Check out our latest thoughts.

Phoenix NED & Senior learning consultant to judge national sales awards

Jun 22, 2018

Anna Britnor Guest has been announced as a judge for the 2018 British Excellence in Sales Management Awards (BESMA). Organised by the Institute of Sales Management, these are the sales industry's top awards which reward the efforts of individual sales professionals...

Developing leaders across the world

Jun 7, 2018

Whilst there are always some nerves jingling before any leadership development event, this is magnified when to be delivered overseas. Two recent and very successful trips to different parts of the world confirmed what I had probably already, subconsciously, believed:...

How L&D can help initiate cultural change

May 30, 2018

Traditional training tends to focus on a relatively small group of people within any organisation. The best example of this is to provide specific training for the sales team. Logical, sure, but effective? - not always. The training understandably focuses on the...

More than a date in the diary!

May 3, 2018

I have written and spoken many times about the need for training and development not to be viewed as a single event. It does now seem that there is a growing consensus that a one-off training course, intervention or event - call it what you like - will not work as...

Change sales behaviours to grow

Apr 12, 2018

"We have our strategy for growth but how do we get sales to deliver it?" It's a common challenge. The business knows where it wants to go but the sales organisation is struggling to change the way it works. There's too much to cover in a single post so I'll start with...

Understanding & Exploring Influencing Strategies

Sep 12, 2017

To support our '30 second tips' series, our Head of Learning, Lawrence White, explores in more detail the gnarly subject of 'influence' and specifically influence with little or no authority over those that are to be influenced. Influence or manipulation? The measure...

Individual not organisational – why most agendas focus on the wrong things

Apr 5, 2017

Some people love to see an agenda. If they are attending the course they want to know when a particular subject will be covered, how interesting it looks, when the breaks are and what time will it start and finish! Stakeholders want to see what is included on the...

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Strengthen Results

The structured element of the journey has to end at some point but this does not mean an individual's ongoing development does as well. The design of the journey must therefore incorporate elements that continue to reinforce the learning. Participants will be given an opportunity to stretch themselves and continue to create impact with their newly learnt skills and techniques.

Additional reading, targeted activities, mentoring and training opportunities, presentations and the creation of relevant learning content can all work well at this stage.

Develop & Practice Skills

Once a foundation has been built and participants feel they have a basic understanding of a subject, technique or skill, they now need to develop the ability and confidence to use it. During this part of the journey, participants must start to feel better equipped to do things in a different way and this is usually best addressed in the classroom environment.

Role/real plays, plenary discussion, case studies and facilitator feedback form the basis of this stage but workplace assignments and peer to peer conversations can also work well.

Build a knowledge foundation

Not all learning has to be done in the classroom and participants are encouraged to build their subject expertise as soon as possible. This foundation work will also ensure that any time spent in the training room is used appropriately in terms of the all critical practice and group discussion.

E-learning modules, pre-workshop reading, video content, observations and interviews can all play their part.

Commitment to the journey

Traditional training and development often fails because participants only start to think about their development on the day of the event itself. Any successful journey (or programme) requires an investment in time and effort and participants must recognise that they will need to do more than simply turn up. During this phase, participants are asked to think about what they could achieve if they demonstrate high levels of effort & commitment, not only for themselves but for the organisation as well, greatly increasing the levels of accountability.

Conference calls, webinars, creating personal performance maps, setting learning objectives and manager development conversations are typical examples of how to build participant commitment.