FOR BOLD LEADERS

Unboring Team Training

Training Without PowerPoints, Post-its, or Yawns

Reignite connection, discover new ways of working, and give your team a training experience they’ll actually remember.

Smart training for smart teams

Smart teams know the theory. They’ve talked the talk. They’re the experts. They don’t need another four-part framework or three-ring Venn. They’re looking for a learning experience that fully engages them (mind and body), expands their comfort zone, and brings the joy and delight that comes from genuine insight.

For all teams, great and small.

Three signs we might be a match.

Training is starting to feel a bit stale.

You invest in your people, which is pretty fabulous in a world of AI-slop and automation fanaticism. However, a lot of the training out there feels a bit like shopping for dishwashing liquid: 100 variations on boring. You’re maybe asking heretical questions like: “Can we learn things without being on our arses for an entire afternoon?” and “Can I attend training on Friday and remember absolutely any of it on a Monday?” The answer is a candid, joyous yes.

You know soft skills are hard skills to learn.

In The Matrix, Neo gets the cyberpunk equivalent of a USB stick in his head and, whoomph, suddenly he knows Kung-Fu. People don’t work that way (yet). You can’t learn about difficult conversations, leading with influence, or presenting with presence by hearing someone else talk about it. Good training is more like The Karate Kid: We need to wax on, wax off. Get our hands dirty. Challenge ourselves. You’re ready for training that meets people where they are, in all their complexity.

You’re ready for change, but not sure where to begin.

There’s an old joke about a priest who, having lost his faith, turns to God to ask what he should do next. We do this too: We need our people to be more flexible and adaptable but we turn to the old methods: boring training, rigid hierarchies, and stale leadership development frameworks. You’re ready for an approach to training that is genuinely different: Playful, wild, and human.

Unboring Training for Every Team, Especially Yours

All workshops run for 3 hours and include a one-hour design session and a one-hour debrief. Full day and multi-day variants can also be designed, contact me [insert link to contact page] to discuss your needs.

TEAM RESET.

Give your team the breath of fresh air they need to think differently. Team Reset is designed to boost engagement with a big-grin, unforgettable learning experience that connects and delights

ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The best leader doesn’t have any one style, but the ability to move between styles. Adaptive Leadership helps your smartest people think quicker, relate deeper, and change faster.

CREATIVE
CONFIDENCE

Collaboration, difficult conversations, and leading with influence all begin with the confidence to take a risk. Creative Confidence builds the safety and confidence of your team so they can do better, bigger, and bolder work together.

$5,000 + GST.
For full-day, off-site or bespoke options, please reach out.

Unboring Behaviour Change

The future of behaviour change has arrived, but the world of training and leadership development hasn’t caught up yet. There are three seismic shifts in cognitive science that drive how team leaders need to approach people development. My approach uses performance training and cognitive science to engage and delight your team.

In the age of the internet, we have access to all the information we could ever need. Our minds resort to shortcuts, or mental frames, to manage information overload. Mental frames are in the synapses of our brains, shaping what kind of thoughts are possible. To change people, you need to change mental frames. My approach focuses on (gently, lovingly) disrupting the mental frames that keep us stuck in place.

We need to train the whole person. You can’t teach difficult conversations with a four-step process. There’s no one-size-fits-all model for adaptability or resilience. Training approaches that focus on intellectual strategies don’t work. People need the capacity to handle challenging situations in real time. My approach trains the whole person by getting people actually practicing skills, bridging theory to practice.

Teams are more than the sum of their parts, which is why teams of smart individuals don’t always produce smart results. To build a team, we need to focus on relationships rather than isolated individuals. In training, this means we don’t need more experts. We need to discover the expertise that’s already in the room. My approach centres on building connections and relationships so people can learn from each other.

Hi, I’m Aden. I was the ratbag at the back of the classroom. I know what it’s like to be smart & bored.

When I was a kid, I graded my teachers. I drew a little thermometer on the bottom-right of every page: The “bored-o-meter.” I told my teachers how bored I was with their lessons. I got yelled at (more than once) for this. I refused to believe that learning needed to be boring.

Things changed when I started taking improvised theatre classes in high school. Improvisation challenged me in a way that academic work didn’t. I needed to move. I need to think on my feet. I needed to connect with my team and make them look good. Improvisation felt like real life: messy, real, and fun. 

We’re making it up on the spot. Why not get good?

I read academic articles by day and slay the stage by night.

In my mid-20s, I raised $5,000,000 for UWA to bring Service Learning to students’ academic life. The idea was simple: There’s a limit to what you can learn in a lecture theatre. The most transformative, high-impact learning happens outside the classroom. This idea was compelling enough that the McCusker Foundation put their largest ever donation towards it (here’s proof!).

Around the same time, I was running improv night classes out of an old Masonic hall on the fringe of the UWA campus. Improv gave me an opportunity to be playful. That small group became a company, and then a movement. Today, my public theatre company, Only the Human, has taught around 500 people how to improvise, and our partner charity is collectively owned by 50 member-improvisers.

Today, I blend the two together: Experiential learning that’s actually fun.

You’ve got questions, I’ve got answers

  • I adore this question. Firstly: I am an introvert. I love a good book (can you tell?). I didn’t design this work for the people-loving extravert, I designed it for the introvert looking to be challenged and engaged on their own terms. My workshops invite people to participate at their own pace in a way that feels appropriate to them, with clear protocols around safety and non-participation, while still inviting challenge and discovery. The converted sceptic is my favourite attendee. Bring ‘em in.

  • This work is designed for those teams with enough psychosocial safety to try something different. It assumes that a certain level of trust, readiness, and appetite for challenge exists in the room already. If your team is facing acute performance management issues, has a hazardous or unsafe culture, or if team members are in mediation, then this may not be the right work for you at this moment in time.

  • I do for those with the wherewithal to keep scrolling for long enough. If you’re mission-aligned, have a turnover of less than $10m p.a., and are doing good work, reach out. We’ll see what we can do.

Alright. Are you in?

I’m in an old, 1920s newspaper office staring at a rotary phone, eagerly awaiting your call. The best time to unboring team training was when you last got your team together. The second best time is now.