Free Assessment · For Leaders & Teams
How you handle your hardest conversations quietly shapes the results you get. In about 5 minutes, see where you stand, what closing the gap is worth, and where to focus.
of managers say they'd rather skydive for the first time than have a difficult conversation with a colleague. Closing that gap has real value — this tool puts a number on yours.
Built on Kirstin's own difficult-conversations framework, this sampler reads where you stand across three core skills — and reveals your instinct under pressure and how confident you feel walking in.
Whether you keep the other person's survival brain calm enough to actually solve the problem — mutual purpose, contrasting, non-inflammatory language.
Whether you treat the conversation as a chance to learn — asking real questions and hearing the other story before you push your own.
Whether you own your contribution instead of assigning blame — the move that makes hard feedback land and stick.
No cost. Your results are emailed to you as a personalized report.
Leading a team? Take the Team Avoidance Audit →
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Your Avoidance Index
Your Pattern Under Pressure
When a hard conversation trips your survival brain, people don't all react the same way. Some fight — push, press, hold firm. Others take flight or freeze — avoid and delay, or go quiet and shut down. Here's where your answers placed you; neither end is "bad," but knowing your default is the first step to staying in the productive middle.
Your Confidence
Your own rating of how confident you are initiating and leading difficult conversations to successful outcomes.
The Upside of Closing the Gap
How well you handle hard conversations is worth real money — mostly in the people you keep and the decisions you get right. Here's a conservative estimate of the annual value in play across the people you lead, based on team size and pay levels. Adjust the inputs below to fit your situation.
A directional estimate, not an audit. Open "How we estimate it" to see the inputs and adjust them.
Replacement-cost range of 150–213% of salary per the Center for American Progress and SHRM; exits scale with how often hard conversations get avoided. The headline range updates as you adjust the inputs.
This is your individual read. As part of the program, we go further: every member of your team takes the assessment confidentially, and we consolidate the results into one team view — showing how your group actually handles hard conversations, and where to focus. That becomes the baseline we measure real progress against.