Tavis Smiley

The Anatomy of a Great Conversation - Live Preview

Award-Winning Broadcaster

Learn how mastering the Anatomy of a Conversation will give you super tools for life, personally and professionally.

Why You Need to Know the Anatomy of a Great Conversation

The course schedule for our Founding Members Cohort will be announced.

Announcement of Founding Members Cohort Dates

Tavis will open the floor for a live Q&A session on the course content and approach.

ASK TAVIS

Early Bird Enrollment specials announced for the students who attend this course preview session.

Early Bird Offers

January 26, 2026  @  6pm PT,  9pm ET, 8pm CT

Session Date & Time

Update: The March 2026 cohort is open for enrollment. Over 1,500 tech operators have taken this course. If you've been thinking about joining, I'd love to see you in class.___ If you're a high performer, you likely got to where you are because of your raw talent and ability to execute. Now that your scope has grown, though, your ability to increase impact depends on how well you influence other people--often without formal authority. In other words, you need people to do what you want them to do--enthusiastically and collaboratively. Unfortunately, no one teaches us how to do this beyond a basic level. So your day-to-day involves avoidable back-and-forth, friction, pushback, apathy, random questions, skepticism, or confusion about areas you believe are important. But it doesn't have to be this way. You and your team can move faster. You can quickly understand each other. You can worry less about cajoling skeptics. You can spend less time figuring out how to say what you want to say. You can accomplish more of what you want--and have more fun in the process. To get to the next level, you can't simply "do" more yourself. You must extend your impact beyond your own work. You must get genuine cooperation and true buy-in from those around you. This is what you will learn to do in this course. WHAT TO EXPECT: This is a highly-interactive course with examples, Q&amp;A, hands-on exercises, and tactics you can apply immediately. There are 9 hours of live instruction, all live on Zoom taught by Wes. We will focus on both the "why" and tactical pieces around the "how." Each day features four hands-on exercises (created by Wes, exclusively available in the course) that include students working silently for 7-8 minutes, reviewing other students' work for a few minutes, then hearing live teardowns/feedback from Wes on a select exercise submissions everyone can learn from. You'll hone your intuition and standards on "what great looks like." The skills you need to become more effective CANNOT be solved through brute force. In these 2 days, you will come away with new tools. Course content• How to be direct and clear, without damaging relationships• How to perform well in high-stakes real-time conversations• How to sharpen your ability to prevent/overcome skepticism• How to anticipate stakeholder concerns and prevent 90% of pushback before it happens• How to articulate your POV when strong rationale can make or break the outcome• How to advocate for your ideas the right way• How to instill a sense of urgency so your ideas are heard and acted on quickly• How to avoid common communication patterns that diminish your impact• How to diagnose the question-behind-the-question so folks are satisfied by your responses The course also includes:• Review and reflection• Verbatim scripts for tricky work scenarios• Real-life examples• Hands-on exercises• Frameworks to help you structure your written and verbal communication• Bonus: 2 Q&amp;A sessions• Plus: Homework to put concepts into practice• Lifetime access to resources: course materials, one-pagers, recordings, etc• All Zoom workshops are live, taught by Wes The goal isn't simply to learn the concepts--it's to internalize them. If you put effort into the course, you will make a major leap ahead. If you follow my writing, the course builds on concepts I’ve written about--we will discuss important nuances, edge cases, and examples, with the opportunity to put these lessons into practice. I've designed this course specifically so you begin to build your intuition and muscle memory. All the sessions will be recorded so you can refer back to the material. WHO WILL BENEFIT MOST FROM THIS COURSE: Folks who will get the most from this course tend to be the following:- You care about quality, rigor, and setting a high bar for yourself and others- You are ambitious and you want to sharpen your ability to execute- You are on a lean team punching above your weight class- You are self-aware, open-minded, and intellectually honest- You want to become an operator who thinks strategically about communication, not just someone who responds reactively to what's in front of you Students and alumni are from: Uber, Amazon, Grammarly, Netflix, Workday, Meta, Google, Pinterest, Expedia, Sephora, Twilio, Roblox, CVS, Shopify, Airbnb, Vimeo, Waymo, Figma, Maersk, Unilever, Experian, HelloFresh, Buffer, Peloton, 1Password, OpenTable, Microsoft, Lyft, Toyota, Intel, Autodesk, Credit Karma, Stitch Fix, DailyPay, Lockheed Martin, Klaviyo, Hubspot, U.S. Bank, Novo Nordisk, Walmart, Plaid, Intercom, Ford, Visa, Coinbase, Coda, SoundCloud, Instacart, General Motors, Dell, Samsung, Qualcomm, Salesforce, Capital One, Adobe, Apple, Spotify, Anthropic, GitHub, Zillow, PayPal, Atlassian, Square, Stripe, and many other startups and large organizations. WHO THIS IS NOT FOR: - This is not for you if you are looking for 1:1 coaching.- This is not for you if you believe there's not much for you to learn about sharpening your communication.- This is not for you if you want step-by-step instructions for every situation you might encounter. My goal is to help sharp operators develop even better judgment, not to cover directions for every potential situation.- This is not for you if you expect to become excellent in communication overnight. Becoming excellent at anything requires time and ongoing practice.- This is not for you if you want a slower-paced course over several weeks. This is a 2-day intensive designed for busy operators who want to reduce context switching between work and the course.- This is not for you if you are primarily looking for a course on public speaking or delivery (removing "ums" and "ahs", making eye contact, projecting your voice, etc). In my experience, public speaking is not the bottleneck for most operators. Instead, the course focuses on improving your underlying ability to think clearly, which enables you to communicate clearly. If you read Wes' newsletter, will you still get a lot out of this course? If you read my newsletter, you might recognize some frameworks, but you've never seen them applied to live scenarios with this level of depth. Reading about managing up vs writing the actual Slack message to convince your manager to let you join a high-priority cross-functional task force that could change your career trajectory... these are completely different skill levels. The frameworks you THINK you know from reading will gain new meaning when you're actually executing them yourself under pressure. After the course, students often say, "I thought I knew this, but now I see how much deeper this goes." --- To recap, during the course, you will be drinking from the firehose. My goal is to help you drastically improve your competence and confidence in a condensed period of time. Then, you will go back to work and build on this foundation with continued practice.

