You can be a super hero !

Nowadays organizations are looking for talent to make their business grow. These talented employees are people who make the difference. Competent people with high energy, positive attitude, great communication skills, people who bring people together to deliver results, people with visions, ...

If you read this list, you might get the impression organizations need super heroes. Well, I believe you can be this super hero.

It is a matter of choice. You can choose to get up in the morning smile and say "let's go for it today !"Perhaps you'll have to start with small ideas, but once this snowball is rolling, you'll see it gives you energy and the drive to go for it every day. (imagine what happened if Mark Zuckerberg would have had the idea to build a social network, but didn't do anything with the idea...)

You don't have to be a manager or CEO to have this attitude. Anybody can do this. It is a matter of choice. (read Seth Godin - "linchpin" to see anybody can make the difference)

Be positive, believe in your own possibilities and competences, drum up people to deliver team-results, be patient with people who don't jump on the bus right away. And most of all do this every day of the week. Don't complain about all the bottlenecks and problems at work, but do something about them and take initiative.

Or with the words of Benjamin Disraeli 

Life is too short to be little

That comfy seat and the world outside ...

Oh it feels great to be in the office. Our beautiful designer desk, comfy seat, coffee at hand to stay awake all day long, a big screen computer behind which you can easily hide if anybody walks into your office, frame with a picture of your family, ... I guess you got the picture by now.

Enough reason for not leaving that oasis of comfort. The masses outside live a different life. Your agenda is fully booked, so you don't have time to be interested at the "others". Your job is to produce powerpoint presentations and excel data sheets which you present proudly to other comfort people in the office, although they are not interested because it is not their presentation.

My message to all the people who recognize themselves in this situation : GET OUT OF THE OFFICE. Get connected to the people outside their. Be interested at the company you are working for. Discover what the products you produce are and how they are produced. Walk around and talk to people. Go to the coffee machine in the cafeteria instead of using your private nespresso machine in your office. If you see a new face, talk to the person and ask him for his name and what he is doing.

Perhaps you believe you don't have time to do this, but believe me, once you start doing this, you discover a whole new world and you'll be able to take better decisions.

By the way, the people outside your office talk a lot about you and your lonely life in your comfy office. They say things like ; "what is he doing", "who is that goldfish in the fish bowl?", "oh him, he is that expensive guy who doesn't know what we are doing, but boy he is good at powerpoint and excel".

Have fun and walk the day ! You don't need the guts of Indiana Jones to get out of your office and discover what's going on there. Just be interested at that world !

Do you understand me ? - 4 pitfalls for clear communication

Do you recognise the feeling that you are saying something to a colleague and for some reason it seems he understands the completee opposite. It feels like you speak a different language. 

Mis-communication causes a lot of damage. It can cause conflicts, it could make the difference between closing and loosing a new business opportunity, it could cost time, ... There are plenty of reasons why we fail at communicating clearly. Underneath you find the top three reasons I often see in organizations : 

1. Vague vocabulary : our language provides us a wide vocabulary, unfortunately some words are more vague than others; over there (I don't find that place on any map), in a while (when ? in an hour, a week, a month, next year), a little bit, maybe, later on, perhaps, ... We should at least try to avoid this kind of language and realize we mean, but the person we are talking to might understand something completely different. 
2. Not listening : some people have the habit to interrupt people while they are talking. They finnish sentences, or pick up your story to tell something about themselves. But bottom line ; they were not listening to you, they were just looking for an opportunity to start talking themselves. This kind of behavior is very frustrating and definitely prevents anybody from having a good conversation.
3. Too smart : In my first job, I was communication manager at the engineering faculty of Brussels University. One day, one of our researchers wrote an article for high school students about digital image processing. I read the article and - honestly - I didn't understand anything about it, so I asked my dean (a professor in computer sciences) to translate some things for me. Unfortunately, he didn't understand it either. I went back to the researcher and asked him to translate it in normal language. He wasn't aware of his jargon, but after an hour or two, I understood everything about digital image processing. Many people who are doing a job for a long time, take too many things for granted, and have difficulties to explain it to others. Always stay aware of the fact that you are the expert. Details and small steps make your point much clearer. 
4. Different perceptions : Perception is reality. Our perception is created by how we perceive the world around us. Culture, education, age, ... all intensify the different perceptions. Unconsciously these perceptions give a different interpretation to the things we hear. Be aware the person you are talking to might have a different perception on the facts than you do. 

There are probably many more pitfalls in our communication. Try to avoid them, check if the person you are talking to understands the same. If necessary make a minutes in written to make things clearer. 

Work together - the era of the lonely cowboy is over

How comes so may organizations face difficulties to make people work together ? Not only within teams, but (perhaps even more) between teams. Often there is a big gap between sales and operations, between blue-collar workers and white collar workers, between supporting services and the rest of the organization, …

These gaps leads to useless budget discussions : who pays the bill / who gets the profit ? It also leads to not sharing information with colleagues from another department. It leads to internal competition and a culture where we don’t help eachother. It leads to lonely riders who stare 8 hours in a row at their computer screen and don’t care about their colleagues next door. It creates a culture of US and THEM. Where “US” is doing all the good things and “THEM” are blamed for the things "US" actually screwed up. It is the end of any collaboration and innovation.

