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Dear <<First Name>>,

Welcome to this season's newsletter, and thank you for finding some time in your busy schedule to have a look at it. In this issue we showcase two great case studies and report on our annual social.

It’s been a wonderful summer, and we hope all of our associates and readers enjoyed the later bursts of beautiful sunshine experienced across the UK. Thanks to our relationships with NFUM, and SRFT, along with other new and continuing programmes, it’s been a particularly busy summertime, and one full of new experiences. We hope you’ve all had some relaxation too, and welcome hearing your travel stories if you’ve been away. Looking ahead to the rest of Autumn - and the inevitable run up to Christmas (which seems to start earlier every year!) - we wish you all a happy, healthy and balanced season with lots to look forward to. Below are some quotes celebrating Autumn that we hope you find cheerful….

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower"
(Albert Camus)

"Autumn…the year's last, loveliest smile"
(William Cullen Bryant)

"I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion"
(Henry David Thoreau)

Best regards
The Impromptu Team

Photo taken at The Conference Park, University of Birmingham.


BUSINESS UPDATE AUTUMN 2014

2014/5 is proving to be our busiest year ever and looking across the spread of work we’re currently involved in it’s great to see the range of opportunities for our team with new clients and old.  We feel privileged to work with forward looking and innovative organisations and never forget that it’s the quality calibre of our team that brings our clients and us continued success. What follows is a flavour of the work we’re currently involved in.

Our work to support Salford Royal Foundation Trust (SRFT) embed its new appraisal process is well underway, with over 500 managers having been through a one day training programme and a series of high impact 2 hour sessions for the Trust’s 5,500 staff about to commence.  We are also working closely with Salford and partner Floating Harbour Films to produce content for an e-learning/ap based resource to help embed learning following on from the programme.

Our partnership with Blue Sky continues to grow with new work on a major customer service training programme with British Gas.  We’ve also just heard the great news that the Capita leadership development programme featuring one of our business simulations, will now be offered out to the rest of the Capita organisation.  With another 4 cohorts already identified, this could become a flagship leadership development programme both for Capita and Blue Sky.

Polarcus is a pioneering company in the field of marine seismic exploration and we are embarking on a new piece of business in partnership with W2 training on a 4-day safety leadership programme...

Click here for the full article....


Steve's Corner'
'Steve's Corner' is a regular editorial written by Steve Harvey, Director, Impromptu Ltd.

Assume All Are Potential Allies

A couple of years ago I was introduced to a paper by Allan Cohen and David Bradford* which introduces a framework for ‘influencing without authority’. I have been thinking about this a lot recently; what it means, what it tells us about the capacity of humans to really collaborate with each other, and sometimes how difficult it is to overcome the personal goals and interests and positional thinking that prevents us from doing so.

Like all really powerful models it works on the principle and mind-set level rather than offering a prescription of approaches or tools. The cornerstone of the model is articulated in the first condition, ‘Assume all are potential allies’. It’s a deceptively simple idea (ideal even) and yet, like many concepts that drive right to the heart of our being, it is often elusive and devilishly difficult to accomplish.

When I look around me, when I think about the work I do, I see so many instances of people struggling with it. We have been working for a while with a global technology company. Often the conversations they want to practice are internal ones where the obvious shared interest (the allegiance) is the benefit of the organisation, the company that both/all the protagonists’ work for. Yet, in so many instances the conversations are riven by ‘enemy’ mind-set, characterised as they often are with mistrust and oppositional agendas; attitudes that seem to be informed by territorialism and competition rather than collaboration and mutual gain.

And I know, from my own experiences how difficult it is to challenge these destructive impulses. Not so long ago I was engaged with a tricky and protracted negotiation with an important client.  Throughout the conversations there was continued reference to ‘partnership’ and ‘collaboration’ and ‘shared opportunities’. And yet, it felt, frequently in the subtext of the dialogue, that their approach was positional and competitive. In my worst moments I wondered if I were being manipulated, taken for a ride. I endeavoured to maintain my integrity, to hold onto the values of principled negotiation, of seeing the others in the negotiation as my allies. In doing so, as I looked harder into myself, I began to see that my own behaviours and attitudes were driven by a competitive instinct, that I was seeing the discussions through the filters of my own prejudices and assumptions and that my self-righteousness indignation was, in itself, a form of oppositional position taking.

