Photo by: Andrew Bailey
My writing, public speaking, and leadership workshops offer a quick but thorough primer on best practice for the topic at hand. Participants apply relevant concepts to their own work, with feedback from myself and peers. Learning is further embedded through PDF copies of my PowerPoint slides, as well as handouts with additional tips.
When preparing a workshop, I am conscientious and meticulous. I begin with a discovery call to ascertain the client’s needs and consult further if there is any ambiguity. I believe in lifelong learning, so always follow up afterwards to receive feedback.
When preparing new materials, I do extensive reading and research so that I can render topics accessible to the audience at hand and answer questions confidently. I am particularly mindful to select exercises that bring a concept to life, rather than just lecturing at the audience.
People who take my workshops come away with concrete skills they can begin implementing immediately. As one attendee put it, “We think we know how to write. And then we take one of Delia’s workshops.”
People also emerge from my workshops with greater zeal and a renewed sense of purpose. One participant wrote:
“I was thrilled by Delia Lloyd’s energy and enthusiasm…She’s been a source of inspiration and a role model I’ll try to emulate.”
While I offer a robust and diverse suite of content (see below), I am always open to developing new material. I can also mix and match different components from existing workshops to yield a more bespoke experience.
Virtual Workshops
With the advent of the 2020 pandemic, I now offer all of my workshops both face-to-face and virtually. My home office is fully kitted out with the latest equipment, and I can be highly flexible with delivery times so as to meet needs across time zones.
Logistics
I have delivered workshops for anywhere from 4 to 105 people. These typically last between 90 minutes to an entire day, at times extending across several days.
I am available for weekend hire, although weekdays are preferable. Prices vary with the number of sessions and the type of client, so please contact me to discuss fees in more detail.
Sample workshops include:
- Advanced Presentation Skills for sales representatives at an energy company
- Using Stories to Engage and Inspire Others for Executive MBAs at a business school
- Academic Writing for post-graduate students pursuing their PhDs
- Life Skills for Offices for Master’s students seeking employment
- How to Edit Your Own Writing for researchers and policy analysts at a think tank
- Academic Writing: This workshop combines best practice thinking with tips and exercises to provide a quick primer on academic writing. We explore the broad principles underlying academic writing: what makes academic writing distinctive, how to situate your argument within a broader literature, how to structure a coherent argument, and how to create compelling introductions and effective conclusions. Note: This can be offered as a stand-alone workshop or as a series of discrete workshops covering Writing as Conversation; Introductions and Literature Reviews; Coherence; Conclusions; and How to Write for a Broader Audience. I can also mix and match different components to yield a more bespoke academic writing workshop, depending on your needs.
- Persuasive Writing: Persuasive writing is a necessary skill for anyone working in the business, policy, or not-for-profit sectors. In this workshop, we explore the broad principles underlying persuasive writing: knowing your audience, assembling a convincing body of evidence, structuring a coherent argument, and anticipating counter arguments. We also look at how to engage your audience through strong starts, descriptive language, and persuasive rhetorical techniques.
- Policy Memo writing: Effective policy communication can help champion a cause, secure stakeholder support or change policy at the national or international level. This day-long workshop begins by exploring the broad principles underlying persuasive communication: identifying an aim, knowing the audience, and structuring an argument. The workshop then looks at the basics of professional writing, with a focus on clarity and concision. It concludes with a practicum in which participants pull the learnings from these initial sessions together and draft a policy memo on which they receive feedback.
- Blogging: Blogging has taken off as a form of communication unique to the 21st century. Whether you are a practitioner, policy analyst, researcher, or entrepreneur, blogging can help you create a community around a specific body of expertise. This workshop will show you how to generate timely and relevant content for blogs, how to write a blog so that it actually gets read, and how to create that signature conversational tone we associate with blogging. It is useful for beginners who would like to build a successful blog from the ground up, as well for those who wish to fine-tune and improve an existing blog.
- Opinion Editorials: This workshop provides a short introduction to the art of opinion editorial writing. We look at how to use the tools of persuasive writing to construct an opinion piece that is reader-focused, from beginning to end. We then explore how to choose a claim and how to pitch a media outlet to sell your piece. We also examine strategies for enabling the writer to hit their wordcount.
- Report Writing: This workshop explores the essentials for writing a good report whether for policy or business audiences. We focus mainly on the structure of the report—the introduction, the body and the executive summary—and how to align those with the report's central conclusion and recommendations. We also look at how to write in a way that is "reader-focused," touching on things like active voice, bullets, and the effective use of data visualisation. Participants will come away with greater knowledge of what a report needs to look like and accomplish.
- How to Edit Your Own Writing: How many times have you produced an original insight, only to be told that your writing interfered with conveying your ideas? All good writing requires conceptual clarity. But it also demands clarity at the level of the sentence and the paragraph. This workshop runs participants through the basics of good writing with a focus on concision and coherence. Topics include short sentences, topic sentences, decluttering your writing and active voice. Participants will come away with more confidence in how to edit their own writing.
- Academic Reading: Despite the advent of the internet, journal articles and scholarly books remain the most common way of acquiring new information in academia. And yet, no one ever teaches you how to read efficiently when confronted with a barrage of academic texts. This workshop introduces three techniques to help graduate students read "smart": scanning, skimming, and close reading. By working through published texts, students learn how to read selectively, saving them time and enhancing their retention.
