Workshops

We’ve adapted our face-to-face workshops into live interactive experiences for teams working remotely. Our faculty deliver the same inspirational content using simple video conferencing tools and participants are given a structured workbook to complement the learning experience.

20 EMOTIONAL SKILLS TO HELP BUSINESSES THRIVE

We deliver learning experiences for the modern world of work, collaborating with you to build a tailored programme based on the emotional skills needed by your teams in order to thrive. As well as developing the individual, we recognise relationships with others as an essential component to a thriving organisation. We apply psychological and therapeutic insights to team dynamics, encouraging self-awareness and strengthening communication.  

Workshops are available virtually or in-person, and each workshop is accompanied by extensive supporting materials designed to help embed the learnings, allowing participants to practise the relevant emotional skills long-term.  Each workshop is 2-hours long and for up to 30 people at a time.

What to Expect from a Business Workshop at Guidelight

Our Business workshops are delivered via Zoom by expert teachers and feature enlightening lessons and interactive exercises to help employees and leaders flourish at work.

Our approach creates a space for structured self-reflection to transform the way we see ourselves and others.

Your work life affects your personal life and vice versa. Being successful at whatever you do depends on clear communication. If you cannot connect to your clients and coworkers, you simply will not reach your goals – both financial and spiritual.

We have adapted our workshop approach for work teams so that you can apply communication skills to relationships with coworkers and clients. This approach means you will enjoy your work more and make it more meaningfull. Guidelight offers these workshops online and in-person. 

They cover topics such as: 

• Adaptability: Look for the ‘type’
• Calm: Expect the worst
• Charm: Show vulnerability
• Communication: Slow down, tune in, stay curious
• Confidence: Embrace your inner idiot
• Creativity: Translation, repositioning, reorientation
• Decisiveness: Don’t delay
• Diplomacy: Avoid ‘imported energy’
• Effectiveness: Recognize competing goals
• Eloquence: Get specific about the good, the bad, and the ugly
• Empathy: Make use of your human superpower
• Entrepreneurship: Turn frustrations into opportunities
• Innovation: Start from your higher purpose
• Leadership: Understand your ‘blind spots’
• Objectivity: Don’t believe your feelings
• Playfulness: Solve that problem like a…
• Purpose: Reconnect meaningfully
• Resilience: Take stock of what you can rely on
• Self-Awareness: Know yourself
• Supportiveness: Make time for others

These enterprise sessions last for two hours and can accommodate up to 30 participants. You know that any business depends on relationships. If your connections are not strong, your business will falter.

Talks

Emotions are part of every interaction. It’s important that you recognize the role that your feelings play in your business. At Guidelight, we offer a series of one-hour interactive lectures on the role of emotions in business and office life. Guidelight faculty members give brief, engaging talks aimed at a larger audience.

These talks tackle tough issues such as emotional problems at work and how to collaborate successfully. Your organisation cannot afford to ignore these complicated emotional issues, and our business talks help you find practical ways to address them. 

Topics include:

Emotional Intelligence at Work

A high IQ does not guarantee that you will be an effective business person. Emotional intelligence is at least as important as your “book smarts.” Without robust emotional intelligence, your team members will have difficulties working together and relating to clients. You will also spend too much work time trying to untangle employees’ conflicting agendas. This talk explores emotional intelligence and offers ways to develop key emotional skills that everyone needs to be successful in work and in life. You’ll learn how to manage the psychological dynamics that affect your team while maintaining your objectivity–and sanity.

The Importance of Collaboration

All successful workplaces rely on effective collaboration. The myth of the lone creator is a dangerous one in this age that depends on people working together. Sadly, many people have never learned to work well with others. This talk defines the true nature of collaboration and provides relevant examples of successful team efforts. You’ll learn just how beneficial true collaboration is to your company and to your personal relationships.

Agility in Times of Change

In this economic period, you cannot go a month without experiencing a significant change, one often caused by technological breakthroughs and worldwide e. In the past, employees might perform the same duties in the same way for years. Some enjoyed this predictability. Others felt stifled.

Now, your organization has to be ready to change at all times, and so does your workforce. This new reality often causes stress and a loss of productivity. This talk helps every business learn to navigate this climate of change by being agile and flexible. You will learn strategies to help you and your employees cope with today’s changeable business climate. Your company cannot afford to be mired in nostalgia but must be ready to embrace the excitement and potential of nearly constant, life-affirming change. 

Diversity and Belonging

Embracing a diverse business culture means doing more than making minor adjustments such as celebrating different national customs each month. You need to understand what diversity and belonging mean and what steps your company must take to achieve these standards. This talk defines Deep-Level Diversity and how your company’s culture can reflect it through education, values and neurotypicality. (Some discussions use anonymity to guarantee free expression.) 

Talks are available for groups of up to 300 people and are delivered virtually or in-person. Larger groups can be accommodated for a higher fee.

