Communication training often has little effect on desired results.

Until you know what you want to communicate and why, learning how to communicate better isn’t all that helpful.

The purpose of communication is to elicit a desired result.

Show me a person with a message to convey, a desired result to achieve, or a desire to understand, and I can help that person improve his or her ability to communicate.

Leadership training often has little effect on desired results.

Until you know the direction you want to go and why, learning how to lead better isn’t all that helpful to anyone.

What makes any person a leader is his or her ability to achieve results and enlist others into achieving desired results.

Show me a person with the ability to establish a specific direction for his or her own life, and to proceed in that direction with the self-confidence that comes only to one who knows where he or she is going, and I can help that person strengthen his or her ability to lead. I can help him or her discover that specific direction. I can help them get their desired results; I can help them get to where they really want to go.

Team Building often has little effect on desired results.

Until your team knows its mission and purpose, any so-called “team building” activity isn’t all that helpful.

The purpose of team building is to improve a group’s performance and attitudes by clarifying group goals and clarifying members’ expectations of each other so that the team achieves its goals.

Allow me to work with a team to clarify its mission and goals, to create mutual understanding of one another’s roles, to reach consensus on rules and group norms, and I can “build” a highly motivated, top performing team that produces intended results.  Relationships will become less of a distraction; conflict will be less of an inhibitor and actually begin to contribute toward innovation and performance.

Training often is merely an excuse to say “we did something”, and has little effect on desired results.

Sure, a lot of organizations send people to all kinds of training then hope that they can better produce the desired results.  There is a better way: define the results – then develop people and processes to ensure those results are achieved.