A couple of weeks ago I wrote about amibition and discected the word and meaning.  With my passion for words I think I will make this a regular feature so here is my word for this week

Encourager  - someone who inspires with spirit and hope..

Why?

I spent a couple of days with my colleagues from Speakersbank towards the end of last week. We were learning how to deliver another programme of training on public speaking and taking it into presentation skills.

A vital part of any Speakersbank training is the feedback. Although as a trainer I will give feedback throughout the day we also ask everybody to give feedback on each other’s performance. We believe that the learning from observing and noticing another performance can be as important as receiving feedback yourself.

The model we use is WIN with feedback - say what went well, suggest an improvement and end on something to do next time ( or what was wonderful, suggest an improvement, end on a nice comment).

We were learning together as trainers which in itself was a great opportunity to share good ideas. On the other hand that can sometimes be more daunting …after all we are supposed to be the experts. But of course experts always have more to learn.

One of  our colleagues - Robin - when giving feedback said “I would encourage you to…” At first I didn’t notice and then when he had done this a few times we commented on how powerful that was.

To encourage someone to do something - to inspire, incite…wow!

Telling someone what you think is one thing. Giving meaningful feedback with examples for improvement is good - encouraging is great!

So I encourage you this week to be an encourager - and if you find that you have some dis -couraging tendencies I would encourage you to think about that too!