I recently taught a group the first of a 3 day course on leadership and collaboration. I noticed they had a few of the ‘low energy’ moments that can happen in a daylong session. When this happens, the group is not getting full value from the learning. It’s the presenter’s responsibility to minimize the lows.

I had tried several approaches to maintain energy. At the end of the session I asked them, what worked and what could be better next time. They told me the session was fine, but I persisted in asking them what could have been better.

They said, “you gave us a few too many small group activities and work sheets — next time, could you answer more of our questions directly and work more from the slides?” I asked, “So, You want more instructive learning, vs. interactive learning?” They agreed and I thanked them for the input.

Learners give me some great feedback when I focus on them as ‘customers’. A great deal of their satisfaction/feedback comes from using interactivity and action learning tools. So what was different about this group? Every group is different — individually and collectively. At the start of our session together, I helped the learners set out their learning action goals, but we might have spent time assessing their preferred learning styles instead.

When you use solution focus in your teaching both as a learning tool and as a program content tool, your learners will notice a difference right away.

Here are a few Solution Focus tips for you to try out at your next presentation:

1. Assess what the participant’s preferred learning styles are by asking — when you had a great experience at a previous learning event like this, what worked?

2. Have learners talk about and scale their learning goals in the context of the work they will be doing in their workplace after the session. For example, I want to guide them in taking a more collaborative approach when we develop concepts.

3. Ask frequently — How do you see this being useful to you so far in the context of your work or with the issues you face?

4. Help them understand their accountability for the learning by asking — suppose you make the most of this learning at work, what will people see you doing to put it in action?

5. Do solution focus like role model exercises to let them see the learning and the ideas in action.

A recent study showed that there has not been enough government support for start ups. In this study, there was a differentiation between the types of start-ups. However, there was no quantification between start-up types. It would have shown what the motivation was for these entrepreneurs in starting a business. With an economic downturn and an extended financial crisis, it seems that a lot of new start-ups come into being in order to feed the family. In short, these companies were started because the owner was eased out or laid off.

For a cleaning service, this is most probably true. Business people would start cleaning business because there is a good markup for the business. A cleaning service can be a lucrative start up assuming that the business is run wisely.

When you start cleaning business, you have to remember that it is a business. You have to keep track of the costs and expenses. You have to market and sell your services. Since the business is still in its infancy, it has not yet established a name for itself, there would be more work in sales and marketing than in other parts of the business.

To start cleaning business, you have to introduce your company and its service offerings to the community or city. It usually doesn’t matter if there are more established cleaning businesses in the area. What’s important is for the owner of the new company to show that it can compete in terms of price and performance. Getting a foot in the door might be easy, but really getting the business and then holding on to it takes effort and a lot of commitment.

There are a lot of ways to market a cleaning service, but it takes perseverance and creativity to convert the marketing effort to sales. A first time client has to see that the new cleaning service can deliver on it’s promise. The cleaning company has to prove itself with actual work. The contract might be won because of the low price. But repeat sales and referrals would roll in only through exemplary work.

One advantage of owning your own company is that you can earn as much as you want or need. Your efforts and work done is almost directly proportional to the income you earn. The more work you do, the more money you take home. Of course, when you start cleaning business, there would be a lot of effort with a low success rate. This should be expected. Think of it as baby steps, you need to learn to walk first before you can run. In this case, each failed attempt is part of the learning process. At some point, your batting average should increase, which should lead to more sales and contracts.

When you start cleaning business, one advantage which you will realize early on is that you don’t need personnel who are college graduates for the cleaning crews. The disadvantage of that is the training your crew has to undergo prior to being sent to clean up an office or a home. What you need are trustworthy, trainable people who can follow instructions. Cleaning is a matter of following instructions to the letter. In doing so, they will be sure to do a thorough cleaning of the office or home. Additionally, doing things by the book will save you a lot of money because of prudent use of cleaning supplies.

Every organization makes an effort to be world class at what they do. With the saturation of like businesses in many markets, the difference between success and failure is often the pursuit of excellence. Organizations spend a significant amount of time and money focusing on initiatives to be the best. Sometimes the effort is met with success and sometimes it is met with a struggle and failure. A financial organization might bring in a customer service/sales consultant to train the staff on sales techniques and implementation of service standards. While I was in school I worked at a restaurant and attended a customer service standards class for the restaurant. I found the concepts to be interesting and motivating, but I remember walking away thinking “I can’t control what people do or say.”

For an improvement toward world class to happen, the employees must understand and be involved in the changes needed, they also need to have ownership in the initiative. There is a large push in business to standardize employee customer service. The goal is to eliminate that variable, the responses of employees. In a recent workshop I conducted the group had a long conversation about the challenges to get their staff on the same page and to follow the world-class approach. The group entertained the different techniques of moving from good to great. After much debate, the consensus was to not produce customer service scripts when dealing with the customers.

The group felt that by scripting the conversations with customers you eliminate the human element. This can be the biggest challenge, but it can also be the largest asset. The effect of having tight guidelines prescript responses to handling customers does guarantee the same response time over time. Although it may give you a standardized response, it often leaves the customer feeling insulted and the employee is not feeling any responsibility to being world class. When more and more rules are put in place, the less control an employee feels they have. That being said, if employees feel they have less control over outcome, they are less likely to “wow” the customer because it isn’t in their script. So how do you move your organization to world class?

promote and advance

To promote excellence every person inside the organization needs to be constantly improving and moving forward. There are constant forces pushing against the organization and the customers. There is a need in every organization to be steadily improving and pushing their standard bar. This does not imply every person should be training for their bosses’ position, but they do need to be stretching forward inside their discipline. There is one of three paths everyone inside an organization should be on.

Promote and Advance, Cross Train to add Flexibility or Learn within you the Discipline to be World Class.

The concept of, Learning within yourself the Discipline to be World Class, may have a different meaning to different people. When discussing world class recently, I asked how well the staff was doing and the resounding response was, “good”. But upon further conversation around what world class is, they quickly changed their minds and felt that although they were doing well they were not working at a world class standard. It is important to define what world class is. World class is not found on the job description but rather created to go above and beyond standard procedures.

Joining Priority Learning in 2008, Craig’s primary responsibility is conducting the array of public workshops, which leads to consulting assignments from communications to team development and everywhere in between. Craig attended the University of Southern Maine before joining the restaurant business in 1991. During his career in the restaurant business, Craig emerged as a leader and became a Managing Partner for Brinker International. The challenge of balancing the business needs with the wants and desires of the people are Craig’s strongest motivations. With his 17 years of experience and keen insight about people, Craig is one of the most popular facilitators and consultants at Priority Learning.