Management Blog

Effective Communication Skills Training Course

How Can You Improve Your Communication Skills

"Off with her head, cried the queen at the top of her voice. Nobody moved."

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

Bad communication is worse than no communication at all. So what is communication:-

Communication - The imparting or exchange of information (The Little Oxford Dictionary)

Having the confidence and skills to communicate in the workplace is central to everyones role.  It is probably the most important part of any relationship, and so easy to get wrong.

We have all seen organisations where no-one really knows what is going on, or understands their part in the bigger picture of the business, we all know that is not a good position to be in.

More employees feel and understand that they are a vital part of the business, the more pride they will take in what they do.  This may take the form of training for managers and senior staff to feel they are supported and that they understand the importance of effective communication within the workplace, which will be in turn be passed onto other staff. 

It could be that training is required for all staff in a variety of matters, not just relating to their everyday job role but, for example, customer service training for those dealing with your customers or clients day-to-day.

1. Be clear with your narration's context and content
2. Maintain a balanced tone of voice
3. Use positive body language
4. Consistent pace of delivery
5. Confirm Understanding

Communication Skills Training Course Content

Our one day training course requires the learner to demonstrate:-

• An understanding of the communication process

• Methods of communication

• Why communicating with others may be effective or ineffective

It is usually not what we say but rather how we say it that distinguishes the competent, effective manager/leader. This interactive workshop looks at communication as a tool for effective manager/leaders in the workplace. By taking an overview of Emotional Intelligence and combining it with some aspects of Transactional Analysis participants should gain an insight into not only how to communicate better but also an understanding of why some communication breaks down.

For more information on our effective communication skills training course visit our website. 

 

 

Training Course - An Introduction to Coaching in the Workplace

The Institute of Leadership and Management's  coaching research has investigated the extent to which organisations are embracing the development practice of coaching. The survey of learning and development managers, decision makers at 250 large organisations, revealed a number of important findings.

  95% of organisations believed coaching as a development tool benefited the organisation, and 96% believed it benefited the individual. A broad range of specific benefits were identified including improvements in communication and inter-personal skills, leadership and management, conflict resolution, personal confidence, attitudes and motivation, management performance as well as preparation for a new role or promotion.

Our Next Coaching Course

Price:               £495*
Venue:           Portland Place, London
Date:               15th December, 2011
Duration:    1 day (9.30am – 5.00pm) includes lunch and refreshments
Availability: 3 places left

* All prices exclude VAT

Benefits

The 1  day programme will give managers/leaders the confidence to use their coaching skills to obtain the following benefits:

• Motivate others to be become high performing employees

• Improve performance and productivity through clear goal setting

• Develop team members in line with individual and company objectives to improve your bottom line

• More time to be a leader/manager

• Improved relationships

• Better use of people skills

Coaching Course Content

• Different types of coaching

• When is it  appropriate to use coaching and when other interventions would be more appropriate

•  Examine 1 model of coaching in detail GROW

•  Practising coaching skills

•  Considering opportunities to use coaching back in the workplace

•  Action Planning

•  Effective mechanisms for applying the coaching process in delegates workplace

For more detailed information or to reserve a place on our coaching course entitled An Introduction to Coaching in the Workplace visit the Call of the Wild website.

 

Technophobes Still Out There in Wales

25% of small and medium-sized firms in Wales have no website and only 58% have a high web presence according to research by search engine giant Google. The report, commissioned by Google also scored badly compared to other parts of the UK for web access. "It is more surprising when you look at the rgowth we are seeing in small and medium-sized businesses that do have an active internet presence," said Paul Zwillenberg from Boston Consulting Group, the author of the report. "These grew seven to eight times faster thatn those that didn't over the past two or three years."

Companies will be left behind to wither and die without a web presence and more importantly an appreciation of what new technologies can do for their business. An example of this is the increasing importance of online learning which now forms an integral part of many of our programmes. Clients have seen the benefits this can bring to their staff. These include:-

• Reduced time away from the office and its associated costs. Most training and development programmes will require time away from the office. Therefore the more this can be eliminated the better.
• You’re all busy people with heavy workloads but with the desire to further your vocational knowledge to enable improved performance and progression. E-learning is an excellent means of achieving this difficult balance.
• Retention of learning. Course material can be posted on the site together with pre and most importantly post course material.
• CPD – For continued learning after the programme and throughout your career

For more information on our online development academy then visit the corporate training events website.

 

New Staff Retention Issues in UK

20% of all new employees leave their new job within the first six months of employment according to a recent survey. carried out by yourpeoplemarket.com on 1,000 of its registered users. Chris Smith the founder of Yourpeoplemarket.com points out that that this results in companies spending double the amount of money that they need to in order to find a new employee.

