Posts Tagged ‘Training and development’
Teaching Twitter
Posted on: November 10, 2011
- In: Development | Engagement | Training | Twitter
- 4 Comments
My main learnings are as follows –
- Having a co-sponsor for training sessions is brilliant: someone who is not from the same background as you, who ‘gets’ Twitter but uses it differently. This was enormously helpful when coaching two of the exec team who were particularly cynical about its value
- Think carefully about the language you use to convey the potential gain for those that you are coaching. They clearly won’t be interested in building an HR network, but they will take note of the fact that they can access opinion pieces and be ahead of the news
- Show them how to use it on whichever medium they are most likely to regularly use…for most of my coachees on their blackberry or Iphone
- Think about how to show individuals what is meaningful to them – hashtags that will be of interest for them to check out, how the business you work in or its competitors is already using Twitter, how it can build engagement between key groups
- Tweet questions to your followers so that you can demonstrate the interactive nature of Twitter
- Don’t over-hype or over-sell its value – it’s the quickest way to lose credibility
- Accept that it isn’t everyone’s chosen method of communicating, but that most people will find some gain from using it…or at least from understanding it better
- Expect unexpected questions – I was surprised that some of the questions centred more around how number of followers build up, rather than the mechanics of how Twitter works
- Remember that Twitter can be overwhelming, noisy and confusing at first for new users
- Follow up to find out if there is anything more they would like to know
- Even when individuals appear to be quite proficient at using Twitter, they are often keen to find out more and learn by asking questions
I’m going to be rolling out more training soon: to the rest of the exec team, to the global HR team and then to the rest of the business. The great thing is that I’m learning more each time I do it and am really enjoying it ;).
What have I forgotten? I’d love to hear about your experience of teaching Twitter to others too.
Learning To Change
Posted on: November 3, 2011
- In: Development | Feedback | HR | Management | Motivation
- 3 Comments
In advance of the management training for HR that will be delivered over the next couple of months, the team have completed 360 feedback questionnaires and the effect is already transformational. The conversations that it has opened, the reflection and self-awareness that it has brought, the willingness to accept feedback, adapt behaviours and to allow others the space to change and move forward have all been fantastic. It’s very early days, but the seeds have been sown for this to be a very powerful intervention indeed.
It’s easy to overlook the effectiveness of 360 feedback – in many ways, we ought to be able to provide feedback in a more regular way without requiring the formal framework. The fact is that sometimes we all need a bit of a nudge to articulate what we think is fantastic and less endearing about our colleagues…and that experiencing it together as a group seems to have created a huge amount of positive energy and goodwill. The timing of any 360 feedback exercise is undoubtedly critical to its success and it seems we have embarked on this at the right moment, where things are starting to come together and behaviours have not yet become ingrained. Fingers crossed!
I’d love to know what your experience of team 360s is and how you have energised your team…let me know 😉
The HR Juggler 