Peer Learning Programs

The first 5 minutes of your workshop decide everything. Most facilitators waste them. Here's what typically happens in the first 5 minutes: → "Let me tell you a bit about myself..." → A slide with the agenda → An icebreaker that has nothing to do with the work → "Let's go around and share your name, role, and a fun fact" By minute 5, your participants have already decided: → Is this going to be worth my time? → Will I have to sit and listen all day? → Is this person going to lecture me or let me work? And most facilitators have accidentally answered all three questions wrong. Here's what the best facilitators do instead: Move 1: State the outcome in one sentence. (30 seconds) Not your bio. Not the agenda. Not a welcome slide. One sentence that tells the room exactly what they'll walk out with. → Not: "Today we'll explore team dynamics and communication." → Instead: "By 4pm, your team will have a written conflict resolution process you'll use starting Monday." That sentence does more work than any introduction. It tells participants this session has a point and their time won't be wasted. Move 2: Set the rules of the room. (60 seconds) → "You'll do 95% of the talking today. I'm here to run the process." → "Phones away unless you're using them for the exercises." → "You can disagree with anyone, including me. That's encouraged." Three sentences. Now everyone knows how this room works. No one's spending mental energy guessing. Move 3: Get them working immediately. (3 minutes) Not talking about the work. Doing the work. → "Grab a pen. Write down the one team conflict that's cost you the most time in the last month. You have 90 seconds." → "Turn to the person next to you. Share what you wrote. You have 2 minutes." Within 3 minutes, every person in the room has done something. They've committed an opinion to paper. They've spoken out loud. The session is no longer something happening to them. They're in it. That's your first 5 minutes: → 30 seconds: the outcome → 60 seconds: the rules → 3 minutes: first activity No bio. No agenda slide. No fun facts. Why this works: The first 5 minutes set the pattern for the entire session. If you start by talking at people, they expect to be talked at for the rest of the day. If you start by getting them working, they expect to keep working. You're not just opening a workshop. You're training the room on how this session operates. The facilitators who lose the room in hour 2 almost always made the same mistake: they spent the first 5 minutes telling the room this was going to be another session where someone talks and everyone else listens. By the time they try to get participation, the pattern was already set. First 5 minutes. Outcome. Rules. Work. Everything else follows from there. ___ Save this for later (three dots, top right). Share with friends → ♻️ Repost. Get consultant-grade workshops every Sat → https://lnkd.in/eSfeUapJ

Leader development doesn't happen just because they show up in an office. Leadership development is a key challenge for many firms, including a lot of hybrid and remote-first organizations that I work with. Managers don't know how to lead distributed teams, leaders who are under pressure to deliver and don't have time to learn, and gaps in who gets mentored -- and who doesn't. Michael Hudson and a team from Hudson Institute of Coaching have a case study on how they helped a global consulting firm build an environment that drove development into how people worked. Highlights below, and you should really read the details -- it's well structured and thought through: 🔸 Structured peer learning: Curated 6 person groups, diverse in experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives; "learning pods that might never have formed organically in a physical office." 🔸 Embedded development: Weekly 15 minute practices to build habits, continual learning and reinforcement. 🔸 Expert-facilitated sessions: Monthly structured forums for group learning and peer conversations. Expert coaches can help you get deeper, faster. 🔸 Competency-Focused Curriculum:  Targeted specific leadership skills, especially around issues like belonging among diverse populations and in distributed teams. Check out the article, linked in comments. Also, I'd personally recommend Hudson Institute of Coaching. I found their LifeForward program to be immensely impactful, and know a number of incredible certified coaches who have been through their program. #Leadership #Development #Coaching #Coach #FutureOfWork

“I’ve worked for 7 years to become a CA and I still can’t find a job.” A junior (let’s call him Rahul) said this to me over a shaky phone call. He had reached out to me on LinkedIn, freshly qualified, full of hope, and now six months into rejection after rejection. I had been through the same exam pressure, the same uncertainty, the same fear of “what if nothing works out?” So I started helping him in the way I wished someone had helped me. One call became a week of calls. We worked on his resume, ran mock interviews, and slowly rebuilt his confidence. A month later, HE GOT THE JOB he was dreaming about. I thought it ended there. It didn’t. Every time I shared Rahul’s story, more messages came in: “Sir, can you guide me too?” “Sir, I’ve cleared CA but don’t know what to do next.” “Sir, is something wrong with my resume?” That’s when I realised Rahul wasn’t alone. This gap was huge. So a few of us got together and created something simple: a community where young professionals could get guidance without feeling lost or alone. What started with helping one Rahul slowly turned into Mentoverse®, a peer-led network of mentors, job leads, and support that now helps thousands. The best part? Many of the people we once mentored are now mentoring others. A full circle I didn’t see coming. What’s one thing you wish someone had told you at the start of your career? #CA #CAguidance

