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WHY US

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Who We Are

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WHO WE ARE

We are a boutique communications training company serving Fortune 1000 companies, universities, and individuals around the world. We provide outstanding soft skills training in communications, to everyone from U.S. Presidential candidates to high school students, and everyone in between.

We have over a decade of experience working with Brown Brothers Harriman. We’ve individually coached hundreds of BBH employees, including Sr. Partners, C-suite execs, and MDs. We’ve designed training and development programs for individuals, small teams, and large groups at BBH, from Boston to Krakow to Dublin to Tokyo.

WATCH THIS FIRST. (If you want to...)

Before you get to know more about the program we will be offering, we thought it might be helpful to show a case study that illustrates how we work. 

Meet Neil.

CLICK PLAY TO WATCH HIS JOURNEY

CASE STUDIES

Feel free to scroll through the following case studies from our individual coaching work to get a deeper sense of how we work. The first is a video case study; the second, a quantitative analysis; the third, a qualitative analysis. Take a look!

CASE STUDY

FOCUSING
ON THE
OTHER
PERSON

Meet Andrea.

CLICK TO WATCH HER JOURNEY

CASE STUDY

SELLING
IS HELPING,
NOT
DIRECTING

Meet Our
Tax Principal.

CLICK TO SEE HIS JOURNEY

CASE STUDY

BUILDING
STRONGER
RELATIONSHIPS

Meet Our
Relationship Manager.

CLICK TO SEE HIS JOURNEY

RUN OF SHOW

The run of show below outlines the customized program GK Training can deliver. It offers helpful tips and deep dives into the subject matter for each component of the session. Along with the same highly actionable curriculum GK is known for, this program will calibrate its tone for this specific audience: not skimping on the subject matter expertise, but also adjusting levels based on participant experience.

Executive Presence Run of Show

90 MINUTE WORKSHOP

WELCOME

WHY: Learners need a clear moment of embarkment, and a roadmap to know where they’re going and why.

ACTIVITY: The session begins with a moment of surprise and story-telling to engage. We set expectations and cover the agenda so participants feel comfortably in the hands of a trustworthy narrator and challenged by the session’s ambition. We emphasize how the day will equip the learners with new skills that are highly relevant at this beginning stage of their career, and explicitly give them permission to get feedback and support from those around them as they navigate their new legal home at Latham & Watkins.

BREAKOUT 1
SELF-LED (Baseline)

WHY: Participants need to know where they’re starting from.

HOW: Learners establish a baseline by presenting to their colleagues in breakout groups of six or less.

ACTIVITY: Each participant has opportunity to deliver the pre-work; each participant gets equal time. (Note: for the first breakout there is no peer feedback.)

CONTEXT:

LEARN MORE:

Read this GK Blog post “To Breakout or Not to Breakout”

KINESTHETIC LEARNING

WHY: To achieve actual behavioral change, participants need to learn not just with their brains but with their bodies. We use kinesthetic learning and embodied cognition to build new habits that stick.

HOW: Participants learn what Kinesthetic Learning and Embodied Cognition are and why they’re important for new skill development. Participants get introduced to multiple GK proprietary kinesthetic drills for changing bad habits.

ACTIVITY: Participants learn multiple drills that address derailers like: talking too fast, monotone communication, discomfort with silence, verbosity, and filler language.  Here is a sampling of drills that you can expect at your workshop.

CONTEXT:

Previous slide
Next slide

LEARN MORE:

Watch this Keynote from Michael Chad Hoeppner (Pay attention: A cork makes a cameo). 

BREAKOUT 2
SELF-LED

WHY: “What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.” — Socrates

HOW: Learners practice the program’s lessons in breakout groups.

ACTIVITY: Each participant has a second opportunity to deliver the pre-work from the session and note improvements; colleagues offer feedback and observations. Each participant gets equal time.

CONTEXT:

LEARN MORE:

Read this GK Blog post on “How to Make Sure Breakouts Don’t Break Down.” 

HOMEWORK AND
NEXT STEPS

WHY: Now matter how good a learning experience is, practice and reinforcement are needed to turn lessons into habits.
HOW: Learners find out about GK’s follow-up and reinforcement process and tools, and gain access to them.

ACTIVITY: The session wraps up with a preview of the reinforcement emails each participant will receive, an introduction to GK’s interactive practice app Question Roulette (custom version), and guidance on HW. Learners are explicitly encouraged to seek out feedback from stakeholders at Latham & Watkins moving forward.

