By Judith Hirst, Greenbank Partner

As long ago as Confucius and Socrates, the wise have known that real learning comes through action, reflection and experimentation. Yes - there is a place for reading and lectures - to gain the knowledge we need to solve problems and make decisions. However when we face complex, new and downright difficult issues, we need to go beyond the theory and develop our own strategies and approaches

Over the last 15 years Greenbank have worked with individuals and groups in both the UK and around the world to encourage and promote learning and although we design and deliver workshops, we understand that real performance is only truly achieved when the learning is applied back at work.  So we are passionate about incorporating tools and techniques which can help people continue their learning in a direct work situation.

Fly-on-the-wall is one such tool - a refreshing new approach that participants have found easy to apply in the 'real world' and can lead to quick results.

Becoming a Trusted Business Advisor

By Ian Hirst, Greenbank Partner

Whether you are a consultant, a sales person, a project manager or a manager, there will be times when it is both commercially useful and personally rewarding to develop a 'Trusted Advisor' relationship with somebody.

If you have been fortunate enough to have had a trusted advisor yourself of course, you will know the benefits you have gained for the relationship - but turning this around, what are the tangible benefits in you becoming a Trusted Advisor to your clients or other contacts?  And what do you need to do to reap these benefits?

By Ian Hirst, Greenbank Partner

Do you sometimes find that in a negotiation - especially when you are on the 'selling' side of the deal, negotiations are all about going backwards from your initial proposal as you offer, hopefully low cost, concessions? In these negotiations, on a good day, you go backwards slowly and the customer does eventually agree to a way forward whilst you still have an acceptable margin.   On a bad day though, does the customer seem to scent blood and keep demanding more?

In this article, the latest in our series of negotiation articles from our win-win negotiations workshops, we explore perhaps the holy grail of negotiating - how by trading rather than conceding, an effective negotiator can emerge with a deal that is as good - or even better- than their initial proposal….