Have you ever found yourself in a situation where something just happened, perhaps a boundary was crossed, and you wanted to say something but didn’t want to make it worse or been confronted by someone on something that you disagreed with and didn’t know how to share your thoughts? Have you experienced that sticky situation where the floodgate of emotions opened and you said or did something which now needed further conversations and explanations?

These are what makes some conversations difficult to have and why we need open, honest, and respectful dialogues that address challenging and often sensitive topics. Courageous conversations require us to step outside our comfort zones, confront our biases and prejudices, and actively listen to differing perspectives. When I write about biases and prejudices, I don’t simply mean those biases that stem out of big oppressive categories, such as race and gender, although those are incredibly important. I also refer to biases and prejudices that we hold through our affinity with one another, through our relationship histories with other individuals, and those with hold consciously and unconsciously about others. 

In our workplace training on difficult and courageous conversations, we start with the humanity of people involved and we work to repair those relationships which have been harmed through dialogue. 

We will teach you how to:

• Separate the person from the problem in your conversations

• Disentangle impact from intentions so your messages land better

• Work with big emotions for yourself and others

• Move from a Blame framework to a Contribution model of understanding

• Find your purpose and check the goals of the conversation against that purpose

• Respectfully talk about microaggressions in ways that have the higher chance of changing behaviours

• Actively listen to conversations of microaggression with open-ness and curiosity

• Collaborate with one another to problem-solve your disagreement

And we will give you concrete and effective tools and step-by-step processes of these conversations. 

Everything we teach comes out of years of research and experiments. Our work is a blend of western traditions of conflict resolution, such as the works of Harvard Negotiation Project, and Indigenous practices of Restorative Justice and the theories and practices of Truth and Reconciliation. We have tried the methods we teach and have achieved incredible success in transforming conflicts in our own personal and professional lives. We know what we teach works and our clients tell us the same! 

When you’re ready, we’re here to teach what we have learned.