Delivery: Face-to-face | Duration: Full day | Level: Mid-level
Develop the skills to identify and navigate sensitive, emotional or high-stakes conversations.
This is a highly interactive activity-based course that will teach you practical steps for preparing for and handling difficult conversations with confidence, ensuring they are trauma-informed and supportive.
Over one full day, you will explore:
- why having difficult conversations is important
- how to identify the best timing and context for initiating them
- how to manage your emotions
- active listening techniques and how to show empathy
- the best follow-up actions to reinforce positive outcomes.
If you’ve been hesitant about having difficult conversations in the past, this course will prepare you with the skills and practical resources you need to tackle them with confidence in the future.
When difficult conversations are handled well, they help to resolve workplace conflicts quickly and efficiently, lift employee performance and engagement and improve relationships among teams.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- feel more ready to have difficult conversations by knowing how to prepare effectively with facts and structure and be confident to take that first step without putting it off
- manage emotions, yours, and theirs! You'll learn how to stay calm and collected, while understanding and responding helpfully to the other person's feelings, keeping the conversation constructive
- listen better and guide the conversation towards a solution. You'll practice really hearing what the other person is saying, ask good questions, and using techniques to keep discussion on track.
Who should attend?
This course is designed for supervisors, managers, team leaders and HR professionals who want to improve their ability and confidence to have difficult conversations in the workplace.
Facilitators: Chris Toselli, Michael Sims & Frances Schouten (GlobalNet Academy)
Chris Toselli is the driving force behind GlobalNet Academy with a dynamic career spanning over 25 years in the education and IT sectors. But don’t let the impressive list of qualifications (think Commerce, Law, a Harvard stint, and a whole suite of Management and Training diplomas) fool you – Chris is as down-to-earth as they come and is a hands-on leader passionate about empowering Tasmanians. When he's not innovating in the professional sphere, Chris is a man of many varied talents including a second-degree black belt in Karate (with a mean roundhouse kick apparently), an avid explorer of new roads, armature gardener, and most importantly, a devoted family man and a top tier dog dad. Chris is making a difference, one inspired student, one innovative tech solution, and one happy bark at a time.
Michael Sims is an engaging facilitator who blends storytelling, games, and real-life scenarios into his training to help you not just understand the theory but apply it. During his 15 years at the University of Tasmania, Michael wrangled academics, industry partners, and the occasional rogue spreadsheet – all while keeping things relevant, rigorous, and fun. When it comes to facilitating difficult conversations, Michale uses a toolkit of empathy and best practice, believing that performance and productivity soar when people feel comfortable, supported, and entertained. Michale polished his leadership credentials through the Tasmanian Leaders Program, although his patience and persistence is most evident in the guide dogs that he has helped raise. If you are ready for a training session where learning sticks and every difficult conversation becomes just a little bit easier, this is the course for you.
Upcoming sessions
