Assertiveness

Working Voices – Presentation skills, Communication skills, Interpersonal skills Working Voices teaches interpersonal communication skills. Everything from Presentation Skills to Leadership Development, Voice Coaching, Writing Skills, Image Management, Cultural Diversity and Memory Techniques. You’ll learn more about our courses in a moment.Our USP is:

• our content (relevant, up-to-date, PRACTICAL)

• our style (high energy, high interactivity, FUN)

• our people (expert, experienced, EFFECTIVE).

Established in 1998, Working Voices delivers courses in the UK and abroad and engages a hand-picked team of trainers to meet the needs of a client list that includes some of the world’s most prestigious companies. You’ll learn more about our people in a moment too.About our courses

If you’ve been on a course that was dull or uninformative; if delegates left it ill-equipped to put the fundamentals into practice from that moment forward – the “takeaways” as we call them – then the course was NOT one of ours. Groups, seminars, one-to-ones: here’s what we teach.Presentation Skills

Presenting ourselves, our company, our case. It’s what we’re all doing all of the time. This comprehensive suite of courses is about doing these things properly and confidently – and getting the results we want.

• Presenting

• Pitching Skills

• Body Language

• Anger Management

• Assertiveness Training

• Essential Communication SkillsLeadership Development

Working Voices’ leadership development programmes focus on your managers – the people who hold the key to making your business successful and profitable. Ours is a suite of UNIQUE and proven one-to-one coaching techniques and team-building exercises.

• One-to-one Leadership Programmes

• The Chi * of Success

• Leadership Unplugged

• Coach the Coach

( * The circulating life force whose existence and properties are the basis of much of Chinese philosophy and medicine.)Voice Coaching

Your voice says masses about you, face-to-face, on the phone or by voicemail. It might say good humour, energy, gravitas. It might say dull, uninterested, impatient. And, of course, it might say nothing at all if it is unclear or unintelligible. These courses deal with all the pitfalls.

• The Perfect Voicemail

• Speaking English Clearly for Business

• Making The Most Of Your VoiceWriting Skills

Today’s business writers write for the screen – and good screen-writing requires a new set of skills. We show you how to make your writing “screen-friendly”: easy to scan, easy to grasp, easy to action, easy to archive.

• Effective Business Writing

• Effective Report Writing

• Writing Effective EmailsImage Management

Look the best you can, every day. The clothes you wear, the way you wear them, the colours you choose. Savvy women realise that it’s part of their workplace weaponry. Savvy men realise that good grooming is a perfectly legitimate “male thing”. We’ll show how looking good is easy.

• Visual Impact in the Workplace

• Exclusive Personal Image Day

• Image ManagementCultural Diversity

No two people or businesses are the same. Our cultural diversity courses highlight how diversity within and outside your organisation can create opportunity and not division, when it is handled and managed properly.

• Communicating Across Cultures

• Cultural Awareness

• Embracing DiversityMemory Techniques

The better your memory, the greater your ability to think on your feet and the greater your confidence. Think about it – then think about your performance at meetings or when you make presentations. We teach brain-training strategies that will give you the memory you want.

• Total Recall

• Power-up Your Memory

• Memories Are Made Of ThisAbout our people

Nick Smallman is founder and Managing Director of Working Voices. He combined a classical acting and business career until asked to set up the company specifically to meet the interpersonal communication needs of the UK and overseas banking communities. Since then the client base has widened year-on-year and now includes the legal, media, fashion, distribution and pharmaceutical sectors. Nick trains in a variety of disciplines both in the UK and abroad (Europe, USA, China and Russia, principally) and is a sought-after motivational speaker.

Our trainers are expert and experienced; motivators as well as educators; high scorer’s against client feedback.

John Mabberley: A city Banker for 30 years, John’s enthusiastic and motivational style has given him a great track record for team and confidence building. John specialises in delivering all of our Presentation Skills courses except Anger Management and Assertiveness Training.

JC Mac: Chevron, Citigroup, EMI Music, BP/Amoco, Orange, Universal and the British Museum are just a handful of the major corporates which have benefited from JC Mac’s holistic approach to Leadership Training. He handles all our Leadership Development courses and is in demand both in the UK and abroad.