CONTEXT:

Here’s a demo of the GK Practice App “Question Roulette”

LEARN MORE:

Wanna play with the app yourself?

WHY
US

In a successful RFP process, clients rightfully should explore multiple options. At GK we believe our success.

We help transform entire organizations

or transform a single individual's skills.

From: 
Date: 
Subject:
To: “michael@gktraining.com” <michael@gktraining.com>

Dear Michael:

Please see the press release below. You were instrumental in me making partner and I’m deeply grateful to you and your team for your help.

The one thing that was keeping me from this promotion was a (perceived or real) need to improve my oral advocacy skills. And what got me over that was my performance at the two hearings I had in October and December of last year, on which we worked together. In fact, the day after I returned from the December hearing, the two senior partners that had been critical of my oral advocacy skills called me to tell me that I should get promoted to partner this year. I could not have excelled at those hearings without you and your team, and the work that we did together. And without excelling at those hearings I wouldn’t have been promoted. So I’m not exaggerating one bit when I say that you were instrumental. Thank you so much!!

Take care and happy holidays!

We work with Fortune 500
companies across industries

as well as universities, start-ups and nonprofits.
Regardless of role or experience, GK Training helps people hone their
communication skills in pursuit of their professional and personal goals.

3 OF THE TOP 8
GLOBAL FINANCIAL FIRMS

2
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

45 OF THE  AM LAW 100

2 OF THE 4 

 MAJOR US PROFESSIONAL SPORTS LEAGUES

1 OF THE TOP 5

GLOBAL FOOD & BEVERAGE COMPANIES

4 OF THE TOP 25

GLOBAL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES

Our methodology, our approach.

Spoken communication is a physical art, therefore so is our training.
GK uses kinesthetic learning methods to teach behavioral change. We give people things they can do — not just think about (success) or feel (confident!) — but do, and do 100% of the time…when they’re nervous or not, anxious or not, confident or not. That means in the classroom we do lots of live roleplays. In our remote training we demand interaction, not just checking boxes. We use legos, corks, masking tape, wiffle balls, post-it notes and other everyday 3-dimensional tools to teach people’s bodies — not just their brains — to walk and talk like superstars.

Our curriculum is built on
artistic pedagogy

Our curriculum was created combining the expertise and experience of business professionals, professors and creative artists, including voice, speech, acting, and movement specialists from Juilliard, Yale, and the RSC. When it comes to spoken communications training, all of our trainers in that discipline have lengthy careers as performers, MFAs in their chosen discipline, or both.

We customize every program.

GK prides itself on delivering powerful tools that are customized for each audience. That can be as outside the box as this program we designed for an innovative tech company in their company gym:

Large Group Webinars

The three large-group webinars will each feature similar learning elements: a highly interactive lecture and multiple channels for engagement — including chat feed, polls, call & response, volunteer opportunities, physical gestural responses, and more. On the following pages we cover the highlights for each.

Webinar One

Presence

The first webinar is a 90-min interactive large-group session focused on the simple but profound subject of  presence, in which we examine the impression we form on others and teach participants actionable techniques to convey stronger presence. Some of the content highlights include:

Physical set-up, on-camera techniques, and warming up:

Vocal presence:

Physical presence:

Structure & Conciseness:

Tactical strategies and techniques for demonstrating command on camera:

we give quick, effective tips to improve video aesthetics and prime voices and bodies to speak in a remote setting
We dissect the 5 dynamics of vocal variety, why they matter, how monotone hinders effective remote presence, and preview how we’ll address challenges in breakouts
Eye contact, gestures, and posture all still matter when remote — in fact they may matter more. We connect physical presence not just to impression, but to more incisive content (“saying smarter stuff”).

When people are already Zoom Fatigued, brevity is essential. When uncomfortable on video, communicators tend to speed up, ramble, and lose their audience. We teach kinesthetic tools to address these traps.

including how to encourage your audience to turn on their video, how to narrate off-camera activities, and more.

