We Need to Talk: How to Have Hard Conversations with Anyone

For most of us, conflict is often something we try to avoid. Yet, truly embracing “healthy” conflict can actually become your team’s secret to building great products.

In this workshop, Joshua Maudlin will teach you how to leverage healthy conflict with practical, equitable, non-prescriptive methods, and craft the best possible version of your product, your team, and even yourself.

Through exercises modeled on actual situations you’ve personally experienced, you’ll gain insights you can immediately apply in your next tough conversation. Whether you’re facing challenging conversations with your boss about a crucial decision, dealing with a teammate who makes offensive jokes, or addressing a team member who’s underperforming on the job, this workshop takes the fear out of engaging with conflict, while delivering successful results.

Built on practical guidance for developing effective communication skills, you’ll leave this workshop with everything you need to set a culture of healthy conflict into motion, including:

  • Tactical tools that help you structure, navigate, and maintain engagement in conversation, which include the Cranky Conclusions and the Conversation Diamond
  • Strategies for having difficult conversations with imbalanced power dynamics, whether you’re speaking in-person or remotely
  • An understanding of how to empower your team and be more inclusive of diverse backgrounds and preferred work styles

Target Audience

Created for professionals at any stage in their career, this workshop will benefit designers, product managers, engineers, and others seeking guidance to transform workplace conflict into an opportunity for growth and innovation.

Pre-requisites

Please come prepared with one or two situations you feel could have gone differently if you had spoken up or lowered the temperature in a tense conversation.

Facilitator
Joshua Mauldin
Director of Design
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