Maree's Blog

I went to a very small primary school (40 or so children) so you had to pretty much get on with everyone. However there were a couple of kids there that I really didn't like so I used to spend a lot of my time imagining if they changed (or left the school) then everything would be better. Of course they didn't change and they didn't leave the school.

Then in high school there were again a couple of (different) children that I didn't get along with and again I wished they would change.

It took me a while to realise that just because I could identify what they needed to do to be 'better' didn't mean that it was going to happen and that I was going to go through life coming across people I didn't get along with and that I needed to develop strategies to deal with this.

A better question for me would have been: 'what would others say if they could change one thing about me?'.

This is an interesting perspective. First you have to step away from yourself and look at who you are and what and how you do things from someone else's eyes. What would they want to change about you?

Try it out - you may come up with some interesting results!

The race that stops a nation - it's Melbourne Cup day in Melbourne Australia. A public holiday in Melbourne. And around the nation a majority of the population will stop and watch or listen to the race during the afternoon for four minutes or so. A lot of people will place a bet on the race, or enter a Sweep and it's often the only race they will punt on during the year.

Does this intense focus on one thing in some way change something intangible?

Imagine if a nation's, or the world's consciousness could be focussed on something for four minutes so intently. Imagine if everyone could focus on: peace; or harmony; or forgiveness; or love. Would the vibrational level of the world be raised?

I have just finished reading Dan Brown's book, The Lost Symbol. The overall theme focusses on this one thing - how we have the ability to have enormous control over our world if we harness this power.

Makes you think doesn't it - what is the limit to our potential? What more can we be doing?

So this afternoon, as the Melbourne Cup is running remember that a nation is focussed on it. What else can we focus on?

I'm reminded again of the huge differences that exists between corporate and public training.

With corporate training you are generally training a group of people from the same organisation, and often from the same business unit who have expressed an interest in learning what you are teaching, or have been enrolled in the course because it may have been discussed at their annual performance review.They generally will know at least one other person in the group. Importantly the cost of attending isn't something that they have to find, so there is no extra incentive for turning up.

With public training you are training people who are interested in learning a particular thing, have research it, and enrolled. They generally don't know anyone else in the group and may be unfamiliar with training or never attended any training before. They also are paying (usually) out of their own pocket.

Each group creates their own challenge. But I have a direct contrast at the moment: training presentation skills for a corporate organisation and delivering pretty much the same course to a group who have enrolled in a public program. And while it shouldn't matter,  there is a part of me that wants do make sure that I go that extra yard for my public enrolments - because I know they really want to be there, they have put their money where their mouth is. And I want to make sure they get their money's worth.

It that wrong? I'd love you hear what you feel about that?

When I worked in the corporate environment, I loved attending any sort of training (OK, other that the online compliance training we had to do), however I really did take those opportunities for granted. Since I set up my own company, Internal Influence, in 2003 I have regularly enrolled in a least one new training program each year to hone my skills, develop new ones and also obtain new qualifications. Of course now I am paying for this development I am very choosy about who to go to and rely heavily on word-of-mouth. I want to make sure that I get value for money.

I love working with corporates. I believe that is where real change can happen to make a big impact in the world. However that will never stop me from working with public programs and giving people who pay out of their own pocket realy value for money plus some!

I've just watched a fabulous clip on uTube by Nido Qubein - talking about the difference between training versus education. It's definitely worth checking out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrZE4whoziU.

It's made me start to think about what I do. I call myself a trainer and coach - but after watching Nido, I'm now inclined to call myself an educator and coach. Especially at the end where he says "when my wife and I teach them what counts, that my friends ... is education."

Watching this has been part of my preparation to pull apart a 2-day Presentation Skills course and turn it into a 6 x 3 hour chunks course. The tricky thing with that is having the time in 3 hours to give a solid piece of content as well as enable the participants to give a presentation and receive feedback. I definitely think this is training that will have to evolve at it proceeds from week to week - to make sure it remains interactive and practical.I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.