Our approach
“I want to influence organisations to be more human, to be places where people feel connected, creative, and able to make bold moves that feel right.”Steve Alexander, founder of Now We're Talking
It starts with connection
It all starts with connection… engaging with a complicated issue so that it becomes clear. Having a connection of trust with a team member so they won’t just tell you what you want to hear. And connection to yourself, to understand your own strengths and what sort of attitude and level of commitment you invite from others.
Connection is crucial to management. It’s the most important characteristic of a great manager, according to Google’s Project Oxygen.
Connection among team members is what allows a team to gather around a goal and work more effectively than separate individuals. It is also the key to leadership through inspiration, the kind of leadership that makes people want to grasp your vision and help you make it happen.
Connect more, connect deeper. It sounds simple, but it’s a subtle art. It’s not a set of behaviours and techniques. Where to start?
We admire the work of the Arbinger institute, looking at the fundamental building-blocks of how people relate, as humans, while getting stuff done. We’ve learned from how actors and singers connect to their audience and to each other in the moment of artistic performance.
Clarity gives freedom
What is clarity? It’s that “aha!”, that “now we’re talking!” feeling when something comes into focus.
When you have clarity, you have freedom to act, fully committed to your choice or strategy. It allows you to focus on a solution, and lets you invite others to focus by lending them your clarity.
Have you ever made a decision where it looked good on paper, but didn’t feel right? Did you go with your gut, go with what’s on paper, or put the decision off for another day?
Clarity is a form of connection – connection to the heart of a thing, whether it’s a critical strategy or the clarity of a decision that both feels right and makes sense. In other words, there are two forms of clarity, intellectual clarity, and clarity of feelings. When a project has both of these, a lot of leadership and team management problems become a lot less significant.
Sometimes clarity is elusive. We try hard to get it, but it seems to be just beyond our reach. We’ve learned to create a space outside the day-to-day where we just work on clarity.
Do it for real. Do it playfully.
Do you want to make a large impact in a short time? Play, be responsive.
We do this by engaging with the energy and emotion of the moment, as well as its intellectual truth. You already know how to do this, and by identifying how it affects your interactions as a leader, using insights from improvisational theatre and the acting techniques of Sanford Meisner, we can harness this ability to motivate and inspire those around you.
“An ounce of behavior is worth more than a pound of words.” – acting coach Sanford MeisnerTrust your gut – you already know how to do this
You already trust your gut. That's helped you get where you are today. What if you could trust it ten times more than you do now?
You know your own situation better than anyone else, so you are best person to decide what needs to change and how to change it. After all, you're responsible for the consequences.
This is why we favour coaching over consulting. Having a skilled consultant figure things out for you is a great way to solve a problem. What if you are challenged with questions that no one has dared ask, and offered fresh perspectives, that enable you to find your own solution – while at the same time improving your own capablity to address future challenges?
We offer co-active coaching, a coaching system that is designed to lead to lasting fundamental improvements as well as support immediate goals, and that calls out intuition as a core skill. Co-active coaching is used in companies all over the world, including Microsoft, IBM, Northrop Grumman, Cisco, Toyota, Wells Fargo, Herman Miller, Boeing, and The Walt Disney Company.
