The elder's are potter's and we are the clay

I was compelled to write an article about Anderkant die stilte award winning film. 

After being on set with the Kwela a kyknet program from the South African television channel. 

After five years of developing Anderkant die stilte with the acclaimed leading actors Joey De Koker, Lida and Johan Botha and Andre Rossouw, they are now completed by making news all across the world. The film has been officially selected at various international festivals including San Diego International, PPFF, Cape Winelands –where it was nominated as one of the best South African feature films and it won 4 awards at the Monaco International festival.

Re-engineering your workplace, Ken Blanchard

I am back from a Conference in Los Angeles where I did a presentation on the 18 inches towards real transformation from the head to the heart. At the conference I had the opportunity to listen to some outstanding wisdom and legacy leaders of the world. One such session was with Ken Blanchard.

Ken Blanchard is an accomplished speaker, consultant and one of Amazon’s top 25 best-selling authors of all time. As a world-renowned expert in leadership and business, Ken is generally regarded as one of the most insightful, powerful and compassionate men in the business arena today. His best-selling books include The One Minute Manager® (13 million copies sold worldwide) and the trilogy: Raving Fans, Gung Ho!®, and Big Bucks®. His seminal work, Leadership by the Book, has given new meaning to “servant leadership”.

Ken talked about trust as the basis for every relationship and about defining trust busters and trust boosters, as well as rebuilding trust. I personally liked the assessment tool Ken discussed with us that uses 35 statements based on the following:

                                   

1, When you demonstrate competence and skill, you are ABLE, which builds trust.

2. When you act with integrity, you are BELIEVABLE, which builds trust.

3. When you care about others, you are CONNECTED, which builds trust.

4. When you remain reliable, you are DEPENDABLE, which builds trust.

To summarise: This must be a self-assessment and team assessment once a year. I would love to demonstrate this tool to you in a Power Hour session with your team.

Mario Denton (MBA, MeCon PhD and Industrial Psychologist). He uses his strong academic and corporate background and his uniquely effective coaching skills to help organisations tap into their potential to make a difference in the workplace. You can contact him at marden@mweb.co.za.

Changing communities with character, talk at Vinpro, Malmesbury

Great session today at Malmesbury for Vinpro. My speech include the top three regrets of the dying.... and ideas and keys to changing communities with character.

Contact us to host a communities of character leadership seminar in your town

Teamwork Hackers: A real frustration

This is still one of the biggest factors causing disengagement and a major reason for the development of energy wasters in a team. The bad news is that leaders try to deal with this on a cognitive level. It won’t work. You have to locate where the hackers were able to enter your team and implanted the virus and you need to delete the virus so that the response is no longer triggered by the external problem. Fear and lies are key components of every virus and anchor the virus program in the team. The system malfunctions, resulting in negative behaviour or character flaws in your team.

Case Study: Employee does not trust his senior, hates performance appraisal and has no friends in the workplace.

·         Feels there is no one that he can trust in the workplace

·         Feels lonely and not part of the team

·         Virus like low impulse control causes him to sabotage relationships in the team

·         Where is the emotion coming from?

·         How do we fix the problem?

Do you need further help in dealing with this issue? Let me sent you some self-assessments on this issue or you can contact Dr Mario Denton at marden@mweb.co.za for further details or to help you tackle these issues in your team.

Our next two day seminar: Johannesburg 8-9 October and Cape Town 10-11 October. Contact us for full brochure and registration details 

Swartland Boudienste

Character First South Africa welcomes new member company, Swartland Boudienste from Moorreesburg as the latest organisation who have now come aboard doing the Character First Training.

 1.       But what does this entail?
2.       How do they ensure sustainability of this intervention
3.       What about your organisation?

 Simply said we take supervisors and management through a two day course covering the following

Start with your character development

Develop character in your family, your organisation and you community
Visit www.charactermakesthedifference.com today and find out how

Emotional Intelligence training City of Cape Town

Emotional Intelligence is a way of recognising, understanding and choosing how we think, feel and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it determines the majority of our daily actions. Research suggests emotional intelligence is responsible for as much as 80% of the "success" in our lives. Most experts now agree that one of the keys to success in the workplace, is a high degree of emotional intelligence. There is a considerable body of research suggesting that a person’s ability to perceive, identify and manage emotion provides the basis for the social and emotional competencies that are important for success in almost any job. 


Below follows a message from a delegate attending the training

HR Impact breakfast

HR practitioners are a valued strategic business partner to the management infrastructure in the business world. This breakfast sets out to present the optimistic view of what is possible and what is helpful in the future of the talent excellence enterprise.

