We are looking for partners to be our representative in your country specialising in business & management training for British English speakers & those wanting to learn British English.

Working to certain guidelines – you will be our department in your country. Experience of traffic generating tactics would be a strong advantage. Enthusiasm & web savvy would be better…

Successful candidates would receive a ready built website – ready to promote Sharp End Training courses.

Other than that you are free to market your business how ever you like.

We will meet with our international representatives at least weekly via skype to share tactics and successes and failures.

What we need from you

In the first instance – please fill in the short form below and send it to us. (Oh and a retweet would be handy also…)

If you have any questions – please leave a comment below.

(Oh and for the technically minded – visitors would be controlled by IP address).

We live in an age where anyone can be a guru – just because they say they are.

“Hey, look at me – I have been doing this for 2 years and I can now do it with no stabilisers (training wheels? if you are in the US) – Aren’t I great?”

And using long words and phrases just reinforces this point.

(Audience think – “There is a long phrase there which I don’t quite understand so this guy must be clever because

1. He says he is and

2. I don’t understand what he is saying).

But is it a case of the emperor’s new clothes?

For those who don’t know – The emperor’s new clothes is a fairy story whereby the emperor commissioned a series of clothes to be made. The crooked tailors, took the money and gave him nothing in return, saying that anyone who truly believed the clothes were made of gold would indeed see gold, and those who didn’t believe would think the emperor was wearing nothing at all.

Of course, there were no clothes – the tailors had just taken the money – But no one dared tell the emperor this and he paraded through the streets in the buff until a small boy shouted out that it was all a big con.

So what’s all this got to do with buzz phrases?

Well, if you fancy yourself as a guru but don’t know where to start, just consult the table below. Take one word from each column, first, second and third and there you are, instant expert.

“Balanced management options anyone”?

I watched this last night on Channel 4 (although I try to avoid these “celebrity chef” type programs). Anyways, the latest celebrity chef to turn his hand at management consultancy was Heston Blumenthal. (To be honest, I have never heard of him before but he looks the part, square jawed, expensive designer glasses etc)

Any ways “Did Heston change the little chef?” was classic reality TV – most of the program was spent re-running the previous “Can Heston change the little chef?” previously shown.

Maybe that says something about the attention span of the average reality TV viewer or TV viewer in general these days?

Little Chef, for those who don’t know, is something of a British institution. A sort of McDonalds with peas and gravy by the side of the road. Hot food fast for the busy travelling family.

But in recent times, it has suffered something of a downturn. Increasingly sophisticated consumer demands and unimaginative food has seen it fall out of favour with the nations travellers.

So Heston was brought in to “transform” not the Little Chef as the title implied, but one restaurant.

Ok, so the show started out with him returning to Popham where he found surprise, surprise, that many of the things he had instructed to happen were not.

Classic consultancy – “Ok so we are going to get an expert in and nod and agree in all the right places. But when it comes down to it, we aren’t actually going to do what he says because it is too hard/difficult/expensive/not what we are used to”

I am sure that most management consultants will cringe at the scene with the gravy.

Apparently, Heston’s gravy recipe had slipped and the restaurant was using ordinary packet gravy (the sort found on the supermarket shelf..).

The story told to Heston and his assistant Ashley was that the supplier was unable to provide small quantities – so that’s why the restaurant dropped it.

Surprisingly, when Ashley then rang up – he was told, no, no minimum order and it has an 18 day shelf life also.

Hmm – Not about what you ask but how hard you ask.

So, Heston and Ashley had to battle (as all change managers often have to battle) against suspicion, apathy and yes maybe a little jealousy on the part of the existing staff and managers.

Good telly – Management Consultancy with a twist and yes – the little chef are “rolling this out” – primarily because the store in question increased profit by 250% in six months.

Oh and the original restaurant is now in the good food guide…

Edit – The link to the Channel 4 “mini site” is here

In these mega-busy times, how often do you stop and think about what you are doing and why in your daily job or work.

Probably not very often.

It’s a bit like the old saying that the wood cutter would cut the wood faster if he stopped to sharpen the saw. But he hasn’t got time because he is too busy cutting…

So here is a suggestion. (Assuming that you are like the woodcutter and do recognise that you need to cut faster but can’t physically go any faster..)

It doesn’t have to be at work – maybe your sports club, gym or church, seek out someone with not just a different job but a different way of thinking about life.

Don’t just find someone completely the opposite to you just for the sake of it – you will just end up arguing. Instead, look for someone who you would be quite happy to go out for a drink with.

For example, If you know that you rush around and get stressed at the slightest things look for someone working with behaviourally challenged teenagers. They will most definately have a different understanding of stress to you.

If you find yourself unable to get wound up or excited – find someone who is an athlete or someone who is constantly “on the edge” and spend time with them.

Whatever you decide (and don’t forget, you don’t have to tell them you are “observing them” – that would be freaky…) just watch how they respond to things an ask yourself how you would respond to the same event.

Which is best & why?

Can you do any different?

This form of self questioning can be very powerful. This post is not part of some “higher plan” or mind control – just a technique which may help you to hopefully improve.

In a previous post, we asked “Is assuming good manners too high a starting point?” where we asked or rather suggested that when training takes place, the trainer may tend to assume prior knowledge without checking.  This recently came back into focus with a short article in “Management today” magazine about “frequency illusion”.

What is frequency illusion?

