Webinar: The Conversation Series
I propose that all communication is a conversation.
If you are doing a presentation for 25 minutes non-stop, the security camera would record an apparent reality that one person is speaking and another remaining silent. But it would not be able to capture the actual reality, that for 25 minutes you are speaking, and in my mind I am responding to what you are saying all the way through. Hopefully for you, the conversation I am having with you in my head is the one you'd want me to be having. Sometimes, of course, it's not. Which is why I teach people to make all their communication as explicit - out here between us, not inside here - a conversation as possible.
There are many times in our working day (much of it?) when the security camera would record that two people are indeed talking out loud to each other. Making those interactions as effective as possible is where the real gold lies in terms of translating talk into action.
This webinar series looks at two critical conversations.
One is the sort of conversation that many of my clients report problems with - the difficult, crucial or feedback conversation. The second conversation - which I am going to devote two webinars to, because I believe that's the correct ratio - is the conversation we have with ourselves. It is the conversation we have with yourself which directly makes the conversation with others difficult - or surprisingly amazing and fruitful.
How to Have any Conversation with Anyone about Anything
The dilemma always seems to be in either fearing being 'too direct' - so that the other person shuts down or crumbles into tears or rage - or 'not being direct enough' - so the other person doesn't understand the importance of what we are saying.
What if we came from a different place? One that concentrates on why we are having the conversation, and what it will produce? Elevating intentions and outcomes, rather than anxiety about impacts.
This webinar will take you through a structured template for preparing for and holding any conversation you'd prefer not to have, but need to.
It will also share some other lenses which most teachers of this discipline don't get to:
• The Power of Real Invitation
• Sweetspot of Change
• SDTRUA
• The Shadows
• The most amazing quotation about giving feedback you'll ever hear
How to Have an Effective Conversation with Yourself
A process particularly useful to complete before you're tempted to open your mouth to have a difficult conversation with someone else...
• From Conversations for Confirmation to Conversations for Change
• The Need for Humility
• The Pragmatic Role of Authenticity & Vulnerability in Conversation
How to Have an Effective Conversation with Yourself
Part 2: Managing Ratty, Embracing Angelo
Ratty is our invasive, insistent inner voice. He's been on all the best communication training. Everything he says seems to make perfect sense, until we act on his advice, and find it doesn't. Ahead of my new book on this topic, I'll be sharing:
• how we can eliminate the worst symptoms of the Ratty voice
• how we can regularly access - and act from - our inner Angelo.
Author, Consultant & Speaker
David Firth
David helps global clients institute profound practices for leadership engagement that encourages all people to be the source of change - rather than its victims or objects. This, he suggests, is not a top-down or even bottom-up shift, but an inside-out one.
Current and recent clients include Mars Inc, Jardine Matheson, Campbells, Pepsi, Softys, Unilever, and the International Olympic Committee. He works largely with VP, C-Suite, and HIPO Emerging leaders, but can make the truth of this approach resonate at any level in any organization.
As an expert in human communication, he has been engaged on programs that become remembered as ‘the jewel in the crown’ for clients’ leadership development. For Unilever, he helped design and co-facilitate – alongside Professor Jan Hammond of Harvard – the APP course, which ran 15 times over 11 years. For Mars, he has played a key role in the year-long Supply Leadership Development Program, which has run annually since 2011.
David’s books are a provocative complement to traditional thinking about leadership and business, and include Unconditional Communication, How to Make Work Fun!, The Corporate Fool and the subject of his TEDx talk, Change Your World One Word at a Time
