As educational leaders and colleagues, we often come up against situations where difficult topics must be addressed – with supervisees, colleagues, parents or students. What do we know about the best strategies for those moments? What questions should we be asking ourselves before we speak, and what environments are best for when we do speak? Based on Jennifer’s books, Having Hard Conversations and Hard Conversations Unpacked, and her work with conflict and interpersonal communication, this session will provide participants with action plan, scripting tools and more for having necessary yet challenging conversations.

Participants will learn how to:

• Identify and move past hesitations around having hard conversations

• Reflect on questions to ask before choosing to speak up and frame the conversation in a cogent manner

• Work with professional language to frame hard conversations that doesn’t trigger or put others on the defensive

• Determine the goals of a conversation and write an action plan of support that is ‘other-focused’ for after the conversation takes place

• Script the conversation using a clear protocol that is doable and can be heard

• Choose the best ‘wheres’ and ‘whens’ for a productive discussion

• Respond to a variety of ‘what if they say’ conflict escalators

This is a two-day workshop which will be held on 16-17 January 2019