We’d prefer our clients didn’t come back
Training that works?
Have you ever had that feeling after some great training, where you feel you’ve really cracked it?
- now you have the best communication skills in the business;
- now you’re an inspirational leader;
- now you can speak and write more persuasively than Barack Obama;
- now you can tell stories to motivate people better than Winston Churchill.
But. Six months later, you’ve a guilty feeling that very little’s actually stuck. In the mad rush of the need to get on with the day to day, the elation and the hard won skills have mostly evaporated.
Stuff that sticks
We started as actors, directors and writers. We came in to do the fun stuff in other people’s training. We lightened the mood. Made things interactive. We were the icing on the cake.
However, something happened that took us by surprise. Clients would come up to us a year later. They’d say things like “We loved your bit and, um, actually that’s all we can remember. What was the rest of the course about…?” Naturally we felt flattered, but also intrigued. Because it seemed that these courses’ carefully crafted, delicately structured contents were about as sticky as Teflon.
What’s the cake?
We realised that the sketches, the games, the rôle play weren’t the icing on the cake. They were the cake. Or should have been.
So we went back to basics. We used theatre, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and neurology to put training through the wringer. To create training that was life changing not mind numbing.