February 2025 – Nothing Phases Our Breakfasters
Fire alarms, fire truck and the door? Nothing stopped our networking breakfasters. They just decamped to the car park opposite The Mix and started on their 60 seconds!
Guest speaker, Colin Tapscott
Colin’s alliterative title for his presentation was: Converting Challenging Conversations to Confident Collaborations.
“My role as a coach and trainer and one of the biggest topics that regularly comes up is how to handle difficult conversations” he said.
He asked the audience to list topics that had come up for them: They included customer complaints, performance, questions about safety and neurodiversity, among
others.
He then tackled how to approach them including showing curiosity, preliminary simple questions paraphrasing the key issues, and summarising them.
“It sends the message that you are listening to the person,” he said.
A key step is to pause then pacify, perceive and partner. Make a plan asking yourself what it is you want to come out of the conversation.
It can be frustrating if the person’s emotions are uppermost so a plan is essential.
“The key thing when raising an issue is to partner with people,“ he said.
At the end, summarise the plan, he said.
For the Future
Anyone who needs to refresh their Member Spotlight or has not yet been featured in a Member Spotlight on the website please contact publicity officer Alison Withers: [email protected]
Chairman Colin Tapscott reminded people that MSBE is coming up soon and asked people to take some leaflets to hand out when they are at other networking meetings.
Chairman Colin Tapscott is always happy to receive any suggestions for what members want to see the Chamber doing in the future. Please send your ideas (and your wish lists) to [email protected]
Dates for your diary:
Please check the website in case of any last-minute changes.
| Coffee Morning | Chamber Breakfast |
| Hosted by Spi-des-ign Web & Graphic Solutions Unit 15, Ticehurst Yards Beyton Road Tostock IP30 9PH |
The Mix Stowmarket 127 Ipswich Street Stowmarket IP14 1BB |
| Friday, 4 April 2025 | Friday, 25 April 2025 |
| 10.00 am to 12.30 pm | 7.15 am to 9.00 am |
For more information contact Keely Taylor by phone: 01449 770965 or e-mail: [email protected].
