Ten White Manuals…

Naked Leader Week – 38 – Monday 19th January 2004

2^nd (of 3) Exclusive Advance Extracts from The Naked Leader Experience,

publishing Thursday 1^st April 2004

Ten White Manuals…

 A man wanders into a trophy shop

 “Gosh” he thought, looking around

 “This guy must be good”

Picture the scene, you have just finished a leadership course and you are on a HIGH. The final action was to share your new ambitions and dreams with your colleagues, and then it was a bit of bonding in the bar followed by a euphoric drive home.

Euphoric, because:

• You know you are unstoppable
• You have had a five day break from work, so you feel refreshed and ready for anything
• You now have the tools and techniques to catch anything that is thrown at you

You arrive home, and share your experiences with your partner – you tell the funny stories, prolonging the one where a certain colleague who will remain nameless (know who I mean) got really drunk on the first night, and embarrassed himself and everyone around him.

(You don’t have time to cover the story about how you were equally legless on the second night.)

After the weekend, Monday morning, you wake up early, and go straight into work. You place the manual on your desk, and set to work:

• Visioning
• Planning
• Dreaming how things will be different

You notice the HR manager coming in. You rush out, and share your experiences with him. He seems very pleased for you but points out that while you were away on this “jolly” they had hit some serious problems. Also, one of his staff has resigned, and he finishes off by saying:

“Still, mate, really pleased you enjoyed it, can’t wait to hear more about it. But if you don’t mind some of us have got some real work to do.”

Oh well, you think, he’s just jealous.

On your way back to your desk, you glance up at the top shelf. There, sitting neatly side by side, are all of the training manuals you have collected over the years.

This company have invested a great deal in your training, and boy have you repaid it. Well, you’d like to, if only the people who sent you on these courses actually valued what you learned and brought back to “base.”

Then your PA arrives, more colleagues come in, and slowly the day, the routine, takes over…

At the end of the day you lift up the manual, and you give it its morning – after burial, placing it alongside all of the other six on the top shelf.

There were six on the shelf and the little one said,

move over, move over.

And they all moved over and the seventh one joined

It simply doesn’t have to be like that.

“You can take a person to the seminar, but you can’t make them learn”

Adrian Gilpin

Institute of Human Development

There is another way.

For years we have been grappling with training – always our company’s number one priority, and always the first to be cut from the budgets. We hide training under any other topic we can, as it is very important to keep our people’s skills up to date…

And, leadership training, well that is all the rage.

Must turn all of our managers into leaders, must develop the next generation, must…

And year after year, we continue to send people on course after course.

Question – does it have a massive, positive impact on our organisations?

When we return from our courses, does the company receive a bottom-line return?

All too rarely

There were seven on the shelf and the little one said,

move over, move over.

And they all moved over and the eight one joined

Why?

*          Is it because the quality of training is poor?   No

*          Is it because some people are incapable of learning new skills?        No, they may choose not to, they are more than capable.

*          Is it because you don’t have catch-ups and refresher days?

No, they operate in abundance.

It is because people going on such courses do not make even one

true decision, during the course itself.

 

Remember, a true decision is one in which you literally close off

all other options. You attach yourself to a dream /

outcome and you close off any other possibility.

 

Powerful stuff, also painfully rare in leadership training.

 

And how long does it take to make such a decision?

 

A single heartbeat.

 

And your heart will beat many times when you are on the course.

 

And if you have made a true decision, yourself, to do one thing

differently, no matter what happens on your return, your heart

begins to dance.

 

And if your training has focused on team-building, and you have

all made the collective decision to work closely together, as on

unstoppable team, your hearts will feel as if they are beating in

unison.

 

And if you decide to take your company to new heights, and you

close off all other options, you will have the passion to get other

heart-beats soaring when you return.

 

There were eight on the shelf and the little one said,

move over, move over.

And they all moved over and the ninth one joined

You notice the HR manager coming in. You rush out, and share your experiences with him. He seems very pleased for you but points out that while you were away on this “jolly” they had hit some serious problems. Also, one of his staff has resigned, and he finishes off by saying:

“Still, mate, really pleased you enjoyed it, can’t wait to hear more about it. But if you don’t mind some of us have got some real work to do.”

You smile to yourself, how predictable is that?

Not very! This time things will be different. This time you say,

“Gerry, I have made some decisions about myself and have some

proposals for the company which I believe will give us the

breakthrough we need. Now Gerry, you’re a visionary, let’s talk

these through and then we can go have a chat with the board.”

 

You are in persuasive mode, not in post-training blues

mode.

 

Next time you design or deliver a course, next time you are on a

course, make sure time is allocated for you and others to make

and take-away a true decision.

 

With training, you don’t have to believe everything you are told

and taught. You just decide to do something about it – and you do

this during the course.

 

Then the manuals can sit on your shelves with pride. Now you

will actually refer to them, and read them again, to support how

you will make your decisions happen. And now, they will feel

important.

 

There were nine on the shelf and the little one said,

move over, move over

And they all moved over and the tenth one joined

 

And then the shelf collapsed