DEFINE YOU.
Human nature acts like an operating system. Once you understand it, you can build around it.
Consulting and training in communication, storytelling, presentation and negotiation.
Understand the patterns behind how people think, react, perceive, and decide, rather than guessing the way forward. Replace guesswork with insight, see what others see, and expand what’s possible.
Don’t avoid it. Factor it in.
Everyone tells you to listen better.
Nobody says how.
Picture listening in levels. Level one is going through the motions of trying to show you’re listening: nodding, but mentally elsewhere entirely.
Level five is pure observation. Judgments, opinions and conclusions have no place at this level of listening. Your mind stops interfering, and information reveals itself that you'd otherwise have filtered out.
Most people who consider themselves good listeners are at level two. Everything above it takes deliberate intent, because listening costs real mental energy, and most of that energy goes on stopping your own inner voice from interrupting with opinions, solutions, and counterarguments.
It gets harder exactly when it matters most. The closer something sits to you emotionally, the faster you’re triggered, and the less you can hear.
So here’s one tool.
Everyone knows paraphrasing. It’s routine in sales and in any interaction where an order is taking place. It's also easy when nothing is at stake.
Now try to use it when your boss is criticizing you, or when someone says something that pokes at your sense of injustice. Before you answer, say their position back to them in your words. If you get it wrong, they'll happily correct you.
When you get it right, they'll be satisfied you understood what they meant, and there, two things happen: they stop repeating themselves, because their deep emotional need to be understood has been met, and feeling understood generates goodwill, which makes them far more willing to understand you in return.
You end up in a collaborative conversation rather than a contest where, unfortunately, no one ends up communicating anything. Working out what someone actually meant occupies the exact part of your mind that was building your response.
Try it in your next difficult conversation and watch where it goes.
“Even though he didn’t end up using the new slides, the preparation work was fundamental to his confidence. It went superbly, and much of the credit goes to the work we did together.”
Elisa Pilati, Key Account Manager, Exel Srl
translated from Italian
WHAT DO YOU NEED?
Consulting, training, or both?
We do the work with you. Or we train your people to do more of it themselves.
YOUNITED CONSULTING
Solve a problem. Make a case. Move an idea forward. Or all of the above.
When the objective matters, everything counts.
Your goal · your people · your brand · your culture · your research
+ human insight · creative intelligence · cross-industry expertise · strategy
= RESULTS.
The budget approved. The room convinced. The idea that survives the meeting.
YOUNIVERSITY
Powerful leaders & teams.
Develop advanced human capabilities that shape how people communicate, influence, collaborate and perform, through practical tools, new perspectives and real-world application.
= A RESILIENT ORGANIZATION.
Teams that adapt, disagree well, and stay.
People ask the clarifying question instead of guessing.
Problems get treated as system problems before they get treated as someone’s fault.
Mistakes surface while they are still small.
Disagreement stops being expensive.
Seven programs. One foundation.
We don’t start with what you want to say. We start with what they need in order to hear it.
Visual Storytelling
Design for the way people see.
Effective Communication
Hear and be heard.
Storytelling in Presentations
Translating data into meaningful stories.
Presentation Strategy
You know what you want. Give them a reason to want it too.
Presentation Performance & Public Speaking
It’s not how you feel. It’s how they perceive it.
Negotiation
Relationship mastery for satisfying outcomes.
Effective Teams
The courage to own, support and collaborate.
ORCHESTRATION
Your team knows the business. We don’t pretend otherwise.
We work with the people closest to the objective, drawing on the knowledge, resources and capabilities already there. Then we add the perspective, expertise, strategy and creative firepower the work requires.
We can work through it with you. Handle specific parts for you. Or train your team to do more of it themselves.
EXPERIENCE MATTERS
Built in the real world.
25+ years across industries, disciplines, cultures and countries.
Design, manufacturing, medical, law, food, digital, engineering, consulates. Clients across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Tell us your goals. We'll tell you how we can help.