Management Series

Despite the common myth, leaders are made more than they are born. True leadership is not determined in the womb. Even Churchill did not come into the world ready to win WWII. In fact, leadership is defined by specific emotional skills such as decisiveness, purpose and resilience–skills you can learn and develop over time.

In recent years, organizations have changed their power structure from strictly vertical to more horizontal. Your company benefits from diverse leadership and more leader accessibility. You need these factors because of the constantly changing technological and economic landscapes. Strong leadership is more vital than ever. That’s why we created the Management Series, a dedicated programme of workshops for senior colleagues in an organisation, including managers, department heads, executives and other aspiring or existing leaders. 

Anyone in your company can benefit since these sessions are meant for both individuals and teams. You can choose from the following workshops:

Leadership

This workshop spotlights the challenges that modern leaders face by examining the history of leadership. You’ll also learn how your own strengths and weaknesses affect your ability to lead and how you can inspire others to grow as leaders.

Self-Awareness

People often do not always see themselves clearly. Our vision of ourselves may be unrecognizable to others. This workshop aims to lead you to a more accurate understanding of your personality and behaviour. The sessions will also demonstrate how understanding your own mind leads to being the best possible version of yourself. 

Purpose

Being part of an organization means focusing on the needs of the business instead of just your individual wants and desires. This workshop teaches you how to align your personal talents and passions with those of the organization, how to both gain and show appreciation for work, and how to inspire others to share a united vision.

Decisiveness

When does weighing your options become a weakness? This workshop examines the psychology of decision-making and the need for a balance between instinct and reason. You will learn how to maximize your successes and mitigate your mistakes while making moral and ethical decisions. 

Resilience

Resilience is more than strength; it’s the ability to deal with difficulties by bending and not breaking. This workshop teaches you how to cope with the challenges of change and loss, how to gain a new perspective on difficulties and how to find tools and strategies for enduring and recovering from problems.

Supportiveness

While some people believe the workplace thrives on competition, it really thrives when leaders are supportive. This workshop teaches participants how to listen, how to ask thoughtful questions and when to give feedback. A vigorous leader knows how to show supportiveness through action as well as words.

Innovation

Each Management Series workshop is available as a virtual experience that comes in two 90-minute sessions. Or you can choose the in-person option, which is one three-hour session. Both options come with extensive supporting materials and exercises that help each participant practice new workplace behaviors. You’ll learn management skills and methods for sharing those skills with others in your organization.

Employee Engagement

Do your employees come in to do a job or be part of a team? It is up to your organization to create an environment where all employees feel they are working toward identifiable goals. Our 90-minute Virtual Conversations address three themes: Diversity and Belonging, Work-Life Balance, and Culture. Your wellbeing involves more than a good diet and lots of sleep. You and your employees need to feel you are doing work that matters.

Adaptability: look for the ‘type’

Calm: expect the worst

Charm: show vulnerability

Communication: slow down, tune in, stay curious

Confidence: embrace your inner idiot

Creativity: translation, repositioning, reorientation

Decisiveness: don’t delay

Diplomacy: avoid ‘imported energy’

Effectiveness: recognising competing goals

Eloquence: get specific about the good, the bad, and the ugly

Empathy: make use of your human superpower

Entrepreneurship: turn frustrations into opportunities

Innovation: start from your higher purpose

Leadership: understand your ‘blind spots’

Objectivity: don’t believe your feelings

Playfulness: solve that problem like a…

Purpose: reconnect with meaning

Resilience: take stock of what you can rely on

Self-Awareness: know yourself

Supportiveness: make time for others

Talks

A series of one-hour interactive lectures on the role that emotions play in business and office life. Delivered by experts from Guidelight faculty, they provide a brief but thorough introduction to some ground-breaking ideas for a larger audience.

Talks from The Guidelight for Business
Our Talks provide a wise, thoughtful and entertaining perspective on some of the largest and thorniest questions employees and organisations face in today’s world: from dealing with emotional problems at work; to the keys to effective collaboration; to techniques to help us better understand our own minds. Delivered by experts from The Guidelight faculty, they’re  a brief but thoughtful introduction to some ground-breaking ideas for a larger audience. Talks are available for groups of up to 300 people, and they can be delivered virtually or in-person. Larger groups can be accommodated but will incur an additional fee.
 

1. Emotional Intelligence at Work

   In today’s workplace, our success is dependent on our capacity for emotional intelligence: it’s what enables us to confront with patience, insight and imagination the problems we face in our relationship with ourselves and our colleagues. In this talk, we’ll explore the meaning and benefits of emotional intelligence and ways of developing the key emotional skills required to prosper at work and in life.
We’ll then consider the psychological dynamics of the workplace – how unbridled emotions and neuroses determine our behaviour – and how we can use emotional intelligence to negotiate these with patience and skill, becoming more mature, serene and fulfilled people in the process.
    
