Training & seminars
Interpersonal communication
These programmes start from self-awareness: DISC and Driving Forces to read behaviour, the Enneagram to understand what drives it, and positive, non-violent communication to act on both — giving feedback, standing your ground, defusing tension. Two to three days.
3 courses
Self-awareness and positive communication
The foundation course behind most of ABP's other programmes. Two days using DISC and the Enneagram to understand your own communication defaults, recognise where they cost you, and build the flexibility to work with people who operate differently.
- Know the 9 base types of the Enneagram
- Know the notions of integration and disintegration
Knowing yourself to communicate better and stand your ground
Knowing how you work is the foundation for communicating well and holding your ground. Three days built on the Enneagram — two together, then a third some weeks later, once you have tried the tools and found out where they break.
- Know the key principles of the Enneagram: the 9 base types, and the notions of integration and disintegration
- Know your own personality base type in the Enneagram
DISC and Driving Forces
Two days on two complementary instruments: DISC describes how someone behaves, Driving Forces describes why. Each participant receives an individual report and leaves with a relationship strategy for the colleagues they find hardest.
- Identify the 4 behavioural styles of the DISC model and their key characteristics
- Analyse your own profile and Driving Forces from the results of the individual assessment
Communication training has a reputation for being soft, which is unfortunate, because the failures it addresses are expensive and concrete: the meeting that ends without a decision, the project that stalls because two leads will not talk, the presentation that loses a budget it deserved to win.
Our approach is built on self-awareness first. Most people communicate the way they would like to be communicated with — which works on roughly a quarter of the people they meet. Participants use DISC and the Enneagram to see their own default register, recognise where it lands badly, and build a second and third register they can switch into deliberately.
In a market where a single meeting can contain four native languages and several very different norms about directness, that flexibility is not a nicety. It is the difference between being understood and being merely polite at each other.
Organisations that have called on ABP Consulting
Frequently asked questions
Which of the three courses should we start with?
Most teams start with Self-awareness and positive communication: two days built on the Enneagram and practical communication techniques. DISC and Driving Forces suits a team that wants a shared behavioural language quickly. The three-day Enneagram course goes furthest, for people working on how they hold their ground under pressure.
What counts as a "difficult personality" in these courses?
Colleagues who are chronically negative, who agree in the room and undo the decision afterwards, who escalate every disagreement, or who withdraw entirely. The course does not diagnose or label anyone; it gives you a way to keep working productively with behaviour you cannot change.
Is conflict management different in a multicultural team?
Substantially. What reads as healthy directness in one culture reads as a personal attack in another, and silence can mean assent, disagreement or deference depending on who is silent. The course covers how to check which one you are actually dealing with before responding.
Can these modules be combined with a management programme?
Yes, and they frequently are. Communication modules are the most commonly borrowed across categories, because most management problems that look like process problems turn out to be conversation problems.