Quote Of The Week
It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it!
Monday Tips
Why should a line manager care about training?
One quiet reason training fails is this: The line manager doesn't see what's in it for them.
We often design learning around what the trainee will gain. New skills. New knowledge. Better performance.
But here's the uncomfortable truth. If the manager doesn't learn anything from being involved, they're unlikely to support it.
So ask a different design question.
What will the line manager learn?
Teaching is one of the fastest ways to learn properly. When a manager has to explain how work really gets done, coach someone through a task, or give feedback on real performance, their own understanding deepens. That's not a bonus. That's the point.
Now flip the lens again.
How could the trainee actively support their manager?
Could they document a better way of working? Trial a new approach and feed back results? Reduce friction or errors in the team? Make the manager's job easier in a visible way?
When learning helps managers succeed, support stops being optional.
Call to action: Look at one programme you're running right now and answer two questions.
1. What will the manager learn?
2. How will the trainee make the manager's life easier?
If you can't answer both, expect indifference.
Now talk to the managers and let them know what's in it for them.
New year, and new thinking about goals
Maybe you've made New Year resolutions. Maybe you've decided not to bother this year.
Either way, it's worth pausing to think differently about goals and dreams. Not as boxes to tick, but as invitations to become someone new.
Here are five short thoughts I keep coming back to. Pick the one that makes you pause, smile, or feel slightly uncomfortable. That's usually the good stuff.
"Don't be afraid to go where you've never gone and do what you've never done, because both are necessary to have what you've never had and be who you've never been." Mike Dooley
"The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them." William Montgomery
"Do you remember learning to ride your first bike, Eva? How impossible it felt at first. And how impossible it now feels to imagine it was ever hard." Mike Dooley
"Today is your day, your mountain is waiting, so get on your way." Dr Seuss
"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." Martin Luther King Jr.
Your call to action is simple. Choose one of these and share it with someone. Then ask each other a powerful follow-up question.
Who might you need to become this year?
A fairground ride into the future
How has 2025 been for you?
A roller coaster ride, or a more predictable ride on the carousel?
When you started the year, which did you want?
It's worth starting to think about 2026 and what you want from it. Even though you can't see what's coming, you CAN influence what turns up. One thing for sure is that the future will more likely bring what you keep thinking of, than what you don't.
So, start thinking and focussing on what you really want for the next year. And you know enough by now to realise that this means thinking about what you DO want rather than what you don't want.
What are your dreams for the coming year?
What do you want to achieve?
What do you want to be doing?
How do you want to feel?
You don't need to tell me your answers, but you DO need to tell yourself...
Your emotional fingerprint
People talk about you behind your back.
What do they say?
When you pick up a glass, you leave a mark - a fingerprint. When you meet people, you leave an emotional fingerprint.
What's your emotional fingerprint?
That emotional fingerprint shapes how people describe you when you're not in the room.
People usually say nicer things about us than we say to ourselves. We are often our own harshest critic.
It helps to understand how others perceive us so we can update our view of ourselves because our view of ourselves has such a massive impact on what we think we can do, and can succeed at, and what we never even try.
So, it's worth finding out how others actually experience you. Ask for feedback about the feeling you leave behind.
Here are some questions to spark that conversation:
• What do I do that adds distinctive, measurable value to you? • What do you see me being proud of? • What am I the 'go-to' person for? • What am I famous for? • What one word describes how you remember me?
Try asking three people this week, and compare what you hear with the story you tell yourself.
Nelson Mandela on language
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language that goes to his heart." - Nelson Mandela
He wasn't just talking about French or Zulu. He meant the language of relevance; words, examples, and stories that matter to the listener.
What is important to them?
If you're explaining a new shift pattern in a factory, skip the company's financial logic. Instead, talk about what it means for people's lives; the time they clock off, when they can pick up their kids, or whether they'll get their weekends back. That's their language.
What we focus on gets magnified. So, magnify what matters to your audience.
Talk about what they care about, which might not be what you care about.
If they know that you know what they care about, they know that you care.
Read that last sentence again carefully.
When they feel understood, they're far more open to learning and change.
Review a current training course; list three things relevant to the course that your audience truly cares about.
Then make sure the training content connects to every one of those things.
Note: If you can't think of at least three things, why should your delegates care about the course?
Occupational Health
Occupational Health
As a manager, you are unlikely to be an occupational health expert, but you still bear a considerable responsibility to ensure that your team can work safely, that legislative standards are met, that you notice and take action if any of your team appear stressed, that you pay attention to the possible special needs, not just of the disabled, but of workers who are young, older than the average or pregnant, and that you manage your people in a manner that enhances their well-being.
13 Barriers to Implementing Learning Transfer
13 Barriers to Implementing Learning Transfer
L&D professionals are still ignoring the elephant in the room. Are you one of them? This ebook shares the most common barriers to implementing learning transfer and how to overcome them.