Thursday, April 25, 2019

Training Tales

black swivel chair beside rectangular brown wooden desk

Like many management consultants, I've conducted a ton of management workshops over the years. They've provided many good memories. On the other hand, I recall:

  • When a client decided to change the name of the workshop to something entirely different (and not tell me). [I'm still baffled by that one and I'm sure the class was.]
  • When the hotel conference room had an outside wall that had partially collapsed. [We worked around it.]
  • When a hotel arranged a training room by putting the chairs for some attendees behind large pillars. [I vetoed that arrangement.]
  • When an attendee sat in the front row and checked off every time I mentioned a subject that had been promised in a brochure. [He wanted to make sure I didn't leave anything out. I didn't.]
  • When my night flight from Atlanta to Tallahassee was cancelled and the subsequent juggling had me on an early morning flight on the day of the training. As a result, I had to run from a cab right into the Tallahassee hotel's conference room. [But I started the class exactly on time!]
  • My favorite: When a five-alarm fire interrupted a large class I'd just started at a fire academy. Within one minute the entire audience had disappeared. [It was not a false alarm.]
Since I've been training for over 40 years, that's really not bad at all.

Lessons learned: You can only worry about so much and it helps to keep in mind that the day has brought far greater concerns to millions of other people. Roll with it.

[Photo by Changbok Ko at Unsplash]

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