- Tell us your name and what you do
My name is Richard Tyler – I am a speaker and coach, also known as The Possibility Architect. I disrupt, jolt, challenge, support and provoke leaders to leave behind ordinary and strive only for extraordinary.
- Tell us about your background
Before training as a behavioural psychologist, I was a singer, actor and West End leading man; playing the lead roles in shows such as Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera. Having had a successful career, I decided to hang up my G-string and throw away my make up and go in search of a new adventure. I found myself at an L&D consultancy, using my performance background as a lever to help organizations think about how they performed. After 3 happy years there, I left to set up BTFI as I wanted to focus more on Artful Leadership.
- What is your specialist skill?
My specialism is to disrupt and provoke new thinking and new action. Gone are the days of ‘good’ being acceptable – no organization can take the risk to remain comfortable. Going forward, the ones that flourish will be those that embrace extraordinary performance across their entire culture. I believe learning needs to be immersive and then quickly translated back into the day to day business story. I bring in musicians, singers, actors, jazz quartets, vocal coaches, comedians and then invite the leaders in the room to look at their challenges through a new lens. When we first took the leap to help people learn in this way, it was met with some raised eyebrows – a few years on and we run our programmes globally for our clients. Artful leadership has been the catalyst for sweeping cultural change.
- Tell us about your new book ‘Jolt’?
Jolt captures much of my thinking and offers it in bite-size chunks. My clients had asked for years that I get all my thinking in one place so that they could ripple the messages out even further across their own organizations.
Jolt is designed to give a wallop to the reader. I have spent a long time looking at how innovative and successful business keep their flow and continue to raise their game. It’s simple, they Jolt; their thinking, their mood, their behaviour, their teams and their industry. It’s not rocket science by any stretch. It’s actually quite simple. The first step though is finding the courage to shake it up and break the old habits.
- How does it help trainers/organizations?
It helps in a few ways. The first is by offering a mirror to look in. I appreciate that this can often be uncomfortable and it’s the first big step on the journey. It gives you choice and that is key to switching off the auto-pilot.
It then offers up my Performance Map – this tends to switch on light bulbs as people realise that for too long they have put their attention and focus on the wrong thing. Once again, more choice appears.
Thirdly, Jolt becomes your coach; helping you steer your path towards extraordinary in new ways. The book invites you to upgrade – an opportunity for you to elevate and step it up a gear.
- How can our readers find out more about your new book ‘Jolt’?
You can find out way more about Jolt over at www.richardtyler.co.uk – connect with me on Twitter and Facebook too. I hang out in all the best places! It’s not too hard to track me down. Importantly, I like to have a conversation with people – ask questions, share your views, challenge my ideas, share your successes, sing to me……anything really!
