What is Conversational Capacity?

Conversational capacity is the ability to converse in an open-minded, even-handed, evidence-based, and learning-focused way under pressure. It requires those who are participating in a discussion to balance their candor with curiosity, and their courage with humility. It’s a foundational competence. A team with high conversational capacity can address their most pressing challenges in a healthy, productive way. A team with low conversational capacity will derail over a minor difference of opinion. Conversational capacity isn’t just another aspect of teamwork—it defines it. A team that cannot talk about its most pressing issues isn’t really a team at all. It’s just a group of people that can’t work together effectively when it counts.

The Workshop

The Conversational Capacity Workshop can help you build this core competence. In the workshop you’ll learn:

1. Why effective teamwork under pressure is so challenging.
   You’ll clearly recognize and appreciate the two powerful human tendencies that, when triggered, so easily cripple collaboration and communication. You’ll explore how these tendencies affect your own behavior, the behavior of other people, and the performance of your team or organization.
2. A new way of thinking
   You’ll learn about a guiding mindset that allows you to remain more focused and effective under pressure – even when you’re being triggered.
3. A new way of working with others . . .
   You’ll learn a set of simple but powerful skills– demonstrable behaviors – for remaining balanced and learning focused under pressure that can be practiced, measured, and improved.
4. How to put together a personal plan
   You’ll learn to put together a customized strategy that helps you build your own competence using the workplace as a space for regular practice.
5. How to put together a team plan
   You’ll learn how to make the mindset and skills part of the operating culture of your team, project, work relationship, or organization by applying the discipline to every important activity – running meetings, making decisions, dealing with conflict, orchestrating change, providing feedback, solving problems, and more. You’ll explore how to create a shared framework – a “conversational code of conduct” – that allows a team to think smarter, faster, and together around their most pressing issues and in challenging circumstances. You’ll work with your team to create a plan for building your skills as a team as you go about your daily work together so you experience an upward spiral of performance; the more you use the skills the better you get, and the better you get, the more you use the skills.

For more information on our workshops, click here.

Craig Weber

Known for his impactful work and his engaging delivery, Craig Weber is a sought after speaker, author, and consultant. His pioneering ideas about conversational capacity and adaptive learning are outlined in his bestselling book, Conversational Capacity: The Key To Building Successful Teams That Perform When The Pressure Is On (McGraw-Hill, 2013), his new book Influence in Action: How to Build Your Conversational Capacity, Do Meaningful Work, and Make a Powerful Difference (McGraw-Hill, 2019), and his popular Conversational Capacity eCourse.