Workshops and Presentations

Insight-led sessions that change how people understand stress, pressure and human performance, without giving them more to manage.

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The Hidden Variable

A 90-minute workshop that changes the conversation about stress

The Hidden Variable challenges the assumption that stress is caused by workload, deadlines and difficult circumstances. It explores what is actually creating our experience from one moment to the next and why the same situation can overwhelm one person, leave another relatively unaffected or feel completely different to the same person on another day.

This is not a conventional wellbeing workshop. People aren’t asked to become more resilient, think positively or control their thoughts. They aren’t taught stress-management techniques or given another set of tools to practise. Through clear explanation, real workplace examples, group discussion and a short experiential exercise, they begin to recognise for themselves how stress works and what changes when they see it differently.

What participants explore

Why our current understanding of stress may be keeping us focused on the wrong problem
Why similar circumstances can produce completely different experiences in different people
Why one person’s experience of the same workload can change dramatically from one day to another
What happens to perception, judgement and behaviour when people feel under pressure
How state of mind affects leadership, communication and decision-making
Why the way a leader shows up has such a powerful effect on trust and psychological safety
What becomes possible when people understand how their experience of stress is being created

Participants leave with a different way of understanding stress, greater awareness of when it may be shaping a decision or reaction, and less to manage or remember when things get hard. The implications reach beyond wellbeing into leadership, relationships, performance and culture.

Format

The Hidden Variable is delivered as a 90-minute presentation or interactive workshop, either online or in person. In-person delivery is available in Perth and in other locations by arrangement. It can stand alone, open an all-staff day or conference, or be paired with the Leading Under Pressure workshop.

Leading Under Pressure

A two-hour interactive workshop for leaders

A leader standing still while everything moves around him

This follow-on session gives leaders time to explore the ideas introduced in The Hidden Variable more deeply and consider what they mean in the way they lead others.

There is considerably less presentation and more facilitated discussion, experiential work and exploration of real leadership situations. The session is shaped around the challenges facing the leaders in the room, so the conversation remains relevant to their people and workplace.

The aim is not for leaders to repeat what they have been told. It is for them to recognise something for themselves that changes how they respond when the pressure is on.

What the leadership workshop explores

How a leader’s state of mind influences communication, relationships and team performance
What allows clarity and sound judgement to emerge under pressure
How stress shapes decisions and reactions during difficult periods
The connection between leadership behaviour, trust and psychological safety
The emotional climate leaders create through the way they show up
What feelings are telling us and how that changes the way leaders respond to challenge and uncertainty
How leaders can create a useful shared language around pressure and state of mind within their teams

Leaders work with real situations, reflect on what they are seeing in their own experience and consider how these insights relate to the conversations and decisions in front of them.

Who these workshops are for

The sessions can be shaped for whole organisations, individual teams, leadership groups, all-staff events, conferences and professional development days.

Let’s talk

Tell me what’s happening in your organisation and what you would like the session to make possible. We can work out together where to start.

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