Over the past several weeks I have written about communication best practices, including most of the concepts that we (Pathways Training & eLearning) focus on when facilitating customer service or similar training, or through our suite of eLearning courses. To wrap up this discussion, here is a summary of the key concepts we covered which for the most part, dealt with effective communication within your workplace. The goal of interpersonal communication is to establish conn

Last week I continued to write about communication and interpersonal skills, a topic that was triggered by a discussion I was having with our programmer manager regarding the applicants we were seeing that were applying for the numerous positions we have available at Pathways Training & eLearning. As I also mentioned last week, while “excellence in communication” is usually a hi-lite of most resumes we see, we do not always share the same understanding as to what this really

Due to the continued growth at Pathways Training & eLearning, we have posted for multiple positions, including a posting for a programmer. As such a colleague of mine has have spent the last few weeks reviewing resumes from the potential candidates, many of which include a wide variety of skills and experiences. In speaking about this with my colleague yesterday while we were on a video shoot, he did point out that, there is one skill that 100% of the resumes mention, even

Over the next couple of weeks, I thought it would be interesting to hi-light some of the great courses offered by Pathways Training and eLearning, both ILT and WBT. For this week, we will look at one of our more popular instructor led courses, Excellence in Team Management. This full day course focusses on first ascertaining the level of managing experience of each participant, and as well their personal comfort level with the responsibilities of the role, hi-lighting what t

One of the things I really enjoy (when the opportunity arises) is talking shop with other training professionals as I am always eager to learn what is new and exciting in the world of facilitation, instructional design and eLearning. It was during one of these conversations recently that a fellow training professional that had been in training the past month, shared what we all agreed, was an excellent example of what not to do when leading a class. To summarize her story,

Recently a client was asking me about best practices for facilitator training and certification… and subsequently asked what processes do we follow at Pathways Training and eLearning, to ensure our facilitators maintain excellence in the classroom. I told them this was an excellent question, as this is something I am most passionate about. Pathways Training and eLearning employs only professional facilitators, who combined have spent more than 50,000 hours in the classroom, l

Only 25% of organizations believe that they are effective at training or sourcing training (Source: Trainers Advice) and many organizations get lured into offering generic courses that have not been customized to meet the real needs of their employees. There are options in the marketplace for off-the-shelf corporate training solutions, but to take full advantage of a training opportunity, custom training development is the way to go. You will never get the same attention to d

One of the things I really enjoy (when the opportunity arises) is talking shop with other training professionals as I am always eager to learn what is new and exciting in the world of facilitation, instructional design and eLearning. It was during one of these conversations recently that I was asked what led to me getting involved in professional training. For many when this topic comes up the answer can vary to everything from… being involved in training and education wa

Growing up I had a cousin who seemed to have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, so much so that whenever he came to visit us my Father would often remark “trouble just seems to follow that kid”. I feel the same way when it comes to attending an in-class training session…. if there is a bad facilitator out there, I seem to end up as one of their students. Now, understanding that with the advancements in eLearning the need to attend a course or info sessi

Generally, when we buy a game, we aren’t really thinking about the second or third time we’ll play it. We’re focused on the immediate goals of exploring our environment and seeing what things are available to us. We like to test out controls and get a sense for how difficult the game may be. What I’ll be focusing on is the time you spend in the end-game. While focusing on the end-game certainly eliminates some types of games from our scope, it’s still a vast subject. To that

Traditionally, a person’s intelligence was measured by a standardized IQ test which was heavy on questions addressing logical thinking, mathematical ability, pattern recognition, grammar competence, and deductive reasoning. This kind of testing is biased because it caters to a particular type of person while neglecting the skills and abilities of others. In 1983, Dr. Howard Gardner introduced the idea of multiple intelligences in his book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multipl

Members of my team and I recently sat through a client ‘pitch’ that was both enjoyable and noteworthy. Like any business, we are often asked to recite our ‘Elevator Pitch’ – that 45 second (or so) explanation about our service offerings, our value-add and most importantly what sets us apart from the competition. This is ‘sales 101’ stuff… so why I am bringing it up? A funny thing happened as we began walking through our core differentiators – I changed the talk track. I wante

In my previous post I commented at length about the harsh realities of today’s organizational politics and the childish interactions that result… but I did say there was hope… or at least I hinted at as much. Hope comes in the form of internal customer service and the good will it generates – that good will begets good politics. Much is made – and rightfully so – about the need to effectively service our external clients. But what about our ‘internal’ customers, should they b

Take a moment to reflect back. Reflect on those moments in time where you were most uncomfortable, most afraid of unknown situations in your life. What did you do? How did you handle them? Were you paralyzed with fear, unable to move past insecurities and doubt? Or were you able to fight through the situation and learn from the experience? We all have had feelings of uncertainty at times. Moments where we hold ourselves back from speaking up at work for something we believe i