Listen first, then speak
Feedback conversations and tactical empathy.
Two hours on listening first, then speaking: feedback and critical conversations, conflict modes, tactical empathy for high-stakes moments, and negotiating across cultural difference.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 2 hours 30 minutes
- Where
- Leading people
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Managers and team leaders facing feedback and high-stakes conversations in councils, health, housing and the voluntary sector
Overview
The conversations managers most often avoid are usually the ones their teams most need. This Focus is one strand of the Immerse The conversations we put off and opens with critical conversations: why the feedback sandwich backfires, Situation, Behaviour, Impact, Kim Scott's Radical Candor and Michael Bungay Stanier's coaching questions, with the Thomas-Kilmann modes. It then turns to Chris Voss's tactical empathy, with mirroring, labelling, calibrated questions and the accusation audit, illustrated by the 1993 Chase Manhattan Bank robbery. The last section covers negotiating across difference through Hofstede, Edward Hall, William Ury's third side and the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
Aims
The ambition is to help managers give feedback that lands, help people feel heard before asking them to move and adapt their approach across cultures, so the conversations they have been putting off for too long become clear, respectful and genuinely productive.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Apply Situation, Behaviour, Impact and Radical Candor to give feedback that is direct and caring, replacing the feedback sandwich.
- Use mirroring, labelling, calibrated questions and an accusation audit to defuse tension in a high-stakes conversation.
- Adapt your negotiating approach across cultures using Hofstede, Hall and Ury's idea of the third side.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Give specific, caring and direct feedback using Situation, Behaviour, Impact and Radical Candor, and explain why the feedback sandwich undermines both criticism and praise.
- Use mirroring, labelling, calibrated questions and the accusation audit in a difficult conversation.
- Use Hofstede's dimensions and high and low context communication as hypotheses to test, without stereotyping an individual counterpart.
- Use the Coaching Habit questions, especially 'And what else?', to find the real issue before offering any advice.
- Distinguish a counterfeit, confirmation and commitment yes, and recognise when 'that's right' signals genuine understanding.
- Compare negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation, and explain why an effective system moves disputes from interests to rights to power.
- Choose a conflict mode deliberately and prepare a difficult conversation using the Acas guidance.
- Apply the Ackerman model and loss aversion framing to structure an offer, and explain why splitting the difference often fails.
Built from 2 parts.
2 hours 30 minutes of learning.
- 01The conversations that countFeedback, coaching and conflict for managersBitesize · Management1 module
- 02Listening your way to yesTactical empathy, Chris Voss and negotiationBitesize · Influence, Persuasion and Negotiation2 modules