To understand why critical thinking matters so much today, it helps to begin with two modes of thought. System 1 is fast, automatic, and intuitive. It helps us respond quickly, make snap judgments, and move efficiently through daily decisions. System 2 is slower, more deliberate, and more effortful. It helps us pause, examine assumptions, weigh...
Since we are in the Raya month as I write this, I am reminded of a story from a two-day training of The Business Storyteller™. Everyone was tasked to find stories in their days, weeks, months, years. And this group, a fund investment company, just could not find stories. They declared everything was BAU – Business...
In a lighter moment during a discussion, the team reflected on an observation from the field: pricing is not always driven by underlying cost, but by perception and positioning. Whether it was food pricing or programme benchmarking, the same principle applied – labels, context, and framing influence what clients perceive as “reasonable”. It is a...
My first week of training this year was almost entirely filled with sessions on Compact Slides and One-Pagers™. That surprised me. With AI tools now able to generate slides in seconds, you might expect demand for slide visualisation training to slow down. If anything, the opposite happened. In class, we still see the same challenge: extremely...
It was our fifth run of the Persuasion & Presence programme with a major telco undergoing a cultural transformation. The goal was crystal clear: help team members look, sound, and feel like they belonged in the room with senior consultants. They weren’t there just to learn to present; they were there to learn how to sound like...
At the start of the two-day Presentations Alive! training, she introduced herself almost apologetically: “I’m from Finance. I don’t usually make presentations.” What followed wasn’t a lack of ability – it was fear. She wasn’t comfortable expressing herself because it wasn’t routine. She was afraid of making mistakes, afraid of other people’s opinions, and afraid of being...
In a recent round of key account meetings, one of our team members shared how structured client engagements have evolved beyond routine check-ins. By bringing consolidated insights – NPS (Net Promoter Score) trends, programme runs, and cross-function participation – each conversation became a strategic review rather than an operational update. What stood out in these...
It wasn’t just that participants responded well to the session. They began to see a model they could adopt. During one Presentations Alive!™ session, a participant wrote: “I wanna be like him one day.” It was a simple line — but it pointed to something deeper. Not admiration for delivery flair, but recognition of a...
The Compact Slides & One-Pagers™ programme was initially scheduled to run just four times with one of our clients last year. By year’s end, that number had doubled to eight. What drove this expansion was not promotion — but pull from the business. The programme addressed a persistent, everyday challenge: cluttered slides and presentations that...
During a programme, a participant from an Oil & Gas company faced an unexpected challenge. Shortly before the lunch break, he shared with the class that a colleague had to take emergency leave. With little notice, he was asked to step in and present on behalf of his teammate — the client being none other...