Green Bench Consulting – If you can't talk about it you can't change it

What we offer

Green Bench Consulting exists to help people deal with change. We work with people from all walks to deal with uncertainty, engage their organization, utilize their strengths and move forward. Whether in the midst of personal, interpersonal, team or organizational transformations-Green Bench Consulting is committed to helping people build trust and maximize potential.

Business Coaching

Expert Guidance

Executive Coaching is like helping someone repair their own glasses. They can’t see clear enough to fix them when they are off but also, can’t fix them when they are on. Similarly, Executives and CEOs are often too close to their thinking or values to view them critically, or from another perspective.

As your Executive Coach, Green Bench enables leaders to reflect on how their thinking and value systems can be perceived across their organization.Understanding what is relevant and what needs to change is paramount to strong, effective leadership. Through safe, in-depth dialogue and questions, Green Bench endeavors to help Executives clarify their limitations, offer strategic support and help them reach their maximum potential. By doing this, the organization can move forward.

Training and development

A Comprehensive Approach

Green Bench Training focuses on transformational learning, a blend of education, organizational development, leadership and communication. Green Bench work with you in these areas to help you understand where you are and where you want to go, forming a process to drive ownership, growth, values and reinforce learning at all levels.

Green Bench Training is designed to be most effective amid relationship-centric projects, where the human side of leadership and the importance of dialogue are essential for any meaningful progress. Ultimately, we aim to organize and bring clarity and action to the following areas based on the needs and objectives of the organization:

Tension, embracing it and seeing it as a vital part of leadership and organizational development.

Leadership and the art of being fully present in the midst of tension and change.

The importance of words and how they frame our relationships.

What are those values we must keep and how to defend them in the midst of change.

Relational systems and how to succeed in the midst of them.

Business Consulting

The Path to Success

At Green Bench Consulting we are firm believers that to deal with change, people need to tackle difficult questions. Giving a roadmap as to where these conversations begin is where Green Bench has impact. As the dialogue around change evolves it will shine light on issues that need to be addressed. Green Bench is committed to being fully present throughout these turbulences, delivering the very best outcome for you and your organization.

MATT RAWLINS

CEO, Consultant

As a young boy, Matt loved taking things apart to discover how they worked. Whether a toy, transistor radio or an idea, Matt was reverse engineering something. Taking the complex and making it understandable is part of his drive. This passion grew to a desire to help organizations and individuals understand how they function within themselves and in global markets of today’s world.

His ability to create real-world, useful solutions was the basis for founding Green Bench Consulting.

For Dr. Rawlins, life offered him a journey where he would be able to effect a change on people all over the world. From Asia and the Pacific Rim, to Europe and Africa, Dr. Rawlins has traveled to over 30 nations aiding in the development of both non-profit and professional organizations. His experiences and complex communication abilities have enabled him to become very effective in helping community and business leaders to navigate dilemma's they face...

Contact Matt →

Clients we work with

Deutsche Bank, YTL Corporation Berhad, Allen & Gledhill Advocates & Solicitors, SIMTECH, MediaCorp, Greenleaf Asia, Shangri-la Hotel group, Government of Ethiopia (37 MP’s in a leadership workshop), Inclusive Education Conference in Singapore and Keppel Land, Center for Effecting Living, DPEX Worldwide, TCA College, Meta, World Vision, Silk Air, National Institute of Education, National Junior College, Unilever in Pakistan and Indonesia.

Courses

We live and work in a complex and changing world. This creates tension that is an ongoing part of our leadership. These modules get you to look at tension, the core aspects of how all humans deal with it and how you can reframe it from a weakness in your leadership to an opportunity for you and your team to grow through it.

An overview – start here

This module gives a brief overview of all the materials in this program. It is to give you a taste of all the competencies and a list of the elements you will have the joy of discovering in each of the modules. There is no work in this module, it is just to give you a big picture of the module and how it is all linked together.

Tension – a key leverage point

As managers, you’re expected to work with your team members, peers and stakeholders to achieve organizational results. How you deal with tension impacts the quality of your relationships and how others experience you.

Tension is the signal that there are differences in the way something is being viewed. There are two typical ways of dealing with tension. The first is to see tension as wrong and try to take control and get the action “right.” The other way is to work through the tension with dialogue and communication. Specially targeted at managers, this program is suitable for you if the following questions resonate:

As a manager, what can you do to better manage tension in a way that leads to personal growth and better rapport with your team?
What is your leadership stand and how does that impact how you manage tension?
What are the personal values that matter most to you and how do they impact the way you manage tension?

The art of inquiry – the power of curiosity

This module explores the most basic skill set of dealing with uncertainty. It looks at the power of inquiry and how the questions you ask create the focus for your thinking and work. Working to master a growth mindset through inquiry will give you the power to learn and adapt in any situation.

Naming – the essence of communication

We have the creative ability to name the world. This means the power of our words defines our relationship with others and the world around us. This module will lay a clear foundation for the power and authority inherent in you to identify the tensions of the world. It will also help to explore the ability to change the words you use and develop new options for dealing with change.

