“Realizing your goals will take more than passion, vision, and commitment: it will take talking to other people. To be successful, your talking must accomplish more than simply following the rules of well-mannered communication skills. Getting more of what you want and less of what you don’t want—in work and in life—depends on how well you use four types of conversations.”
The Four Conversations Communication Programs help people make small changes in the way they talk every day, and help people update their “non-productive” patterns of communication. For example:
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You can accomplish changes – without upset and without resistance.
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You can help other people become more engaged in their work and successful outcomes.
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Managers and staff can learn to make agreements on resources, results, and working together.
Years of work with managers and staff tell us that productive communication is made up of four distinct ways of talking:
- Initiative conversations are the ways to create a future with positive focus on a worthwhile goal.
- Understanding conversations get people involved and engaged in making things happen to achieve a goal.
- Performance conversations are the ways people ask for – and promise – on-time and on-budget results.
- Closure conversations help build accountability and make ongoing improvement in communications and procedures
With a little training and practice, everyone can learn:
- The basic ingredients for each type of conversation;
- How to have each type of conversation – and when to practice them;
- Where to make small changes in workplace conversations to gain big results – to improve performance, accelerate changes, and strengthen good workplace relationships.
- You can help people take responsibility for improving the accuracy, completeness, and effectiveness of workplace conversations. Communication is everybody’s business.
“What you learn in The Four Conversations Workshop can be put to immediate use by anyone taking this course because it focuses on clear, concise communications that get results. Whether you are launching a new idea or project, looking to understand an issue, trying to get something done, or giving praise and acknowledgement, The Four Conversations Workshop shows you how to accomplish those objectives using a simple, yet effective approach. After taking this class, I was able reach out to my employees using closure conversations to acknowledge them for successes they have achieved on numerous projects; something that had been lacking in my approach before taking The Four Conversations Workshop. This course has helped me move to a higher level in effective conversations!”
Peter J. Celone
Associate Director for Program Operations
Atlantic Ecology Division/NHEERL/ORD
US Environmental Protection Agency
Choose a Format
The Four Conversations Workshops are based on the ideas contained in the book “The Four Conversations: Daily Communication that Gets Results” and are available in formats that range from a half day to two days. Each workshop is designed to give participants the ability to effectively use the four conversations in their day-to-day work interactions.
Shorter format workshops (4 hours) provide participants with a basic understanding of the four conversations, the ingredients that make them effective, and the ways that unproductive conversations slow things down and limit success. Participants leave with a basic understanding of the four conversations and what they can do to enhance their effectiveness using them.
Longer format workshops (1 or 2 days) allow for a deeper understanding of the conversations plus practicing their use on the real situations and challenges participants confront. Participants engage in a variety of exercises that strengthen their ability to identify which conversation(s) or conversational ingredients they are currently missing and how to include them. They practice how and when to use each conversation, discovering how to remove limitations to success and to build greater credibility, trust, accountability, and effective working relationships. They are also trained in the practices needed to support their continued success in using the four conversations.
Click here to see typical outlines of the Long and Short Formats.
Schedule a Workshop
Schedule a workshop for your organization, meeting, or conference by emailing Laurie Ford or calling her at 614-921-8700
