best in work, (and life), fuels his quest to facilitate the most game-changing learning interventions possible.

    His career spans 16 years as a senior leader within Asda/Wal-Mart, progressing through a broad range of senior operational, strategic and commercial positions within the Head Office. Throughout his career Simon has always been deeply involved with developing talent through coaching, mentoring, recruitment and delivering leadership skills programmes. As you might expect from his background, Simon is supremely customer-focused, and always goes the extra mile to deliver memorable learning experiences. His personal learning journey has earned him a CIPD Level 7 accreditation in Learning & Development, Certificates in Stress Management, NLP and Coaching (CMI Level7), accredited practitioner for both the Lumina Spark psychometric model and the Heartstyles Life Indicator – plus he’s a qualified Hypnotherapist and Mental Health First Aider.

    Simon has delivered a broad spectrum of training across all Government Departments such as the Royal Air Force, HM Prison Service and the Dept of Work & Pensions, where he brought learning to life for senior Civil Servants. He also facilitates experiential leadership and wellbeing programmes for organisations and private clients in the UK and around the world. The range of people Simon supports is broad, from professional cyclists wanting to develop their mindset, to global leadership teams aiming to develop cross-cultural impact.

    As part of a hand-picked Associate training team, he has worked for the past 5 years across Europe and Middle East for Lexus Europe on their Luxury Brand & Customer Experience programme. Simon has a secret passion for both history, and creating experiences that move people, and so it is no surprise that he specializes in bringing Lexus stories to life, enabling retailer teams to connect on a more emotional level with customers, and maximise brand value.

     

    Brian Coffman was born in Texas, grew up in the UK, back to Texas (a few years in Canada and Australia added for good measure) and then back to the UK. His life has seen frequent change and varying scenery, personally and professionally, and it gives him great pleasure to share this experience with his clients.

    People are at the heart of everything he does and how he ticks. Career wise, he enjoyed success as a leader in executive search businesses, managing high-performing teams of extremely bright, highly motivated recruiters. Being in professional services meant he always kept a keen eye on clients, making the balance of internal and external relationships crucial.

    He also worked in Operations leadership, and earlier in his career as an HR professional.

    Leadership, search, candidates, clients and HR. You need to enjoy building relationships with people if you’re going to thrive, (survive?!), in these settings.

    He believe the key to success in building relationships and leading people is great attitude. A great attitude is infectious, powerful, inspiring. Whatever your skills and knowledge level, choose great attitude and you’ll find yourself surrounded by amazing people doing amazing things.

    Brian would love to help you harness great attitude to improve your leadership qualities and build inspiring cultures.

     

    Hi, I’m Howard King, the Regional Director for Quarterdeck in Manchester.

    If you’re keen to develop and improve yourself to become a better version of you and to invest in your personal development and well-being, then I’d love to work with you.

    I’m very grateful to have had a wonderfully varied career with extensive soft skills training over the years and I aim to use my experience to help people bring out the best in themselves and in others. I love seeing people grow and become more empowered through our training, which is often quite simple, we just help make it relevant and bring it to life!

    As a director of a software company in the rail industry, I learned the importance of building team spirit and fostering a sense of responsibility, all underpinned by the belief that we can achieve so much more when we work together.

    I am a big believer in trust, empowerment and treating people as I’d want to be treated. But of course, this has to be accompanied by people giving their best and performing well with what’s been entrusted to them. The power of a culture where people feel free to express themselves creatively while taking ownership of their deliverables is one of my core principles.

    Many of the behaviours that make people successful in sport apply directly to business and leadership. As a keen triathlete, I’ve coached thousands of adults and children in the skills and mental challenges of my sport. I’ve organised several children’s triathlons where hundreds of kids got to compete against each other, learning the fun and challenges of competition and achieving more than they thought they could.

    I’ve also represented my country in European and World triathlon championships, which required a great deal of training and sacrifice. This experience helped me develop self-discipline and resilience, qualities that I now enjoy helping others adopt.

    I’ve been fortunate enough to travel the world in previous roles and combined with having a non-British wife, I have developed a strong understanding of different cultures and how to achieve the best results when communication or understanding may be clouded by cultural barriers.

     

    Jo Faller-Pope is passionate about helping people build confidence, strengthen relationships and lead with authenticity. Whether supporting someone to communicate more effectively, navigate challenging conversations or develop their leadership style, Jo’s focus is always on helping people become the best version of themselves.

    Her career spans leadership roles across digital and marketing agencies, where she predominantly worked in client services; leading high-performing teams and working on customer centric projects for globally recognised clients from Microsoft to Brompton Bikes. Throughout her career, Jo has remained people-focused, building strong teams, nurturing client relationships and creating environments where people can thrive.

    Now working with leaders, teams and customer-facing professionals, Jo delivers engaging and practical learning experiences to help people have a positive influence.

We can bring this course to you.
If you have five or more staff interested our in-house training offers great value for money.

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