Zynia - Motivational metaphors for Training and Development

Our businesses and backgrounds are very different and this makes us a diverse team. We’ve had more than forty years experience of running training businesses between us. We all have different specialities; we’re strong on coaching, facilitation and consultancy as well as general training skills, which adds to the mix. We’re very rounded trainers in that we don’t just do one thing – we do many things: this can start on the supply side, from having good ideas, designing, developing them, and then getting material up and ready, to actually delivering.

We all have strengths and weaknesses and we respect that. There are differences of opinion and that’s good. Sometimes an opposing view allows us to consider the alternatives. It’s no good when everybody says “oh yeah that’s great.” If we were all exactly alike, we’d never get anywhere; it wouldn’t work. We need the mixture and we appreciate each other’s strengths and weaknesses. The roles tend to move round between the four of us; that is one of the reasons why it works.

Sometimes we do focus on specific roles, especially when we are creating a new product, whether it’s running round checking out recording studios, dealing with accounts, liaising with marketing contacts or delivering a presentation on Zynia Ltd or the power of metaphor. We are all innovators, creators, and it can be like a relay – with the baton being passed through all four of us or an outline picture in which gradually the detail and the ‘how to’ is completed until we have a finished product out there ready to be used.

We’ve got to know each other as people as well as business colleagues and this business succeeds because we have that knowledge of each other. It is beautifully illustrated in one of the stories; people will only ever reveal about themselves what they want to reveal, nevertheless if we can be fairly open about ourselves then by knowing more about each other and how each other ticks we’re able to get the best out of each other. We have similarities and strengths and we have differences and I think that as a very small group it’s important that we maximise our diversity.

In a small way, we’re quite a daring group and we listen to each other very well in terms of ideas; giving each other, and collectively as a group, license to try things and to do things that probably on our own we would never have had the courage to do. It’s been a team effort; not one of us could have done this as individuals. To set up and get the company off the ground has taken all of us. It’s been a valuable learning experience.