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Organisational and Interpersonal Skills in Management

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Faculty Spot

Paul Dixey 

Programme
Influencing Skills for the New Workplace
Praxis Customised Programmes
Paul leads and manages all roleplay activity at Praxis.
What are you an expert in?
Placing drama-based learning and training in a measurable and meaningful strategic perspective, based on intangible assets - ie people.
What is it you are currently thinking about/care about in the world of work?
I am interested in developing tools that have the potential to offer a link between experiential learning (through drama), and the practicalities of day-to-day working life.
I am currently engaged in research on ‘Meaning & Its Movement’, with a colleague, Mike Orlov.
Don’t plan; be ready. Strive to live in the moment.
What would you like to see change in organisations?
I would like to see organisations that relish the complexity and unpredictability of modern and working life.
I am interested in understanding how to create working environments in which people are acutely aware how not to de-motivate people. Listening very carefully - paying close attention to each others’ needs and hidden messages - is just a start. Through this, individuals reinforce their own sense of self worth to the organisation.
These would be organisations in which the interpretation of meaning is encouraged, as it is recognised for stimulating creative action and interaction. People may think this happens in organisations, anyway - but I doubt it.
There are opportunities to deflect people’s understandable concerns about large-scale change in organisations, if we consider the language used to communicate it and understand how the subsequent meanings move for individuals within the business.
What is special about Praxis?
It is a diverse group of people who strive to make a positive difference with special and unique levels of understanding. Where else is this particular blend to be found?
Why does the programme you teach at Praxis matter in business?
Roleplayers gets consistently exceptional feedback from the participants, on all the courses in which we are involved. We provide a forum for people to practise communications skills in a safe environment.
In the future, they will matter even more as we begin to develop and explore situational tools applied to case studies – historical, real and contemporary. We learn from doing, so it matters that we know what we are doing.
Our research is thorough and rooted in the theoretical and academic aspects of business.
We have first-hand experience of working in a variety of professional business environments, all of which informs how and what we deliver.
How would you describe your teaching style?
Fun – “It’s fun to have fun but you have to know how,” Dr Seuss.
Sensitive, supportive, encouraging, creative, imaginative, innovative and challenging.
The ability to adapt in the moment, very quickly, to movements in messages and meanings that people give me. At the same time, I am able to reward them in a realistic fashion, commensurate to how closely they can align themselves to desirable outcomes and objectives.
Education and Qualifications
Master of Theology, St. Andrew’s University, 1980
MSc, Marketing & Information Technology, Napier College, Edinburgh, 1988
Postgraduate Acting Diploma, Academy of Live & Recorded Arts, 1981
Work Experience
1981-1988: Professional Actor
Television, radio, theatre and opera – for many leading organisations and venues, including:
Channel Four; BBC; The Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham; Scottish Opera.
My selected credits include: The Houseman’s Tale, Inspector Morse, Murder in the Cathedral, Calling Occupants of Inter-Planetary Craft, Carmen, The Hunting Towers, Iolanthe, The Gnostics, Pity in History
1984-1986: Roleplayer
Playing barristers, GPs and patients for Lothian Health Board & Tayside Regional Council, for the benefit of social workers.
1988-1993: Qualitative Market Researcher
I worked for: The HPI Research Group (1988-1989); Taylor Nelson Financial (1989
1991); and Catalyst Data Collection (1991-1992).
1993: Founded ‘Roleplayers’, which has provided drama-based training to Praxis and the Cranfield MBA programme since 1995. It provides experiential learning through drama-based training.
The best bits are always yet to come.
Interests
Jazz, comedy (every hue) and people who crack me up. Sailing - catamarans, especially.
Canoeing. Fatherhood. Theatre. Politics. Poetry. Plays. Art. Non-scheduled Theology.
Football. Cricket. Cycling. Swimming. Walking. Exploratory Adventures. The Spirit of
Anarchy. Listening to the still quiet voice. Transcendental Meditation. Eclectic reading,
viewing and seeking. Wine. Beer. Foods of the world. Language. Meaning and Movement.