Ta'leem Consulting

As I come up to 6(ish) months of launching my business - here are some of my reflections. 🌟 Know where you’re going. This means different things to different people. Some do full business plans, some do lean canvases, some just start. I found it most useful to do some thinking on my 'Why', my motivations, my super strengths - basically my Ikigai. I did it with the full realisation that this will evolve and I was happy to ebb and flow. But I had a north star and I started with that. 🏃🏼♂️ Slow down to enjoy the journey. Starting and running your own business is HARD. If you’ve ever played with that idea, you know this. It’s a marathon. And it can be quite anxiety ridden while you are waiting for the ducks to line up, for your pipeline to fill up, for your brand to be established. And so, I found that at the start, it's worth having some sort of security. If you can, stay in your role, start a side hustle and do it part time. Once established, you can start to move full time into it. 👯🏼 Find your people. I have to admit, I would not survive this if I didn’t have my people. I absolutely love the Sydney L&D community and reconnected with more nerdy L&D peeps through L&D SHAKERS Institute for Learning & Performance Asia Pacific and Crackin' Down Under. I found all my social impact peeps through the The Impact Collab Humans For Good. And then I joined Fishburners for startups, just for good measure. Not to mention all the lovely, inspiring, generous humans I met along the way - Mariane Power Anna S. Adrienne Meakin Carla Rada Mark Vollmer Nicole Hill Anamaria Dorgo Dinye Hernanda Manal Sayid, MBA Ingeborg Kroese dr. Zoe Fitzgerald Everyone who took me under their wing. Everyone who supported me. Everyone who was my cheerleader. I don’t know what the next 6 months, 12 months, 18 months will look like. But I do know that this adventure has been all the things I was promised. It’s been hard. It’s been a great learning. And mostly, it’s been fulfilling. And so if you’d like to chat to someone about inclusive design and are passionate about equity in learning, let’s connect! #entrepreneur #business #consulting #learning

Yay! Ta'leem Consulting is now a certified social enterprise through Social Traders! What does that mean? It means we walk the talk. We put our money where the mouth is. We practice what we preach. 🎉 A few years ago when I did my Fellowship in Social Impact with the Social Impact Hub I knew I wanted to make a difference. There was a lot to solve for, but I knew there was a way forward. WHAT I would do and HOW I would do it - I did not know. And so the last few years have been a journey - an adventure of working across spaces, projects and industries. Having lots of good conversations with lots of good people. And it has clarified a few things for me. We sometimes don't tap into the full potential of our teams and organisations because we don't design for them. Human centered experiences create safe spaces. Safe spaces enhance learning, and need to be intentionally designed. Running a breakout session and want everyone to contribute? Inclusive design. 🙌🏼 Creating a learning program and want to enhance learning? Inclusive design. 🙌🏼 Tapping into your team's potential? Inclusive design 🙌🏼 Ta’leem Consulting is all about giving power back to the people in the room. It’s about hearing every one’s voice and amplifying the fringe voice by designing for them. We do it through 💪🏼 Consulting and auditing your current learning and leadership programs. 💪🏼 Co-Designing human centered experiences. 💪🏼 Coaching first time leaders find their voice. Hit me up if any of this interests you! I am offering 30 mins complimentary chats in November to celebrate this milestone!

Context statements are an under utilised leadership tool. What do I mean by context statements? They can be as simple as, “Hey I’m expecting an important phone call as my child is sick. And so I have to keep an eye on it. But you still have my full attention !” The one I sometimes I have to use in my work, “I woke up with a headache today, so I might be struggle with words a little today - just a heads up” These context statements are not excuses. You dont need to apologise for them. They are statements of facts that benefit the person you are having a conversation with. 😎 Because here's the thing about leadership, we often forget. Being in a place of authority comes with responsibility and consequence. If you turn up in a meeting with a headache and don’t say it, the person you are chatting with might still notice you are a bit distracted or a little bit ‘off.’ Unless you say it, they might think its their fault. A simple context statement can have a profound effect on setting the stage and letting people know where you are coming from. #Bonus tip: You want to up your context statements game? 🙋🏼♀️ Add context when you make a request! “Can I have that report by 5pm today please? There is a board meeting I am preparing for and I’d love to have this report in advance to help me with that.” —------------------------------------------ Leadership is a beautiful dance we do with emotional intelligence. Chat to me to help you design customised leadership programs that work. I’m Shaheen and I talk about all things leadership and learning! Follow Ta'leem Consulting for regular tips and tricks, recommendations and random thoughts. If you found this useful, pay it forward and share with the world

