Most professionals were never taught how to communicate under pressure. They default to hardball tactics, avoid conflict, or wing it and hope for the best. Interest-Based Communication is a different approach — rooted in negotiation theory, built around the idea that understanding what people actually want (their interests) matters more than winning arguments about what they say they want (their positions).
This is a three-day, in-person course. You'll learn the philosophy each morning and practice it each afternoon — with real exercises, real role-playing, and real conflicts from your own work. Evenings include group activities designed to deepen the connections you're building with your cohort. You'll leave with a workbook and a set of skills you can use the following Monday.
- The ability to negotiate over interests without hardball techniques or force of personality
- A memorable introduction for yourself and your organization — one people actually remember
- Confidence in conversations that prompt others to share what they really think
- Techniques to present ideas so others want to hear, understand, and contribute
- Skills to turn communication breakdowns into collaborative problem-solving
- An understanding of how decisions get made inside bureaucracies — and how to influence them
- Extended practice time applying every technique to your own real-world situations
Daytime sessions are approximately two hours each. They include lessons, Q&A, small-group role-playing exercises, and debrief discussions. Afternoons include extended practice time. Evenings offer group activities to build connections with your cohort. Each participant receives a workbook.
Interest-Based Negotiations
The foundation. Learn the difference between position-based and interest-based negotiation. Practice the mirroring technique — confirming understanding while showing the other person they've been heard.
Introductions & Storytelling
How to introduce yourself and your organization in a way people remember. The Venn Diagram approach, story arcs that create curiosity, and connection points that launch real conversations.
Group Dinner & Cohort Activity
An evening together to practice what you've learned in a relaxed setting. Build relationships with your cohort over a shared meal.
Conversations & Questions
What disrupts conversation, how to stay present, and how to ask questions that unlock deeper sharing. Why "how" beats "why," what tiny choices reveal, and the law of mutual self-disclosure.
Conflict & Alignment
How communication breakdowns happen and how to repair them. Steelmanning, visual conflict mapping, BATNAs, and creative problem-solving techniques that turn disagreements into solutions.
Evening Activity
A second evening together. Apply what you've been learning in unstructured conversation and group exercises.
Presentations
Communicating to groups. Incorporating storytelling, slide design, and presentation architecture to be memorable and compelling. Includes a recorded practice session with feedback.
Integration & Practice
Extended practice applying every technique from the course to your own real situations. Work through your actual negotiations, introductions, and conflicts with coaching and cohort feedback.
Aion Biosciences on the impact of interest-based communication training.
Three upcoming sessions. Same course, same price — pick the dates that work for you.
The course benefits from people at all levels. Executives, sales teams, managers, and individual contributors all bring different conflicts to the table — and that range makes the exercises better for everyone.
You don't need to be sent by a company. Consultants, founders, sales professionals, and anyone who negotiates or leads hard conversations — you're welcome to enroll directly.
Executives from Broadview Group on how interest-based communication changed their team's approach to negotiation and client relationships.
Vance Crowe
Vance has served as Communications Strategist for the World Bank, Director of Millennial Engagement at Monsanto, and has addressed over 300,000 people on controversial subjects across the English-speaking world. He founded Legacy Interviews, a service preserving family histories through recorded conversations, and serves on the Board of Directors for FCS Financial, a seven-billion-dollar agricultural lending cooperative in Missouri.
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Questions? Email vance@legacyinterviews.com
We will conduct future classes both online and in-person. Email us to join our mailing list.