Paul Hill: A graduate of English from Cambridge University, Paul is a trained actor and highly qualified voice coach. His Voice Coaching courses are a favourite with our global-company clients but he’s also part of the Presentation Skills team, delivering all courses except Anger Management and Assertiveness Training.

Kate McGoldrick: Kate’s background in radio and print journalism and the theatre -and an infectiously enthusiastic style – mean her Writing Skills courses are in constant demand. She also delivers the Presentation Skills suite including Anger Management and Assertiveness Training.

Sara Hollamby: Sara’s combined careers in the fashion industry and presenting on TV have spanned 27 years and made her a seasoned and popular group and auditorium speaker. She takes all our Image Management courses, which, just like the rest of our portfolio, are available “one-to-one” as well.

Jo Rice: Author of over 50 books including “How to do Business in Japan”, multi-lingual Jo lived and worked in the Far East for many years and is now a leading expert in all – ALL – aspects of cultural diversity training. He delivers our Diversity Training courses – as much abroad as in the UK.

Paul Mabberley: Paul acquired his grasp of the art of presenting via, at one end of the spectrum, the UK’s creative design sector, and, at the other, university guest lectureships. He coaches our Presentation Skills courses (except Anger Management and Assertiveness Training), as well as Memory Techniques.

Genevieve Grant: Born in the USA, Genevieve came to London for post-graduate studies, and stayed. Her background has a wide span – political activist to charity organiser – and she brings the technique she’s gained to our Presentation Skills courses (excluding Anger Management and Assertiveness Training).About our clients

Here are just a few of them. Channel 4; HSBC Group; Barclays Group; Deutsche Bank; Lovells, Credit Suisse; BAFTA; Swarovski; Morgan Stanley. With or without the 50 others, we believe these names speak volumes about the quality of our client base.

Please visit www.workingvoices.com for more information on our company, our courses, our people and our clients. Then contact Tina at info@workingvoices.com.

It is tough having to deal with someone who abuses you. Moreover, it is more difficult to deal with, and manage a person, like a boss or supervisor, that has authoritative power over you. Someone that is in a position like your boss can trick you into a destructive way of behaving where you undermine your wellbeing from fear of repercussions when you address the issue.If the verbal and other forms of mental abuse begin to get really serious and even approach physical abuse, the issue can become a legal concern. I have heard that people are trying to pass legislation in an American state that disallows workplace abuse. However, unfortunately nearly all laws do not take into account verbal workplace conflict so you have got to learn how to handle bullies by yourself for your own happiness and wellbeing.Most people who lack the communication skills to deal with a bad boss either:

First Common Reaction: Endure the BullyingThis reaction to a bullying boss is a passive response. You forgo your own person needs while your boss tramples over you. The absolute last thing you want to do when being abused by anyone is accept the abuse.You must address the issue in the correct manner otherwise your confidence, happiness, and in this situation, your work will suffer. People who receive aggressive behavior that is not correctly handled have been known to develop serious health problems such as strokes, heart attacks, suicide, migraines, escalated stress levels, insomnia, and terrifying nightmares. One person who will remain anonymous often dreamed her boss pointing a gun at employees so they would complete their work.The most common reason for accepting intimidation from others is the fear of repercussions if you stick up for yourself. In a work situation, and especially with someone who has authoritative power, you probably do not defend yourself in fear of losing your job. This fear I believe is real because when most people stick up for themselves, they do so in an aggressive manner causing negative results (which you’ll soon see more about below).These passive people forgo their own needs and get dominated by others. They live in massive amounts of frustration as their anger is bottled inside of themselves. They do not have the effective communication skills to address the problem as they think they must accept what happens and live with the intimidation hoping the abusive person stops bullying. The end result is a win for the bully and a loss for the passive person.Second Common Reaction: Bully the BullyThe second common reaction to facing a bully is aggression. People who respond aggressively are willing to defend themselves and usually have more confidence than those who respond passively. They often see that in order to get what they want, they must retaliate. It becomes fire against fire. A fight starts as the two individuals take to a verbal boxing ring mentally beating out each other’s minds.People may become aggressive for several reasons:

