Russell Brand & Jonathan Ross

Russell Brand & Jonathan Ross have started a media circus in the last day or so with even the Prime Minister weighing in. Who will be next ? Maybe the Arch Bishop of Canterbury will issue a statement.

But the issue for us is this (and all comments regarding the rights and wrongs of the issue or comments supporting/attacking Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross/Andrew Sachs will be deleted)

“How do managers deal with talented individuals who do wrong?”

The BBC have been roundly criticised for issuing a weak statement in amongst other places here and here

Unfortunately, we have found that most managers will do what the BBC has done in these circumstances – issue a holding statement expressing “grave concern” etc etc and hoping in a few days everyone will settle down, calm down and the issue will be quietly forgotten.

This is conventional management and it is conventional for a reason – it is easy.

But what would you do as a manager to deal with wrongdoing (but highly paid) employees?

For us (and we have managed some pretty lively people – though admittedly, non as “lively” as Brand & Ross). the question is this:

Is the damage done greater than the benefit the talented individual brings to the organisation.

Example – Suppose we employ a talented lady who is the worlds leading widget grower.

Some of her actions annoy & upset some other staff – hey, I can deal with that.

Maybe have a quiet word with both sides & try to resolve the position amicably. This lady is the worlds leading expert and thus contributes to the bottom line of the company (good for everyone).

But then maybe, she goes too far, insists on a number of expensive perks or upsets a special customer which affects a significant number of colleagues. Then I can’t let it go, then the benefit of having 1 satisfied person is maybe 25-30 unhappy ones.

And by NOT solving one problem, I have created another. So I have TWO problems to solve.

Firstly, the upset special customer (maybe I can sort that one out personally on the phone) but the 25-30 upset other staff members will take much longer to sort out – (maybe it will be never fully sorted!)

So I must take action on the lady – she is going to cost the business too much in time and lost productivity, bad publicity etc and although it is not easy – it must be done.

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Women’s Personal Safety – Launches 28th October

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Jonathan Senior

Phone: 01909 772729

Email: jonathan@sharp-end-training.co.uk

www.sharp-end-training.co.uk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Women’s Personal Safety a Key Concern as Days Get Shorter

Sheffield, UK , October 24, 2008—Now the clocks have gone back in the UK , it is dark by 5:00pm. That means the risk to personal safety will tick up a notch. Everyone needs to be extra vigilant to dangers that could lurk in the shadows. That is why the timing is perfect for Sharp End Training’s “Women’s Personal Safety” course, launching October 29, 2008.

“The first key to safety is knowing what to look for—seeing dangerous situations before you are vulnerable, “says Jonathan Senior, founder and technical director of Sharp End Training. “Then you need to know how to respond. Our course empowers women to do both.”

Like all Sharp End Training courses, the “Women’s Personal Safety” program is taught online. People access it when and where it is convenient. And the course is free to subscribers. Women don’t need to compromise their security because they don’t have time, they can’t commute to a class, or their budget is limited. Sharp End Training makes access to cutting edge training on this, and many other areas, easy, convenient, accessible, and affordable.

The “Women’s Personal Safety” course provides essential advice on:

Anticipating dangerous situations and avoiding them

How to deal with stalking
Road rage and driving awareness
Violence prevention
Watching out for date rape drugs and drinks

Managers can subscribe to Sharp End Training and sign up for this course at

http://www.sharp-end-training.co.uk/update.html or anyone wanting immediate access can go to

http://www.learn-on-demand.co.uk/womenspersonalsafety.html

If you found this post useful and interesting, there is tons more in our weekly update. You can take a COMPLETELY FREE online training course just by dropping your name & email in the box below. If you didn't find it useful, please tell us by taking our blog readers survey.

Four functions of management

Four functions of management

Four functions of management are so easy to remember they are a useful pointer for any new manager and adaptable for existing and more experienced managers to keep them focused and motivated.

I will go through each of them with a short commentary (and leave out all the boring stuff..)

So, what are the four functions of management?

Plan

Many places I have worked have lots of planning and navel contemplating but not a lot of action. They generally seem to make things harder that they need to be.