These gaps can be dangerous and they definitely don’t contribute to customer satisfaction. Non of your customers is interested in these internal battles. It doesn’t improve the quality of your services or innovation of your products.

The key to success is COLLABORATION. Together with colleagues, with partners, with customers. Create win-win and synergy.

Departments are not meant to be an island in the middle of an ocean. They should be part of archipel, a group of islands connected by bridges, tunnels, ferries, … Where people from one island visit the neighbouring island.

Create a culture of sharing, of people being interested in the world outside their personal job.  

Next time you walk to the coffee machine, and see a colleagues of another department, ask him how he is doing, ask what he is working on. Be interested and search for ways to collaborate.

Make time to do this, it will help you to grow faster and deliver more quality.

It is the end of the lonely rider era. We live in a time where sharing and working together is the only way forward.

To end this blog a really nice movie why you should work together :

8 ways to use FUN and improve learningresults

How comes we had so many difficulties to learn history, math, geography, ... at school, while we learned all the lyrics of our favorite groups by hart in no time ? Because it was FUN to learn these lyrics.

Too often seminars are an endless bundle of dry data we forget the minute we hear it. Those trainings are a waste of time and hence cost too much.

Spice up a training. Make people laugh (which stimulates the brrain activity), give people a reason to remember what you said (people are more likely to remember good things that happened than bad things; remember when we were young...).

My advise to add FUN to trainings :

1. Don't mix up Fun and Funny : you are not a stand up comedian. People have to learn and you are a learning facilitator. 
2. Know your audience : what is their age, background, interests, history, ... The more you know them the more you can adapt your training. 
3. Use visualization : use appealing images, perhaps cartoons. Definitely don't use endless slides with only data and graphs nobody can read. 
4. Challenge and reward : challenge people to get involved, to answer, to ask, ... Sometimes I take a bag of chocotoffs to my trainings and give away when people get involved. 
5. Use the right speed : go too slow and people fall asleep, go too fast and people are lost. 
6. Tell anecdotes : anecdotes are a good way to make to give people a feeling it really happened to them as well. 
7. Encourage them when they make mistakes : learning is about failing 100 times and the 101th time, you succeed. When you punish people because they fail(or threaten to punish them), they are less likely to try it a second time.
8. Make them dream of a better future : participants in trainings don't like status quo (otherwise they wouldn't go to training). By dreaming of better future, they move forward

Learn from Dacota Indians

There is a famous tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians :

"When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."

This is a truism Unfortunately too often we see people in today business life hanging on to a product, a project or an organization while it already died. Even worse, they keep on investing more energy and hope the product comes back to life. 

Some might use a stronger whip to bring the horse back to life, others might do mouth to mouth. None of these strategies will fly. 

Despite your lasting enthusiasm you can't bring a dead horse back to life. MOVE ON ! START AGAIN ! RESET ! NEXT ! LEARN FROM IT (why did your horse die ?)

Why we need more FOCUS during learning moments

As a learning consultant I am often confronted with the quantity dilemma : On one side organizations want intense learning moments and urge me to "train" their people in leadership, change management, communication, timemanagement and project management and all of these preferably in a 2 day program. On the other hand participants in these trainings can only really "learn" in between 1 and 5 things (if not less) in these 2 days. 

At the end of a training I always ask for their take-aways from the training. Some participants give me a list of 10 or even more items they learned and want to apply as from tomorrow onwards. 

Unfortunately this is way too much. People don't change that radically in such a short timespan. Or they need more time with a clear schedule (what will I learn when and how) or we need to create more focus and learn them only 1 to 3 things at a time. 

Learning to ski

I love to ski and despite my long experience, I take a 2 hour training every year again. The ski monitor always starts with some easy skiing while he observes me. After these first 10 minutes, they tell me what I do right and how I can improve. Not a list of 15 items, but only 1 or 2 focus items. At the end of the ski-training, my ski abilities are improved. 

Why ? Because we focus on a small number of improvement points (although there is still more than enough room for improvement)

Translate this into business life

I believe one of the most important jobs for Learning & Development Managers should be to help employees to create learning paths. Step by step. Where do I have to start ? What should I be able of by when ? How will we evaluate the employee acquired the right competence ? 

Especially when people start in a new job, we need to help them to create a step by step introduction program. What should you be able of after your first month, after three months, after 6 months, ... After every stage, we should evaluate and check if any further support is needed. 

Unfortunately too many people require there new employees to be up and running and 100% competent after one week (preferably in their first day).

This doesn't fly ! We need focus and we need a step-by-step approach. 

Not only during introduction program, but after every good learning moment. Ask participants what they learned and want to apply and then help them to create focus. What is the one item they want to start with, then what, ... 

To round up 

Give people more focus when they learn and be patient.