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Think on Your Feet®

Be clear, confident and think before you speak with Think on Your Feet®, the verbal communication course that emphasises structure. It provides techniques and strategies that help you to analyse, organise and present your ideas with clarity, brevity and impact.

Overview

The complete verbal communication programme - Think on Your Feet® provides techniques to speak spontaneously with clarity, brevity and impact. The Think on Your Feet® approach emphasises structure when communicating. It ensures your ideas will be understood and remembered.

  • Respond confidently and concisely in all formal, informal and ad-hoc situations, especially when caught on-the-spot or under pressure!
  • Explain complex ideas and handle tough questions by condensing your thoughts, simplifying information and avoiding listener and information overload.
  • Think on Your Feet® is the only workshop that trains you to analyse, organise and present your ideas - fast!

Maximise your training budget

Multiple booking, NHS and charity discounts available, find out more...

 

Who is it for?

Think on Your Feet® is designed for anyone who:

  • Is concerned about communications, including senior executives, managers, sales and marketing professionals, technical specialists, financial analysts, public affairs experts, and training professionals.
  • Needs to be clear, convincing and memorable when speaking to others.
  • Doesn’t relish the idea of speaking in public, dealing with difficult questions, or being put on-the-spot.
  • Needs to demonstrate good leadership qualities, to convince and persuade others, to be seen and acknowledged as a leader.
"I thoroughly enjoyed the course! One of the best I've been to actually. There was a great mix of content and practical so the day flew by and I didn't feel as tired as I typically have on other Zoom courses this year. The trainer was amazing and a master of her trade! I loved the way she gave examples of each plan demonstrating what good looks like. I will absolutely be attending the writing skills one next year and have recommended Think on Your Feet® to 2 colleagues already." - Program Director, Customer Experience, Global Cloud-Based Software Organisation 

What's it all about?

Think on Your Feet® is not a presentation workshop, it's a unique programme that ensures you can confidently get your message across and be remembered, no matter what situation or level of individual/group you are communicating with. 

It blends traditional reasoning techniques with the latest skills in verbal communication, you'll:

  • Be in control of what you say by learning how structured thinking turns nervousness into energy.
  • Learn the art and science of speaking convincingly and confidently, without relying on notes or creating any awkward silences.
  • Learn ten organisational structures to focus your communication.
  • Ensure the listener understands by using your actual 'hard' data to construct a story (using multiple structures rather than just using facts and figures), taking the listener on a journey and make difficult data easier to understand.
  • Find you have time to think before you speak and be able to confidently select from a range of easy-to-use strategies to structure your response.
  • Concentrate on what is in your listener’s mind, Think on Your Feet® gives you a simple, handy system that helps you to be understood and remembered when you communicate at work.

In just over thirty years, Think on Your Feet® has been delivered to over half a million business professionals worldwide (August 2018) and can be delivered in 16 languages, through online VILT (virtual instructor-led training) or as face-to-face classroom learning. 

The Think on Your Feet® communication techniques are the foundation for all other skills: leading, speaking, writing, negotiating, selling and managing.

"This is by far the biggest game changer in terms of presentation skills and communication strategies. This should be a mandatory training for any business person!" - Head of OA and Compliance, Pharmaceutical 

What will you get out of it?

Whether you are addressing one person or fifty, Think on Your Feet® provides the techniques to focus in on issues, organise ideas and speed up preparation and response time. Typical online and offline situations include:

  • Answering questions on-the-spot.
  • Needing to buy yourself time when asked a difficult question.
  • Communicating with staff.
  • Briefing management or clients.
  • Handling the media.
  • Getting your ideas across at a meeting.
  • Explaining complex information clearly.
  • Giving evidence.
  • Selling a product or service.
  • Making facts and figures more understandable by 'storytelling'.
  • Promoting your organisation or yourself.

By focusing on an individual’s ability to think quickly and clearly, Think on Your Feet® dramatically improves oral communication skills.

Think on Your Feet® changes the way people communicate with three key elements:

1. ADDRESSING AN ESSENTIAL SKILL SET

2. STRUCTURING YOUR IDEAS

3. MASTERING THE ART OF 'OFF-THE-CUFF'

In moments, sometimes seconds, you have to analyse, organise and present your ideas clearly and memorably - thinking before you speak.

This is the only workshop that trains you to hone these skills - so you can effectively discuss and defend your position, without conflict or aggression.

Get your message across the first time, every time.

With 10 core communication structures - helping you to quickly decide which messages are essential and present them persuasively (even when under extreme time pressure!)

Package information for easier comprehension (particularly useful when communicating technical information to a non-technical audience).

