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Dear <<First Name>>,

I’m glued at the moment to the BBC’s adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s book Wolf Hall. Political machinations surrounding Henry VIII’s marriage and succession questions, the rise of a commoner in the Tudor court, combined with beautiful costumes, compelling cinematography and performances - a hearty stew for the mind. Watching it has also reminded me of how we are no longer tied to the seasons in the way our ancestors were, where winter was a time of hibernation, holding out and making do until Spring relief arrived.  Now we seem far less constrained and new growth can emerge in the depths of winter. And so it does here, in this edition of Insight, with exciting new business opportunities and varied artistic endeavours amongst our team.  Yet, there’s also a nod to a side of Winter that perhaps the Tudors would recognise, where cold days and dark nights allow time for reflection and new thinking.  Here’s hoping you find this edition warming and thought provoking and all best wishes for 2015.

Best wishes
Nigel & The Impromptu Team


New Business Update

2015 has got off to a cracking start for Impromptu. As we go to press we’re putting the finishing touches on a new film produced in partnership with Floating Harbour Films for Salford Royal NHS Trust. The film will form part of a mobile app/e-learning platform designed to help staff have more effective performance conversations. A combination of lively presenter material with drama scenes aim to keep the viewer interested and give them insight into how to be successful in these conversations.

The new year also brought a new relationship, through Blue Sky, with a leading high street bank . We’ve just embarked on a national roll out of a management development programme, which 23 Impromptu role players are co-delivering with the bank’s HR team.  We also have a new client relationship with Chartwell Learning and Development with whom we shall be working on a consulting and influence programme for HR professionals from Bank of New York Mellon, who are the world’s largest ‘deposit bank’ with $28 trillion under custody.

Finally, seven of our team facilitators will be working as part of the GBB Coaching and Consultancy Team to deliver an exciting new – mobile - roll out of workshops across the UK. 38 cities across the nation will be visited by one of two specially designed and equipped haulers, which house and convert to provide customised training facilities for cohorts of up to 40 visiting delegates. The show is truly ‘on the road’… The event theme is raising the bar in customer satisfaction; the context is automotive. The delivery will be multi-media and set in a creative and highly novel context – we launch this week so watch this space for post-tour highlights!

Nigel, Director Impromptu


Professional Role Play Makes a Real Difference

In 1999 Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman published the seminal book, ‘First, Break all the Rules’. At the heart of the book is the presentation of outcomes from a massive Gallup research study. This study was conducted over twenty-five years and involved over one hundred thousand employee respondents across more than two and half thousand business units.

The principal output was twelve questions. These questions capture the most important information about the core elements of what is needed in organisations to attract, focus and retain the most talented employees. You may be familiar with them. Do I know what is expected of me at work? In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work? Is there someone at work who encourages my development? In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress? Collectively, they tell the story of those things that really make a difference; the conditions that maximise engagement and motivation, that encourage employees to give of their best, to perform, to thrive.

For the last year Impromptu has been supporting Lane4 in the delivery of an intensive and extensive roll-out of development centres, being provided to all staff with management responsibility at our mutual client, NFU Mutual, a leading insurance company specialising in agricultural and rural insurance products and services. NFU Mutual’s core business is in the agricultural sector but is also offers personal, commercial insurance and investment products to a wide range of non-farming customers. During 2014, 250 middle managers have been through the development centres and 2015 sees this being extended to include all first line managers too.

Click here for the full article by Steve Harvey...


The Genius In Everyone

A few days ago I listened to a TED talk given by Sir Ken Robinson. It was called, “Do Schools Kill Creativity.” What struck me first, was how consummately gifted Ken is as a comedian; authentic and self-effacing by contrast to many of the current crop of overinflated, self-indulgent and self-promoting stand-ups.

What really struck me, though, is how profoundly important Ken’s talk is in the context of our modern world, not just from an economic standpoint but from philosophical and moral perspectives too. As Ken says we all have a view on education, and those views often run very deep. In my opinion, Ken’s view is one that needs to be heard.

With eloquently understated passion, Ken argues that contemporary education, across the globe, prioritises the wrong things. In doing so it limits our potential and stifles our creativity. He describes that most, if not all, education systems are predicated on two interacting forces. First, the pragmatic, perhaps utilitarian, requirement to meet the demands of servicing industrial economies, a focus that was established during 19th Century industrialisation and continues to shape the primary educational agendas of today. The second, is the self-perpetuating, self-referencing and ‘disembodied’ system of matriculation, a process that reinforces the primacy of logical and linguistic conceptions of intelligence, at the relative expense of, for example, social, emotional and kinesthetic talents.

What materialises then, are education systems that are based on narrow definitions of attainment, that reinforce intellectual elitism, that anachronistically underprepare our children and students for the expanded and dynamic needs of post-industrial economies.

By way of illustration, Ken tells the story of Gillian Lynne. As a child, Gillian was suspected of having a learning disorder and sent to a specialist. She couldn’t sit still, disturbed others in class, failed to complete her homework...

Click here to read the full article...


Why Pay More? The Pros and Pros for Investing in the External Role Player for Interpersonal Skills Training.....

As a training community, irrespective of context, we are in the fortunate position that engagement of external role players for simulation based training and assessment has come a long way in the last 20+ years. Many sectors, public and private, invest in a professional service, and the benefits are well established anecdotally, via course evaluation, and in some cases benchmarked against measurable outcomes such as Customer Satisfaction Index scores and improved in-job performance. However, degrees of scepticism still exist, and interested parties sometimes find themselves needing to make a case for such service provision in the face of budget restrictions and/or the need to influence fund-holders who may have less familiarity with, or understanding of, interactive methods. This article aims to support those wanting to include professional role play in their educational activity, by offering a case for high-end external role player inclusion.

The reader may reasonably question my position on the basis that I am affiliated with role player provision in both medical education and the corporate sector, but the desire to develop a high end resource stemmed from the early 90s in wanting a first class service for medical and subsequently other learners for whom the teams I work in had, and still have, responsibility. Those learners in turn are responsible for the sensitive management and wellbeing of others, and as such deserve a robust, quality assured learning experience. To that end my position within my own organisation is the same as those reading this article...

Click here to read the full article by Dr Connie Wiskin


What Is Your Why? by Nigel Gilkes, Director Impromptu

About a month ago, I was participating in a train the trainer event for one of our clients.  As we moved through the agenda for the day, we came to an activity called “what is your why?”  It’s designed to get participants to consider and describe what they do (their job) in terms of their purpose.  A couple of intriguing examples are offered – “I give people beautiful smiles” and “I give people more time with their loved ones”.  Can you figure out these jobs? The activity got me thinking what is my why?

A couple of weeks later, during a conversation with a client about a workshop we ran together, we discuss a concern that a number of the participants on the programme had not had the ‘difficult conversations’ back at work, that the workshop was intended to prepare them for. I’m still thinking about ‘what is my why?’

This morning, on our walk to school, my four-year old daughter, not relishing a long day away from home asks me “why do you have to work today daddy?” My pragmatic answer rings somewhat hollow to me and I’m still thinking about ‘what is my why?’

Please click here for the rest of the article...

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