If you think everything is going to remain calm and settled at work come March 29th and that it's going to be business as usual, then think again. Chaos could be just around the corner.

And it may not just be about stock delays, Euro exchange rates, EU citizen employment rights and so on. You may face stresses, strains and breakdowns in your teams with tensions rising as the impact of Brexit becomes a reality in personal lives.

I'm not over dramatising things. My comments are echoed by what the government is preparing for.

According to reports in two Sunday newspapers, British officials have revived Cold War emergency plans to relocate the royal family should there be riots in London if Britain suffers a disruptive departure from the European Union next month.

“These emergency evacuation plans have been in existence since the Cold War, but have now been repurposed in the event of civil disorder following a no-deal Brexit,” the Sunday Times said, quoting an...

One of the key roles we play in teaching students in any subject is to ensure we engage them throughout our courses AND that we have ways to assess what they have learned. Using interactive elements allows us to achieve both.

When you publish your online course using Kajabi or similar platforms that allow embeds in your posts and pages, you can use interactive elements from a library of Open Source resources available at H5P.org. The content from H5P allows you to create rich and engaging content to your courses for free.

I've summarised them below and later in the post I'll explain how to add them to your own course or website.

Summary of Interactive Course Assets

If you want to see any of these in action then please go to the H5P.org website, here is the link.

Remember that you should only choose to use an asset and add it to your course if it is going to add value either in improving the overall student experience or it helps achieve a learning objective. In other words,...

Warning!

Warning!

This is a recommendation from a raving fan so I'm biased. 

I’m here to share with you an amazing opportunity that is too good NOT to share. If you are a consultant, coach, trainer or subject expert then this should be of interest to you.

Over the past three years, my business partner and I have transformed the way we do business by shifting almost everything we do serving clients from a traditional classroom, face to face service, to one that is now online. We’ve almost completely stopped delivering our face to face workshops and training courses and shifted them online, except for special situations and when we believe it's the only way to achieve the learning objectives of learners. 

At the same time we also changed the way we market our business, manage our leads and sales pipelines. We've been able to rationalise our website hosting service, email software, surveys and online course building software so that we could bring...

I recently wrote a post about Brexit and how it demands that as businesses we look at every opportunity to minimise the risks and to maximise the opportunities that Brexit will bring. And that's regardless of how we leave, when we leave or as some hope for if we leave. Catch up on that post by reading it here.

The post advocates engaging your employees in becoming more commercially aware so that together as a business you can become:

• More competitive
• More agile
• More responsive
• More able to spot opportunities
• More able to respond to opportunities
• More able to cope with change
• Financially stronger

In the post, I stated that there has never been a better time to harness your employees' commitment to change.

In today's new post, I'm exploring that fact in more detail.

I'm going to explain why now is a golden opportunity to have your employees get fully behind the changes you need to make because of Brexit or any other political, economic, social or technological challenges...

Regardless of your personal political viewpoint and whether you are a "remainer" or a "leaver" when it comes to the EU, as a business leader you face the biggest challenge of your career, especially in the advent of a no-deal. Whether we remain or leave, your teams face uncertainty.

Your iceberg is melting, your landscape is changing and your teams need inspiring leadership like never before. Unlike the one or two economic crisis you will have navigated through previously, this time the route ahead is uncharted.

No one has been here before.

Ever!

The best minds in the economy, trade and commerce don't have the answers on how to move forward with plans that guarantee success. The EU can not give you advice and neither can our own political system.

Your teams face huge uncertainty and right now your role as a business leader is to give them back some certainty, give them the confidence that together, as one team you will be able to take this...

Communication is the key to all successful relationships whether in the family, community, at work or with customers.

Telling employees they need to communicate should be a no-brainer. They either do it or they don't.  But the simplest of things often trip us up and then the team needs a little reminder about improving the communication between their colleagues or customers.

This simple activity is designed to help improve communication awareness and can be used in several situations during training courses, team meetings, breakout sessions, and workshops.

The original idea for this activity comes from Teampedia.

Objectives

• To be the first team to correctly reproduce the "email".
• To open up discussions around communication and collaboration.

Group Size

• Medium to large.
• Minimum of 5 people.

Materials

Table, Paper, Pens or Markers, Simple Images

Set Up

On a table, place as many pieces of paper with a pen as you have teams. Have pre-made simple images or "emails" made...

I know of a great place to eat that does the most amazing steak and ale pies, The Weighbridge Inn situated in the beautiful Cotswolds between Nailsworth and Avening. They've been serving these pies for over 40 years.

It’s a quintessentially English country pub, ‘old fashioned’ in its style and ambiance with roaring log fires to welcome you in the winter. Muddy boots, dogs and children are all welcome.

The Inn is renowned in the area for its wonderful 2-in-1 pies (half steak and mushroom, half cauliflower cheese). Created over forty years ago, this unique dish remains a firm favourite for all of its customers. The recipe has never been made public and to this day remains a closely guarded secret passed from landlord to landlord. If you ever travel close by, I recommend you call in and try them for yourself. Yum, you will not be disappointed!

These pies have become their ‘signature’ dish. They make them so well that they have been able to draw in...

Car dealers have received some pretty poor press over the years and perhaps rightly so. But there are examples of businesses that now demonstrate great examples of how to WOW their customers.

One of our favourite brands and clients found within the retail automotive sector is the Sytner Group, part of US giant the United Automotive Group. The Sytner Group was founded by Frank Sytner in 1960′s and has become the most successful premium brand dealer group in the UK. The Group aim is “To be famous for delighting customers, employees, manufacturers and shareholders”, which has been their driving ambition since it first came into being in 2001.

Image courtesy of Sytner Sheffield

One of my favourite customer WOW stories was shared to me by Peter Mitchell who at the time was Assistant Bodyshop Manager of Sytner’s dealership in Sheffield. Peter shared his story of how he WOW’d one of his customers.

The customer had just taken delivery of a new BMW and within a...

If your business was a shoe how would it feel to walk in?

Would it be tight and pinch you?

Does it have awkward characteristics that rub and irritate customers?

Are some transactions awkward and painful to experience?

Understanding where the PinchPoints^® are found is key to smoothing the experience for your customers and encouraging repeat business.

As the saying goes....

Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.

The Emotional Footprint

Your business has a unique feel to it.

We call this your Emotional Footprint^®.

It's what the experience feels like to be a customer or an employee. Understanding the Emotional Footprint^® you are creating is important as it can be used to understand what needs to be changed within the experience in order to create a positive and loyalty building engagement with your brand.

Once you understand how emotional connections drive people to your business or brand, and then make the necessary adjustments to the experience they have...

After over 25 years working in training and development, I've experienced hundreds of different techniques applied in teaching, training, and facilitation. I've experimented with dozens myself and over time have come to learn some key methods for ensuring our workshops are engaging, effective, enjoyable and repeatedly deliver their learning objectives

So to celebrate St Crispins Day (the date we ran our first Customer's Shoes event) I've compiled a list of 15 essential approaches for delivering an engaging workshop. 

How many of these do you experience in the courses delivered by your training providers?

1. Relate the Lessons To Real-Life Scenarios

Often using an example outside of the industry participants work in, helps to illustrate a point just as well as when it relates to their own field. The key, however, is in making it relevant to the real-life scenario in which their learning can be applied. The easier it is for...