ABOUT THE AUTHOR

‘TALK LEAN’ was written by Alan H. Palmer.

The approach the book describes – “The Interactifs Discipline” – for dealing more effectively with other people and ensuring that meetings are shorter and more productive and that results are achieved more quickly and with a more positive impact on relations was developed by Philippe de Lapoyade.

Numerous contributions to the writing process were made by Clément Toulemonde , who provided many suggestions which were integrated into the text, who helped some knotty structural problems to be resolved more quickly and who ensured that the book at all times accurately reflects the Interactifs Discipline.

Alan H.Palmer was born in London. He was educated at Oxford and INSEAD and has spent most of his career working for international advertising agency groups in London and Paris. He first came across Interactifs in 2004 and was instantly persuaded of the effectiveness of the company’s approach, its applicability across national boundaries – and its capacity, in a modest way, to contribute to the sum total of human happiness.

He subsequently joined the company both to deliver training programmes and to help develop Interactifs’ business around the world, and in particular in the UK. He regularly runs seminars in Britain but has also done so in France, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, the UAE and China. Alan is married with 3 children and lives near Fontainebleau, but divides his professional time between London and Paris. He can be contacted at http://www.interactifs.com

Philippe de Lapoyade was born in Sainte Foy la Grande in south-west France. He spent the early part of his career working in sales and management roles for blue-chip consumer goods companies and found himself responsible for spending large sums of his employers’ money on sales and management training. There were aspects of these programmes which he liked – but many that he did not, most notably the emphasis on unacknowledged manipulation and simplistic psychology.

Being of an intellectually curious nature, he set himself the task of developing something which was simpler, more effective and capable of being used with a clearer conscience. What he developed is described in this book. He set up a company, Interactifs (www.interactifs.com ) in 1989 to offer his approach to companies and organisations and today has some 80 trainers working with him delivering the training to financial institutions, automotive companies, consultancy firms, service industries, manufacturers and within business schools. The company delivers training in 10 different languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Czech, Romanian and Turkish) and has worked in over 20 countries. Philippe is married with 5 children and divides his time between Paris and Sainte Foy la Grande. He can be contacted at http://www.interactifs.com

Clément Toulemonde was born in Paris but spent his childhood in New Zealand, South Korea, Morocco and Australia. He took his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

After graduating, he worked as a management consultant, initially in Australia and then in France. It was as a manager in Paris that he first came across Interactifs when he participated in a seminar – and within a very short period of time he had decided to join the company himself. Today he is a partner at Interactifs and responsible for the Group’s development in the English-speaking world and throughout Asia-Pacific. He regularly runs seminars (as do all of Interactifs’ management) in French and English for many of the company’s major clients. Clément lives with his wife and twins in the south of France. He can be contacted at http://www.interactifs.com