Category Archives: References

The ONE BIG POINT for any kind of leader (spoiler: It’s Covey’s first habit)

“You don’t have to be a “real leader” to be a leader.” At least, that’s what one of the participants in my training told me this week. 

But I disagreed as soon as I heard the beginning of his story. Because he IS a real leader. So I told him that. 


“Yes, but I mean: I wasn’t leading a real team of people towards some real kind of objective” he replied.


… and that’s where he told the story that makes my ONE BIG POINT here.

“I was sitting at the dinner table after lunch on Sunday and my little girl told me she was still hungry. She always wants more than anyone else,” he added. “Normally I start making offers of things she could eat and, of course, she replies that she doesn’t like this or that or doesn’t want some other thing. But this time I did something different.”

When I asked him what, I was particularly happy. Not by what he actually did, nor by the “result” achieved. But by the fact that in only his first day of training with me the week before, he had got the ONE BIG POINT I want all training participants in my my leadership courses to get.


Yes, there is a ton of stuff you can do to be a good leader. And even more things you can put your focus on at any given time. You can set clear mission statements and align people to them, you can help people with motivation, create strategic action, coach and give good feedback … etc … etc…


But that’s not the ONE BIG POINT.


“So what did you do?” I asked.

“Well first I did what we learnt” he replied. “I stopped and I thought for a second. Just to break the natural cycle. I realised I didn’t want to do the things I normally do that lead to the results I normally get.”


So I asked again: “Cool. But what DID you do?” and he told me he simply said to his daughter that she should go to the kitchen and figure something out for herself.

“Really?” she replied with a big smile.
“Really!” he said. And off she went.


Then came the pure gold: He was about to get up and follow her to the kitchen when he asked himself: “Do I REALLY need to go and watch her? Do we REALLY to talk more about this?” Again, he slowed down his natural reaction just a little …


“Have fun!” he told her, his bum stuck solidly to his chair. And indeed, she did.


So this is my point, THE ONE POINT : 

(Remember, its actually Covey’s first habit, but I figured if I acknowledge that and totally agree, I can say it’s my ONE BIG POINT too right?)


It doesn’t matter if you call yourself a “real leader” or not, if you have a formal team to manage, a family you love or a some other group of people you work with. It doesn’t matter if you do things one way or the other, just like it doesn’t matter if you tend to focus on the “tick-in-the-box”, KPIs or service-level agreements, the well-being of people or the development of their competences.


What matters is that if you just slow down a moment, stop and bring some focus to what you DO want, what IS going on and ask A FEW GOOD QUESTIONS, you’ll already be doing a lot better than a lot of “leaders” who just jump into their natural (often) unconscious behaviours.


“Well played” I already thought…. But the story wasn’t quite over yet.


He told me that about an hour later his daughter came proudly back to the family with a chocolate cake, a smile and a cuddle for Dad 🙂


Well played again, I thought 🙂

That’s a great leader!

(Dedicated to Hans)

Thanks for reading 

If you are interested in joining one of my training sessions or helping your teams to get a better grip on leadership or other topics, have a look around and see what captures your interest. Check out the “About Me” page and don’t be afraid to “Contact Me“. Hope to see you soon !

Creating customer delight

In December last year, I delivered some training in Poland for the European Graduate Programme of one of my clients. Arriving at the hotel after a stupidly long-day of airports and travel, I discovered 2 things: The hotel had a spa with pool and I really should have packed my swimming trunks 😦

 

I asked if the hotel could give me some (clean) trunks from lost-property. With a big smile and much sympathy, the lady at reception told me they could not. But she did offer to arrange a taxi to a large shopping centre just down the road. Already tired, hungry and not motivated, I declined and added: “It doesn’t matter. It’s not a problem.”

 

At that very moment, the hotel general manager had just arrived. He asked “Is everything OK?” and I told him that everything was perfect, I was just disappointed not to profit from the pool at the end of a long day. He looked me straight in the eyes and said: “I will go to the shop and buy you some trunks. What size would you like?”

