Welcome to SpeedTraining

At a recent Igniting Performance SpeedTraining Workshop we had an interesting discussion about the place of strengths-based development in organisations.  You know the theory – that generally we spend too much time and resources focusing on ‘correcting’ our weaknesses (usually things that we are never going to be that good at anyway), rather than identifying, and then further developing, our true strengths and talents – and finding a way to use these more in our work (and life). (more…)

‘Generation Y’, the collective name given to those people born approximately between 1982 and 2002, are the fastest growing sector in the world of work. By 2018 they will make up the majority of the workforce. They are confident; know what they want; are challenging and want to be fulfilled. They are happy to multi-task, collaborate; and communicate constantly and concurrently via smart phones, texts, instant messaging and social media networks etc.

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I’ve read with interest the debate over the last two weeks in the Sunday Times, “Entrepreneurs: born or made?”.  The debate centres on whether people with entrepreneurial skills are born with those skills, or can they be ‘made’.

Entrepreneurs seem keen to preserve their exclusive status. They believe they have innate skills, attributes and even, what Ken Burgess (of Sportsunite) describes as, a “special spirit”. Their view is that no-one else can simply learn these skills. Others, such as Nadia Finer co- founder of ‘More to Life than Shoes’, insist entrepreneurs are made. Andrew Hirst, senior lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University perhaps takes a more balanced view: he is quoted (Sunday Times, 11/7/10) as believing, “entrepreneurs are both born and made”.

What we notice in the organisations we work with (more…)