Trainer Tools

Most of how we engage with other people in the workplace, on training courses, or in coaching sessions, is based on having conversations. The quality of these conversation directly impacts our effectiveness, and as educators and coaches, our ability to have powerful conversations that help to create insight and learning is a huge part of how we succeed.

In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, I talk to Catherine Thomson about David Kantor's theory of Structural Dynamics. In the podcast, Catherine explains how this theory of communication is applied to conversations in training and coaching.

Catherine Thomson is founder of The Houston Exchange and is also an Associate Consultant within the People and Organisational Development (POD) Division with Edinburgh Napier University.

A graduate of Sheffield University, she is an accomplished organisation development consultant with domestic and international experience across all sectors. Her expertise is in supporting organisations develop leaders to attain a level of agility that matches the unprecedented level of change and complexity currently being experienced in the 21st Century.

She is an advocate of working with leaders using “systems intelligence”, helping them to go beyond reaching agreements to reaching new understandings from which to think and act. In this way they build organisations that are profitable, enlightened, healthy and compassionate.

Catherine trained in Boston MA with the Kantor Institute on Dialogue™ a process that supports greater understanding of the dynamics of how teams communicate within their organisational system. Her recent assignments have included work with intact and cross functional teams at every level in the organisation, exploring personal and group insights into those areas of their communication that is normally less visible (assumptions, beliefs, values etc.) and the implications these have on personal contribution to the group dynamic, quality of decisions and employee engagement. She has helped individuals and teams develop insights and new thinking on how to expand their own behavioural repertoire when working towards new aligned thinking and meaning in relation to change, pivotal conversations and growing people capacity within the organisation.

Role plays are one of the most powerful ways to learn we have in the training room. They're a way to bring the various strands of theory together in a practical activity, it's a way of turning the abstract into tangible action. It's active, a change of pace, it allows for physical movement and engagement, it forces the learners to think and try stuff out, it helps to turn knowledge into skills.

It's hated by almost everyone.

In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, I talk to Larry Reynolds about his six step approach to ensuring role plays are a success.

Larry Reynolds is managing partner of Courageous Conversations at Work. He help business leaders to create high performing teams where people love to work. If you want to have more courageous conversations at work why not sign up for Larry’s free weekly leadership tips.

Recent clients include Next, Tetra Pak, NHS, schools and universities.

In this episode John Tomlinson chats to Garry Platt about his approach to learning needs analysis, an approach that guarantees training is always lined up against the actual needs of the learners.

Garry Platt is an experienced training consultant with more than 30 years experience in the business. He has worked with a number of international organisations helping them to enhance their approach to training and development. Within the last 12 months he has worked with Deutsche Post DHL, Formica, Siemens, Mercedes AMG F1 Team and was the keynote speaker at the SHE Conference in Blackpool.

Academically qualified to Masters Degree level in Education, Training and Development his work combines current research and study in Human Resource Development with a pragmatic and workable approach.

During the last 10 years an area of specialisation has become the evaluation and return on investment analysis of training delivered in organisations. Drawing from the experience of hundreds of companies and organisations he has drawn together a large range of methods and approaches which many organisations have selected from and introduced into their own.

In this episode John Tomlinson talks to Shirley Gaston about how to keep learners engaged throughout the training event. This is Shirley's specialist subject, something she's been passionate about for years, In the podcast she outlines three different approaches for ensuring the delegates on the course stay engaged.

Shirley Gaston is the founder of  the experiential learning company Azesta which has been developing people for 21 years. As such, she is one of the driving forces within the company. She values openness and this quality is intrinsic to her award-winning learning programmes. It is important to her to be really approachable and, although professional, her overt friendliness is part of her style. Shirley’s passion for learning through experience has led to her working in learning and development for her entire career and also representing experiential tool maker Metalog and virtual exercise creator Gaminar in the UK. She has a first class degree in Education, a Post Graduate Certificate and Diploma in Professional Training and Development, she is a qualified coach and holds numerous psychometric qualifications. She is an absolute CPD addict and attends facilitator development programmes on an almost weekly basis as well as running the non-profit Yorkshire Trainers Development Network. Working directly with her own clients, she specialises in leadership and management, engagement, team development and coaching skills. Working with trainers, she shares her passion for programmes that fully involve the learner and incorporate active and creative review and the most possible variety. She has had several articles published particularly in the field of experiential learning and outdoor management development and is currently working on her first book on the subject. Shirley lives in Yorkshire with her partner, four children, a dog and three cats. She enjoys a range of outdoor activities, theatre, book groups and is also a Humanist wedding celebrant.    

In the second episode of Trainer Tools, John Tomlinson talks to Paul Levy about his "Collusion of Mediocrity" concept.

This is an idea that can be used with both the Consultant and Facilitator aspects of the job, and is about pushing for real change in performance as a result of training interventions. It also has interesting impacts on how we evaluate the impact of training.

Paul Levy is the founder of CATS3000, a change and innovation company that helps people and organisations to realise potential and thrive. He’s worked with individuals and organisations all over the world for the last twenty years to challenge mediocrity, and to open space for change and transformation.

Paul is also a senior researcher at the Centre for Research in Innovation Management at Brighton Business School in the UK. He’s the author of several books, including “Technosophy” and Digital Inferno (based on his acclaimed blog, The Digital Inferno. He is also lead facilitator with the Social Media Leadership Forum.

He’s also a director of Rational Madness Theatre – an award-winning organisational theatre company that uses theatre to inspire and provoke change, transformation and innovation.

He’s a facilitator, trainer, writer, thinker and collusion breaker.

Paul Lives in Brighton in the UK.

In the very first ever episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, L&D professional John Tomlinson talks to Jon Kersey about one of his favourite training room energisers: "The Tangle"

Jon Kersey has over 15 years experience in the training and personal development world, significant experience of the retail (The Burton Group, Comet and River Island), financial (HSBC) and public sectors, and international experience having trained in organisations in South America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

As an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Master Practitioner and Trainer he is able to encourage clients to achieve permanent behavioural change enhancing their business through a deeper level of personal understanding.

He is qualified in various psychological profiling tools including MBTI, PRISM, TMI and is an NVQ assessor and verifier, and sits on the council of the IDM (Institute of direct & digital marketing).

Jonathan now owns his own consultancy: Red Consultancy