Lets commit to developing leadership skills in EVERY employee! Leadership development programmes and initiatives are not just for formal existing leaders. They are for everyone. If you think about it... Leadership skills encompass more than just the ability to guide others; they're fundamentally about self-management and fostering effective collaboration. We need entire teams to be able to think critically, problem-solve and communicate effectively. We want emotionally intelligent individuals on every team. So...we need to cultivate these traits across entire teams—not just within individual leaders. But how? And how do we do this without sending training costs sky-high? Here are some simple tips that can be implemented with no cost, just intentional time and effort: 👉 Take a developmental approach in your coaching check-ins; help people to understand and develop key leadership qualities such as decision-making, communication, problem-solving, and team management. Use competency wheels or other self-assessment tools to help people identify their leadership strengths and areas for development. 👉 Pair employees with existing leader mentors within the organization who can explain leadership and provide guidance and support to those in non-formal leader roles. 👉 Provide cross-functional opportunities for everyone to expose them to different parts of the organization and help them understand the business more holistically. 👉 Cultivate an environment where it's normal for people to ask for feedback on their performance and receive it. Existing leaders can lead the way by asking for feedback on their own performance, which teaches non formal leaders to do the same. 👉 Give every employee the opportunity to take on leadership roles in smaller projects or teams. This distributed leadership approach provides a practical training ground for people, giving them a chance to experience leadership in a controlled, manageable environment. 👉 Encourage self-initiated learning in everyone! Support and encourage employees to seek out learning opportunities themselves, whether through online courses, industry conferences, or by taking on new challenges within the company. What are your top tips for building leadership skills in everyone? Leave your thoughts in the comments 🙏 #promotion #leaderdevelopment #retention #motivation #culture #organisationalbehaviour #coaching #crosstraining #talentmanagement

Finding the right mentor can change the trajectory of your career. But in today’s job market, and especially when nearly a quarter of recent grads are unemployed, traditional mentors alone may not be enough. That’s why Alexis Redding and I wrote a new piece for Fast Company about the overlooked value of peer mentors, or what we call “mirror mentors.” These are the friends and colleagues who know you well, who can keep you accountable, offer encouragement, and share tactical support along the way. Sometimes mirror mentors can even be more helpful than senior mentors. They’re in the trenches with you, they understand your struggles in real time, and they often have the bandwidth to provide the kind of consistent, hands-on support that’s critical during a job search. We shared three key ways mirror mentors can transform your job search: ✔️ Sourcing opportunities, including the hidden job market ✔️ Providing tactical help, from résumés to negotiations ✔️ Offering encouragement and accountability when the process gets tough By building a small mentor pod, you can make the journey less isolating and much more effective: https://lnkd.in/ezJPbFWs Who are your mirror mentors, and how have your peers supported you in your own career journey?

Day 8/30 of the Idea to Revenue Mentorship: Something magical happened today. I stopped talking. The group started solving each other's problems. One participant was stuck on their product format. Before I could jump in, three others shared what worked for them. Problem solved in 10 minutes. It made me realise: The best mentorship isn't mentor-to-student. It's student-to-student with a guide on the side. Three powerful shifts emerged: 1. PEER FEEDBACK HITS DIFFERENT When I critique, they listen politely. When a peer who just solved the same problem shares? They take notes furiously. 2. COLLECTIVE WISDOM > INDIVIDUAL EXPERTISE 100 people trying 100 approaches beats one mentor's playbook every time. 3. ACCOUNTABILITY COMPOUNDS Disappointing your peers who are grinding alongside you? That's harder than disappointing a mentor. This is why accelerators work. Why building in public beats building in private. You don't just need a mentor. You need mirrors — people on the same journey. Question: Who are you building alongside? If the answer is "no one" — that might be your biggest bottleneck. Day 8 complete. 22 days to revenue. P.S. The participants helping others the most? They're moving the fastest. Teaching forces clarity.

The leadership tool that changed how I lead. The circle of control. The circle of influence. I use it with managers, my team and for myself more than anything else and it never gets old. Retail throws a lot at you. Decisions made by Founders, Directors and Senior Leaders. Pressures outside your hands. Things that feel urgent but aren't yours to own. It's easy to spend your energy in the wrong places and not even realise you're doing it. That's where the two circles come in. Draw a circle. Inside it goes everything you can directly control. How you lead your team today. The standards you hold. The culture you create on your shop floor. The experience your customer has when they walk through the door. You’ll be surprised how big you need to draw this circle because when you think of everything, there’s actually so much within your control that can influence how your team feel, what your customers experience and ultimately the results you can generate. Draw a bigger circle around it. That's your influence. These are the things you can shape, input on, give feedback on and have a voice in, even if the final call isn't yours. On the outer edges of both circles, you write down the things that you can neither control, nor influence. Everything outside both circles? It doesn't get your energy. When a manager completes this activity, their eyes are opened. They stop worrying about things that were never theirs to worry about to begin with. Their energy goes into the things that they can have a direct impact on. They get clearer on their priorities. Their stress drops. Their team feels more settled because their leader is. The focus that was being lost to frustration goes back where it belongs, into the work they can actively control and impact. That's the bit I love most about this tool. It doesn't just help you lead better. It helps you protect yourself in a role that whilst can be very rewarding, can also be extremely demanding. This tool changed how I lead, helping me realise where my energy is best spent. It’s my most recommended leadership tool because I've also watched it change how others lead too. I've dropped an example of one that was completed at Lush below. What's your go-to leadership tool? Drop it below, I'm always looking for new ones 👇 #RetailLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #ShopManagement