In view of the current state of the economy we undertsand that it is more important than ever to develop  and recruit the right people to ensure they provide a return on your investment in them at the earliest opportunity. Call of the Wild have therefore now developed a programme to assist clients with recruitment and development of new and existing staff. The aim is to reduce costs for the client through the selection of individuals with approprite skill sets and behaviours best suited to the needs of the job. This avoids costly probabtion periods during which it is discovered that the individuals are not appropriate for the position.

A well-designed assessment  starts with a list of competencies required within a specific role and breaks these down into observable and measurable behaviours. A programme can then be developed which utilises a variety of inputs, allowing individuals to be fairly assessed against a set criteria by trained observers.

 For an assessment to be fair it is essential that a number of different inputs be built in allowing delegates a number of opportunities to demonstrate or develop the required behaviours. A typical assessment centre programme may include the following inputs;

• Interviews
• Behavioural profiling
• Experiential learning tasks
• Role Playing
• Presentations
• Data Analysis
• Group Discussions

Done correctly a comprehensive and planned recruitment policy incorporating assessment can reduce the  risk of recruiting the wrong individuals for the wrong roles. This could enormous cost savings for the company. 

For more information on Call of the Wild's recruitment and assessment programmes visit our website
 

Negotiating Skills Exercise

1	The task of negotiation is to agree at the other side’s minimum settlement point.
	Generate options that make the mutual pie larger.
2	The party that needs the deal more has less power.
	Base decisions on an objective standard - market value or expert opinion.
3	Act as if the other side were your partners genuinely interested in solving the problem.
	Somebody has to open but make sure it’s not you.
4	Negotiation has more to do with threat and emotion than persuasion.
	Avoid people’s emotions becoming entangled with the objective merits of the problem.
5	Explore interests on both sides. See the other's point of view.
	Never make the first offer.
6	Never give anything away for free – always demand something in return
	Come to the table with at least four prepared options.
7	Never disclose your bottom line.
	Sharing of information allows both parties to work together more efficiently
8	Listen to the other side, acknowledge their points and feelings, agree with them, show them respect.
	A negotiator’s sole objective is to gain all the money on the table

For more information on what's available on our E-learning academy then phone us on 01639 700388 or e-mail info@callofthewild.co.uk

Mental Toughness Programmes & Personal Development

Call of the Wild is pleased to announce the formation of a partnership in excellence with Rossett based AQR Ltd. This places Call of the Wild at the leading edge of thinking around the development of people and organisations at all levels and at all ages.

AQR Ltd has established a reputational as one of the most innovative developers of tools and techniques for improving performance, behaviour and wellbeing. Chief amongst these is the mental toughness concept and measure (MTQ48) which was developed under the expert guidance of Dr Peter Clough at the University of Hull. This is now used in more than 40 countries in the world of work, education, sports, social work and health.

 Call of the Wild, as a leading player in the experiential development market, will work closely with AQR to create applications which work and which deliver measurable and sustained improvements in performance.

Doug Strycharczyk, MD for AQR comments "We are delighted to work alongside Call of the Wild. We have been impressed with their expertise, their experience and their energy. Call of the Wild has a very good understanding of what makes people and organisations stick and they know how to make that happen. Our collaboration should only enhance that proven capability and lead to the development of tools and approaches which improve performance for the benefit of organisations and individuals alike."

We are now due to deliver the first programme for the management steering group of the new John Lewis flagship shop in Cardiff in August.

For more Information

mental toughness programmes visit the Call of the Wild website.

Definition of  What is Mental Toughness

Mental Toughness Core Components

Nurturing a Creativity Culture - A Case Study

Saatchi & Saatchi
Supporting a Creative Culture

Creativity is a much talked about attribute in the business world, but few companies can be said to be as committed to creativity as Saatchi & Saatchi, the international advertising agency headquartered in England. 

Saatchi & Saatchi is very profitable as a result of this commitment.  The company has 134 offices in 84 countries, with more than 7,000 employees.  Saatchi & Saatchi’s clients include 60 of the biggest 100 spenders on advertising, as well as more than half of the world’s 50 most valuable brands.  In the past five years, the company has won more than 3000 awards for its creative and commercially successful advertising campaigns.  Creativity has been the cornerstone of Saatchi & Saatchi’s success.  The company looks for job applicants on its website by asking,

“Are you an ideas person?  Do you think outside the box?  Do you even refuse to recognise the existence of the box?”   

Saatchi & Saatchi advertised on the Berlin Wall just before it came down, and then was the first western advertising agency to set up an office in East Berlin.  The company was hired by Margaret Thatcher in her bid to become Prime Minister, and later by Boris Yeltsin in his campaign to become Russia’s first democratically elected President. 

