Ever had one of those days where you find yourself feeling like you are stuck doing the same thing over and over again? This the time when I ask myself this question. “What have you done lately?” As a training professional, every so often I go through some of my generic training materials and do some well-needed tweaking on them. Whether it is updating them, taking out stuff that are no longer relevant to my intended participants or introducing something new that will help them more than what I previously presented to them. The theories or approaches you have introduced to them before in your training may have helped them once they were back in their work environment – and may still do. However, bear in mind that one day these approaches will not help them anymore, let alone, work for them. This is the reason why you, as training professionals need to update yourself with what is new and the latest trends in the learning, training and development field. In turn, when you do this, you are not only benefiting from it but your trainees will too. Just like in your chosen professional field, situations change and this is also the same for your trainees. Here is a challenge for you in the next days to come. Go through your training materials and I mean, thoroughly and religiously! Take into account every detail you have on there. Look for flaws, look for good points as well as bad. Ask yourself these questions: 1) Is this still relevant?; 2) Is this needed? ; 3) Will this help achieve the message I am trying to get across to my intended participants?; 4) Does it even matter much if I include or not?; 5) Does it overall impact or just a waste of space and words? So on and so forth. Ask yourself is the key here. Put on both your trainer's hat and your trainees' hat. This way, you will get a sense of how you want to present yourself as a trainer – one who does make a difference – as well as how your trainees will perceive what you are trying to teach them and what takeaways they will get from attending your program. You know how most trainees come to a training or seminar, expecting it will be the same as the one they attended before and that the only reason they are there is for attendance (because their supervisors told them to attend and that they will check if they did!) Should you even dare ask your trainees the same “What have you done lately?” query? If you have trainees that are just there for attendance reasons, you would probably get a rundown of their day-to-day tasks and not get the answer you are looking for. When you are designing your training program, keep this in mind all the time. I want them to learn something new from me that they can – not only apply to their work environment but also encourage them to inspire, create to do something new, something better in their line of work. If and when you do this continuously, I dare you to ask your trainees “What have you done lately?” and I will bet that you will not get a recitation of their day-to-day tasks anymore. You might even be surprise (and elated!) at the responses you will receive. Are you up to challenge then?

Flipping through channels, I came across the show Speeders. It is a show about cops catching people, speeding, violating stop signs or traffic lights etc. People come out with such ridiculous excuses when they tell the cops why were they in such a hurry. A trio of middle-aged ladies gave told one cop that they were going to the salon to get their hair done because they were cougars who will be going out tonight and hit the clubs. One lady said she was going horse riding and they were already a half-hour late for it. A college student said he did not see or think that there was a cop around that is why he peeled off at a 3-way street where he was supposed to pull to a stop and wait. I just cannot help but shake my head at these people and their lame excuses. What I get from them is that if they can get away with it, they will say it or try it. Which to me is really ludicrous and downright unacceptable and irresponsible. Did they think their excuses would get them off the hook and not get penalized for their actions? They seem to have this air of attitude about them that says “If I can get away with it, why not, right?” Some attitude, huh? Which brings me to our workplace. What lame excuses do you give when you missed on a deadline? When you did not finish the project assigned to you. When your boss asked you for that progress report he or she needed ASAP. What half-baked excuse do you concoct? Maybe even blame a co-worker or people at another department for not giving you what you needed to finish that progress report. Am I hitting the spot yet? Yes, like those speeders on that show, admit it—you do give a pointless excuse and try to see if you can get away with it, do you not? Most of the time, it is all about what you do along the way before that dreaded deadline that really matters. Lack of poor time management, lack of great effort on your part, procrastination among other things. Like those speeders who said they were running late for an appointment. Well—why not, leave home early, right? Back at the workplace, why not start that project or progress report early. Tackle it with gusto the minute it was given to you to do. Early preparation is the key here. Rather than ending up looking like an irresponsible employee who just cannot be depended on.

RE-motivate yourself. I know what you think...you are thinking there is no such word as re-motivate – and you are correct. However in my world of inspiring creativity, this word does exist and rightly so. You cannot argue that there are those times that we do need to 're-motivate' ourselves. Do you not agree? When are those times, you ask? Well, let me count the times...how about when you think you did a good job and yet your boss says no, you did not. Or maybe even you still missed out a lot of things despite your unquestionable efforts. Do you not feel a little disappointed then? In some situations, you did a great job and yet your efforts were not acknowledged. You will get dissuaded if that happens, right? So we have 'those' days, so what? It is not the end of the world even if at times it feels that way. When you cannot seem to move one foot forward again and instead you just allow yourself to dwell on the disappointed, to be not motivated to continue anymore because in the back of your mind you think...”What does it matter? Whatever I do will not be good enough anyway!” Why move on? Why continue, right? Wrong! If there is the right time to continue, to move on — it is NOW! After a small or huge disappointment – you do not jump off the saddle – you get back on there! If you fall back again, just get back on is what I say. In your job, you will always experience these bouts of DE-motivation. It is normal. Accept it. Learn from it. Move forward from it. Have you ever had a boss who asked “Why you?” when you told your boss that the HR Manager is inviting you to attend an Interviewing Skills workshop because you have been the one doing that for your department for 3 years now? What do you do? Do you sulk? Did you cry and do a tantrum when you told the HR Manager that you had to decline since your boss did not allow you too? No. You just brush off the disappoint on your shoulders and say “Next time will come.” Then moved on. That time did come and the rest is history. Do not let these kind of times dissuade you from discovering what lies ahead in your path. Some people do and they discover (and most of the time – all too late!) that they wasted time dwelling on losing their motivation instead of using the time wisely by moving towards their motivation. Something to ponder about when you find yourself in same situation. Remember to just dust of that disappointment dust on your shoulders, get back on the saddle and ride of towards the sunset of limitless possibilities and opportunities that lies ahead.

Poor performance will be found in any work environment. Whether it is an occurs regularly or from time to time, you as a team leader should be aware of it. Do not wait for your client to point it out to you. I have come across supervisors saying that they have already talked to the person or persons with performance problems and yet the next month the same people are still performing poorly, committing the same mistakes they had been doing the previous month. So what do you do? You point this out again to your supervisors. What do they do? They tell you that they will talk to concerned people again. This goes on and on. But what do you do when you find out that for the last six or so months, the same list of names are still performing poorly? Still have the same problems they had from the very beginning you pointed them out to your supervisors? What do you do then? What do you say to your supervisors? Clearly you have to ask yourself if your supervisors are tolerating the poor performance or fixing it? With these results, obviously, their 'talks' with the concerned staff have not fixed the problem over the span of six months or so but instead tolerated it. Talking to poor performers is the step to do alright, however, what you talk to them about and how you talk to them is the key to fixing poor performance. You cannot just say “I just wanted to point out to you that you are performing poorly by committing so-and-so stuff...so next time, do better.” Right, like that would help the person a lot! You need to be specific about what the person is doing wrong and tell them what the consequences are of committing those mistakes. Then ask them how they can do better. What can they do next time? Then seal the deal by pointing out that by next month, they should no longer have their name of the list of poor performers, committing the same mistakes. Remember that every talk you have with them makes an impact on whether you are helping them fix their performance problem areas or tolerating them. This where some supervisors make that mistake. When it comes to talking to their poor performers, the 'talk' is just what it is, a 'talk'. One needs to remember that it is all in the 'talk' that makes the difference of turning your poor performers to your best performers. Make sure you make the most of those talks with your team members. Talk to them, really talk to them, do not just tell them what to do but involve them in their journey of improving their performance. Then sit back and watch them grow into your best performers.