Her view is that  making a difference is way too gandiose an aspiration unless you set your sights quite low, and see the difference you make being limited to improving your colleagues' workplace existence or making one customer a bit happier. She asks why anyone expects more.

I love Lucy Kellaway's pragmatic and sensible approach; she makes me smile and makes good points as well. But here I worry.  She lets the employer right off the hook.  It us up to the individual to squeeze whatever meaning he or she can out of a miserable lot and, hey, be grateful because, at least, you still have a job.

I agree that an individual can make an individual impact in any workplace by choosing to be miserable or positive, but it is the hard times when the better employer manages to get an edge by creating a climate where staff can excel, feel that they are making a contribution, and feel they are moving towards to their full potential.  This is not only for highly paid executives but right across the piece.  One of Archie Norman's great acheivements at ASDA was to make his front line employees feel special, feel valued and feel noticed.  And the result was that they performed. His people made the difference. And in a workplace where noone appears to care, this simply won't happen.

But what are the lessons about learning?  I have noticed a few things:

• You might not get it right first time.  Even at Olympic standard, small errors are corrected in situ and minor improvements are made continuously.  Coaches take prodigious notes or shout instructions from the side-lines. And the athletes listen and act.
• Praise constantly.  Team sports are a mass of congratulation and little recrimination.
• Each outing is a new challenge and needs separate and unique preparation.  There is no such thing as a standard response.
• The best performers are focused totally on the job at hand.  Phelps comes out to a race with his iPod on, looking like he is in another world, staring intently at nothing in particular, and totally calm.
• They all readily acknowledge the hard work that has gone before, and the huge support they received. 
• Noone takes anything for granted.  It is all in the details.
• However good an individual is, he or she keeps and eye on the competition.  In the race itself they all appear acutely aware of the environment.
• They learn from each other.
  

I txt every day; use the internet a lot (83 mgbt download in the last month) and have Google Maps save my life on numerous occasions.  I use Google search on the run a lot, to find stuff, plus the phone is my calendar and my address book.  I check names and addresses as well as names and numbers.  Plus a bit of podcasting, a bit of calculating, coverting currencies, temperatures weights and more plus the time zones so i always know what time it is in San Francisco.  And then I use the 'Pocket Watch' function to have a big clock on my desk when I am working at home, and iSolitaire occasionally keeps me occupied on a train, tram or bus.  Did I mention that I use it as a phone as well.

So what makes it different?  For me, it is the fact that it is delivery agnostic.  The web works as well as the phone.  Using numbers to dial or click on a contact is as easy as making a favourite list or checking voicemail.  Therefore it works like i do.  It is not a phone that struggles with the internet or a computer that can make calls at a push.  And everything is one click off the home screen, using my clumsy, podgy fingers. A delight that has genuinely made my life easier and I have no intention of moving back to Blackberry or Nokia or even Palm.

It is funny how most of the comments are anti technology but the vote is pro. The vast majority of learners get on with it using the tools to hand. To be anti-technology is to fly in the face of reality. Education uses what is available from books to text messages and the richer the technology the richer the opportunities to learn in different ways. Powerpoint is not learning: Powerpoint is a delivery platform for information, and it can be good and bad. But give me a powerpoint presentation any day to an illegible blackboard that is erased before I can write it down; give me a word processor rather than read and organise my handwriting: give me google than a futile search in a library for an article that can be at my fingertips in two seconds.Technology enhances my life AND my learning why try to separate the two processes??

The panic and then the wave of relief.  Ultimately the aim is to remain visible.  Everything else is trivial.  So Skype has changed to something a little less time sensitive and one thing can be crossed off the list for a while.

Shawn came up with eight trust making behaviours and they were ranked in the order included here.  Two further ones were added by the delegates (including me!) These are the final two in the list

• Being open and honest about your intentions
• Looking after your colleagues when times are tough
• Consistently delivering good work
• Team members are involved in decision-making

  

• Being able to speak your mind in meetings
• Being generous with what you know
• Giving credit where credit is due
• Making promises and keeping them
• Being prepared to allow the group to come up with "your idea" rather than tell them how you believe it must be
• Creating an environment where positive feedback always comes first and participation is encouraged

This sent me scuttling back to Stephen MR Covey's excellent book, the Speed of Trust where he lists his thirteen behaviours for relationship trust:

1. Talk Straight
2. Demonstrate Respect
3. Create Transparency
4. Right Wrongs
5. Show Loyalty
6. Deliver Results
7. Get Better
8. Confront Reality
9. Clarify Expectations
10. Practice Accountability
11. Listen First
12. Keep Commitments
13. Extend Trust

"I've got a strong view that the role of a CEO is to serve those who work with you,  to enable them to be the best they can."

"Late in my career I've realised the importance of a strengths-based approach.  Most of us focus on people's deficiencies and faults but it's far more important to remind people of their strengths. That builds self-confidence and they perform far better."

I remember talking to a lawyer last year. She told me that she had felt really confident and motivated in her role until she had her first appraisal.  This concentrated on all the things she did not do so well and a plan was put in place to help her improve those areas she was weakest in.  She said that she instantaneously went from someone who loved her job, and felt successful, to someone who hated her role and felt a complete failure.  Not only did her performance, overall, deteriorate but her weaknesses showed only marginal improvement.  A complete vindication of Jeff Whalan's perception. 

I asked what she did about it,  and she answered:  'I found another job where I felt valued'. Badly applied performance appraisal has the diametrically opposite effect to the one intended, and is probably worse than no formal appraisal system at all.

The interview with Jeff is in the July 08 edition of  AFR Boss Magazine. The website is quite confusing but I have tracked it down and you can read it here!