Creating Solutions for Awkward Situations

Lucinda Brown Douglas

Lucinda’s seminar will help participants find their own solutions to situations they find difficult to deal with at work. Often we feel more empowered if we are able to discover our own way forward and find our own answers. Lucinda returns to UhS after a five year break. Comments from her previous seminars included; "very interesting and fun also; most enjoyable, Lucinda held my attention the whole time, very interesting stuff; a lot of good food for thought, a very enjoyable experience; excellent and made the course very enjoyable and worthwhile; interesting and valuable".

·  We will look first at what you know about your skills and talents, from analysis to communication and to teamwork. We will see how you think you can prevent conflict and look at the difference between realistic and non-realistic confrontation. What are roadblocks and why are they conflict-promoting interactions? What solutions might we find for these situations?

· In order to deal with awkward situations, we need to be able to develop empathy skills. We will see what helps us feel empathy towards one another, such as trust, support and respect. We need to understand our behavioural style and will complete a questionnaire to help us find out, although we may know already. We will examine the basic introvert and extrovert styles and see how each has two components. Then you will be able to see different colleagues’ styles too, and which they find easiest and most difficult to deal with. Flexibility is important here in order to be creative.

· We then look at power and your relationship with it. Do you feel you have personal power? Do you resent the person who has power over you? We will examine the difference between manipulation and influence, as this will affect the creative process. We will find out how the power triangle becomes the discovery circle and you will be encouraged to develop your own solutions for this.

· We look at the solution making process and how we generally come to the conclusion we usually come to. We will try to change this process if necessary and see how creative we can be when we view our situation from a different angle. We will look at resistance – everybody’s!

By the end of this seminar you should have new solutions for old problems and have developed a new toolbox to deal with any future ones. Our sessions are group based, so we can deal with issues which are brought by participants. There is built in flexibility to allow you discuss issues with the presenter and each other, and to give each other positive feedback. Confidentiality is needed to promote trust, and to give a positive outcome.

Presenter

Lucinda Brown Douglas is a psychodrama psychotherapist registered and accredited by the UK Council for Psychotherapy.  She has a private practice as well as working for the National Health Service. She is interested in the choices people make and how they can be helped in changing patterns formed over a lifetime. 

Participants
This seminar is for anyone working in University Hospitality who would like to be more empowered in the professional relationships they encounter at work. We should enjoy our professional relationships, not be upset by them, and this seminar will enable you to achieve this. 

Date and Venue
Wednesday 20 October 2010; registration is from 0930.  The seminar starts at 1000 and ends at 1530. It will be held at Holywell Park, which is imago’s non-residential training centre at Loughborough University. Holywell Park is close to junction 23 of the M1 and also easily reached from Loughborough railway station. Full location and access details will be sent to participants. There is more information at www.welcometoimago.com. 

Fee
The fee for this non-residential seminar is £175.00 plus vat, which includes seminar materials, training costs, refreshments and lunch. If you require overnight accommodation you can call the university’s imago sales office on 0845 036 4624. Subject to availability they have rooms at their nearby Burleigh Court conference centre. A single en-suite lodge room is £59.00 room only; full English breakfast is £14.00.  A main building double or twin is £107.00 for bed and breakfast. They also have en-suite rooms in their Link Hotel, across the road from the main campus at £60.00 room only and £10.00 for breakfast. All prices include vat. Please settle overnight accommodation charges directly with the university. There are two Travelodges six miles away at junctions 22 and 23a of M1, www.travelodge.co.uk. There is a Premier Inn six miles away at junction 23a and one ten miles away at the A42/A512 junction at Ashby De La Zouch, www.premierinn.com.