Respectful Conversations Lab

Respectful Conversations Lab - Spring 2024

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
Gain practical communication strategies and tools to confidently navigate difficult workplace conversations, foster psychological and cultural safety, and boost employee growth and team cohesion.

Live Workshop: April 9, 2024 | 9am - 12pm PT

Lab Description

DID YOU KNOW?

69% of managers reported that they felt uncomfortable communicating with employees. 37% of managers feel uncomfortable giving direct feedback and criticism about an employee’s performance they may respond negatively to.
(Harvard Business Review)
1 in 2 surveyed American adults have left their job to get away from their manager to improve their overall life at some point in their career. (Gallup)

Managers are communications hubs within any organization. Disagreements and difficult conversations are inevitable within any workplace, as are conversations about performance.

Understanding concepts like psychological safety, unconscious bias, and the dangers of poor communication will enable you to take a thoughtful and respectful approach to tricky or sensitive topics. In a guided process with peers, you will use the course learnings and co-create a tool kit of communication strategies, frameworks, and techniques to handle difficult conversations as well as foster a workplace culture that boosts team cohesion, growth, and performance.

Direct Access to Industry Experts

Our Live Learning Labs offer you direct access to our practicing industry experts. Bring your questions and scenarios to examine during our intensive workshops for direct feedback and advice from your instructor.

Our 3-hour workshop includes collaborative exercises, tangible takeaways, key insights, and instruction by our experts in employee experience, workplace culture, and organizational development.

Who Is This For?

Middle managers, supervisors, and team leaders responsible for maintaining a healthy and productive workplace
Managers from the private or public sector as well as from any industry will benefit from attending

Benefits For You

Understand and explore the concepts of psychological safety and unconscious bias
Co-create a toolkit for respectful conversations
Identify types of difficult management conversations and explore communication strategies and skills to handle them effectively
Create talking points and processes to use in difficult conversations

Instructors

All of our instructors are experts in their fields and practicing consultants, bringing you the latest insights and best practices grounded in research and current trends.

Laurie Wilson

Consultant and Senior Instructor

As a social scientist, Laurie Wilson takes a people-centric lens and uses organizational psychology to design resilient and adaptive organizational frameworks. Applying her expertise in risk and resilience, Laurie partners with organizations to assess and manage risk, develop people systems and behaviours that foster long-term growth and resilience, and cultivate powerful employee experiences. As a consultant with Realize Strategies, Laurie helps clients to enhance their organizational capabilities and adaptive capacity; identify strategically-aligned leadership candidates; augment their knowledge management; and optimize their organizational structure.

Jenn Fong

Consultant and Senior Instructor

Jenn Fong is a governance professional who takes a people- and purpose-driven approach to her work. Her expertise includes board and director evaluations, governance restructuring, and governance policy development among others. She explores her client’s pain-points with a collaborative mindset, analyzes the practice, people, and dynamics issues underlying their governance problems, and helps governance teams bring the solutions to life and increase their effectiveness. Jenn has helped a wide variety of clients including small, medium, and large not-for-profits, crowns, regulated professional bodies, as well as societies/associations.

Course Topics

The Role of the Manager
Dangers, Biases, and Impact
Communication Strategies
Timing and Preparation