
Monash College - Confidence and Empathy in Critical Conversations
As a pathway to Monash University, Monash
College prides itself on its ability to support and
communicate with its students from diverse
cultures. Sometimes this involves courageous
conversations. Serious Woo teamed up with
leading behaviour specialists En Masse to
create an experiential component of giving and
receiving feedback and difficult conversations.
Providing scenario development and
specifically trained actors – we delivered
sessions of true-to-life scenarios for staff,
colleagues and managers to experiment with
courageous conversations and improve
communication and confidence around
feedback, mental health, work policies and per-
formance issues.
TRAINING DIFFERENCE
Using actors, role play, group feedback and discussion, participants were given the
opportunity to practice the learnt techniques with an actor. Their peers observed and
provided post-scenario feedback and observations.
This gave each participant advanced learning by:
Participating in active listening and skills training with an actor in a scenario
Learning collaboration through observation of peers’ role play
Becoming a scenario observer, further opportunity for colleague feedback
POST PROGRAM EVALUATION
Staff have communicated a greater confidence
in addressing mental heath conversations in the
workplace
Awareness of how to initiate a courageous
conversation
Increased ability to actively listen
PROGRAM OBJECTIVES
Improve confidence and articulation of
feedback
Address mental health concerns empathically
while remaining within work guidelines
Discuss performance feedback and refine
active listening
The day was so amazing. Engaging, real world examples and the actors feedback was insightful and spot on! I have never been in training where almost everyone loved the role plays best!
Program Feedback, HR Manager, Monash College