performance Archives - Keystone Development and Training Ltd

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…

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…

Conscious Competence – It’s bloomin’ hard work!!

September 25, 2018UncategorizedHR, managers, OD, performance, training

I’ve just got back from a long weekend in Centre Parcs – my kids’ favourite place in the world. As part of our mini break, we went quad biking. To be honest, it’s one of those activities that’s actually very easy to pick up – but difficult to do well. I was probably the worst in the group, and despite the very good instruction by Josh, I was still the worst at the end – but I had improved. But boy, was it exhausting!!! Not just the physical side of it, but the continuous concentration, the identifying the nature of the next obstacle, thinking through how to tackle it, and then doing it, and working out how adjust if my approach wasn’t quite right. My husband (and ex motocyclist) said that I should just relax and feel my way around – but that’s OK for him – he had lots of (similar) experience to fall back on. I did not. Everything was a conscious process for me. Thinking everything through worked, but it was hard work. It made me realise how much we are asking of people at the end of a training event. I always stress that training is…

Self-Serve Learning: Magic Bullet or Cop Out?

September 10, 2018Uncategorizedcoaching, management, OD, performance, training

Over the weekend, I was listening to a podcast about simplifying learning. The feeling was that we (as learning professionals) should be encouraging people to source their own learning, but making it easy for them to do that. Why do we put people on a full day Excel course when they just need to learn how to do two functions? Of course, encouraging ‘just-in-time’ learning and making it easy to access is a brilliant thing for us to be doing: Agility in the workplace is increasingly important, and enabling people to learn what they need to learn, when they need to learn it is a no-brainer. BUT… What when we don’t know what we don’t know? That’s when a formal workshop or course can be massively helpful. People may enrol on a workshop or on-line course because there’s something specific they want to learn. However, this might only form 20% of the content. OK, maybe 20% of the rest of the content is irrelevant, and maybe they already know another 30%. That means 30% of the session is extra ‘bonus’ learning. Things they didn’t realise they needed to know, or is just helpful in other ways. Case in point: A…

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…

Performance improvement: Risk and Reward

February 15, 2018UncategorizedHR, OD, performance, training

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…

Want learning to deliver? Join the dots

September 23, 2016Blogcoaching, design, management, managers, performance, training

Yesterday I attended my third ‘Unconference’ with fellow L&D professionals from a wide range of backgrounds. It was (as always) a very thought provoking day where many issues were discussed and some solutions identified! One of the sessions focused on empowering learners and engaging managers in learning. It was a very insightful discussion that considered how much training is VALUED in organisations, whether we are defining the right objectives (and whether the right people are involved in that process) to the metrics that we use to measure training (we decided that most metrics favoured by senior management were largely irrelevant to the measuring the effectiveness of a solution). Perhaps unsurprisingly, line managers were identified as one the biggest obstacles to effective transfer of learning. L&D teams may offer great opportunities and solutions, individuals may be motivated to learn, but when managers won’t ‘release’ them from their day job (proof if ever it was needed that learning is something extra, not related to the real work for which they get paid), when no-one takes an interest in what has been learned and how it has been applied, when no-one is helping them to see the link between learning and job performance,…

Balancing Expertise with Active Learning

April 10, 2016Blogdesign, HR, management, OD, performance, training

Last week, I got involved with social learning on Twitter via #LDInsight – a rare treat as the school run takes place at the same time! The question was ‘How do you balance the need to be an expert with facilitating access to learning?’. My immediate (and typically blunt) response was “I don’t”. I don’t set myself up as an expert. When delivering training I make it clear that everyone in the room has knowledge, experience and good practice to share: I’ve noticed that this immediately reduces any resistance to learning that may be present. Those experienced, competent people in the room inwardly give a sigh of relief that they aren’t going to be ‘told what to do’. When designing training, I add value around the learning process and in particular by harnessing accelerated learning techniques. The nitty gritty of the content is often added by an internal expert. In fact, my last three big projects followed this model. I’m not an expert in finance or HR, but I have been able to create great workshops on these topics by working with internal experts. The key is not being precious about ownership. It’s about using people to their strengths. With…

For Performance, Conditions Matter!

February 18, 2016BlogHR, managers, OD, performance, training

I’m writing this on my ski holiday. Today I have finished early because the conditions aren’t great. Light snow is falling and visibility is poor. Even doing ‘blue’ runs has been a challenge. Yesterday I skied from one end of the skiable area in Andorra and back again. Mostly on the harder ‘red’ runs which I found relatively easy. Yesterday the sun was shining, the air was clear and the runs were in good condition. My ability on skis hasn’t changed in one day, but my performance certainly has! It’s all down to conditions…the environment in which I can use my skills. It really brought home to me how vital conditions are for people going back to work after training. If the conditions are good, i.e. Supportive and in line with what’s been trained, performance will surely follow. Skiing in good conditions is easy…and I’m willing to push myself. Skiing in poor conditions is hard, and I have to concentrate to do the basics. As a training provider, I can help to create great training programmes, as indeed can internal L&D teams. That on its own isn’t enough. Managers, HR departments and organisations in general need to make it easy…

Training and Development: Walk before you Run

November 19, 2015BlogHR, management, performance, training

I’m reasonably active on Twitter and for quite a while now, the view of the more progressive thinkers is that as L&D professionals we should stop ‘providing’ training for people. We should instead help people learn how to learn and encourage them to curate their own learning from wherever they feel it is appropriate. Whilst I agree with this in principle, I’ve always had a nagging feeling that it’s not quite right. I think that’s because I spend a lot of time working in financial services, manufacturing and retail where much of what people need to do is still relatively process-led. Of course, to execute processes well you need a wide range of (what’s traditionally termed) soft skills at your disposal: communication, problem solving, personal organisation etc… and each of us have different strengths and development needs here. Each of us operates in a different context so we need to apply our skills differently. So there’s clearly a need for self-driven development. But this development needs to be built on a solid foundation of doing the basics right, consistently and to the required standard. Even professionals need to be trained in using the in-house HR system, how to present their reports…

Tag: performance

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