Training can help develop business as it allows staff to gain new skills; this is good for several reasons for a start you wont need to spend time and money recruiting more staff. Also if staff are update with current practice and are able to work efficiently then you are likely to have a more productive business which can ultimately mean more money. In terms of the medical professions training can keep staff up to date with protocol and the latest treatments thus meaning able to save more lives and possibly even reduce waiting times for patients therefore in private practices making more money as you are seeing more patients.

Training can also keep staff motivated as they are able to develop as a person or perhaps gain promotion within the company, which can be beneficial to you as a boss as it frees up your time as you can delegate and give your staff more responsibility. Confidence can be a benefit of training as the staff gain new skills as well as reinforcing their existing knowledge, this can act as motivation; it can also be an advantage from a boss’ perspective as if you were looking to expand you can promote your existing staff as confidence is one of the factors of a good leader/manager.

Training is the acquisition of knowledge and skills as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills. Throughout your career there will be some degree of training taking place to keep all practices up to date to maintain optimum performance; this can be done through a number of methods including:

• Attending Courses
• Online Training
• Practical Training

Depending on your learning style (how you learn best) will depend which you find the most effective. One organisation that delivers training courses, mainly to NHS staff is Medicology Ltd.

Training can allow an individual to develop their career, you could go for that management position you’ve always wanted; it also allows for personal development.

The terms Leadership and Management are often used interchangeably, however they are two separate ideas.

Let’s start with leadership. Leadership is a quality that management must have but they also need effective authority, it is said that leaders tend to think radically which essentially means that they use their intuition rather than always doing things “by the book”. This can sometimes be beneficial to the company as it allows ideas to progress beyond the rigid framework set out in “the book”.

A leader has to maintain a “can do” attitude and have to be as the title suggests a leader rather than a follower even when they come up against obstacles. Leaders relish a challenge and will stand up for what they believe in and is prepared to go above the call of duty when necessary. Leaders use every opportunity to learn including failure and are often aware of their personal impact on others and recognise the indicators of both their strengths and weaknesses. A good leader is resilient and their main focus is working for the good of the team rather than for personal gain, this can be achieved by good time management. Leaders know who the key influences are and involve them when required.

One of the key qualities of a leader is to keep others motivated which can sometimes be difficult as leaders are busy fulfilling their own role within the company.

Now to management put simply this is getting people together to achieve goals it can . Managers have to be able to plan, organise and lead to control an organisation, managers are also responsible for allocating human, financial and technological resources. Managers often delegate tasks and promote good time management within their team and also have to attempt to resolve conflicts within the workplace with minimal disruption.

There are numerous benefits to good leadership and management these include:

• Motivated Staff
• Conflicts resolved effectively
• High productivity
• Resources would be used efficiently
• Good time management

These can be achieved through a combination of personal and training
.

Today was to be a simple day.

A bit of mailmerging and out go a few thousand bits of information selling our NHS training services but oh no….

Firstly you find all the data spread across 13 worksheets and so it needs combining and then you find the format for each is slightly different, so you have to rearrange everything before you combine and then you find that there is no commonality in the naming terms, so you have to create some before you can sort them. Get the picture?

Some might say that perhaps I wasn’t specific enough when I delegated the data collection task but ‘nope’ because I sat everyone down and went through every last bit to make sure this didn’t happen. It seems I’d have been better save the time, let them hash it and utilise that the time for all of the above!

Tomorrow’s another day!

When the acknowledged father of modern management, Peter Drucker, was quoted in Fortune for saying ?Leadership is all hype. We?ve had three great leaders in this century - Hitler, Stalin & Mao? he would have found many ears, highlighting the sheer lack of understanding of what leadership actually is and the enormous benefits it can bring to both individuals and organisations. Inside this article we?ll examine not only what leadership really is but also how this relates to healthcare, why it?s so vital at the present time and what embracing its principles can really do for you in this challenging era of healthcare reform

Let?s work with an example. St Anytown NHS Trust is working with a raft of initiatives and reforms from simply balancing the books to modernising medical careers. You?re charged with reducing your departments spend by 20% without reducing throughput. You plan carefully trying to minimise the effects of cuts but as you step into implementation you find a host of adverse reactions from plain old resistance through to sickness, absence, internal bickering and even staff leaving because they have ?had enough?. Despite the careful and logical approach to organising the cost-saving initiatives, it seems that the whole department wants to disrupt it. Whereas you understand the imperative you equally sympathise with the team. Neither lessens your frustration at not being able to achieve. You?ve just uncovered the difference between effective or efficient management and a particular type of leadership. The NHS hierarchy - a singular view of leadership In common with most management scientists, Trust Boards and Government tend to view leadership as a functional part of the managers role i.e. just one of the things an effective manager does. Consequently, development of leaders is often aimed at turning doctors into managers. This helps individuals better manage staff but completely fails to fill the leadership void, or address the type of leadership that the NHS really needs right now. Whereas effectiveness in this ?functional? leadership is vital for organisational performance, it falls way short of the ?situational? leadership needed to hold the organisation together. Yes, I am suggesting that we are getting better at ?managing? the NHS but failing to hold the NHS together.

