I have had a course in my diary for a couple of weeks: one of my “soft skills” ones, Business and Report Writing. As the date of the course approached, I contacted the manager of the training organisation in the normal way to check whether there was anything special I should know about the course in advance. I also wanted to confirm that the client would have the necessary facilities on site: a projector and computer for my slideshow being the main requirements.
When the manager got back to me, I was somewhat shocked. The course outline as supplied to the client organisation was considerably different from the one I had worked with previously, and I was told that there would be a projector but no computer. Also, as I would be working through a third party organisation, all my material would have to be branded with their corporate identity. Finally, the majority of the delegates would not have English as a first language!
As the course was to be held on the client site in an industrial estate in an outer area of London, I was not happy about taking my laptop. I would have to lug it into and across London, then catch a train out to the nearest station and walk over a mile to the location. I was already burdened, as I had a social appointment in London that evening and so needed to bring a bag containing my “posh togs”. I rang the manager in some consternation and told her of my difficulties, and that I feared that the changes in the course might lead to me not being able to deliver good quality training.
She reassured me that the outline wasn’t as different as it looked – really, it was more a change in emphasis than in content. I hadn’t taken the time to work this out for myself as it was quite short notice and I had only really glanced at the different wording. She said that she would tell them I absolutely couldn’t take a laptop in myself, and they would need to find one somewhere. She had already arranged for a late start time to allow for the difficult journey. Finally, she told me that she was perfectly confident that I would deliver a good day’s training, as she knows the quality of my work.
Somewhat mollified, I began making my preparations for the course. I branded my material and sent it in for printing and delivery to the client, and tweaked some of my exercises, adding one aimed specifically at people who did not learn English as their mother tongue.
I delivered the course yesterday. The travel there and back wasn’t much fun, and even with the adjusted start time I was very nearly late due to train delays. But I made it – just – and everything else went fine. There was a laptop hooked up to the projector for my slideshow, and my handouts had been delivered. The course delegates were hard-working and enthusiastic and all spoke pretty good English – much better than my French! They still had problems with some aspects of our very complex language, though, and appreciated my language-specific exercises.
I received very good feedback from the course delegates, and was able to send my manager some very positive course appraisals this morning.
And I had a brilliant evening too!
