A while back Tracy approached me with an idea to create a new course for Avo and gave me the heads-up on what to expect.  Now that the seed was sown she started working on the content, one module at a time.  The Call-Centre Management course has been finalized up to this date, with a brand new look.  The manual has been face-lifted and the cover reinvented with a new energy (as per usual Avo style of constant improvement)

Yesterday Trace invited me through to SAB Isando to come check out the session, I wanted to see the product in action and WOW what a product it is!

This was module 4 out of the 6 in total, named Generations.  Tracy took us through a time-line of the 5 different generations from the 1900’s to 2008 and beyond.  Giving Tracy’s background in teaching History, her insights were nothing short of riveting and her energy in the training room grabbed our immediate attention from the start right through to the end.

She struck so many notes within me that resonated with my personal experiences and added clarity to things I hadn’t noticed before.  Every single one of us should attend this generational talk, it’s an amazing product and all I can say is “watch this space, wild-fire is spreading!”

I challenge you to find a South African who has been completely untouched by the crime and poverty in South Africa. I can’t think of anyone. Our country is so alive with possibility and hope, but sometimes the darkness of the realities of living here overwhelm even the most committed optimists.

We have all felt the paranoid collective conciousness that swells whenever we have a couple of weeks of horrendous news reports that batter our sense of safety about living here. Every now and then, some company or organisation takes it upon themselves to build ‘anti crime’ campaigns, marches or petitions, and huge amounts of creative energy and, may I say, budgets, go into marketing the ‘anti-crime’ message. I think this is a way for people to take back some of the powerlessness they feel in the face of the darkness: marching or campaigning seems to help people feel they are ‘doing something’.

I’d like to suggest that there is a different, more constructive way to take back the power. In my new talk, the Seeds of South Africa, I make the case for building the people of this country. Many of us who have the means, the time, or the skills, are already doing small things to help the immediate people in our own communities: paying for our domestic worker’s childrens school fees, or helping out at our local churches or community support programes, or providing employment for other South Africans. This talk inspires South Africans about what is possible for individuals to do to make this country a better place.

When each of us is buiding a little piece of South Africa, we take back our power and our pride: I think it is one of the most important ways of holding back the darkness. By knowing your life has meaning and purpose because of the value you are creating for other human beings!

Check out Graeme’s site http://www.tmtd.biz/2007/02/07/crime-where-facts-politics-and-emotions-clash/ for some fascinating insights into crime stats and roots

As the economy changes, the nature of who (and what) sales people need to be is changing.

Customers are now demanding more from a company’s sales team and the good old ‘product peddlers’ are no longer welcome.

Besides mastering sales skills and product knowledge, sales people have to become experts on relationship building and gaining insight into their clients’ unique needs.

The Death of the Salesman is an entertaining and enlightening talk which covers a few of the challenges sales people might be faced with, such as:

Surviving the new Economy

Reinventing the sales role

Tuning into customers: Managing the relationship

Effective communication skills

If you’d like to find out more about this talk, please contact Gill.

Participlan is a ‘facilitation aid’ tool that helps you make more of your meetings. It can be used to keep these meetings focused and constructive, while reaching desired objectives and outcomes.

It’s design involves the whole group and is creative and interactive.

Using the (very funky) stationery supplied in the toolkit, the facilitator presents important questions to the group which they can then answer anonymously. This creates open, honest feedback and free flowing thought.

At the end of the session, photographs are taken of all the sheets from which the information can be captured and a report is generated.

Participlan is a great visual mapping tool that allows people to share ideas and can be used for various forms of meetings.

If you would like to find out more about Participlan please contact Gill.

For executives, managers and teams interested in achieving superior performance and increasing productivity and effectiveness within their organisations, this programme will help you learn to maximise performance in both your personal and professional lives.

The philosophy of The Corporate Athlete is an integrated, holistic approach tailor made to support all levels of employees, in terms of achieving high levels of long term performance under pressure.

Professional athletes at their highest levels learn how to manage themselves psychologically, emotionally and physically and must consistently bring out the best in themselves. So to, must the corporate athlete learn to deal with pressure and remain connected and focused.

Sean Page, the programme leader, works as a sports psychologist and executive coach. This programme is a culmination of all his experience and insights through working with both athletes and corporations, and is made up of four modules.

