Approach

We harness good practice, creativity and positive thinking to reaffirm people’s confidence and enthusiasm – and use this to deliver improvement.

We believe people work, live and give of their best when their excellence is recognised and respected by others and by themselves. We help you draw on your experiences to notice these strengths and successes and use them to facilitate new ideas, change and progress.

Our coaching and facilitation help you find an energising and motivating frame – not just once, but on a sustainable basis - enhancing your organisation’s overall impact and its people's abilities to engage and lead others.

Our conversations:

are affirming experiences
use story, metaphor, image and dialogue as powerful change agents
reveal common ground through shared values & dreams
reveal higher ground – the most compelling, desirable possibilities
build your impact and reputation with clients, colleagues and partners

All of our Fruitful Conversations help you find new frameworks for understanding people and situations making you more able to connect with your audiences.

Our approach doesn’t ignore problems but recognises them as a desire for something else and then seeks to identify and enhance the ‘something else’. The purpose of our work is to help you build energised visions and plans you know you will achieve.

We draw on the guiding frameworks of NLP, Solutions Focus and Appreciative Inquiry.

Guiding frameworks

Solutions Focus

A way of defining solutions that allows you to move directly towards them, recognising and utilising helpful events and resources as you go. Solutions Focus directs your attention to an ideal and looks for forerunners of this ideal in the present situation. It then helps you progress towards your ‘perfect future’ through a combination of benchmarking and small steps.

Appreciative Inquiry

AI uses a process of questioning that works with people's strengths and successes equipping them for change and improved performance. It is theory, a mindset and an approach to analysis that rapidly leads to learning, creativity, and expanded vision. It is based on a number of principles, including the constructionist principle (we create our world) and the anticipatory principle (we grow towards what we focus on).
For more on this see the work of Dr David Cooperrider and colleagues. Appreciative Inquiry Handbook, Cooperrider & Whitney, 2008.

NLP - neurolinguistic programming

Often defined as the study of excellence - NLP is an evolving field of tools and techniques that show us how to get the best out of ourselves and others.

NLP enables us to gain a deeper appreciation of excellence in communication and how to reproduce it. It also makes explicit the processes we use to think, communicate and behave helping us to develop and move towards what we really want.

Some of the most successful applications of NLP in the context of communication have been to:

Enhance relationships by drawing more deeply on the other person's perspective and to build rapport
Develop the skills needed for effective collaboration
Improve the ability to inspire, motivate and communicate in compelling ways
Get to the heart of the matter quickly showing insight and clarity
Coach the team to sustain new skills and approaches

Strengths-based change

Fruitful Conversations are ‘practices’ for bringing possibility to life

Positive energy for progress

Our work encourages you to explore the richness and depth of communication to attract the best customers and to build the most fulfilling and productive business relationships'.
Deborah Goodall

Why clients come to us

Some of the reasons clients give are:

to develop the power of a shared vision
to help the team be really inspired by what they do
to develop our skills and understanding
to rise to a challenge or new role
to develop a different sort of conversation about our work
to be clearer about our impact on clients
to get the team to see each others strengths