Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

How to be calm and cool in a crisis (or a presentation…)

Posted by Liz McKechnie

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs….

This famous quote from Rudyard Kipling’s “If…” poses the question so many of us face on a daily basis in our work lives but also at home as the stresses and strains of domestic life pull us and push us sometimes to breaking point.

How do some people seem to remain calm so much of the time?

On our Presentation Skills courses and often on Personal Impact and Assertiveness courses people ask us for advice on how to handle nerves and anxiety when facing intimidating or downright scary situations.

Well here’s one practical thing you can do that you probably already exercise elsewhere in your life.

You can change your focus. Read more

3 Questions on Creativity

Posted by Bronia Szczygiel

I was giving a talk recently to a group of women engineers and asked the question:

Which is the most creative of all the disciplines, across the humanities, arts, sciences, engineering and social sciences?

There was no question in the minds of the group – it had to be one of the arts.

Drama maybe? After all Tom Stoppard was pretty revolutionary in stretching the boundary between actor, play and audience.

What do you think?

Read more

How to Take Control of your Personal Impact: How visible are you?

Posted by Liz McKechnie

I was coaching someone recently who said he wanted to be more visible in the workplace.

He was doing really well and was considered a high flyer by his managers but was not moving as fast as he would like. His consistent feedback was about being low on personal impact. Quite simply he needed to make his presence felt a lot more and he wanted to know how to go about it.

We often hear similar stories in our management skills courses and of course there are plenty of techniques we offer to help frame conversations and raise confidence levels in particular situations.

However there is some very useful thinking that can be done that can underpin these practical tools. Read more