Not all Satori moments are so illustrative. In fact, most of them seem quite uneventful and carry an almost unnoticeable burst of energy. However, once an aha! moment happens, something iside us shifts and the mind never goes back to its original state. This, in my view, is the true definition of learning, a series of aha! moments, no matter how insignificant they seem while experiencing them.

Most learning, as we call it today, consists of loading information into our minds, putting more stuff on top of the stuff we have already collected. The Satori learning happens through the gaps between our thoughts from which the Universal mind can flow.

—

I have created an interactive page, called Satori Quotes or The Aha! Moment, with some quotes that are meant to give us a glimpse into that which is beyond the mind. Some stop us in our tracks where our minds stop working and we experience a sense of calmness, a feeling of emptiness, a void, a gap. Some give us a bit of a shock and perhaps cause us to laugh or be amused. Some cause us to read the quote a few times or cause us to close our eyes before we can take their full meaning in. And some are just regular old quotes. Read about them here.

I don’t know if you know, but I don’t watch much TV. I especially shun all forms of live news, because I don’t want to get drawn into those infinite news cycles with their never-ending stories.

I love presidential politics, however. That’s why this past weekend I stuck my head out of my no-news cocoon just long enough to steal a glance at the political scene.

There are many parallels between presidential elections and business. (There are differences too, but that’s a topic for another day.) I first wrote about this in early 2008, during the democratic presidential primaries and again after the election in late 2008.

I want to be ahead of the curve this time and put those lessons to test. After all, what good is a theory if does not help forecast the future?

My initial read is that Mitt Romney’s campaign may be in serious trouble for these three reasons: 1) he has a weak message, 2) his delivery of that message is inauthentic and uninspiring and 3) two of his opponents have much stronger messages and can deliver them with more passion and conviction.

1) Weak message

You may remember that there are three ingredients - 3 M’s - that a presidential election, and a business, must have in place for it to be successful. These three ingredients are 1) Message, 2) Man/Woman Power, and 3) Money.

The most important of the three is Message. In other words, if the message is strong, it will attract people and money. But a weak message cannot be overcome by large amounts of money or the people behind the campaign.

A good message has three components: 1) What you would get if I was elected 2) Why you should believe that I can deliver that promise, and 3) Why I am the best option to deliver that promise over my competitors.  

The business corollary is: 1) What you would get if you bought our products or services, 2) Why you should believe that my business and I can deliver on the promise and 3) Why my business and I are the best option for you to have the above things delivered.

The stronger, more specific and more detailed the answers, the stronger the overall message. The better the narrative, the story and the personification of the message by the person delivering it, the more logical and emotional connection it creates with people.

Mr. Romney’s message is weak on the first component and questionable on the second one. It was quite strong on the third component until last weekend, when Rick Perry entered the race.

2) Inauthentic, uninspiring personification of the message

The messenger is at least as important as the message, perhaps more. The messenger, whether it is the presidential candidate, the business owner or a sales person working for a business, must personify the message, and connect through the message with the hearts and minds of people, not just relay the message handed down to her.

When a message is not true to the messenger, people see through it and we are perceived as inauthentic and insincere, even phony.

Mr. Romney looks and feels like a slick salesperson who will say what you want to hear to get the sale. He comes across as inauthentic even though we know that he has most of the right credentials for the job.

3) Opponents with authentic messages and inspiring delivery

Politics, as business, is a competitive game. To win, you don’t have to be perfect, just better than the competition. As long as the competition is weak and you are strong, you are assured a victory. But when you have a competition that is stronger, you have to work harder.

Michele Bachmann, while regarded by pundits as not having a broad-based appeal, has one thing that Mr. Romney does not have, and will probably never have, an authentic message that is true to her convictions and resonates with a strong base of supporters, however small in numbers.

Rick Perry has an authentic message, an engaging, passionate delivery that comes from his deep conviction to his message and a resume that backs up the primary claim of his message: job creation.

