Skip to content
A participant at a desk reading back a handwritten page, pen still in hand

Turnshop · Communication & Presentation

Difficult Conversations

The conversation you keep postponing is the job.

All turnshops

Communication & Presentation

Who It Is For

  • Managers with a conversation they have been avoiding for months
  • Leaders delivering bad news, restructures or performance decisions
  • Anyone whose feedback arrives so softly that nothing changes

How It Runs

  • One day, in person preferably
  • Everyone rehearses their own real, pending conversation
  • English and Urdu

What It Turns On

  1. 01

    Open a hard conversation in the first thirty seconds, properly.

  2. 02

    Say the difficult thing plainly and kindly at the same time.

  3. 03

    Stay in the room when the other person cries, argues or goes silent.

  4. 04

    Finish with something agreed rather than something survived.

The broad outline

  1. 01

    In context

    Write down the conversation you are avoiding. That is the one you will practise today.

  2. 02

    Know

    Why these are hard: the three conversations happening at once — what happened, what we each feel, and what it says about us.

  3. 03

    Go

    Preparation. The opening line, the facts, the ask, and the outcome you would accept as against the one you want.

  4. 04

    Show

    Rehearsed against a partner briefed to make it difficult — tears, argument, silence and the counter-accusation.

  5. 05

    Close

    The date you are having it. Written down, in front of witnesses.

What You Are Left Holding

  • Your own conversation, prepared line by line
  • It rehearsed against the worst reaction
  • A date, and someone who will ask you about it

Next

Ask about Difficult Conversations

Tell us who is in the room and what is turning them off. We will tell you honestly whether this is the right answer.