Workshops
Because we need tailored training for musicians and management
There’s no park and bark, where I’m talking at you for hours on Zoom. My training is just the opposite. It’s highly engaging and experiential, you are doing the work to practice new skills and tools to change your work. Best of all, my learning is sticky so you’ve got those new skills with you when your feet are back under the desk or you are back in the rehearsal room.
JUST SOME OF MY READY TO GO WORKSHOPS
“The most valuable thing I experienced [from Susan’s training] was listening with an open mind.”
“I have to say, you set a strong precedent for the rest of our events! My colleagues only want to talk about sessions where participants come away with something to show for it (I quite agree!).”
The Feedback Workshops
YOU NEED IT BECAUSE Receiving and using feedback is important for personal growth, job satisfaction, and a healthy workplace culture. But giving or receiving feedback can be emotionally challenging due to past experiences that may use shaming, bullying or power dynamics as a substitute for effective feedback. This workshop sensitively acknowledges this common experience and introduces supportive frameworks for evidence based feedback and emotional resilience.
The Decisions Workshop
YOU NEED IT BECAUSE Making decisions without a framework and set of agreed criteria can lead to outcomes made using outdated practices and unexamined biases. But, past experiences with processes that lack evidence based criteria might have created conflict and tension. leading to interpersonal conflict. This workshop can support the use of common language and models to reduce bias and assumptions.
“[Susan’s training] was a great reminder to think deeper about the reason we create art and the ways that we share it, and especially that its value is determined by how it serves the needs of others.”
“I was reminded of the importance of empathy and the need to let others be heard even with a belief system at odds with mine. Plus: a reminder of the multiple ways to solve a problem, but clear identification of said problem is at the heart of it all.”
The Conversations Workshop
YOU NEED IT BECAUSE Clarity, empathy and emotional regulation are critical to navigating complex workplace conversations. Difficult conversations can be emotionally challenging due to past experiences that may use ineffective communication styles, power dynamics and confuse the problem with the person. This workshop acknowledges that past experiences may have used ineffective communication styles, power dynamics and confused the problem with the persons. This workshop teaches reflective listening and emotional resilience to support difficult conversations and constructive dialogue
The Empathy Workshop
YOU NEED IT BECAUSE Understanding the perspective of others is the key to creative problem solving, collaboration and a healthy workplace culture. Our needs are necessarily not the needs of colleagues and our audience. However, workplace empathy may be emotionally challenging due to cultural norms that emphasise stoic professionalism over genuine emotional expression or where intense competition creates a reluctance to engage openly with colleagues. This workshop teaches tools to consider the needs of others when solving problems or creating new solutions for genuine collaboration and understanding.
Facilitation
ONE AND DONE OR ALONG FOR THE RIDE
Sometimes you just need a chat with somebody who isn’t stuck in the weeds. I’m here for a one and done gig, and know that just one discussion can be transformative. Or I’ll hitch my carriage along for the ride bringing my obsession with all things business theory along for the ride. Full disclosure, we’re likely to try some or all of my skills in Design Thinking, Systems Thinking and Trauma Informed Process.
“Susan is a warm, intelligent and engaging moderator, and seamlessly manages conversation between speakers so that you never notice that she is directing the flow. She weaves the audience into the experience, so that the discussion really does offer something for everyone. She also manages to keep to time! And she’s funny!”
In less than an hour I helped my Global Leaders Program (GLP) team to get from this hot mess…
There is a lack of centralized communication between researchers, organizations, practitioners, and performers that address health issues through music therapy. This inhibits the public’s access to diverse health resources long term. Our mission is to improve communication and understanding between these populations so that more job opportunities become available and funding and research becomes more centralized. During our first-year pilot project, our organization will partner with the Music Therapy Program at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA to provide early career development services and secure job opportunities post-graduation.
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To THIS crystal clear mission statement…
“To achieve more diverse job opportunities, music therapists need stronger advocacy to convince the health sector of the necessity of their work.”
In the course of an hour, Susan helped to shift my thinking on key problematics involving the Grainger Museum and its eponymous founder, particularly helping me to understand challenges as opportunities… In my note-taking I had drawn a picture of two hands, cupped around dichotomous ideas: over the left hand I had written “sadomasochism, racialism”, and over the right hand, “experimentation, breaking boundaries, radicalism”. Through well-chosen metaphors, Susan guided me to conceptualise a resolution to the biggest challenges. From practical advice on immediate actions, to long-term radical thinking, Susan guided my strategic thought process across a range of ideas with a light, sure, warm, and encouraging hand, all the while giving generously of her deep professional expertise.
Dr Heather Gaunt, Curator, Grainger Museum
Program Design
Music needs virtuosi on and beyond the stage. I am obsessed with dreaming, designing, delivering and evaluating programs that develop talent.
I catapult forward the thinking and skills of all kinds of folks in the music sector from artists and arts managers to pre-college, tertiary students, early stage administrators, freelance and professional performers and experienced arts leaders. I’ve delivered culture shifting programming for the Australian National Academy of Music, Young Classical Artists Trust (UK) and IgniteLAB for the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and here are a few other things I’ve hatched from scratch…
Artist Assembly for Melbourne Recital Centre
“Susan has provided invaluable advice on our program design and delivered much of the content. Our young artists have greatly benefitted from working with her, she has also been an eloquent and passionate advocate for the program when working with our staff and meeting with our program donors. Susan’s expertise as a musician, entrepreneur, educator and innovator ensures that the program aligns with our organisational priorities and supports our artists to thrive on and beyond the stage.”
Marshall McGuire, Director of Programming, Melbourne Recital Centre
AMEB Award for AMEB
“Susan is the perfect person to guide is in the design, philosophy and motivation behind the setting up of this Award. Her input at the webinar was fantastic. She said all the things that are sometimes quite hard to articulate about why this is important, and of course it’s always great to have someone not from AMEB to talk about it!
Fiona Seers, Head of Examining Australian Music Examinations Board.
Navigate Well for Arts Wellbeing Collective
“Susan is one of our incredible consultants who has done the most stellar job with Navigate Well (working with an unbelievably complex brief, she’s absolutely nailed it). I can also speak to her talents as a facilitator, strategist, writer, researcher and generally brilliant human.”
Tracy Margieson, Head of Program, Arts Wellbeing Collective