Dates and location
Hours
Dates and location
Hours
Description
Difficult conversations can arise when expectations diverge, deadlines are missed, fees are questioned, or the client is not ready to hear the advice they need.
As tension rises, even experienced professionals find themselves reacting. Frustration, defensiveness, and anxiety can take over on both sides of the conversation, making it harder to address the real issues.
These are high-stakes moments. How they are handled can affect the quality of the work and the future of the client relationship.
Key Takeaways
- Recognize how anxiety, defensiveness, and pressure affect difficult conversations
- Spot the early signs that a client conversation is beginning to go sideways
- Use a practical two-switch model to restore productive dialogue
- Diagnose the underlying drivers of tension rather than reacting only to the surface issue
- Respond in ways that address the real problem and protect the client relationship
Who Will Benefit
CPAs who manage ongoing client relationships and want practical, immediately applicable tools for the conversations that are hardest to navigate.
How to Access the Event
An email reminder of this event will be sent out 24 hours prior to the event. If you have not yet received the reminder 4 hours prior to the event, please do not hesitate to reach out. Please check your Junk and Spam folders and ensure membernetwork@cpaontario.ca has been added to your safe addresses.
Speaker(s)
Matt McKenna has spent his career in rooms where the pressure is high and the relationships are complicated.
A Qualified Mediator, consultant, and speaker, Matt helps professionals navigate difficult conversations, reduce defensiveness, and protect the working relationships their practice depends on. He has facilitated workshops and mediated high-stakes conversations across corporate, government, and professional services contexts. As Director of Operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, he co-built and led a 600+ person contact tracing call centre for the Ontario government, aligning 34 public health units and managing over a million cases. He is also the co-author of Trust By Design, a forthcoming book on how trust shapes team performance.