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What You'll Learn

Prepare and run a difficult conversation using a six-step feedback model
so the person leaves clear on what changes rather than defensive,Give critical feedback without demotivating: separate the behaviour from the person
and separate feedback from formal evaluation,Keep your own emotional state under control when the conversation turns personal
using self-awareness and self-regulation techniques,Run one-on-one meetings that surface real problems early instead of turning into a status report,Adapt directness
hierarchy and disagreement to the culture of the person in front of you,Diagnose burnout
disengagement and quiet conflict in a conversation before they become resignations,Resolve a conflict between two people through negotiation and mediation
and know when to escalate,Build a feedback culture across a team so hard conversations stop being rare events,Learn alongside Mikes 1.6 million students from 185 countries,Get the authors experience from Preply
Wargaming
iDeals and Alfa-Bank

Requirements

No prior training in communication or coaching is required,A real conversation you have been avoiding — you will prepare it during the course,Willingness to look at your own reactions honestly
not just at the other persons behaviour,English at an intermediate level or above
since all lessons are in English,Ideally
at least one person you speak with regularly at work to practise on

Description

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

There is a conversation you have been avoiding for weeks. It is costing you more than having it would.

What is going wrong right now

You know the performance is slipping. You know two people in your team have stopped speaking to each other. You know the feedback you owe someone is three months overdue. So you soften it into a hint they do not catch, or you wait for the annual review, or you rewrite the message four times and send none of them. Meanwhile the problem compounds: the person keeps doing the same thing, the team quietly picks a side, and by the time the conversation finally happens it is not a correction any more. It is a dismissal.

What changes after this course

You will walk into the hard conversation with a structure instead of a script you abandon in the first minute. You will know how to open it, how to say the difficult part without dressing it up, how to stay steady when the other person reacts, and how to end with something concrete rather than mutual relief that it is over. You will run one-on-ones that surface problems while they are still small. And when two people are already in conflict, you will know how to sit between them and get to a resolution rather than a truce.

Your instructor

Mike, the number one HR instructor on Udemy, with more than 1.6 million course enrolments and over 150,000 professionals trained. Holder of PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and HRCI representative in more than 10 countries. Built the people function of the unicorn Preply and worked at Wargaming, Alfa-Bank and iDeals.

How the course is built

The course starts with you, because the reason hard conversations go wrong is usually the state you enter them in: emotional self-awareness, regulation, empathy and the ability to stay useful under pressure. Then it addresses the person opposite you, since directness, hierarchy, disagreement and even silence carry different meanings across cultures. The third part is the craft of feedback itself: why people avoid it, the six-step model, separating feedback from evaluation, running feedback loops and adapting to personality type. The fourth part builds the format where most of these conversations should happen — the one-on-one, including coaching with GROW, burnout diagnosis and criticism that does not demotivate. The course closes with conflict: how it forms, how it escalates, how to prevent it and how to mediate when prevention failed.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all course materials

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Practical assignments and real business cases

• A section with additional courses, tools and resources

Why start now

Every month you delay the conversation, the correction gets harder and the options get worse. The managers who get promoted are not the ones who avoid conflict — they are the ones people trust to be honest. Enrol now and start the first lesson today.

Who this course is for:

Managers who postpone the conversation about performance until it becomes a dismissal,Team leads promoted from within
who now have to give feedback to former peers,HR professionals mediating between employees and managers who are barely speaking,Project managers who depend on people they cannot instruct,Anyone who runs one-on-ones that have quietly turned into a weekly status update,Specialists working in international teams where directness means different things,People who avoid confrontation and pay for it in unresolved problems