Debra Stevens founded Dramatic Training Solutions with the ambition of inspiring people and transforming businesses. “My job is working with people and we do experiential training - that means learning through experience, so you actually have to do something - it's immersive. We use professional actors so it's all very visual, very connected. We travel all over the world I've been to 79 different countries! When the pandemic I had that moment of sick and fear that we can't do this any other way. But isn't it funny how resilient we are as people because within six weeks I was doing my business virtually, the great thing about it is because we use actors of course it's like watching TV!”.

With over 20 years experience, Debra has worked with a whole range of different companies. “We work with lots of different types of companies in hospitality, travel companies like Royal Caribbean and some of the airlines, we've worked with the Royal Bank of Scotland, and Coca Cola, and educational companies that supply global education all around the world to all different types of schools and universities. Ultimately we work with companies that care about people and care about how people interact and collaborate with each other as well as external contacts”.

In March 2021, Debra released her brand-new book - Stand Out - 5 Key Skills to Advance your Career. “The book is all about how we can stand out as humans, so it's about five key human skills that a lot of the research that I did and a lot of the reports have been written about the future of work are saying are going to be key skills that we're gonna need in the future to thrive and survive in the workplace. As automation and AI kicks in, and it's kicking in quicker than it ever would have done because of the pandemic, as that kicks in the idea is that we will complement machines or robots them because they would do the things that we don't like doing and we will be allowed to get on with the things that we really enjoy. Like if you're in hospitality for instance, connecting with customers, if you're in retail, creating a customer experience - even if you are in IT right now, you're going to need these skills because IT in the future will be much more around interacting with people and helping people. The book is a sort of masterclass in how to improve those skills. I think a lot of us have lost them because we've started to become human robots, there’s lots of tests to make sure robots don't become human - but have we got a test for humans to make sure we don't become robots. With all the processes and all the digital devices we've got we are losing our ability to connect, to socialise, and our ability to listen”.

A key concept that Debra’s book explores is the idea of Growth Mindset. “The idea comes from a lady called Carol Dweck who did some amazing research and originally it was all done to help children. There's lots of research done about the brain about how the brain actually grows and how it grows and what creates those new pathways to be created. A lot of it is to do with failure and making mistakes, when we fail we grow, actually our brains physically get bigger. In our training we say fail fast learn fast and the quicker you fail then the quicker you’re going to learn. The growth mindset is not about how talented you are, you can be talented but if you don't work at it you won't be successful, it's about taking any talent you have and working hard at it. You can do anything if you work hard at it”.

As well as the idea of growth mindset, Debra strongly believes in the power of ‘not yet’. “With things like learning a language, learning an instrument, learning to do all of these things, we can do them if we work at it. It’s all about the power of not yet, “not yet, but I keep at it”. I'll give you an example, I was getting bored so I bought myself a weighted hula hoop - honestly, I couldn't do hula hoops when I was a kid! I bought this hula hoop and two weeks later I was covered in bruises and I still couldn't keep it going around my waist for more than two seconds. But I was determined to prove this ‘not yet’ theory so now I can keep that hula hoop going round and round for hours if I wanted to and it really is about just not giving up and doing a little bit at a time and getting better”.

Debra is encouraging people who buy the book to start journaling. “Journaling is an amazing thing because you know a very important part of the growth mindset is being able to reflect on your mistakes or reflect on your learning of growth so having a journal means that you can use that to sort of do what we call written reflection and actually it's interesting because you can do do journaling on your computer but it's not the same as the physical thing of having a nice book and a pen. Writing accesses a different part of the brain, sparks up different parts of the imagination and it makes us think differently. Having a journal means that you can constantly be in touch with yourself so that you can know how you are getting on so it was really important to actually encourage people when they buy the book to actually have a journal alongside”.

Stand Out: 5 Key Skills to Advance your Career is split into two halves. The second portion, The Masterclass, has been described as a gym workout for the brain. “We called it The Masterclass because you have five weeks of exercises, each of the five skills have a week each. Each day there is a core exercise, the core exercises underpin everything and then that underpins the day - and then you go into sprint exercise which is a quick exercise, not too difficult - and then there's a stretch exercise which is a bit more difficult and takes you outside your comfort zone, makes you work a little bit harder and might be a little bit scary. Then there's a warm down where you think about what you've learned and what you might wanna do tomorrow. Then it starts the next day start all over again and at the end of the week there's a reflection. So it really is a workout for your human skills”.

Debra has been able to successfully operate DTS remotely of the past 12 months and she anticipates that there will be more of a balance between remote and face-to-face working in the future. “I think there's been quite a lot of anxiety around and I can even feel it myself cause I had my first inquiry about face to face course last week and I freaked out! I actually think there might be a bit more balanced between this and face to face, I think I'll do a bit of both but I don't know whether it's going to bang and we're all going to go nuts when lockdown ends”.

Thank you to Debra for taking time to speak to us. Check out Dramatic Training Solutions’ website here.

Ben Stuart • Joseph Caden • Create More • 2021