Ivonne is a Human Resources manager who relocated from Europe to Canada. She was confident in her expertise, but started noticing that her communication style was creating friction she didn't intend. Colleagues weren't as open with her as she expected. She felt she was "too direct" in conversations meant to be supportive.
She suspected her tone and word choice were coming across as aggressive, or cold, which was making it harder to build trust and change from the people she supported.
Over six sessions, Ivonne's speech therapist worked with her on the specific habits creating distance: intonation that read as blunt when she meant to be direct, word choices that seemed to blame the individual when she needed to sound collaborative, feedback that was subjective rather than objective, and body language that didn't match her intent in sensitive conversations.
Sessions troubleshooted HR conversations that she had: performance conversations, conflict resolution, feedback delivery.
Ivonne had a breakthrough. She mentioned feeling a lot more empathetic through the work in her sessions and realizing how she was coming across as cold and blunt. A few sessions in, Ivonne had a one-on-one with a colleague that had felt strained before. She applied what she'd been practicing. At the end of the conversation, she felt her colleague was a lot more open to feedback than in previous conversations.
After six sessions, Ivonne approached sensitive conversations with more confidence, in both what she said and how she said it. The colleagues who had seemed guarded didn't seem so guarded anymore.
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