I am writing this blog article in a slightly different tone to those before it.  That’s not altogether surprising given the circumstances of life these days, but it’s certainly not the only reason.  This is not an article about negotiation, it’s about Negotiate Ltd, my company.

Those eagle-eyed readers among you will notice there has been a long gap in blog writing in the past couple of years, and this one intends to address that and get it back on track.

There have been many changes to both my professional and personal life in the last few years and I haven’t been able to give that extra time to blog writing.  I suppose my identity and purpose was questioned when our founder, our Chairman and my father, Professor Gavin Kennedy, fell very ill in 2018 and passed away almost a year later in April 2019.

Although he had stepped back from the day to day running of the business some 10 years earlier, his teaching and work are at the heart of what we do every single day here, so his passing was not simply the loss of a staff member.  It hit at our very core.

It took me a great deal of time to process this both personally and professionally and if I am honest writing was one of many things that fell to the wayside.  I also struggled to push for work opportunities and stepped back a bit from teaching, unless necessary.

By the turn of the year into 2020 I had decided enough was enough and that I had to pick myself up and get back to business.  I put in the effort to refocus on the positives and with the huge legacy of work that Gavin had left behind, I was determined to get back to the top of my game.

Of course, 2020 didn’t work out as any of us had planned.  Covid-19 came along and all workshops and training ceased – but perhaps that was also a good thing for me.  It helped give me the space to see the bigger picture and refocus.  I took the time to spend with family and wrote my first book on negotiation (The Persuasive Negotiator, 2020 Routledge) and had a good think about the direction I wanted Negotiate Ltd to go.

Obviously, like many others, I redesigned some of the training to go online and we have run some very successful e-workshops in the past few months.  However, I am really looking forward to getting back into the classroom to teach face to face, and create thousands more confident, effective negotiators around the globe.

So here we are, early 2021.  I’m in the research phase of my next book, I’ve had the website revamped, two new clients added to the books and today is the first blog of many more to come.  If you have any subject requests for here, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do.  Otherwise, come back often and see what we have been up to.  I’m excited about what the future will bring, are you?

Florence