Ian McDougall, a manager of Saatchi & Saatchi’s agency in Wellington, New Zealand, sums up the reason for the company’s success in the following manner:

“The reason for Saatchi’s phenomenal and continuing growth is, according to popular rumour, because it was headed by a creative brother and a money brother.  Quite wrong.  The real reason is that they were both creative.  It’s just that one created ads, the other created balance sheets.  The point being, creativity is not the exclusive territory of writers, art directors, film-makers, or poets.  It spins out across all areas of commercial endeavour.”   

Blended Learning

Call of the Wild launch new blended learning approach to Leadership and Team Development

We at Call of the Wild have been developing and delivering bespoke leadership and team development solutions for our clients including Panasonic, Carphone Warehouse, ICAEW and BMW for over 9 years. We have always prided ourselves on our ability to offer programs that have a real impact in the workplace. For 2008 we have further enhanced our range of services by introducing a blended approach to our development services.

Call of the Wild are delighted to announce the launch of their on line development resource the Call of the Wild development academy. This exciting new product sits alongside our core leadership and team development services and offers a blended learning solution, which aims to maximise the benefit of our programs by supplementing our facilitator-led developmental inputs.

We encourage clients to think of the academy as a body of knowledge, a motivation to explore management, an advice and help centre, a monthly magazine, an intelligent dictionary, a reference tool, a set of challenging thoughts and ideas, a set of guided and unguided learning opportunities, a reward system, and a community for learning about management.

Blended learning is an attempt to combine the claimed strengths of e learning and the human facilitator and overcome the weaknesses of both.

	Strengths	Weaknesses
Trainer	Feedback, facilitation	Knowledge delivery
E-learning	Knowledge delivery	Feedback, facilitation

The aim is for knowledge to be pre-delivered by e learning so that the facilitator can spend his or her (limited) time on the inter-personal aspects of their role. If it works, then 60% of the trainer’s time is either saved or used for more in-depth feedback and facilitation. Indeed, studies we have carried out for clients indicate that blended learning can realise savings of between 30% and 50% of a company’s training costs. With all training budgets under pressure, this can make all the difference between delivering quality management training and not.

We have sought to keep away from traditional e learning. All our work is built upon the insights of Professor David A Kolb and his Learning Styles analysis. Thus, we do not have serial chunks of learning that everyone is expected to work through. We strive to capture the interest and to motivate a larger range of people - those who like to experiment, those who like to work fast, those who want to ponder upon an issue or theory, as well as those who like to follow a guided pathway.

With the Call of the Wild Development Academy, the trainer can offer people approaches to the pre-work, which will satisfy their learning preferences. He or she can request that specific elements of the Academy are studied and can test for completion – but, at the same time, can allow people to explore around the topic if they wish, to be guided through the material if they wish or indeed just to leap in, complete the requirements and move on.

This way, the trainer has a higher chance of walking into the training room to meet participants who (a) have completed the pre-work (b) are expectant rather than bored and perhaps even more important (c) who have questions to ask, points to make and disagreements to air.

We would like to discuss this exiting new service at the HR forum in Birmingham in January and therefore are offering the opportunity to begin to explore the Development Academy free of charge for 1 month.

Visit www.cotwdevelopmentacademy.com in order to register as a new user and receive your free one-month log in.

To discuss our services in more detail or if you have any questions regarding the academy please contact kevin@callofthewild.co.uk

Time and Time Management Exercise

This is an example of the type of exercises that can be found on our e-learning website. Give us a call to find out how you can get your free trial log-in details. telephone : 01639 700388 or e-mail info@callofthewild.co.uk Monday 22 October 2007 Consider each statement and decide whether you think it is true or false. Give an answer for every statement even if you are unsure about your response. Any answer that you have left blank, counts as wrong. <><> 1 Getting things done on time is always the most important objective. Select: True False 2 What the customer expects is often less complex than we think. Select: True False 3 Time means the same to everyone. Select: True False 4 Mixing up long and short term priorities will rarely allow jobs to be done well. Select: True False 5 Major reports are best left to 'mature' for a couple of days after they have been written. Select: True False 6 Deadlines always improve performance. Select: True False 7 Keeping the overall purpose of a job in mind helps manage priorities. Select: True False 8 Most people like a bit of routine in their job. Select: True False 9 People almost always have time for what really interests them. Select: True False 10 Always respond to all requests for information immediately. Select: True False 11 Detailed planning always yields the most effective use of time. Select: True False 12 Investing in staff development is a key aspect of time management. Select: True False 13 The effective manager always has a quick solution for any issue that arises. Select: True False 14 Priorities almost always change. Select: True False 15 If people keep their heads down working on objectives set, the organisation will prosper. Select: True False 22 The manager whose time is fully occupied is the most effective. Select: True False 23 Evaluating tasks by how much time they are 'worth' maximises the time available. Select: True False 24 Planning a schedule for the week and sticking to it will improve your time management. Select: True False 25 Informal notes save time in communication. Select: True False