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People are well intentioned. They tend to turn up at work with a desire to do good, work hard and make productive decisions.

The trouble starts when they allow emotion to cloud rational thinking. The trouble deepens when that emotion is pointed at issues in which they lack expertise.

Lacking expertise doesn’t stop people from having opinions and making decisions though. They just plough on regardless.

This can blight training.

There seems to be a tendency for people to book workshops that are simply a sweep through a PowerPoint pack.

This is okay for a quick hit, but it’s not really good education and doesn’t tend to change behaviour.

A colleague recently quoted figures to me that suggested didactic teaching, eg pointing at PowerPoint slides, can have a retention rate of 10% within a 2 week timescale. Experiential workshops can have a 60% retention rate. Delegates remember more comtent and the learning is more sticky.

Experiential styles involve discussion, exercises, playing with props, role play, laughter, getting out of the work room, exploring, co-creating and so on.

In addition, workshops can be supported by coaching and open-learning sessions. Delegates get to co-create the content, instead of being empty vessels waiting to be filled.

I’m sure you would agree that coaching and open learning sound great. Useful and practical. And yet it’s amazing how rarely they are booked as part of a development package.

Instead, people book onto a 4 day course, where they can learn, say, leadership skills.

No reflection. No ongoing review. No case study review. No ability to learn things twice.

They’ve learned about leadership, ergo, they are now qualified to lead.

And this is why many workshops suck.

They are not about real development and self-growth.

They are a tick-box exercise in attendance.

Let’s test this. This week we can seek out someone who has been taught our organisational values. Probably during their induction, many years ago. Give them a blank sheet of paper and ask them to list the values and explain what they mean in their daily work. Then sit back and ponder the result.

It may be depressing.

Taking leadership as an example, it’s fatuous to send people away for a week and expect them to come back as leaders. If it was that easy, parents would do a weeks parenting course and be all sorted, instead of learning on the job!

If you’d like your staff to really develop their leadership skills then please get in touch. I have a kicking programme that comprises…

2 days of experiential workshops

2 days of coaching

2 days of revision, case study review and open learning.

All shot through with the hearty and applicable content that comes from Transactional Analysis. Delegates don’t just learn about leadership, they learn how to be a leader.

Now that’s what I call education.

Next week: Dirty Tricks For Negotiations

People are funny aren’t they? I guess I’m a people, so I’m funny too. And I mean funny as in odd, not comical. This is a business blog after all and not a pitch for Live at the Apollo.

What I mean by funny is that we can be suspicious of free things.

Many years ago I was the presenter at a networking meeting. After chatting about how important it is to recognise people for their worth, say thank you and generally play nice, I gave everyone a £1 coin. I dipped into a little bag and gave everyone some free money so they could have a little treat on me that day. It seemed like a good idea at the time, a genuine little thank you from me to the delegates.

After the meeting ended I noticed about half the people had left their coins on the table. A few also came up to me and asked if I wanted theirs back.

‘No,’ I said, ‘it was a free thank you gift from me to you. Please keep it.’

This act of generosity unsettled people. They couldn’t process that I was giving them money. There must be a catch. No. There was no catch.

I realised then, that free can be overwhelming to people. It challenges our sense of value and order in the world. Free can imply a quid pro quo, to be exacted at a later date.

However, that doesn’t have to be the case. Generosity is in the world and we can surprise and delight people with it. For example, I did a free coaching-scoping session last month. Free meant no risk for the client and showed my commitment to working in a friendly, ethical and sensible way.

The session went well and paid work was booked as a result. Free can be a gateway to new things.

Here’s another gateway.

I’m in advanced psychotherapeutic counselling training. Great fun, super interesting and a good build on my 15 years of Transactional Analysis experience and work.

I’m currently working with clinical clients and have 2 free spaces. The spaces are free and the counselling is free. That doesn’t mean the work is amateurish. Far from it. It’s real work. Clients benefit from the support and I benefit from being in that space. A win win.

If you know someone who is struggling a bit with life and would like support then please pass this on to them and ask them to make contact. The work is done via Skype, so there’s no travel time, or cost involved and clients can be anywhere in the world.

Free can be great!

And if you’d like to give me some free money, then just to be clear, I accept! Please slide some crispy £10 notes into an envelope and then post the package to me. I will take good care of it! I promise.

This week maybe experiment with free and see where it takes you?

Have fun!

Next week: Why Many Training Workshops Suck