 

As a polite English man, I felt this was too much to ask and replied that it was OK, not necessary. Again, he looked me straight in the eye and added “I want to help you and I would like you to be able to really profit from our hotel. Please, let me go.”

 

And he did.

 

While he was gone, I ate a great Indian room-service meal and wondered how I would deal with paying for the trunks, whilst not having it on the hotel invoice I would be sending my client and accountant.

 

45 minutes later, a knock came at the door and a smiley face gave me a package: Wrapped in Christmas paper were my new Adidas swimming trunks with a note that they were offered with the compliments of the hotel and wishing me a good stay.

 

In this example, the service was amazing. Conscious of my situation, the hotel went way beyond the standard to satisfy my needs. Since that day, I have been telling everyone about this hotel, posting videos and comments on their Facebook page with my great review.

 

Of course, not everyone can give their time (or swimming trunks) for free. And customer delight doesn’t necessarily come from giving (in) to everything your customer asks. But if you are in the business of serving clients, there is surely something to be learnt here: Whatever your work and whomever your client, are you (not) delivering against expectations or are you creating delight and loyalty with real care, long-term relationships and results?

 

 

ps – when I went back to that hotel last month, I found an inflatable swimming pool ring and arm-bands waiting on my bed 🙂

 

 

Video tools, apps and tips

It’s the final concurrent session of ASTD2014, we are going to make a video. It should be easy, (almost) free, relevant and successful. Bring it on Stacy Bodenner!

 

So, your CEO comes to you and says “Make me a film for our 30th anniversary”. You have a USB microphone, a webcam and $300… *

20140507-134525.jpg
* I’m secretly hoping to beat this budget, but frankly, it’s not much of a cost to off-set if you will make more than one film

 

Tools you might want

 

What apps or software can I make video with?

  • ScreenR allows you to capture whatever is on your PC screen + add audio. Easy and intuitive.
  • MS PowerPoint if you just want to convert your PPT slides into simple video – make it less text-driven and feel free to use some animation. Click on “send to”..
  • Vine app if 6 seconds is enough for you
  • Animoto app if you want to use videos (Vine included) and photos already on a smartphone or tablet
  • MS Movie Maker (free on MS) allows you to trim video, add photos, sound and transitions
  • Garage Band if you want to make your own music. It’s easy, even if you are not a musician and don’t have instruments. Honestly! Cost about $6. Or just get on Creative Commons for a list of free legal music sources…
  • If you want a a full editing suite at about $12 on ipad, try Pinnacle (formally known as Avid Studio)

 

Little tips

  • Make a storyboard in advance to think about what you want to show and say
  • Use the rule of thirds for set-up of your picture frames
  • Avoid having light coming through windows onto your subject’s face
  • You can use MS PPT slides to make logo images or backgrounds or transition slides
  • Render your video in the highest possible quality
  • Keep your videos short … 30 to 90 seconds
  • Take the time to add some title or closing text

 

See also my tips from Matt Pierce at ASTD2013

Thanks for reading!

 

Techniques to engage people when you facilitate change

Dutch actor, coach, trainer and speaker Juanita Coble kicks off session #W110 on change and the importance of engaging people in the process. Welcome to ASTD2014 day 4…

 

According to Coble, Neuroscience tells us that when people are uncertain, they move into an “away state”. This accounts for many of the negative reactions to whatever change is going on.

20140507-093443.jpg

 

Starting with a role-play, Coble took the stage as an actress, playing the role of interim director, Mrs Smith. “She” wouldn’t answer my questions, “she” was very direct, seemed to think she knew it all and was overly positive, but in a strange fake way. Telling us a story about making lemonade, “she” just talked, talked, talked…

Following Coble’s stage moment, session participants were invited to play a role and discuss their reactions to the change with “colleagues”. My character (who I will call “John”) saw it coming. He had already been looking around and had an interview planned for a new job. Other participants played other roles (although I still don’t know what instructions they received).

 

Thinking about one of our own changes, Coble asked us to make notes in answer to 3 different questions: “What has to go?”, “What should stay” and “What is needed?”

