The offer is primarily designed for individual clients. Group or team sessions are also available, once the participants’ needs and aims have been established.
Why do we listen to some speakers with interest and trust them, while others, notwithstanding their extensive knowledge and thorough preparation, fail to reach us?
This option is for those who wish to use rhetoric more consciously in speeches, presentations, discussions and other more or less formal situations, from professional meetings to oral examinations. We work on how to express your ideas clearly, build credibility and persuade without manipulating your audience.
Classical rhetoric is the starting point here, not a museum piece. Above all, we ask which of its principles remain useful in contemporary communication.
You may be born a remarkably eloquent speaker, but it is worth remembering that public speaking is a competence. And competences can be learnt.
This option is designed both for people who experience a fear of public speaking and for those who speak regularly but would like to do so more consciously, naturally and effectively.
The aim is not to create the perfect stage performer, but gradually to achieve a level of confidence and ease that allows you to stop focusing on your own anxiety and concentrate instead on your audience, your message and the purpose of your speech.
There is probably no message that is effective always, everywhere and with everyone.
This option is about consciously adapting the way you communicate to your audience, context and purpose without losing your own style and, consequently, your authenticity.
Communicative competence does not mean knowing the one correct way to speak. It means being able to make a conscious choice from among different ways of expressing the same idea.
We work on communication in a range of professional and social situations, paying attention to the choice of tone, register, rules of politeness and approach to argumentation, as well as interpersonal, social, cultural and cross-cultural factors.
Hirek, incidentally, is a Polish diminutive of Hieronim (Jerome), the patron saint of translators, librarians and encyclopaedists. An interpreter is a very particular kind of audience member. When listening to a speaker, an interpreter immediately experiences the consequences of an illogical structure, filters out unnecessary information, spots flaws and simplifies convoluted thoughts.
Here, I draw on my experience both as an interpreter and as a researcher in conference interpreting to look at communication from the perspective of someone who must not only understand what is being said, but convey its meaning to others almost immediately.
This option is particularly useful for people speaking at conferences and multilingual events, although the principles behind it have much wider applications.
Not every need calls for an entire training programme. Sometimes you need to prepare for a particular speech, structure your arguments, rehearse a presentation, find your own way of dealing with anxiety, or simply look at the way you communicate from a different perspective.
That is why individual consultations tailored to a particular person, situation and objective are the core way of working at GJMB. We begin with a conversation about what you need, then define the goal together and decide on the most appropriate format and scope of our work.
Beyond individual consultations, group or team sessions are equally available, following an initial discussion of the participants’ needs, expectations and the aims they share.
