Do You Think Training In How To Overcome Workplace Challenges Is A Good Idea?

[peteblink]

Hi Everyone

Would you like to influence the direction of a new business? Would you like to help other women respond positively to challenges in the workplace? Well, read on.

My name?s Pete Reece and I?m starting a training and coaching company called blink. I?d really like to run a workshop helping women with some challenging aspect of their working lives and I was wondering if Mumsnet members could help me with that.

What do you think would be a good topic to start with? Work-life balance? Responding more positively to work pressure? Glass Ceiling issues? What do you think is the hot topic which most women would see as a good focus for a training workshop? Or do you think I should just do a workshop aimed at helping women with all workplace challenges?

My approach is based on cognitive-behavioural science i.e. how the messages we give ourselves affect our actions, and lots of tried and trusted common-sense techniques, all delivered in a friendly, informal and fun way.

Just so you know my credentials, I?ve been a stay-at-home dad for eight years and can empathise with many of the issues on this forum, hence the thought from me that it?s something I could really help you with through training and coaching.

So if you?ve got any ideas, please respond to the post and let me know your ideas.

Thanks

peteblink

With the greatest of respect, if you've not been in the workplace yourself for eight years, on a very personal basis I might hesitate to attend a training workshop run by you based on dealing with workplace challenges. I would wonder about your up-to-date experience of the realities of the glass ceiling, for example, or current attitudes and approaches of employers.

Just a thought. I wish you the best of luck but in your marketing I might be inclined to emphasise any training/coaching experience you have and experience in dealing with workplace challenges or advising other people how to deal with them, rather than your experience of being at home with the children, valuable although I'm sure it is.

Hope it goes well for you though.

Sorry, but you are a bloke who has not worked outside the home who would like to run seminars on how women can overcome challenges in the workplace?

How on earth can you know what you are talking about? How can your work experiences as a man in 2002 possible inform any advice you may give a woman who is working in 2010.

You are either stonkingly naive or arrogant.

No, a man could not actually appropriately deliver this training if it was about supporting women face workplace challenges, in my opinion.

Plus you haven't been in a 'workplace' for a very long time, so I wouldn't imagine you could teach me much, as I have.

It would be like organising seminars on how best to achieve all your life goals as a stay at home parent, when I have worked full time for donkey's years.

or me teaching parenting classes or being a breast-feeding mentor

I'd run a mile from anyone trying to inflict this kind of training on me! And a man trying to teach women how to overcome "workplace challenges" - you would come across as extremely patronising if you aren't careful.

I take it you've been reading Malcolm Gladwell...

Agree Patricia. It sounds like the kind of scheme run by David Brent tbh.

Thank you very much for your robust and honest responses! It was my mistake for leaving out important information.

Firstly, I am an experienced trainer and have designed and led my own courses in a number of areas in this country and abroad. My most recent course was to a group of female employees on initiative and proactivity. Feedback was excellent and nobody mentioned David Brent on the questionnaire!

Secondly, through my own experience of overcoming a major life challenge (a serious illness lasting four years) and studying the experiences of others in responding to adversity (ranging from concentration camp inmates to people surviving a recession), I have developed a series of generic tools which can be used to assist people facing all kinds of challenge and change. They are not tools specific to women facing challenges in the workplace but they have helped people respond positively to all kinds of adversity. They are based on a core set of principles
? learn to control the controllables
? choose your response to every situation
? take 100% personal responsibility for your future

I wouldn?t dream of standing in front of women telling them what their legal rights are in employment or how to get promotion even if their boss is opposed to a woman taking a particular job. The tools are generic, for all kinds of challenges, and the reason I could see an application for them in this arena is because many women (my wife included) feel that working life is extremely challenging.

So I apologise sincerely if I sounded patronising but if you can now see what I really meant then I would love you to give me some ideas on specific areas where I can use this. If however, you haven?t changed your opinion then I?m very grateful for that feedback as well.

How about a course for men, explaining how everyone in the work place should be entitled to equal pay, equal opportunities and equal respect?

You sound like more of a life coach to me Pete, rather than a workplace trainer. Your experiences are related to life in general rather than the workplace, and as posters have already pointed out I think you would have a credibility challenge in selling them as workplace-related.

You could perhaps look at life coaching for people who have been long-term sick and want to get back into work. Or how about life coaching/social sessions for stay at home dads? I really don't know how the life coaching market works and it is probably much more dependent on marketing to individuals rather than companies, and is harder to make money at.

Regarding your "tools", you could look at publishing a book with your ideas, as that would give credibility. Also, a publisher will be able to tell you if they fit into a unique slot in the market.

HTH

TBH, I would be put off any training course aimed solely at women. I think they perpetrate the myth that women should be treated differently. Plus, I don't see what's in it for you as a business as you'd rule out half your potential clients from the start.

You might have some success with general workshops about overcoming workplace issues, but I think you really need to be able to identify and observe the relevant workplace issues yourself in order to make your courses worthwhile.

Still running screaming the other way, tbh. I was subjected to one too many of these kinds of things at my (American) employer, and can't say I or anyone got much out of them.

As Squirrel says, I can't see why these are aimed specifically at women either. It's divisive and patronising.

I run training courses, and group and individual coaching of the type you mention. However I have never attracted any work by advertising workshops for specific genders or for specific issues - I think that to do so would be my perception of other people's problems.

When I do this type of work for companies it usually come about as part of something else e.g. from an influencing skills programme for people working in financial credit control, or from a generic management development programme which included a topic on managing difficult people. During these people raise the issues and concerns that are causing them to struggle, at that time in their circumstances, and sometimes it is approapriate to then go on to develop specific workshops on those topics, or to undertake some personal coaching.

Agree with the other posters though about advertising gender specific programmes when you are not of that gender. I have worked with, trained and coached many men, but I wouldn't think that I could explore issues specifically from their gender point of view. And if I went to a workshop on glass ceiling issues, run by a man (who may experience things very differently) I'd walk out (others may just feel patronised).

Good luck in getting back into the work market, I am sure you have some great experience.