A workshop on approaching difficult conversations with Nethra Samarawickrema and Yuri Zaitsev.

You're caught in an encounter that is activating your fight or flight response - learn how to connect with anyone. And we mean anyone.

This workshop will provide you with listening skills to navigate conversations that are triggering and can backfire, despite your best intentions. The goal is not to “win” a difficult conversation but to learn the art of shifting from acting with fear and avoidance to adopting an attitude of curiosity where you can approach a conversation as a process of listening and creative problem-solving.

The workshop will provide you with space to try out these skills with a practice partner in a facilitated, safe environment, and receive feedback before trying them out in the real world.

Join us and learn to expand your emotional capacity for collaborative engagement.

Nethra Samarawickrema

As an anthropologist, mediator, and the Director of Ethnography and Design at Dovetail Labs, Dr. Nethra Samarawickrema has taught empathetic listening and difficult conversations at a range of workplaces, including the tech sector, non-profit and activist organizations. She lectures at Stanford University’s d.School alongside Yuri Zaitsev and provides coaching and consulting through Listen Up, a lab that brings empathy and creativity to train people to have hard conversations by listening for what matters.  

Yuri Zaitsev

Yuri Zaitsev is a human-centered design consultant for corporations and governments, big and small, around the world: from Fortune 500 tech companies in Silicon Valley to banks serving small villages in Uganda. He specializes in healthcare as previous Lead of Concept Development of Advanced Manufacturing in Stryker, and now focuses on creating environments that promote physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing. He lectures alongside Nethra Samarawickrema and conducts workshops internationally in Design Thinking, Ethnography, and Serious Game Design.

Registration is required.