A Teacher’s Philosophy

Part of my own personal philosophy is that we carry the energy of both “student” and “teacher” within us, and depending on the experience or situation in which we find ourselves, one of these two energies becomes primary. We invoke our inner teacher when we have the need to pass along our knowledge, wisdom or a gold nugget to another; and when it is our time to listen, learn and embrace new information, our student self steps forward.

So the one question that yearns to be answered is, “What is my teaching philosophy?” Not sure? A great place to begin is to honestly acknowledge you have something of worth to pass along to another. Then begin to remind yourself of all the amazing ideas and experiences you have collected throughout your life while bringing in the perspective of a teacher. Begin to ask yourself what type of student might need to learn what you have to offer.

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Business and Your Education

There isn’t a child in the world who hasn’t been asked the question, “So what do you want to be when you grow up?” And depending on their personal situation, external influences and experiences, their answer will change by the day. As we enter high school we become clearer about what drives us, fuels our spirit and motivates us to do better. The clock is ticking to choose a path for our lives, our careers and our futures. Entering college and choosing to complete your academic journey with a business degree always seems most desirable when we are looking to go into business for ourselves, climb the corporate ladder or just not sure about where we might be headed in life but still want to keep the most options open to ourselves. But as a small business owner, how does the integration of an individual’s educational focus and training impact her success—or does it?

There are those who believe if a student wants to succeed in the business world, then receiving an education in business is where she needs to begin her career. Her education in any subject matter will ultimately support her…

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Training and Development Benefits and Techniques

Training and developing human assets are among the most important responsibilities of any HR department. After all, it is essential for an organization to adapt itself to the ever-changing business scenario if it wants to grow and expand in the long run.

Apart from this obvious benefit, there are several other goals that good training and development practices can help an organization achieve. The following are a few of the benefits.

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The Science of Intuition

Instinct, gut feeling, intuition: all of us have had moments when a hunch has proved correct, only to wonder later whether it really was intuitive brilliance on our part or just a lucky coincidence. After all, intuition is a just “acquisition of knowledge without using rational reasoning and logic,” right? Perhaps not!

If certain research studies are to be believed, intuition is probably an amalgamation of past data, increased sense of observations and a skill to look beyond the obvious and the reality.

According to research, intuition really is the result of our brain’s information processing mechanism. Several other research studies have also put forward similar theories.

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Bulletin Board Ideas

Remember back to your childhood and the first day back to school. Your new teacher for the year spent the month of August putting together her welcoming bulletin boards for you to see and hopefully build excitement about the upcoming school year. Bulletin boards are excellent tools for making learning fun! Not only do bulletin boards make the classroom look brighter, they can also serve as excellent platforms for students and teachers to work together and express their creativity.

As business professionals, can we tap into this same creative approach to get our employees excited about upcoming change and transition? I think so. Let’s take a few minutes to see how ideas that teachers embrace can easily be translated into a professional work environment.

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Expanding the Skills of Employees

Whether you own a small business or a large firm, the need to embrace the notion of upgrading and improving your staff’s skills is critical to their loyalty and level of happiness in the workplace. Not only does providing on-site training to support your employees slake their thirst for knowledge, it also allows you to keep your business current regarding new trends and opportunities while increasing your business’s chances of staying ahead of the competition.

On-site training of your staff can be done by either yourself or someone within your organization who is already trained in the subject matter you are seeking to pass onto the rest of your team. There will come a time where you may need to hire a training provider to upgrade the skills of your employees when you feel the need and there is no one on staff skilled or trained to do so. Making the investment to hire an outside firm can be challenging, but after all your employees are your most important resource and the success of your business depends on their efficiency. This means you need to choose the best when it comes to hiring the right training provider for your business.

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Team-Building Games: Not Just for Kids!

Lessons learned in childhood stay with us forever, so it is therefore important we teach children the important social skills they will need in order to grow and succeed as adults. Team spirit is one such essential skill. No matter what profession a person takes up, she will have to work as a part of a team at some point in her professional career as well as in her personal life—which is essentially in almost every experience. Team spirit, in fact, helps inculcate many other important values in an individual like discipline, dedication, consistency and flexibility, to name a few.

As much as we would like team-building games to be focused just on children during the middle school years, most of the following games can be adapted for adults to enjoy. The following team-building games can play an important part of any co-curricular activities to encourage students and employees to become better team players.

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Human Resources: Stress Management Policies

If you are an HR professional, it’s a part of your job to make sure the employees of the organization for which you work remain productive and efficient. Devising policies and taking initiative to keep their stress levels to a minimum is an essential component of ensuring the efficiency level of the employees stays up to the mark. However, it is also a well-acknowledged fact in business circles that a little stress is essential in order to get peak performance out of employees. The vital question for HR professionals, therefore, is how to ensure stress levels in the organization do not rise too far above the required minimum. As we know, more does not equal better when referring to stress.

Office politics, harassment, intense work pressure and negative relationships with colleagues or managers are some of the most common causes of excessive stress in the workplace. While discord, politics and work pressure are inevitable by-components of working on a team, as an HR professional your job is to ensure these problems do not become unmanageable.

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Sales: Planning Your Success

Sales arguably are the most important function of any business, but despite years of research it continues to remain an enigma. There is no denying the fact that no one knows a foolproof formula that can make a sales team deliver 10/10 results. However, this doesn’t mean that a sales plan’s success is based on pure chance. A successful sales person in fact tries his best to leave very little to chance by making sure that they bring down the probability of failure to a minimum.

Avoid Common Mistakes: Increase Success

The best way to achieve success is to eliminate mistakes that can lead to failure. For a salesperson this means making sure they reduce the chances of falling into one of the following.

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Intentions

Today's blog posting:

Over the last few weeks I've been revisiting the purpose of why I began facilitating the educational seminars. To date they have been successful, although not exactly what I had envisioned – or so I thought. The reason for hosting the seminars was to get my name out there, provide a service to the community, and have a way in which I was also able to give back.

But was I really being successful? Did I really hold the limited vision of only one or two people for attendance? What is my true intention behind these seminars? What fears might be holding me back from receiving full attendance?

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