Get MORE of what you really WANT…
We work with leaders and teams hungry to grow and develop. Leaders ready to build more alignment, collaboration, connection and trust. Teams ready to achieve better results TOGETHER.
Learn the #1 Way to Influence a Conversation!
Self-awareness is the most crucial skill we teach.
By mastering the art of how to show up in any conversation, you’ll unlock your ability to transform personal and professional interactions, propelling you towards greater success and fulfillment.
Free Mini-Course
Ways to Work with Us
Breakthrough Conversations Program
Are you tired of unproductive meetings and stressful interactions that have you spinning in circles?
As a leader or manager, you’re no stranger to the daily barrage of conversations, many of which can be frustrating and feel like obstacles to success. But what if each dialogue could be satisfying and also a catalyst for building what matters most?
Our Breakthrough Conversations class empowers you to:
- Transform stress into strategy
- Replace confusion with clarity
- Convert wasted time into valuable outcomes
- Rebuild trust and confidence
- Strengthen professional relationships
- Achieve outstanding results
Imagine approaching every conversation with skill and confidence. Our program equips you with the tools to:
- Tackle difficult discussions head-on
- Prepare for impactful conversations
- Enhance interpersonal connections
- Speak inarguably and with clarity
- Inspire efficiency and focus
- Foster team alignment
- Invite real, doable action
- Boost accountability and ownership
Don’t let another day pass with missed opportunities. Take the first step towards mastering conversations that matter…your path to more effective leadership starts here.
Register here for our next Breakthrough Conversations program starting in September 2024.
Retreats
We offer one or multi-day Breakthrough Retreats for leaders hungry to up-level their teamwork and business results – committed to leveraging their conversations to create more success, satisfaction and momentum together.
Each retreat is customized to help your team achieve great things together, tapping the unique talent and potential of your people while building on the values your organization stands for.
We leverage the tools of Breakthrough Conversations to turbo-charge healthy, open dialogue; and we harness our unique planning model, The Game Method, to help you build the clarity, confidence and shared energy necessary to achieve your vision and goals together.
If you’re a leader who wants the direct experience of a breakthrough with your team; you want the practical tools you need to consistently translate your team’s ideals, Vision and Values into tangible, day-to- day operations and results, contact us to explore the possibilities at lynne@conversationscount.com.
Workshops
Engage your team with training on our top game-changers and apply the skills immediately to a challenge or opportunity you are facing together. In these workshops, you and your team will learn and practice new techniques for working through a current situation. You’ll gain shared language using the Breakthrough Conversations tools and immediately grow confidence and capacity to have successful conversations, especially when stakes are high or the conversation may be difficult. Workshops are available in person, or via online meetings if your team is in multiple locations. Contact us at lynne@conversationscount.com for more information on what this could look like for your team.
Online Learning - Group & Individual
Our self-guided Team Learning series is designed to help your team learn tools they can leverage immediately to navigate difficult conversations, create collaboration and trust in relationships, and build productivity and efficiency in teams. Participants will learn how to prepare for, open, engage, listen, explore possibilities, get on the ground with action, and powerfully complete any conversation to get what more of what they really want, through their conversations. Online learning also available for individuals. Click here to learn more, and for pricing and purchase.
Executive Coaching
Partner with an expert Breakthrough Conversations Coach to integrate what you’ve learned in training and apply it to any relationship in your life. Through focused one-on-one coaching sessions, you’ll gain confidence with the skills and tools so you can make meaningful progress in relationships, projects or meetings. Individual sessions to address a specific and immediate need, or multi-session packages to build ongoing capacity are available. Packages can be used for an individual or shared amongst a number of people in an organization. Contact us at lynne@conversationscount.com and learn more.
Leader as Coach Program
Build your confidence and capacity to coach others to better performance and better results. With in depth practice and application of Breakthrough Conversations, group learning, buddy practice and individual feedback, you’ll take your leadership skills to a whole new level. Program led by Sarah White Carr, Breakthrough Conversations co-founder and coach. Next session begins Thursday, January 23rd, 2025. Click here to learn more.
Speaking & Podcasts
Experience what’s possible with Breakthrough Conversations through a powerful speaking engagement with Founder and President of Culture Counts and Breakthrough Conversations, Whitney Walpole. Whitney will work with you to understand the outcomes you’re looking for, and create a presentation that delivers results. Attendees will learn immediately actionable strategies to avoid the traps and unconscious habits that get in the way of having effective conversations. They’ll have the ability to reduce the pain of conversations that go sideways, and increase the satisfaction and accomplishment of conversations that go well – creating better relationships and better results. Please reach out to Lynne@conversationscount.com to learn more.
The Red Dot: A Simple Tool for Mindful Leadership
The Red Dot Tool is a simple yet powerful way to open and close conversations and meetings. It’s a practical way to be mindful and emotionally intelligent in a business setting…to settle in, get present, put words to feelings and connect. We developed this tool and used it daily in our work with clients. Download to experience it’s simple power with your team!
