Learning that sticks

The Natural Approach is best summed up in the following diagram. The whole point of our approach is that we ensure that we have three very important dynamics in place before we start with skills-based training. There is a further explanation below, starting with the top sphere, Natural Style.

 

 

1. Belief in your own natural style

Before we can transform human behaviour, we have to start from within, and that means we begin with an individual’s awareness and belief in their own natural style.

Your people need to believe in themselves, what they stand for, and their core purpose – which all act as a foundation for the next three stages of adult human learning.

The word belief here is critical. At Natural, we have some clever learning techniques to help your people to feel more deeply committed, engaged, and confident. This is a powerful development in the world of training. Starting with the heart first truly makes the difference. When we start with Natural Style, great things start to happen. The learning programme really comes alive. Your people will rediscover the warmth and personality that is so often hidden away at work. They will also gain a new found level of confidence and courage to bring their ‘A Game’ to work, every time.

A key driver to this is story telling.

Great stories have the ability to motivate a generation of individuals to go the extra mile and develop a strong, lasting connection to your company.

There’s a wonderful example of this during a visit by President Kennedy to the NASA space centre in 1962. JFK interrupted his tour to speak to a janitor, asking him what he was doing. The man replied: “Well, Mr President. I’m helping put a man on the moon.” He clearly understood the importance of his contribution and was energised by his role in the vision of the organisation that he worked for. Imagine the motivation and extra belief that this story gave others at NASA!

Stories inspire belief, and belief inspires change. That takes us neatly onto the second dynamic of our Natural Approach – your business.

2. Strong links to the reality of business

Once eyes have been opened to the power of natural style and belief, then the next stage of the change is to focus on your business. Too often adult learning, training and development programmes simply miss this important link. Or don’t hit on the right motivators behind it.

It is crucial for your people to truly believe in what you stand for – your brand, your products, your services and your people – and particularly, what their wider role is in that. We show employees how they contribute to the bigger picture – for example, every employee needs to understand exactly how they contribute to the commercial culture and success of the organisation.

Most people want to feel that they are part of something bigger than just their job – this is your business purpose, your mission, your reason for being.

Knowledge of how a business fits together is so important.  For example we encourage non-commercial staff to know the basics of a balance sheet and the way money flows in and out of your organisation. For example, a simple bit of mathematics can demonstrate ‘the multiplier effect’ – how a series of 5% marginal gains in metrics can lead to 50% revenue gains in your organisation. We help everyone to learn about key metrics, such as up-selling, shortening delivery lead times and obtaining a new customer referral. Additional revenue into existing relationships is quite often referred to as ‘the cream’, and for good reason.

At Natural, we aren’t afraid to make a strong link between training and business – in fact we love it!

The emphasis is on demonstrating how everything we do, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, in some way impacts your business, your customer’s decision to do business with you, and other metrics that are pertinent to company success, and the pay packets of everyone who attends our learning programmes.

3. Customer focus

The Natural Approach means that hearts are sold on our individual natural style and purpose, while eyes and brains are now wide open to the reality of business and sales. Now we can move with confidence onto the customer, because we need a strong empathy if other humans are to buy into us.

It’s important to use customer interactions as learning tools – every conversation and email exchange can provide insights into how customers think and what their current pain points are that require solutions. All of this is valuable information that may be fed back into the company to improve the customer experience and enhance your ability to meet their needs. The most commercially aware business cultures never shy away from the truth about what customers think – in fact, they seek out opinion with a tremendous hunger.

Seeking this knowledge and acting on it will always yield a solid return on investment. It is also a two-way street. As much as customers are educating you, you can educate them.

Every interaction with a customer is a chance to talk about industry trends, news about your company, great ways to use your products, product innovations and so on.

In order to provide an outstanding customer experience, your people will need to see the world from the eyes of the customer. The word for this is of course, empathy. True empathy can’t be faked. So, during our training programmes, we have some innovative methods to help your people to get really close to your customers.

• What drives them?
• What are their challenges?
• What do they want?
• What do they REALLY want?
• What are the 3 things that you do that annoy them, or delight them, more than anything else?

It’s also important encourage creative techniques that foster pro-activity – being slightly ahead of the customer curve!

Once we believe in our hearts, our business, and our customers, now we can move on to some skills-based training to drive phenomenal customer experiences.

4. Skills-based learning

The fourth, and final part of our Natural Approach is skill development.

It is usual for a training programme to begin with skills, but at Natural Training we believe that skills can only be effectively developed once the previous three dynamics are already in place – belief in ourselves, links to our business, and customer empathy. Skills are much more easily taught when these foundations are firmly in place.

The best skills are the result of natural talent development, and go way beyond standard ‘off the shelf’ training. At Natural we have over 250 techniques, concepts and ideas that are simple to learn, and will fit like a glove, because we have worked out what drives every single person on our training through intensive research.

We help everyone to discover the best parts of themselves, and we build around those strengths.

Clever skills development is all about offering a small, bite-sized piece of learning that suits natural and cultural style, and then providing a high-energy atmosphere for practical application. We help people to make strong human connections, actively demonstrating energy and interest. We help develop questioning and listening skills, and we have techniques to then turn that into outstanding expertise, advice and value.

We don’t get bogged down in theory, and always, always keep our training development programmes down to earth. We help you speak with confidence, using your unique cultural words, phrases and language – not borrowed from a book.  We help your people to develop new strategies to differentiate, and be proud of their chance to drive your company forward.

Contact us to find out more – we have real, natural, live humans to talk to!