LEADERSHIP SKILLS
Leadership and Team Development Training Specialist
My last role, when I left full time employment, was as a Training Manager at Reed
Business Information, a FTSE company and the world's largest publisher. Having responsibility
for the Training and Development of staff in the UK, Europe, US and Asia, was a tough
role to leave at the end of 2006. After ten years experience of coaching, identifying,
designing and delivering training in companies including Video Arts and Yellow Pages,
I felt the time was right to branch out on my own and so far no complaints.
Prior to 1996 I had previous roles encompassing the Armed Forces, programming, engineering,
sales and management, but it wasn't until my move into learning and Development that
I felt I finally found my true vocation.
BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY AND METHODOLOGY
Business Philosophy
Differentiating your organisation in tougher more competitive market places is becoming
increasingly difficult. If you believe* the latest research from experts such as
"Marcus Buckingham" and "Zengman and Folger" then effective leadership may well be
the key differentiator. However you spin it, every bit of analysis on real** reasons
why people leave to join other companies that I have ever done always cites the persons
manager as the most common.
If you are running an organisation or a team of people then your leadership skills
can help or hinder an organisation by the business culture you create. The real issue
is that the minute you open yourself up to 360, or any type of development most will
cite the same areas for you to work on that you knew were your weaknesses already,
lets face it no-one is good at everything!
I call this the "Beckham" Syndrome, imagine the conversation...."OK David you are
back in the England team and that was a very good free kick that set up the goal
against Brazil, but we have been watching you for a while in practice and we notice
that you are not that good at catching a ball or general goalkeeping skills in general
so that's what we are going to work on practicing for a few weeks....hey David please
come back here....!"
My approach through training or one to one coaching is to firstly work with individuals
to ascertain their key strengths and then work on getting even better at the things
they are really good at. OK so I am not going to ignore any obvious weaknesses, especially
the career limiting ones but it won't be the only focus.
Types of programme that I run are:-
Ascertaining and playing to your core strengths -Working with Management teams to
improve their leadership skills, in areas such as Coaching, Influencing, Communication,
Conflict, Team Development and Sales Management.
Development Centres/Competency Frameworks – Working with companies to recognise their
latent talent within and to assist in the succession planning and recruitment vital
to organisations when key individuals leave or get promoted..
*A recent poll of Financial Directors didn't rate people in the top 20 elements of
a successful company
**Often leavers will cite all manner of reasons why they have left, follow up these
reasons a few months later and approx 70% will cite their manager, try it yourself
and prove me wrong!
Methodology
To offer a bespoke service to companies that focuses on achieving busineses results,
by incorporating the latest training techniques, including Accelerated Learning.
By real analysis of the problem, the idea is to get businesses to move away from
the "one size fits all" approach to training.