Having been in the HR corporate world and lecturing and consulting for nearly 30 years, Dr Mario Denton has been the study leader of 160 MBA research projects to date, has published 8 books and various articles and has read papers at 32 conferences worldwide. Mario has taught at Business Schools and consulted
both in Africa and Internationally. He has consulted to some top companies, most recently Coca-Cola and FNB, and now would like to share his knowledge with us over a light breakfast session.

Character First - a powerful tool to use in organisations and family

We were very excited when we received the following letter from one of the leading companies in implementing Character First in the organisation, Sabco Coca Cola.

"Hi Mario

I hope that you are well and that you’ve had a fruitful few months since we met in Tstsikama.

 I must mention that earlier this week we (HR) facilitated a session with the 3^rd generation Gutsche’s – the children of the current family board members and their siblings. As part of the session, we introduced them to Character First and they were most impressed with it! This is such a powerful tool and we are privileged to be able to use it to build the character of our organization.Thank-you so much for introducing it to us!

The main reason for this mail is to let you know that I have just ordered 1 000 Character First cards

Many thanks Mario – hope to talk to you soon.

Kind regards,
Jean"

HR development with Coca Cola SABCO

Dear Mario

On behalf of Coca-Cola Sabco and the whole HR team I would like to thank you for your presence two weeks ago in Ttisikamma. I trust that it was as magical and blessed for you as it was for us.

We really appreciated your insights to the projects (keeping them real but also stretching us to do more) and for your “spot on” insights during the debriefs and fireside conversation and in the final close out session which was relevant for those half-timers of us as well as the Gen Ys.

Etiek gaan basies oor dít wat goed is vir alle partye

Dit wat “goed en reg” is in jou interaksie met ander, of in jou werkomgewing is volgens mnr. Dawie Malherbe, ’n bedryfs- en loopbaansielkundige, kortliks wat etiek in die werkplek beteken. Daar is drie faktore betrokke by etiese gedrag, sê hy: “Die regte ding, jy, en dan ander mense.Wanneer etiek ter sprake
kom, vorm dié drie aspekte die kern. “Etiek gaan dus oor wat goed is vir alle partye, nie net vir jouself nie. Goeie etiese gedrag begin by respek vir ander mense.

HR Compass 2011-2014

In this short overview I want to give you a glimpse of an exciting week with 25 HR practitioners from Coca Cola Sabco in the Tsitsikamma. I have been in HR corporate world and lecturing and consulting for nearly 30 years, but the week with the Coca Cola Sabco team was indeed a very special session for me. Let me explain why: trained under Dave Ulrich, I always like to see whether HR functions are indeed a strategic partner and how they measure what they do. Answer those questions and you have my attention. So what did I experience with Coca Cola Sabco? THE HR COMPASS
This is a document in which the Coca Cola Sabco team charted out a course towards 2014. They focused on the following:

SOME STRONG MESSAGES: TEAM BUILDING VERSUS TEAM WASTING

As a seasoned academic and business consultant, I have attended various teambuilding sessions. In my own qualitative research on team effectiveness and storytelling I have found that this exercise is often time wasting. Often teams are sitting with pearls of wisdom but are not focused or engaged in using them to make a significant difference back in the workplace.
Suggestion:

The purpose of the “heartbeat” exercise

REAL-TIME FINE-TUNING TEAM conversations is to understand the real concerns of key team members, obtain insight into and clarity on the organisational situation as well as the team effectiveness of the management team. The “health” of a senior team is critical for the future success of any organisation.

Ghana changing with character

In this interview Dr Mario Denton talked to Rev Sam Oppong regarding character-based
leadership challenges and sustainable implementation of character-based training in
Ghana, as well as about his recent experience in taking character-based training to the
next level in Ghana.

Denton: According to our records, Rev Sam, you have done Character First training in
Ghana for the third time. I am very keen to hear why you think the Character First
programme is needed in Ghana. Is this training really necessary and relevant and can it
be the solution to the problems of the times in which
we are living?

Oppong: Ghana is a very blessed country as we do have almost everything; for example, we
do have lots of natural resources, we have gold, the country is rich in cacao and has started producing oil, and it has lots of human resources. We have well-educated leadership and Ghana is made up of 68% Christians, but the problem is that we are seriously lacking in character. We are living in a society in which people love themselves, are lovers of money, boasters,proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers,
without self-control, despisers of good (2 Timothy 3:2). We see the signals of a society that is barren of virtue. I believe character-based training programmes can make a difference, because character is what makes a person want to be better and do better. When people are trained to value honour and integrity, they find the motivation to live that way for the rest of their
lives, wherever they are.

