How to have difficult conversations at work with Neil Hopkins
How to have difficult conversations at work with Neil Hopkins
While the Internet hugely improves modern life, it also fuels misunderstanding, misinformation, comparison culture, disunity and ill-feeling. When human connection at work is vital for sustained performance, how do we foster inclusive debate and have difficult conversations about complex issues?
In 2026, across the board, organisations are struggling to maintain team cohesion. With so many societal issues in need of resolution, and an inflammatory media whose success depends on sensationalist headlines that blame and shame, there’s no shortage of things to disagree on.
This has profound consequences for organisations that desperately need group harmony for successful collaboration and innovation.
This episode, Dom and Cat meet communications strategist Neil Hopkins to learn how to have inclusive, empathic conversations that build unity, even when topics are delicate and require deep diplomacy and tact.
Neil is a writer by trade, a strategist at heart and a geek when it comes to behaviour change communications. Insatiably curious, his specific interest is in building the systems and growing the soul of great communications, which he’s developed during 20+ years leading communications agendas mostly in the UK public sector.
His projects have won awards, he’s secured industry accolades for a wide range of organisations and deftly steered the response to multiple crisis events. For fun, he reviews submissions for international social marketing conferences and curates a LinkedIn community for ‘Secret Social Marketers’ (to which you’re all invited).
Some conversations at work feel almost impossible to have. This webinar explores the new IOIC discussion paper on polarised and charged workplace conversations and what internal communicators can do to help them happen.
Clear communication can transform rewards and benefits into meaningful employee experiences through storytelling, collaboration and timely campaigns that resonate.
What if doing less was the answer? In a new episode of the Future of Internal Communication podcast, Dom, Jen and Cat are joined by author and TEDx speaker Chris Lovett to explore workplace minimalism and why simplifying work protects people and performance.
For the moments the usual playbook can't handle: when identity, belief or tension shift the room. Three expert voices on why internal communicators are uniquely placed to lead these conversations, not just support them.
In this first episode of series 16, Jen, Dom and Cat chat with Mercy Abel, founder of It Is Who You Know, to uncover the value of mentoring to bridge intergenerational divides and superpower early years careers.
This episode, Dom and Cat meet communications strategist Neil Hopkins to learn how to have inclusive, empathic conversations that build unity, even when topics are delicate and require deep diplomacy and tact.
Transcript S16 , E5 – How to have difficult conversations at work with Neil Hopkins
