Monthly Archives: July 2019

Coaching is a conversation between a coach and a coachee whereby the coachee achieves a higher level and understanding of awareness and self-awareness, while the coach provides a safe environment and structure for that outcome to occur.  Yes, this sounds a bit of a mouthful, but in essence, it is a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus, performance to improve. To be successful, a Coach requires a knowledge and understanding of processes well as the variety of styles, skills and techniques that are appropriate to the context in which the coaching takes place. It is about using correct questioning and listening skills.   If there is one area, a coach has to master it is the intent to listen to the coachee, to understand.

To be successful as a coach, you require a knowledge and understanding of a variety of skills, style and techniques. This aids coachees to perform to the best of their ability and maximise their performance. I often find myself listening to trainers

We get lots of great feedback about our Train the Trainer courses, and it’s always lovely to hear positive comments, especially on the areas that people have benefited from learning.  One such area of our Train the Trainer courses which is still very highly rated is the structure of training; especially the ability to use the framework we have provided back in the workplace for planning and delivering fantastic training sessions.

But who benefits from having a structure for training sessions?

One of the things I like to talk about when I cover structure are the benefits of it as well as why it’s so important to have it.  In one of my previous blogs, I wrote about the fact that learning is a journey and what we want to do in our structure is take everyone on that journey; a learning journey!  Very much like a book, your structure needs to have a beginning, middle and an end, so it’s easy to follow; you tell them where they are going, take them there and then tell them where they’ve

Many individuals get promoted at work because they are good at their job.  What can then follow is a real struggle to get to terms with their new role, not because they struggle with the job, but that they struggle with their role as a manager.

Being an excellent manager requires many skills including the ability to motivate, delegate and deal with difficult people.  These skills, of course, are not necessarily natural to individuals and many need to be learnt.  Just because we are good at our job does not mean we naturally have these skills.

Sometimes we learn the hard way of course where we learn from our mistakes.  This can be an effective method of learning although the damage left behind can last a lifetime both for the organisation or individual concerned.

I believe that training can help here, effective training can help us with the necessary skills.  Moreover, if conducted correctly, training can aid the delegate to reflect on their current practice and what needs to be

I so often hear in my coaching sessions in the language from the coachee sat in front of me that they are struggling with adversity. What do I mean? When we all encounter adversity, we react by thinking about it.  These thoughts then rapidly congeal into beliefs. These beliefs then have consequences – they are direct causes of what we feel and do.

Some common comments I hear are - "I must be perfect, I must get it right, they think I am not good enough, am I good enough to do this, nobody ever listens to me so why bother, they are annoyed at me, If I don’t get this right my career will be over". These are just a few examples from coachees from every profession including barristers, managers, surgeons, graphics departments, team leaders. Just about every profession going, individuals carry these thoughts and I have heard them all plus more plenty of times.

In my coaching, I challenge the thinking, break the “self-imposed rules and assumptions that are all self-created. Because the beliefs

As bite-sized, self-directed online learning continues to evolve, should we be saying goodbye to classroom-based learning? Or is there still value in adopting formal training, alongside experiential approaches, for enhancing learning transfer?

Read the article by Mark Bouch on the Learning Zone website here.

I had a great conversation with someone on twitter about e-learning, and they raised an excellent point about other training.  They asked me if I found that like e-learning, did I find that people had the same approach to other types of training such as classroom training?

You’ve probably like me experienced that e-learning is (in many cases) something that is a “Ticking-box” exercise where you don’t actually learn very much and are merely going through the motions for a piece of paper at the end.  Worst of all (and I admit to being guilty of this many times in the past), you go straight to the assessment at the end to try and pass; bypassing the part that your employer really wants you to do; where you learn something! Sounds familiar?

Many times, we see people attending our PTT Train the Trainer courses who’ve been previously delivering “training” in a “tick-box” format.  This is normally defined as standing and “Telling”; people attending this type of delivery than normally have

There is no doubt that as a manager, you are likely to get frustrated.  If we are honest this could be reasonably often; people may not work the same way we do, and of course, sometimes people may have different values and work ethics, and we will get frustrated and angry.  Of course, this is called life; we will always meet people who frustrate us.

Being someone who can naturally get frustrated with people I want to let you in a secret I have known about for a long time its called 'Staying Calm'.  This secret is fantastic; when we are calm, we are in control and have full control of our actions.   Being calm is a very powerful way to be, calm people are typically the ones who ultimately win.

Within our brains, we have an essential part called the Amygdala; this part of our brain reacts in three states, fight, flight or freeze.  This part of our brain isn't very smart, it is very reactionary and will kick in when we get frustrated or angry.  The resulting action is that adrenalin

A fantastic question for everyone to think about. When was the last time you reflected on your working day? If you are brutally honest with yourself, I suspect not very often. I do hear the word  ‘rarely’ a lot when I am coaching, the most common word I hear from coachees when I ask this question. Why is this? Are we working at our best at work, are there no minor changes you can make to improve your practice?

Work for the majority is routine, go to work do your job and leave. Does it have to be this way? If you are not driven, why not, how about making yourself feel better, taking more ownership. This, in turn, helps self-esteem and confidence. Think about your working day daily, think what was good through the day, why and what did not go so well. What would you like to change, why and how? What is the purpose of you being there? Sometimes it is good to have the purpose for the day, week and month, always have a long-term goal and look at the small steps you can make for changes.

Reflection

In previous blogs, I’ve written about how critically important it is to be adequately prepared before delivering any training session.  The fact is though, no matter how well prepared you are, there’s always likely something that will go wrong and how you handle it will affect you.

If things do go wrong (and they frequently do), I like to think of these as a ‘curveball’ because it’s not going the way we expect it. However, we still have that opportunity for the ‘ball’ to arrive where it was meant to.  A great example of how easy things can ‘curve’ is when you arrive at a venue nice and early but you’re the first there, and you can see the clock ticking. Despite having asked if there was access and telling people what time you will arrive, sometimes things beyond your control mean that you are waiting somewhere for someone.  This is where your state of mind could turn and start to affect your day; how will you handle things when they don’t go to plan, especially right at the start?

I am very, very lucky. One of my hobbies is travel and also music so last weekend I had the great experience of taking my son to see one of his favourite bands, ‘Muse’ in Cologne, Germany.   It was a boiling hot weekend with temperatures above 40 degrees sometimes.

My son made it to the front of the stage, but my wife and I decided to stand a little back, we didn’t want to get into the real thick of it in the oppressive heat.  We found a fantastic place to stand and watch a brilliant show. Moreover, we also had access to a bar which would have been a problem at the front!

What I loved about the show (apart from the bands) was the security.  I have been to many concerts, and to be honest, there are times when I have wondered what the security is doing.  I am not frustrated with the guard; it’s not their fault; it’s the way they are being managed.  This weekend it was evident the security people were managed by a group of fantastic managers and team leaders.  How do I know this,