The British Institute of Learning and Development (BILD) annual conference took place yesterday at the Open University. TrainingZone caught up with the two keynote speakers who shared their tips for success.

Business performance coach Nigel Risner kicked off the conference with an entertaining talk entitled "Creating impact for improvement and development". The talk looked at how delegates could create more impact and featured a range of interactive elements.

Risner told delegates that the big challenge was getting people engaged in training activities. He talked about people who were 'not in the room'. By this he meant that although delegates are physically in a room their minds may be elsewhere thinking about other things.

Risner offered the following advice to learning and development professionals:

• Understand who the best people are in your business and model them.
• Let go of the past.
• Work on your number one strength rather than your weaknesses.
• Trust yourself.
• Have fun.
• Less is more.

Listen to the interview.

The second keynote was delivered by Andy Gilbert, managing director at GO MAD Thinking. Gilbert's talk, entitled "Performance improvement through developing our thinking", provided delegates with insights into how the way we think can positively affect business success.

He said that organisations want to achieve results through encouraging people to take action. In order to do this, he said, people need to be able to think positively as the quality of thinking affects outcomes. For L&D professionals, this meant investing time in what he called "solutions based thinking skills". This would provide the basis for more effective business interventions. 

Gilbert suggested that asking these questions would provide a framework for more effective thinking:

• How strong is my reason to make a difference?
• What is it I want to make a difference to?
• What is my level of belief in achieving  that goal?
• What is the plan to achieve the goal?
• Who can help?
• How am I going to do it?
• From this you develop an action plan, act and measure.

Listen to the interview: