We are holding a workshop – Assertiveness and Workplace Confidence – at QUB, Belfast on Wednesday 18-19 February.

The realities of modern work life – flat structures, tough workloads and the need to exert influence across traditional boundaries – ensure that assertiveness skills are not an optional extra.  Aggression is unacceptable; passivity is ineffective. In this workshop you will learn an powerful set of techniques and how to use them in specific workplace scenarios, such as when negotiating or influencing.  also covered are the relationships between assertiveness and more general work-related issues, like the conflict created when giving criticism and receiving feedback. There will be special attention paid to the issue of communication in work, focusing on how delegates can build up a repetoire of assertive non-verbal communication styles and employ assertive ‘power’-words and persuasive phrases.

After participating in the two-day programme, delegates will be able to:

• Communicate their chosen message in the workplace with confidence and clarity
• Competently handle workplace scenarios that test assertiveness to the limits
• Recognise the different dynamics involved in workplace power and perception
• Plan and practice successful assertive behaviour in a step-by-step way

This course will be presented as a mixture of presentation, group discussion, role-plays and personal exercises.  While the principles which underpin this course are common to all expressions of assertive performance, the specific focus of the course is on workplace assertiveness.  Therefore, the circumstances and problems dealt with are taken from the world of work rather than, say, personal life or family relationships.

The course will be of benefit to a broad range of professional, managerial, and supervisory personnel, including those in the sales and service sectors.  Anyone who communicates with others within the workplace will find it of immediate and lasting benefit.  No previous knowledge or level of attainment is required.

This is a Short Courses Programmes (CPD) event and costs £390.

To book a place, phone Marc Forte at the School of Education (Short Courses Programmes) on 028 9097 5260 or email cpd@qub.ac.uk.

Image credit: prajuvikas.

While teaching a course in non-verbal communication recently, a thought struck me.  How do you act in a brave or fearless manner? Which specific pieces of body language can help us out here?

Smile. This is the most powerful piece of body language available to us!  As that well known psychologist Greta Garbo said, “Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening”.  Smiling gives you great power over yourself and others.

Raise your chin. If ever you are feeling down, raise your head and hold it in an upright position for a few moments.  Notice how your mood will shift almost immediately.

Maintain eye contact. When you hold someone’s gaze it means that you are in control, assertive, even challenging.  Narrow your eyes to be seen as strong and dominant.  Move your gaze smoothly and deliberately.  Of all bodily signals, the eyes reveal emotions the most accurately.

Be still. Small, inconsequential gestures show discomfort, inner turmoil or frustration.  Eliminate these ‘micro-gestures’ by taking action to solve the problems, or learning to be still by shifting your energies to thought.  Stillness and quiet signal to others that you are in control, and that it is up to them to make the move.

Stand straight. Posture reflects self-image, confidence, role and emotional state.  As Ray Birdwhistell noted, “A person’s posture reflects their past.  People who has experiences long depression may slouch and slag their bodies,  whereas people who have a positive outlook tend to hold themselves upright”.

Walk tall. However you walk you are being true to your internal rhythms and feelings.  By choosing to walk in a certain way you are presenting an image you want other to believe.  Quicken your tempt to increase your energy.  Or slow down to show deliberation.  Whatever you do, choose it.

Expand out. Take up space and look as though you are conformable in it.  Don’t shrivel up or cringe when others look at you.  Hold your arms away form your body and your elbows slightly out from your sides.  Plant your feet slightly apart.  Be significant!

Pump it up. The volume that is.  If you talk quietly you will ignored, you will sound unsure, others will talk over you.  Don’t be scared to hear yourself speak.  I don’t mean scream or fog-horn.  But try raising your voice a little and you will get the attention and time of others.

Try them out.  They actually work.  I dare you!

My feelings are mixed.  I would describe by own view as ‘open but cautious’.  Open, because it contains a heady mixture of philosophy, psychology, and self-help applications that I personally find attractive.  But I’m still cautious, very cautious.  Here are a few quick reasons why:

1. There isn’t a single, satisfactory definition of NLP. As a trainer-philosopher, this makes me nervous.  It is possible to take some of the most advanced theories and systems ever dreamed of and reduce them to a succinct definition – whether postmodernism, Marxism or whatever.  This implies that the meaning of the term is clear and distinct.  NLP can’t do this.  It is usually defined in terms that are are either so all-encompassing as to be useless (e.g. “the science of achievement”) or so fragmented as to point in a thousand different directions.
2. There isn’t much in NLP that is unique to NLP. So you open a book on NLP and ask yourself, ‘What is this really about?’  Well, there’s a bit on ‘mirroring‘…but this is a well-known technique of body language.  Then there’s something on self-motivation… but Emotional Intelligence already covers that.  The same goes for everything NLP has to say about learning styles, metaphors, memory, rapport-building, re-framing and the rest.  Even it’s central technique – modelling – was used by the likes of Maslow (my wife’s hero!) long before NLP came on the scene.  So I ask, What exactly does NLP do that other things don’t?
3. I don’t apprecaite the use of the word ‘progamming’. The human mind is neither a (sort of organic) computer, nor is it very much like a computer…in everything that matters.  NLP seems little more than a modern verion of the old behaviourist theory with its ‘stimulus/response’ model and its reliance on ‘operant conditioning’.  I find it interesting that Tony Robbins has called his own version of NLP ‘Neuro-Associative Conditioning’.  Such methods grew out of the training of animals in experiments.  They therefore exclude all that is vital to specifically human existence – freedom, conscience, an aesthetic sense, and intuition to name a few.
4. It doesn’t impress me when the founders of NLP can’t even live it out. The two founders of NLP – Richard Bandler and John Grinder – have been involved in a number of lawsuits about the ownership of their theory.  There were also the messy matters of divorce, bankruptcy and even a murder trial.  The NLP movement has splintered since then.  So much for rapport-building!  If they can’t provide a model of excellence in communication between themselves, I fail to see how they can dare to do so for anyone else.  As Jimmy Swaggart – another one who can’t practice what he preaches – might say: Physician, heal thyself!

Having said all this, people I respect have gained much through NLP to help others.  My mind is not closed.  Maybe I need to stop reading NLP books and go to one of their workshops to experience it directly.

If I can afford it, that is…

So I throw this challenge out there.  If any NLPers are reading - invite me to one of your seminars, make me a true believer, and I’ll blog you a golden write-up for free!  Any takers?