As the session moved on, participants were really encouraged to express their feelings about those things. For the “go” things, we wrote them on a piece of paper, crunched them up and threw them at the speaker (I was thinking of Mrs Smith 🙂 screaming “good riddance”. For the “should stays”, we simply discussed with our neighbours.

For the “what is needed?” question, we were invited to think of a “happy ending” to the change story. This could be more or less creative, either a literal ending to the story or a more figurative, romantic, novel ending. For my own “home-selling” change story, I thought about some kind of fairy-godmother coming to me in the night to reassure about how things we’re go. When our speaker asked me what my story-ending was, I told her. She asked me how I could get that. I answered. She asked me what I was going to do about it. The “coaching approach” got me thinking for myself and really helped me to identify the real problem going on.

 

How do you convince leadership that this kind of dialogue is necessary?

Coble says that the proof is already there from NeuroScience. Davis and Rock from the NeuroLeadership Institute told us that people need “certainty” and “relatedness” (as well as other things) to be able to really integrate new change and new learning. If they don’t feel sure about things, or feel misunderstood, they will probably not get onboard. If they don’t do some “metacognition” (thinking about thinking) it won’t be anchored as it should be.

I have heard many people say that “coaching is a luxury we can’t afford”, yet the benefits of getting people to think for themselves have been widely documented and include better retention, satisfaction, creativity, responsibility…

 

What other things can we do to get people involved in the change process, or to facilitate sessions when change is happening?

A distinction must be made between involving people in initiating and defining the change, and helping them to face a change that is going to happen in a certain way. During the session, I was mostly focussing on the second type: How can you get people onboard for a predefined change, getting them engaged and responsible?

Coble gave a list of several options and we brainstormed more:

  • Use of social-media platforms to create discussion and sharing
  • On the job training
  • Classical discussions, one-or-one or in group meetings, really taking the time necessary
  • Rehearsal sessions with managers, helping them play-out the communication with people role-playing different reactions
  • Role-play
  • Multi-platform communications
  • Sound fragment dilemmas – essentially this involves recording the change-agents involved if defining the change as they explain what’s going on as they think about the change and drive the process forward. Those who are “following” the change are then invited to listen to those recordings as podcasts to get more insight on the feelings and motivation of others. I see no reason why this could not be done for recordings of anyone in the organisation, as this would help everyone to get a better sense of what is going on with others.
  • Fast-forward theatre – the idea of having actors come in to play scenes showing what things look like in the future, when the change is properly completed
  • Corporate “family constellations” which I do not feel I can do justice to in text on this blog. Please follow the link.

 

We then focused on one other specific technique that got my attention

A friend and colleague of mine, Oisin Varian, has occasionally talked to me about the value of visualisation techniques. In today’s session, I experienced the power of this first hand. Juanita Coble asked us to close our eyes and think about a future 10 years from now, when our own personal “change example” is properly completed.

With a few guiding words from the speaker, I imagine myself coming home one day from work (new home), opening the door and seeing my eldest daughter (now 18) on the sofa, talking to a friendly looking boy. My other 2 daughters were in the kitchen with their mother, doing homework, chatting and making food. I walked in relaxed and smiling and greeted everyone at the start of the evening. As I did this visualisation exercise, I started to yawn and relaxed the tension that had been in my shoulders all morning. Now, admittedly, I have been very tired at the end of 4 days of conferencing, but as I saw this new environment and my family, I had a tear of happiness in my eye.

Coble then asked “future Dan” to imagine he was looking back at himself today and think about what he would say to him about the change. My answer? “Relax. Don’t worry about all the details. Stop running around trying to make it all perfect. What you are going to get is nothing like you can possibly imagine today, and it’s going to be great.” I yawned some more.

I found this exercise very powerful and listening to other participants saying what they would say to themselves from the future, I could see that this technique wasn’t only working for me. Many people were feeling more (self) understood and self-assured. They also named quite clearly what it was they needed to focus on in the current moment of (difficult) change.