As I did with the leadership styles, I will try to make this as simple as possible.

Plan – what is to be done, by whom, how and by when?

This brings considerations of organisation goals and objectives (what is to be done and by when), training and health and safety considerations (by who & how).

Consequently, quite a lot for the new manager to think about…

Organise – Unfortunately, many people confuse organisation with delegation.

All managers should be able to organise HOW things are done. Good ones can often leave most of this to staff. (I don’t really care what time staff go to lunch as long as a ) they have one and b) continuous cover remains over the lunch period.

What the good manager needs to be able to do is work towards delegating some tasks. Where they actually get a junior member of staff to do part of the management job instead of the manager doing it themselves.

Monitor – OK yes, I know that in most other places, the third function is leading/ leadership but I am going to write about monitoring.

Suppose the planning is making 200 widgets of 3 different sizes, in 3 different colours by the end of the week.

Each widget is quite expensive to make so a good manager will not want to get to Friday lunch time and have 195 in the same size and colour and none in the other colours and sizes.

Therefore, they need some way of monitoring production, output, staff input etc.

This could be as simple as instructing one member of staff to keep tabs on the colour, another on the sizes, another on the safety. (notice how, already, this has started on the delegate route…)

Control – Suppose that the early warning system outlined above worked like clockwork and the manager did receive “early warning” of possible defects.

They must have sufficient power to over rule the production process to safely intervene.

Without control over the production process, the manager will fail.

So, has the four functions of management struck a cord with you?

Maybe it has, but even if it hasn’t, believe me this was a lot less boring than the academic version…

If you found this post useful and interesting, there is tons more in our weekly update. You can take a COMPLETELY FREE online training course just by dropping your name & email in the box below. If you didn't find it useful, please tell us by taking our blog readers survey.

5 Reasons not to cut training

The economic climate is not good (or so we are told every night on the news).  Most businesses and budget holders will look to make cuts and staff training is often an easy target.

So you don’t get caught out and to give you something to arm yourself with in discussions, we have prepared a special report.

5 reasons not to cut training

is a 3 page, no fluff report giving you a few pointers to make sure it is not you who faces cut backs.

It is only available to weekly update subscribers, so to get this free report, just enter your name and email in the box in the left hand side of the screen.

You will have to confirm your subscription by clicking on the link we send you and then your report will follow.

Don’t let it be your budget that gets cut…

If you found this post useful and interesting, there is tons more in our weekly update. You can take a COMPLETELY FREE online training course just by dropping your name & email in the box below. If you didn't find it useful, please tell us by taking our blog readers survey.

Readability

In the weekly update recently, we started a series on readability.

For weekly update subscribers, there is a pdf version of the document we were discussing in the password protected post. Password is the same as the subscribers area.

More details next week

(If you aren’t a subscriber, sign up in the box on the left hand side of the screen).

If you found this post useful and interesting, there is tons more in our weekly update. You can take a COMPLETELY FREE online training course just by dropping your name & email in the box below. If you didn't find it useful, please tell us by taking our blog readers survey.

Protected: Improving readability

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Learning online

Learning online is different to learning in a classroom and a couple of people have contacted us recently to discuss the relative benefits of learning online versus group discussion and more traditional methods of learning and training.

So what is learning online?

Anytime a person sits in front of a computer, it can be argued that they are learning something. It might only be a trivial item like what their friends are doing on facebook or the time of the next train to London, but they are learning.

Taking that to the next level, ask yourself, as a manager, what do you want them to learn or how will the learning benefit your business or service.

Clearly finding out that Clare is friends with Charlotte on Facebook is not very useful.

(Incidentally, how do you currently select people for classroom training, do you send everyone on the same course?… thought so)

Online learning allows learners to move at their own pace.

So no stopping to wait for slower learners to catch up or waiting while more able ones try to catch the trainer out…

Learning modules can be released daily, weekly or at any interval to suit you or your learners. You can specify that a learner must study and complete Module X before moving onto Module Y for example. You really can get that level of control..

Everything on a computer is logged – that can help you..

Every time you (or any body) visits any website, they leave an electronic footprint.  (When you shop online, have you ever wondered how stores can “remember” you?)