Character First Training in Uganda Video highlight

Character-Based Leadership in UGANDA. An interview with Dr Mario and Desmond Denton

Uganda, Africa the Pearl of Africa

In a previous interview Heideli Loubser interviewed Dr Mario Denton regarding character-based leadership challenges and sustainable implementation of character-based training in the workplace. In this interview, Heideli Loubser asked Dr Denton about his recent experience in taking character-based training into some African countries.

Loubser: I have noticed that you have done Character First in Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia, Malawi and now in Uganda. I am very keen to hear how you started the training in that part of the continent of Africa and what you have learnt. You also mentioned that your son Desmond Denton have done a documentary and a session on storytelling. Now let me start this time with Desmond. Desmond tell us more about your experience in UGANDA

Character Champions in Namibia

This seminar is designed specifically for CF champions who plan to do CF implementation in organisations.

16 Champions in Namibia have been trained and special thanks for Sanet and Derrick who have organised this

• Expectations from the founder Tom Hill of Character First in Oklahoma
• Overall Vision for Africa
• Character First growth the last 12 months
• Doing the Character First self assessments, CF coaching
• Overview of CF programs day one and day two*
• Case studies (Metro Police, Vital Health, Barloworld, George Hospital, Clanwilliam High School, Ghana and Nigeria)
• Media opportunities, success stories with Radio Tygerberg 104 magazine
• Do’s and Don’ts of Implementation
• The Power of Breakfast sessions
• Project management skills and business case thinking
• Application: Business, Families, Education
• Facilitating the changes and follow up
• Monthly Character First directed work team discussions
• The new challenges and budgets and financial model
• Code of Ethics and non disclosure agreements
• The next steps

Thirty three people have been trained also in the Basic seminar
See feedback from one of the delegates

Developing leaders of the future

INTERNATIONAL LECTURES: Dr Mario Denton recently traveled to Germany, Namibia and Ghana to present lectures about HR and Character First. All the lectures were enthusiastically received, with positive feedback and invitations to return with more.

This elective happen at Leipzig during the first week in April.
The primary outcome of this elective in HR is to help participants to:

• Develop an integrated and comprehensive understanding of the field of Human Resource Management.

• Equip participants with fundamental, critical and analytical diagnostic expertise to enable them to analyze, understand and apply complex trends in the area of HR and to apply theoretical HR concepts with a view to solving relevant HR problems in their respective workplaces.

• Draw up a comprehensive HR support plan incorporating all the significant facets of HR.

Character First Sabco

Character First! helps people see the value of good character, so they can build better workplaces and communities. We have received great feedback from a group of delegates and would like to share with you regarding their experience:

Hi Mario, I hope you are fine. I wanted to share with you some key developments since your training in PE. I must confess that the character first message is very REAL for most people I have exposed it to. You can hear a pin drop during some of the management meetings I have addressed to introduce the concept. Many managers have embraced it well that I continuously get information on how people have been recognized. The Management team continues to use the character first examples while addressing employees. It is now common to hear employees refer to character issues as they discuss any people issues. At our annual long service awards – this month, the management team decided to recognize the MD for having the character of Decisiveness.

Character First in Malawi

Untitled from Desmond Denton on Vimeo.



Malawi is among the world's least developed and most densely populated countries. The economy is heavily based in agriculture, with a largely rural population.

The Malawian government depends heavily on outside aid to meet development needs, although this need (and the aid offered) has decreased since 2000. The Malawian government faces challenges in growing the economy, improving education, health care and the environmental protection and becoming financially independent. Malawi has several programs developed since 2005 that focus on these issues, and the country's outlook appears to be improving, with improvements in economic growth, education and healthcare seen in 2007 and 2008.

 

The purpose of the visit Jan Strydom Africa Director for Crown Financial Ministries has visited Johann van der Ham the local director for Crown Financial Ministries on various occasions. Johan is also very active in doing and training people on Farming God’s way.

 

Jan Strydom has also discussed and informs Johann about the role of CF as possible intervention for the region Johan have set up various presentations and during the period of 26-28 May myself together with Johan and Billy have done 8 CF presentations and answer and questions sessions to the following group

 
We have now set up plans again for the 24-25 June where we will train about 20 participants from the various organisations in the Basic CF implementation. To all the delegates and support team members- a big special thanks