What is the 'Vanilla Effect'?

Training can simply be described as increasing the knowledge and skills of individuals.  In return performance improves.  However, there have been numerous examples of individuals and teams attending external training courses only for the brief burst of enthusiasm to be forgotten two weeks later.

There is a further dimension to the training process.  Highly motivated individuals seem to 'lap-up' knowledge and even a small increase can have a dramatic effect on performance.  Conversely those with a low level of motivation can absorb a large amount of knowledge with a minimal effect on overall performance.

The 'Vanilla Effect' is achieved when, through the Training Process, individuals and teams move from the 'low' motivation curve to the 'high' motivation curve.

By working with your key personnel, over a period of time, assisted by their colleagues, and applying a proven five-step process, we make the Training Process a 'rite of passage' during which individual and team motivation dramatically improves.  Unlike external courses however, the improved performance is sustained.  We really do help business excel!

Using your own resources

There is a group of people who know better than anyone how to make your  business tick.  You and your own staff.  Individually your key people know what makes your business work, but collectively they may not be sharing that knowledge with others.

Our starting point is always to identify the skills and competencies needed and then to look within your business to see who best can share these.  We can then provide a work based instructor course that can give each the skills to share their knowledge, primarily on a one-to-one basis.  In this way it helps to minimise the costs but more importantly, we develop team working and extend motivation beyond those being trained.

We can then provide the training for those skills, for example inter-personal skills, not necessarily available within your Company.  Since we charge only for the days our facilitator is on your premises, the number of trainees is at your discretion making this a highly cost effective way of improving performance.

Why Vanilla?

The name came from a Project designed to reduce overhead costs in a large manufacturing organisation, by reducing the layers of management and increasing the skills of the first line supervision. The name of the Project was actually Manila, after the folder in which it was first prepared.

On presenting it to the Managing Director he misheard it, thinking Vanilla was its’ name. During the presentation, slowly and steadily, it seemed that everyone had heard the name 'Vanilla' so quite naturally it became known as the ‘Vanilla Project’. The project not only delivered the costs savings in the original budget but also significantly exceeded them. The improvements in manufacturing efficiency through the motivational effects of the comprehensive training programs designed for the first line supervisors, delivered additional financial benefits not foreseen!

The ‘Vanilla Project’ was submitted for a National Training Award in 1998 and reached the Regional Finals. The judges acknowledged the remarkable results that had been achieved through the strategic use of the Training Process.  Although only in it's first year of implementation, the changes in behaviour of the supervisors were producing a shift in the culture and performance of the FTSE 350 Company.

Since then, the Company has steadily increased production efficiencies (and profits) year on year.