BREAKOUT #5
LOCATION: CROSS TIMBERS 3
Strong teams don’t avoid hard conversations – they build the culture to have them. Easier said than done. Learn practical tools for navigating change, conflict, and the conversations that too often get delayed until it’s too late.
About This Session
Description
Every leader knows the feeling: there’s a conversation that needs to happen, and it keeps getting pushed. A staff member struggling with a role change. A volunteer who’s been unintentionally causing harm for months. A team stuck in the aftermath of a reorg or loss of funding.
In this session, we name what’s actually going on and we give you tools to move through it. Drawing on the Kübler-Ross Change Curve and the GROW coaching model, this session is part leadership development and part practical workshop.
You’ll leave knowing how to read where your team is emotionally and how to step into the conversations that will move things forward.
What we'll cover:
This session is for leaders who manage people and who know that the hardest part of the job isn’t the strategy. It’s the day-to-day human(ing). The tension that builds or the feedback that doesn’t land. The team that went through something difficult and hasn’t ‘yet’ returned to full strength.
We will cover:
- The Kübler-Ross Change Curve: how to recognize where your team is in a change process, and what they need from you at each stage, not just what the organization needs from them.
- The GROW Coaching Model: a simple, repeatable structure for one-on-one conversations that are grounded in the other person’s reality, not your assumptions about where they are or what they need.
- Checking your assumptions: a practical method for separating what you know from what you’re filling in and why that gap is where most hard conversations go sideways.
- Knowing your values and asking about others’: how to bring a values-based lens to conflict and tension without making it personal.
- When not to use AI: why team dynamics and hard conversations require human presence, and where shortcuts get in the way.
Participants will leave with the GROW model conversation guide, a change curve team assessment tool, and a set of conversation-starter prompts for the situations most leaders keep putting off.
This session includes live practice. Come ready to engage and bring a real situation if you have one.
Topics & Focus
Primary Topic Area
Session will also cover:
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A note from the presenter:
Decision-Makers and leaders, particularly those who manage staff or volunteers, are most likely to benefit from this session. “Intermediate” knowledge on this topic means participants are likely managing teams but may not have formal coaching or change-management training.
Handouts & Materials
No handouts or materials available at this time.
“Name of Session” – session presentation slides (PDF)
Name of Document – lesson sample (PDF)
Name of Document (PDF)
Name of Document – infographic (JPG)
Presenter
Melanie Fisk, MSW, MBA
Principal & Founder
Adaptive Ascent Group
Melanie Fisk (MSW, MBA) is an executive strategist and systems builder. Over the past 20+ years, Melanie has led change across nonprofit and public-sector settings, including serving as CEO of Literacy Advance of Houston, where she guided a turnaround and merger that doubled service capacity and expanded wraparound supports. She’s also held senior leadership roles at large, regional community organizations and directed national-scale technical assistance efforts connected to federal initiatives. Her superpower is building environments where great teams can do their best work and where strategy doesn’t live in a file, but is a living, organic part of a truly ground-up, adaptive culture.
In 2025, Melanie launched Adaptive Ascent Group, small boutique consulting firm to help small-to-mid sized organizations turn big goals into day-to-day momentum. She has gathered a team of systems builders and “implementation translators” who love the messy middle where strategy meets real people, AND real-world constraints. Together they aim to be your favorite thought partner. You know, the one who is grounded, will tell you the truth (even when it’s hard), who is just the right amount of wonky, and who loves to help you get stuff done!
When she’s not leading design workshops or geeking out with a new read, Melanie’s usually in the kitchen cooking something elaborate, hanging out with her two rescue pups, or connecting with a friend, preferably while being outside. She’s especially curious about the seismic shifts facing civil society and how we can reimagine systems for collective resilience. Based in Alexandria, VA, Melanie brings both humor and humanity to her work, and she’s always up for a good question and a deeper conversation.
Breakout26 – FISK
Page checked or updated: 6/10/2026
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