Thank God for Sundays

 It was a nerve-wrecking week of five straight days of training. The last two days, required almost 12 hours of undivided attention,  devoted to Leadership.

Thank God, we didn’t have training on a Sunday!

For me, training is important because of the value of continuing education that can still be learned while you are already working.  There is also the added benefit of networking with new  people specially if participants are from a cross-section of the organization. It’s a bonus if there are third-party participants so you can get instant feedback of how you are perceived in the outside world. Lastly, a perfect excuse to eat more since food and drinks are normally served in abundance to keep the participants happy.

In my experience, you can’t absorb everything that is taught in a seminar or training. The information overload may lead to the phenomenon called – Paralysis by Analysis.

To avoid this, I apply what I have learned in my continuing journey into the martial arts. It is a very simple philosophy which I have embraced - “ Absorb Only What is Useful”.   

Some topics in a seminar may not be directly related to your work, catalogue them in your brain as “For Academic Purposes Only” so it doesn’t overload your thinking process.  Some topics are resource-related  to your work, so make a mental note as “Quick References” and move on.  The topics which are key success factors to your work are the ones you tag as “Useful Information” in your brain and in your writing materials. Yes, I urge you to write them down. Use bullet points in writing, it saves time and allows you to focus on the discussion, not the act of jotting them down. The message here is to write them down so you won’t  forget.

The lessons in Mentoring and Coaching, to my mind, are the key items during the last two days of training.  To me they are important because it will prepare any individual that  you take under your wing to become a future leader.  Two very unique skill sets that require experience and maturity.

Mentoring is the transfer of knowledge or  technology  to an apprentice. It is an investment of time and patience on the part of a leader to do this task.  Coaching, on the other hand,  is the act of guiding the apprentice as he applies the knowledge he has learned from the teacher. This is a more daunting task. Coaching is about giving guidance yet allowing the apprentice to make decisions on his own. The decisions an apprentice makes, enriches his experience and he develops confidence. Coaching is about giving him a clear direction to a goal and you empower him to execute that goal.  It is in  the execution of the apprentice to reach that  goal that a coach  has to follow-through