Webinar Two

Client Communication & Business Development

The first portion of workshop 2 will be ~45 min interactive group session focused on client communications, centered around the topic of conversational agility, ie. how to present well when you have to adjust or adapt. Some of the content highlights include:

Precision and patience in question-asking technique

The Power of Transparency:

Next-level camera technique:

to frame discussion, understand needs, and move to next steps. We understand this BBH audience will likely have significant skill in the power of framing powerful questions, both from their training and experience at BBH. But if they’re not deploying that when remote because of discomfort with video, we’ll address that and teach techniques to ask questions with awareness and agility, and tolerate the silence necessary to receive a response.
How to demonstrate authenticity & candor in handling the inevitable mishaps of the technological age, and build your credibility in the process.
We cover FAQs like, “how do you time interjections to avoid being a doormat or a dominator?” “how do you frame questions to encourage (or discourage, in the rare event that’s preferred) participation?” and more.

Webinar Three

Remote Communication

The third webinar is a 90-min interactive large-group session focused on the simple but profound subject of presence, in which we examine the impression we form on others and teach participants actionable techniques to convey stronger presence. Some of the content highlights include:

Physical set-up, on-camera techniques, and warming up:

Vocal presence:

Physical presence:

Structure & Conciseness:

Tactical strategies and techniques for demonstrating command on camera:

we give quick, effective tips to improve video aesthetics and prime voices and bodies to speak in a remote setting
We dissect the 5 dynamics of vocal variety, why they matter, how monotone hinders effective remote presence, and preview how we’ll address challenges in breakouts
Eye contact, gestures, and posture all still matter when remote — in fact they may matter more. We connect physical presence not just to impression, but to more incisive content (“saying smarter stuff”).

When people are already Zoom Fatigued, brevity is essential. When uncomfortable on video, communicators tend to speed up, ramble, and lose their audience. We teach kinesthetic tools to address these traps.

including how to encourage your audience to turn on their video, how to narrate off-camera activities, and more.

Small Group Workshops

Client Communication & Business Development

Each cohort will have the benefit of two 2-hr small group workshops, which are opportunities to integrate what they’ve learned in the webinars. Each workshop features large-group instruction, followed by smaller group breakouts with two 5-person groups led by a GK Training coach. Each participant will be charged with role-playing a client communication scenario. Each scenario can be unique to the participant, or BBH can create a universal one for all participants. The role-play practice is recorded within the video software platform—pending Nespresso comfort with recording and cloud storage—so participants can review footage after the session. During the coaching portion, each participant:

    • receives individual real-time feedback and coaching from the GK coach.
    • benefits from colleague feedback.
    • gets specific behavioral coaching homework, either including kinesthetic tools, learning aids, technology support or all.

As the last step of the workshop, participants commit to a practice plan and share it with the group to foster both camaraderie and accountability. HW is to review session footage and share their practice plan with an appropriate internal BBH stakeholder/ manager/ accountability partner, etc.

Small Group Workshop 1:

Workshop 1 focuses on a client communication role-play, and includes presenting, answering FAQs, using questions to foster dialogue and engagement, and more.

Small Group Workshop 2:

Workshop 2 is each participant’s opportunity to reinforce the learnings of workshop one and next level learnings – recovering from mistakes, demonstrating agility, and more.

Small Group Workshop 1:

We leverage innovative tech

Machine learning and speech recognition software customized for your company.

Our practice app, Question Roulette, can give clients a scaleable resource for consequence-free practice. The app allows users to improve at answering tough questions or objections. When playing, participants get prompted with a question, or can play “Roulette” or “Rapid Fire.” They are immediately provided with metrics (how long did they speak? how fast? how much filler language?), and each metric is linked to a GK drill for skill development. GK can customize the app entirely for clients, too, so not only can users practice answering generic questions they can practice an industry specific question or objection as well as tracking metrics down to the words used in a response. It’s that powerful.

Experience communication training
in virtual reality.

Our VR app is designed to offer clients a consequence- and judgement-free place to practice their skills. The participant gets immersed in a training world where they can focus on their areas of weakness, with the full sensory stimuli of a virtual reality environment.

Take a tour HERE of some of the experiences available via this custom VR app.

GK Online Learning

An innovative learning platform developed for individuals and organizations.

GK offers clients an asynchronous, self-paced online learning platform featuring comprehensive, multi-lesson courses full of concrete, actionable tools to improve your communication. Courses includes our practice app and a suite of kinesthetic tools developed over a decade of coaching executives, attorneys, salespeople, political candidates, and graduate students.

Click here to see the current suite of course offerings.