Actors Use Theater Techniques to Teach Leadership

The company was founded by a singer and an actress--with little business experience. Their vision statement read like a Buddhist prayer. They held staff retreatsinvolving a combination of music, business and meditation. But, over the past decade the company has trained nearly 50,000 executives in Leadership Presence by getting them to reflect on their core values, spout Shakespeare, and add emotion to their messages. Their client list has grown to include some of the world’s largest, most conservative companies, who fly them all over the US, Europe and Asia to deliver their workshops. They are a now multi-million-dollar business growing at 25% a year since 2000. And they have just received the Business of the Year award from a national trade association.

Belle Halpern, co-founder, and Sean Kavanagh, CEO, of The Ariel Group of Boston, Massachusetts, accepted the Business of the Year Award yesterday at the annual meeting of ISA--The Association of Learning Providers. The award was presented by Catherine Rezak, the president of ISA, and honors Ariel’s rapid growth, creative client service and unique corporate culture. This award caps a great year for both Ariel and ISA, said Halpern. We are so pleased to be able to celebrate our success together.

Since 1992 The Ariel Group has helped thousands of executives become more effective leaders and communicators. There is an increasing need for effective, inspiring leadership in our corporations, institutions and government. said Halpern, Our novel approach, combining theater and business, has proven very successful in helping executives recognize, develop and project their individual authentic presence.

Over its 27 years ISA’s member firms have evolved from predominantly instructor-led training to a blend that includes video-based, computer-based and web-based training. With the award for Ariel, ISA returns to and honors its roots, said Rezak. They put the ’leader’ back into what is often called ’leader-led training’.

Our membership was particularly well-informed in selecting Ariel for this year’s award, said Pam Schmidt, ISA’s executive director, Ariel’s principals managed several sessions at our 25th anniversary meeting. In addition to providing memorable leadership lessons, they had our members singing and dancing in the aisles.

Our secret weapon is our company culture, which is built around community and quality, explained Kavanagh. We care deeply about our people, which creates fierce loyalty and dedication. This translates directly into extremely high-quality work, which means we are a fulfilling, respectful and fun place to work, even when growing rapidly.

Distributed by HRmarketer.com