Three Core Business Skills for Emerging Leaders

Helping mid-career professionals build the skills they need to step up and thrive in the first ‘big job’.

THREE ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR YOUR NEXT GENERATION

OF BUSINESS LEADERS

Being a business professional is a challenge for even the most talented. You might start as a technical specialist, but pretty soon you’re expected to be team manager, business strategist, internal consultant and even the public face of your business.

On top of that, you need to think about self care, life balance and personal boundaries too.

The common factor is your communication skills: forming new relationships, speaking in meetings and at events, and working with others to deliver results.

To that end, we focus on three specific areas:

We draw on four decades of business experience and techniques from fields as diverse as theatre, storytelling, psychology, accelerated learning, group dynamics and more to create unique workshops that can utterly change how people interact with each other, and give them new-found confidence to thrive in challenging situations.

We run trainings as one-day workshops open to anyone, and as half-day and one-day workshops for your teams in-house at your choice of location.

BUSINESS CULTURE STARTS WITH PEOPLE…

With ever-rising recruitment costs, it’s more important than ever to keep your people on board for as long as you can.

That means creating and sustaining an environment in your teams and in your business where people can thrive.

That’s not something ‘The Management’ can mandate. It can only come from how people behave with each other in the workplace from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. It means building the skills to express yourself effectively and respectfully. It means building the skills to respond with resilience and resourcefulness when fuses get short, someone gets clumsy and you’re in the shrapnel zone.

That’s why I teach what I teach. I’ve seen too many people get hurt by the kind of careless words and thoughtless actions that happen even between people of goodwill when the pressure is on.

Many of the skills and strategies are about getting your message across effectively. Others are about how to protect yourself and stay safe when all hell is breaking loose — in conversations, in meetings and on stage.

Here’s the truth: communication is as much about receiving well as it is about expressing yourself well.

Want to know more? Let’s talk. And listen.

Power Networking

Business Networking Skills

Create business and career opportunities where others see nothing — a practical, hands-on, interactive one-day training to revolutionise your business networking results!

Confidence, Presence and Purpose

Public Speaking and Presentation Skills

Build your inner confidence, your personal presence and your authentic voice. Speak with authority and credibility — even impromptu off-the-cuff!

Working Through Others

Delegation, Communication and Mentoring Skills

Transform how you work with others, support your team and get things done. Grow your confidence and self-assurance, even in the most difficult situations!

“Having worked with many training consultants over the years, Jim was the first to become truly ‘one of the team’. I’m convinced that the interactive exercises he created did more to facilitate learning than any amount of slideware could have done.”

David T
Director, PwC

"Really enjoyable..."

“Inspiring, helpful, challenging and useable. Best aspects were learning about body language and how to sound authoritative. Really enjoyable!”

Jos B
Consultant

"An Illuminating Day..."

“Engaging, stimulating, relevant, worthwhile. I have had an illuminating day – and learned how better to approach something I felt intimidating previously”

Richard P
Consultant

"Fantastic!"

“Very positive! Great! Fantastic! Every team should do a course like this one!”

Marta D
Consultant

I'm Jim Pirrie.

I’ve been training and coaching business professionals since 2003, following two decades working at the heart of blue-chip technology and service businesses, managing new product introductions, fixing broken operations and leading business development and marketing teams.

Since starting my training consultancy, I’ve studied drama, performance and voice at a leading London theatre school; travelled to the NLP University in Santa Cruz, California to become a Certified NLP Trainer and Consultant; studied Group Dynamics with the world’s leading authority; and I’ve completed the professional storyteller training at the International School of Storytelling.

Somewhere along the way I gained an MBA from one on the UK’s leading busienss schools.

The three areas I specialise in form the foundation of a successful senior career. They are essential for anyone stepping up from a technical specialist role into a middle or senior management and leadership role. The challenge is the same whether you’re an accountant, lawyer, consultant, engineer or developer: build on the foundation of your technical expertise and build the interpersonal and communication skills and flexibility to meet the challenges of business at a whole new level.

I teach practical, effective, hands-on strategies and skills, based on learning from some of the finest experts in their field in the world, my own four decades of business experience at all levels, and my work training and coaching people in some of the most prestigious and demanding global companies.

The workshops I run are highly interactive and participative, often described as ‘inspirational’, ‘energetic’ and ‘challenging’ as well as being ‘valuable’, ‘useable’, ‘insightful’ and ‘worthwhile’.

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