Module 1: Psychological and Emotional factors

Create an awareness around the individual and group with regards to their coping styles under pressure, dealing with anxiety and working with involuntary psychological and emotional reactions.

Module 2: The Body

The body is key to the state of our minds and our health. Performance levels are enhanced when the body is used effectively to bring about psychological and physical change and recovery.

Module 3: Nutrition

Nutrition plays a fundamental role in energy production. Awareness is created with regards to recognising the significance nutrition plays in energy management and performance, what foods fit into a healthy eating plan and understanding the connection between blood sugar levels and energy, mood and performance.

Module 4: The Environment

Our working and living environments have a conscious and unconscious effect on us. Therefore how we see our roles and functions, and how we perceive our external environment, will impact our performance.

At the end of The Corporate Athlete programme, individuals and teams will have more insight, skills and awareness to attain higher levels of performance more consistently and maintain wellness psychologically and physically.

If you would like to find out more, please contact Gill.

Our Management Development Programme is slightly different to our other programmes in that it’s made up of some core elements, with a few specially chosen ‘additions’ that allow us to tailor-make a programme specific to what you need.

We have a formula that we have used in other interventions that will give you an idea of what can be done.

Mindfood sessions: Short, ‘digestible’ sessions that give people enough to ponder on, over time.

This is where the main content of the programme comes in. It’s quite a blended approach, as the knowledge sessions are in the form of short talks, some 5-hour workshops and some long-term integrated programmes within programmes.

The purpose of these pieces is to deepen people’s insight into themselves, the people around them, and the impact they have on the people around them.

Blog: A blog around retention and management issues to help consolidate learning in a transparent way.

This will keep your genXers engaged in a positive way and allow for even the most junior employees to comment in an open forum for internal communication, across all levels of the business.

Telecon ‘Book Clubs’: On site cappucino sessions to generate debate around raised issues.

There are various books and CD’s included in the toolkit. We encourage learning groups or ‘book clubs’ that are either virtual (telecoms), or physical cappuccino sessions where people talk through their insights from the different sources they access.

Coaching: One-on-one coaching to integrate learning and sustainability for senior and middle management layers.

In this layer of the Management Development Programme managers of others will go through a half day programme on the ‘First Principles’ of coaching. If middle management are able to become regular coaches then the personal development of their people will extend beyond the ‘classroom’ and into their every-day working environment.

Toolkit: Valuable tools to help gain insight and move forward.

This mix of books, CD’s and profiling tools appeals to different learning styles. It’s specifically designed to give middle management tools for self insight, self management and insight into their teams and how to get the best out, for them.

If you’d like to know more about this programme, please contact Gill.

Time is something we all have exactly the same amount of in every day with the challenge to make it count, and this is what seems to be the hardest aspect for most of us.

With all the fancy gadgets and inventions that are supposed to help us do things better and faster with the added bonus of ‘convenience’, the more pressure we feel to squeeze impossible amounts of ’stuff’ into a day. We end up overwhelmed and overloaded with everyone’s expectations.

24/7 Manage your Life is a one day workshop that will help you understand how to manage your time more effectively and manage yourself within the time you have.

During the workshop you’ll start to understand the principles of time management, identify your own time management profile, define what you want to achieve, learn how set goals and map them, prioritise between urgent and important tasks and understand the principles of delegation.

Join us and we’ll give you some insights and philosophy, some tools to help with the decision-making process and help you use Microsoft Outlook as an effective support tool to implement your learnings.

We look forward to being part of your journey to manage your time (and self) more effectively.

If you would like to take part in one of these workshops, contact Gill.

Connecting Conversations is a really unique programme that will challenge pre-conceptions and stereotypes in a fun, personal and soulful way.

Learners who attend the programme will deepen their own understanding of the complexities of diversity by listening to extraordinary speakers who have embraced diversity in various ways in their own lives. By doing this we deliberately move away from generalisations and stereotypes created around culture.

The three main cornerstones of the programme are:

Awareness - Becoming aware of self and the other person, with everything that makes them different from you.

Understanding - Your own personality, values, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses and ways of dealing with conflict.

Respect - Understanding why you and the other person communicate and interact the way you do which allows you to manage your attitude and leads to respect.

