James Adonis – 12 Leadership Training Mistakes
Employee engagement expert, James Adonis first appeared on my radar several years ago when a friend forwarded his newsletter to me. James’ writing style and management style immediately resonated with me so I signed up.
Since then, I have recommended his newsletter to many peers and have also featured it as a best practice case study when I spoke about email marketing at EMSA in 2008.
I had the fortune of meeting James for the first time in person when he gave a seminar called “12 Leadership Training Mistakes” in Brisbane.
The 45 minute starter course was entertaining, relevant & useful. Without stealing James’ thunder, some of the things I picked were:
#1 reason people HATE their work is because of…. colleagues they hate! Yet by the same token, the #1 reason people LOVE their work is because of… colleagues they love!
So I guess it goes to show that show important getting the right mix of people is!
Another thing I picked up was that the normal literate human has an attention span of 10-12 mins.
Therefore in any presentation there is the need to cater to four (4) groups of people every 10-12 mins.
- Drivers – “they want the one most important thing they should know”
- Expressives – “they want to hear a story”
- Analyticals – “they want research and stats to backup any claims”
- Amiables – “they want to be part of a group – eg. group discussion, a game or role playing”
It’s encouraging to discover that James has learnt everything from practical experience not text books. James humbly explains that when he started out, like many of us, he was no natural, but he’s become an expert by making plenty of (humourous) real-life mistakes over the years. If you attend his seminar, he’ll share them with you!
We also received a copy of James Adonis’ most recent book, Employee Enragement: Why People Hate Working For You.
The book lists the Top 50 reasons people hate their work and it’s a result of James surveying 2,400 Australian employees!
If you’re interested in reading more, there’s a few chapters available for free.
Chapter #47: Poor Performance Managed Poorly
Chapter #39: Goals
Chapter #31: Rudeness and Unfriendliness
Chapter #15: Blame
Chapter #8: Team? What Team?
Plus on his website, James has been kind enough to offer seven (7) complimentary e-books worth over $100.
If James is speaking in your city, I recommend you pop along and see him as you’ll walk away with some practical ideas and above all it will be entertaining!
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