sheridan@keystonedevelopment.co.uk
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The Secret Benefit of being a Bespoke Training Designer

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In my last blog, I questioned whether bespoke training was always the right thing to offer. Creating programmes especially for a client, reflecting their culture, structure, language and good practice means that there is always the danger that boundaries aren’t being pushed. BUT, pushing boundaries isn’t always what’s needed. Often, we need to share good practice and help people to achieve high standards (which have been agreed) across the whole organisation, and that’s where bespoke training really adds value. As a bespoke training designer, I need to really get to know the business to do this – recently I’ve been getting to grips with Industrial laundry. It also means working closely with the internal L&D team and taking a steer from them about what should be included. And this is where I benefit personally. If I was a typical training provider, I would have a handful of set courses that I was an expert in, and clients would select the workshops (or programme) that they felt best meets their needs. If I’m selling a set programme, it’s set. I would deliver the same thing over and over, reinforcing my expertise in these areas, yet having no incentive to diversify. Any…

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Is Bespoke Training Best?

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Naturally, my view is ‘YES’! (in most cases). This is why… Recently, my husband attended a leadership course. It was the first he’s ever been on, despite being in a senior role for more than 10 years. Naturally, I grilled him about it! It was a good course – no question about that. The trainer was knowledgeable, engaging and experienced. The concepts covered were interesting, up to date, and provoked thinking and debate. He enjoyed it and found it useful… in the main. But it wasn’t bespoke to his role, or even his industry (though in fairness to the trainer, he acknowledge that everyone worked in the NHS). As someone who ALWAYS creates programmes that are bespoke to a specific organisation, I thought this was the one thing that would have made this workshop better – after all, training is all about application to the job. If we can’t apply what we are learning what’s the point of learning it? I put this to my husband, and he agreed to a point: Tech companies and manufacturing work very differently to the NHS, and although it was interesting, it was sometimes difficult to understand the link and apply the principles to…

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Training Design – More than just a typing job

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I attend a lot of networking events, and often find myself explaining what it is that I actually DO for clients and trainers. Clearly I need to work on my communication skills because people  assume that I’m some sort of programmer, creating sophisticated e-learning packages. I can just about manage social networking platforms, and am one of the least IT literate people I know!. Or, when I describe that I create live training sessions, I’m told “Our administrator does that for us”. I then have to politely explain that “No, they don’t”. What you administrator does is prepare your training materials. This is quite different from designing training. I am not a typist. My typing skills are average. I’m competent in the use of Word and PowerPoint, but I’m no whizz, but that’s not what my service is about. Indeed, I sometimes employ graphic designers and typesetters myself.   I am a degree-level educated person with over 20 years experience of learning and development in commercial environments. People don’t use me (or my associates) to do a typing job for them, they employ me to create a coherent, robust learning and development solution to address a specific business need, that can be…

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The Same but Different

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Because we didn’t get back from our family holiday until late on Sunday evening, I did the weekly grocery shop yesterday (Monday) rather than on a Saturday when I usually do it. I went to the same place, at around the same time of day, and although everything looked the same, I quickly felt like I’d entered a parallel universe!!! The shop was quiet for a start, I mean audibly not just less busy. The regular staff (in my mind) were nowhere to be seen. But perhaps the biggest change was the behaviour of the shoppers. As a busy working mum, I have my list (written out in the order of the shop), I grab a large trolley, fill it up and am out again around an hour later. Yes, I check the sell-by dates, but it’s quite grab and go. This is normal for Saturdays. It’s what we all do. On a Monday morning the (mostly retired) clientele take their time. They go in pairs too. They discuss every potential purchase. One woman spent 5 minutes examining punnets of pears before putting on in her trolley. And it became very clear that they aren’t used to waiting at the checkout whilst a…

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Performance improvement: Risk and Reward

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I went on my very first ski holiday 20 years ago. I enrolled in ski school, and for the next year too. By then I was basically competent and keen to follow my own path and not be restricted by lessons. Practice did improve me a little over the next few years but I was never great. Still. Good enough is often good enough. I was never particularly fast, but I could keep up with some members of my group, and that was OK. Then we had kids and so a few years break. When we restarted, we enrolled the children in ski school for 3 years, by then they were at least as good as me. Over the next few years, they have improved and improved. I am literally trailing behind them, and by quite a way. So each year, I’ve had a lesson. They all helped my confidence and technique but it’s never lasted and I’ve never really improved. This year, I almost booked a lesson, but didn’t. Instead, I watched skiers that I wanted to ski like. I’ve been told countless times to let the skis do the work. I’ve never managed it. Making C shapes helps…