2. The Importance of Collaboration
   Though our society tends to glorify lone creators, it is only by collaboration that we achieve the most important accomplishments. Only in the last century or two (as work has become more intellectual and psychological and economies have massively scaled up) has complex collaboration become an ordinary part of working life. But now that it is so common, it’s often the single biggest factor determining whether a project, team, or organisation is a success. In this talk, we will learn about the remarkable benefits of collaboration, consider what collaboration really is (and isn’t), and discuss examples of collaboration in history, politics and business. We will consider ways that we can combine our strengths with those of others and practice communicating more clearly and disagreeing more constructively in order to further collaboration.
    
3. Agility in Times of Change
   The modern world of work has come to be defined by change and technological innovation. At a time when businesses have to move quickly to keep up, agility has become a core skill,  one which helps every organisation to navigate the shifting demands of their industry. In this talk, we will learn about the obstacles which leave us feeling as if agility and flexibility are too daunting or impossible. We will also discuss different pathways to fostering a more agile and adaptive culture within your workplace, and consider the role that nostalgia and anticipation have to play in shaping our expectations for the future.
    
4. Diversity and Belonging
   Diversity has become something of a buzzword for modern businesses, but the importance of creating a diverse and inclusive culture runs further than surface-level adjustments. Thinking through the wider meaning of diversity has the potential to reinvigorate your entire organisation. In this talk, we will discuss the importance of Deep-Level Diversity (which includes such things as education, values and neurotypicality) as well as the role that various psychological factors play in shaping our relationships and experience of work. Some discussions will employ anonymity to allow a free expression of different perspectives.

Management Series

A dedicated programme of seven workshops for existing aspiring leaders – managers, officers, department heads, executives and entrepreneurs. Each workshop is three hours long (rather than the usual two), covering each skill in greater depth at a more advanced level for those looking to enhance their overall management style.

About The Management Series
True leadership is a surprisingly rare ability, so much so that it can be tempting to regard it as innate, and consider those who possess it as somehow ‘born to lead’. Yet in truth, leadership is defined by a set of specific emotional skills – skills like decisiveness, purpose and resilience – that can be taught and developed over time. With organisations becoming less and less hierarchical and the changing technological and economic landscape posing a host of new challenges, mastering the skills of leadership has never been more difficult – or more vital.
That’s why we created the Management Series: a dedicated programme of workshops for senior colleagues within organisations, (managers, department heads, executives, or any other group of aspiring or existing leaders). The series consists of specialised, expanded versions of our regular business workshops, focusing on the seven core emotional skills all effective managers require, and placing particular emphasis on how they impact the management of employees and teams.
Workshops are available virtually (as two ninety-minute sessions) or in-person (a three hour session) and are enhanced with extensive supporting materials and exercises to encourage practice new behaviours in the participants specific working environment. The training is designed not only to teach the fundamental skills of management, but to provide senior colleagues with the means for instilling those same skills in others within the wider organisation. If your organisation is looking to promote new leaders, enhance the skills of your existing managers, or inspire the leaders of the future, the Management Series is a crash course in the fundamentals of effective command.
The Management Series is intended for groups of managers from a single organisation. The group can be made up of managers or leaders from across the organisation, i.e. attendee groups do not need to be intact teams.
 
AVAILABLE VIRTUALLY OR IN-PERSON

Leadership
By examining the history of leadership, this workshop highlights the challenges modern-day leaders face, how our own particular strengths and weaknesses affect our ability to lead, and how we can inspire others to grow as leaders as well as ourselves.

Self-Awareness
This workshop aims to lead us to a more accurate conception of our personalities and behaviour, and demonstrate how a more thorough understanding of our own minds can help us become the best possible version of ourselves at the helm.

Purpose
This workshop teaches us how to align our personal talents and passions with those of the organisation, how to both gain and show appreciation for work, and how to inspire others to share and invest in a united vision for progress.

Decisiveness
This workshop examines the psychology of decision-making, the need for a balance between instinct and reason, and how we can maximise our successes and mitigate our mistakes.

Resilience
This workshop teaches us how to cope with the challenges of change and loss, how to gain a new perspective on difficulties, and how to find tools and strategies for enduring and recovering under any circumstances.

Supportiveness
This workshop teaches us how to listen, how to ask thoughtful questions, when to give feedback, and how to show supportiveness through action as well as words.

Innovation
This workshop examines the importance of innovation, the psychological and organisational factors that inhibit it, and how to encourage others in an organisation to embrace chance and seek out new ways of achieving goals.

Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement elevates an organisation from a group of individuals to a well-integrated team. Our 90-minute virtual Conversations are structured around three major themes: Diversity and Belonging, Work-Life Balance, and Culture.

Wellbeing is about more than being well rested or well taken care of. At Guidelight, we believe it concerns the flourishing of human potential; setting about your day with a firm sense of what matters and why.

Organisations which promote wellbeing ensure that their team has the emotional resources to enjoy their work and realise their full potential.

Employee Wellbeing

Wellbeing is about more than being well rested or well taken care of. At Guidelight, we believe it concerns the flourishing of human potential; setting about your day with a firm sense of what matters and why.