We recently ran a “Presenting Without the ‘L’ Plates” course at the National College for School Leadership (NCSL).  Wow, what a venue!  All we can say is that we’d like our offices to look like that in a few years time!

On day one, the group were not surprised to hear that presenting is the number one fear of most people in the Western World, with the fear of death coming second!  They settled more comfortably in their chairs, however, when they saw PowerPoint slide 1 0f 78 appear on the screen.  Little did they realise that this was a small joke on David’s part and slide 2 was the end and it was over to them!

Despite initial fears the course proved to be a great success with all attendees fully participating and enjoying the two days along with David and Lance.  With comments like…

“I now have access to a wider range of tools and resources, I know that I can now do it well and have things to offer in this area” and “I plan to present to my colleagues without using notes”

…we know that the enthusiasm shown in the room will continue into the future.

As to the feedback we received…

“I have done several presentation courses, but this has been the only truly practical one”
“Great training, thanks”

…shows that listening to someone talking through PowerPoint slides is not the way to improve your presentation skills.  Oh, and we did receive top scores in all areas on the feedback sheet – Full House.

‘Way back at the beginning of my career,  as a trainee manager at Sainsbury’s, I came across a guy who influenced my direction to such an extent I can pretty much blame him single handedly for where I find myself today.

He was a Department Manager at the time and he had a huge and deserved reputation for his retailing skills and his high standards but most importantly his staff loved working for him.  I started to learn from him (and blatantly copy him) and over a period of time started to get the same results.  This was noticed by the powers that be and I was quickly promoted to Department Manager.  As my confidence grew I decided (his idea) to apply to Tesco for what I thought was a similar level job but they offered me Assistant Manager of a £1m per week store and very quickly promoted me to Store Manager.  I was then lucky enough to be head hunted twice in 4 years so by the time I was 28 I was an Executive at Somerfield with a staff of about 3,000.

From there I took the unusual leap into consultancy and the rest, as they say, is geography. So what?  Well last week the ‘guy’ , Lance Oliver, joined the team at Rambutan – a company he inadvertently was part of creating.’

ps. His mug shot is now on our ‘get in touch’ page and we’ll be doing another photo shoot soon for ‘the team’ page.  Watch this space…!

We all have the ability to dream and we all have the ability to imagine.

Recently when David and Craig were delivering an advanced coaching programme to one of our clients they spoke about the power of painting pictures to help us achieve the goals we want.  To test this…

Whatever you do right now do not see a yellow elephant, wearing a polka dot bikini, a red hat and holding a blue balloon.

We know you can see that, therefore you can harness your imagination to help you achieve whatever you want!

So for example, if you want to cycle up a really big hill, how would you think of if it as you were approaching the hill and seeing it loom in the distance?

The pain in your legs, the thumping in your chest, the wheels that feel like they are square and not round.  Do you see the hill getting steeper and steeper as you struggle up and hear yourself saying “I can’t do this; I will never get there”?

Makes the goal sound and feel pretty far away, right?

Or what about this…

Imagine if you choose to think this stuff instead… the road looking flat, your legs turning smoothly, your breathing sounding and feeling in control, the top getting closer and closer with every smooth deliberate pedal turn, focussed on how great it will feel when you power over the top and hear yourself saying “I’m nearly there; I am going to do it”.

Which sounds better and would make you feel better?

And this got us thinking…

What would happen if for everything we set out to do we thought about the positives?  We said the right stuff to ourselves that fuelled our imagination and helped us to picture the right outcomes.

How great would it be?  Thinking and saying good stuff to help us and not thinking and saying bad stuff that takes us further away from what we really want.

So we challenge you to think some great stuff that will help you achieve what you want to achieve right now, and do it every day!

Look at what is possible and what it will be like when you achieve whatever ‘it’ is…and importantly have fun doing it!

Whilst out and about near St Paul’s Cathedral in London recently, Sarah spotted a refreshing sign next to a well manicured lawn:

If you’ve seen any signs that turn conventional thinking on its head, please email them in to us and we’ll start a collection!

Our exciting foray into New Brand Tribalism, with our friends at The Alternative, is gaining momentum and on the 4th November at a Central London venue (to be confirmed), we will be formally launching it to the world.  We’ve been testing our model with professionals and academics and so we’re very confident it is both useful and unique.  At this event we will share the latest thought, leadership and research around the topic.  This will include presentations from;

• Lynne Arrowsmith – Head of Internal Communications, Brand and Culture at Orange
• Tim Pointer – Head of Human Resources Director at Diesel
• Sue Yell – Human Resource Director at Iceland

We are not charging for this ‘Tribal Gathering’ and it literally includes a free lunch!  If you would like to come along as our guest then please give David a call.  See our ‘get in touch’ page for his telephone and email address.

Last week Sarah was running a workshop about problem solving and decision-making when a question from one of the delegates caused her to have what she calls ‘a lightbulb moment’… one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that before’ times!

The group had been discussing problem definition… and the fact that how you define a problem will have an impact on the solution you find. 

Then during morning break, one of the guys asked for a bit of help redefining a real problem he’d been grappling with at work: ‘how can I get staff buy-in to environmental sustainability?’�
Several different options came up, but those that caused the biggest positive reaction were the problem definitions that used what Sarah calls ‘strong, powerful words.’  For example:

• what could I do to ignite people’s passion for making a difference to the environment?
• how could we create a desire for people to want to play their part?
• what would revolutionise the way that people think about sustainability at work?

What a difference these sorts of words make to the problem solving process – they create possibilities and ideas that just wouldn’t have come out of the original definition.

So, thank you to Mat, whose question switched the lightbulb on! 

And if you’re feeling daring enough today, have a think about a problem you’re grappling with yourself and see whether a quick refresh of its definition using strong words helps you get the breakthrough you need…