- How to Give a Good Talk: Successful presentations need to do three things:
- communicate your arguments and evidence
- persuade your audience that these are compelling
- engage and entertain
This workshop will show you how to draw your audience in from the start. It will also help you to organize your presentation in a way that brings your audience with you, step by step. Finally, you will learn a host of tips that will enable you to communicate your ideas persuasively including how to speak from notes, how to design and deliver slides, and how to prepare for Q and A. Note: I usually deliver this workshop as a mini-course in five sessions, covering the following topics: Engagement; Content and Structure; Delivery; Preparation; Storytelling. I can also mix and match different components to yield a shorter, more bespoke public speaking workshop, depending on your needs.
- Storytelling: Storytelling has become a popular way to deliver messages in a wide range of professional settings. In this workshop, we look at why stories are an effective communication technique, the narrative components of a good story, and how we apply those elements to our project to bring it alive. This workshop should be useful to researchers from any discipline and to leaders or practitioners at any point in their careers.
- Executive Presence: Building executive presence hinges on using a range of communication tools, including body language, voice, mindset, and words. These tools can help enhance your personal impact. Participants will come away with greater confidence in their ability to manage connections, perceptions, and relationships, both inside and outside of work.
- Virtual Presence: This workshop focuses on getting you comfortable with virtual meetings so that you can maximize your virtual presence. We explore some of the technical aspects of virtual delivery, including lighting, backgrounds, and how to make the camera your friend. We also look at how to use other tools at your disposal—such as your voice and your words—to help ensure that you come across as confident and engaging.
- Speeches: This workshop helps build your skills and confidence so that you can draft and deliver a great speech. We begin by looking at the difference between a speech and a presentation. We then walk through some of the key elements of good speech writing: having a keen sense of purpose, audience, and feeling, as well as using language and structure in a way that makes your speech memorable. In the second half of the workshop, we touch on some of the key aspects of delivery, including presence, voice, and notes. Participants have an opportunity to draft and deliver a short speech.
- Crafting Your (Academic) Elevator Pitch: This workshop is designed to help you prepare your “elevator pitch” for the academic job market. This is the one question you are guaranteed to be asked, and your answer can prove pivotal in advancing you to the next stage in the interview process. In this workshop, the elevator pitch is broken down into its component parts so that you can craft a tight response. Topics covered include how to introduce yourself, how to articulate a coherent summary of your job paper/dissertation, and additional tips for tweaking your pitch to the job at hand.
- Leading Successful Teams: As you gain seniority in an organisation, much of your success hinges on your ability to lead teams effectively. This practical, hands-on workshop offers a quick primer on how to build and sustain a successful team. The focus is both on how to manage and organize tasks and how to manage and organize people. Topics include defining goals, making decisions, delegating responsibilities, and building psychological safety. We will also look at different leadership styles and how and when to flex them. Participants will emerge more confident in their ability to lead a large and diverse team.
- Influencing and Persuading: This workshop introduces a framework for assessing four behavioral styles and how those translate into different communication styles at work. Participants use the framework to map out their own, natural communication styles. They then learn how to adapt that style to communicate effectively with others, using improvisation techniques to embed this learning. The tools we explore here are critical to fostering teamwork and collaboration. This workshop is useful for anyone in a management role, as well as those trying to manage up effectively.
- High Performance Mindset: We all perform better on some occasions than others for any number of reasons. By sharing the psychology of peak performance, I show you how you can perform at the very top of your game more consistently. In this workshop, we will explore how self-image affects performance, demonstrate that it is possible to change one's self-image, and master a new technique for promoting positive self-talk.
- Running Meetings: Productive meetings which push projects and ideas forward are vital for getting things done. Like so many things, however, we often don’t give enough thought to how to run a meeting. This workshop introduces a simple technique to help you structure your meetings so as to use your time as effectively. It also reviews the key listening and communication skills that can yield buy-in from your team.
- Creative Thinking: This course introduces participants to a variety of different tools for innovative thinking. It is based on the premise that there is never any one, “right” answer to a problem, just a series of options. But by approaching problems as a group and from a variety of different angles, we can make our ideas better. We use exercises to examine divergent thinking and convergent thinking with applications to the group’s real-world professional problems.
- Project Management Essentials: Many of us feel overwhelmed by our To Do lists. We have so much to do, and so little time, that we often throw up our hands and get very little done. This workshop introduces you to a series of tools that can help you manage projects more efficiently. The workshop combines best practice, tips, and exercises to explore how to prioritise tasks, how to make better use of our time, and how to break down projects into discrete, manageable chunks. Participants should emerge from the workshop feeling more relaxed, and with a solid sense of how to move forward with their workload.
- Life Skills for Offices: This workshop is designed for people at the beginning of their careers who need to know what awaits them when they start working in an office. Think of it as “Everything you ever wanted to know about offices...but were afraid to ask.” The focus will be practical, covering topics such as how to get the most out of your professional development, how to set SMART goals for yourself, and how to communicate effectively with a range of senior colleagues you’ll encounter.
- Interview Skills: With all the changes to how we work unfolding over the past couple of years, one thing has remained constant: we still need to interview for jobs. Although job interviews are inherently nerve-wracking, most of doing well comes down to preparation. This workshop will show you what you can do before and after an interview to maximize the likelihood of success, how to anticipate likely questions you will get (and how to answer them), and how to tackle a competency-based interview. Participants will come away with greater confidence in responding effectively to a variety of interview questions.
- Cross-Cultural Communication: Communicating effectively across national and regional boundaries is paramount in a globalized world. This workshop teaches you how to recognize markers of different cultures, both visible and less visible, so that you can cultivate “inter-cultural competence.” Inter-cultural competence isn’t about reducing people to stereotypes. Nor is it about learning everything there is to know about a certain culture. Rather, it’s about cultivating a mindset rooted in sensitivity and flexibility. We begin this workshop by reflecting on our own cultures. We then look at the different skills required to foster a growth mindset where foreign cultures are concerned. The workshop draws extensively on role play.