Lessons from the past

Mr. Romney’s campaign reminds me of Hillary Clinton’s in the summer of 2007. She, like Mr. Romney, had people and money in place but lacked the most crucial thing: an authentic message that deeply resonates and causes a movement around the candidate.

What to do?

Can Mitt Romney fix his message? Certainly, if he chose to buckle down and go through some intense, honest self-analysis, first by himself and then with his advisors.

Is he likely to do it? No. Why? Because it’s not in his nature. In other words, self-analysis does not come to him very naturally. If it was his nature, he would have done it by now. If he did not do in the last four years, when the pressure was off, he is unlikely to do it now when the pressure is on and getting more intense by the minute. I don’t see how his campaign people would let him ease off his busy schedule and allow him to lock himself up in a room for some hours every day so that he can truly figure out what he is all about. More importantly, I don’t see how he will allow himself to do it, simply because that’s not something that he would rather do if he had a choice.

What about Barack Obama?

While we are on the subject, where does Barack Obama fit into all this? Well, he has the same problem that Mitt Romney has and Hillary Clinton had in 2007: A lot of money, a great team, but a weak message.

What I find interesting is that what was Mr. Obama’s biggest strength in 2007 and 2008 is now his biggest weakness. In 2008, his message resonated with hundreds of millions of people and caused a movement around him that ultimately put him in the White House. This time around, a consistent message has been almost non-existent from the Obama Campaign.

If there was one thing that he can do for his reelection campaign right now, it would be to buckle down and hone his message.

Would he do it? I think that Mr. Obama is more likely to do it than Mr. Romney. Why? Again, because self-analysis comes to him naturally. In fact, being contemplative is probably one of his very basic needs. He may have even carved out enough mental space to allow him the opportunity to reflect, even in midst of his grueling schedule as the president. Also, the fact that he did it so effectively in the last election should give him plenty of confidence that that’s where he needs to focus his attention.

Here is some unabashed, and unsolicited, advise for Mr. Obama’s campaign.

To have an effective message, Mr. Obama needs to look for one thing that American people care about the most and make it a corner-stone of his campaign. A good bet is the economy. Then he needs to paint a clear picture of what he expects things to look like in 5 years in that area and what it will mean to Americans. Then he needs to lay out specific steps that his administration has already taken in the direction of that vision and those that they will continue to take if he is reelected. In other words, he needs to layout a logical, step-by-step path to recovery that would have been followed by his administration all along and will continue to follow after the reelection.

He also needs to emphatically and unequivocally point out all the mistakes that he thinks he has made, which will allow him to also lay blame on others where appropriate and claim credit for the things that his administration did get right. In other words, he needs to be ruthlessly honest, authentic and direct. Lastly, he needs to lay out a case for why he believes that reelecting him, and not his opponent, is the right choice for the American people.

Would it guarantee his victory? No. Could it generate a new sense of enthusiasm around him? If done right, yes. One thing is certain though, without a strong message, Mr. Obama will have to rely on a weak opponent, and that’s not a good place for him to be right now.

What about you?

Whether you are a business owner, a business leader, a worker-bee in the corporate world, a social organizer or a householder, you have a personal brand. A question you might want to ask yourself is: How do people perceive me?

• Are you perceived as an authentic human being or a slick salesman?

• Are people engaging with you in meaningful conversations or are they avoiding you?

• Is there a passionate movement around you, however small, of excited well-wishers, including clients and prospects or are you surrounded by people who are indifferent to you and your message?

I have written quite a bit about the process of creating an authentic message for you and your business, products or services. Read more here: Want to Jump Start Your Sales? STOP Marketing!

Need help? At Awayre, LLC, we help businesses carve out an authentic message based on their unique strengths and weaknesses, a message that resonates in the marketplace and helps them create an engaged community of people who are eager to do business with them. For more, information contact me at bhavesh@awayre.com.

