National Grid - Managing Self and Difficult Conversations
The Challenge
National Grid wanted to help employees navigate the increasing demands of their roles while maintaining strong working relationships, prioritising safety, and managing pressure effectively.
The organisation recognised that many employees were experiencing challenges around work-life balance, influencing others, managing competing priorities and having difficult conversations. Conversations were often delayed or avoided altogether, creating the potential for misunderstandings, unresolved issues and increased stress.
National Grid wanted a practical, engaging programme that would help employees build confidence, develop self-awareness and tackle difficult conversations before they escalated.
Our Solution
Enact Solutions designed and delivered Managing Self and Handling Difficult Conversations, an experiential learning workshop tailored to the realities of the National Grid environment.
Using realistic workplace scenarios performed by professional actors, delegates followed the journey of Callum, a Project Lead struggling with workload pressures, work-life balance, confidence and difficult conversations. Through facilitated discussion, forum theatre, coaching activities and skills-based practice, participants explored how these challenges can impact performance, wellbeing and safety.
The workshop focused on:
- Recognising and managing emotional responses under pressure
- Understanding the impact of assumptions and personal narratives
- Developing self-awareness through tools such as the Johari Window
- Improving prioritisation and time management
- Building confidence to seek support and speak openly
- Practising assertive communication techniques
- Handling difficult conversations effectively using practical feedback models
- Applying learning through realistic real-play conversations with professional actors
Since its launch, the programme has been delivered to more than 1,700 National Grid employees across multiple cohorts and locations.
The Impact
The programme has delivered consistently strong results over many years of delivery. Across all evaluated sessions:
- 99% agreed the workshop gave them practical actions they could take to be more effective in their role
- 99% agreed the session increased their understanding of how to handle difficult conversations
- 99% agreed the workshop was worthwhile
The programme has helped participants develop greater confidence in addressing issues early, seeking support when needed, and approaching difficult conversations with a more structured and constructive mindset.
Practical Takeaways
Following the workshop, participants committed to:
- Having difficult conversations earlier rather than avoiding them
- Taking time to manage emotions before responding under pressure
- Challenging assumptions and focusing on facts
- Being more open about seeking support when workloads become overwhelming
- Prioritising effectively and spending more time planning rather than firefighting
- Using structured communication and feedback techniques to improve conversations
- Creating a more open and honest culture within their teams