FranklinCovey, one of the largest and most trusted leadership companies in the world, announced the launch of a new module, Navigating Difficult Conversations: Turn Tension Into Progress™, which was created for leaders, teams, and every employee in any organization, worldwide.
Many people avoid difficult conversations or handle them poorly because they’re afraid to address uncomfortable issues and feel unprepared to respond to the emotional reactions that inevitably arise. This new module gives learners the mindset, skillset, and toolset to overcome the most challenging human aspect of difficult conversations – the emotional tension that causes people to avoid or mishandle them. Teams and organizations significantly accelerate performance when everyone begins to develop the skills to navigate difficult conversations with confidence.
Paul Walker, FranklinCovey CEO, said, “Navigating Difficult Conversations takes a targeted approach to helping learners manage emotional tension and conduct conversations in a way that enables all parties to stay engaged in collaborative dialogue. Learners will shift their mindset from fearing and avoiding difficult conversations to seeing them as the way to make progress on important issues. And they’ll develop the skills to build trust and respect in every relationship as they navigate challenging topics.”
It’s common for people to avoid difficult conversations or handle them poorly because they feel unprepared or afraid to address challenging issues. According to a FranklinCovey survey of 900 individual contributors and managers:
- 65% of people “worry how the other person will react” to having a difficult conversation.
- 82% want to improve how they have difficult conversations.
Conversations become “difficult” when they’re about something deeply important. Because there’s something at stake, one or both people will likely have an emotional reaction.
Barbara Cogburn, FranklinCovey Senior Consultant and Navigating Difficult Conversations Content Expert, said, “It’s the emotional reactions that people find most challenging in difficult conversations. These strong reactions often send us into survival mode. And even worrying about how someone will react before the conversation occurs can trigger our survival response. This puts us into a very common mindset of dread and avoidance, which leads people to approach the conversation ineffectively.”
While avoiding difficult conversations may lead to temporary relief, the true underlying issues persist, eventually building into larger problems such as decreased productivity, damaged relationships and team dynamics, misaligned expectations, missed opportunities for growth, a culture of disrespect, and lower overall organizational results.
Learning to effectively address issues and handle difficult conversations is crucial in the workplace, particularly when addressing sensitive or challenging topics. Effectively addressing challenging issues is where meaningful growth happens – both for individuals and organizations. It’s not just about solving immediate problems, but also building a foundation for open and honest communication and continuously improving to achieve better results.
In Navigating Difficult Conversations: Turn Tension Into Progress, learners will discover how to balance Courage and Consideration throughout the conversation by stating their Purpose – the issue they need to make progress on – and Positive Intent – how they want the other person to benefit from the conversation. Sharing these to begin the conversation helps set a clear and collaborative tone from the start, which helps everyone respond effectively to emotional reactions in the moment, so progress can be made.
As emotional reactions are a natural, human response and are a signal that the conversation needs an adjustment to say on track, participants will learn and practice three skills for responding to reactions:
- Pause. Don’t panic.
- Observe. Don’t judge.
- Ask. Don’t assume.
Cogburn said, “Participants will learn and practice tactical skills they can apply in the moment to help everyone stay productively engaged in the conversation. They will feel more confident and prepared to conduct difficult conversations, no matter the topic. And their ability to engage in collaborative problem solving will alleviate issues, long before they grow larger and more costly.”
Navigating Difficult Conversations: Turn Tension Into Progress is available through the FranklinCovey All Access Pass® with delivery over the robust FranklinCovey Impact Platform. It consists of one session and is available in multiple modalities including Live In-Person, Live-Online, and On Demand, each with three weeks of reinforcement microlearning.
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