The pace of work and the pressure to deliver create just the right conditions for tension to build in teams. You may leave interactions feeling frustrated, wondering why your team keeps having the same conversations, avoids the hard ones, or allows small issues to escalate into major misunderstandings.
If only other people would pull themselves together, everything would go smoothly, right?
Here’s something you may not realize: your communication style may be unintentionally contributing to the very dynamics that frustrate you.
In this session, you will learn how to spot the patterns underneath your team’s stuck conversations — and what to do about them. We will explore the four modes of communication that show up in every conversation, how missing actions create conflict, and the five common stuck patterns that play out in teams every day.
You will leave with a practical framework you can use immediately — in your next meeting, your next hard conversation, or your next moment of “here we go again.”
What you will learn:
- How to shift the role you might be playing in your team’s stuck patterns
- How to spot the communication patterns that keep your team going in circles
- The four modes of communication present in every conversation, and what happens when one goes missing
- The five most common stuck patterns that show up in teams
- Practical moves you can make to change the conversation in real time
About the Speaker
Marsha Acker is an executive coach, speaker, and three-time author who helps scaling founders and leadership teams break through the conversations they’re stuck in — and the ones they keep avoiding.
Acker is the co-founder and CEO of Elevate Dialogue, the founder of TeamCatapult, and author of “Staying In It: How Great Leaders Transform Tension into Trust, Speed, and Scalable Success.” She has spent nearly two decades sitting in rooms with executive and leadership teams, watching brilliant people get stuck in the same conversations week after week. She’s heard the same frustrations more times than she can count: “Why do we keep having the same conversations?” “Decisions take forever.” “I feel like I’m the only one moving us forward.”
What she’s learned is that these teams don’t have execution problems; they have conversation problems. Her work is grounded in one belief: When teams learn to really talk to each other, not just at each other, decisions get faster, people lean in, and leaders get to lead instead of referee.
She is the host of the “Defining Moments of Leadership” podcast and is known internationally for helping leaders see the invisible dynamics that shape their teams’ performance — and change them.