Management Blog

Photo of Llyn Geirionydd in North Wales

This is a photo of Llyn Geirionydd located in Snowdonia National park in North Wales. Llyn means lake in the Welsh language. We were visiting looking for team building venues for a client.

Leading Wales Awards 2010 - Finalist Profiles

The profiles of the finalists in the 2010 Leading Wales Awards have now been published. Visit the Leading Wales website for more information.

Inspire Wales Awards 2010 - Cardiff City Hall

This is photo inside Cardiff City Hall today. We were there by invitation for the launch of the "Inspire Wales" Awards 2010. These grand surroundings were very appropriate for the launch event. I never fail to be impressed by the quality of the surroundings no matter what the event is.

Staff Training & Development Survey - Trends for 2010

Over the past twelve months much of the UK economy has been hit, to a greater or lesser degree, by the downturn of the global economy. Budgets have been slashed, people laid off and companies have had to re-appraise (cut back?) on their training plans. Like many other companies Call of the Wild has also had to carefully look at its business models and client base to see how we can come out of the recession as a leading player in the management training industry.

To this end, during the third quarter of 2009 the directors of Call of the Wild held a series of executive meetings to discuss budgeting for 2010 and to try and anticipate what effect the current worldwide financial crisis may have on the training and development plans of our clients. One of the outcomes of these meetings was to ask our clients directly what their plans, in terms of training, were for 2010.

We came up with a short customer survey which included four of the following questions. The responses are included after the question.

1.    Has the current recession had an impact on your learning and development budget for 2009?

78.7 % of respondents thought that the recession had a negative effect on L&D budgets

2.    Has the current recession had an impact on your learning and development budget for 2010?

60.5 % of respondents thought that the recession had a negative effect on L&D budgets

3.    What areas of learning and development will you be focusing on in 2010?

42% of respondents thought that leadership development should be the focus and 60% of respondents thought that team development should be the focus

4.    What areas of learning and development do you see as essential to focus on post-recession?

51.1% of respondents thought that leadership development should be the focus and 81.1% of respondents thought that team development should be the focus

5. Which delivery methods are you considering using in 2010?

63.6% of respondents said that they would be considering Workshop/Programme on site and 54.5% said they would consider E-learning.

The response rate was considerably higher than expected with 17.4% of those e-mailed replying. The results of the survey illustrated that the crisis has had indeed had an overall detrimental effect on L&D budgets for 2009 and 2010. However it was extremely encouraging to see that the large majority of respondents thought that the main areas of focus for L&D for 2010 and post recession should be Leadership and Team Development.

What is obvious is that our clients see that great leadership and teamwork is even more important in the current financial climate, where more needs to be done with less resource. It appears that they are using the current situation as an opportunity to think carefully about what areas of L&D are really important to their organisations.

Related Posts

Can leadership be learnt?

Management skills - recruitment

Training and development - The difference

How much does talent count?

Ten Things to Do to Raise Your Optimism

1. Collect qualifications

2. Read

3. Commit a gratuitous act of kindness every day

4. Reduce the number of stressors in your life

5. Spend time with people who share your sense of humour

6. Dispose of some assets to release cash for spending

7. Contact close family and friends

8. Improve your appearance for instance through exercise

9. Send funny cards to people for birthdays, when ill, congratulations

10. Keep a file of funny stories or jokes

For more information on personal development programmes, including leadership then visit our website.

Funny Letter of Recommendation

LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION


1     Trevor Adams, my assistant programmer, can always be found
2     hard at work in his cubicle. Trevor works independently, without
3     wasting company time talking to colleagues. Trevor never
4     thinks twice about assisting fellow employees, and he always
5     finishes given assignments on time. Often he takes extended
6     measures to complete his work, sometimes skipping coffee
7     breaks. Trevor is a dedicated individual who has absolutely no
8     vanity in spite of his high accomplishments and profound
9     knowledge in his field. I firmly believe that Trevor can be
10   classed as a high-calibre employee, the type that cannot be
11   dispensed with. Consequently, I truly recommend that Trevor be
12   promoted to executive management, and a proposal will be
13   executed as soon as possible.


Addendum
The idiot was standing over my shoulder while I wrote this report.
Kindly re-read only the odd numbered lines.

For more information on management training visit Call of the Wild's website

 

Top Tips For Managing Your Mood

  1. Explore what you are feeling before you try to think

2. Emotions can motivate, de-motivate or obstruct thinking

3. Hopes enhance performance. Anxiety and fear diminish it.

4. Optimistic self-suggestion increases success

5. Persistent low mood impairs thinking and health

6. Obstacles to feeling good can be reduced

7. The pursuit of body-based pleasure, laughter, involvement, staisfaction and sex (BLISS) will beenfit the speed and accuracy of your thinking.

For more information visit our website

Related Themes

Positive Thinking

What Are the Benefits of Coaching your Staff?

