Today, the value of developing leadership skills is no longer up for debate. If you want to compete in today’s somewhat fragile global economy, you have to have an environment that fosters and nurtures leadership talent. Regrettably, there is a dearth of effective programs that are considered valuable by your staff and your organization. Read more…
For many years we have taken an assembly line approach to training. Everybody doing a particular job in the business compulsorily attends an identical program. Now, if the content of the training program is just information, then that may be suitable. However, any training program that requires a change of behaviour in the workplace this “one size fits all” doesn’t work. Read more…
In the workplace there are a variety of people. A small proportion of them are labeled as being difficult or even downright hostile. Their numbers may be small but their impact is considerable. Dealing with these difficult people can be a huge challenge every day. No matter which industry you work in, your life can become miserable because of the daily interaction with difficult people. If you are a victim of a difficult person, then this article may help you to cope. Read more…
A toxic organization is often created by leaders who are unreasonable, ruthless and totally lack empathy. They create an environment filled with negative, pessimistic underachievers who use no initiative and little creativity. Whereas an inspirational leader creates followers who are willing to take on any challenge and approach every problem optimistically.
Research shows quite clearly that the style of the leader has a huge bearing on the creation of a certain culture or work environment. It has been shown that low levels of Emotional Intelligence create fearful climates that are full of anxiety. Often, there are short-term productivity gains but they do not last. Read more…
When we are appointing people for leadership positions in our business, we need to use every single tactic and strategy that is going to help us to make the right decision. Our biggest problem is the difficulty of predicting future behavior. Read more…
Firstly, start at the end. This may seem an odd approach. Bear with me as I explain what I mean. The most important thing about a training program is the result. Anyone who purchases training, should have a crystal clear vision of what they want to happen after the training has been completed.
Once you have worked out what you want to happen as a result of the training ask yourself this fundamental question. “Do I want my trainees to acquire knowledge or do I want my trainees to behave differently?” Now, you might find this question difficult to answer because you might say to yourself, “It’s not as clear-cut as that. I want my trainees to acquire some more knowledge and apply that in the workplace.” Okay, so you want them to learn more and then do things differently. Read more…
Training for the technical parts of jobs is easy. But training people to be flexible, develop empathy, to have interpersonal skills and be conscientious is much more difficult.
Training in industry has ignored these differences and generally used the same methods for both the technical information and emotional competence. Read more…
Here are some guaranteed ways for you to waste your time and money. If you follow this advice you will also ensure that your staff will be thoroughly resentful. This has been written by a person involved in training for many years and has encountered many different situations. Some of them are listed here. Read more…
Many training professionals including myself have spent time and effort trying to find the ideal design of training courses. The ideal design would be one that guaranteed a certain level of learning by all the participants. I guess the reason why we all spent so much time looking at training design and searching for the magic bullet was that we believe that it existed. I think we believed that there were magic answers and secret solutions to make training more effective. Read more…
One of the reasons why training programs so often fail is because the designer of the training has not understood the differences between cognitive and emotional learning. Very often, training programs on relationships, leadership, supervision, customer service, management and selling miss their target because they are using techniques more suitable for cognitive learning. When you’re buying training for your staff is important to take this concept into consideration because cognitive techniques used in emotional training create confused learners. Read more…