All trainers know the importance of stationery. Want a course to go well? Worry less about the content and delivery and far more about what folders and pads and trinkets you can buy cheaply from Rymans. And, somewhat bizarrely, in my experience the more senior the trainees the more this holds true. I've seen a FTSE 100 Director hug a free A4 pocket file with dividers to his chest like it was a long-lost love, and a public sector Chief Executive finger her free Moleskine notebook like she was stroking her wookie.
Tuesday, I spent the day with two colleagues designing product vaguely based on happiness at work. John, as the host and driver of the project, presented us at breakfast with a table of Staples' goodies. And we were off and running. In the next 12 hours we opened every single item, whether we used it or not. Giant post-it notes; quarter size flip-chart pads; pens of all varieties; glue and sticky animals; fluorescent stars, notepads Maddie and I refused to use and immediately put in our bags for later. If John was after our approval and engagement he could hardly have played it better.
Come mid-afternoon and I was expounding on my theory of people management, sticking as many gizmos as I could onto the window, only to notice Maddie was more engaged making Postman Pat's black and white cat out of plasticine. She's never looked happier. Come 9pm, after a long day in the stationery cupboard, we stole as much as we could and promised John we thought it was a brilliant idea, with many legs, most of them made out of tinselled pipe cleaners, and we'd be sure to get back to him once we'd run out of blu-tac and glitter pens.
Tuesday, I spent the day with two colleagues designing product vaguely based on happiness at work. John, as the host and driver of the project, presented us at breakfast with a table of Staples' goodies. And we were off and running. In the next 12 hours we opened every single item, whether we used it or not. Giant post-it notes; quarter size flip-chart pads; pens of all varieties; glue and sticky animals; fluorescent stars, notepads Maddie and I refused to use and immediately put in our bags for later. If John was after our approval and engagement he could hardly have played it better.
Come mid-afternoon and I was expounding on my theory of people management, sticking as many gizmos as I could onto the window, only to notice Maddie was more engaged making Postman Pat's black and white cat out of plasticine. She's never looked happier. Come 9pm, after a long day in the stationery cupboard, we stole as much as we could and promised John we thought it was a brilliant idea, with many legs, most of them made out of tinselled pipe cleaners, and we'd be sure to get back to him once we'd run out of blu-tac and glitter pens.
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