A few months ago, walking my pup at some ridiculous hour of the morning and listening to the best podcast in the world – Richard Fiedlers ‘The Conversation Hour’, I lucked on an extraordinary interview with Anni Finsterer. In the podcast, Anni talked about her life which to date that had been marked by some terrible tragedy as well as some wonderful good fortune such as her family and a terrific acting career.

Anni’s story really struck me, you can listen to it here.

Much of Anni’s facilitation work revolves around realising potential and overcoming adversity and while we didn’t need to focus on these areas for the team at Espresso, it was a no brainer that Anni should work with us. Sometimes you just know.

With Espresso’s first staff offsite on the horizon I was looking closely at the challenges that were facing us as we grew nearly 300 per cent in 12 months. Working with the theme, ‘Prosperity with Integrity’ a key focus for us as a group was to develop strategies to grow as a company without leaving behind those things that make little companies great. Positive working environments, quality interactions with clients, media and each other – and no bitching! The current Espresso team are the custodians of our culture and it was great to stop and discuss how we would consciously evolve as a company. With the belief that good quality communication is central to doing this well Anni suggested an adaptation of her Keying Into Communication programme.

But we are a communications consultancy – we know this stuff right?? With 93 per cent of all communication being non-verbal, Anni’s course provided an excellent opportunity to throw a fun and engaging spotlight on how we handle ourselves in our communication with each other and those we deal with every day. Bringing in the skills learned throughout a 25 year career as one of Australia’s best actors Anni and Anniinc team member Pricilla took us through a range of improv drama scenarios and exercises to challenge us.

Held in a restored barn at the Old Leura Dairy, it was truly a treat to spend a morning with Anni and Priscilla. It would be fair to say that we walked out different people and as a group who had been given valuable tools to listen and communicate better as well as understand that we all tick just that little bit differently.

I spoke with Anni earlier today to discuss how it’s going a month down the track. It’s great. I’ve watched a lovely group of people really blossom since the session. They’ve learned a lot about themselves, how to manage tricky conversations and how to identify and break some poor habits that we all have when communicating with others. All this applies to me as well of course!

Thanks Anni and Prisicilla.

Corrie and Team Espresso