Blog

Yesterday (22.7.15) I was conducting a Creative Problem Solving workshop for a client. How can you have a session on creativity without discussing Alex Osborne’s #brainstorming technique? So I launched into the same, sharing the cardinal rules of brainstorming: No criticism or debate. Criticism will just stem the flow of ideas. Quantity is more important …

Have you ever been in a situation where a young child is running after a ball and onto a road? You are yelling at him/her to stop but the child continues not realizing. Why is that? The ball is creating enough distraction for the child that what you are saying is overlooked. We live in …

Today I had the opportunity to meet and mentor a young professional who was very eager to grow in the #training field. He had got in touch with me to get certified in Extended DISC last year and we had been in touch since. He has spent 9 years in HR in a generalist profile and …

It doesn’t matter if you like leading or are a lousy leader, you are probably leading something or the other right now, whether it is a family, business, community, team etc.  We all are in a position to shape someone’s thoughts, dreams, aspirations and beliefs. The only difference is how many people we influence. According …

All of us are selling. Some of us just don’t know it. This is especially true for people in the L&D fraternity who look at selling with disdain. Amazingly even some sales trainers have the same attitude. However, for those of us who bring home the bacon based on how we sell i.e. Sales Professionals …

How you close a training session is the next most important activity to opening a session .You need to ensure people are energized and motivated to apply what they have learnt. A training workshop in my view is very similar to an aircraft on a flight. You expend a lot of energy during take-off (opening …

Psychometric assessments – Square pegs round holes Many business managers wonder if all the hype surrounding psychometric testing is just that marketing hype. While not all state it but they do wonder if the money they invest on employee profiling using psychometric tests is worth the money it costs. My sympathies are with them as …

Are we as learning facilitators really riding the wave of change that has finally hit the shores of learning? I use the term learning facilitators because that is who we really are. A couple of us learning facilitators at Larks Learning brainstormed to conceptualize how does the 21st century #learning facilitator look like and decided on the …

As all trainers would testify getting great participant feedback is absolutely essential to survival as a #trainer. Each of us has developed our own strategies to build credibility, connect with and engage our participants. We use a plethora of #training methodologies and brush up our content. These are the strategies that we have seen our mentors use and …

The ability to handle rude participants is critical to success as a trainer as each trainer has at one or the other time encountered rude participants. The participants who continue talking, who work on their laptops while you are #training, who continuously attend calls on their mobiles, who flat out say you are wrong or you …