7 Responses

1. Feelin’ peaky
   Very droll

2. read the books first
   Read his book/s first you may save your self a lot of money.
   Also plenty of feedback on the Internet from people who have.

   Will help you decide.

3. Reviews from Training ZONE and HR Zone
   Hi Gary,

   You might be interested to see the reviews we posted: Unleash the power within – the aftermath

   Let us know what you think.

   Best Wishes,

   Annie Hayes, HR Zone Editor

4. ROI?
   The following comments are what I could cull from the individual’s reports and what they individually got from the event.

   • I will now smile at everyone at work not just at the people who make me smile.
   • I feel fear – the ultimate failure, but maybe Robbins has succeeded in encouraging me to confront that fear earlier – we shall see.
   • I came away wanting to give – I want to set up a Christmas parcel scheme at work and I will definitely do some voluntary work to forget my insignificant woes.
   • I really did benefit from it all – a part of me has been ignited – I am more motivated and I sure will work harder – play harder and smile a lot more.
   • The evening culminated in the fire-walk, which somehow I managed to do without even feeling it. Admittedly I would say that the positivity and altered ‘state’ I was in allowed me to do it. I was elated afterwards and full of energy. I was absolutely amazed that I could do something like that.
   • I feel more positive and understand my actions and reactions better.
   • Learnt lots that I guess is common sense really about communication strategies and emotional recipes!
   • Have I learnt a lot? hell yeah ! I just need Tony with me every day to keep me motivated!

   All these comments appear positive and it must be noted emotional in tone and style. If a company had spent £2000 as referenced in one of the reports as the cost my immediate reaction to this feedback would be ‘wonderful’, ‘fantastic’. What I would then question, the same as I would question any learning event is what has been the Return on Investment for the company? 6 Months later is this same degree of commitment present and acting as a positive agent for the host organisation? And is it feeding through into the bottom line of the company? Apart from smiling at everyone in the workplace and setting up a Christmas Parcel scheme no one mentions what they are going to specifically do different in the workplace. If this was purely personal development and paid for personally then it’s not an issue, if it was a company sponsored experience it would concern me. And I would want some clear SMART objectives set in a range of Key Result Areas and then some results – I wonder if any of them did it?

   Whilst I appreciate that personal development should feed through into workplace, I think that depends on what that personal development is and if it produces significant outputs which recover and exceed the original £2000 spent. Will having someone smile at me in the workplace do that? I am being unfairly facetious here, but I think I make my point.

5. I agree
   … that ROI is important and should be calculated on any event.

   I also agree that the link given above leads to an extremely amusing mockery of Tony Robbins performances.

   I also happen to think that Anthony Robbins has been really helpful to me in my work life and that his books (I can’t afford the live events – nor could I justify the cost to my employer who are a charitable organisation) have helped me moderate my worklife behaviour to become more successful so it’s all good. And while I can’t specifically say how much of my accelerated progress up the career ladder is down to him, all I can say is that I’m earning approximately twice as much as I was two years ago and a lot of it is due to his help in changing the way I react at work.

   I also think that sometimes the effect on morale is the ROI, rather than the impact of the training and that can be really hard to measure.

6. ITN/Evaluation
   Nik Kellingley wrote: “I also think that sometimes the effect on morale is the ROI, rather than the impact of the training and that can be really hard to measure.”

   Presumably there would have been no ITN undertaken in this example? An ITN of any calibre or substance would have identified the operational shortfalls and the Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes gap which is contributing to the performance issues. An ITN which fingered ‘morale’ as the ‘need’ to be met would leave me unsatisfied and I would want some further definition and refinement.

   Morale in this context is an ambiguous term and I assume there are direct / indirect indicators of this lack of morale. Examples which immediately come to mind are: Absenteeism Rates, Customer Feedback/Complaints, Through Put, Rate to Target, Error Rates, Accident Records, Legal Breaches, External Audits. In more commercial environments; Production Figures, Sales Figures, Rejection Rates, etc etc. If sending staff on a Tony Robbins Experience creates a correlated improvement in these areas which when analysed justifies the initial outlay, then the training could and should be viewed as a financial and organisational success.

   Where however, and this is not unusual, the course is aimed at improving ‘morale’ with no supporting ITN of any worth and no direct or indirect indicators adequately identified, the training having been initiated because it ‘feels’ right, the resulting evidence is anecdotal, and you can ‘prove’ virtually anything with that. Many organisations are happy to accept this level of ITN / Evaluation – with my clients I try to encourage them not to, I don’t always succeed.

7. The Short and the Long of it
   In answer to Annie Hayes’ Tony Robbins event link:

   Fascinating. All that enthusiasm from the four managers who were questioned, BUT:

   “Have you maintained those changes?
   The weekend working started to creep back into my life after three or four months, something I am a little disappointed at myself for. But I have no one to blame but myself! However, it is no where near as bad as it was.
   Other than that – yes- I am doing pretty well!!”

   “Have you maintained those changes?
   When I think about doing it, yes.”

   “Have you maintained those changes?
   Hopefully.”

   And one person didn’t answer.

   I’d say that was about par for the course with these motivational jamborees – short term big emotional high but highly questionable long term value.

   As to Nik’s comment:

   “…while I can’t specifically say how much of my accelerated progress up the career ladder is down to him, all I can say is that I’m earning approximately twice as much as I was two years ago and a lot of it is due to his help in changing the way I react at work.”

   With all respect, Nik, either you do know what you got from TR, or you don’t. All you’ve given us here is a nebulous claim that Tony Robbins has, in some unspecified manner, given you some unspecified help.

   Whilst I do not doubt your sincerity, I suggest that the sheer vagueness of your description indicates that this is a matter of belief rather than knowledge, and tells us little or nothing about the real value, if any, of the “seminars” that Mr Robbins runs.

   Best wishes

   Paul

   Paul