Skills They Don't Teach on an MBA

2012

Dates for your diary

24 January

Jane Honeybourne

As an experienced Leadership Coach, Jane Honeybourne, has a passion for her clients' success, so she challenges and stretches people's thinking, inspiring individuals to act and enabling them to develop to their full potential. Jane has a background in the NHS where she continues to provide management consultancy initiatives.

Purpose and Direction - Reassess your Goals for Success in 2012

Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your brain is wired to fulfil whatever strategies you tell it to do. It will produce behaviours according to whatever you programme in. If you don't set a goal, then either someone else will govern your thinking and behaviour, or some old habitual pattern will continue to run. Setting a positive goal literally trains your mind to work and move in the direction you want to go. Successful people always have a sense of purpose and direction which is refined into specific goals that motivate them to do what it takes to be successful. This short session will be the beginning of that process for you.

Clive Benfield

Clive Benfield is Chairman and Managing Director of Coventry - based K. B. Benfield Group Holdings Ltd., which operates as house-builders, contractors, property developers and investors, and he is also a director of 13 other companies. Clive is an advocate of personal development and education and actively promotes high standards in the Construction Industry. He has served as Chair of the Construction Confederation, the Chartered Building Company, the Consultancy Board of the CIOB as well as a Governor of Coventry University.

Achieving your goals

What does success look like and when do you know you have achieved it? This session will cover

• Personal Goals - Listening to your dreams but paying the price
• Making it happen
• Affirmations- written and recorded
• Going public
• Eliminating negative behaviour
• Keeping on Track

21 February

Arti Halai

As a TV presenter, reporter and producer, Arti Halai has worked in both radio and television for some of the country's largest organisations including ITV1 Central where she was known as the face of Central News. She is a consultant and trainer on presentation, media and communication skills.

Creating memorable messages that stick!

To be successful you have to create a strong message and make it memorable. Why is it that you can recall a movie or book, certain quotes or even where you were when Princess Diana died, but forget what you heard at a presentation, just three hours earlier? In this workshop Arti Halai uses techniques to show you how to create powerful presentations that will stick in your audience's mind. You'll learn that "less is more" and why simple core messages, delivered correctly will ensure you achieve the results you want - every time.

20 March

Michael-Don Smith

Michael-Don Smith is a professional speaker, presenter and facilitator with over 25 years' experience delivering education and development programmes. As a speaker coach and speech writer, Don helps entrepreneurs and executives deliver powerful, effective and memorable speeches, with confidence, style and impact.

The Power of Positive Psychology

What happens to business and personal performance when the focus is on human strength instead of human weakness?

This is the question this refreshingly practical workshop sets out to answer. Faith in the future dramatically determines your performance in the present and this session will offer you the ideas and tools to appreciate, develop and maintain a thoroughly positive perspective.

17 April

Roy McFarlane

Roy McFarlane, Birmingham's Poet Laureate 2010-2011, has performed and read in libraries, pubs, cafes, theatres, conferences, art galleries and many other poetry events and venues.

Creative thinking

Roy will lead this workshop to give participants new, creative ways of thinking about what they communicate and how they communicate it.

15 May

Mike Pagan

Mike Pagan is a straight talker. He doesn't do fluff and is renowned for making business sense. He speaks passionately about creating clarity and focus within companies and is the author of FAFF, a guide to personal and professional productivity.

How much are your Mood Hoovers and Faffing About costing you?

Profit and productivity are the main casualties of Faffing About, be that personally or professionally. We spend and waste too much money, time and effort Faffing About on the wrong staff and clients or randomly selected untracked activities.

Long term valuable relationships are built around real substance, investment and nurturing. Anything else will keep you busy at best. Who are the stars? Where are you best relationships? Who should be removed and who could be nurtured and given more attention?

As a result of Mike's session, you will leave with

• Tools to keep you on track and prevent you from Faffing About in the wrong place
• A clear understanding of who to invest more time in
• Your own survival kit for managing the Mood Hoovers in your life

12 June

Steph Vidal-Hall

Steph Vidal-Hall qualified as a Thinking Environment Coach and Consultant in 2008 and combines this work with 20 years' experience of facilitating learning in the educational, corporate and cultural sectors. She specialises in enabling people to cut to underlying issues and find practical solutions through coaching and through the use of Transformational Meetings™

Thinking through conflict

How do we keep thinking beautifully in disagreement? How can we tell people what we need to tell them as if we were handing them the moon?

