Powerful Interactions: making requests and keeping promises

Your situation

When your colleagues commit to do something, do they deliver? All too often at work we find ourselves chasing late input, or fixing work that wasn’t done to standard. Rework is dragging down your team’s productivity, and chews up your time.

Do you ever hesitate to delegate work or ask for help? Do you ever hold back from tasking people with work, or communicating standards of behaviour or performance? You may be worried that they’ll say no. That they’ll react against you. The result is that work doesn’t get done, or winds up on your plate. Matters are left lingering, unresolved.

When you’re asked to do something, do you always end up saying yes? Perhaps you want to be seen as positive and capable. Perhaps you feel obligated. Whatever the cause, you find yourself consistently overcommitted. Either you lose quality of work, or quality of life.

“Show me someone who is suffering and I’ll show you someone not making effective requests” – Fernando Flores

What you’ll gain

When your communication is grounded in assertiveness and clarity, you know where you stand. Your colleagues deliver what’s been agreed. When barriers arise, they let you know, so you can respond strategically, not reactively.

With a culture of accountability, managing work stops being a burden. Instead of grappling with slippery promises, you can depend on people to make concrete commitments. You spend less time on follow-up and rework, and more time on meaningful projects. And, in your own reporting, you communicate assertively and constructively about what you’re doing to do.

Our approach is grounded in a deeply practical interpretation of how humans make meaning in conversation. Through a half-day workshop, you’ll gain the ability to:

• Structure your own requests clearly, so both parties know what’s being agreed to
• Understanding requests made of you, to find out when you need to clarify expectations
• Use the 6 powerful responses to requests
• Follow up on promises with respectful, assertive language
• Set and communicate boundaries constructively

What others say

“Invaluable information! I’ve come away with a language toolbox that I can apply in personal and work situations.”

–Kristina Paul

What’s included

This workshop is delivered through a combination of: