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Blogs

Who helped you get a kick-start in your training career?

11/8/2020

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Back in the early 2000’s I was a Customer Adviser at B&Q helping out with in-store inductions. A Trainer’s role became available for a ‘proper’ Trainer’s roles and I applied. I’m sure I had less formal training experience and I certainly no qualification in training then others applicants, but they asked me to join the team!

Many people had an input into this shift in my career, but two in particular I want to say a formal thank you to. Toby Carpenter who was heading up the training team at the time and saw some sort of potential in me and decided to give me the chance to learn on the job... THANK YOU.

And Andy Granston, my Line Manager and mentor who I often site, when I run my own Management training session, as a great role models in management... THANK YOU. 

Who would you like to thank for helping you out in your career?

Ps The image is of a paperweight handed out to us ‘Trainers’ for a project we ran as a thank you… yes I still have it after all this time! (Proving that a Thank-you can stay with you for a long time!)
​
#CuriousLighthouse #career #ThankYou
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Creative Learning - Failure is an option!

17/1/2020

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The 'knowledge tree' sounded like a great idea in my head. A great visual prop with brightly coloured gift tags for the delegates to right down their learning after each of the 6 sections we were running through during a workshop.

I had planned to use the leaf tags as part of a reflective exercise at the end of the session, but made a call to knock-it-on-the-head and changed the final exercise to a facilitated discussion, as it became clear that things were going to get overcrowded very quickly and getting up to place the tags was becoming rather monotonous.

Did I fail?

Yes, and no!  As a Trainer, it's comfortable to find an activity that works well and repeat it with different audience’s time and again, making tiny adjustments as needs be. But 'repeat and succeed' can only support your own, and your learner’s development for so long. Facilitating creative learning pushes you to think more about your design process.
 
But with more creativity comes more opportunity to fail.

So, why bother?

Put simply, if a Trainer isn’t willing to try out new ways of engaging their learners, they’ll soon have no learners left to try anything with at all!  In a world of instant gratification, our attention levels need more stimulation to learn.  Building in creative activities into training sessions is just one way to help this.
 
Failure is an option, but…
 
No one plans to fail, but with failure comes insight, (and also a healthy dose of resilience!)  So, the trick is to fail with a back-up plan that won't affect your learners experience or leave you in a flap!
 
I will use the tree again, but next time it will be more succinct, allowing my learner’s ‘leaves of knowledge’ to flourish and for my own creative design to continue.
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How Not to Buy a Cow… Lessons in L&D

24/5/2019

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How not to buy a cow ... lessons in L&D by Nikie Forster. Image by Ulrike Leone
When I landed my first official job as a Trainer for a large DIY store many moons ago, I was delighted!  I learnt on the job, running rousing inductions and traveling the length and breadth of the UK to meet eager (my words not theirs) learners to induct them.

After some time, I realised that if I was going to progress to other forms of training i.e. Management Development, I was going to need to develop my own skills further.  Back then the key attributes of a great Trainer were

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'Productive' Training Props!

21/11/2018

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Props can really help increase curiosity and engage learners in different ​ways to traditional discussion.

I used this prop during a Mini Masterclass about 'Proactive Management Conversations.'  Can you tell what it is and why I might have used it? 
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The difference 180 degrees makes!  {Training activity idea}

14/11/2018

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This little selfie was taken during a talk (How to take a better business selfie!) at a networking meeting. As well as getting a decent photo, it also highlights the importance of looking at things from the 'other side'.

In my world, I interact with Managers, Trainers and Entrepreneurs regularly, and this 180 topic raises up quite frequently. I'm thinking this little exercise would be a great, quick example of how different things could be in different perspectives!
Interested in more training activity ideas....? 

www.curious-trainers-academy.com/pages/curious-trainers-resources
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36 Years to Join the Dots (Mary Rose and L&D)

15/10/2018

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The Mary Rose
In 1982 the Mary Rose emerged from the Solent to see daylight for the first time in 437 years.  I remember this not because of the significance of the event, but because my mum allowed me to stay home from school and watch it on the TV!  I also remember gasping as the...

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Well, that was unexpected!   (Training Pattern Disruptors)

27/9/2018

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In training design, the 'flow' of the session is paramount. It’s like a well edited movie, you shouldn’t notice the edits, just the great story line. But, sometimes interjecting something unexpected can rouse us from our comfortable state and make us sit up and pay attention. This is often referred to as a ​...

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Rubber Chickens... and other training resources!

23/9/2018

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Wading through the detritus of garage items, I spotted two bags I recognised, my old training kits.  Rummaging through the unsticky post-it notes and hardened blu-tac slabs, I found several training props, including...

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Lessons learnt from hosting an on-line 5-Day Challenge

16/9/2018

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The live on-line Q&A session was starting in 5 mins, and I was frantically making up questions just in-case no one asked any!  Self-doubt is not something I’m used to feeling, especially having spent many years successfully running face-to-face training sessions!  But here I was, about to hit ‘unmute’ on day one of our 5-day challenge, wishing...​

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Roadworks, Fast-food and Training

21/8/2018

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There are two things I’ve learnt to distrust;
  1. The ‘REDUCE SPEED - Roadworks’ signs on the motorway
  2. The content of drive-through fast-food orders

Both promise rewards;
  1. The reward of actually seeing...

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What have Trainers’ skills and writing children’s picture books got in common?

3/3/2016

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I recently attended a Writers and Artists event at Bloomsbury Publishing in London.  During the ‘How to Write for Children & Young Adult Conference,’ Smriti Prasadam-Halls, author of ‘Don’t call me sweet’ & ‘I love you night and day’ walked us through some of the basics of creating a successful picture book story.  As I listened, it struck me...

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    Nikie Forster

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  • Home
  • About
  • Management Development
    • Light-bulb Managers Programme
    • Lighthouse Managers Programme
  • Train the Trainers
    • Learning with LEGO courses
  • Online Learning
  • Videos
    • Four Ways to Become a Better Manager
    • Training without a Training Budget
    • Managment Communication
    • Accidental Managers
    • Company Inductions
    • Accountability
    • Line Manager as Coach Video series
  • Blogs
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  • Testimonials