Principles

A total commitment to quality

It's the details that make the difference

Reflecting our philosophy of delivering learning sustainability and training return on investment, we employ the following principles to help us deploy our approach of building people’s abilities around the cornerstone of their individual personalities.

In the same way that involving an audience in a presentation can increase their message retention (research says by 400%), we believe that involving you and tailoring our programmes to fit your exact requirements can exponentially increase the impact and sustainability of your people's learning. We do everything we can to sculpt our programmes so that they meet the needs and demands of your business, your operating environment, your industry – and we do this at no extra charge (origination of custom-built programmes are an exception).

As well as tailoring our programmes for your business, we also personalise our programmes for your people so that each and every individual receives highly individualised coaching (even in group workshops). We do this using the information we receive from the short online Self-Evaluation and Intention Questionnaire that all participants complete a week or so before the workshop. We also ask, wherever possible, for a pre-briefing on each participant, either by their line manager or HR/L&D.

Much like driving a car, learning to deliver a presentation requires practice. For this reason we don’t have a ‘look and learn’ approach. Instead all our programmes are extremely hands-on and high-intensity. Typically they comprise two-thirds skills practice time together with individualised advice, guidance and mentoring on that practice. We believe that our programmes offer more practice time than any other provider we know. Not only that, but the practice is reality-based and business-focussed. As an aside, our learning components don’t consist of nice-to-know, fashionable sound bites, but immediately applicable best-practice principles, wisdom and knowledge. Our experience has demonstrated that this combination of honed practice and applicable theory delivers the most significant and sustainable results.

Nerves and a lack of confidence are common traits amongst individuals presenting in high-stakes business environments. Our emphasis on practice, and individual advice, personalised guidance and 1-to-1 mentoring guarantees a very comfortable, safe and supportive environment where participants can experiment, learn and grow. Couple this with an approach focused on helping people to develop their own authentic personal presentation style and they don’t feel coerced or pressured into being someone they are not. This environment really enhances the confidence and ability of those we work with, and the impact and the sustainability of our training and coaching.

Very often ‘feedback’ simply refers to ticking off ‘do’ and ‘do not’ boxes. It’s formulaic, prescriptive and views everyone through ‘one lens’. At SecondNature we have a feedback framework model that recognises every person is an individual with existing strengths that should be harnessed, and unique development opportunities to be addressed. With this in mind our feedback involves expert, accurate and constructive advice with individualised guidance and mentoring. We believe it’s our absolutely personalised feedback that delivers the transformational results for which we are renowned.

For many business people the process of writing and preparing for presentations can be time consuming and arduous. To make that process second nature, we have developed the world’s first, all-in-one, compact presentation tool – the revolutionary Presentation Mapper™. Unique, innovative, progressive and contemporary, it makes writing any presentation quicker, easier, and much more effective. Not only does the Presentation Mapper™ save time, it dramatically improves presentation structure, increases clarity, and boosts impact and persuasiveness. And when you have a clear, structured message and an easy-to-follow, compelling narrative, this helps hugely in delivery. And outcome! It's available online too.

Looking professional and up-to-date is not just window dressing. It impacts upon learning by reinforcing the value of your organisation’s investment to your participants, and SecondNature’s expertise and credentials as your learning partner. Our courseware includes a high quality wallet containing our full colour revolutionary Presentation Mapper™, coaching guides, notepad, pen and pencil. Before our workshops every participant receives an onboarding email inviting them to register on the programme, access our Performance Support Centre (PSC), and then complete a short online Self-Evaluation and Intention Questionnaire. Immediately after the workshop, supplementary learning resources become available in the PSC, and everyone is sent an email to remind them about the resources on the PSC. They also begin to receive a series of 12 very short and powerful skills ‘Remind, Refresh, Reinforce’ emails, one each week. Each of these elements serves to encourage a feeling of ‘being in the hands of the experts’ which gives the participants the confidence to fully participate and engage in the learning experience and to apply their new skills back in the workplace.

All SecondNature programmes are run as client-exclusive, in-house programmes. We do not run public or ‘open’ programmes. There are 3 main reasons for this, all related to our overriding commitment to deliver transformational results in business skills performance:

Tailoring – public programmes, by definition, cannot be industry relevant (let alone company specific), as attendees can come from all sorts of businesses and organisations. This means the training that they receive can only be generic in its focus and cannot deal with any aspects relevant and particular to the industry, the business or organisation, or the team present.

Confidentiality and business focus – in a public programme it is very difficult to guarantee that there will not be delegates who work for your competitors. Business presentations are, very often, if not highly confidential then at least commercially sensitive – the content of which cannot be divulged outside of the organisation, especially with the possibility of competitors being present! If the objective for businesses investing in their people is to improve business presentation performance, it is our very strong belief that this can only really happen if the practice is on the actual business presentations that the participants deliver in their role - an impossibility during a public, open programme.

Practice – most public programmes are attended by a larger number of participants (10 or more is common). This means there is far less time during the workshop for each participant to practise the skills discussed, and for individual feedback, advice, guidance and mentoring. We know that individual practice and personalised feedback are the keys that unlock people’s ability to learn and apply new skills. And so increase their professional capability. This is why the vast majority of our different workshops are small groups and why we insist on devoting more time to practice and feedback than any other provider we know. As the saying goes ‘practice makes perfect’.

Enquire Today On +44 (0) 330 113 6222

Powerful, results-driven, business presentation skills programmes

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