Position arguments and manage your listeners.

Move your audience through images, analogies and storytelling.

True mastery comes with the ability to answer questions on-the-spot, clearly explain complicated ideas and be persuasive when you have little or no time to prepare.

Instantly select the best structure for each situation.

Learn how to focus a discussion in order to achieve Clarity, Brevity and Impact®.

 

"Exactly what I was looking for: simple, easy tools to use and effective, immediate visible results." - Packaging Productivity Manager, Food and Drink Manufacturer 

What will your organisation get out of it?

Over 95% of workplace communication is ad-hoc, unplanned and informal - most organisations already provide structured presentation training for the 5% of formal communication. Think on Your Feet® is the only verbal communication workshop that addresses these informal situations.

Organisations need to focus on the challenges their people face when communicating verbally, this workshop provides structures to use in these informal face-to-face or online situations:

  • Off-the-cuff discussions.
  • Q&A's.
  • Meetings.
  • Summaries.
  • Board, management, status and project updates.
  • Conference calls.

Your organisation will have people who are confident when presenting, defending, and discussing an idea or position persuasively and quickly. Your people will also be able to:

  • Answer questions quickly and coherently, especially when under fire.
  • Structure ideas simply and persuasively.
  • Get their point across quickly, clearly, persuasively and memorably. 
  • Turn facts and figures into a memorable and easy to communicate story.
  • Build valuable relationships through memorable and structured interactions.
  • Flesh-out ideas with memorable examples.
  • Persuade their audience.
  • Avoid common communication traps and misunderstandings.
  • Handle objections positively.
  • Deal with hostile situations.
  • Use “bridging” strategies to clarify questions, defuse issues and buy time.
  • Anticipate questions and prepare answers.
  • Use techniques to identify listeners’ hopes, fears and background knowledge.
  • Use simple, jargon-free language that listeners can understand.
  • Turn nervousness into energy.
  • Separate topics clearly using transitions.
  • Organise ideas while talking.

Above all your people will, GET TO THE POINT AND BE REMEMBERED.

"The course has a good pace and structure. The fact that there is such a focus on practising the skills has helped me to progress more than expected" - Commercial Manager, International Shipping and Logistics company

Typical workshop content

The Think on Your Feet® workshop begins with quick coherent thinking—the bedrock of communication—and ends with dramatically sharpening skills to speak more convincingly. The workshop provides all-purpose strategies for organising your ideas, and shows how to match your message to your audience. It then helps you to think before you speak by using plans and techniques to reinforce the way you deliver your message, making it more memorable.

We always cover a core programme, together with lots of practice and feedback:

  1. Getting to the point.
  2. Presenting your ideas.
  3. When you are caught off guard.
  4. Handling questions quickly, clearly and persuasively.
  5. Using 'Visual Pegs' as structure.
  6. Dividing information in Facets, Aspects or Perspectives.
  7. Bridging from question to answer.
  8. Explaining your listener's perspective.
  9. Moving two opposing viewpoints to a middle ground.
  10. Selling the benefits of an idea.
  11. Illustrating your ideas.
  12. Telling a story.
  13. Putting it all together.
"The highest compliment I can give to Think on Your Feet® is that the programme is still as fresh in my mind today as if it was the day after the training. Participants throughout our firm tell me the same is true for them. The programme's distinctive competence is built around three equally important facets-structure, simplicity, and creativity." - Robert H. Dean, Former Chief Learning Officer, Grant Thornton, USA.

Duration, delivery methods and languages available

Indigo is proud to be an official licensed provider of Think on Your Feet®. It is a practical two-day workshop available as:

Delivery can be split into multiple days/sessions.

Think on Your Feet® can also be combined with your existing programmes to ensure you provide the best training to ensure the most efficient verbal communication from your people.

The Think on Your Feet® workbook is available in a number of languages: Arabic, Polish, Korean, English (digital and print versions), German, Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese (simplified and Traditional), Italian, Hebrew, Japanese, Czech, Japanese and Braille. Contact us for more information.

"One of the most useful bits of training I think i've ever done - wish i'd done this much earlier in my career!." - Senior Researcher, Scottish Government.

Training for trainers

Accrediting your own trainers is the most cost-effective way to offer Think on Your Feet® within your organisation. After attending the workshop as a delegate, you or your in-house trainers will be taught by some of Indigo’s globally recognised Master Trainers, who have been specially authorised to train these programmes to other trainers, to the highest standard. Once successful, you will be authorised to dovetail our award-winning programmes into your organisations training plans, at a fraction of the normal cost.

