Assertiveness Course - two day

Assertiveness Training Course Programme

We tailor all our courses to reflect the needs of the delegates on the day. The course content may include many of the exercises listed below, and any additional material that the trainers feel is relevant.

Assertiveness Programme - Day One

Assertiveness Introduction - What would you like from the course?

This is a chance for delegates to tell us why they have come to us and what they would like out of the two days of training.

Assertiveness Icebreaker

Here we will run a short, gentle exercise to begin the day that looks at how small changes can create unrest in all of us. This also aims to put people at ease.

Assertiveness 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.

What is Assertiveness?

Here we look at people's ideas about what they see as assertive behaviour. We then look further into these concepts and address why the things identified are perceived as assertive. We look at and/or discuss these examples and then look at what the smaller components of this behaviour is really about.

Assertiveness and 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 within the context of their own situations.

Assertiveness and 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.

The Assertiveness Behaviour model

We use a visual model to explain behaviour that is too accommodating and what happens to people under stress. This model shows delegates that even when people are offered wider latitude in choices of behaviour, we will revert to type and do what we normally do.

Assertiveness and Being Nice

In pairs, delegates will identify the everyday ways in which they are 'nice'. They will then identify some of the things they do which may not be serving them quite so well (e.g. apologising when they haven't done anything wrong, ask permission to do something when no permission from another person is really needed) and the ways in which being nice does serve them (e.g. having good working relationships with people, creating a positive atmosphere within an environment).

Conflict and Assertiveness

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.

Assertiveness - Setting Clear 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.

The Art of Saying 'No' and other Assertiveness tools

Using the 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.

Personal Style

Here delegates identify some of the things they know they already have working for them and the others add to this list of positives. When we play to our strengths the negative stuff tends to fall away and we operate from a much more productive place.

Assertiveness Wrap up

Delegates will identify at least one thing they are taking away from day one of this course and one thing they will practise on the evening of day one. We will also ask delegates to think about specific situations or people that they find tricky in their day to day lives.

Assertiveness Programme - Day Two

Checking in

Delegates are given the chance to share any thoughts or revelations which may have happened following day one of the course. We will discuss what they managed to practise from yesterday and what the effects of it were.

Nice Clichés

An opportunity to look at all of the things which have been heard, read or stumbled upon in our lives which give us rules around being nice (e.g. "If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all", "Nice little girls are seen and not heard", etc)

Assertiveness 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.

The Language of Niceness

Here people will have a play around with some of the language we tend to use when trying to be nice and helpful. Examples of this might be: using exaggerated apologies, justifying over explaining, hedging your bets ("you probably won't think this is a very good idea but"), and any other language habits that individuals might have.

Assertiveness and The Nice You

Delegates will be talked through a short visualisation of themselves at their most accommodating; they will then be taken through a second visualisation of them at their most nasty. There will be an opportunity to have some fun drawing both versions.

Assertiveness - Real Life Situations

A large part of day two will be allocated to looking at real-life situations of the delegates and gives the group a chance to 'mess around' with the options available to them. This is also an opportunity for the delegates to share best practise as well as the two trainers offering up suggestions. It is our belief that if a person tries out using something new in a training room, the likelihood of them using it in the outside world is much higher.

Being Your Full Assertive Self

Delegates are given the chance to write or draw how they see themselves as a complete, balanced and assertive human being. There will then be an opportunity for them to present this to the rest of the group.

Assertiveness Summary and Personal Take Out

Each delegate will identify what has come out of the workshop that they would like to commit to individually, what they know they will practise and the areas for development.

Delegates will put these onto an action postcard to themselves which we will send out a week later to remind and inspire them.

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

They also have access to a course web page containing

• Handouts used during the course
• New supportive material
• Impact Factory PDF documents
• Recommended reading
• Links to our favourite videos
• Photos of the day

to help further their progress.

Assertiveness Training Course