Strong communication is a force multiplier

Course syllabus

9:00 - 12:30pm Pacific Time12:00 - 3:30pm Eastern Time5:00 - 8:30pm British Standard Time The workshop includes hands-on exercises and opportunities to put lessons into practice throughout. Afterward, there will be an optional 1 hour Q&amp;A. Recording will be available.

Thursday, March 19

9:00 - 12:30pm Pacific Time12:00 - 3:30pm Eastern Time5:00 - 8:30pm British Standard Time Get ready for an action-packed second day. Afterward, there will be an optional 1 hour Q&amp;A. Recording will be available.

Friday, March 20

This course will be interactive, so get ready to chime into Zoom chat, unmute to share, etc. Live workshop sessions will be video recorded and made available to watch/rewatch at your own pace. If you can't attend the full time or need to hop off, you can catch up later.

Live workshops, Q&A, exercises, real-life examples

Course schedule

Senior individual contributors (ICs). Marketing leads, PMs, engineers, program managers, UX designers, etc. Minimum 3+ years of experience.

People managers and leaders (heads of, team leads, directors). You run a team and have to get buy-in upwards and x-functionally.

Teams who want shared language so you can move faster, give feedback faster, have shared expectations, and persuade folks outside your team.

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

You might only have a few minutes of your leadership team's attention. We will review tactics for how to move fast, frame the conversation upfront, handle unexpected questions, prevent "insecure vibes," etc. Get senior leaders to seek (and truly listen to) your input.

Present to your CEO to maximize highly-visible moments

The more senior you become, the more you'll need to manage up. Hint: It's not about sending a weekly recap of your contributions. We will review real examples and practice how to reduce cognitive load for your manager, share your rationale, focus on the punchline, and more.

Managing up in day-to-day interactions

How do you get buy-in with less back and forth? How do you know the right level of detail (and which details) to share? How can you be more concise w/o sacrificing context? We will dissect these nuances and you will have a chance to rewrite examples to put lessons into practice.

Frame your ideas and give the right amount of context in any situation

While writing well takes years to master, we'll focus on simple ways to improve and edit your work. You'll practice during in-class exercises &amp; edit your own writing as homework. You'll see other students' writing, which gives rare visibility into different approaches and styles.

Identify ways to improve your own writing

Some principles (like reducing cognitive load) apply regardless of your audience--while other situations require you to understand power dynamics, leverage, etc. We will practice "reading" situations and subtext with more accuracy so you can make better decisions.

Influence up and sideways to get things done

You may have trust with your team, but how do you advocate for ideas with other teams? We will discuss frameworks to tackle this, so you can get inside the heads of individuals/teams you want to appeal to more quickly.

Get enthusiastic buy-in and collaboration from colleagues outside your team

The goal of the course is to help you see, think, and act differently. We often have default behavior with how we communicate, without questioning what's effective &amp; what to do better. Alumni often say, "I thought I did this well, but had no idea how much I could improve."

See your own communication more accurately and spotting ways to improve

Sell your ideas, manage up, gain buy-in, and increase your impact. Sharpen your skills via hands-on exercises, deep dives, scripts, and more

Wes Kao

Cohort 9 (October)

Cohort 10 (March)

Confidently engage and influence executives and key stakeholders to show that you've got what it takes to earn their trust and respect.

