Saturday, May 2, 2009

Drama


One of the statues in Auckland Museum

I returned from Palmerston North (PN) last Wednesday and that was my second business trip to PN. If you can remember, my first trip was in last December, when there was a bit of ‘drama’ because I forgot the main DVD. I almost missed my flight and the DVD got damaged by the courier company. You can read it here. On my second trip, I again suffered from DVD drama. Gosh! I guess I am just not lucky when it comes to DVDs.

Fyi, my Sales Training proposal was approved in March after it was ‘stranded’ for about 4 months on the Management table. The whole idea was to purchase a Sales Training DVD as the main source material and then I would facilitate the session internally. It was more cost effective compared to engaging an external trainer to run the course. I just needed to encourage the participants to have the right belief system, be in the right mental state, get them to model the right behaviour and ensure that they practiced the skills consistently. Hmmm … it sounds so easy and simple but it required me to work hard to sell the idea. Thanks to John Patterson (one of the Sales Managers) who convinced me that I already have good sales skills.

Sales Training Participants - from left, Jamie (the main coordinator), Tony & Lyndon

From Left, Ian, Keith, Grant and Collin (Sales Training)

To simplify the story, the drama started when the whole process was delayed until I had just 3 days to put everything together before the first session in PN. I needed time to internalise the material and to master the skills being taught in the DVD. Not only that, most of DVDs had problems with their labels. There were a lot of bubbles on them and it showed that the Company had not invested a significant amount of money producing the DVDs. Then, I realised that the workbook produced by the supplier was in a script format rather than a workbook that we normally use in training sessions. Just imagine watching the DVD and then finding that the workbook contains exactly the same words that you can hear on the DVD! Obviously, the participants would have been extremely bored if I had used the material.

Leadership Fundamentals participants in Palmerston North ( Group 8)

Customer Service Excellence Participants - Group 2

To make matters worse, I suffered from the flu, a fever and an eye infection during the last 3 days, which intensified the drama. I decided not to overwork myself. I just took some medicine and had a good rest. Otherwise, I might not have been able to go to PN. As a result, I had a sleepless night in PN on Monday and Tuesday in order to put everything together. No matter what, I couldn’t let the participants know that everything was done at last minute.

Customer Service Excellence - Group 3

And again, there was a last minute hiccup. No wonder I am losing more hair … ha ha ha. Anyway, the overall session ran smoothly and everyone was happy with the programme. In fact, they were impressed! For the first time I realised that I am not just lucky. This is the result of 13 years experience in Training and Development; the learning experiences that I have gathered from each session that I had conducted before, both good and bad.

For the first time in my life, I said to myself ‘Hey! You did a good job!’ and I gave myself a pat on the shoulder :-)

Ahau-Dee

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

And here's another pat on your shoulder.

You did excelent Dee, sooooo proud of you!

Lelaki72 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ahau - Dee said...

Thanks Wiz : )

Sambil tersenyum malu & tersipu-sipu ... ha ha ha

sekali sekala puji diri sendiri apa salahnya kan kan kan ?

Rush Murad said...

motif pic statue tu ek?

Ahau - Dee said...

kan statue tu pose ala ala drama gitu ... ha ha ha