9. Avoiding a Return On Analysis on the Training Programs You Invest In.

Buying intangible stuff, like training programs, is hard to cost-justify, for a good reason. It’s hard to know whether the investment made in a training program turned out to be a good one. With the hard stuff we buy, computers for instance, there is some comfort in knowing that even if the purchase did not work out as expected, we at least have the physical possession of the goods. We can get someone to fix it. In the worst case scenario, we can give it away or use it as a door-stop.

Not so with training. If it does not “work,” you lose all of your investment, with nothing to show for it. Worse, there may be other intangible losses to bear, such as reputation, credibility and that promotion you were shooting for, simply because investing in training is considered a risky business to begin with. When buying tangible stuff, we can allow ourselves to get away with a relatively smaller return on investment, say 20%. But buying training, especially soft skills training, is a different matter altogether.

There is good news though. There is so much inefficiency locked up in human behavior that it’s relatively easy to look for and find situations and scenarios where you would get at least, and I say at least, 3 times the return on investment. If you hire out your training, a competent training company should be able to help you create a program where such an ROI is the target.

If they say it can’t be done, don’t hire them. I say this with confidence because the only clients I accept are those where we expect 3 to 5 times the ROI, minimum. If it’s not feasible to create such a scenario, I turn down the business. In most cases, we can find scenarios where a high ROI is not only possible but logical, even common sense.

10. Viewing Training as a Commodity.

What’s a commodity? It’s a product or service that is identical in its features regardless of who you buy it from. In other words, it’s something that you can comparison shop from multiple sources because the only thing that’s different in getting it from different sources is its price.

Some business people pride themselves in being great bargain hunters. They take three bids and get the bidders to fight amongst each other so they can get the lowest price possible. This may be a good strategy when buying certain products and services but not with training services, which in most cases is a not a commodity. Office supplies? Yes. Building materials? Possibly. Training services? No.

To avoid viewing training as a commodity, you must tie training to actual, measurable improvement in the behavior of the people being trained and the results they produce.

“How do you ensure that training will produce a sustained change in behavior?”

“How do you translate the results of your training to the financial results of the organization?”

“How do you make sure that these results are validated in tangible, measurable terms?”

When training is bought as a commodity, you miss an important opportunity to ask these questions, first to yourself and then to the people who would be delivering the training.

11. Expecting Training to be Easy and Comfortable.

Most mainstream training institutions go way out of their way to make their students as comfortable as possible. No wonder they have to serve so much coffee in their training rooms!

Have you ever played a sport? Were you comfortable when you played it? Most likely not. Even if you were playing a board game, you probably were not very comfortable, as sitting up sometimes causes minor aches and pains. But if the game was really good, if it really absorbed you, you wouldn’t notice the discomfort as the joy of playing the game far exceeded the physical discomfort that came from playing it. Good training programs are like a good game. They engage you, grab you, absorb you and immerse you. And when the training session is over, the participants are a bit disappointed that it’s over.

Children don’t feel threatened by learning because they don’t have much to “give up”. In most learning experiences for the adults, they have to give up something that they thought they knew so that real learning can take place. That’s why, effective learning will inherently include some discomfort.

When training organizers work hard to provide a physical environment that’s comfortable and non-threatening, it’s an indication to me that their training is going to be boring, uninspiring and un-engaging that no amount of caffeine can overcome. Nowadays, if people serve me coffee when I attend a training session, I get concerned that I am about to get powerpointed, lectured or talked down to. That’s when I get the seat right next to the door so that I can sneak out if I have to.

In most workshops I conduct, I make it a point not to serve coffee unless the participants ask for it. And if they do ask for it, it’s an indication to me that perhaps I need to change something in their learning experience.

At Awayre, before recommending any training, we assess your people, your processes and their effectiveness in helping you get the results you desire. We also audit and assess your existing people development and process improvement programs to determine if they are helping you achieve your business objectives. Find out more at http://www.awayre.com. If you have questions or comments, please send them to me at bhavesh@ambica.net.

