Your Chief Virtual Learning Architect

Learning to Performance

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Custom Design & Delivery

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Predictive Evaluation

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Enterprise Learning Strategy

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Dave Basarab Consulting has elevated the training experience, offering an end-to-end comprehensive approach that includes training strategy, instructional design, development, delivery , post program training transfer, and evaluation (via the unique Predictive Evaluation methodology). Virtual Chief Architect Dave Basarab has combined all of these individual training elements with his user-friendly, comprehensive Learning to Performance approach, which significantly increases companies' training ROI.

Why we are different

Innovation: Our primary focus is creating learning programs using a Learning to Performance approach.
Expertise: Dave offers the depth and breadth of his experience, including working internally at prestigious companies (Motorola, Ingersoll Rand and Pitney Bowes) as well as his knowledge and expertise as a highly-respected, sought-after consultant.
Partnership: Basarab collaborates with companies, serving as their own Chief Learning Officer whenever they need to plan, strategize, or implement training initiatives.

Training Services

Enterprise Learning Strategy

Enterprise Learning Strategy

At Dave Basarab Consulting, we're experts in creating Enterprise Learning Plans. We work with you to develop your company's learning strategy and direction.

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom training is an effective way of developing the capability required to execute your strategy. We are a custom design house that creates programs specific to your business.

Learning Burst Development

Learning Burst Development

We can create and deliver your courses via our unique Learning Burst Method - keeping your employees at their jobs while receiving world-class training.

Predictive Evaluation

Predictive Evaluation

We predict the ROI for your courses and establish success gates. We then evaluate the course against the success gates to show value realized and continually improve results.

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Turn-key virtual custom leadership development program that combines world-class leadership speakers/educators with post-event personalized coaching to provide you with a cadre of highly skilled leaders.

Predictive Evaluation

Facilitating difficult conversations in leadership development courses

Leadership development becomes meaningful when participants can handle the conversations they would rather avoid. Performance concerns, missed commitments, conduct issues, team conflict and feedback after a failed project all test a leader’s judgement, empathy and ability to act fairly.

For Australian organisations, these moments may unfold across a Sydney head office, a Perth mining site, a Melbourne hospital or a hybrid team spread between Brisbane and regional locations. A well-designed course must therefore move beyond presentation skills and give leaders structured practice in respectful, accountable dialogue.

Why difficult conversations belong in leadership training

Avoiding a hard discussion rarely removes the underlying issue. A small performance gap can become a team norm, an unresolved conflict can affect psychological safety, and unclear feedback can contribute to employee turnover. Leadership courses should frame these discussions as a normal part of responsible management rather than as exceptional events.

The strongest programs connect conversation skills to business outcomes. Dave Basarab Consulting’s client experience reflects the value of aligning learning with the practical demands of different organisations, roles and operating environments. Participants need to see how a conversation supports capability, customer service, compliance, retention or delivery results.

Prepare the purpose and the evidence

Before the session, facilitators should help participants define the purpose of a conversation in one sentence. “I need to address repeated missed deadlines and agree on support” is more useful than “I need to have a difficult chat.” This focus keeps the leader from drifting into accusation, overexplaining or trying to resolve every issue at once.

Evidence should be specific, recent and relevant. A manager might refer to a missed handover on a Brisbane project, a pattern in customer complaints or an agreed standard that was not met. The facilitator should distinguish observable behaviour from assumptions about attitude or intent, while reminding participants to follow workplace policies and relevant Fair Work obligations.

A rapidly growing organisation may need a common approach across new teams, managers and locations. A practical learning strategy roadmap can help place conversation skills alongside manager onboarding, performance processes and broader capability priorities.

Build psychological safety without removing accountability

Psychological safety does not mean making every discussion comfortable or consequence-free. It means creating conditions where people can speak honestly, ask for clarification and acknowledge mistakes without being humiliated. Facilitators model this by setting ground rules for confidentiality, curiosity, respectful challenge and attentive listening.

Australian workplaces often include multicultural teams with different expectations about hierarchy, directness and saving face. A useful course makes room for these differences without stereotyping participants. Leaders can practise checking meaning, allowing pauses and asking how a message has been received, particularly when a conversation involves remote staff, apprentices or employees who are speaking in a second language.

