Posted: 12th March 2018
How do you define and recognise success?
We hear a great deal today about what it means to be successful. It is often couched in terms of the things we have, the places we visit, the salary or position we achieve, the responsibilities we hold, the esteem in which we are held by others, the turnover and margins we create, the rewards we have won, the times we were the best, the goals we met, the security we have founded, how happy we feel.
What if all that isn’t the whole picture? What if all those things aren’t the answer to having a meaningful life or a prospersous business?
We invite you to spend the day with us, On April 25th at Wrag Barn near Swindon, to begin your exploration of how
are, together, a powerful combination of tools that can transform communication and personal & professional effectiveness. They are timely and relevant to team building, skills for supervision, coaching, supporting HR functions, motivation for change, sustainable business planning and, ultimately, for their positive impact on a triple bottom line.
This training day is an ideal introduction for –
We will be asking and exploring some answers to these three key questions:
1. Is success a measure of who is most right, or a measure of how authentically we connect with ourselves and others?
2. Whose definition of success are we working towards – is it our own unique, personal, meaningful, achievable version or something else?
3. Is success still ‘successful’ if it requires or leads to the ‘failure’ of other people or the wider natural world?
Richard Broadbent from The Centre for Compassionate Communication in London, offered us these words to explain how Compassionate Communication, our first focus on this day, can help us to open up new possibilities in our communication with others, even when situations are stressed or difficult:
“We live our lives in relationship and all of us, whether colleagues, customers or partners, share a common experience. We want to be seen and understood; and we often wish others would speak or act differently towards us, particularly when we feel a bit stressed.
Compassionate communication offers an understanding of the dynamics of human communication that contribute to misunderstanding and sometimes conflict; and practical tools to make changes.
Choice, and the understanding that we always have a choice, lie at the heart of compassionate communication. We can learn to listen to what truly matters to others, regardless of how inappropriately they express themselves; and we can choose to express ourselves from a place different to the reactive thinking that is habitually triggered in us by events.
This capacity to choose how to listen and speak opens up new possibilities in communication because, more than any argument, explanation, exhortation or apology, it has the capacity to shift the other person onto the same ground. Then the world and all its problems may be re-perceived and what seemed improbable before now becomes a possibility.”
I hope this has sparked your interest. I’ll be posting more about compassiaonte communication and the other tools, of solution focus and permaculture ethics and design principles, in follow-up articles very soon. Our training days have a unique flavour so expect some unexpected activities and approaches to learning – we like to encourage the use of all of your senses and are aways open to a horticultural metaphor or two.
You can book your place here
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