The Leadership Doctor® · Clinics

THECommunicationCLINIC™

Building the capacity to say the hard thing well.

Universities do not teach this, and most workplaces assume you already know it. Communication is only one cause of conflict, but it is the one people can change fastest, and the one that shows first. This program starts with the posture underneath the words, then gives you the words, then makes you practice them.

The Clinic at a glance

Is this the right Clinic for you?

The posture underneath the words, then the words, then the practice, so the hard conversation goes the way you meant it to.

Who it is for

Leaders and professionals who avoid the conversations that matter, or who have them and watch them go wrong.

The specialist examination

The H.E.A.R.T. Exam™, a self-scoring reading of the posture you bring to conversation, together with a reading of how you communicate under pressure.

The program, in the method

Six modules, one for each step.

Examine — The H.E.A.R.T. Exam™. Your posture going in, plus a reading of how you communicate under pressure.

Diagnose — Communication, Diagnosed. Where your conversations break: the message, the moment, the medium, or the person.

Prescribe — The Courageous Conversation. A plan for the conversation you have been avoiding: what it is for, what it is not for, and how it opens.

Treat — Phrases That Work. Original phrases for the moments that matter, practiced in scenarios until they are yours.

Follow Up — Listening Under Pressure. Hearing what was said, not what you feared, and responding to it.

Maintain — Communicating on a Different Plane. The Regimen, so that your posture holds in the meeting, the email, and the hallway.

By the end, you will be able to

Describe how you communicate under pressure, and what happens to your message when you do.

Find where a conversation broke down: in the speaker, the message, the medium, the listener, or the noise around it.

Decide whether a hard conversation is worth having, and when, where, and how to open it.

Hold the conversation through disagreement and emotion, and close it with a next step both sides understand.

Listen for what was said rather than what you feared, and build feedback habits that keep small matters small.

The outcome

What you leave with, and what makes it different.

What you leave with

Your H.E.A.R.T. Exam™ results and a reading of how you communicate under pressure.

A written diagnosis of where your conversations break down.

A plan for the one conversation you have been avoiding, and the experience of having it.

An original phrase bank, practiced until the phrases sound like you.

Feedback habits for you and your team, and The Regimen to keep them.

The full program document in your vault, to keep.

What makes it different

Most communication training gives you phrases. This Clinic starts with the posture underneath them.

The phrase bank is original work, practiced in scenarios rather than memorized from a book.

You prepare and hold a real conversation from your own work, not a role-play about someone else's.

It also covers communicating through technology: drafting with AI without losing your own voice, and holding hard conversations in hybrid settings.

How it runs

Sessions. Six modules in 90-minute sessions. The schedule is set at your consultation. Each session is 45 minutes of instruction and 45 minutes of practice.

Delivery. One-on-one, in a small group of four to six, or for a team inside your organization.

Options. The full Clinic, or one module at a time.

Included. The specialist examination, every module with practice, the self-paced course, and the full program document in your vault.

Coaching. Available around the program, one-on-one or in a group.

Grounded in Bracey and colleagues, Managing from the Heart; Patterson and colleagues, Crucial Conversations; the Shannon and Weaver model of communication.

A good doctor does not prescribe what she has not examined.

Ask about The Communication Clinic™.

Every Clinic begins with a consultation. Programs are scoped in conversation, the whole Clinic or one module at a time.

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