Here’s the full list of training mistakes that I have covered in this and past articles. I have also been compiling these seperate articles into a small report (or a big article). Shoot me an email at bhavesh@ambica.net and let me know if you would like to receive it and I will email it to you. 

1. Failure to Commit to a Single Philosophy or Methodology.

2. Thinking “Training is for My People, Not for Me.” Or “I am ‘Above’ Training; It’s for My People.”

3. View the Trainer as Subservient to You.

4. Training is Conducted to Fix Hiring Mistakes.

5. Wrong Training is Delivered to Wrong People.

6. Putting an Underperformer in Training and Hoping that She will Outperform Your Top Producer.

7. Expecting a “Graduation Date” for Your Training Efforts: Certificate Mentality Versus Learning Mentality.

8. Putting All Your Money in Technical or Skills Training Versus Human Side of Training.

9. Ignoring Doing a Return On Analysis on the Training Program You Invest In.

10. Viewing Training as a Commodity.

11. Expecting Training to be Easy and Comfortable

In 15 years of working with businesses, I have witnessed many assessment initiatives, many of them quite successful but quite a few of them that were not so successful. The good news is that it’s not too difficult to spot, right at the beginning, which ones would succeed at getting the desired results, and which ones would fail.  Following are some ways in which assessment initiatives fail with some ideas on how to correct them.

1) Address only one or two of the human dimensions.

Human beings are fascinating creatures. They have many facets. One could argue that they have infinite number of facets. I believe that people are impossible to “figure out” with computer based tools. And yet, I also believe that such tools can be enormously helpful in effectively working with them.

As far as assessments are concerned, human development consists of three phases: 1) Nature, 2) Nurture and 3) Applied.

The Nature dimension addresses those traits that we are born with or genetically predisposed to at birth. The Nurture dimension addresses traits that are a result of our social and parental conditioning, most of which happens after birth through our formative years. The Applied dimension is what’s consciously developed by a person on her own volition.

Most assessments address only one of these three primary dimensions and do not tell a full story. In my observation, most assessments in the marketplace address only the first and the third dimensions, Nature and Applied, largely ignoring the second dimension, Nurture, which has tremendous impact on the behaviors of a person. Such fragmented assessments lead to improper labeling, poor judgements and incorrect use of people’s skills, gifts and talents.

Awayre’s assessment tools cover the full gamut of these three phases of human development. That way, you are assured that you are not using fragmented, incomplete or one- or two-dimensional data in assessing your people. Visit us at http://www.awayre.com for more information.

Realistically speaking, a typical business is a mishmash of the two modes. In some of parts of it, it operates in the first mode. In others, it operates in the second. Sometimes the business swings between the two modes, looking for a “groove” that it sometimes finds but in many cases, does not.  

The First Mode: Ad-hoc, Seat-of-the-Pants Mode

The shortcomings of the ad-hoc, seat-of-the-pants mode are:

• Lack of predictability and control over the business’s success, profits, revenues and growth.
• Anxiety and insecurity on the part of business owners, executives and leaders as well as its employees
• Lack of clarity, focus and confidence.
• Lack of a well-planned, charted course.
• Lack of discipline.
• Lack of order and organization, resulting in stress and insecurity for everyone involved with the business.

Such a business is typically an under-performing business with high turnover, anxious people, and even more anxious leaders.

The Second Mode: Structured, Lifeless Mode

The problems of the second mode are:

• The business is a lifeless machine.
• Human creativity, wisdom and talents are is stifled, even crushed.
• The business operates at a fraction of its optimum performance because it is not utilizing the full potential of its people.
• People live a frustrated work-life because their full potential is not unlocked and realized.
• Result is an under-performing business with high turnover and mediocre revenues and profitability.

