Selecting training providers: why pilots don’t teach medicine to doctors
Too many organisations prioritise cost when selecting training providers, but there are many other factors to take into account when assessing suitability. Ignore them at your peril… Difficult though it may be for those around me to believe (since I have no six-pack or beach volleyball prowess like Tom Cruise in Top Gun), I was […]
Video: putting John Adair’s leadership theory into action
John O’Brien says using an Action Centred Leadership approach to focus on the team, the task and the individual is as relevant today as it’s always been. In this video John O’Brien explains how using John Adair’s Action Centred Leadership model helped him turn a failing business around: “About 30 years ago, when I was […]
The new dawn for L&D: from catalogues to consultancy, programmes to partnership
As an L&D profession, we seem to be having a bit of an identity crisis. The conversation has not moved on from an all too familiar theme of perceived relevance or otherwise of L&D functions in the workplace. These discussions are not only about how we are relevant, but if we are relevant. Aspects of […]
The bare necessities of business: animal instincts and leadership success
The old saying goes ‘it’s a jungle out there’ – but can we really learn more about leadership in business from nature documentaries? David Attenborough’s latest five-part BBC documentary series, Dynasties followed the lives of five of the world’s most extraordinary and endangered species – chimpanzees, emperor penguins, lions, painted wolves and tigers. The show’s […]
Look upwards! Why L&D must shift its focus towards building the right learning environment
In 1936 the psychologist Kurt Lewin published a simple formula that became known as Lewin’s equation. He stated that B = f(P,E). What did Lewin mean by this? It is so simple, yet so profound. What he is saying is that behaviour is a function of both the individual’s performance and the environment in which […]
The changing role of L&D
Effective leadership: five temptations leaders must avoid
Most people can resist everything – except temptation. Here are the five most common temptations that leaders succumb to, and how to avoid them. When it comes to working with leaders the most consistently lacking behaviour seems to be discipline. Now I know that most of you are reeling reading this and probably thinking ‘how dare […]
Video: Why listening is a vital leadership skill
In the Clear Lessons video below, Maggie Buggie explains why listening skills are so critical. She describes the wake-up call in her career that helped her listen more effectively. “The only thing that I would have done differently in my career, if I had that time again, would be to develop the ability to listen […]
How to successfully manage different personalities
One of the biggest challenges in business is managing people, so understanding how to handle different personality types is an important factor in successfully delivering projects. For a project manager, at their best their team will be collaborative and work together with an understanding of one another’s skill set. At the most challenging, the team will […]
Crisis management: what makes a good leader?
It seems like forever since I took in my camera film to the chemist for developing or paid for anything by cheque. A clear reminder of the impact digital has on our everyday lives. How organisations operate and how they interact with customers is almost unrecognisable from just 10 years ago. But there is one […]
Why leaders need emotional intelligence more than ever before
Emotional intelligence in leadership could be the key to keeping client relationships strong, attracting the best talent, and helping your workforce succeed through technology transformation. Find out how… No one could argue that the digital economy, AI and machine learning aren’t bringing some truly outstanding advances to our business and personal lives. From health care to […]
Emotional intelligence: navigating today’s leadership challenges
Leaders who are great at coping under normal conditions are sometimes not best equipped to cope with adversity. Unfortunately, leading organisations in today’s business climate means that adversity is never far away. That means we need resilient leaders, who can bounce back and respond effectively to difficult and arduous circumstances. The key to resilience is […]
THE FIVE HOUR RULE – successful people read
Tom Corley, whose list of best-selling books includes ‘Rich Habits’, ‘Change your Habits, Change your Life; and ‘Rich Habits, Poor Habits’, spent five years studying self-made millionaires. What he found is that success couldn’t be attributed to a good start in life, loving support from family and friends or even hard work. Of course, all […]
Most-read TrainingZone articles of 2018
Here’s a roundup of the most-read TrainingZone articles and reports in 2018. Topics span leadership, soft skills, digital learning transformation, neuroscience and more. Check the list and make sure you haven’t missed out on what your peers have already read! Which TrainingZone articles grabbed the attention of L&D professionals in 2018? Explore our list of top 10 […]
5 Secrets to Become a Successful Entrepreneur
In order to become a successful entrepreneur, you might want to look at others who have achieved this goal before you and start asking some questions. The first mistake that you want to avoid is focusing too much on what they’ve accomplished. You see, the degree of their success may be attributed to some specific […]
Six Tips to Improve Your Management Style
The world is constantly becoming increasingly complex, and this applies to management as well. Gone are the days when you could just be result oriented and expect everything else to fall into place. The successful manager of today needs to possess a variety of hard and soft skills. He or she must ensure all employees […]
Leading change – how hard can it be?
Charles de Gaulle famously said, “l’intendance suivra”. By this he meant that his role as leader was to set the vision or direction and other peoples’ roles were to sort out all the necessary activities required to turn it into a reality. De Gaulle was indisputably one of the great leaders of the 20th century […]
Finding Leaders Within Your Organization
The success of your firm depends on the kind of leaders that you have. Your firm has to have a plan for current leaders and future ones. There has to be a grooming system in place so that when the current managers retire or leave, there is already someone that can replace them. Although you […]
Why change programmes fail in their tracks
Organisational change is fraught with issues, but it’s not the process that presents the greatest challenge, it’s getting employees to adopt a positive mindset. The figure of 80% failure rate that’s often quoted when anyone talks about change programmes is probably mythical. But it certainly feels accurate. Changing systems and processes, structure, even a new business […]
Individualism vs Collectivism
On Saturday, The Guardian reported a generational divide on the question of whether we should pay more tax to finance, amongst other things, the NHS. For me, it highlighted the great challenge of the human condition – the eternal conflict between what’s best for us individually, and what’s best for us collectively. When we’re young […]
