Committed to delivering training that achieves business objectives
Phone 412-216-0376
Petra Learning LLC
Reinventing Yourself and Maximizing Performance
Each month, Petra explores a topic critical to business leaders and the risk profession through a combination of its blogs and newsletter.
February 2013 Succeeding in the Twenty-first Century
January 2013 First Success Then Results
December 2012 Are You Ready to Communicate Authentically
November 2012 Why Communicating is So Hard
October 2012 Making Meetings Work For You
September 2012 Change Your People or Change Your People
August 2012 Why your Adrenaline High is Hurting your Business
July 2012 Every Day Leadership Failures
June 2012 Is Dysfunctional the New Normal
May 2012 Why Should I Care About Group Think
April 2012 - Is the Emotional Leader a Recipe for Success or Failure
March 2012 - The value of thinking about thinking
February 2012: Developing your team's strategic competencies
January 2012: Using coaching to gain self-awareness
Each newsletter contains an editorial piece from the company's founder along with other interesting tidbits and facts, and a reader's corner. To subscribe to the ezine, use the "opt-in" button below. You can also peruse older editions at right.
Notable Quotes / Words to Live By:
"Risk is life fire; if controlled it will help you; if uncontrolled it will rise up and destroy you" - Theodore Roosevelt.
"To every complex question, there is a simple answer and it is wrong." - H.L. Mencken
Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business. Norman Vincent Peale
It's not at all hard to understand a person. It's only hard to listen without bias. Chris Jami
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” Henry Ford
In matters of style, swim with the current;
In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
T. Jefferson
The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.
Sydney J. Harris
The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress - Charles Kettering
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. Lao Tzu
Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
If people are not being told the truth about their problems, the majority not only may, but invariably must, make the wrong judgments. Ralph Ingersoll
The single biggest problem with communication is the
illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw
“Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating." Charlie Kaufman
To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.” Anthony Robbins
They lie to one another; they speak with flattering lips and deceptive hearts. Psalms 12:2
Training Tips:
1. Reflect: To increae the value you receive from training, schedule time on your calendar to reflect on your training experience. You should schedule at least one hour each week for several weeks following the training. Use this time to review key points and action plan items from the training.
2. Visualize: You've heard the stories of the great athletes that visualize their performance before they step onto the court, run the race, or swing the golf club. Visualization is just as powerful for skills-based training. Imagine yourself using the new skill successfully. What would that look like? What would that feel like?
3. Personalize: Take the time to develop specific, measurable, and actionable goals for the training prior to attending. If you're struggling with this, then challenge your attendance and / or follow-up with the training sponsor for further clarification.
4. Add Variety: Today's complex and rapidly changing business environment demands professionals that are well-rounded in their knowledge base. So expand your horizons. Read different types of magazines. Read more than just leadership books and even expand outside of business books. Diversify your volunteer efforts.
5. Promote Accountability: Opportunities must be provided to apply what was taught in the learning event you attended. It's your responsibility to help create those opportunities. Work with your manager or a peer to set up some goals related to the training. Create an accountability for change.
6. Compete: If you really want to change but are struggling; turn your goals into a competition. Get your competitive juices flowing.
7. Commit: Continual learning is business imperative. Take advantage of the integrated nature of business, identify a new interdisciplinary skill to learn, and commit to studying that skill for a period of time.
8, Differentially Invest: you have limited time, make the most of it by focusing your effort toward mastery of a particular skill. Avoid the scatter shot approach.
9. Establish a Routine: If you want informal learning to happen, you need to schedule it. Set up meetings, download podcasts so they are available when you have a moment, etc.
10. Set Milestones. Take your learning goals and divide them into 3-month, 6-month, 9-month, and 12-month milestones. Then track against them.
11. Seek Out Opportunities. No one is more vested in your career development than you. That means that it's your responsibility to identify opportunities to reinforce your formal learning through inform al and social learning activities.
12. Celebrate Success. You worked hard to reach a milestone. Take the time to celebrate it before launching onto the next one.