 

Put all these techniques together in a good way and you can create engagement

I believe that. We all know as managers and trainers that we have to take time to listen to people when facilitating change. Coble gave us the tools. First class session.

 

See also:

 

 

How to convert your learning into story, step-by-step

Following a sweet true-story-based and lovely introduction from Aaron Stroud, his wife Katie takes the stage to tell us about story for learning during session W202 of ASTD2014. She said that when she researched the topic herself, she found a lot of information about the importance of story and it’s benefits, but not much about how to actually go about developing a story for learning purposes. I’m glad to hear this, because I had the same experience. Of course, I have lots of little story-examples that I occasionally use to illustrate a point in training. They work well, people remember them and they can create some thought, humour and emotion. But what I want from this session is to find out HOW to turn a process of learning activities into a thin-red line that can enhance the learning experience across the training…

 

Katie started by telling her own rags to riches story * When listening, I was drawn to hear more and I started to like her more. (My neighbour said it didn’t really do anything for her). Stroud said that story activates the brain. It touches the senses and emotions. Because more of the brain is activated, it is more likely to be remembers and integrated.

* There are many other types of story (boy meets girls, Hero’s Journey …) which we are not necessarily going to see here.

 

To start making your story, you need first to define the problem in story-terms

  • Background – my story is about an IT consultancy company. People have strong technical skills, but they aren’t capturing new opportunities that arise for time-to-time.
  • Setting – in my world, the employees of this company are distant from their own company colleagues. They work on client-sites. The client’s building is very quiet, badly lit and “dry”. The workers on the client site don’t really talk to each other much.
  • Conflict (the problem that stops us from success) – there is no time to talk, our hero is nervous and introverted. He doesn’t feel connected to or supported by his company while he is at his client-site. He doesn’t really feel like he can “win” or grow. He is unsure about how to proceed.
  • Climax (the reward moment, when it all works out)
  • Resolution

 

Then add detail about the suffering that is going on in the story

  • Place it – where does the problem happen? My hero is at his desk, “hiding behind his computer”.
  • Define it – what exactly is the problem. My guy gets a question from someone (his client) that he wasn’t expecting. It’s not part of his job and he feels uncomfortable dealing with it. Given his slightly introverted nature, it feels like unwelcome noise in his ears. “Please leave me alone to work”, he thinks.
  • Scope it – what is the extent of this problem? For my guy, it’s not the first time he has felt like this. In fact, it happens in other social scenarios too. When he is with his few own good friends, everything is fine (albeit a bit geeky!). But when he has to talk to strangers (or a girl!) he doesn’t really know what to say.
  • Solve it – define how it would be if everything was fine. My hero would breathe gently, relax, smile and look up (come out) from his computer to give his full attention to the client get to know what’s going on and then be able to confidently send an email to his business development manager detailing the situation, values and needs of the client.

 

Now define the characters

  • Hero – the person in the story that is going through the problem and will come out differently at the end. He may also save a victim. My guy is Paul. He is an IT developer. He is usually quite quiet and tends to feel most comfortable with people he knows, talking about things he understands well. He has been working for 5 years since school and doesn’t feel like a “high-potential”.
  • Victim – the one who is really “dying” in the situation. He needs help. He may even be attacked by a villain. I thought about a “rubbish guy who has no friends”. He always eats alone. He will never grow in his function. Our hero doesn’t want to end up like him in 5 more years.
  • Supporting characters – the other people in the environment that have some kind of impact in the story (or competence problem/solution). I have the onsite client who is a normal business man who just wants good solutions. Friendly, to the normal extent. We have the client receptionist who is a nice young lady who has all the kinds of skills that our her ones, but doesn’t need them in her work. And we have an extrovert sales-guy from our hero’s firm, who is pushing (in a nice way) for more leads.
  • Villain – the person (or “thing”) who has the behaviours that are going no to hinder the hero in his quest for success. In my story, this is the IT developer from a competing company. He’s not a bad guy at all, but if our hero doesn’t achieve his goal, this guy will.

