At a recent ISA meeting of training professionals in Washington DC, I relearned the power of conversations amongst peers. I had first experienced this at the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation (EO) in a structure called Forum, a 2-hour monthly meeting where like-minded business owners from different industries converse to help learn through each other’s experiences.
I am also fortunate to belong to the Gazelles International Coaches group, which meets twice a year and enables professionals to learn from each other about specific tools that accelerate business growth. Although both of these forums are remarkable learning platforms, it is the most recent one that got me re-energised.
ISA Connection is an association for professional training companies, predominately from the USA and Canada, which meets three times a year in person, connecting virtually on a more frequent basis. With members ranging from huge $100M
training businesses, to smaller 2 to 3 people operators in possession of great intellectual property (IP), they all share a common thread: their passion for the training and development industry.
ISA differs from other training and development (T&D) events that I have participated in, because members are all competitors in one way or another, no-one is there to sell their services. The focus is to take a day out and help each work on their business, with peers openly sharing challenges, successes and solutions - specific to the training industry - that have worked for them.
Having been invited to my first ISA C-Suite Forum in November, I was amazed at the camaraderie and collaboration between the participants. As per the format of the forum, each C-level executive gets to position a business challenge to a group of 6-8 carefully selected peers, who in turn share experiences and exchange ideas that could help the executive solve his or her pressing issue(s).
A facilitator then keeps participants on track, ensuring that every member of the forum is assisted within the one day time frame. This learning definitely accelerated some of the challenges that we are facing as we rapidly grow biz-group.
The experience made me recall the advice from Jim Collins’ bestselling book, Good to Great -
COLUMN - What's Next?
BY HAZEL JACKSON
what's next?
46 | TRAINING MAGAZINE MIDDLE EAST NOV 2014
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