Keeping communication constructive when challenges or conflicts arise
Conflict conversation Solutions Powered By Blanchard®
Honest and open conversations foster teamwork, progress, trust, and just about everything else positive in the workplace. But poor communication derails important initiatives, wrecking morale and torpedoing projects.
Conversational Capacity® teaches people how to engage in constructive, learning-focused dialogue when challenging topics or conflicts arise so they can make informed decisions and find the best solutions, even under high pressure. That’s where difficult exchanges become learning opportunities, and unfocused meetings become innovation incubators.
Discover how to build your Conversational Capacity
Conversational Capacity is the ability of an individual or a team to engage in open, balanced, nondefensive dialogue about difficult subjects and in challenging circumstances. It provides the tools to keep your conversations in the “sweet spot”—where learning, collaboration, and innovation are at their highest.
Conversational Capacity teaches learners the following:
- Awareness: Learners recognise when fight-or-flight reactions prevent real listening and create discomfort in others. This awareness allows for a more intentional response to challenging conversations.
- Mindset: Exploring diverse perspectives and listening to contrasting views are emphasised because that is where the most significant opportunities for insights and growth are.
- Skill Set: Four behaviors are essential to Conversational Capacity: two that build genuine candor and two that build curiosity. Balancing candor and curiosity creates the conversational sweet spot.
You can have the smartest people around the table, but if minor differences in opinion throw conversations off track and hinder progress, you’re not getting access to their best thinking. When a challenging topic or conflict arises, natural defences kick in, making open and honest dialogue difficult.
When this happens, people can be either overly cautious and don’t speak openly or they get defensive and argumentative. Most people don’t have the awareness or skills to work through it, so creativity, collaboration, and innovation suffer.
Imagine if instead of wasting time with ineffective conversations, your teams were capable of having open, productive dialogue that resulted in collaboration and finding the best solutions. Your teams should be able to put their most difficult, painful, divisive issues on the table and work through them in fair and productive ways.
Conversational Capacity can be delivered as a one-day, face-to-face workshop or as three 2-hour virtual sessions. Both designs include compelling visuals and materials, engaging videos, and proven learning activities that teach participants:
- The mindset of conversational capacity
- The natural tendencies to either “minimise” or “win” and the consequences of both
- How to quickly recognise when these emotional reactions threaten to throw us off balance
- The four skills for balancing candour and curiosity to stay in the conversational sweet spot
After the workshop, participants will have the skills to stay in the conversational sweet spot, allowing for increased creativity and innovation, and avoiding regrets over things that happen in the heat of the moment.
Don’t let unproductive conversations derail meetings and stall projects, wasting time and money for the organisation. When people can address tough issues in fair and constructive ways, teams can engage in learning-focused dialogue so they can make informed decisions, find the best solutions, and help projects move forward as they should.
This program is designed for anyone with difficult people or tough situations. Theses could be individuals, teams, managers or executive leaders.
Registration includes workshop and materials.
Upcoming public programs
November 26, 2024 | VIRTUAL
May 13, 2025 | VIRTUAL
September 16, 2025 | VIRTUAL
Good Listeners And Communicators Unlock Your Workplace’s Potential
Conversational Capacity is the foundation for a positive and productive workplace. It redirects all the energy wasted in unproductive exchanges into channels that benefit people and the enterprise.
Engage Employees
When people have honest and meaningful conversations, morale rises and the workplace buzzes with enthusiasm.
Spur Innovation
People share ideas. Colleagues contribute. A good idea evolves into a great one. That’s how innovation happens.
Improve Productivity
The gap between what people say and what others hear closes. Miscommunication and misunderstandings evaporate, and real work gets done.
Delivery Options to Meet Your Needs
We can deliver Conversational Capacity in-person, as virtual sessions, as part of a learning journey, or delivered in a self-directed online or moderated online version, so your managers can learn the methodology wherever they are and whenever they have time.