Indigo Business Services is proud to be the Authrised UK distributor for Think on Your Feet®, Writing Dynamics™ and The Skilled Presenter™ workshops.

Office UK Distributor 

Refresh and practice your Think on Your Feet™ skills

If you’ve already attended a Think on Your Feet® workshop and want to refresh and reinforce what you learnt, we offer two additional options:

  • Refresher Session – 3 hours. Revisits the Think on Your Feet® plans and techniques. It will sharpen your knowledge and help you to confidently choose and implement the right tool at the right time.
  • Practitioner Workshop – 1 day. Takes the training to the next level, by sharpening implementation in the workplace – by focusing on real business challenges. The workshop covers everything in the ‘refresher’ session, taking a deeper dive into how to utilise and implement the tools and techniques into your workplace.
Download the Think on Your Feet® Refresher Session/Practitioner Workshop brochure or contact one of our training advisors to find out more.

Official UK Distributor

Indigo Business Services Limited are exclusive UK Distributor for Think on Your Feet® International and McLuhan & Davies Communications, Inc. Our trainers are all licenced to deliver using original licenced materials. Read more in our press release: Indigo Business Services Named Exclusive UK Distributor for Think on Your Feet®

Continuous Professional Development (CPD)

Think on Your Feet® can count towards your CPD recognition with leading professional associations and trade organisations. You can normally record your attendance in the 'organised learning' or 'self-learning' sections. Please check with your membership organisation for more information.

In addition to this, Think on Your Feet® qualifies for Personal Development Units (PDUs) towards your PMP:

Registered by Mcluhan & Davies Communications inc. Code 3785. Professional development units per workshop: 13 units - PMP®/PgMP

*Indigo Business Services Ltd are authorised distributors for McLuhan & Davies Communications inc

"As soon as you move one step up your company hierarchy, your effectiveness depends on your ability to reach others through the spoken or written word." - Peter Drucker

Additional resources

Public workshops

See all workshop dates

Our most popular workshops are open to all and are ideal for individuals, smaller groups and those reviewing workshops before wider roll out. Delivered to small groups: 

  • Face-to-face in major cities thoughtout the UK - provide the best in-depth and exercise-packed experience. They are delivered between 9am and 5pm. Our venues are all located close to major public transport hubs. Delegates will receive a printed workbook and peripherals. 

    We are determined to work with public workshop venues that provide the safest possible environment – the latest updates to what we are doing in conjunction with our partners can be found at: https://www.indigobusiness.co.uk/Workshops/calendar/Public-Workshop-Health-And-Safety-For-Delegates
  • Online - highly interactive online modular delivery. We deliver using Zoom (free to download and use at www.zoom.us/meetings) and Microsoft Teams. You will require access to a PC/Mac/tablet and internet connection, you will require a webcam, speakers/headphones and to enable your microphone, or you can simply dial in on your phone.

    The format will be similar to face-to-face classroom workshops, we always cover a core programme. It is delivered using interactive group learning sessions, lots of practice, group and individual feedback and 1-2-1 trainer coaching. We combine this with screen and document sharing, polls, interactive whiteboards and breakout rooms. Delegates are given 36 months access to an online workbook that can be used interactively and downloaded to a portable device. Printed workbooks are available at additional cost. 

You can reserve a place on this workshop at up to £875pp + VAT.

20-21 March 2024

Manchester

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30 Apr - 1 May 2024

London

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16-17 May 2024

Edinburgh

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In-House workshops

Our in-house delivery option gives you the flexibility to train teams, groups and departments. Reducing delegate travel, training cost (significant saving when compared to our open public workshops) and environmental impact - as we train at your choice of location or online, in the UK or internationally. Options for tailoring content are available.

Prices quoted are based on 12 delegates per event, we can accommodate up to 20 delegates for an additional fee:

  • Face-to-face classroom workshops - delegates receive a printed workbook/materials.
  • Virtual learning sessions - delivered as highly interactive modular sessions using our Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Webex platforms or your own. Virtual workshops require access to a PC/Mac/tablet and internet connection, a webcam, speakers/headphones and enabled microphone, or attendees can simply dial in on their phone.

    The format will be similar to face-to-face classroom workshops, we always cover a core programme. It is delivered using interactive group learning sessions, lots of practice, group and individual feedback and 1-2-1 trainer coaching. We combine this with screen and document sharing, polls, interactive whiteboards and breakout rooms. Delegates are given 36 months access to an online workbook that can be used interactively and downloaded to a portable device. Printed workbooks are available at additional cost. 

Delegate places are available at from £575pp + VAT.

More details