Assertiveness Skills Open Course. Communication skills training courses, presentation skills programmes, public speaking, leadership development and executive coaching.

Impact Factory runs tailored Stress Management programmes

We also run Open Assertiveness Training Courses

and personalised One-to-One Executive Coaching

for anyone who is interested in Assertiveness Issues

Assertiveness Skills Course

This course addresses people's concerns of not being liked and offending others; with setting effective boundaries and behaving appropriately when pressed by other people; and with being able to say no when they need to. It can also look at managing conflict and achieving a better balance between work life and home life.

It's designed to help people feel better about who they are and to recognise the store of resources they already have at their disposal. It's not a course about teaching the 'right' way to behave, more about opening up increased choices and possibilities.

Programme

Feelings

This exercise specifically recreates the feelings that people have when they have to do something they find particularly difficult. For instance what happens to them when they are in an uncomfortable or new situation. We then look at the ingrained behaviours associated with those feelings.

Assumptions

Here we help identify the assumptions individual participants make about other people and look at how that can affect how any communication then happens.

Boundaries

This section deals with personal space boundaries as well as internal issues that people would rather not talk about. It is particularly useful for people who have a hard (if not impossible) time saying 'No'. It's particularly useful for people who have a hard time setting priorities because of other people's demands.

Status

This set of exercises looks at situational, rather than hierarchical status. They demonstrate that it isn't always necessary to be assertive in order to get your message across. Participants learn to lower and raise their status depending upon the situations they are in, in order to change the outcome of the interaction. It helps people begin to see how a change of behaviour can be an easy way of not getting involved in other people's agendas.

Conflict

Two exercise which deal with conflict resolution and defusing potential arguments. We look at the reasons for conflict and ways to build bridges between people.

Language

Language is one of the most powerful tools we have for conveying overt or covert messages, or ones we didn’t intend. We look here at the phrases, words, clichés and axioms accommodating people use to apologise, justify and defend themselves and generally use to pad out what they are saying rather than get to the point.

Patterns

This exercise is designed to demonstrate to delegates that even when offered wider latitude in choices of behaviour, we will revert to type and do what we normally do.

Behaviour model

We use a visual model to explain behaviour that is too accommodating and what happens to people under stress.

The Art of Saying 'No' and other useful tools

Using material already identified by the delegates we will look at some of their more common difficult situations and people to see what other choices they could make to create a different outcome.

Support

The final exercise of the day is for each delegate to devise a personal Plan of Action, identifying their personal take-out of the programme, where they know they will practise and areas for development.

Finally we have people identify what will stop them putting this into practise and what support they need to help themselves put the course work into practise.

Assertiveness Skills Training and Development