Frequency illusion is  (according to Linguist Arnold Zwicky) suddenly thinking that everyone is thinking the same as you.

You are thinking of buying a new red car. Every car you see is red.

You buy a little black dress for the office party. Everyone has a little black dress.

You (and this is addressed directly to women now) get annoyed the toilet seat is left up. Every toilet seat is left up.

So we decided to do a short video for women to send to the men in your life and at least that little problem is solved.

We are looking to spice up some of our training and instruction videos. Can you help?

Below are two video intro’s for comparison. It would really help us if you would leave a comment as to which one and why. (Oh and by way of thanks – your comment is dofollow so your link will add to your backlink count).

Or this one

We have recently moved host – so please bear with us if a few things aren’t where they seem

If  you spot a pesky missing image, please leave a comment here.

Yesterday, we suggested that you to stay tuned for an important announcement.

The job & employment marker is the worst it has been for a number of years. The BBC quotes unnamed sources and says

“UK unemployment is rising faster in this recession than at anytime since the 1980s”

The UK is awash with job hunters all reading the same papers, looking at the same job websites, saying the same things at interview.

And then wondering why they never get the job!

So if you are a job hunter – what to do?

Do the same things – and get the same results?

or try to be a bit smarter?

Have you actually taken any training on interview skills?

I don’t mean some government sponsored scheme to keep unemployed people busy and staffed by workers who couldn’t hack it working at the job centre – I mean real training.

Thought not..

So here is an offer.

On 27th September 2009 at 9am UK time, we will be making available 500 vouchers available which  will allow access to our online interview skills training course for under £5.

What’s the catch?

There isn’t one!

So why are you doing it?

As a manager, I have interviewed a LOT of people who I really wanted to give the job to because I liked them & thought they would do a good job BUT they didn’t interview well.

With a bit of spit & polish, they would be getting the job no trouble at all. It’s  called preparation…

So what happens next?

If you are interested – just drop your name and email in the box below. You will receive a welcome email and then on Monday morning 9am – you will receive a voucher to get the training in your email.

Why do I have to give you my email?

To prevent spammers and abuse, we want to make sure that people who sign up ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO USE THE TRAINING. Plus, we can only afford to give discounts to the first 500 people.

How long is the voucher valid?

The voucher will be valid until next Wednesday (29th September 2009) OR UNTIL 500 people have used it. So – our advice is – don’t miss out.

Can I buy the training now?

Sure – full price works for us… But why should you pay full price when you can get such a discount?

We have some important news coming very soon. If you or if someone you know is job hunting or working on their interview technique.

Then you MUST – we repeat MUST keep your eye on this blog in the next few days.

We will reveal further details tomorrow but – suffice to say that we are almost GIVING AWAY our job interview skills course.

But you will have to be quick – More details tomorrow.

PLEASE  – If you know of anyone who is job hunting at these difficult times, feel free to send them this link. If you have twitter or stumble – that would be appreciated too.

In these cost conscious times, working harder is not always the solution – working smarter is the key.

Almost all training courses end with the “happy sheet” being filled in and handed back. For most people (workers and managers) – that’s the end of the process. (Until of course some health & safety inspector or other nosey parker comes along and wants evidence of training and the some poor soul has to chase up all the forms for the last year).

If you haven’t done so already you can download our free happy sheet at

http://sharp-end-training.co.uk/pdf/happy.pdf

To us, that is completely the wrong approach. Training is not something that is “voted on” or scored like a TV quiz show.

The training cycle is as follows

Define training objectives, Identify training needs, deliver programs to meet those needs, assess trainees reaction & progress, seek evidence of knowledge & skills learnt & measure the bottom line, rinse &repeat

But what is evaluation ?

Evaluation is the process of deciding the value of something. This can be anything from the choice between two holidays or someones improvement in using a piece of equipment.

What are the advantages of evaluation?
You can tell if something has worked or not
You can use information to improve in the future
You can go for “badges and gongs” such as the “Investors in people” standard (if you really want to0).

What are the disadvantages?

If something goes wrong, it can be public and
Someone will have to do something about it…

A simple checklist
1. Define what you want to achieve with training.

Be VERY specific – Don’t just say “learn how to design a website” – say “design an ecommerce website with message board and credit control system”

Fortunately(?), there are likely to be LOTS national standards for different industries as a guide for things like health & safety etc

2. Publicise objective

Make sure that everyone knows the objectives and what is expected of them. Trainees, managers and trainers should all be “singing from the same hymn book”. (A spin off benefit is that this will help people get over “training suspicion” – that is being nosey and wondering why their colleague is doing different training to them).

3.Design methods for comparing results with objectives

eh?

OK – Find out if what you intended to happen actually did. (This is usually via happy sheets…) But you can be more creative. If you are a manager, drop in for the last 30 minutes of a classroom session.
What is the atmosphere like? Are delegates “pumped” or are they all looking at the clock. You will tell a lot more just by gauging the “vibe” of the place than a happy sheet will ever tell you…

4. Ask them. Ask delegates for feedback (again, this has a spin of benefit of showing you are listening)

5. (MOST IMPORTANT) – Use the information. Don’t just file all happy sheets in a lever arch file – they will NEVER be looked at again.
Hire someone from a temp agency or get your excel whizz kid to compile charts and tables so you can show people (like your boss who probably pays the bill) what bang they have got for their buck(s). Again, transparency & openness will have a spin off benefit.