You probably gauge my sense of feeling in this and if you want to learn more about our approach to leadership in the NHS then try http://www.medicology.co.uk

I am a great lover of fruit (you could delete ´of fruit´ if you wanted to…) and one of my pet peeves is that when you buy it from the supermarket it is either rock hard or going over, with no in between. So, you buy it hard and ripen it but by the time you get to eat it the juice has ´gone´ and its dry.

 
Recently, my intrepid web developer Andy and I changed our morning practise. We´ve taken to walking to the MacDonalds in Asda just before they stop doing breakfasts and acquiring some very awesome coffee and a McThingy with sausages, egg and something resembling cheese in it. This aside, the behavioural change has created some unexpected advantages:
 

• we tend to get some sales type work done before we go, so the day is always producing business (even whilst we drink coffee)


• the coffee break allows us to discuss strategy and action plans away from the distraction of the office


• the walk to Asda acts as essential exercise, helping oxygen to the brain and actually getting us off our otherwise stationary backsides


• I get to purchase fruit every day, allowing me to pick what´s perfect without having to buy it to ripen

The learning point here is that a seemingly simple behavioural change can often make a significant difference to working output when you put all the bits together. We´re more relaxed too!

For the last few months we have struggled to achieve what we want in terms of training course bookings. I guess we have the eternal small company cash trap:
 
I need to spend money on advertising & brochure distribution but I need the turnover/ cash flow to do so.

 
Consequently, like many companies in this field, we tend to cycle through boom and bust according to cash flow. Recently the NHS, perhaps our largest market, entered its own cash crisis, as you´ve probably read in the media. This created a very serious situation for us because bookings dropped off just as we really needed to be reaching more people (and consequently needing more cash). It got very bad indeed (entrepreneur speak for ´the children are being sold as slaves next´).
 
It was massive action or finish and so we embarked on a non-cash-based turnaround programme. What I am delighted to report is that we have now spent the last 3 weeks consistently beating targets and with an average of around 7 course bookings per day. Anyone running training courses will tell you that this is phenomenol. Our secret… you must be joking!
 
However, the learning point to share is that what we did this time could have been done at any stage but somehow we remained ´blinkered´. It´s put us in our strongest position for about 2 years because now our business level is not related to our expenditure on marketing. Think about it… is there anything you have been putting off or making excuses for that could simply turn on the taps? What´s in the way, real or perceived? Get rid of it and wake up, just as we have done.

The hunt is over! You may recall, or not, that I have been on the hunt for a digital voice recorder with certain minimum specs, namely:
 

• ability to convert in Dragon Simply Speaking with high accuracy


• enough memory flexibility to record bucket loads on highest quality


• stereo

 
Although the requirements seem quite basic it has proved to be a difficult things to find. They either tend to be excellent at sound quality and Dragon but with limited memory or vice versa. Well, I have the answer…
 
The Sony ICD MX20 is the beast in question because not only does it get 5 stars with Dragon but it also takes Memory Stick Duo Pro, allowing me to just get more sticks for my hungry capacity needs. I´m about to buy one so I´ll let you know how it goes!

Well, it has been some time since I have confessed because I have been running round like a blue-bottomed buzzy thing. It got me thinking though.
 
Throwing your thoughts down on screen is a healthy thing to do because it clarifies thought and reminds you what you were going to do but didn´t. So why do we find it so difficult to do these things that we know are good for us? It basically comes down to focus and simply remembering.
 
A solution! I´ve now arranged it so that I get a reminder every day to go on and do these things. Automated reminders - what a jolly good idea!

Just back from a mellowing week in Scotland, breathing sea air and getting some rest - very refreshing. Anyway, the point being that it gave me time to really think about some of the key issues that are currently affecting our businesses. What I realise is that over time we have lost an element of focus that was serving us so well.
 
Focus is key in anything you want to be successful at. Imagine this - you want to be a successful hockey player and it´s the most important thing to you. Every morning when you get up you say to yourself "I am going to be a successful hockey player because…." and you focus on what actions you can take to make that happen. During the day, you see visual reminders (team photo, written goal list e.g. 30 minutes of aerobic training today) of your key activities to become a successful hockey player. At night, you review what you managed to achieve towards this endpoint and list out the 6 most important things you need to do tomorrow to move you towards your goal. The following morning, you recommence the ritual again.
 

How well do you think this person will progress towards their goal? Powerful, isn´t it?
 
So, the pledge from St Andrew´s is that we will redefine our organisational goals in crystal clear terms, create our visual reminders and regain an acute focus on what we need to do to take it to the next level.