For many many years we have relied on training, or more recently learning and development, and sales enablement type people to be parachuted in with the assumption that with a bit of training, top tips or a framework to follow all will be sorted. The reality is that other than a great day out the response / impact of the training doesn’t happen or if it is does not how it was anticipated.
Training has many connotations for people and particularly for the purse holders including business owners and leaders there is a growing trend (particularly in SME and ‘start up’ or start up plus) for people’s stomachs to churn with the thought they will need to be sent away on a ‘course’ to learn and or fund it.
There is a need to squeeze in a days work and the ‘training’ which can be away from family and loved ones. Increasingly people arent ‘joined at the hip’ with their work but realise the value of what they have and want to maximise that too.
So what does that mean?
Well we need to be savvy about what interventions we use to generate the behaviours, results and ongoing sustainability in the market — whether you are a one man bad, small business with a handful of people, medium sized business going through growth or a global international business with many thousand employees / workers and customers.
So what do I think?
I believe that each goal, next step, optimum performance comes as a result of mixing together the right ingredients. Here are 12 ingredients worth considering:
- One to one focused conversations — questions are led by the facilitator and the content is all driven by the person with the focus.
- One to one facilitation sessions — using pen and paper, whiteboard, post it notes sticks and stones (if you are outside) to have a mix of questions and discussions to allow a plan, strategy, light bulb moment to materialise and as examples get the person out of stuck, give them confidence they can do what is next or put a plan together to build an important presentation
- Interacting though provoking material — books, blogs, podcasts, webinars, conversations with a stranger, newspaper articles are all opportunities for stimulation that will allow you to see things from a different perspective and mindset,
- Group conversations where the questions are led by the facilitator and the ‘content’ or answers are all given by the group with a common goal
- Factual interactive short sessions to add to success. We all know what we eat, drink, the amount of exercise, sleep and rest we get has an impact on performance yet we seem to avoid the things we need to do out of ‘convenience’ and or habit.
- Presentations to share stories, facts and build communities. There are many spaces to share a message whether on a physical stage, facebook live, youtube video, vimeo and more will evolve. Its an ingredient we can watch and listen to on the go and when done well will hit with our emotions and so we are likely to remember it.
- Writing and pictures are as old as they come. We as humans like to connect and words and pictures can be a great way for that. Have a doodle, write a blog, tweet or a combination using a tool like Instagram
- Finding someone in a post / business that you would like to have, seniority you are aiming for, experience you’d die for and share experiences so you both learn from different perspectives and support the customer base you are serving.
- Hold someones hand — metaphorically be the guide in the background as the go to person to achieve your goal
- Listen to others and hear about their experiences. I particularly like the ‘in hindsight’ stories as you can learn so much and hopefully prevent the mistake yourself.
- Time out gives the brain a chance to breathe and with it comes ideas and creativity.
- Go for a walk and take a few steps on your chart and be creative along the way. I love to plan
I have come to realise that we build our ingredients from what has been done before and or you see it in industry as the ‘thing to do’ when in the reality you need to check what you have to start with, the resources to make it happen (including motivation and time) and a clear goal or selection of horizons for which you’d like to get to.
So whats in it for you?
Think carefully about the value of:
What you invest in
Who you invest with
The value of very small steps
Keeping an agile mindset so you can enjoy the journey and achieve your goal in a timely way
Lizzie works with small and medium sized businesses to ignite the spirit of success through pinpointing the need, creating a realistic picture of achievement through different personal, team and facilitative methodologies.
