It's lovely to be recognised!

Feeling like the cat the got the cream right now as I've just received news from the Association for Coaching (AC) that our training has received their quality mark.

I'm revamping our core 2-day training programme to coincide with our rebranding project and wanted to take the opportunity to subject the programme to outside scrutiny.

The AC were scrutinous (is there such a word?) indeed and I feel more pleased knowing that these things are not handed out willy-nilly and that the process is not just a "rubber-stamp" job.

People who train with us now have extra confidence in knowing that the skills and concepts we teach are up to date, valid and seen as 'industry standard'.

My next step is to have the programme accredited by an awarding body so that our participants can gain a nationally recognised qualification for their efforts. Something that I hope will prove invaluable as we all seek to improve our employability in these turbulent times.

Watch this space or get in touch if you'd like to know more.

The Brand/Ross guide to Communicating at Work

Since the whole world seems to having its say on this unsavoury incident, I thought I'd chuck in my view too.

Firstly, I'm in the camp that says what they did was plain wrong. I haven't heard the now infamous answer machine messages, but I've read the transcript and I think it's horrible. It just isn't funny.

In the aftermath, I think Brand emerges with slightly more credit by having the decency to fall on his sword. Can't imagine him struggling for work though; it's probably increased his value to MTV et al quite considerably. Meanwhile Ross has managed to hang on but is losing an estimated £1.4m in pay. I don't have a view one way or another whether he's worth his pay, but I would expect somebody in receipt of that amount of money to exercise better judgement.

I was surprised to learn that the show was not live and that a fairly junior producer had decided to broadcast the segment. I wonder whether a coaching style conversation with his boss might have enabled slightly better thinking and an appreciation of the likely outcome to have developed.

Having said all of this I think the reaction by certain sections of the printed media has been quite hysterical and out of all proportion. The economy is a mess and war still rages in Africa and beyond. Let's return to the real issues.