One of the things we love doing in our work is providing support to small businesses that want to offer quality courses to their clients. That’s why we were pleased to work with the human resource consulting firm Reimagine Work last year to help them create the Master Difficult Conversations course.
Master Difficult Conversations: The REIMAGINE Framework for Building Strong Teams is a self-paced online course for leaders. It gives supervisors a structured framework for approaching any difficult conversation with a team member, along with practical tools and exercises to help them apply these strategies right away. It also helps build their confidence to handle their next hard moment with clarity, empathy, and leadership. The course is designed to take about an hour, not including time to prepare for and have an actual conversation with their team member.
Jocelin Caldwell, our client and the CEO of Reimagine Work, says this course “is for anyone who has ever hesitated before giving feedback, struggled to name tension, or cringed before holding someone accountable, especially when the stakes feel personal.”
There are three learning design features of this course that we’d like to highlight:
Just in time learning
We designed Master Difficult Conversations so that leaders could take the course at the time they need it: when they want to have a conversation with a team member and would like to prepare well to ensure that the conversation stays productive and valuable for both parties.
We clearly indicated which sections of the course the leader should complete before and after having the conversation with the team member. Leaders complete a participant workbook throughout the course to prepare for and reflect on the conversation.
Central case study
The course follows the story of Alex, a company team member who is having some challenges in their role, and their supervisor, who needs to address these issues to improve Alex’s performance and support the wider team.
We return to Alex’s situation throughout the course to show how Alex’s supervisor is implementing the REIMAGINE Framework, and we encourage the learner to do the same as they prepare for and evaluate their own conversation.
Accessibility considerations
We integrated many accessibility features, such as writing the course in plain language for the intended learner group, ensuring the course is navigable with a keyboard only, and meeting WCAG 2.2 Level AA requirements for colour contrast.
Every page of the course also offers an audio file, in addition to text and images, so that learners can either read or listen to the course.
Overall, it was a pleasure to support Reimagine Work on this course project. It reflects their strong commitment to equipping leaders for productive, meaningful conversations with team members, and we were glad to contribute to the course’s foundational design before it was further developed and refined by their team.