Insights from AGL

Corporate change is not just a ‘project plan’. It is a journey for every person involved, bringing a range of human emotions.

Last week, we were delighted to be back at Fortnum & Mason, delivering a workshop for Heads of Departments on how to tell a clear and engaging story around change and help their teams feel fully engaged at every step of their department’s transformation journey.

This highly interactive session explored change through the lens of Hollywood storytelling.

AGL Associate Tom Williams, a BAFTA-nominated screenwriter, introduced the Hero’s Journey: a storytelling model with 12 stages that offers a useful lens for understanding the human experience of change.  Each stage calls for empathy, clarity and leadership credibility, as well as a project plan.

AGL coach Natasha Maw then workshopped live initiatives with each team leader, mapping their specific change challenge and considering stakeholder reactions and the key communications required at each stage of the journey.

Anyone leading a team through major change or transformation should consider the following questions:

●  What are people in my team experiencing?
●  What do they need to hear from me?
●  How can I best communicate that to them?
●  Which parts of the 12-stage journey are likely to be most challenging for them?
●  How can I ensure my communications are authentic, clear, empathetic and credible?

This feedback summed up the day for us: “An entertaining, engaging session which created a safe space to share and learn.”

Participants left committed to adopting a storytelling approach to communicating change, considering the journey from their teams’ perspective and placing more emphasis on celebrating team wins throughout the process.

Huge thanks to Alexandre Lucas, Alexandra Buxton and Fortnum & Mason for having us.

There’s nothing to rival Fortnum & Mason Piccadilly as an inspiring training location! And those biscuits…!

We're delighted to share this guest article from Alice Armstrong Scales, High Performance Coach and long-standing AGL collaborator, exploring why clarity is one of the most powerful foundations for sustainable high performance.

Are you making meaningful progress… or simply getting better at being busy?

It's a question I often ask my clients to reflect on.

We start the year with clear goals, great intentions and a strong sense of purpose.

But then life often gets in the way….

Meetings. Deadlines. Emails. Projects. Competing priorities.

We find ourselves rushing from one task to the next, one week to the next, and before we know it, months have passed without us really stopping to consider where we're heading.

We're busy. We're productive. We're ticking things off our lists.

But are we moving the needle forward, focusing on what really matters or simply running on autopilot?

One of the things I've learned through more than 20 years of coaching is that clarity is something we need to continually cultivate.

Our priorities evolve. Circumstances change. New challenges emerge.

And without taking time to reflect and recalibrate, it's surprisingly easy to find ourselves working incredibly hard without necessarily moving in the direction we truly want to go.

This is why I believe one of the most valuable investments we can make in our performance is to regularly step back from the day-to-day demands of work and ask ourselves some powerful questions:

• Am I investing my time and energy in what really matters?

• Are my current priorities aligned with what I ultimately want to achieve?

• Am I being intentional about where I'm heading, or simply responding to what's in front of me?

• What's working well, and what's draining my energy or holding me back?

• What do I really want to achieve over the next 90 days - and why does it matter?

• Who do I need to become to make it happen?

That last question is one of my favourites.

Because achieving meaningful goals isn't just about what we DO. It's also about how we THINK, the beliefs we hold, how we show up, the habits we develop and the person we choose to become along the way.

It's this philosophy that underpins the 90-Day CLARITY and High-Performance Workshop I've developed with AGL Communication.

We begin by taking a 360-degree view of eight key areas of professional life, using the AGL Leadership Clarity Wheel, to build self-awareness and identify where greater attention could make the biggest difference.

We then use a coaching process I call the Clarity Cascade to turn reflection into clear priorities, meaningful goals and practical aligned actions.

Along the way, we explore the mindset, beliefs, habits and support systems that will help sustain progress – because clarity without consistent action rarely leads to lasting change.

And I introduce a simple weekly Friday Reflection practice to help participants stay focused, learn from challenges and celebrate their progress.

One of my favourite moments comes at the end of the workshop.

