Leading Challenging Conversations

Finance professionals frequently navigate high-stakes discussions - whether delivering unwelcome news, challenging assumptions, or managing performance. These conversations, if mishandled, can damage relationships and hinder decision-making. This one-day, interactive workshop is designed specifically for finance professionals who want to improve their ability to manage and lead difficult conversations constructively. Blending psychology, neuroscience, and practical tools, the session includes personal reflection, peer coaching, live scenario practice, and action planning to ensure immediate application and lasting impact.

Learning outcomes:

By the end of this course, delegates will be able to:

• Understand why some conversations are particularly challenging in a finance context, and recognise their personal response patterns.
• Leverage their existing strengths while identifying and addressing areas for development.
• Apply emotional regulation techniques grounded in neuroscience to handle pressure and maintain composure.
• Structure and deliver difficult conversations with clarity, empathy, and purpose.
• Practise and refine their approach through realistic finance-related scenarios.
• Create a personal action plan to embed learning and sustain behaviour change in the workplace.

CPD hours

ICAEW's revised Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Regulations bring in new CPD requirements. This includes a minimum number of hours and an ethics requirement. Attending this course could contribute up to 7 hours of verifiable CPD, providing you can demonstrate that the content is relevant to your role.

A copy of the course booking confirmation email is accepted as evidence of verifiable CPD. You will need to save the email as a JPEG or PDF before uploading it to your record. Click here to use ICAEW’s self-assessment tool to help you work out how much CPD you will need to fulfil each year.

Who should attend?

This course is ideal for finance professionals at all levels - accountants, auditors, finance managers, controllers, and business partners - who are involved in performance management, stakeholder communication, regulatory discussions, or conflict resolution. It is particularly beneficial for those in roles requiring regular communication of complex or sensitive financial information.

Pre-work

Delegates should identify a recent difficult conversation and prepare a scenario they are likely to face, to use during the practice sessions.

Course enquiries

Contact: Events information team

• Webchat
• Email
• Telephone

FAQs

Should you experience any difficulties booking onto the event, please click here.

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1. Understanding the Challenge

• • What makes conversations difficult
  • Identity, responsibility, and emotional pressure

2. Building Self-Awareness

• • Reflection on past and future conversations
  • Recognising assumptions, fears, and emotional triggers

3. Emotion Management and Neuroscience

• • Fight-or-flight responses in high-stakes dialogue
  • Strategies for emotional control and resilience

4. Shaping Productive Dialogue

• • Establishing clear purpose and positive intent
  • Techniques for reframing and empathy

5. Practical Framework and Toolkit

• • Preparing before, conducting during, and following up after the conversation
  • Tools for structuring discussions and managing dynamics

6. Live Practice with Real Scenarios

• • Practice conversations with peer feedback
  • Applying learning in a safe, supportive environment

7. Action Planning and Embedding Change

• • Developing a post-course implementation plan
  • Sustaining new behaviours and approaches

This course is for: All levels of finance professionals

About the trainer

Kerri Hollick Kerri blends a passion for high impact, human-centred training & coaching interventions with her sales, operational and commercial experience to enable individuals and companies to create transformational programmes. Her experience is across a broad business arena including blue chip, financial services, travel, corporate fleet, the automotive industry and more recently in the world of creativity and innovation. Over the last 20 years she has cultivated an engaging & dynamic approach to building programmes that layers the learning, cultivates change & sustains momentum with the overriding outcome that she can leave individuals and businesses with the confidence, tools and skills needed to continue their journey. She uses her experience, natural curiosity and creative skills to enable teams to identify their vision, take a deep dive into how to drive this forward and maintain momentum.

Click here to view the full 2025 CPD Planner.

Our public course programme is deliberately structured to encourage delegates from different organisations to participate. However, if you have six or more delegates who require development in the same area, we are able to run a more cost-effective and much wider range of courses tailored specifically to your organisation.

Organisations will have the choice to run our in-house courses online or in-person.

These are ideal for organisations seeking hassle-free, flexible and cost-effective training delivered to multiple delegates at your location of choice. Whether we use our existing materials or develop new content for your business, our expertise lies in translating your requirements into a pragmatic, interactive training programme highly relevant to your people and organisation.

To discuss in-house training for your business please email academy@icaew.com or contact us through our enquiry form

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