 

Katie proposes that you don’t use real people from your business in the story, but focus on character types, personalities, (in)competence etc.. There are some classic personality types you can bear in mind: Dominating people, passive people, manipulators… She also noted that you don’t need to literally translate the story. In my case, I could have taken the story entirely out of the IT world and just used a “boy meets girl, but can’t get to know her” story as an analogy. Given the wish to integrate this story into a training with an existing client in the IT sector, I preferred to “keep it real”.

 

Choose the story model you need to make your point

With the background in mind, each story has to have 4 phases: Setting, conflict, climax and resolution. But they don’t have to be presented in that order, or in the same way. There are 4 models ways to proceed.

  • The first model under consideration is used for introducing something new in your training, like a skill or attitude. Here you need to focus on the climax phase at the beginning of the story. You talk about the moment when the problem is being solved. This will help to introduce the behaviours and attitude required to achieve success. Of course, in this story model, we may go back in time to the status-quo as the story/training evolves.
  • For technical skills training, you need to put a lot of time into characters early. This will create more empathy from the learners. How you proceed through the story phases noted above is flexible from there on.
  • If you are trying to get better adoption of something new (process, solution, tools) where there is resistance, you need to focus on the resolution phase first. This will help to build the feeling of potential benefits (of the new thing) for the learner and build an image of a better world when the change is completed. Yo ur can compare this to the visualisation exercise seen in Juanita Coble’s session.
  • If your issue is creating memory, you need to focus first more on the territory of the story (background and setting), using good memory-enhancing skills. If you can do this in a visual way like Hans Rosling does, you’ll definitely achieve this!

 

Can everyone create a good story?

Having gone through the exercises in the session, I have the feeling that there may be one major barrier for instructional designers and trainers to actually get started with this. Personally, I am loving it and finding it very easy. I like new ideas, I find it easy to think of analogies, be a little out of the box and go through the steps. But not everyone can do this, or like it. * During the session, many participants were asking closed (yes/no) questions to the speaker. For example: “Could the villain be “time” rather than a person?” The fact that they didn’t just say “I think the villain could be time, rather than a person” seemed implied to me that people were feeling uncertain about their ideas, needing reassurance.

* Interestingly, whilst taking us throughout the steps, Katie used story to introduce us to a friend of hers (Eric) who hates to learn new things and finds it difficult to do what she asks. He suffers, he pulls his hair out and doesn’t know what to do. Very clever meta-approach to her session!

 

OK, so where exactly is THE story?

If you read this blog and think I still don’t have a story, you may have missed the point. We are not writing a novel here. No-one in a learning environment today would read it if we did that anyway! We are also not talking about making a full “Who moved my cheese?” type training workshop, bade exclusively on the story. The story IS the characters, the setting, the conflict, climax and resolution. How and when you present during training it is up to you:

  • Occasionally, you might actually tell a part of the story as an introduction to a training moment
  • You might have a PowerPoint slide with one of the characters + a speech-bubble mentioning a problem he or she has, which you use this to generate discussion about the required approach to the situation
  • You might do a role-play at one moment where the trainer or a participant plays one of the characters so that another participant can show us how the hero should act
  • You could implement some of the ideas from Anders Gronstedt’s session on TransMedia Storytelling

 

…and if you do the things and do them well, you will have a thin-red-story-based-line which learning participants can relate to, may feel emotional about, are more likely to remember and more likely to learn from.

 

Good luck!
D

 

 

5 reasons why Dan Steer and Barney Stinson are the same person, by Christophe Schmitz

During a recent presentation skills training, one of my participants suggested I was like Barney Stinson from “How I Met Your Mother”. At the time, this meant nothing to me, as I had never seen the sitcom. 2 weeks later, I received a spontaneous email from another participant of that training, Christophe Schmitz, containing this text-based presentation…

As a side note, I’d say he learnt well 🙂

Enjoy!

 

 

Presentation by Christophe Schmitz…

Hi and Welcome to this absurd “presentation”.

