Case study | Leadership development

Building personal effectiveness.

How a national disability charity helped its managers lead with more confidence, clarity and resilience.

The journey from awareness to action

How hft built personal effectiveness through TetraMap.

Hft is a UK charity that helps people with learning disabilities and their families live the life they choose. Committed to developing its people at every level, hft identified that its managers needed stronger personal effectiveness — from everyday communication to leading confidently in high-stakes situations like meetings, negotiations and difficult conversations.

Saltbox Training and Events, led by Master TetraMap Facilitator Nicki Davey, built a two-day Personal Effectiveness programme around TetraMap. The first day focused on self-awareness — using TetraMap to help managers understand their own communication style and how it lands with others. The second built on that foundation, giving managers practical skills for building relationships, negotiating and achieving results through other people.

The impact showed up quickly in day-to-day behaviour. Managers became more assertive with their teams and their own line managers, more effective at prioritising their workload, and noticeably more resilient under pressure. Perhaps most tellingly, they started handling conflict and difficult people with far more confidence.

The challenge

Identifying the need for the change.

After a comprehensive review of their training provision, hft identified the need for its managers to build their personal effectiveness.

In particular hft identified the need for two key areas of learning:

  • Everyday personal effectiveness: Including communicating assertively, effective written and verbal communication and, working with non-verbal communication

  • Personal effectiveness in formal situations: To include making meetings effective, creating rapport and presenting with confidence, negotiation skills, achieving outcomes, and ensuring actions are carried out.

Hft consulted with Saltbox Training and Events who provide training and development services which increase people’s skills, knowledge, confidence, motivation, morale, and wellbeing. Founder director Nicki Davey, who is a Master TetraMap Facilitator, developed and delivered a two-day course.

The solution

A two-day approach to personal effectiveness.

Nicki developed a highly participative, engaging two-day Personal Effectiveness Training programme which met all the objectives outlined by hft. The programme used TetraMap® to underpin the learning which helped participants to become more effective, professional and influential in the workplace.

  • Day one of the programme focused on self-awareness and self-management. Saltbox used the TetraMap® profiling tool to examine learners’ own communication and behavioural preferences and to identify how these impact on others. Learners then develop strategies to help them to take responsibility and control of their own behaviour, and to develop a positive outlook and greater resilience during difficult times.

  • Day two of the programme focused on working effectively with others: this gave learners the awareness, understanding and skills to build successful relationships and achieve success through working effectively with others. They learnt essential skills for persuading, influencing, and negotiating to achieve the desired results and the understanding developed through using TetraMap® enabled them to put these into practice successfully.

The two modules together helped learners to understand the relationship between their own attitudes, beliefs and behaviours, how they impact on others, and how it determines their own effectiveness, with TetraMap® providing the foundation for this.

“Everyone has been really engaged and enthused by Nicki’s training style. This course has fitted well with our up-skilling of first line managers and is helping us go forward with our new business strategy.”

— Paul Twynam, Leadership and Management Development Manager, hft

The result

From learning to lasting change.

This highly participative programme enabled learners to learn new models, ideas, and theories as well as having ample opportunity to practise new techniques and approaches and receive constructive feedback in the safety of the training room.

This made it easy for learners to transfer their learning back into the workplace and has resulted in significant direct changes in behaviour.

The key changes observed among learners are:

  • They are more assertive when dealing with the staff they manage, their own line managers, and representatives of external agencies

  • They are managing time and prioritising workloads more effectively

  • They look after themselves better so that they are more resilient and better able to deal with stress

  • They are developing a positive mental attitude and managing their own responses to difficult situations by reframing them

  • They deal with conflict and difficult people constructively and confidently

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