Simply-Blogging

End of an era

Off to Cranfield this morning to start my last ever Black Belt course...

It's going to be funny saying goodbye to something that has been such a major part of my life for a long time.

Way back in the mid 1990's I attended a three day course run by consultants Smythe Dorward and Lambert which marked the beginning of my career in IC.  The course, in retrospect, was pretty odd - but then in the UK there wasn't much of a body of knowledge on the subject.

But as my career rolled on and SDL stopped running the course (and stopped existing) I saw more and more the need for such a programme.  Where could communicators go to get a common baseline in the skills, theory and good practice that they needed to do a decent job?

By the time I left Marconi in 2004 there was really nothing out there.  The CiB sponsored a variable bag of one day skills courses and there was a year long academic programme at Kingston University which got mixed reports (depending on your taste for academia).

With Sue I tried hawking a course around - first to the CIPR and then to some professional conference organisers with little luck.  Finally we got Melcrum to take a punt on the ridiculous idea of a four day course at a university-type place with a limited number of students.

I was doing martial arts (badly) at the time so we came up with the name 'Black Belt' and I scratched together the marketing copy and we were off...

So three years later we've had what must be four or five hundred people through the course, created a benchmark in IC training and put people in touch with each other all round the world...

And now, other committments mean I have to step away and let Sue carry on with it....

It's going to be odd not climbing into the car every six weeks or so to go to Cranfield though...but watch this space...

Liam

...I didn't need to worry

Well - Sally has just taken the group through a fantastic session on understanding what makes you influental - and I have to admit to a tinge of envy!

Half way through I was also reminded of something really useful that Sue Solomons told me about this Summer.  She told me about Marcus Buckingham who makes the very simple point that rather than spending our lives worrying about failings we'll never fix, we should concentrate on understading our strengths and building upon them.

The reason I mention it is that communicators tend to be good at getting frustrated when plans don't work and we're often quick to blame ourselves for not being super-human persuaders or for failing to be mind readers.  When in fact, it is worth taking a few minutes to remind ourselves of where we excel.

People value us for what we do well - maybe the world would be happier place if we learnt to make the most of our talents rather than regret the gifts we never received in the first place.

Liam

Off to Cranfield again

I'm about to climb into the car for a trip to Cranfield University where I teach the Black Belt programme - I always dread this trip.  It should be about 30 minutes but often turns into three times that. Which isn't ideal when you're freeling stressed anyway about a couple of day's teaching.

This time it's going to be a bit stranger than usual.

I'm stepping away from running the course which I developed with Sue Dewhurst and have seen rolled out in Australia after three very happy years.  In November I'm doing it for the last time and today my replacement is coming alsong to try out delivering one of the sessions that I have always done.

I genuinely hope she's good - actually as it's Sally Hinder I know she'll be good.  But it's a funny to think that someone else is doing 'my stuff'.  I'm wondering how it will be and how I'll feel when she does it - or indeed if she changes anything....

Liam