Working in an business environment with people who know how to be assertive can benefit both a company and those that work there, according to a leading trainer.

?One of the most effective, yet misunderstood, concepts for effective communication is that of being assertive,? said Stuart Doyle, who has been giving seminars in Bermuda for the past 22 years, and will next week hold a class to help the meek and the mild to have their say and soften the tone of the openly aggressive.

?It is a natural form of empowerment that bonds organisations because it is built upon the principal of mutual respect. It leads to trust, that must exist in organisations if they are to succeed.

The two day course is aimed at teaching employees and bosses to assert themselves ? evening out the meekness in some and the aggressive parts in others.

?If you say at one end of the scale is the non-aggressive who are giving up all rights, and at the other end is the aggressive, who are taking away rights, somewhere in the middle is assertiveness,? said Mr. Doyle who is holding a class for the Bermuda Employer?s Council called Assertiveness, the Key to Effectiveness.

Mr. Doyle said that everyone can learn to be assertive and it can make the working environment a better place to be as everyone learns to speak their mind and listen at the same time.

?Whatever position you are in, you have rights,? he said. ?When in an organisation people deal with each other by being assertive, everybody knows where they stand.

?It is not about position or about hierarchy, it is about feeling you have the right to take a stand which in the long term benefits the organisation.?

And while Mr. Doyle said that most of those that enrol on the course are on the less-assertive side, it is as equally important for those who are aggressive to tone down what they say and listen.

Mr. Doyle said that the first thing that they do at the seminar is to do a behavioural profile of each student, which helps them understand the kind of people they are and identify different traits in others.

?It is very important that people understand themselves,? he said. ?We spend about a third of the day doing this as we want people to get in touch with themselves.?

Then, once that is done, he helps them find a way to become assertive and speak clearly and openly by using what he calls the AEIOU formula.

A is accept or acknowledge the person has a right to feel the way they do;

E is to explain your side of the situation;

I is to inform someone of say what you would like to happen;

O is to outline what is going to take place;

U is to gain understanding so that, say, they can make changes in the future.

But he said that the way you deliver the message is important, with lots of eye contact, gestures and facial expressions. ?You have to look the person straight in the eye,? said Mr. Doyle.

And he said that even the most passive or the most aggressive person can learn to use the techniques with training and practice to make sure that they work more effectively in a team.

?We are not asking them to change the message, just the way they deliver it,? said Mr. Doyle, adding that with renewed focus on effectiveness of companies, it could better benefit a company if people were working in an assertive company.