On the Connecting Conversations programme learners will go to historical South African sites and meet speakers who have particularly diverse (or non-stereotypical) backgrounds such as Lionel Davis, Matthew Ribnick, Noria Mabasa and more, who will share their stories, and will be able to part-take in discussions with them.

To quote Tracy Scott, one of our amazing trainers, who runs the programme; “If we want to understand a culture it means we want to understand ideas, beliefs and values which are different from our own. If we want to escape the stereotypes we need to understand that culture is complex, as complex as each individual in that culture and that it is only when we allow real people to share who they are with us (to let their life story intersect with our own life story) that we start to see the threads that are common to all of us and to see the differences as richness.”

If you’d like to take part in this special programme or have any questions, please contact Gill.

Riding through the Johannesburg CBD on a double-decker open-topped bus is one of the most exciting ways to experience the CBD. One gets to see the magnificent architectural detail on many of the old buildings, the extent to which the city has become home to people from all over Africa, the Urban Renewal which has taken place and an opportunity to view, close up, the massive paintings on the buildings which takes art out of the galleries and onto the streets.

Climbing off the bus, one gets to experience the fascinating segments of this city. Interested in Culture? We’ll take you down. The shops in this historic street are stocked with the most incredible things, mainly aimed at migrant workers who head home to Zimbabwe or rural areas in South Africa. Here you can buy anything from a coal iron, to castrating tools to a lobola jas (a long coat worn when marriage negotiations are taking place)!

One can also meet the extraordinary Peter Naidoo and have him explain the role of African Muthi whilst standing in his shop full of animal skins, herbs and bark. Peter’s Museum of Man and Science is one of the most significant tourist attractions in Jo’burg.

Interested in Urban Renewal? One can walk through the funky mosaic laden pavements of the garment district. This is a great way to meet and talk to the local seamstresses who produce the beautiful choir gowns and uniforms for the various burial societies. Interested in Struggle History? We’ll take you to and to the Hamidia mosque where Gandhi and various businessmen burned their registration papers in protest of racist legislation in 1907.

End your experience by watching the sun set over the city from the top of the Carlton centre, one of the tallest buildings in Africa. Avo Vision has taken Standard Bank and SAB on this unique hop. Each hop is tailor made to meet the specific requirements of the group.

Without doubt Jo’burg is one of the most under-rated spaces in South Africa. The flight to the North saw the near collapse of the city that was the economic heart-beat of South Africa. It soon developed a reputation of being dirty and dangerous.

But whilst a lot of that has started to change our attitudes and perceptions have not. So, if you want to get your team to begin to understand what makes our CBD tick, or you want to open their eyes to diversity, give us a call, we would love to facilitate that experience.

When Avo clients challenged the team to come up with something really creative and fun for teams to do together, we certainly rose to the challenge. The result of our collective thinking is this mad-cap adventure: a truly diverse, REAL South African, Jozi-joll, with lots of that special corporate responsibility �Zing� thrown in!
What Avo set out to create was a fun, meaningful, innovative way to facilitate team cohesion, encourage participation and expose team members to experiences that they will find magical, amusing, enriching and rewarding!!
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The reason why we are so excited about this race, is that it speaks to what Avocado Vision is all about. We are all about creating conversations, helping people understand and communicate with each other a little better so that teams will be better equipped to listen to each other, care for each other and have good, clean fun together.
At Avo, we encourage creativity, innovation and discovery because we know how valuable it is for people to be open to new experiences.
We hope you find the idea of the �Ama Zing-Zing� race just as inspiring as we found it to be when we created it. We look forward to seeing your team in the starting blocks!
The half-day challenge is loosely based on the popular television programme called �The Amazing Race�; however, this race is a race of an altogether different nature!

You and your team will be� taking place in activities such as:
Taxi-code� training, an orphanage visit, word-collecting and you will be �zinging� around places like the Oriental Plaza, Secret Garden, Mandela Bridge, Diagonal Street, The Rand Club and a vibey Shebeen!�

And guess what�we can do it in Cape Town too!!� Glen and Hanli are off to Cape Town on the weekend, to facilitate the race for one of our banking clients……..sooo, watch this space to read all about it and see all the pics, when they get back!!