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Maynard Leigh Associates: Leveraging Theatre Techniques to Unlock Employee Potential

CIO Vendor Over the past few years, professional training and development has emerged as one of the most important areas of research and development. Drawing inspiration from other arenas such as military, sports, etc to build learning strategies on; the industry has now discovered the hidden potential of the theatre and its impact on enhancing business performance. Theater can play a critical role in helping employees identify their hidden potential; bring about culture and change management in the organization and enhance communication, presentation & personal effectiveness. Tapping the pure essence of theatre art and by understanding the role performing arts can play in the corporate sector; MaynardLeigh Associate came forward to create an impact in the Indian training and development space. The company was born from the wish to make an impact to maximize each person’s effectiveness and improve organizational performance by developing people's cognitive, emotional and behavioral skills. The company is specialized in delivering high quality learning and development programmes, using exciting and innovative methods. Founded in the year 2006, the company merged with MaynardLeigh Associates, a 25 year old UK-based premium consulting organization that specializes in bringing theatre techniques in imparting behavioral training in businesses.
MaynardLeigh Associates is a community of actors, psychotherapists and learning & development professionals operating worldwide; sharing common values. “We saw that creativity, inspiration, importation and high level of energy were all increasingly describing successful businesses and also the people around them. We realized that this is the fabric for the world of theater,” says Steeve Gupta, Managing Director of MaynardLeigh Associates.
The organization which is aligned with philosophies, uses theater performing arts in an absolutely appropriately way for the business world, with a series of experiences and workshops.
The company creates an impact through transformational experiences and designs customized solutions for the clients mainly around-Impact and influence, Leadership, Team building, Executive and Board room presentations and Culture change initiatives.

“To convince people that the thinking theater would lead to performing enhancement, we needed to draw connections between the secrets of theater and make sure that it transforms and inspires the working life,” adds Vivek Arora, Client Director.While others in the industry fail to provide rehearsal space; with strong theater knowledge, the company opens a wide door of rehearsal space in front of their clients.

With well tested philosophies and own content and experience backing them, the dynamic company has a list of clients in its queue, which includes corporate giants McKinsey & Company, EY, American Express, Cognizant, PepsiCo India, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola India, RBS, Max Life Insurance, Nestle, etc.

The company which has its roots in the UK, not only follows its own exercises but also implements its philosophies into the business place with the help of publications. “Our unique proposition is a rehearsal space. The reason we called our work, a workshop, is because we are working with all those existing models and exercises which the world had already developed and we are giving our participants a place to repeatedly rehearse it,” adds Varun Gupta, Associate Director.

Within a short span of time the company is planning to transfer the culture of learning and development space by stepping into other sectors within the industry and make a dynamic shift in the innovation sector. With their brilliance in delivering business coupled with their unique proposition, MaynardLeigh wants to unleash its limits and collaborate with technology to provide experiential learning for a larger set of clients and hence explore and take control over domain specific learning.