A business typically starts in the first mode and then “graduates” to the second mode as it becomes successful in the marketplace. Yet, such success is not lasting as there is always another business that will take advantages of its weaknesses and outperform it.

The Third Mode: Awayre Mode

There is a third mode. This mode is not a combination of these two. It’s not even a balance between these two. It’s a different approach altogether.

In this mode:

• Intelligence, wisdom and talents of its people is used to create systems and structures as they do their activities.
• The structures of the business are inherently designed to not only “exploit” the inherent talents, wisdom and creativity of its people but also to nurture and bring out those that are yet undiscovered.
• The business gets stability, predictability and control of the structured approach yet retains and, in fact, enhances the potential of its people so that the business can grow profitably.
• There is no differentiation between the structures and the people. They are one and the same. Its structures are a part of the people. Its people are an integral part of the structures and processes.
• What connects structures and people is the “Aware/Conscious/Purposeful Habits.” A habit is unconscious by definition where we do activities without consciously thinking about them. Conscious Habits are those habits that have an added dimension of awareness or consciousness. That’s why, it allows for the people to change them in a given situation.
• Built into the business are mechanisms for changing people from frustrated individuals to those who willingly to change their habits.

Anatomy of Awayreness

At the heart of the Awayre mode are 7 human faculties that could be thought of as 7 concentric circles, one inside the the other, like ripples of waves from a water drop.

Starting from the innermost to outermost, these layers are:

1. Inspiration Point
2. Knowledge/Wisdom
3. Social Identity
4. Intellect
5. Emotional Engagement
6. Energy/Vitality
7. Actions

When a business’s foundation is as deep as the Inspiration Point of its people, it performs at levels unheard of before. When a business’s boundaries are defined by the Consistent, Habitual, Aligned Actions - Awayre Actions - of its people, it can predictably and consistently repeat that high performance over a long period of time.

Granted, the Awayre Approach may not be the right approach for every business or organization. The first step to discovering whether it is appropriate for your business or organization is to go through Awayre Discovery Process. In this process, we take you through a questionnaire about your business’ unique challenges and opportunities and prepare a custom report - Awayre Quotient Report - for your personal use. Visit Awayre, LLC at http://www.awayre.com or contact me at bhavesh@ambica.net for more information.

“Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.”

~ Thomas Huxley

Have you ever played a sport like tennis, golf or soccer? Do you engage at all in recreational sports like skiing, biking or rock climbing? Did you ever play a board game like Monopoly, Game of Life or even Chutes and Ladders?

Since I was a little kid, I wanted to play tennis. One Friday evening a few years ago, a burst of inspiration hit me. So I went to the local bookstore and bought a book called Learn How to Play Tennis in a Weekend. I read the book cover to cover over the weekend. I called my friend, Craig, Monday morning and asked him if he wanted to play a game of tennis with me. “Sure,” he said, “but I didn’t know you played tennis.” “I do now!” - came a confident reply from me.

A little bit about Craig here. He is no Wimbledon Champion by any means, but he had won many tournaments in his days of college and had stayed reasonably fit after graduation. So when we got to the tennis court, it took him exactly 10 minutes to get me to the point where I had to be picked up off of the floor of the tennis court. We remained friends afterwards, but I never picked up the racket again. And I still don’t play tennis.

“Truth comes out of error more readily than confusion.”

~ Francis Bacon

I jumped into starting my first business in pretty much the same way. I struggled a lot in the first year of business. Luckily, I was able to make some changes in the second year that allowed me to do much better for the next five years reaching 2.5 million in revenues in 1999. I ended up selling the company. Then I started an internet startup, raised some venture capital and ended up folding it in 2001. I have had some ups and downs in my life. So I have some stories to tell. These ups and down forced me to do some deep soul searching around the years 2001 and 2002. What I found out was that my real passion was helping others build their businesses. And I was good at it.  My current business is my third one that I formulated in 2002 and have been building since.

