We are constantly communicating. It is difficult to articulate the role effective communication has in business today, for fear of underplaying its crucial nature in achieving outcomes and results. We all know, great leaders are great communicators. Communication not only affects our relationships for better or for worse, it is the key tool to influencing, presenting and leading in an effective, productive and meaningful way. The way we communicate forms part of our personal brand and what we are known for.

By communicating in a clear, concise and effective manner, your team will be more likely to understand what is expected of them and therefore perform to a high standard. On the other hand, if there are communication barriers, this may result in a sense of confusion or lack of direction. Your communication style is also an extension of your personality. Are you details-oriented and direct in your communication, or warm and intuitive? Recognising your style can help you play to your strengths and work on other areas in order to be more effective.

The more aware you are of your communication style, the more you can work to develop your skills as a leader.

At talkforce, we specialise in effective communication training and development. We offer a range of courses that are designed to help you understand important communication theories and how these can be implemented in the workplace. As with all of our other programs, our experienced team of ‘People Development Specialists’ aim to arm you with the knowledge necessary to work to your strengths and create positive change in your organisation. We offer ongoing training and support, and are dedicated to helping you achieve the best results for your business.

Please see below for the full list of 
communication training courses we teach:

The Oxford Dictionary defines the noun of leadership, ‘as the act of leading a group of people or organisation, or the ability to do this’. Acts of leading are not limited to managers or people with a level or authority within an organisation. Everyone within your organisation should be identified as a leader. Leaders contribute significantly to the tone and culture, and empower others to be the best they can be. The delivering tailored programs dissecting the art of leading and acts of leadership is something talkforce has continually updates and refines in line with modern trends and principals.

Developing leaders to be as effective as they can be is a critical quality assurance for the future of any organisation and for the successful execution of strategy and engagement of people. Becoming an effective leader takes time and conscious effort. Leadership development is a personal journey as well as a professional one. Someone’s ability to lead will be greatly influenced by their personal values and goals – by who they are as a person.

It’s for this reason that talkforce’s leadership training courses are designed to be adapted to a person’s unique circumstances. Our in-house team are experienced, well read, qualified and understand that there is no “one size fits all” approach to leadership development. Investing in your emerging, new and seasoned leaders, through group work or through Executive Coaching, will reveal the hidden potential in your leaders and result in greater alignment and engagement, more courageous dialogue, collaboration and trust across your teams.

Essential Leadership: an introduction to the essentials of effective leadership. Manager As Coach: further techniques for developing your presentation skills. Critical Conversations: learn how to become a coach, not just a manager. Implementing A Mentoring Program: how to best prepare for important conversations. Advanced Negotiation Intelligence: tips for setting up your own mentoring program. Workload Management: Contact the talkforce team today to enable us to work alongside you to co-create a tailored and unique solution to meet your needs and fit around your organisation. Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile. – Vince Lombardi

Individual Coaching provides the opportunity for talkforce to meet the specific needs of an individual through a tailored development program. Coaching is successful as reinforcement or as a stand-alone initiative. One-on-one development is designed to suit a range of needs.

Specific goals are set with each coaching participant & can be based on psychometric testing results or 360 feedback

Skills Coaching: for the individual seeking development in a specific skill area eg: communication / presentation skills, negotiation skills, media skills. Situational Coaching: for the individual who requires support for a specific situation eg: an up-coming “live negotiation”, presenting at a Conference, performance appraisal skills prior to a performance management meeting. Executive Coaching: for the individual seeking an all-round development with regard to the achievement of business goals.

Coaching may take the form of a one-off session or a commitment regular session for up to 6 months.

• Increased self awareness
• Enhanced skills and capability in the specific development area
• Ability to apply the developed skill to achieve specific business results
• Development of specific action plans to support the development of skills / behaviours as identified by the coach and executive
• Increased confidence to execute skills and strategies in a range of situations with a range of stakeholders
• Benchmarking and ongoing measurement of the individuals skill / behaviour
• We customise and tailor to your specific requirements.

For more information please contact us.

To facilitate something is to make the action or process easier for you or your workplace. Facilitation skills are widely applicable within the workplace and can be used anytime where a group is required to work together effectively. Every leader could benefit from undertaking facilitation training to learn techniques to encourage positive teamwork and collaboration.

Here is some more information about the role of the facilitator: Facilitation is different from presenting. When presenting, the goal is to impart information and influence the audience. The goal when facilitating is to create a framework and environment for productive conversations and learning to occur.
Effective facilitators stay neutral throughout the session or meeting, as opposed to forming an opinion and offering it to the audience.
The foundation of facilitation is that, in most instances, the answer is in the room. Great facilitators ask clear and effective questions to help individuals find answers, collaborate, learn and decide together.
This is quite an art, given that any group usually includes people with different social and learning styles. Great facilitators are also skilled at flexing the processes they use and their own style in order to maximise engagement, productivity and outcomes from individuals and from the collective group.
A good facilitator will also be able to draw on people’s strengths.
Facilitation is useful to maintain focus in meetings, keep groups on track and ensure set objectives are being met. Effective facilitators design processes to enable creativity and innovation to prosper.
Leaders or anyone working in groups will benefit from developing their facilitation skills.

talkforce offers three interactive facilitation training courses:

• Facilitation Skills: An introduction to facilitation, in particular the differences between facilitation, presenting and training.
• Creativity & Thinking Sessions: Tips and techniques for maximising creative thought in the workplace.
• Facilitation of Strategic Planning Sessions and Off-Sites: Learn facilitation skills and techniques to help you create strategic business plans.

It’s vital that you plan strategically for your business or organisation and we can help you facilitate your planning days. As an independent facilitator, we can manage the process, so your people are able to focus on the content. A further benefit is that having an independent facilitator means that your senior people don’t have to lead or steer the session and your people get a greater sense of ownership of the plan. We are experienced at managing groups, working with different styles of people, engaging and making sure everyone has an opportunity to give input into the session.

We can facilitate strategy on Planning sessions at your office or (from our experience, as a more effective option) you can have the session off-site. Your people will be away from their normal day-to-day environment and away from the distractions of the office.

• Being outcome focused
• Making sure the objectives are clearly set up and achieved
• Creating an environment where all participants feel comfortable contributing
• Ensuring the session stays on track and time is spent on the main issues
• Using questions to challenge, clarify or draw out all ideas and thoughts
• Building practical action plans
• Developing a document after the session capturing the key points discussed and the actions agreed

For planning sessions targeting a specific issue we can run a 2-hour power session. For broader planning, we recommend a 1/2 day to one or two day session to give your people the necessary background, time to develop ideas, and to clearly record the plan of action.

We customise and tailor to your specific requirements. For more information please contact us.

When we talk ‘environment’ we want you to be contemplating both the physical environment your company operates in and the social culture which exists. At talkforce, we define culture as the personality and character of your business. This personality is defined by the applied values and behaviours of a team. In developing an organisational culture, the business has to be cognisant of all key ingredients – the types of people you ambitiously wants to attract, retaining your good people, staff engagement levels and overall employee wellbeing and performance. No doubt once the aforementioned factors are enhanced, that the company will enjoy a greater sense of purpose, connection and stronger results. A positive staff culture will also ensure self and group accountability, so that when a team member is behaving inappropriately, the team have the imprimatur to challenge it and conversely, if they see the right behaviours, they can acknowledge someone.