Blog

Ever been in a “Training” session where your mind has been anywhere other than in that room and time? Yes, me too and there’s nothing worse to put you off training for life because you are just wasting your time when you’re there for a reason – to learn! It’s a common theme I hear from many who tell me “I’ve been...

As a management coach and trainer I meet many individuals who say to me they have issues with one particular area, often involving challenging or difficult people.  They will explain what they have done previously to deal with the problem; often they have been doing whatever it is, again and again.  When I ask them what they could do differently, we explore...

Within my coaching practice, I have heard recurring patterns in the language that is used by coachees who enter the room. Here is a question to the reader have you heard yourself ever saying or thinking “it was an easy task” or discounting praise when it has been given to you, saying something like “just doing my job”.  It is so...

“I’m a rubbish trainer” is a phrase I get to hear a lot in my job and actually if I’m brutally honest with you, it’s something I said about myself a long time ago.  I was fortunate though to have some influential people who helped me change my perception through a couple of fundamental but simple practices. So why do am...

There are some brilliant managers out there who motivate and inspire their staff.  Those of us that have experienced brilliant, effective managers know how fantastic this can be. Unfortunately, many managers do the opposite, which can cause frustration and a great deal of dysfunctionality amongst teams.  Common management blunders include: Number One, Failing to Adapt Management Style -  Important that...

Have you ever walked away from a meeting thinking you have agreed on something, then what you haven’t agreed starts to happen? It is all about how we take our information in. Some of us like facts, really enjoy facts and need them to hang on to. Then there are others who find facts restrict their thinking; the facts get...

There’s a lot of doom and gloom around current affairs right now and reading Claire’s fantastic latest coaching blog about focusing on positivity reminded me of this.  This got me thinking about the past and a better approach for business about training: It’s a necessity that when times are hard in the economy and for business, things get reviewed to “tighten the...

I am really into workplace transfer.  In other words, transferring what was learnt on a training course and into the workplace.  To me, this is what training is all about. I was recently training a manager on a presentation skills course, and she had learnt loads and was looking forward to putting the skills and techniques into practice. She was...

The media has a lot to be responsible for along with the IT world. All we do these days is grab our phones, read the updated messages from social media and focus on what they want us to think. To get a feeling of what's happening these days, you have to read everything. But what is it we read? Everything is...

I was recently going through some of the past blogs for social media and came across one written by Ralph “Good at your job v good as a manager”. This is a subject that always rings true as I’ve witnessed it many times and it got me thinking that actually, there are huge comparisons with training: In my career, I’ve come across...