I invite everyone to join in a powerful visualisation exercise - they imagine themselves in 90 days, where they have consistently put their intentions into practice and everything has gone as well as possible. Then with their eyes still closed I ask them some questions about the future self they’ve just visualised, eg:

What have they achieved?

What are they proud of?

How are they thinking, feeling and performing differently?

And what are others noticing about them?

They then write a letter to their future self, capturing their vision, their intentions and the commitments they're making to themselves.

We collect the letters and post them back three months later.

It's a simple but powerful way to reconnect people with their aspirations and remind them of what they set out to achieve. I also encourage them to find ‘accountability buddies’ to help keep them on track and deepen connections with colleagues.

Sustainable high performance isn't about constantly doing more, t's about being intentional with our time, our energy and our attention.

It's about knowing what matters most, having the courage to prioritise it, and developing the habits and mindset to follow through.

And sometimes, the most productive thing we can do is give ourselves permission to pause.

To reflect. Reassess. Recalibrate.

So, here's my invitation to you:

Imagine it's 90 days from today.

What would you love to be looking back on with a real sense of pride, progress and fulfilment?

And what's one thing you could do TODAY to start moving in that direction?

Alice Armstrong Scales is a High Performance Coach, NLP Master Practitioner and Personal Development Coach with over 20 years' experience helping leaders, entrepreneurs and creatives optimise how they think, feel and perform. She works in collaboration with AGL Communication to deliver leadership development and high-performance coaching programmes.

#HighPerformance #LeadershipDevelopment #Clarity #Mindset #IntentionalLeadership

How do you help your people maximise last minute public speaking or presenting opportunities?

The answer, for several leading organisations is the discreet AGL Alongside service.

A flexible bank of hours provides 1:1 coaching support whenever required, for whoever within your team needs it.

Some moments are simply too important to leave to chance: a major presentation, a high-stakes keynote speech, an important announcement or a critical pitch.

When the stakes are high, even the most experienced people benefit from someone trusted in their corner.

AGL Alongside gives you the expert support that different people in your team may need, at short notice. The coaching is tailored to both the moment and the individual, and is delivered by coaches that develop a deep understand of your organisation’s context.

To explore how a flexible bank of hours (available in blocks of 10, 25, 50 or 100 hours) could help your people maximise high-stakes, last-minute opportunities, please do get in touch.

Have you watched this yet? If not, add it to your Netflix watchlist.

As the great AI safety debate rages, The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist offers a timely look at what could lie ahead for us all, creatively presented in layman’s terms.

Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher is determined to understand whether this is a good time to bring a child into the world, or whether we are all doomed, as he and his partner prepare for the birth of their first child.

He sets out to understand AI and what it means for the world, interviewing a wide range of voices: those analysing AI risk and urging caution, as well as the industry leaders pushing the tech forward at speed (Dario and Daniela Amodei of Anthropic, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind).

Some are optimists. Others are convinced we are heading towards an apocalypse. Some are enthusiastic and deeply concerned in equal measure. Daniel eventually concludes that he is an “apocaloptimist”.

But one message shines through: although the risks are real, we still have agency in shaping what happens next. Professor Ramesh Srinivasan of UCLA sums it up neatly towards the end of the film:

“Life is about the capacity to act, the capacity to relate, the capacity to feel. We need to double down on the capacities that we have as humans that robotic systems will never have.”

Three essential rules for great briefings that allow senior leaders to make better decisions, faster, and ensure your voice is heard.

Last week, at our masterclass, AGL coach Ben Timpson covered the key rules, and the techniques for each, demonstrating how to implement them at all levels of seniority.

𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄 1 - 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

Attention spans are short
Prioritise your briefing into clear Must, Should & Could segments

𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄 2 - 𝐏𝐔𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐄

Do you want someone to Understand, Decide or Act?
Be clear what you expect your stakeholder to do as a result of your briefing

𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄 3 - 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄

Use empathy to increase the impact of your briefing
Consider your leader’s context and priorities and angle it accordingly

𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐒:

Effective briefing creates a virtuous cycle, strengthening authority at the top and capability throughout the organisation.

