The last time I visited Sweden, I wrote about some cultural situations I encountered whilst training there. In the first week of September, I travelled again to Stockholm to train a Scandinavian team comprising 3 Danes, 2 Swedes, 2 Finns and a Norwegian.
I could spend the whole blog talking about the interactions I observed within the group from a cultural and linguistic perspective, as you know, a topic which is also close to my heart and indeed fascinating. Who knows, perhaps in “Hawkins in Sweden Part 3”, we can revisit all that.
Today, I wanted to let you get a glimpse of a two-day seminar behind the scenes. As you well know, negotiation training is something I am extremely fond of. Still, becoming a true international negotiator takes other skills such as a foundation in intercultural awareness, presentation skills and, of course, reading and working with different characters in a negotiation, aka an induction in DISC.
Hawkins Consulting and our coaches have you covered when it comes to training the above skills. This time, it was all about “Presenting in English” for my Scandinavian client, so it was time to put them through their presenting paces.
After a few preliminary exercises, we got them to give short 1 min presentations pretty early on to give them as much practice presenting, standing in front of an audience and speaking in English. It also meant the participants could SEE for themselves the improvements they made by the time they completed the last one at the end of day two. What do you mean by SEE?
You know the phrase, “I’ll believe it when I SEE it”, so that’s exactly how we train – we film the main presentations, give peer & trainer feedback and provide them with the video so they can reSEE them again as often as they want.
Speaking of SEEing is believing you couldn’t have seminars without examples of ‘best practice’. Hence, the participants SEE the techniques, tools and tips in action used by some of the most esteemed public speakers like Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama or Steve Jobs.
If you are thinking this seminar focuses solely on the individual, well, let me tell you, we pack in plenty of team activities, team presentations, team challenges and finally, team discussions.
Naturally, every team is different, and every team has other wants & needs, so every seminar is different, but the feedback is always the same – if I may blow my own trumpet in an uncommonly untypical British way – Engaging, Entertaining, Effective!
P.S. That was an example of an excellent rhetorical tool – The Rule of Three. Find out more about this, other techniques and tips and practice, practice and practice.
Would you like to have a Hawkins Consulting coach come to your company to train your team, drop us a line, and talk to one of our coaches?
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