Deborah Khan -- Creative Inspiration: The art of football

What my clients say about me

John Birch - BA
“I was really impressed with the way Deborah Khan delivered training on the subject of communication skills to us at BA Pensions. She took time to fully research and understand how we worked and what our specific concerns were. She designed a programme that matched not only our collective requirements but was also flexible enough to cover individual development needs. Her methods, being performance based, ensured that even the most introverted of us participated in the programme and our subsequent delivery in formal presentations has improved significantly"
Tom Powell - DLKW
"I participated in a one-day session with Deb Khan last year and would strongly recommend it for both novice speakers and those looking to hone their skills. She (gently) picked apart our strengths and weaknesses and by the end of the day, the results were tremendous. Everyone left with a range of practical skills and it's been a huge benefit for presentations"
Kai Vacher - Specialist Schools Trust
"Deb has incredible foresight, emotional intelligence and a razor sharp focus on specific outcomes to plan programmes/workshops of outstanding quality. Her ability to work with a group of people so that very quickly they feel at ease with each other is unsurpassed in my experience. Deb uses a varied range of interactive strategies to provide the prefect balance of challenge and support for workshop participants. Post event, course participants often contact me to express their overwhelming sense of achievement having worked with Deb, and want more; for themselves and colleagues.”
David Mikhail - RHM
Deborah is fantastic. I’m afraid she had to suffer both of our last pitches – but after her input we just flew, winning really important work from both of them. She is practically our fourth partner now. In spite of all our training (7 years at architecture school) I realise now we were taught nothing about presenting. Deborah helped us to communicate successfully, but she is about much more than communication skills. She goes straight to the heart of what we are trying to say, what are our best ideas, and feels her way into the audience. She works us hard but she’s great fun and our business is booming thanks to her.
Simon Beckett - Five TV
"..this morning was most useful – so often in my experience creative workshops are all enthusiasm and no substance but yours was a refreshing change and I actually had to work at thinking about what you were saying and what I was thinking (I love metacognition)"

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Tenuous, as ever, link to the previous post. Just a nice story to hopefully shatter lots of preconceptions.

I am often asked about how and why I worked in Opera. I always tell them because I was asked. More pertinently, by someone who I immediately recognised as a deeply considered, hilarious, supportive, thoughtful, truly creative bloke called Paul. With slight Jarvis Cocker aspirations to boot.

I hope this story challenges one of the many thorns in my side.That is how certain "creative" types are often perceived as taking the moral high ground. As being unapproachable. About serving the needs of their art above all else. About suffering from a sense of humour failure.Those myths are bowel shatteringly inaccurate.

Paul Reeve, Director of Education at The Royal Opera House, sent me this story in response to my Fame At Last post about Interesting 2007, where I am speaking.

The story is just too good to keep to myself.

I've played the City of Varietiestoo! Simon may appreciate the story of when I was due to do a Saturday matinee there. Another actor with a football passion and myself realised that the House was going to be woefully thin. We'd got wind the previous evening that, unless business picked up on the door, the show might get cancelled. Since Leeds were playing at home that same afternoon, we were rooting for the cancellation. We carefully picked up any production flyers we saw on our travels round the city and disposed of them, lest someone should pick one up and feel the urge to book for the matinee. We did debate hanging round the box office and telling people the show was crap, but felt that might be rather disloyal. Despite the fact that we were in the opening scene, we didn't don any make-up or costume, ordered a cab to wait at Stage Door and prayed. The announcement that we were cancelled came at 2.25 (5 minutes before curtain up); we were in Elland Road by 2.45.

Welcome

A fresh, raw idea is our most precious commodity. I run workshops aimed at developing the inherent ability we all have to be creative. With 20 years personal experience of the arts, education, lateral thinking, coaching and consultancy I create bespoke, practical sessions tailored to my client’s particular needs. I then deliver support and advice to help practice and inspire creativity in the workspace. I achieve this through active learning sessions. Where people really understand what it means to be creative – a unique fusion of the intellectual, physical and emotional. With the emphasis on active. It’s about learning by doing. For me there is no other way. Getting off your chair, rolling up your sleeves and getting stuck in. It’s dynamic, fast-paced and fun. Many workshops on creativity are often more form than content. I hope mine has the balance towards the former but has a great latter. For more information email me and I will send you a full description of what I do.