When briefing is done well, leaders trust their people more, delegate more, and bring them closer to the decision-making edge.

In turn, people feel empowered because their thinking is valued and their judgement is used.

Available as a 90 minute masterclass or a half day tailored workshop incorporating live examples from your organisation.

Enormous thanks to everyone for joining us at our masterclass, and to our client Corient for hosting us in their spectacular offices.

Photographs - with thanks to Jasper Cullen, FLIIX.

When you are Graham Fink with a business called ‘Fink Different’, and you have a high-stakes keynote speech coming up…then working with a communications agency that also ‘thinks differently is essential.

From high-stakes moments to everyday conversations, we are the human communication company that helps you really connect with your audience and ensure they THINK, FEEL and DO as a result.

It’s all about becoming more yourself (not less).

Easy to say, harder to do.  But with AGL in your corner, it is not just achievable, but also enjoyable.

Performance review season is here.  Read on for some top tips from our expert AGL communication coaches.

Many people dread the idea of giving feedback and avoid it all together.

So how do you given constructive feedback and handle manage potentially difficult conversations?

We answered exactly this question last week at a masterclass in the glorious surroundings of Soho Farmhouse for the senior team of a leading venture capital and private equity firm.

Swipe for some top tips you can use to have more effective feedback and performance conversations.

The testimonials from participants following our workshop were a joy to read, including comments such as:

• “very insightful and hugely engaging - 5 stars!”

• “I am more equipped to deal with feedback and provide it”

• “I came out of the session with tangible strategies that I’ll use moving forward”

• “The sessions was delivered in a practical, engaging way”

To discuss a tailored workshop to embed an effective feedback culture within your organisation, please email tomrc@aglcomms.com

Credit to Paul Hessey, AGL Coach

Want to avoid hitting the ‘so what’ buffer? That invisible hurdle between you and your customer in a sales conversation.

People do things for their reasons, not ours. Emotionally intelligent selling is all about understanding the client’s perspective, without pushing to share our own.

AGL coach Paul Hessey shared some invaluable techniques for selling without clients feeling ‘sold to’ at the AGL Communication ‘Client Journey’ masterclass, held at The Lanesborough last week. He explored how to balance push and pull, find where agreement lies, handle objections, sense-check your approach and adapt in real time.

AGL Associate Joanna Nowakowska then took the group through the fundamentals of Clienteling: the art of turning a client interaction into a lifelong relationship (and the significant value this adds to the bottom line). We learned about waking the ‘Sleepers’ and why it can be costly to overlook the High Potentials, especially when companies only measure sales and not relationships.

It costs between five and seven times more to win a new client than to nurture an existing one, while long-standing clients spend a staggering 67% more than new ones. The trick is knowing how to recognise, nurture and measure the Clienteling process.

Emotional connection lies behind both successful selling and Clienteling. For those who like data, the research* backs this up:

• Purchase intention rises from 53% to 73% when the sales advisor establishes a genuine connection with the customer.

• 78% of customers say a single negative interaction with a sales advisor can cause them to abandon a purchase.

• 96% of buyers say that a seller focusing on the value they can deliver influences their purchase decision. Yet 64% say sellers aren’t very effective at communicating value.

• 73% actively avoid suppliers that send irrelevant outreach, and just 19% of B2B buyers say meetings with salespeople are valuable.

AGL’s Emotionally Intelligent Selling & Clienteling workshop is a tailored full day of training that supports sales teams in taking the client from ‘so what?’ to ‘Where do I sign?’, covering:

• Building trust

• Creating meaningful buying experiences

• Influencing with authenticity

• Deepening relationships

• Inspiring clients to return and spend more

• Fostering loyalty and advocacy

If you feel an Emotionally Intelligent Selling & Clienteling workshop, tailored to your organisation, would benefit your team, get in touch for a chat.

Huge thanks to everyone who joined us at The Lanesborough for this taster masterclass!

*Sources: Forrester, RAIN Group, Gartner, CXG and McKinsey.