Would you like to tap into the brilliance of everyone on your teams? All it requires are some small changes. I am passionate about all things inclusion because how else can we hear everyone's voice that will ultimately make us better as a team, an organisation, a society. One step at a time. Come along to the Learning Impact Summit in mid October to hear from me about making your workshops and meetings more neuro-friendly! Slide into my DMs if you'd like to chat about running inclusive workshops, audit your current learning programs or design new ones that fully tap into the brilliance of all. 😎

Inclusion is a mindset and a practice. Too often, we stop at the mindset. I love that your organisation and your D&I advocates are thinking about inclusion. They are heart led and want to make a change. Great! I love that! 💜 But here’s my question to you - how are you putting this inclusion mindset to practice? ❓ What systems and processes are in place to ensure objectivity? ❓ What’s your room setup for meetings and workshops? ❓ Do you give people options? For now, let me just pick up the thread on that last question. Give people options! 👍🏼 Give people the flexibility to interact as they want - put their thoughts in chat, come off mute, raise your hand.... even, contact you later! 👍🏼 Not everybody thinks in words. Can you make learning multi sensory - drawing, lego, clay - what can your participants use to express their views? 👍🏼 Give your participants the option to choose when and how much they want to participate. What are your favourite ways to practice inclusion? Contact me to chat about ways to ensure your programs are inclusive. Bonus tip - check out 'The element of inclusion' podcast for evidence based strategies on inclusion. Link in comments. =========================================================== I’m Shaheen and I talk about all things learning and design! ➕ Follow Ta'leem Consulting for bite sized learning, research backed ideas and the occasional gif! ✉ Contact me to chat about designing programs that are human centered and solve real problems.

Has your manager had any formal training in leadership? Research shows almost 85% of new leaders receive no training. Consider how much training everyone else gets - onboarding, compliance, skills gaps training etc etc. And yet, most leaders have no formal capability building almost two decades into their leadership practice! 👀 It's a shame because leadership is the most impactful lever to pull in your organisation. Whether a start up, a multinational or an impact organisation - leadership quality makes or breaks. Here are three things I keep in mind when designing leadership programs for clients and organisations. 🏭 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁: Leadership doesn't happen in a vacuum. Whether you are curating or creating content, context is key. Sure, every leader needs to be able to give timely, objective feedback. But what are the challenges YOUR leaders are facing? What is your culture that helps/hinders this? What's the psychological safety levels in your organisations?  🎯 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁: Leadership is an everyday practice. Knowing strengths doesnt make a better leader, practicing strengths does. Knowing how to coach, doesnt make a good leader, practicing it does. How can you design the program so practice is interwoven in their everyday life? What activities give them the best chance to build those muscles day in, day out.  🍀 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Leadership development is not a one time fix. How can you continue to develop your leaders? Also, what needs to shift in the environment to be able to apply what you have taught them? What structures, policies etc do you need to support them better? How can you build a community of practice? Building leadership capability has a ripple effect - and its magical to see when that happens! Done right, you start to see changes in culture, performance and bottomlines. Talk to Ta'leem Consulting if you’d like a hand with building a customised development program for your leaders. Its one of our favourite things to do! #leadership #training #leaders #learning ===================================================== I’m Shaheen and I talk about all things learning and design! ➕ Follow Ta'leem Consulting for bite sized learning, research backed ideas and the occassional gif! ♻ Reshare if you agree!

