Monthly Archives: October 2019

Getting to meet so many great people in the UK is one of the real bonuses of my job while I deliver Train the Trainer courses.  With so much diverse experience on every course from people that are new to training and people that have vast experience; one of the problems they all tell us about training in their workplace is that often it’s just too complicated and doesn’t work.  Things like too much content, too many words, complex technical language, too much PowerPoint!  So, what can we do to change this?  Simple, KISS it:

On our Train the Trainer courses, I often then see delegates demonstrate the same in their first sessions because there is that perception of training that makes people over complicate it unnecessarily.  With me, I like the simple things in life and out of the many differing training theories out there, one of them that I was told very early in my training career was KISS.  When told I needed to KISS my training I rightly said, “What do you mean?” to which

I wrote my first guide because I was frustrated that people don't fully understand how they can improve themselves. Many don't fully understand that such minor changes will make such significant improvement in their lives and help their overall self-esteem and well-being. We can all improve ourselves significantly if we choose to.

People are motivated but don't create habits that never lasts. Many focus on the negative, always a problem because it does not balance their thinking. It's easy not to actively look at strengths; what you do well? What time do you spend on reflection, really looking at themselves and how they come across. What about all the positives about themselves looking at making themselves better, not focusing on improving negatives improving the goods to outstanding's. I feel some miss out on life because they don't realise all of this. People hold themselves back because they feel not good enough, fear failure, so sad.

I created my first guide because I genuinely like

So far we have looked at why we delegate and we should be in a position to state categorically it is a good thing. We then moved on to stage 1, which is all about getting the right people to do the job and stage 2, which is all about giving clear direction and briefing individuals correctly.  Remember we have to delegate as a manager, we hear all the time of reasons why managers don't delegate including "I like doing the work" or "It takes too long". This is all poor management, the reality of it is if we are not delegating, then we are probably experiencing poor time management and certainly not doing what we should be doing as a manager i.e. DEVELOPING PEOPLE.  

Stage 3 of effective delegation is all about appropriate monitoring.  The keyword to remember here is ‘appropriate’.  We should be neither micromanaging individuals, in other words giving someone a job to do and then sitting on their shoulder throughout giving a constant narrative on their performance.  If you have

We are increasingly getting a lot of delegates attending the PTT Train the Trainer course whose business is subject to external audit and their training has recently been picked up as having non-conformities that require immediate action.  So why is this happening more often and what might an auditor ask to see evidence and examples of?

It’s an extremely common occurrence that in most businesses, training plays second fiddle to most everything else but this is now changing.  With advances in knowledge in fields such as Human Factors, training and its quality is now more commonly looked upon as crucial to the success of a business and the reason why things can work so well or go so badly.  This is one of the main reasons why your future audits might just concentrate on the training you do far more than you have experienced previously, so what might they look at?  Here are three main questions that you can consider, based on my experience of preparing very large training organisations

As a coach who trains in the areas of Coaching, Mentoring and Training it is common that individuals don't really understand the difference.  It is vital to fully understand before we know how to develop people and the four areas associated with developing individuals in the workplace are known as the ‘Big 4’. Everyone involved in development needs to be aware of the differences between the four skill sets and what is required to use effectively.

It is of course understandable why there is so much confusion out there, the English language doesn't help.  For example how is it we have a Tennis Coach and a Ski Instructor, you could argue they are doing the same job.  In the fields of Learning & Development there specific boundaries though:

Mentoring is a relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person, helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone

I’m sure we can always relate to at least once where we have been asked to attend training where we were extremely apprehensive as we’ve been thinking about what will happen or what we will be doing.  It’s that fear of the unknown taking over our brains which can be even worse when we walk into the room!  Therefore, what you do as the trainer with your delegates when they arrive is so crucial to the overall success of your session.  Here are four simple steps to follow that will help you create an environment for learning:

Prepare the learning environment - Make sure the room is comfortable in temperature and furnishings with space for each person and their personal effects.  Make sure that there are essential amenities or at very least access to them such as water and even better Tea/Coffee and biscuits.  Make sure that you are clear in your administration of the day that you brief all of the human elements such as breaks, lunch, toilets, fire alarms/emergency routes and any

Last week we looked at selecting individuals to whom we are going to delegate to the task itself.  This week we are going to look at clearly stating our objectives. This is a massive opportunity to really mess things up, if we don’t clearly explain things then there is a good chance that they either won't understand or that there is misunderstanding exactly what it is they are supposed to do.  We do this in the form of a brief clearly stating our expectations.

When we state our objectives we are explaining exactly what task is and how it should be done, we call this the brief. Some key things to remember in the brief are:

Tell them What it is they are supposed to be doing.

Tell them Why it is important.  When we are doing this ensure we focus on the benefits over the features.  A wise man once told me “Benefits tell & features sell”.  We are much more likely to get their buy-in if we sell it to them.

We must ensure they know Where we expect the task to be conducted.

They must

How often do you reflect on your day? Both, what went well and what could have been better. Reflection, I believe is one of the most rewarding and positive things you can do regardless of which area you are involved in, whether Training, Coaching or Mentoring. If it is done correctly it can adjust the way that you think, create opportunities to learn and to help you think about things differently.  It help’s with continuous improvement, making you better at what you do. How many of us have left after delivering training or coaching and reflected on the day, I mean really reflected? 

On my coaching courses, I teach the skills to really reflect, look at some key areas and how to use them. Sometimes we will say we were good at something but then never think about why we were good and what was different to make us good? Reflection I believe is where the best learning takes place. It is a continuous cycle to reflect, and then move what you have learnt about yourself forward into the preparation