Back to business. I am sure you have heard the statistics: something like 95% of the businesses fail in the first five years. What you may not have heard is the other statistic which says that about 80% of those who do stay in business, 4 out of the 5 of the 100, never achieve the kind of success they thought they would achieve when they started the business. Which means that only 1 out of 100 business builders actually end up building the fabled business of their dreams. And these statistics are from before the great recession of 2008-2009. The post-recession statistics might be much worse. 

“We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others.”

~ Blaise Pascal

Do you remember the time before you started your business? May be there was a time you were thinking about starting your business and you asked around for some advice. There is a pretty good chance that you heard two kinds of advice.

One was some version of “Don’t Do It”. These words most likely came from family and friends. They obviously were not being very helpful and encouraging. In fact, after you started your business, there is a pretty good chance that these “naysayers” around you became a pretty big liability for you as you went about building your business.

But the other advice you may have heard, in my opinion, might be much more damaging and, in fact, dangerous. This advice is: “Just Do It.”

I know. I got that advice, too. And I took it. Now I cringe every time I hear it. Why? Think of it this way. If you don’t know how to box and get in the ring with Muhammad Ali, how long does it take before the knockout? About 10 seconds? If you’re lucky! That’s what many of us do with starting our businesses.
You see, the reason why so many of us fail at building a successful business is very simple: We Don’t Know How to Play the Game - the Game of Business-Building.

“Education should no longer be mostly imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities.”

~ Maria Montessori

The school and the college, and yes, our MBA degree, didn’t prepare us to be business owners. They prepared us to be employees: nurses, doctors, engineers, lawyers and even vice presidents, CFO’s and CEO’s. Nothing wrong with that, except that if we expect the traditional educational system to teach us the skill of business-building, we are very likely to be disappointed.

Here’s what I mean. Learning a skill, like business-building, is a journey from the head, to heart, to gut and then to actions. You see, building a business is not really an intellectual exercise. It’s also not just a physical or even an emotional exercise. It’s a combination of it all. It’s a skill. It’s an art-form.

The reason why small businesses are failing is because most business owners who start their businesses are entering the business arena at the novice level while other businesses - their competitors - are playing the same game at the expert level. They are entering the tennis court without having ever hit a ball across the net and their competitors are tournament champions and trophy winners. They are entering the Karate competition at the white-belt level while their competitors are 4th degree black-belts. They have never been into a boxing match before and yet they enter the ring to fight with a heavy-weight champion.

“Don’t just do it. Know what you are doing.”

~ Bhavesh Naik

Now, I am a realist. In my experience in helping more than a 100 business owners develop their businesses, I know that most people who are about to start their businesses will still jump into it prematurely, regardless of what statistics say. Entrepreneurs are notoriously hard-headed. And to an extent, that’s a positive quality. They will need that sense of supreme self-confidence to hack it in the world.

My message is really meant for those business owners who have been at the game of business-building for a while. They are the ones who really “get” what I am talking about here. They have experienced the trials and tribulations of building a business. That’s why, they are more open to my message.
But they have a serious dilemma. Many, if not most business owners accept and recognize that they need to continue to develop their skills in business-building. But they don’t have the luxury of taking two years off and disappearing onto a college campus. Even if they did, it would not help much because the world of academics is far removed from the real world.

They need to learn how to build their business while they are engaged in the process of building it. They need the intellectual help - the best practices and principles of successful businesses. But that’s only 25% of the way to mastering the sport of business building. They also need help in internalizing that knowledge by engaging with it emotionally, making it a part of their gut system and taking meaningful actions. As I like to say, they need to take the knowledge from the head to the heart, from the heart to the gut and form the gut to the actions.

“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”

~ Albert Einstein

What business-builders need is a change in the mindset, a shift in thinking. If they went from merely building a business to learning how to build one, the actual building of their business will happen almost as a by-product.

