Alan Palmer

Alan Palmer was born in London. He was educated at Oxford and INSEAD and spent 25 years working for international advertising agency groups in London and Paris. In 2004, he came across a company called Interactifs which had developed an original and innovative approach for dealing more effectively and more productively with other people in meetings and conversations. He was instantly persuaded of the value 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 made the decision to join the company both to deliver training programmes and to help develop Interactifs' business around the world, and in particular in the UK.

He has long wanted to bring the 'Interactifs Discipline' to a wider audience via a book - and was lucky enough to find a major business publisher (Capstone Publishing, an imprint of John Wiley & Son) who shared his enthusiasm for the project. Philippe de Lapoyade, the founder of Interactifs and the originator of the Interactifs Discipline, gave his permission for the book and Clement Toulemonde, a partner at Interactifs, gave generously of his time to help. 'TALK LEAN: Shorter meetings. Quicker results. Better relations.' is the result of that collaboration.