Active Listening Programme & Support

MMS runs 2 types of Active Listening:

1. Inspirational and educational training workshops for teams and companies.  The focus is to improve performance in life and in the workplace through Listening skills.

2. Professional training to give 1-to-1s with individuals. Patrick uses his personal trauma story and professional learning to give mental support to anyone who wants mental support, or just a chat.

Summary

  • Active Listening is a core life skill that is underestimated and underused – both academically and practically. According to MHFA England – we spend “0.5 years learning to listen” and use it “42% of our time” VS “12 years learning to read” and we use it “9% of our time”.

  • There is a clear:

    • knowledge gap (Hearing vs Listening) and lack of use of listening skills in the right way.

    • responsibility for companies to ensure that their employees know how to Active Listen, which will improve company performance.

  • Active listening improves individuals:

    • Professionally - selling a product or brand, managing clients/suppliers and working with colleagues.

    • Relationships - getting the best from friends, family, peers, colleagues and management.

    • Personally - managing their personal Wellbeing and Mental Health.

  • He draws on proven teaching training techniques (MHFA England), work experience in senior roles in marketing (including managing over £150m of marketing budget in agencies), running commercial workshops/research and using his own life-changing experience.

Sessions

  • Online or face to face:

    • Sessions 1 & 2: Intro, Listening to Others & Listening to Yourself - techniques, exercises and insight.

    • Session 3: 45 mins follow up workshop to review and share experiences.

  • Note that a Qualitative Survey can be run. This is conducted online with 8-10 questions on Survey Monkey.

Do you think that everyone takes the same approach to work and life as you?

Here is an example of how MMS makes the Active Listening theme real.

What 2 colours can you see on the dress?

This image is famous and went global because not everyone saw the same colours. This is how the mind works, and this is how you can improve your listening commercial; and mental skills with MMS

 
“The Dress was a meme, a viral photo that appeared all across social media for a few months. For some, when they looked at this photo, they saw a dress that appeared black and blue. For others, the dress appeared white and gold. Whatever people saw, it was impossible to see it differ- ently.”
— https://www.davidmcraney.com/images-from-hmc

The Dress - at one time had 14,000 views on the internet per second.

Testimonials

“It was great working with Patrick recently where he delivered the Active listening workshop for DMG Media. Participants felt they left the session with confidence and tips they could to put into practice.”
— Natalie Viveiros Varon, talent and learning coordinator, Daily Mail Group
“Melville Mental Solutions delivered an Active Listening workshop to support what3words’ Quarterly Sales Week training and team building activity. Patrick introduced the what3words sales team to this critical subject underlining its value to us not only as managers and teammates, but also how vital it is to our commercial success. His use of role plays and making the session as interactive as possible engaged the audience and there was a real buzz afterwards. Patrick created a safe environment where the audience, both in the room and dialling in over Zoom, felt able to relax and engage with the subject matter regardless of how new or unfamiliar it was to them. Active Listening is now becoming a consciously core part of our skill set thanks to this workshop.”
— Jo Clark, Head of BD Ops, what3words - https://what3words.com

MMS Case Study: BuzzFeed

  • Date and Location – 2H 2019 in London

  • MMS conducted research and workshops for the EMEA BuzzFeed Team – 32 people managing the regional teams. These included: Sales, Coordination, Marketing, Research and Content services.

  • Objectives – Use MMS’ experience and independence to:

    • Give the teams the tools to improve performance through understanding their clients. This included Active Listening to perform smarter with clients and suppliers; and to manage the Mental Health with themselves and colleagues.

    • Conduct research to understand the market – the challenges and opportunities, and where BuzzFeed needed to improve.

  • Process

    • Conduct research with 31 clients – face to face/call or online questionnaire.

    • Client panel with Mediacom (x2), BBDO and McCormick.

    • Workshop with Buzzfeed teams.