We are pleased to have our first guest blogger!
Stuart Holdsworth is an independent consultant specialising in learning and talent development. He developed the market leading Cineworld Academy and is currently working with Lloyds Banking Group to help create their School to Work programme. In his spare time he runs the London based art and history lifestyle blog www.inspiringcity.com which was recently named by CAPA international as one of the 10 websites to visit when you study abroad in London.
Stuart has been in touch with us for a long time – he started by studying for the Certificate in Training Practice – this gave him Associate Membership of CIPD.
He then went on to become a Chartered Member of CIPD, again using our services.
We also gave advice and supported his upgrade to Chartered Fellow of CIPD. We have worked closely with Stuart on a major management development project – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOVOS2ZwaFk
Now he is our very first blogger – what next we wonder?!
Stuart’s Blog
What a weekend it’s been. The airwaves have been full of sporting prowess from tennis at Wimbledon, to the formula one at Silverstone and of course the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire.
It made me think about the sort of things that go into creating elite sportsmen and women. In all three sports getting ahead of the pack is all about making marginal improvements to athletes who are already world class and focusing on those improvements in every facet of their daily and sporting lives.
Whether it’s the diet of the athletes or the aerodynamics of the car, bike or racket these marginal improvements add up over time, it’s the law of 1%! Keep getting 1% better every day and just see how much better you’ll be at the end of the year.
But aside from all those technical improvements is the skill of the coach to ensure that the athlete is able to hit just a little bit harder, drive a little bit quicker and cycle just a little bit faster. The skill of the coach ensures that the athlete operates in a world of development where excellence is the norm and learning is just the ‘way that things are done around here’.
Because what has resulted from all this focus on being the sporting best is the creation of learning environments, a learning organisation which feeds itself constantly. It looks at best practice from others and learns, it tries new ways of working and it learns and it dusts itself of when things go wrong and it learns.
More traditional organisations can in turn learn a lot from elite sport! We can all work in learning organisations, the frameworks are there it’s just a case of believing in what can be achieved. Being willing to question the old ways of doing things, being happy to look outside the industry you are in and the willingness to create an environment in which learning and coaching are encouraged are all perfectly achievable.
Elite sport has taught us a lesson this weekend. It has shown us just what can be achieved when you have the vision and the will to create an environment in which learning is at its heart. It has highlighted the power of continual improvement and it has shown just how impactful effective coaching and focusing on the little things can be. Return on investment? It’s just there, it’s coming over that hill, racing round that corner and standing proud on that court.
Thanks Stuart for these thoughts. It has certainly got me thinking about the importance of sustainable improvement and I sometimes wonder if we don’t set ourselves unrealistic targets. This is where coaching really comes into its own and good feedback plays a vital role too.
Our popular coaching programme is will be running again on 30th September at the Institute of Directors. This is an excellent way of developing your skills. Read more here
We also run an effective programme to develop managers’ feedback skills. We give them a really useful framework to follow when giving feedback. This helps to ensure that they have the confidence to challenge performance or behaviours that need to be improved. Read more here
This way you can get the 1 percent improvement recommended by Stuart.
For those of you who have been a client do remember our offer
So back to the sporting link who will win the World cup or are you all sported out?