The facilitator should also establish boundaries. Serious misconduct, discrimination, bullying or threats may require escalation through formal channels rather than an informal coaching conversation. Participants need to know when empathy, documentation and procedural fairness must operate together.

Use a clear conversation structure

A repeatable framework reduces cognitive load when emotions rise. One effective sequence is to open with the purpose, describe the observable behaviour, explain the impact, invite the other person’s perspective, agree on next steps and set a review point. The language should be direct enough to avoid ambiguity and open enough to encourage dialogue.

Role-play works best when scenarios feel recognisable. Examples might include a supervisor addressing unsafe conduct on a FIFO site, a team leader discussing repeated interruptions in a Melbourne meeting, or a Canberra manager responding to resistance about a new process. Participants should rotate between leader, employee and observer so they experience the conversation from several perspectives.

Observers can use a short rubric covering clarity, listening, emotional regulation, fairness and action planning. Debrief questions should focus on choices: What helped the employee speak? Where did the leader become defensive? Which words created clarity? This turns practice into deliberate skill development rather than performance for its own sake.

Respond to emotion and resistance

Strong emotion is information, not automatically a problem. Silence may signal confusion, embarrassment or disagreement. Anger may reflect perceived unfairness, accumulated frustration or fear about consequences. Leaders can acknowledge the emotion without accepting inaccurate claims or abandoning the purpose of the discussion.

Useful responses include “I can see this has been frustrating” and “Let’s slow down so I understand what happened.” If the conversation becomes abusive or unsafe, the leader should pause it, state the boundary and follow organisational procedures. Facilitators can demonstrate how to remain calm, avoid matching the person’s intensity and return to facts when the discussion becomes personal.

Resistance often decreases when people understand the reason for the conversation and have some influence over the solution. The leader can ask what support is needed, what obstacle has been missed and what commitment is realistic. Accountability remains essential: an agreed action should have an owner, a timeframe and a clear standard.

Design practice that transfers to the workplace

Leadership courses are more effective when difficult conversations are rehearsed in short cycles rather than confined to one long activity. A learning burst can introduce one technique, followed by a live practice session, peer feedback and a workplace application. This suits busy managers and supports teams working across Australian time zones.

A balanced approach to self-study and practice allows participants to review models before joining a facilitated session. They can then spend live time testing language, handling interruptions and receiving coaching rather than passively viewing content.

Design choice	Useful application	Evidence of progress
Realistic scenarios	Use current operational and people challenges	Participants identify relevant behaviours
Structured role-play	Rotate leader, employee and observer roles	Feedback becomes specific and balanced
Manager toolkit	Provide prompts, checklists and follow-up templates	Leaders use the approach after training
Facilitator coaching	Pause and replay difficult moments	Participants adjust language and tone
Workplace follow-up	Review one applied conversation	Behaviour change is discussed with evidence

Reinforce learning and measure impact

Transfer improves when participants leave with one planned conversation, a date for action and a manager or peer who can provide support. Facilitators can include a follow-up clinic, coaching conversation or short reflection prompt after two to four weeks. This is especially valuable for leaders managing dispersed teams or rotating between site and office work.

Evaluation should examine more than attendance or confidence ratings. Predictive Evaluation can help forecast whether leaders will adopt the method, identify barriers to use and connect the learning to indicators such as reduced escalations, faster resolution, improved performance follow-up or stronger employee feedback. The measures should match the purpose of the course and protect appropriate confidentiality.

Use real Australian workplace scenarios rather than generic conflict scripts.
Teach leaders to separate observable behaviour from personal judgement.
Practise emotional responses, silence and resistance, not just ideal conversations.
Give participants a simple structure they can recall under pressure.
Schedule follow-up support and measure workplace application.

Difficult conversations become teachable when leaders have a clear purpose, reliable language and repeated opportunities to practise. The lasting measure of a leadership development course is not whether participants enjoyed the session; it is whether they can address issues early, treat people fairly and connect accountability with better work.

Learning to Performance

Learning to Performance, a complete training approach, gives companies world-class training to drive significant return. This approach includes upfront work (Impact Mapping, design), training (for staff and company executives), and post-training efforts to ensure training transfer. This unique recipe - the key for successful training and adoption - is changing the way companies implement training. This methodology could work with any content for organizations in any industry.