The success of managers depends on the performance of their staff and there are many situations in the workplace where coaching can be used:

• To improve performance in the day to day job role
• To raise an individuals awareness of themselves and their capabilities
• To empower individuals take on more responsibilities
• To deal with an underperformance issue
• For career planning/personal development purposes
• To support traditional training interventions and help maintain good performance
• To reduce the cost of sending staff on external training (from both a cost and time perspective)
• To motivate the staff member
• To facilitate and support an organisational change
• To improve staff retention by providing tailored and focused development

Coaching should be seen as an investment, like buying a new computer system, and this investment should lead to success for the individual and organisation.  If, as a manager, you invest time in coaching your staff properly, then the benefits you will gain will include:

• A more productive and efficient department/team
• Development of your own management skills
• Greater awareness of your team’s strengths and weaknesses
• A reputation as a good ‘people manager'
• Less time on time consuming fire fighting and more time to develop yourself

Now, some staff members may not want to be coached, they may feel that you are interfering and are expecting more work from them.  They may feel demotivated by it, which if done incorrectly or for the wrong reasons, could be a possibility.  However, coaching is a skill and if done correctly should do the opposite.  Very few staff want to do a bad job, so any help provided to help them perform better, can only be positive.  In some organisations performance is linked to pay, so why would staff not want to be coached as part of their own self development?

Coaching requires a different type of management approach and those with a naturally autocratic style may not find it easy, thinking that it is easier just to tell staff what to do rather than all this coaching stuff!  However, if done properly, coaching is good for business.

For more information visit our website

Related Themes

Assessment & behaviours

Listening Skills

Caoching The Basics

1	Focus on the person you are coaching The role of a coach is enabling someone to identify and achieve objectives, and to do so through self belief whilst maintaining responsibility for actions and results.
2	Guide, do not tell You are there to guide, facilitate and motivate through change, and ensure that people you coach remain responsible throughout. It may seem easier and quicker to tell them what to do, and there are times when this is necessary. However, put time aside to coach people or teams until they discover and commit to how they will achieve their goals.
3	Don't give the answers  The skills, attributes and attitudes required for successful coaching are different from those needed in leading and managing.  Coaching is all about getting the person you coach to do the thinking and come up with answers.
4	Practice the right skills  In order to prepare for the role of coach, develop these skills:  active listening  good questioning techniques  letting the people look through their lens at the world and not yours  knowing when to challenge to encourage people to make change where necessary  ability to stop offering answers The last is fundamental to being an effective coach, and probably the most difficult skill to practise.
5	Maintain the right attitudes As a coach the attitudes you portray should include:  a positive outlook  a high energy to keep up the motivation of your client  a high level of interest  a never ending desire to enable your client to succeed in their language  having only one agenda – that of the person being coached
6	Their needs, not yours Be … nonjudgmental  a good listener  consistently honest with integrity  professional, ethical and confidential at all times  a good communicator
7	Learn the GROW model  GROW is an acronym for Goals, Reality, Options and Will. As the acronym suggests, it is a four-stage framework that enables the coach to provide a structure to a coaching session, without getting in the way of the client’s agenda.
8	Remember that both of you have to work The coach and the person you coach are partners. That means reviewing what is going well as well as what is not going so well, and being prepared to do whatever it takes to improve on the not-so-good areas.
9	Start from where the person is, now Take the person you’re coaching as he or she is. Adult members of staff are already in the middle of their lives, and come with particular views, attitudes, commitments, potential and concerns - all of which go to make up the individual person.
10	Not immediate but long term The aim of coaching is that people being coached are able to produce more successful and effective performance repeatedly over a longer period of time. Coaching is not about short term motivation. For more information on caoching visit our website corporate training events with Call of the Wild   Related Themes Behaviour & personality Personal leadership

Survey of Learning & Development Plans Post Recession

During the third quarter of 2009 the directors of Call of the Wild were whiling away their valuable time discussing what effect the current worldwide financial crisis has had on the training and development plans of our clients. After much speculation around where the spending focus of a reduced L&D budget should be, a flash of inspiration came to us. Instead of speculating, why not ask our clients what their plans are?

We came up with a short customer survey containing the following four questions:

1.    Has the current recession had an impact on your learning and development budget for 2009?

78.7 % of respondents thought that the recession had a negative effect on L&D budgets

2.    Has the current recession had an impact on your learning and development budget for 2010?

60.5 % of respondents thought that the recession had a negative effect on L&D budgets

3.    What areas of learning and development will you be focusing on in 2010?

42% of respondents thought that leadership development should be the focus and 60% of respondents thought that team development should be the focus

4.    What areas of learning and development do you see as essential to focus on post-recession?

51.1% of respondents thought that leadership development should be the focus and 81.1% of respondents thought that team development should be the focus

The response rate was considerably higher than expected with 17.4% of those e-mailed replying. The results of the survey illustrated that the crisis has had indeed had an overall detrimental effect on L&D budgets for 2009 and 2010. However it was extremely encouraging to see that the large majority of respondents thought that the main areas of focus for L&D for 2010 and post recession should be Leadership and Team Development.

What is obvious is that our clients see that great leadership and teamwork is even more important in the current financial climate, where more needs to be done with less resource. It appears that they are using the current situation as an opportunity to think carefully about what areas of L&D are really important to their organisations.

Related Posts

Can leadership be learnt?

Management skills - recruitment

Training and development - The difference

How much does talent count?