Hear and be Heard

A competency-development programme available online or in-person for self-managing interpersonal effectiveness, confident communication and constructive relationships

 “. . . One of the best development programmes in this field.”

“Probably the most important leadership development training I have undertaken . . .”

WHAT

Hear & Be Heard is a comprehensive approach to assessing and enhancing people-skills for constructive relationships within our professional and personal lives. It is conducted in two forms: online for individuals and in-house for groups and teams.

A progression of self-analysis, study, rehearsal and  incremental application enables –

• Enhanced listening, clarity, directness and ability to cooperate
• Confident self-assertion
• Competence to deal fairly and constructively with conflict
• More satisfying everyday dialogue
• Greater self-awareness, emotional intelligence and meta-cognitive ability
• Improved habits of mind
• A transformational commonality of approach to engaging in and managing relationships, problems and differences, (when undertaken by an organisation, team or meetings group).

The programme is founded on the belief that all people, including ourselves,  deserve to be treated with dignity and respect as fellow and equal human beings, at all times.   This goes to the heart of dialogue – the attitudinal foundations of our willingness and ability to hear and understand others, and to be ourselves heard and understood.

Designed by Tom Watkins, Hear & Be Heard is used by corporate and private clients to establish a commonality of approach to engaging in workplace relationships, managing problems and differences constructive work.

Hear & Be Heard goes to the heart of dialogue and confident interpersonal communication, helping reveal and deal with the belief structures and attitudes that underlie our speech, leadership and management, our listening, conflict resolution and problem solving efforts.  Although not a correctional programme for difficult people, it does enable constructive responses to people who are sometimes difficult – including ourselves.

Hear & Be Heard is diagnostic, remedial and affirming, designed to help you –

Identify and understand the causes of the difficulties you have in your exchanges with others, and those that they have with you.

Habituate simple skills, processes and practices in combinations that make very significant improvements.

Confirm the appropriateness of those aspects of your current behaviours and mental frameworks that are already responsive, mature, skilful and respectful.

WHY

Analyses of workplace challenges and successes consistently demonstrate the need for interpersonal competence as a basis for engagement, collaboration, cohesion, teamwork and high performance.  Everything else, eventually, depends on it.

There are at least two sides to every interpersonal communication challenge but we cannot make other people change.  Our best shot at making the differences that matter comes from enhancing our own practical and attitudinal responses to communication opportunities.

This approach increases the likelihood of positively influencing others with our constructive  practices. In the process we strengthen our own confidence and repertoire of mature responses to difficult, awkward, tedious, alarming or otherwise challenging interactions.

Research into thinking and intelligent behaviour (by such authors as Costa, Feuerstein, Glatthorn and Baron, Sternberg, Ennis, Goleman, Perkins and Coles) indicates identifiable habits of mind which characterise effective thinkers in all walks of life. They are developmental qualities that are never completely mastered. Seven of them are dominant themes within Hear & Be Heard:

Managing impulsivity.

• Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision.
• Persisting when the solution to a problem is not readily apparent.
• Listening to others with understanding and empathy.
• Asking questions and posing problems.
• Metacognition: thinking about our own thinking.
• Knowing what to do when we don’t know what to do.
  

“While intelligent human beings are capable of thinking skilfully, it is their habits of mind that provide the fuel to activate strategic thinking. In order to engage skilfully in problem solving, decision making, or knowledge generation, they must possess, be disposed and inclined to manage their impulsivity, display empathy, be inquisitive and persistent.”

[Arthur L Costa]

HOW

The on-line programme is self-paced over six weeks and begins with a personalised self-appraisal process to establish your current interpersonal strengths interests and goals.

The in-house programme is conducted for between 12 and 16 people in two workshops each of two consecutive days, over three weeks. Pre-requisite work and follow-up materials significantly extend the training period.  Contact Tom Watkins for details and fees.

WHO

Hear & Be Heard is best-suited to people who accept that responsibility for constructive relationships begins with improving their own practices and attitudes, and who are seriously open to change.

High levels of intellect, professional competence, status or goodwill don’t necessarily equate to interpersonal communication proficiency.

Supervisors,  coaches, senior leaders, managers and staff at all levels of responsibility gain vital reference-points, techniques and a personal roadmap for immediate and long-term improvement of interpersonal competence, whatever their current levels of competence.

Although designed to enhance professional workplace situations, the benefits of Hear & Be Heard apply equally to developing constructive relationships in our personal lives outside of the workplace.

While not a correctional programme for “difficult people”, the benefits include confidence around people who are sometimes difficult, including ourselves.

OUTCOMES

Hear & Be Heard enables a surprising degree of sustainable improvement to relationships-management practices: greater self-awareness and meta-cognitive ability; enhanced listening, clarity, honesty, ability to cooperate; confidence and competence to approach and resolve conflict. The programme will help you learn how to :

• Enhance your capacity for cooperative relationships
• Observe the interpersonal communication process while engaged in it, to enable effective choices about your own communication mode
• Determine problem ownership in interactions
• Speak so that others can easily listen and understand your needs, views, concerns or problems
• Listen so that others experience themselves as heard and understood
• Increase your sensitivity to others’ needs whilst respecting your own
• Establish and hold boundaries with other people
• Isolate and lessen behaviours and attitudes that create or inflame unnecessary or destructive conflict
• Deal with and negotiate around differences or conflict fairly and respectfully
• Respond constructively to others’ distress, problems, criticism or hostility
• Apply these skills to leading, managing, coaching others’ performance and giving constructive feedback.

REPUTATION

Hear & Be Heard has an outstanding reputation for enhancing people-skills.  Those who have studied and applied its guidelines report very significant gains in self-understanding and a surprising degree of sustainable improvement to their relationships practices: greater self-assertion, more confidence, clarity, honesty, cooperation, the ability to approach and resolve conflict openly with respect for individual differences, and more satisfying everyday dialogue.

Client comments include:

• I rate Hear & Be Heard as one of the best development programmes in this field.  I have seen my staff grow in confidence in both business and social settings after undertaking the programme.  [Vivian Blake, former COO, Southern Districts Health Board]

• Tom Watkins’ Hear & Be Heard course is the foundation on which I am moving our organisation from one that was merely surviving to one which will thrive  . . . I would recommend it as a ‘must do’ for any organisation.  [Geoff White, General Manager, Trade Aid Importers Ltd]

• ” . . . I cannot recall attending any other training which consistently (across four sessions) delivered such in-depth learning opportunities and insights. This was entirely attributed to Tom’s ability to guide, challenge and support participants towards achieving their workshop goal(s). 

• A clear and ethical conceptual basis, practical guidelines AND sufficient real-life rehearsal to gain confidence – at last!
• A most productive and empowering programme.  I made improvements I had not thought possible. 
• Deals sensitively and effectively with the ‘freight’ of old habits, beliefs and feelings, while teaching alternative practices that really work!  . . . Brilliant!
• It gave me a mandate to change my approach to relationships and much more confidence for resolving problems.
• One of the most enlightening journeys I’ve ever undertaken!
•  It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this course on the rest of my life!
• Would be great if everyone could do this – but in the first instance I think all the line managers should be exposed to these skills.
• Excellent [written] material conducive to study and frequent consultation. This should be rolled out further in the organisation.