While aggression in the workplace may create the necessary level of productivity, it is strongly related to a high turnover rate, said to be an average of 1.5 years, and other commitment problems. Employees fake sick days, become miserable, sabotage their own work, and lose passion for their work. It can create unproductive employees as they “hide” by staying under the radar, seeking to comply, while do nothing that stands out that could potentially bring them attention. The aggressive communication being exchanged between two people becomes a loss for both individuals.A Third Rare Action: Assertive Communication with the BossThe first common reaction was a passive response. The second common reaction was an aggressive response. There is a response between these two common reactions known as “assertiveness” which produces a win-win response. Assertiveness is the secret you need to face an abusive boss.Depending on the situation, occasional aggressive behavior can be definitely welcomed. In order for the aggressive behavior to be successful it must be expressed appropriately and constructively. You could even say this constructive type of aggression is like assertive communication because the end-result is a win for each party.Where passive communication fails to respect yourself and aggressive communication fails to respect the other person, assertive communication respects both individuals. There are several assertive communication techniques you can use to stop the bullying, stop your fear, build your self-confidence, and create a nice working relationship with your boss. This is the power of assertive skills. Below I’ll share some techniques with you that are useful for the specific situation of facing an aggressive boss.

The feeling of personal power is key in all interpersonal relationships. Many people are not very clear about what assertiveness is and how it differs from aggressiveness. One main difference is that aggressiveness is about power over other people, while assertiveness is about being able to assert our rights and stand up for our thoughts and feelings while respecting the rights, thoughts and feelings of others.Passive people habitually submit to other people’s dominance play, do not have clear boundaries, and are constantly being invaded by others. They tend to avoid conflict by not expressing their thoughts and feelings, avoid any sort of confrontations even when their basic rights are involved, which leaves them feeling – and being – victimized. At the same time, anger builds up in them, so when they do speak up, they tend to do it in an aggressive, attacking and blaming way rather than a constructive, solution-oriented,  assertive way. Aggressive people, on the other hand, attempt to impose their will on others, do not respect other people’s boundaries and are invasive and coercive. Aggressive people may get their way with some people at first, but in the long-run they alienate others, create a lot of stress in their social, family and work environment, experience a lot of failures in all interpersonal relationships and end up having no social support and feeling isolated and victimized themselves.Somewhere in the middle stands assertiveness which is a way of communicating and behaving that respects the rights of all relationship partners. Assertiveness requires honesty, directness, self-confidence, knowing what your rights are and being able to defend them in positive, constructive ways. Learning to act more assertively will increase your sense of efficacy, of having an impact on your environment, your chances of having honest, straight-forward relationships, your chances of getting your needs met, will improve your ability to make your own decisions and get more satisfaction out of life.Assertiveness is based on two important traits:  relatively good self-confidence and good communication skills.Self-confidence is built through our experience of effectiveness in the world. This effectiveness can be measured in many areas of experience, like academic or professional achievement, physical or athletic abilities, social and personal relationships, etc. Self-confidence is built from the inside out, meaning that we don’t expect others to provide us with self-confidence but we build it by giving ourselves credit for our strenghts, virtues  and accomplishments.Good communication skills involve being a good listener as well being a good speaker and being able to appraise a situation in a cool-headed, non-defensive or fearful manner . Assertive communicators have developed some specific skills for standing up and speaking up for themselves. They have fewer conflicts in their dealings with others, and their needs are more frequently met, so they feel happier and more in control of life situations. Most people desiring to become more assertive start from a passive behavioral baseline and require quite a bit of practice in assertive communication skills before they can see any change in the power balance between them and other people. So start slowly in the beginning, and gradually practice more and more assertive communication skills.Here are a few tips on what communication skills you need to develop and practice:

The important thing is that you keep practicing and reinforcing your assertive communication skills, rather than your initial effectiveness. It may be a new way of communicating for you, so it may take some time before it feels natural, but the more you practice your assertive communication skills, the more confidence you will gain and you will find out that  not only is it really easy, but it’s also very effective.