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Handling difficult conversations

Talking through a tense or sensitive issue with someone calmly, keeping to facts and working towards a way forward.

Good work shows: Describes behaviour and facts, not character; stays calm when the other person is upset; ends with an agreed next step.

Handling difficult conversations is one of the communication skills on FinderK.

The job simulations and Skill Paths below include work that is checked for this skill. You do the work in an original fictional company and get feedback on it.

Job simulations

The analytics vendor risk exception

Security risk and compliance manager at Brackenfield Retail Group

About 80 minutes. Included in Plus.

Marketing wants a fast growing analytics vendor live before Black Friday, and it wants 1.2 million customers' names, emails and card digits. Assess the vendor's evidence, score the risk, design the controls that would make an exception acceptable, and keep the gate shut when the vendor reveals an old incident.

Skills: Assess vendor controls on evidence, not answers; Score third-party risk by a defined method; Design compensating controls that change the risk; Route a risk decision to the right approver; Hold a security gate under commercial pressure

The glass in the juice video

Communications manager at Orchard Gold Drinks Ltd

About 70 minutes. Included in Plus.

A mother's video of glass in your best selling juice is spreading, a second customer has posted a photo, a supermarket wants an answer by one, and the managing director wants to say the product is completely safe. Read the situation, issue a careful holding statement, and communicate the recall when it comes.

Skills: Assess the severity of an incident from evidence; Write a holding statement that is accurate and kind; Advise a senior leader against words that will backfire; Communicate a recall clearly to consumers, retailers and media; Work within legal approval and decision rights

The repeat rate that fell by half

Data analyst at Kibble and Co

About 70 minutes. Included in Plus.

The dashboard says repeat purchases have halved since June and marketing wants 50,000 pounds to win customers back. Check what the number measures, find out what changed in June and what is incomplete, and tell the board what the data really says before it spends the money.

Skills: Check what a measure means before trusting its trend; Separate a mix effect and incomplete periods from real change; Combine rates correctly from counts; Write a board note that leads with the answer; Disagree with a colleague's figures constructively

The safety walk at Wharf Lane

Site safety advisor at Pellow Construction

About 75 minutes. Included in Plus.

Twelve findings from the weekly safety walk. Decide which work stops now under the procedure, deal with a roofing contractor who wants to keep working, and tell the client the truth about the scaffold she has come to see.

Skills: Apply stop work criteria consistently; Enforce permit to work conditions under pressure; Say who must act and by when on every finding; Report safety matters accurately to a client

Skill Paths

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