If leadership development momentum is dependent on the department/vendor/person sustaining the efforts, then it's a program to complete, not a system that builds leaders. Leadership development should create more leaders. Here's some ways to integrate sustained leadership development: • Structures for internal coaching networks • Learning channels with internal contributions and strong tagging • Frameworks for micro-discovery/debrief in weekly meetings • Unified language, frameworks, and resources for enhanced collaboration • Systems for train the trainer (co-facilitation opportunities too) The goal is to help leaders learn to drive development. These are cost-effective, time-effective, and impact-effective ways that help build learning infrastructure rather than programs. What are some of the other ways that you build sustained leadership development within your organization?

“You are known by the company you keep.” We’ve heard this for years. But here’s the real question: Is your circle aligned with who you are becoming… or who you have been? Most professionals aim for 3 things: • Better opportunities • Higher compensation • Meaningful growth / promotion And we obsess over skills to get there. But here’s the truth no one says enough: Skills open doors. People decide how far you go inside the room. If you are serious about growth—and building real executive presence— your network cannot be accidental. It has to be intentional. Here are the 5 people you need in your circle if you want to grow into your next version: 1. The Expander The one who is already where you want to be. They don’t just advise you. They normalise a bigger life for you. Being around them shifts your standards without a conversation. 2. The Challenger The one who calls you out. They don’t let you hide behind excuses, overthinking, or “I’m not ready.” They push you to speak, show up, and take space. 3. The Mirror The one who gives you honest feedback. Not flattery. Not comfort. But clear reflection of how you are perceived. This is where executive presence is actually built. 4. The Connector The one who opens doors. They think in terms of: “Who should you meet?” not “What should you do?” They expand your world faster than effort alone ever can. 5. The Safe Space The one where you can be unfiltered. No performance. No pressure. Just space to process, reset, and rebuild. Because growth without grounding leads to burnout. Here’s the shift most people miss: Networking is not collecting contacts. It is curating influence around you. So pause and ask yourself: Do you have these 5 people in your life right now? Or are you trying to build your next level… with your current circle? Because the fastest way to elevate your presence… is to elevate the people you are consistently present with. If this made you reflect, let’s build a network that matches the leader you are becoming. #archanaparmar #leadershippresence #executivepresence

Two models to foster collaborative learning in your organization. 👇 I'm reflecting on the session I chaired at LT24, and going back to my notes. Shout-out to Lynn Rodgers and Kinga Petrovai, PhD for bringing two concrete, and practical formats we can steal and implement right away. 1️⃣ Lynn shared their "Team rhythm of weekly 20-minute conversations" 🧠 Principle: Small drops of learning within each team. How does it work? 👉 Weekly 20-minutes, team-based and peer-led conversations 👉 Each team has a designated host, pre-selected based on a set of criteria 👉 People Leaders are not included in these conversations 👉 L&D curates a list of topics centrally, and supports these conversations with nudges and resournces which the teams can explore together 👉 Constant cycles of exploration + experiments + reflection: —Week 1 starts with the exploration of a topic. —Teams are encouraged to "get curious", identify small improvement opportunities and commit to one concrete action (or experiemnt) they will apply in the coming week. —The aim of these actions is to improve how they work, or the world they operate in. —Week 2 invites to reflect on those experiements, what worked and what didn't, what stood in the way of the change, how can they keep it alive. —The cycle repeats: explore + experiment + reflect 🧚♂️ Key ingredient: The hosts are supported by central L&D and through their own community in MS Teams Channel, as well as specific events for hosts. They are testing new conversations, suggest topics, and protect the principles these conversations are based on. 2️⃣ Kinga shared her new "Learning Hives" Model 🧠 Principle: The Hive is the thread to collect and amplify the many existing resources within an organisation. How does it work? 👉 A group of ~10 individuals with same learning goals come together to learn from each other 👉 The sessions are integrated into the workflow, online or offline 👉 Each Hive has clear learning objectives 👉 Sessions are designed and run by a "Knowledgeble Host" The Hives function based on 6 key elements: - Leadership protects the time and space for the Hives to meet regularly - Hives have clear learning objectives aligned with organisational needs - The Hosts uses strategic questions designed to anchor the conversation and move the group towards the objectives - The Host synthesises learning and takeaways to be incorporated in the flow of work - The Host provides nudges between the sessions to reinforce learning and incorporate in the work - Deeper focus as each session builds on the previous one, and move the Hives closer to their learning objectives 🧚♂️ Key ingredient: The Knowledgeable Host gets to know the Hive members, weaves all voices into conversation, encourages the flow of learning. They are a trained facilitator, not a peer or a team member. 🎤 Over to you: What other collaborative learning formats have you experimented with? #learninganddevelopment #collaborativelearning