Conscious Conversation©

Our two-day foundational skills workshop

Conscious Conversation is the pre-requisite course required for more advanced ListenFirst workshops

Day One The Listening Turn

This day begins with distinguishing what listening is from what it isn’t. Once participants identify their typical “listening” habits, the day is spent breaking down those habitual responses and replacing them with one very clear and simple “How to.” Through demonstrations, role plays, and skill practices, people learn how to listen to anyone, at any time, and under any circumstance — at work and at home. In a ListenFirst workshop, the leader uses participant real-time reactions in the days’ discussions to demonstrate the how, when, where, and particularly the why of listening. This is the signature ListenFirst teaching methodology. The “Aha” moments of our workshops come from the moments participants see their own live experiences and reactions in the workshop.

Day Two The Speaking Turn

Why do we hesitate or put off, entirely, speaking to someone about his/her problem behavior? Isn’t it primarily our not wanting to deal with the inevitable negative reaction? We can’t stop those reactions. We can take the juice out of them — logically calming others’ anger, stopping their tears, defusing their sarcasm, avoiding their blame, eliminating their excuses, and redirecting their changing the subject. All of these normal, defensive reactions — from tears to anger — are handled the same way by applying the listening skills of Day One. As participants follow the simple steps of the transformative ListenFirst emotional control cycle, they see not only how to manage peoples’ reactivity, but also how to raise any issue and word it inoffensively.

A common refrain from our workshop participants.

I’ve heard about listening before, but didn’t expect anything like this. Now I understand. This is amazing.