Blog posts of '2025' 'July'

"All self-improvement begins with the humility to increase one's self awareness." I had a conversation with a manager last week that's stuck with me. Brilliant bloke, sharp as a tack, natural leader - the sort of person who seems to have it all sorted. But his team was struggling, and he couldn't work out why. "I've tried everything," he said. "Different approaches, new systems, even brought in external training. Nothing's working." The problem wasn't his methods - it was that he'd never looked in the mirror.

As trainers, facilitators, and HR managers, you know the frustration all too well. You deliver brilliant sessions, your delegates nod enthusiastically, they complete their feedback forms with glowing reviews – and then what? Six months later, you discover they've reverted to their old ways, making the same costly mistakes and poor decisions that brought them to your training room in the first place.

Did you know that our habits as trainers can reduce our delegates cognitive engagement by up to 30%? It's human nature, isn't it? We stick with what works. But here's the uncomfortable truth I've learned from my years in business consulting and executive coaching. What feels comfortable for us as trainers might actually be limiting our delegates' learning potential.

As leaders, we're constantly trying to crack the code of high performance. We invest in personality assessments, team-building exercises, and leadership development programmes. Yet many of us are still missing a crucial piece of the puzzle...

Picture this: Listening in on two seasoned facilitators, Sarah and Marcus, sitting across from each other in a bustling conference centre café during the break of a leadership development summit. Both have decades of experience designing and delivering leadership programmes, yet they found themselves on opposite sides of a heated discussion about incorporating Visionary Leadership Theory into their next training initiative.