One of the sports I love is Martial Arts or Karate. Karate has intricately woven both the Art and the Science of the sport together in a system that could be taught and learned, step-by-step, incrementally and by practicing it. In other words, Karate is more about how to fight, rather than actually fighting.

Business-builders can take their inspiration from this model. They can treat their business not just as the means to achieve their dreams – which, of course, it is - but also as a way to learn how to build a business, by building it. When they do this, they can easily detach themselves from the act of building a business and see it as a sport they enjoy, a sport they look forward to playing every Monday morning.

“I am not a teacher; only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead–ahead of myself as well as of you.” 

~ George Bernard Shaw

Want to experience business habits in action? Join us at our next 360 Business Club “business workout session” where you get to practice business-building with like-minded business leaders.

This audio is about 12 minutes long - you can listen to it by clicking below. Let me know by email at bhavesh@ambica.net if you have any reactions to it!

7. Expecting a “Graduation Date” for Your Training Efforts: Certificate Mentality Versus Learning Mentality

Most certifications are intellectually driven. Meaning that they are designed to get you to the point where you can “pass the test.” Nothing wrong with that. The only problem, though, is that you have gone only one-fourth of the way to mastering what you are learning. True learning takes you from head to heart, from heart to gut and from gut to actions.

The certification training works great in the academic world. Unfortunately, academics by itself can’t change your behavior or the behavior of the people in your business. If behavior does not change, your results won’t change.

In fact, I believe that the mastery of a new level of behavior and new level of results does not happen during training. It happens after the training, in the real world, applying the stuff that was taught in the class. A test is logical, step-by-step and ideological. There a “right” or a “wrong” answer; there is pass or fail. Real world is not so pretty. Real world is often messy, unpredictable and inconsistent.

That’s why, mastery requires that we not only cognitively understand the material but can also apply it artfully and skillfully in the real world. That’s why, real training and learning require life-time commitment. And that’s why there is no graduation in real learning.

8. Putting All Your Money in Technical or Skills Training Versus Human Side of Training

Have you ever been annoyed by an overly confident computer guy? Have you ever been irritated by a know-it-all engineer? Have you ever been in presence of a techie who made you feel dumb because he was so smart? If you did, you most likely experienced the results of over-training of technical skills.

It’s a very strange phenomenon. The more technically competent a person becomes, the worse communicator, leader and a team player she becomes. There are psychological reasons behind this phenomenon that we don’t have the time to get into just yet. But we don’t have to understand psychology to know when we are dealing with a poor leader, communicator or team-player.

When we send our folks to technical training, we gain more technical competence, certainly. But more often than not, we also get a less competent leader, a poorer communicator and a worse team-player. It appears like a trade-off. We trade technical skills and competence for human skills.

To temper such a tendency, we must “balance” every technical training with some soft-skills training, such as communication, customer service, self-management, time management, interpersonal communication and so on. The rule of thump is that for every hour your folks spend getting technically trained, they should be spending another hour on the softer side of things, improving their human side of skills.

Here’s the full list of training mistakes, those that we covered in the past and those that we will soon cover.

1. Failure to Commit to a Single Philosophy or Methodology.

2. Thinking “Training is for My People, Not for Me.” Or “I am ‘Above’ Training; It’s for My People.”

3. View the Trainer as Subservient to You.

4. Training is Conducted to Fix Hiring Mistakes.

5. Wrong Training is Delivered to Wrong People.

6. Putting an Underperformer in Training and Hoping that She will Outperform Your Top Producer.

7. Expecting a “Graduation Date” for Your Training Efforts: Certificate Mentality Versus Learning Mentality.

8. Putting All Your Money in Technical or Skills Training Versus Human Side of Training.

9. Ignoring Doing a Return On Analysis on the Training Program You Invest In.

10. Viewing Training as a Commodity.

11. Expecting Training to be Easy and Comfortable

Want to experience business habits in action? Join us at our next 360 Business Club “business workout session” where you get to practice business-building with like-minded business leaders.