One well known rule to make a high impact presentation is “know your audience”. Dan spoke about this during his presentation skills training at CSC.

And what better way to know people in the audience than knowing their entertainment interests? It could be a song, a book, a movie or even a sitcom .. whatever … People like and retain such things because they recognizes themselves in it …  And it probably reflects their personality.

 

Most of Dan’s training “audience” at CSC were born in the 1980’s (except me and Dan himself). They didn’t know “Top Gun” [we will talk about this later ] but they did know “How I Met Your Mother” (HIMYM)

During training  … one of them said:

 

You know Dan, you kinda look like Barney Stinson in the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother”

 

..but Dan didn’t get it. He’d never seen it. Hence this “presentation”.

 

So: Does Dan Steer look like Barney Stinson ? Let’s see…

 

 

5 REASONS WHY DAN STEER IS BARNEY STINSON

 

 

Similarity number 1: They both like tweetable messages .. and both love how the word “Awesome” sounds

 

barney stinson awesome

 

Barney Stinson once said awesome is the answer to everything (video)

What does Dan say?

Here’s just 2 excerpts from his blog

  • “Follow my blog by entering your email address… Its free and its awesome “

 

..and if you’ve ever followed Presentation Skills training with Dan, you have heard this word a hundred times!

 

 

Similarity number 2: They both have “Awesome” presentation skills

If you’ve ever seen Dan present, you know he’s great.

…but Barney Stinson elevates presentations to a religious level. For example in his insane theory called the “Ewok appreciation” he explains the only obvious reason why his girlfriend Nora couldn’t like possibly like Ewoks (video)

As a side-note:

 

 

Similarity number 3:  They both “Air graph” [*]

(*) Air graph” is to presentation, what “air guitar” is to rock ‘n roll : It’s the ability of an individual to draw graphs in the air using nothing but its fingers and arms to mime an invisible graph.

We all know Dan Steer does this regulary in training 🙂 Often in our late-night CSC training sessions, lazy-Dan would stay seated and sketch out an entire graph or model with only his hands.

..and Barney Stinson definitely has the same skill (video)

 

barney stinson air graph

 

Similarity number 4:  Awesome Synthesis capabilities

Just like Dan Steer can resume your entire presentation of 15-or-more minutes in one minute, Barney Stinson can recap the entire sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” in less than one minute (video)

Similarity number 5:  They are both huge TOP GUN fans

If you’ve never seen Barney suit-up Top Gun style, watch the video here

…and everyone knows Dan Steer’s famous iPhone ring: “Top Gun Anthem Instrumental”

As I said in the introduction, movie interests can tell you a lot about people’s personalities 🙂

And so, to end this “presentation” (as Dan told us to), let’s summarize the 5 similarities:

  1. Tweetable awesome expressions
  2. Awesome presentation skills
  3. Awesome air graphs  !
  4. Awesome synthesis capabilities
  5. Awesome TOP Gun passion

In conclusion… Dan Steer and Barney Stinson are the same person !

And that is why knowing your audience entertainment interests can be of major importance

Thank you for your attention

Christophe Schmitz

 

 

ps from DAN: When I read this post, I thought I must check out HIMYM and I’m hooked. Thank you Christophe 🙂 Barney IS awesome 🙂

LinkedIN Praise for ASTD2013 TU306

If you are wondering what this post is all about, read the introduction post here…

The following are comments from the LinkedIN group associated to my ASTD2013 ICE session TU306: Practical Use of Social Media for Formal Learning.

You can also see the tweets here..

Thanks for reading!

D

 

Hazel Jackson started a discussion in my LinkedIn group for TU306:

What was your highlight from Dan’s session in the ASTD conference yesterday? Mine was his energy and the ability to keep over 100 people in the palm of his hand at the end of a long learning day.