Taking that a stage further, if we can chose what websites(courses) our staff look at and what pages they look at (the answers they give to tests etc) this can give us very powerful information.

But won’t this take away from my existing training?

No, it will give it another dimension.  Imagine, if you could say to staff,

“Please read this text and answer these short questions before the training session on the 21st of next month”

and you could actually test who had done that…

Tangible evidence for appraisal, disciplinary, health and safety & legal compliance etc etc all without you lifting a finger..

Do you need a special computer to learn online?

No, good online learning & training should be able to be viewed over an ordinary computer

Does online learning include sound & video?

Almost anything you can do in a classroom, you can replicate online.. Video, sound, pictures, anything

So will online learning replace the classroom?

We don’t think so, but it can certainly be used as a valuable to for trainers and managers. There are some things which are best learnt in the classroom. These include the so-called “soft skills” where discussion and debate are part of the learning process.

More technical skill areas and learning the theory of something can easily be transferred to online. (For instance, you aren’t going to learn how to present the news by completing our presentation skills course
– but you will learn important theories, relaxation techniques etc)

To try an online training course, we have prepared a special short course on meetings & time management. You can get free access, just by going to our free training course

If you found this post useful and interesting, there is tons more in our weekly update. You can take a COMPLETELY FREE online training course just by dropping your name & email in the box below. If you didn't find it useful, please tell us by taking our blog readers survey.

Womens personal safety – get it free

Weekly update subscribers will get access to our latest course, womens personal safety, when it launches on 29th October 2008.

However, there is another way to get it free.

Register as a tester and help us with the course development and testing and you can have free access for as many people as you like.

We will provide you with a testing control sheet, priority access to our helpdesk and regular updates.

All we ask is that you give us honest feedback and suggestions as to how we can improve the layout etc.

To register as a beta tester – just complete the form below and we will be in touch. We will automatically send you an email. To become a tester, you MUST click on the link in the email. This is to prevent automated robots & spam.

Technorati : womens personal safety
Del.icio.us : womens personal safety
Zooomr : womens personal safety
Flickr : womens personal safety

If you found this post useful and interesting, there is tons more in our weekly update. You can take a COMPLETELY FREE online training course just by dropping your name & email in the box below. If you didn't find it useful, please tell us by taking our blog readers survey.

Breaking news – Latest course – womens personal safety

Breaking news – Our next training course will be WOMEN’S PERSONAL SAFETY and will launch on Wednesday 29th October 2008.

The course covers womens personal safety and will include essential advice on dealing with;

Stalking
Combating harassment in the workplace,
“road rage” awareness
Putting procedures in place to prevent a violent incident
The “date rape” drug

Of course, weekly update subscribers can get the course for free (as always) but we will be announcing a 2nd way to get the course completely free in the next few days so stay tuned..

If you found this post useful and interesting, there is tons more in our weekly update. You can take a COMPLETELY FREE online training course just by dropping your name & email in the box below. If you didn't find it useful, please tell us by taking our blog readers survey.

Leadership styles

Leadership styles – there is a lot of hocus pocus and bunk written about leadership styles – so let’s make this really easy. There are really only 2 leadership styles – leading from the front and leading from the back..

What? No complicated methodology? No complicated formula that needs an army of consultants to set up and deliver?

No – just a simple question.

Do you lead from the front or lead from the back?

Imagine this

You are taking your children for a walk (if you don’t have children, imagine you do..) and you are walking in the park. You let them run on ahead and play. You idle along at the back – maybe have a drink or an ice cream. You are leading from the back. You have the situation under control and all is well. You have no need to get up and start shouting and telling children what to do.

But then you leave the park

And you walk to cross the road. You don’t want to be at the back now. Children will probably expect to be shouted at. You have to take control and now you are leading from the front.

So, it really is that easy, leadership styles can be broken down into 2 styles.

Which do you adopt, when & why?

If you found this post useful and interesting, there is tons more in our weekly update. You can take a COMPLETELY FREE online training course just by dropping your name & email in the box below. If you didn't find it useful, please tell us by taking our blog readers survey.