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Kenyan Learning and Development Firm Lantern Training wins Global Award for ‘Excellence in Valuing Diversity’

Lantern Training, one of Kenyan’s leading people development and training firms has just scooped the global award for ‘Excellence in Valuing Diversity’, awarded by Lumina Learning: a world-leading provider of highly innovative psychometrics.

Collecting the award at this year’s global conference in London, amongst some of the world’s leading trainers and coaches, Lucy Brewster, Managing Director at Lantern Training said; “Valuing diversity is central to what we do at Lantern, and we are just thrilled to be recognised globally for the work we do here in Kenya to unify teams and to help people work better together. In all our programmes, we strive to help teams understand the importance and value of diversity, helping them to understand their own unique strengths and challenges and to appreciate the uniqueness that each person brings to the team”.

Lantern Training is a leading light in this field, working across East Africa with many international NGOs and commercial organisations. Lucy continues “With more than 25 years’ experience in leadership, communications, soft skills, and training, we focus on helping to build the soft skills that today’s workforce needs to develop professional, productive, trusting, and enduring relationships with customers, managers, peers, teams, and stakeholders. We aim to get to the heart of organisational and perfomance challenges, identifying the skill gaps of teams and developing tailor-made programmes to really impact the reputation of brands and the long-term growth of organisations”.

As East Africa’s leading providers of the Lumina Learning suite of development tools, Lantern offers cutting-edge personality, emotional intelligence, and leadership tools; transforming organisations by transforming people.

Contact us at info@lanterntraining.com to find out how we can help you!

 

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It’s all about the first impression!

First impressions create lasting memories, whether positive or negative. It only takes seconds for someone to decide if they like you or not and, on the telephone, these decisions are made simply by what they hear. A pleasant greeting and a positive attitude will set the stage for each call and by speaking positively, professionally and warmly, you create a positive image for the entire organisation. It can be the make or break of a business!

How to get it right:

  1. Answer all calls with a warm, sincere greeting.
  2. Be pleasant and interesting.
  3. Manage expectations and sincerely apologise if expectations are unmet.
  4. Listen without interrupting.
  5. Respond with appropriate emotion (show enthusiasm or empathy).
  6. Be polite and kind.
  7. Appreciate that a person’s time and respect it valuable.
  8. Always make the other person feel important.
  9. Avoid being condescending, even if you are asked silly questions.
  10. Take time with everyone and don’t rush to finish the call. You want to encourage them to call again!

Remember, people do not remember what you do, they remember how you made them feel!

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Ways to Listen Better Today

Hearing is easy! For most of us, our body does the work by interpreting the sounds that we hear into words. Listening, however, is far more difficult. Listening is the process of looking at the words and the other factors around the words (such as our non-verbal communication), and then interpreting the entire message.

Below are six examples that you could practise to become a better listener;

  1. When you are listening, listen. Don’t talk on the phone, text message, clean your desk or do anything else.
  2. Avoid interruptions. If you think of something that needs to be done, make a mental or written note of it and forget about it until the conversation is over.
  3. Aim to spend at least 90% of your time listening and less than 10% of your time talking.
  4. When you do talk, make sure it is related to what the other person is saying. Ask questions to clarify, expand and probe for more information.
  5. Do not offer advice unless the other person asks you for it. If you are not sure what they want, ask.
  6. Make sure the physical environment is conducive to listening. Try to reduce noise and distractions. If possible, be seated comfortably. Be close enough to the person so that you can hear them, but not too close to make them uncomfortable.

Active Listening is a good way of improving your communication skills.