 

Here are some answers from the group…

  • Joelyne Marshall • My highlight was the looooonnnngggg list of resources he provided. Anyone can incorporate SoMe into their training – big or small. Thanks for asking!
  • Amy Kinnaird • Yep. Great resources and ideas for before, during and after training. Oh, and the box of chocolates I won was pretty cool, too!
  • Gloria Ortiz, MS IPT • I have to say that the resources are the biggest takeaway that I had in the training. I know that I will be learning for the next few weeks as I go through everything. Also, the resources being online mean that it is easy to share with people who had to stand out in the hall and couldn’t get in.
  • Lisa Metcalf • Dan opened up several doors for me regarding SM. So thank you, Dan! The practicality of using SM with our learners without it requiring heavy technical knowledge was exactly what I needed to see in action. My experience is that people try things without purpose and it turns people off to all things SM, which has happened to me many times. Now, I feel like I will be able to find the happy medium.
  • Carol Pickering • Dan sparked so may ideas on how to use SoMe before, during and after training. Can’t wait to have the opportunity to implement some of these. Even got our HR staff excited about using SoMe in the onboarding process! Dan, next time bring English sweets and chocolate!!

 

ASTD2013 TU306 LinkedIN group

Praise for my session TU306 at ASTD2013

The response to my speech during session TU306 at the ASTD International Conference and Exhibition in Dallas this year has been overwhelming and extremely touching.

 

Over 20 people took their time on Wednesday to interrupt my attempts to stalk Karl Kapp and steal JD Dillon‘s iPad charger with handshaking, thanks and congratulations. Several people said TU306 was the best session they followed, one told me I was destined for conference greatness and another said I ought to be on the keynote stage. I have received invitations to speak in France, Switzerland and even New Zealand …although the latter was not sure she would fly my kids out too 😉

 

What follows is a blatant attempt to blow my own trumpet, but also serves as a thank you to all who took the time to positively stroke my ego via Twitter during and after the session…

 

Please read the following posts:

 

…and if that wasn’t enough compliments for me, I had a few mentions in post-conference blogs of other people:

To collect references related to my session on the practical usage of social media in formal learning:

 

Finally: If you want to read my posts from other people’s sessions at ASTD2013, just click on the ASTD2013 tab in the menu top-left.

Thank you again for your support.

 

See you in Vegas for TechKnowledge 2014 and Washington DC for ASTD ICE 2014!

D

Twitter praise for ASTD2013 TU306

If you are wondering what this post is all about, read the introduction post here…

The following are tweets received during and after my ASTD2013 ICE session TU306: Practical Use of Social Media for Formal Learning

I’ve put in italics before each tweet the Twitter handle of the person who sent it

You can also read feedback on the LinkedIN group here…

Yay for me 🙂

 

Some words of encouragement before the session

 

Praise received during the session

 

Praise received after the session

 

Thanks again everyone!

#Proud

 

 

The impact of Dan Steer on your everyday life, by Tim Van Acker

Tim Van Acker followed my Leadership Foundation training at the University of Gent in June last year and apparently I’ve been haunting him ever since 🙂

What follows is a short article Tim wrote to share with other members of my LinkedIn group “Leadership Foundation”, where previous participants and people interested in the topic can share references outside of training. I think some of what you can read here is a great example of getting and staying in Flow – a wonderful story of intrinsic motivation and awesome success, despite drawbacks and a very busy life. As a fellow marathon runner, I know what it takes and Tim has done a great job!

As a side-note, my insurance broker asked me to underline that I can take no responsibility for injuries sustained outside of training with me 🙂 Any further attempts to complete a marathon remain unsanctioned 🙂

 

In June 2011, I followed Dan’s “Leadership Foundation Course” at Ghent University. During one of his classes on prioritizing, Dan stressed out that if something is really important, you just do it. If you don’t do it, it means it isn’t important. This struck me, as I always said to myself “one day, I will run a marathon”. Up to that day, I didn’t run it, it was one of the things on my bucket list, something I wanted to prove to myself but I hadn’t done it yet… Was it really important to me? I didn’t want people to mock me as “the guy that runs a marathon with his mouth but not with his legs”… So, on that very day I made the decision that in 2012 I was going to run a marathon!