Former Amazon VP; 70+ patents; 800+ team

Amazon

Ethan Evans

Former Amazon VP; 70+ patents; led global teams of 800+

Cofounder at Level Up; $1B+ P&L; led 40+

Dentsu

IPG Mediabrands

Harvard Business Review

Techstars

Jason P. Yoong

Cofounder & COO at Level Up (former Amazon, VP at Dentsu, $8M seed Startup)

Cohort 1

Cohort 2

WHAT TO EXPECT:10+ total hours of content: 3 hours of prework core lecture video recordings for self-learning followed by 7+ hours of live sessions (executive scenario role-playing practice, peer practice, and a bonus class with a special guest).This course will teach you how to show up like a leader in every room (even the rooms you are not in) and change how you are perceived.You will learn how to BUILD and SHOW executive presence through an intentional mix of video recorded lectures (self-learning) followed by live, hands-on practice sessions concluding with a capstone session with Ethan to put everything you learned into a final practice.You will have the unique opportunity to step into executive role-playing scenarios with Ethan, receive (and observe) real-time coaching, and practice alongside ambitious peers in a safe environment. You will learn by both observing and doing.Note: We've updated the next cohort to have MORE TIME for live executive role-playing and Q&amp;A so that you have more opportunities to get real-time feedback, coaching, and reframing (both first-hand and observing others).

Command high-stakes rooms, win C-suite alignment, be confident, speak like a pro

Real coaching sessions with HEAVY PRACTICE to build your confidence

Finesse your executive communication (e.g. CEO, C-suite, SVPs, VPs)

How to get CEO approval and buy-in to your proposal

Establish your credibility in the company upwards, downwards, and sideways

Be direct and clear (without damaging your reputation)

Expertly handle (and recover from) big F-ups

Individual contributors (ICs) - product managers, mkt leads, engineers, UX designers, ops, analysts, chief of staff

Managers who have to get executive buy-in, gain cross-functional alignment, and inspire their teams.

This course is heavy on practice with Ethan, Jason, and your peers (e.g. role-playing, mock staff meetings, peer pairings).

Being your authentic self at work: is it working for you or against you? It's both. Learn a proven model to persuade and win more often.

Jan 12-14 2026 12-1:30pm ET

I help leaders influence with ease.

Sheila O'Sullivan

Certified communication style coach obsessed with helping leaders break barriers

Dec 8-10, 2025 12-1:30pm ET

Feb 17-19 2026 12-1:30pm ET

But not everyone thinks the way you do, and you need the skills to be effective with everyone. Being your unfiltered self at work is like showing up in pajamas. It's comfortable, but not helping your career. More than two-thirds of us are perceived differently than we intend at work. That gap will keep you from achieving your goals. But you can fix it! You'll discover exactly how others perceive the strengths and weaknesses of your communication style. You'll practice concrete tools to help you adapt when needed. You'll leave knowing how to read any room and adjust your approach for maximum impact. Through live sessions, practical exercises, and real-world applications, you'll master the Communciations Comfort Zone framework. This isn't theory - it's a research based approach used by top performers to: 🏆 Win trust rapidly by identifying and breaking down communication barriers 💥 Approach challenging conversations with confidence 🤔 Stop wondering where conversations went wrong and learn to recognize the warning signs of misperception in real-timeReinforce learning with our AI chatbot Let's chat: https://calendly.com/sheilaosullivan/communication-style-course-exploratory-call-20-mins

Your authentic style is perfect - for people exactly like you.

Understand your communication style

Read others' communication styles, even through first impressions

New managers or managers taking on new teams who want to quickly understand the team, gain its respect and get results quickly.

The experienced executive who wants to coach young managers on leadership communication to help them reach their potential.

The individual contributor who wants to successfully influence others and advance ideas more effectively.

Proven media training frameworks to prepare, perform and be remembered, so you can speak with confidence, clarity and impact.
 

Communication Coach for Leaders

Rebecca Jabbar

Media Trainer to senior executives of globally-recognised brands. 

December 25

January 2026

Learn proven frameworks that help leaders, founders and professionals communicate with clarity and impact, whether speaking on camera, on stage or in the room.You don’t need to change who you are to communicate with confidence. In this three-week live course, you’ll learn how to prepare effectively, handle tough questions with composure, and deliver a message that is clear, natural and genuinely you.Many capable professionals struggle when the pressure is on. Interviews, presentations and high-stake moments can trigger nerves, rushed thinking or second guessing, even when you know your material well. This course gives you the structure and calm to respond with clarity when it matters most.Week 1: Media Training 101Learn the principles top executives use to manage Q&amp;As, stay composed and keep their messages on track.Week 2: Handling Tricky QuestionsLearn simple frameworks for responding clearly and confidently when caught off guard.Week 3: Creating Your Brand Champion MessageCreate a concise message that represents who you are and what you stand for.By the end of the three weeks, you’ll have a repeatable approach you can use for any presentation, interview or high-pressure moment.

Prepare. Perform. Be remembered.

Speak clearly and confidently when the pressure is on

Respond to questions with composure, even when caught off guard

Prepare for high-stake moments without increasing nerves

Communicate your message clearly while sounding like yourself

Recover quickly if you lose your thread or feel put on the spot

Use a repeatable approach you can rely on in any setting

Leaders and founders who represent their brand and need to speak with clarity and authority in public or media settings

Professionals preparing for visibility, from presentations and panels to podcasts and interviews

Communicators and marketers who want to strengthen their message and influence across audiences