Who needs these communication skills?

Introduction

Hi, I’m Alex, one of the three trainers here at Gould Training.   We love helping managers and professional people communicate successfully.  That’s why we specialize in a training course called “Skills with People”. 

In this short video we’ll give you some typical examples of people who have come on this course, and benefitted enormously from what they learnt. 

Example 1 - a senior manager needing to respond differently when approached with a problem

Hello, I’m Phil.   I’m going to tell you about a senior manager.  His boss was pretty worried when thinking about the future.  What would happen if we lost this chap?  Where would the business be?  We discovered with him that what was happening was every time somebody bought a problem to be solved to him he would take the problem over and solve it himself.  After all that was what he was good at and very experienced at doing.  The trouble was the more he did that the dependent they become on him.  So that was a habit he had to break. 

What he needed to learn was how to listen as a different kind of response when people bought him a problem.  He had to start listening to them with empathy.  This was new for him, and it was very hard and difficult for him to make the change, but of course he was very determined, and he very badly needed to make the change, and so in the end he managed to master it.  The transformation was amazing because when he actually came back to work he actually started to enjoy other people solving problems rather than him.  He began to enjoy developing people.

Example 2 - a young accountant needing to speak up in meetings

Hi, I’m Rosemary.  I want to tell you about a young accountant who came our way.  She was very good at her job, the problem was she didn’t speak up at meetings.  She was told that if she didn’t change her behavior she’d be overlooked for a promotion.

We uncovered in her one-to-one session that she assumed she couldn’t speak up unless it was on her subject matter, no-one would be interested.  She needed to learn how to listen with empathy to connect with people’s ideas, and she needed to learn how to speak assertively in order to get people to sit up and take her seriously.  These were two difficult skills for her, she wasn’t used to doing that.  But she practiced with absolute verve and dedication, and eventually mastered them.  When she went back to her firm she was able to speak with confidence in meetings and her manager was delighted.

Example 3 - a department manager needing to lead with more authority

I want to talk about the manager of a department who was struggling with getting the best out of her team.  There were some issues that she needed to confront.  But she was nervous about the risk of demotivating and demorilizing people if they thought that she was being too harsh. 

The thing that surprised her the most was how she looked on camera, because she saw for herself that she came across in a way that completely lacked authority.  She was very surprised by that. 

We showed her how to give proper feedback to people, how to give generous and warm and genuine praise first, and then to move on to be giving really firm, really specific, and really clear criticism.  It wasn’t at all easy, but she was highly motivated, and with considerable practice she began to find it easier until she did eventually master it.

Afterwards she told us how pleasantly surprised she was that the real life experience of going back to work and putting these skills into practice was exactly like it had been for her on the training course.  She was delighted.  And her boss was really pleased because there had been this transformation.  She had moved from having this rather ineffectual management style to being much more authoritative, and actually a more inspiring leader.

Example 4 - a software engineer needing to respond to customer's compaints with more empathy

I’m going to tell you about a software engineer working in customer services looking after customer’s calls for technical help, and handling them when they complained.  He was good at it, he was very good with technical problems, solving software problems.  He was a helpful chap. 

The trouble was he wasn’t very good at handling it when customers got emotional, as they often did when their software let them down.  Unfortunately, one of the customers left in order to find a supplier who would give him a better customer experience. 

What we did was help him develop his emotional intelligence.  The skill that we taught him for that was listening with empathy.  It took practice and coaching, quite a lot of it, but he was extremely keen and worked hard at it, and it transformed his relationships with customers and his enjoyment of his job. 

His manager was so pleased that he invited us to train quite a lot of their software engineers.

What’s so special about this communication skills training course?

You may be wondering how one course is able to cater to so many different training needs and achieve so much.  Well, you’ll find the skills we teach are simple, powerful and easy to remember.  You’ll find you can relax in an unconventional, encouraging and friendly atmosphere as we limit group sizes to no more than six participants.

As well as a three-day course in a small group, you’ll have a number of private an confidential coaching sessions typically spread over about six months.

You’ll have opportunities to see how you come across on video, and you’ll get lots of helpful and practical feedback.  And we also involve your boss by speaking with them both before the training starts, and again before your final coaching session.

Well if this rings a bell for you it does require a very particular kind of coaching, and that’s what we can provide for you. 

As well as this video there are three ways we can help you make your mind up:-

• the FAQs section on this website will answer many of your questions.
• You can have an exploratory free private and confidential one-to-one coaching session by phone or by Skype, typically of about an hour and a half.
• You can download our free eBook called “Connecting with People”.  It gives a very good introduction to the course.

We love helping you communicate successfully.  We look forward to hearing from you.