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Showing posts from August, 2009

An Interesting Answer to my Question: Why can't CEO's be involved in Training???

Anne Thornley-Brown, President, Executive Oasis International answered my Question in Linkedin (here details are at the end of this post)

Training and team building that isn't closely linked to the strategic direction of your organization and the real world issues and challenges of your business is a waste of time. It is really important for CEOs and other executives to be involved in training and team building to maintain this focus. Why?

It is really important for CEOs and other executives to support team building and training to ensure that:

- The company vision gets communicated clearly
- You leverage each and every opportunity to reinforce the corporate culture you are trying to shape
- Team building and training exercies get infused with real world issues, not theoretical cases
- You have a feedback mechanism to help you keep your finger on the pulse so that you get unfiltered access to what is going on in your management team and on the frontline with clients

Another important rea…

How much of ‘entertaining‘ is advisable in Training?

How much of ‘entertaining’ is advisable in Training? What is the role of humor and fun in a learning environment? The question also how and how much?
(The above were questions asked in linkedin)My thoughts:
Games, Activities, Humor etc. surely make learning "Fun". I'm unsure whether we can call this 'entertainment' because this can take the Trainer away from the objectives of the learning session.

I use instant humour more in the post-lunch space or if I feel that the energy levels of the participants has dipped.

I would also decide the "how much" part of it, by mapping my audience well. For e.g. if it's a young crowd (college-going) then the session would be laced with humour and fun, but if it's a senior profile that I am handling, then I would 'tone-down' the humour and fun bit.

In certain training programs such as Communication Skills, Presentation Skills, Negotiation Skills etc. the 'fun' element can be integrated as part of the…

Why can't CEO's be involved in Training???

Last week I was in a meeting.

The HR Manager announced that we would be meeting the CEO of this company for a discussion on the training intervention.

I was surprised because normally this doesn't happen in the first meeting itself.

The CEO was young and dynamic. He was briefed about me well by the HR Manager and we immediately got into the training objectives, the program and the effectiveness (In most cases, whenever I meet senior Management, I have to first give an introduction of myself (either the HR hasn't briefed them about me or the senior hasn't read the brief that was sent).

The meeting was focused and ended well. The CEO also gave me required inputs about the targeted group too. I was highly impressed!

Meeting over, I had a thought:

Why can't more CEO's get involved in the training of the organisation?
Why is it difficult to have their perspective of the Training need?

Does it mean, I don't trust HR? Absolutely not!!!
But my experience is that many HR profess…