This week's tip comes from Mike Kean, who shares his favourite assertiveness exercise.

Invite each delegate to think of personal situation in which they need to be more assertive, then write the outcome they would love to have.

Invite a partner to be the one you wish them to be assertive with and exchange the situation so that the other person can internalise the issue. Ask this person to assume the role of the 'other' person

Now being assertive tell the delegates to follow this three-step process.
1) Tell the person you have some thing that is bothering you and you would like them to know:
a) how you feel about it;
b) the facts associated with it.
Now, state the facts (without emotion).

2) Next, reiterate the feelings you have about it, eg I'm embarrassed, angry, sorry, frustrated etc. with appropriate emotion.

3) Ask in an assertive way: "So (pause) what do you think we can do about it?" And then keep quiet. Get in tune with how simple but assertive this is.

Discuss the outcomes and feeling with each other and explore how it may/would work and then encourage each other to do it for real and report back with results.

To make more of a exercise of it, do it in groups of three with an observer.