Much has been written and reported in the last few days about Empathy and the fact that 98% of the human race can feel it and express it. And if they did, the world would be a better place. In our world of CGO and the Art of Being Heard, delivered by Kath Burlinson, it’s about the ability to listen to yourself, and listen to others – and use this listening to get your point across. Empathy and listening are important whether you are a business leader addressing the assembled throng of staff or shareholders, or a middle manager presenting a paper to your Board.
Today began a new phase in the delivery of our one-day course, the Art of Being Heard, in collaboration with DanceEast in Ipswich, offering the course to their staff, in return for their help in reaching the business community of Ipswich and East Suffolk. We had a great day planned. Until the storms of Monday night took their toll.
At 5pm on Monday, I had a call from DanceEast saying that whilst they loved the idea of hosting the course from 10am on Tuesday morning, the police didn’t ! Sadly the building above the studios had suffered so much from the tempestuous winds that its walls had featured on the main BBC TV news and access for our inaugural course was impossible. Amazing help and ideas instantly flowed from Richard Brice of Blue Star HR with the suggestion of the Ipswich Institute. They had a room at zero notice (because of holidays) and as we found during the course of today, they have the best fruit cake to have with your tea ever, and a great café for members. Thank you for saving the day.
The course Kath created for business leaders offers an extraordinary palette of tools for anyone working with staff, customers, board, volunteers, or senior management. How can you be the best “Chris” you can be when you are at your most nervous in front of a group of people? You can’t be anyone else, but you can shut down, compensate by talking too much, forget to breathe, and basically get yourself tangled in knots. At 10am each participant was maybe not the best they could be. By 4.30pm our first cohort for Art of Being Heard were congratulating each other and the course’s ability to take each person on an individual journey of improvement.
I am delighted to be working with DanceEast to bring this course to the business community. We know from the experience of delivering 20+ courses to the business folk coming to Bury St Edmunds that we can offer experiences which will be valuable to head teachers, to brewers, to HR managers, to solicitors, to CEOs of massive employment hubs, to the service, health, government, and housing sectors.
“Really good to focus on how to prepare yourself for a presentation as well as how to manage yourself throughout” DH / Suffolk
Please get in contact and help us reach even more people …helping you and them to discover the art of being heard. Provided there are no further acts of god we will be at DanceEast for a second course of Dec 4th with dates planned for January through March.
Chris
Chris [at] chrisgrady [dot] org