The Red Dot Tool
Meet the Team
Whitney Walpole
Whitney Walpole is the Founder and President of Culture Counts. She has been a trusted partner and leadership coach to hundreds of business owners and executive teams over the past 18 years. She has co-founded a private school and a software company. In 2001 she founded Culture Counts, and recently she published her first book, The Sweet Spot: Leveraging Your Talents for Leadership and Life. Whitney walks and talks leadership in extraordinary ways. There’s almost nothing she teaches that Whitney hasn’t experienced or isn’t currently applying in her own life and business. Her presence and authenticity, as well as her passion for building great teams and businesses, evokes a quality of engagement and vulnerability with clients that is rare. Often clients will say that working with Whitney isn’t what they expected – it’s so much more. Click here to connect with Whitney.
Sarah White Carr
Sarah White Carr is a Leadership Coach and Consultant and is one of the original creators of Breakthrough Conversations. She brings more than 25 years of experience coaching and developing executives in the areas of leadership and communication. Sarah’s experience has taught her that clear, direct and powerful conversations are at the heart of what strong leaders and teams do to thrive. And while communication is essential, it can be difficult to do. Her passion for helping leaders have all kinds of conversations – difficult ones, creative ones, one-on-ones and team meetings – keeps her at the cutting edge of how to do this simply and powerfully. Sarah’s unique power to coach leaders and teams and to design training experiences comes from her ability to simplify concepts and demystify what seems like communication and leadership jargon. She is vulnerable and revealed about her own process, and as a result, leaders learn how to transform their communication and effectiveness from Sarah’s modeling. She is compassionate and direct, dives deep, and ultimately leaves her clients with simple tools to transform their most difficult issues. Click here to connect with Sarah.
Liz Landrum
Liz Landrum is a Leadership & Breakthrough Conversations Coach and Facilitator. She brings over 15 years of experience in coaching and facilitating leaders and teams in the areas of communication, engagement, teamwork, and leadership. Through authenticity and openness, Liz helps clients get to the heart of what really matters so they can overcome roadblocks to success and create outcomes that shift their lives. Whether it’s a one-on-one relationship, a team dynamic, or an internal barrier, clients learn how to navigate challenges and opportunities with confidence and ease. From first-time managers to the C-suite, Liz is dedicated to working with leaders at all stages of their careers who are ready to level up their skills to experience greater effectiveness, fulfillment, and joy. Click here to connect with Liz.
Melissa Wall
Melissa Wall is a Leadership & Breakthrough Conversations Coach and Facilitator, with experience training and coaching in team and leadership development for more than 15 years. She fiercely supports the growth and development of others, and is passionate about creating better workplaces. In 2015, she earned her MBA in support of her desire to continue evolving her lens of the bigger picture. Clients appreciate that she challenges their rooted thought processes, shines a light on the unsaid, and meets them where they’re at. Melissa has worked with college students to CEOs – nonprofits to startups – and brings an authentic style, personalized insights and vulnerable encouragement from her own experience of being in the work. Click here to connect with Melissa.
Lynne Smithpeter
Lynne Smithpeter has spent her career in business development, marketing and sales, working with a diversity of companies from Nordstrom to American Gladiators. Her current work and clients center around lifelong learning, the pursuit of constant growth, and an entrepreneurial mindset. Lynne is passionate about creating ways to make Breakthrough Conversations accessible in a variety of ways, allowing people to create better relationships, while fully expressing themselves and accessing new possibilities in the workplace and personal space. Lynne is a weekend lumberjack, believes our most important life lessons were taught by The Brady Bunch, and will always find time to spend with her family or dancing. Click here to connect with Lynne.
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Testimonials
This program is life-changing and totally exceeded my expectations. I am regularly having true “breakthrough” conversations. What I use to dread and put off as difficult conversations I now have, and I’m getting fantastic results. Essentially, problems that were taking up so much of my headspace are finally resolved, and I have my creative energy back!
– Leila Blauner / Founder & Team Growth Strategist / Scalability Solutions® LLC
We had our team go through Breakthrough Conversations because we wanted to use it to expand and improve our organizational clarity. This has allowed us to have a common language, allowing us to have healthy confrontation, enabling us to get at the root of issues that we have facing our organization, and come out of it with constructive ideas on how to improve. It’s such a powerful tool for everybody, but especially Sales where our people need to get into the customer’s world and understand what they’re saying and what their issues are, and then explore possibilities.
– Robert Tierney / CEO / Animal Care Systems
The increased awareness of how we think and interact has been really very positive for me. Breakthrough Conversations is so simple in its complexity, yet the techniques are really wonderfully crafted. The team piece was also a wonderful bonding exercise that also allowed us to get to know one another. The experience is a wonderful combination of personal and professional growth. Life happens in communication, so being better at it allows you to show up, interact and communicate with other people. How can there not be beautiful value in that?
– Clair Humber / SE Group / Principal