Change the Recipe for Success
Have you ever suddenly been confronted by an unexpected change forced on you by the actions of others? How did it feel to have your status quo unexpectedly thrown off kilter? Did you feel shocked? Or was it anger that overwhelmed you? Maybe you wanted to cover your ears, close your eyes and scream "Noooooooo"? […]
Maintain company culture when you’re oceans apart
As a South African ex-pat running a business in London for the past 8 years, it was almost inevitable that we’d open a Cape Town office at some point. It made sense both personally and professionally, so in the latter half of last year we went ahead and took the plunge. Certain logistics were tricky […]
How to Invest in Training like Team GB
At the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, Team GB finished 36th in the medals table, between Ethiopia and Belarus. Twenty years later, and Team GB arrive back from Rio having finished 2nd in the medals table – behind only the USA. The extent and rate of the change has been remarkable. The athletic talent […]
A letter to those who have received their results
A letter to those who have just received their results: Pack up your books, throw away your calculators; the dreaded exam results day has been and gone and now you can look forward to the rest of your life free from lessons. Or can you? I’m sorry to have to break this to you but […]
The Dreaded Weekly Meeting
Have you ever attended a meeting and wondered why? Worse, have you ever attended a regular weekly meeting and wondered why every week? I have. When I was a young manager, I used to attend a ‘Section Heads’ meeting every Monday. They were time consuming (they’d take the entire morning). They were boring. And they were […]
Your people, your differentiators
How do you see your people? Are they paper shufflers and process followers; part of that vast army of ‘heavy-on-the-costs’ entities which are tolerated at least until the machines can take over? Or are they the centrepiece of your organisation, the guardians of the culture and the drivers of differentiated innovation? Unnecessary question? Well, even […]
The four reasons why language skills are good for your career
Speaking more than one language can not only improve a person’s job prospects but can also have other career-related benefits. A growing number of studies have looked into the cognitive effects of bi- or multilingualism. Some findings suggest that speaking more than one language can benefit people’s general business skills. Improved decision-making At the University […]
Is the Microlearning solution the new black?
The Microlearning solution breaks down the traditional long training or learning curriculum into easily consumable pieces of information by breaking it up. It takes a course or a module and deconstructs it to form building blocks of information that can be personalized according to the needs of the learner. Rise of the Microlearning solution Consuming […]
Three Signs Your Training Strategy Isn’t Supporting Modern Learners
Organizational training is probably as old as organizations. It’s not hard to imagine a merchant in ancient Mesopotamia assembling two or three apprentices to teach them how to successfully trade cloth. But just as today’s organizations have evolved a long way from the cloth merchants of 2000 BC, so too has training evolved – and […]
The psychology of innovation
Okay, let’s roll our sleeves up, sit down and talk business. This is just between you and me so we can be honest with each other. So tell me, have you ever stopped to wonder about how so much of strategy planning seems to take place on the intellectual (move pegs around the board) level? […]
Growing business? Grow your people
As a leader, what are you doing to grow your people? No, we’re not talking here about sticking them out in a field and hoping that with the right soil and the right water they will suddenly become more proactive, more innovative or more engaged. Having said that, with the Glastonbury festival on at the time […]
Bite the bullet – stop regurgitating the same old L&D solutions
Reengineering learning content towards a blended approach I was talking to a client recently about their aspirations to deliver truly blended learning solutions. Even though they know what they wanted to do they were discovering it was not that straightforward to actually achieve. With a little bit of prompting they explained that they have a […]
Using techniques from the gaming industry to motivate learners
The gaming industry is phenomenally good at user engagement. Games have a way of drawing players in and keeping them hooked. The training industry would be wise to take note and learn from this. By incorporating motivational techniques used in video games into training programmes, higher levels of learner engagement can be achieved. This use […]
EQ vs IQ in the workplace
I’ve always been fascinated by Emotional Intelligence. Conventional intelligence (IQ) is so obvious, tangible, easy to measure. Someone is considered smart if they can reel off facts, retain information or have a high level of technical skill of some kind. These people are guaranteed to succeed, right? Not necessarily. I’ve often come across people who […]
Live online delivery – how to guarantee group engagement
What is the trick to delivering interactive live online learning, briefings or webinars that truly connect to the group? We have all attended live online sessions- they are such an easy way of learning new skills and acquiring knowledge. Some will have been excellent, some bad and some just plain boring – which I suppose […]
Learning Lessons from Leicester City
The underdogs did it. Despite starting the season at 5,000:1 outsiders, Leicester City secured the Premiership title last night amongst much merriment in the Midlands and a sense of benign disbelief in the football world. From Brazil to Bahrain, from Birmingham to Bangkok, everybody’s second favourite team has triumphed against the odds. It’s an old […]
Merging cultures
Why do so many seemingly rock solid mergers end in failure? Did the figures simply not stack up or were identified synergies simply not there to be had. Perhaps the merger was a last ditch attempt to recapture the market which had already moved beyond reach or maybe what looked like a good fit turned […]
From another planet? 5 ways to grow your business with social media
It might be because I'm a child of the 60s,when the only technology we had was a black & white TV and a fridge, but I don’t totally get social media. Or maybe my teenage son is right when he puts it down to my basically being stupid. Or maybe it's just difficult. Whatever the reason, […]
Survey Results: Key trends in the training industry
As a training software supplier, it is critical to continuously find out more about how training companies undertake their key business processes and the influence of automation within the training industry. We conducted a recent survey to gauge the current trends in the industry today. The survey was carried out with a selection of training companies […]
Engaging with learning
Why bother? You’ve been through school and possibly university, you’ve got all the professional qualifications you need, why bother to sign up to yet another training course? Surely you’ve earned the right to sit back, feet under the desk and just get on with your job? Well if you think that then despite all of […]
