We’re delighted to welcome Patrick Bland to the Change Formation team.
Some of you might recognise Patrick as he’s worked with us many times over the years, as an actor in some of our theatre-based learning sessions.
Joining our team on an even more regular basis, Patrick will be supporting our clients to develop their people using Insights Discovery.
Patrick’s background
When starting out in his career, Patrick worked in insurance broking and spent some time in TV production, two very different environments. He became fascinated in the behaviour of the people he worked with; the organisational culture, office politics and different situations people found themselves in.
This interest in human behaviour inspired a love of acting, and in the late 1990s Patrick went back into education to study for a Diploma in Acting. He relishes the process of acting – getting to play different people from different backgrounds, and having to deeply understand the nuances of their lives and behaviours, to bring them alive on the stage or screen.
Combining acting with a desire to better understand people’s behaviour and motivations, it was a natural step for Patrick to move into theatre based learning.
Developing people through theatre
Working in theatre-based learning suits Patrick perfectly. He’s a natural listener and participants are quick to trust him.
He creates a safe and comfortable environment, enabling people to open up and get the most from their training experience. Never too direct in his approach, he coaches participants to give context to their experiences and see their behaviour in relation to others.
Patrick particularly loves the moment when he sees delegates recognising a behaviour in themselves and understanding the impact it has on others. This is a crucial step in helping people to adapt their behaviour to improve communications and relationships at work (and sometimes in the home too).
We’ve worked with Patrick many times in the past and seen how quickly he builds rapport and uses storytelling to bring a topic to life for delegates. This made him an obvious candidate to become an Insights Discovery practitioner.
How Patrick will be supporting our clients
Patrick is joining us as a newly certified Insights Discovery Practitioner. Bringing his years’ of experience in people development to the role, we are confident he will add great value to our clients’ people development projects.
One of Patrick’s particular skills is using real world examples to bring concepts to life, which is a valuable asset when introducing people to Insights Discovery.
In Patrick’s own words…
“Insights Discovery is such a dynamic tool, I’m delighted to be working with it. For participants it’s easy to access, interesting and fun. It helps me to get under the skin of people’s behaviours and really help them see those behaviours from other people’s point of view. Learning to adapt a single behaviour might seem like quite a small change, but the effect on that person’s confidence and working life can be quite significant.”
Talking the talk and walking the walk
Patrick splits his professional time between people development and his acting career. When he’s not helping delegates with Insights Discovery, he can often be found treading the boards as a character comic and in comedy improvisation.
He also has a passion for trekking, particularly in the South Downs, or further afield in the Scottish mountains and fells of the Lake District.
Find out more about Patrick
Learn more about Patrick and the rest of the Change Formation team.