Where did it go wrong?

When discussing training programs with business owners, HR people and the likes, one question seems to come up all the time: "But how do we teach them that?" The issue at stake here, is of course, Excellence. Obviously with a capital E, because if you don't have that, there is absolutely nothing else that can take its place. And what is worse, if your Client (capitalized once again, because without that important person you can close your doors...) has noticed the lack of Excellence, he/she feels cheated, short changed and dissatisfied... unless of course you have a cheap joint and they never expected more to begin with.

Harsh words? Might be, but maybe it could urge you to look at your organisation and its leadership values a little closer. Strangely, in those selfsame organisations who always ask how they can teach their employees excellence, they very seldom ask how they can improve their leadership. And right there is the heart of the matter. Leadership. LEADERSHIP. Not management, but LEADERSHIP. People hardly ever do what we tell them to. They almost always do what we do. See, people are excellent at imitation - that is how we learn most of our basic skills. We see, we imitate, it becomes a skill, then a habit and eventually it is so ingrained that we never even give it a second thought.

Back to Excellence, though. Contrary to popular belief, I believe that Excellence can be taught. However, a number of factors should be given consideration:
1. Are employees being trained by someone who TRULY has a passion for excellence?
2. Does your organisation have a structured training program?
3. Do employees receive training at least once every 7 - 10 days?
4. Are employees being evaluated?
5. Do employees receive feedback and how does this happen?
6. Are employees being trained by someone who works with them every day or not?
7. Are employees being taught to be obsessed with quality?
8. How flexible is your training provider?
9. How practical is the training?

Obviously some companies may answer yes to most of these. If so a long hard look at management may be necessary, but that is a topic for another day. Many in-house training programs are excellent, but all of them also has obvious challenges. One of these challenges would be getting so involved in the day-to-day running of a department/company, that training really doesn't receive the attention it should.

As an external training provider, Dwyka Training & Consulting is able to provide ongoing training based on the NEEDS of the client. Since most of our training also starts off with doing brain profiles for the employees involved, they immediately have a better understanding of themselves as well as their colleagues. Now isn't that a novel idea? Better understanding and collaboration as a starting point...
We'll talk some more on the topic of leadership and Excellence next time round.

By the way... do you know which country in the world has the highest number of people able to speak English? And are men or women your biggest economically active sector? And should you be targeting most of your marketing at the 18-45 age group? If you don't have definite answers to these questions, you definitely need to check in next week!

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