Train / Training
Training is how we deliver new knowledge skills and attitudes/mindsets to our learners, to enable them to return to the workplace with a desired permanent change in behaviour

Trainer
A professional tasked with creating, delivering and supporting training to learners and evaluating results

Train the trainer
Developing subject matter experts into confident, effective new trainers

Development
Building on existing knowledge, skills and attitudes/mindsets to enhance workplace behaviour, performance and results

Learning
Acquiring new knowledge, skills and attitudes/mindsets to inform and drive new behaviour

Performance
How a colleague behaves and delivers in the workplace

SME
A recognised abbreviation for Subject Matter Expert

Expert
A person with knowledge, skills and experience in a particular subject

Facilitation
Leading and enabling an audience of learners to reach their own conclusions

Coaching
Asking skilful questions that encourage a learner to identify their own goals, their current reality and the options available to them and to state what they will do to achieve those goals

Feedback
Both seeking and delivering honest, respectful and supportive responses that help a learner decide what to stop, start and continue doing

Presentation
Delivering a formal speech, report or training event to an audience, often using PowerPoint or similar tools

Public speaking
Talking to an audience of any size, whether in person or online

Workshop
An in-person or online gathering of learners with the shared aim to achieve stated objectives

‘I took my watch off to wade out to check my lobster pots and lost track of time’ – still my favourite reason given for being late to a training session!

The young woman who turned up to an employability skills session holding a box of kittens …

The CEO who was late to his own Teams meeting as he’d had to shoo a cow out of his orchard …

The aviation industry pro whose dummy parachute had popped spectacularly out of her backpack as she walked from the car to demonstrate correct packing technique…

Trainer tales, eh?

Then there was the woman who went into labour in class …

The one who thought she was taking paracetamol but it turned out to be aspirins to which she was violently allergic …

The one who issued a death threat on getting a poor mark …

The bloke who wasn’t the person who’d actually attended the job interview …

Those stories you tell each other.

I think we all have them!

What are yours?

Philippa Hammond
Learning, development and performance consultant| trainer | facilitator

I’ve had some incredible experiences as a trainer and coach!

A starlight trip into the Yemeni desert by jeep

A stay at a spare palace with gold plated escalators in Brunei

A riverboat trip through the Ukrainian countryside and exploring the glorious gold domed churches of Kyiv

Visits to the underground water cistern and covered bazaar of Istanbul

Delivering workshops in the former German railway headquarters in Cologne in a room called Zeppelin

Eating flaming fruit in a restaurant in a ruined hotel in Gabon

A trainee in Jersey explaining the reason he was late back from lunch – he’d taken off his watch to wade out to check his lobster pots and had lost track of the time

Looking forward to the next adventure

Philippa Hammond

It’s one of my favourite concepts.

Imagine you had a beautiful bowl – and it broke. What could you do?

You could sadly decide it’s useless, that’s it, get rid of the bits and try to forget it ever happened.

You could mend it, very carefully, so none of the breaks and cracks show – and hope nobody ever finds out. Shhhhhhh. Nothing to see here.

Or you could follow the Japanese concept of kintsugi – that the bowl still exists, still beautiful, still useful, and can be brought back to life.

Then you mend it – but instead of using invisible glue, you use gold.

So every crack, every break can still be seen – but the story is there.

It cracked, and it broke, and you put it back together again in a way that shows what happened.

It’s stronger, more valuable and more beautiful than it was before.

This post really wasn’t about pots …

Philippa Hammond

Learning, Development and Performance Consultant | Trainer | Facilitator

Lovely opportunity yesterday, guesting at a special event for Warwick Business School at the Chapel Royal, Brighton.

WBS is holding a creative leadership development programme for their master’s degree international students at The Shard, London, hosted by Paul Levy.

As part of their UK experience, they’ve visited London theatre, and yesterday visited Brighton and the Royal Pavilion.

Around forty students from China, South Korea, India, Egypt and many other countries gathered for lunch courtesy of the Pavilion Gardens Cafe, and great conversation.

David Sewell, owner of the cafe, spoke about eighty years of continuity as the latest of the three generations to run this iconic Brighton business.

And I was one of a group of Brighton business people invited to circulate, have lunch with them and talk about what we do.

For me as learning, development and performance consultant with an actor background the concept of creative leadership was ideal!

A great opportunity to meet and talk with the leaders of the future, share some of our experience, perspectives and insights.

Philippa Hammond
Learning, Development and Performance Consultant | Trainer | Facilitator

Evaluation: such a little word for a process with so much value for your business. 

Yet I’m constantly amazed by how often organisations don’t do training evaluation … at all. Or if they do, they stop after they’ve done the most basic level. Job done. 

Back in the 1950s, Dr Don Kirkpatrick developed his four level evaluation model, which has pretty much been the standard ever since.

Others have built on it, added to it and expanded bits of it, yet here we are still using it in the 21st century – because it works.

So are your trainers evaluating your learning and development projects and products at all four levels?

Can you prove to your managers and the board that the money they spend on training gets the results and the return on investment they want and expect?

That’s a great way to ensure your training team continues to get the funding and the people it needs.

Philippa Hammond

Learning, Development and Performance Consultant | Trainer | Facilitator

Here’s a quick tip to beat that very real problem – curly flappy Post-Its in your training presentations and workshops!

If you peel your Post-It upwards, it will bend the gluey bit and when you slap it on your flip chart etc, the bottom will curl upwards. 

So nobody will be able to read them, plus they could be easily knocked off.

Instead, hold the bottom of the note – and gently pull down. It’s a little harder to get them off the pad, but it keeps them flat, they’ll go on flat – and stay flat.

More essential presentation / training tips soon.

Philippa Hammond

Learning, Development and Performance Consultant | Trainer | Facilitator