Building on previous Thinking Environment work, we will spend the session exploring these questions through discussion and practice, and using Incisive Questions™ to help us get better at handling conflict.

10 July

Rob Anglin

Rob Anglin, is Principal Partner at Anglin Associates as well as an engaging and inspiring speaker. During a successful financial planning career spanning 25 years, he has experimented and developed different approaches to negotiation and influencing strategies to assist his clients in achieving their goals.

Negotiate to win-win

You negotiate every day with work colleagues, customers, suppliers, family and even friends.  You want results in your negotiations without falling into a destructive win-lose pattern that would damage a constructive relationship.  In this workshop, you will practise the skills needed to make your negotiations effective, exploring ways to find solutions that are acceptable to all parties and leaves all parties feeling that they have won.

14 August

Paula Backen

Paula Backen is a recognised expert in the field of anger management. Her professional background in communication therapy, public sector management, alongside successfully running an IT company for 10 years, are just highlights of a varied career which indicate the breadth of experience she is keen to share.

Emotional resilience

All the technical and professional skills we learn cannot be used if we don't attend to the emotional resilience of the person behind those skills. Stress, pressure, power and control issues will be handled best by the person in touch with their emotional needs. The session will provide an introduction to the area of emotional resilience in the workplace.

11 September

Pip Piper

Over the past 14 years, Pip Piper has produced and occasionally directed over 100 films across a wide range of genres and forms in over 15 countries. His first major feature release, The Insatiable Moon, has won best foreign film at the Moondance Film Festival USA (June 2011) and best actor and best supporting actor at the recent New Zealand film awards (November 2011). Pip is a visiting lecturer in film at Birmingham City University.

Importance of thinking when considering strategy

Pip Piper will use case studies from his years in film production to encourage left field strategic thinking on how to approach major projects. (As an example, what do you do when you've planned a $NZ 7m project and learn over a weekend, with 10 days to starting time, that the amount available has been reduced to $NZ 300,000?)

16 October

Marian Hubbell

A Master Practitioner and accredited Trainer in Neuro Linguistic Programming, Marian Hubbell is a highly experienced trainer and speaker. With over 25 years experience in development, coaching and human resources, she is passionate about sharing her expertise.

Secrets of successful influencing

If you've ever had a great idea or product and just not been able to convince others, then you'll value greater insight into the art of persuasion. Knowing how to get people to do more of what you'd like them to do is essential in leadership, sales and any relationship. In this workshop, Marian offers simple strategies for influencing with integrity and gaining others' commitment to achieve the outcome you seek. You'll learn techniques to overcome communication blocks with word patterns that create the right mindset and discover how to get people on your side by appealing to what really drives them.

13 November

Ann Skidmore

Since establishing her own business 13 years ago, Ann Skidmore has trained, coached, mentored and developed more than 18,000 people. Ann is a qualified psychologist, NLP trainer, Business Coach and an Image Consultant. She has worked with a wide spectrum of industries, from SMEs to international blue chip companies, and specialises in providing bespoke programmes to suit each company's precise needs. Ann has also won two awards as an Image Coach/Consultant with Colour Me Beautiful.

Projecting a professional image

Combining her experience as a business coach and image consultant, Ann will whet our appetites around image, colour, impact, style, and professionalism. She will cover

1. The impact of image and what yours says about your organisation and how you influence through your image.
2. The top 6 secrets of the most inspired influencers and how you can use those top 6 secrets.
3. Prepping for your next influencing opportunity.

And Ann will leave us with her top 5 tips for projecting a professional image.

11 December

Rachel Davies

Rachel Davies is responsible for all commercial and operational aspects of running the gallery including financial strategy and business planning, looking after the grounds and managing the permanent and seasonal staff. She has worked with Compton Verney for over 10 years and prior to that was responsible for project finance at the Tate in London.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

A special treat in December will be a visit to the award winning museum and art gallery, Compton Verney, where our group will have a private tour of the galleries and a session with Rachel Davies, Deputy Director of Compton Verney. Rachel will tell us some of the inside stories of the development and launch of the gallery and how it has achieved the success it has and answer your questions on this remarkable project.