 

I had some running experience previously but I never ran further than 15km. In August 2011, I started training 3x a week to run a half marathon. I accomplished this goal in November 2011. It was hard, but I enjoyed the race and achieved my time goal as well. Ok, this was only half the distance I needed to run and winter was coming up which makes training harder… I decided to maintain my level of training throughout winter and spring and use summer to get in shape for the complete marathon.

 

In April 2012, I needed to pick the marathon I was going to run. I felt I needed something big, not a race where only 5 people and 6 horses are watching. So I enrolled for the New York City marathon. This was it, the registration was final, my flights were booked, I had some supporters to join me, now I really had to run the race, no way back… I had my physical condition tested in the University Hospital in Ghent and via a mutual connection, I got in touch with a multiple Belgian marathon champion. My new coach did a test run with me and gave me a schedule for 6 weeks after which I had to do a test over 5km to see how my progress was. We are now August 2012. The schedule consisted of 5 trainings a week: 2 interval training (very fast and exhausting), 1 very long and slow training and 2 recuperation trainings. As I still had my daytime job to do and I’m also involved in a contemporary dance group (for which I have to train 3 evenings a week), I knew I was going to be busy the next couple of months… Some days were quite hectic: getting up at 6h, starting work at 7h, finishing at 18h, going home and eat in a quicky off to dance class, returning home at 22h, suiting up for a run of 1 and ½ hour, taking a shower and going to bed at 1h. But I really wanted this, I wanted to run the marathon, I wanted to prove to myself I could do it, I wanted to be an athlete and I wanted to be able to say “one day, I ran a marathon” instead of “one day, I will run…”.

 

Six weeks later, my coach was happy with my progress and adjusted my training for the next six weeks. He really wanted me to perform at the best of my ability so the training volume increased. In November, I felt ready for it. My physical condition and confidence were peaking, I was going to conquer New York! Until hurricane Sandy arrived… The race was on Sunday 4th of November, we wanted to take a plane on Monday to adjust to the hour difference but Sandy made it impossible to leave… Our flight was rescheduled to Friday. Less recuperation time, but I still felt confident and motivated! We arrived in NY, retrieved my runner’s number… and found out just 15 minutes later that the marathon was cancelled… I have never felt so disappointed as I felt that moment. Three months of training, all for nothing…

 

The next morning I decided that this wasn’t going to stop me: I was going to run a marathon and I was going to run it as soon as possible! The same day, I signed in for the marathon of Valencia which was held 2 weeks later. I contacted my coach and he adjusted my training schedule. Back to the training ground…

 

Two weeks later, after all the training, the disappointment, the new trainings, I was more motivated than ever before. I was going to Valencia and I was going to give it all I’ve got! And so it happened that last Sunday November 18th, I finally did it. I ran the marathon of Valencia in 3h 23min 59sec. I was hoping for a time under 3h 30min and I achieved my goal. During the race, after 32km, I endured a pain I had never witnessed before but I kept going. Pain wasn’t going to stop me, everyone was suffering at that point, I had to succeed. Despite of the pain, I enjoyed the race. The atmosphere was great, especially during the last kilometer. When I entered the “stadium” were the finish line was and I heard the roaring sound of the crowd, my legs felt brand new and I sprinted like reborn to the finish line. I was an experience I will never forget, for that one moment I really felt like an athlete at the Olympics with thousands of people cheering for me. Once I crossed the finish, I was barely able to walk normal and I thought to myself “When did I ever had this stupid idea to run a marathon??!!”. But a couple of hours later, I was thinking “Actually, this was pretty cool, I might do it again one day…”.

 

To conclude, after a course of just one week, Dan Steer controlled my life for almost a year… Thanks Dan, for triggering me to really go for my dreams! I suffered I don’t know how many hours in rain, wind and cold on the road, but I enjoyed every minute of it! And perhaps even more important than finishing the marathon (of which I feel so proud), I now feel like I can accomplish everything I want! It really was an experience I will tell my grandchildren about and I all started one day in a class room at Ghent University with Dan Steer…