Each episode starts where a real situation ended — a difficult client, a stalled agreement, a room where nobody wanted to speak first. These are the transcripts of those conversations, written out so you can read at your own pace, return to specific passages, and use them alongside the group work.
See how the groups workOrla Fenn, a procurement manager from Auckland, described a vendor meeting where nobody spoke for 40 seconds. She thought she had failed. The transcript unpacks what that pause was actually communicating and how she could have used it.
Silence & Pausing Reading time: 14 minKwame Dankyi walked into a salary discussion having rehearsed his number for weeks. He still let the other side anchor first. The conversation traces exactly where his preparation broke down and what he would do differently now.
Anchoring Reading time: 18 minRejecting a proposal feels binary — yes or no. Birgitta Holm found a third path during a contract renegotiation in Stockholm. The transcript shows the exact phrasing she used and why the other party came back two weeks later with a revised offer.
Refusal Skills Reading time: 12 minFarrukh Nazarov managed a cross-border partnership between Uzbekistan and Germany. The same gesture read as agreement on one side and polite deflection on the other. The episode maps the specific moments where signals diverged and how to check your assumptions before acting on them.
Cross-Cultural Reading time: 21 minDuring a dispute mediation, Aoife Ní Bhriain asked a single question that moved the conversation from positions to interests in under a minute. The transcript analyses the structure of that question and why it worked when five earlier attempts had not.
Questioning Reading time: 16 minPressure tactics show up in predictable patterns — urgency, authority claims, take-it-or-leave-it framing. Reuben Takahata faced all three in a single meeting. The episode walks through each moment and what a measured, non-reactive response looks like in practice.
Pressure Tactics Reading time: 19 minWe use cookies to keep sessions running and understand how participants use the platform. Read our cookie policy for details.
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