We work with individuals, teams and organisations to help them to have conversations that get things done. Right now, this means being able to, at a distance, have conversations with people to achieve the same business and social ends, but through a screen and a microphone.
It's all changed, and yet it's all the same.
Our focus, as always, is on getting people to quickly understand themselves and the people they work with... especially the feelings behind the facts and those important near-invisible clues that normally pass between us face-to-face, but are now easy to miss whilst we're working apart.
The good news is that we don't think there is a whole catalogue of new things to learn from scratch. We think it's about drawing out what people already know but don't mention: their own feelings and gut reactions - what they sense in the conversation. The little bits and pieces that could once be patched up face-to-face but now need conscious effort to maintain.
Our priority, whether you partner us with one person, a group of leaders, or the whole organisation, is to help your people to have a real conversation - to talk about what's really going on. When this can happen, people can help each other, can get things done, can feel good about what they are doing... and do it well.
Founded in 1989 by psychologist, Dr Paul Furey, we are a closely-knit, well-trained team of eleven practitioners that support individuals, small groups and whole organisations to run their businesses in open, honest ways that enable people to flourish.
Paul's doctoral research focused on the use of empathy in quickly turning difficult business exchanges into helpful conversations.
A real conversation can occur when the people involved have learned to look after the process of the conversation whilst also taking part in the content. It’s this ability to look after the behaviour alongside the agenda which will enable your people to tackle the really difficult stuff - and get to a solution much quicker.
You may wish to understand the way your people really are together – how they interact. We hold conversations and observation sessions around your organisation to help you to crystalise what makes you special, where the organisation is missing opportunities and how it could improve how people talk to each other and to your customers.
Typical timespan for success: 3-6 months
Highly practical workshops for leadership teams to help them to strengthen their communication, and therefore their relationships and productivity. It can be hard for team members to stand back far enough to be able to spot unhelpful habits or to understand what might be going wrong between them. We bring an experienced, dispassionate outside perspective to help people to notice, speak up and accelerate their co-operation.
Typical timespan for success: 10-15 hours over 6 months
For leaders who need to stand back and re-align their objectives with their approach to leadership, personality and their way of communicating. Life for senior individuals is crammed with pressure, activity and challenge – we provide structured, private time to pause, think, experiment and move on.
Typical timespan for success: 3-6 months
One experiment has found that office workers believe that hanging out at the water-cooler might make you more popular!
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