Oh dear, what a boo boo!

I was having a bad day, several things had gone wrong, I’d had a spat with my partner and was in no mood for more aggro. Then came the email. Sent to me from a large training company I was doing a lot of work for, the email queried why I’d sent only four of […]

Richard & Marina

As I head towards my 25th anniversary as a freelance trainer, my mind finds itself going back to my early days in the business and my first major client – a large regional newspaper group on the south coast. I’d made contact through a mailshot and follow up call, and was invited in to meet […]

A not so golden rule

Imagine you are working at an airport. It’s a small regional airport and an outgoing flight with 100 passengers waiting to board is indefinitely delayed owing to a faulty plane. As the evening wears on, the shop and cafeteria close and the passengers become increasingly tired and hungry. Eventually, you decide to take an initiative. Thinking […]

To know or not to know?

The girl on the Personal Impact course I was running asked me “What if I don’t know the answer when a colleague or customer asks me something?” Afraid that her credibility would be blown, she was worried that not having the answer to something would stand against her. However, there are likely to be times […]

Grrrr……

In recent weeks, three things have happened that have left me baffled and frustrated. I’ll go through them briefly, one by one: I contacted our boiler engineer asking him to pop round to stamp our boiler service book, as I couldn’t find it when he’d been recently to service our installation. Having left a voicemail […]

The times they are a-changing?

This coming June, I’m off to the Isle of Wight Festival, along with my fifteen year old son and his pal. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are the main draw, although I daresay, I’ll also do a spot of leaping about to The Specials. I needed to contact the ferry company as I had a […]

Politeness is all well and good……

“Say please, say thank you” – this is the mantra of many a parent during their youngsters’ formative years. They are the two base words for being polite. They are good words, and perfectly appropriate in all manner of situations. They embody good manners. Yet, I happen to have quite an issue with the notion […]

Happy landings?

Chatting the other day to an employee at Heathrow Airport, the conversation turned to the incident a couple of years back in Boston when the pilot of a passenger plane averted disaster with his superior piloting skills. All the plane’s automated systems had failed and he had to bring the plane down manually. His quick […]

A man from NASA and the toilet attendant

Theres a lovely, simple story – possibly apocryphal –  that goes back to the 60’s about a janitor working at the US space agency (NASA). He was asked by a visiting diginitary what his job was. The janitor replied: “I’m helping put a man on the moon”. This blog is published on a Monday morning, […]

Underground soul

A man arrived late for a course I was running. He explained that he’d been stuck on an underground train on the Central Line for 40 minutes. He said the experience was great. Sideward glances around the room, along with your’s truly at the front feeling baffled as to how to take this – did […]

Veneers & maggots

Pitching up to run a course in a large impressive looking US bank in the City of London some years back, I was astonished to experience something that was anything but impressive . Frankly, it was a mess, right from the moment I arrived: There was a mix up over training rooms, they couldn’t find […]