Leadership – How to defend what has value while being vulnerable

Values-based leadership requires a growing discernment in how to be wisely defensive. In the tensions of an uncertain world, we need to be open and vulnerable and yet clear on protecting those things that are vital to our survival.

When we aren’t clear in how to be wisely defensive, we move toward an unhealthy defensiveness, which often manifests itself in trying to maintain control.

While we are struggling with trying to get control, we then unconsciously seek power and limit our capacity to grow and build healthy relationships.

This course helps leaders understand the importance of defense as a gift and how to use it wisely in leadership.

Values-based leadership – working from within

These are the issues of the heart and are the engine that drives healthy performance and keeps us sharp and focused. The way values communicate is through our emotions, so there is a capacity of emotional intelligence that is required to be effective in a tension-filled world. This module will help you understand how to work with the heart as well as the head. Without the engine of clear values, you will not have the energy to face all the changes needed.

Five competencies for leading in the midst of uncertainty

We live in uncertain times.

There is tension. We feel vulnerable. We get defensive. We stop asking questions and then our communication gets distorted. We can’t deal with the real issues anymore, and this weakens our relationships.

The fruit of this is a loss of trust. As a result, we are not effective in the midst of uncertainty.

There are five key areas that all relationships must work with. If you know what they are, you will be better prepared to work with other people in any situation.

How to be fully present – humility in leadership

The fruit of these four areas is seen in a leader’s ability to be fully present in the midst of tension. It is only as a leader brings a calming presence and engages people around the issues of the heart that a team or organization can truly adapt and be productive. This module looks at the power of humility and the three expressions of it needed for a leader to deal effectively with the challenging relationships created through a changing world.

Personal application

This last module is looking at the challenges of applying the materials. It is here to help you think about, “Where do I go from here?” It is not given as an answer, but it is making space for people to share their own stories of their successes and failures in the journey to being more human and thus alive.

The goal of this module is:
To create a few examples and tools to help people take another step –
While creating space for them to share what they have discovered through the course.

Check all our courses →

Recommended Books

The Race

How do you prepare for the unknown?

We face an unknown future and it scares us. The question we carry is how do you prepare yourself, your children and even your company for the great unknown? Is there a way to gather wisdom to adapt to this future rushing towards us while keeping those things that are truly worth keeping?

Finding the Pain in your @ss-umption

What do these three areas have in common?

Dealing with change
Creativity
Difficult Conversations

There is an elephant in the room

Discover the Single Most Powerful Tool for Growth

What would happen if you had an elephant in your team or organization? Its presence is felt by all, yet no one is willing to talk about it?

The Lottery

A question can change a life

How do people succeed? Simply put, they know how to ask the right questions.   Relationships and businesses flourish when people know how to ask the right questions. Although it sounds simple enough, few of us have been taught the fine art of asking questions.

Green Bench II

More dialogue about leadership & communication

Join in as a friendship continues between a retired teacher and a young executive who is overwhelmed by the dilemmas he faces everyday.

The Green Bench I

A dialogue about leadership and change

The book is a story between an old retired teacher who has taught children all his life and a young manager who has somehow survived the educational system, but still doesn’t know how to learn. They meet by accident on a green park bench and a relationship begins that will change both of them.

Check all our Books →

Free Articles

Words have power

John is walking down a large city street and notices someone sitting on the steps that lead up to an apartment complex. John looks over and stares for a brief moment at the person sitting there. “ Bum,” he
mumbles to himself and quickly walks on.

Mindset

Imagine working for years at your job with a clear focus to become a leader in your organization. You do all the hard work, you train and prepare and finally your day comes: you receive a promotion, only to be quickly disappointed with your new position. Now the frustration is because very few people are really prepared for this new expression of leadership.

Tension

Simon walked into the meeting and sat down. He looked around the room at the others seated there and could feel the tension in the air. If this were you, is your first response to think that something is wrong?
It is interesting to note that there is no positive word in the English language for conflict or tension. Some of the other words you can find in a dictionary are stress, hassle, anxiety, problem or apprehension. If any of these words were used in a sentence like, “There is ‘tension’ in my relationship.”

Emotions

What is the difference between these two statements about John?
John is feeling good about the job.
John is encouraged and optimistic about the job.
The second sentence gives you more specific information about how John
feels about the job. With this, you have greater clarity to understand how he
is doing.

Self Awareness

A quick Google of the word leadership gives 155,000,000 references for it on the web. Leadership is one of the most studied, investigated and talked about topics that effect everyone of us. With all this research and study we
can find at least one thing in common among almost all of them: They all are built on a foundation of “it depends.” No one will argue that leadership is vital, but the key is knowing what it depends on.

Art of Inquiry

One of the challenges all of us are confronted with is that we were educated in a system that focused on memorization and yet this skill is not the best tool in the times in which we live.
The Associated Press recently wrote about a new study that estimates the amount of available digital information. The report sought to account for all the photos, videos, e-mails, web pages, instant messages and other digital
content cascading through our world today. When added up, it was determined that the world generated 161 billion gigabytes of digital information last year. That is like 12 separate stacks of books that reach from
the Earth to the sun or 3 million times the information in all the books ever written.

Check our free Articles →