business Archives - Keystone Development and Training Ltd

Is the future of L&D simply being curious and connected?

January 28, 2019Uncategorizedbespoke, business, coaching, design, HR, OD, training

“That’s what I do: I drink and I know things”. One my favourite quotes from my favourite character in Game of Thrones – Tyrion Lannister, played by the brilliant Peter Dinklage. Yesterday, as I took a short but very bracing walk, it occurred to me that my quote would be very similar: “I think and I know people”. After 12 years of running my own business, I’ve got the two off to a fine art. But I always feel under pressure to increase my skill set and prove my ability through qualifications. I don’t have a Level 7 coaching qualification – should I get one (even though I don’t want to be a coach)? I don’t have digital design skills – Should I invest in a course and expensive software if I’m going to stay in business? I’m not an apprenticeship or ILM provider – perhaps I ought to get accredited (even though I’m very rarely asked to provide this)? This feeling of inadequacy was heightened on Friday when I was talking to a freelance trainer just 3 months into her journey. She believed that she needed to have a raft of qualifications in order to be taken seriously, somehow…

Boring or Delicious?

December 31, 2018Uncategorizedbusiness, HR, induction, management, managers, performance, training

At this time of year, I tend to withdraw from Facebook. I thought about never returning, but I have a couple of work-related groups on there, so probably will, despite getting little interaction from my ‘friends’. I withdraw because it makes me feel inadequate. It highlights exactly what I DON’T have in my life: No nights out with friends No work’s parties – in fact, no parties full stop! No exciting family evenings out (combination of unwilling teenagers and hubby’s punishing work schedule) No date nights (lack of baby-sitters and hubby’s punishing work schedule) No extended family get-togethers Not just at Christmas – at any time. And whilst I wish I DID have these things in my life, I also realise that these things are just the ‘extras’ in life: the icing on the cake. These aren’t the things that bring happiness (apart from very briefly). They enhance a happy life of course, but they aren’t enough on their own. What really matters is: Being healthy – thankfully I am. Party due to the fact that I Zumba regularly, almost always get my 10,000 steps a day, and cook balanced meals from scratch most days. Of course, this eats into…

Thank You

December 18, 2018Uncategorizedbusiness, design, HR, OD, training, training design

I’ve been working for myself for 12 years now. And for the first 4 or 5, I really did work by myself. I got by. Then, Pam Case, Deborah Dean and Lynda Walkley invited me to a monthly networking group in my village! So I started networking. I met some lovely people who lived near me and a few of them have become friends, which is great and I loved the social side. However, they weren’t the right people for me to talk business with. They didn’t really get what I did or know the people I needed to connect with. So when Rebekah Ayres started a networking group in Liverpool for ‘people’ people I made every effort to go. It was fabulous. I made some more friends there (Hi Simon Jones!) and was able to grow my professional network and meet potential clients through these contacts. I was able to do the same for others. They helped me to gain confidence in who I was and what I did – simply by taking a genuine interest, and being able to have a detailed conversation. They pointed me to useful resources, introduced me to other helpful people and also encouraged…

Effective training doesn’t have to be boring!!

November 26, 2018Blogbusiness, design, management, OD, talent, training

I can say with confidence that the Johnson’s Apparelmaster Academy is a highly effective training programme. Not only did it win the Personnel Today award for Talent Management on 21st November 2018, but the feedback from delegates offers plenty of proof. When Keystone Development and Training Ltd had finished delivering our part of the Academy, I asked for feedback. here are just some of the things that people said: I am more efficient when dealing with problems. People now trust me to sort things out. This has given me so much confidence in my ability. I now feel able to step outside of my comfort zone. Because of the training, I was able to bring an angry and disruptive (but very influential) team member on board to implement a necessary change. My line manager has seen my confidence grow and now gives me more strategic work to do. I’ve been able to adapt my management style and achieve 180% of our target. I am now able to get my production team to work as a team – which is quite an achievement. And in terms of the style and content of the programme, I’m delighted that our brain-friendly approach to…

How to Create an Award Winning Development Programme

November 22, 2018Uncategorizedbespoke, business, coaching, design, HR, management, managers, OD, performance, talent, training, training design

In L&D circles, the fashion is for agile learning; for bite-size sessions, or even micro-learning; for self-direction and curation. Surely no-one still attends workshops? Even worse, 18 month programmes? Well. Yes they do, and there’s a reason for it: They work. They work AS LONG AS the right people are on the programme in the first place, the programme is designed to take them on a development journey, AND those people are given high levels of support and challenge. I’m delighted to have played a supporting role in such a programme for the last 9 months – The award winning Academy at Johnson’s Apparelmaster. The Academy is multi-layered (internal) development programme that I’ve been supporting for the last 9 months. Here I am (on the right) with (L-R) Charlene Howard, Michela Deegan and Jan Fisher-Payne who each manage and deliver a specific stream. I have been supporting the largest group – the Intermediate level. Although my part has ended, the Academy is just half-way through. Twenty-Four people have been through 9 months of structured development, including self-directed learning, five 2-day workshops, telephone coaching and practical assignments. So far, the results have been pretty impressive. I’ve seen the majority of these…

World of Learning – L&D as Change Makers

October 21, 2018Uncategorizedbusiness, HR, managers

This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just what I took away. Melanie Lepine talked about the VUCA environments that we all operate in, and what this means for the skills our leaders need, including commercial acumen, resilience, emotional intelligence, curiosity and creativity and cognitive agility. This has an impact for L&D. Again themes of curation, blended learning, agile learning and connecting people came through, as did the importance of demonstrating the value that L&D adds – not just to senior managers but also to the people you want to embark on learning. She suggested that to drive change from within L&D we need to: Connect people and with people… AND engage in PR in our own organisations! Link and label content – find/create great contact and explain how it adds value Hold up the mirror to ourselves Be pro-active – don’t wait to be asked by the business for a solution Be agile – we shouldn’t be driven or bound by rigid processes Know what metrics matter to the organisation and deliver…

Bring WHY to life to unlock performance

August 13, 2018Uncategorizedbusiness, performance, training

Last week, I was involved with the #LostCastles project – where giant carboard castles were built across the region and on display for one weekend only. There are LOADS of learning points I could share from this experience around planning, teamwork and communication but instead, I’m going to focus on the importance of vision, and why HOW we communicate that matters. Early in the week, the volunteers were in a large room in the Town Hall making boxes – the ‘bricks’. It was fun for about 30 minutes, but after an hour it was dull. Then we (me and my kids) were asked to tape bricks together – that was surprising hard work and after another hour, we were bored again. We could see other people making more complex shapes and we wanted a part of it, but these people already knew what to do and they didn’t really need any more. We’d been shown the diagrams of how the castle would look, and a very interesting video showing the construction of a castle elsewhere. This was great, and we tried to keep it in mind, but the fact is, we were just making bricks. Yes – there is a…

The Secret Benefit of being a Bespoke Training Designer

March 26, 2018Uncategorizedbespoke, business, design, OD, training, training design

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…

Training Design – More than just a typing job

February 26, 2018Uncategorizedbusiness, design, training, training design

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…

One simple status update… HUGE learning

February 4, 2018Uncategorizedbusiness, HR, OD, training

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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