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One simple status update… HUGE learning

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I’m a member of a social media group for independent trainers and small training businesses. It’s a fabulous group: very active, very supportive and very helpful. It seemed to me that lots of people were posting successes and small wins, so I posted something a long the lines of “Everyone seems to having a great start to the year”. Boy oh boy, did that open the flood gates! I have since deleted the (what turned out to be a) contentious statement and taken from it two very important learning points. Something I should (perhaps) have thought about as I am in the L&D field. One is around communication and one is around team work. Let’s explore the communication issues first: My simple statement included a massive generalisation and a massive assumption: “Everyone” and “Great Start”. The group comprises over 100 people, yet I had based my post on the updates of perhaps 20 people at most. So, not everyone: Everyone who has posted recently. Of course, people who didn’t have great news to share or specific questions to ask/challenges to discuss didn’t post anything – the silent majority. “Great start” is very subjective. The more established members of the group…

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How do you Learn?

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I’ve been independent for many years now, and my drivers for learning are different to when I was in an internal role. Then, what I learned was largely dictated to me – either by my managers or by the industry regulators. Of course, I did follow up my own interests, but this wasn’t actively encouraged. Now I tend to learn by recommendation. Maybe a LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook connection shares something that piques my interest and I take a look. Often my clients open my eyes: They use a model/theory that I’m not familiar with and (because its my job to create their learning programme on their behalf) I get up to speed with it quickly! Or, they recommend a book, blog or TedTalk that summarises the key messages they want to get across, and another door is opened for me. And of course, I can then take this knowledge to my next project/client. Because I don’t profess to be an expert in anything specific, I can openly say to my clients “I’m not familiar with that” and then they get the pleasure of teaching me something new… Just as I get the opportunity to introduce them to new things. That’s one of…

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No Such Thing as Free Consultancy

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When I refreshed my website last year, I made a genuine offer of a free brain-pick. A chance for any busy L&D manager to share their thoughts, challenges and ideas with me and get my input for nothing more than the price of a cup of tea. Not a single person has contacted me about this. Now, in a world where some L&D consultants won’t even give you a few slides or handouts without a hefty fee, I find this odd. But then I realised that most L&D managers (being smart and canny) realise that it can’t actually be free, there must be a catch. And of course, they’re right. There is a ‘price’… although it’s probably not what they think. I add value to my clients by giving them new ideas, making suggestions and helping them to overcome obstacles. But who helps me to get MY new ideas? My clients!!! Although I never share fine details, or pass materials around, something I did with one client will spark an idea for another client. Maybe it’s a particular exercise that worked well, a concept that helped to get buy-in, or a model that really helped people to make a change. I’m…

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Do this One Thing to Unleash your Brilliance in 2018

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A number of years ago, before my children started school, I was juggling part-time work with trying to be a great mum and do the lions share of the domestic chores. The kids went to nursery 3 days a week so I could work. On the two days they didn’t go, we went to Jo Jingles, Tumble-tots, swimming and generally kept ourselves busy. I never seemed to have enough time to keep on top of the cleaning. I considered putting my children into nursery for an extra half day so that I could get it done. What was I thinking??? Luckily, my husband asked a few great questions: How much will that cost? – Around £40 Do you WANT to do the cleaning? – No not really, but it needs to be done (he already did some, in particular the ironing and most of the gardening around his very demanding job and I didn’t think he should do more) Would you rather spend a half a day having fun with the kids or doing housework? – Duh?? Being with my kids of course! How much would a cleaner cost? – Errr – around £25. And so the decision was made…

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Why use Action Centred Leadership (and other ‘old’ models)?

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Once again, debates are doing the rounds about whether or not we should still be referring to ‘old’ leadership models in learning and development. Obviously, many of these models were conceived in the 1950s and 60s so I guess it’s right that their relevance to today’s organisations is questioned. I still use them, and I will continue to use them. To explain why, I shall use the analogy of ski-ing. NO competent skier goes down a mountain in a snow plough position. It just doesn’t happen. Anyone with more than a week’s lessons behind them is going to be doing a version of parallel turning. Yet EVERYONE starts out snow ploughing. Why? Well, it’s safe. Before you can go at speed you need to learn control. Snow ploughing ensures that you can control your direction, your speed and can stop when you need to. Even competent skiers fall back on the good old snow plough when they get into difficulty. It’s not fast, it’s not elegant, it’s hard work, but it WORKS. No beginner should ever point their skis straight down a mountain and hope they will be able to control their decent. On a group ski holiday many years…

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