The pessimist in me wonders if there is something endemic in the human species that drives us toward competition, self-interest and greed; that the misunderstood and misquoted Darwinian notion of ‘survival of the fittest’ might hold some truth in describing the biological (and by extension, psychological) process of natural selection. But this isn’t our default; I am convinced of it. Our natural proclivity is toward collaboration, not competition. Competition is a response that we learn, that is thrust upon us, one that suppresses and distorts our natural instinct to co-operate.

In our ever complex digitally networked global context, the need for collaboration, for diversity, for assuming that all are potential allies is becoming ever more critical. It is through us searching for and re-finding this impulse that we will create the opportunities for humankind to work together, to innovate, to connect, in order to create a better world.

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”        Charles Darwin

* The Influence Model: Using Reciprocity and Exchange to Get What You Need.’ Allan R. Cohen and David L. Bradford; Journal of Organisational Excellence, Winter 2005

Steve has many years experience in the application of interactive learning methodologies. He is the company's Finance Director and Team Manager and has a background in teaching, marketing, sales, outdoor sports education and management development. He has a degree in Creative Arts, an MA in Education (research) and a Diploma in Performance Coaching.


Impromptu Summer Social

Many thanks to all who attended our Team Social Event on September 27th in ‘The City of Dreaming Spires’. The Oxford University Club did us proud with a wonderful venue overlooking the college playing fields, a relaxed mingling space, great hot buffet and plenty of chilled bubbly. Our associates most certainly deserve to be recognised for their efforts throughout the year and we hope this party conveyed the very big “thank you” that we wanted to say. It was our best attended social, and lovely to see team veterans meeting newer associates in an informal setting. Stories were shared and relationships built through the evening, and we all had a chance to catch up with colleagues (and friends) that we might not have seen so recently.

We all agree that the work we do together is most enjoyable and stimulating, but it was nice to meet this once minus scenario or flipchart! We hope to repeat this event in the future, so welcome feedback from this year’s attendees and ongoing suggestions from the wider team. Well done Gregor for pulling it together – it was a memorable and happy day.

Connie

Pouting beauties Alison, Richard & Lisa!


Case Studies

Enabling Transformational Change

What the client wanted

The Argos objective was to enable a cultural transformation across the entire business. The transformation would enable Argos to compete in a digital age, retaining old customers and attracting new ones. A vital part of their strategy was to engage the hearts and minds of their employees and in order to achieve this a ‘Transformation Programme’ and a ‘Roadshow’ were created. The focus of these two programmes was to engage store managers, duty managers, supervisors and colleagues in the change occurring within the business, and to support them, creating a workforce which was engaged and ‘bought in’ to the transformation process. The programme needed to prepare colleagues to be change ready for the transformation and for the many changes that were to be landed within the stores.

What we did

Impromptu’s role in the execution of these two programmes was to support the learning and development consultancy Lane4, through our expertise in role-play delivery and facilitation. We worked closely with Lane4 and the client to create robust, believable and realistic scenarios around customer service, colleague/customer engagement, influencing, challenging customers and selling. Delegates were able to put into practice the new skill sets acquired, in a safe environment; giving and receiving feedback from each other and from the Impromptu role player/facilitator. Delegates were put into their ‘stretch’ zone in terms of product knowledge, customer service and their own emotions when dealing with customers, enabling them to further embed the new skills learned over the course of the programme.

Click here to read more...


Aligning Performance with Strategy

NFU Mutual - Strategic Development Centre

What the client wanted

Impromptu has been working in close partnership with leading consultancy Lane4 to deliver a strategically focused development programme for insurance company, NFU Mutual. NFU Mutual started out providing insurance solely to the farming population. In 2014, having grown and expanded into new areas, and with more than 300 branches nationwide, targeting rural communities, they wanted to ensure their year on year growth continued whilst staying very close to their historical values.

In order to drive performance and engage staff in all areas of the organisation NFU Mutual knew they had to tightly align the whole business behind their strategy. Lane4, in partnership with NFU Mutual, designed a development programme to deliver these performance aspirations. This consisted of half day with the board and a one day workshop for the 70 Heads of Department followed by 2 day Development Centres for 500 managers across the business, rolling out across a two year time-frame.

The development centres comprise a number of challenging activities designed to stretch and develop participants, included working one-to-one with Impromptu role players, group sessions and individual reflection exercises, feedback from which leads to the production of a robust development plan for each attendee.

What we did

Impromptu’s involvement has been an integral part of these development centres. Participants engage with three diverse, one-to-one performance management related coaching conversations across the two days. Each role play is observed by the participants’ coach and each provides invaluable feedback to help in the building of their development plan.

Click here to read more...

Impromptu

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