Often, we try to generate ideas by 'going around the room.' There's a better way. ‘Going around the room’ leads to over dependency on the first few ideas. How often have you heard “building on what Person X said… " Not a great formula for true innovation, is it? 🤷🏼♀️ Instead, I present to you the 1-2-4-All This is a great liberating structure that helps you generate better ideas with a greater diversity of thought! So, how does it work you ask?  1️⃣ Everyone starts with silent reflection - jotting down their individual thoughts  2️⃣ Then, ideas are generated in pairs, building on ideas from self-reflection 3️⃣ Similarities and differences are discussed in foursomes  4️⃣ Top ideas are discussed from each foursome in the whole group. As you can see this is a great way of structured thinking to generate more ideas. Why I love this methodology 🧡 Silent reflection is a great equaliser. Esp if you like dwelling on ideas, are neurodivergent or an introvert. It's levels the playing field for all. 🧡 I love the diversity of thought that comes to the top. The ideas are genuinely different because they have been developed individually.  🧡 The conversations naturally lead to consensus. Involuntary ‘voting’ happens at each stage and best ideas naturally float to the top What facilitation techniques do you use to brainstorm and innovate? #facilitation #learning #structuredthinking ----------------------------------------------------------- I’m Shaheen and I talk about all things learning and design! ➕ Follow Ta'leem Consulting for bite sized learning, research backed ideas and the occassional gif! ♻ Reshare if you agree!

Are you choosing the right data when making decisions? In fact, how do you choose data? I absolutely LOVED this episode of Choicology. (side note: if you are a behavioural economy nerd you should totally be listening to this podcast!) 'Jumping to Conclusions' is a great episode on how we often don't think about the data we collect - we focus more on the 'weak signals' and sometimes ignore the 'strong signals' .  🚥 Weak signals are data that might not turn out to be true. Eg, election polls a month out.  🚥 Strong signals, on the other hand, are more likely conclusive and should not be ignored. Eg, scores in a basketball match 30 seconds on the clock! It made me pause and reflect, when I am choosing data to look at when designing learning programs, am I also evaluating whether the signals are weak or strong? How do you ensure the right data is being selected? #learning #decisionmaking #leadership #data #choicology ---------------------------------------------------------------- I’m Shaheen and I talk about all things learning and design! ➕ Follow Ta'leem Consulting for bite sized learning, research backed ideas and the occassional gif! ♻ Reshare if you agree! https://lnkd.in/e34cpnnt

I call it the "Goldilocks problem" in learning 😎 I would LOVE a personalised journey for all my learners (a 'just right' bed and porridge, if you will), and yet, that's hard to scale, and so they are served a too hot or a too cold porridge. 🥣 And so, until we nail fully personalised learning pathways, I use learner personas to help me make decisions. A huge part of hashtag #DesignThinking, personas are archetypes of the learning cohort you are working with. *However* they add a certain 'personality' to the learner. They are specific, not abstract. They enable further understanding. Make them as specific as you can! Make them human! And if you are ever trying to make a design decision, ask them! Cheeky #protip, if you have done your research, you can actually base your personas on individual people! #designthinking #learningdesign #personas #hcd -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I’m Shaheen and I talk about all things learning and design! ➕ Follow Ta'leem Consulting for bite sized learning, research backed ideas and the occassional gif! ♻ Reshare if you agree!

❣ Darling Design This is long overdue. I have been loving you for years but never said it out loud, and it's time. I love you. I love what you do to me. How my projects turn out better simply because you are there. How my participants love me because I intentionally spend time with you. How I can make a real difference. My friends have tried telling me that I'm wasting my time with you. That after all these years, I could spend less time with you and move faster. That I can wing it. I know it's not true, I know spending time with you makes me a better person, and a better learning designer. I love how you make me feel, but also how you make me think. How you get me to pause and reflect. How I can bring more goodness in this world because because my work is now human focused, effective and inclusive. I also know, Design, you are loved by many more. Product designers, experience designers, everyone lays a claim on you. But I like to think that nobody impacts the world as I do when I spend time loving you. You help me bring more, more of everything good. into this world.  I also know you have celebrities like Roman Mars dedicating entire podcasts to you. Now, I cannot match that. But I am here to say, you will always be part of me. 💕 Your humble lover Learning Designer #learningdesign #learningdesigner #designthinking #humancentereddesign # --------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- I’m Shaheen and I talk about all things learning and design! ➕ Follow Ta'leem Consulting for bite sized learning, research backed ideas and the occassional gif! ♻ Reshare if you agree! Image of a dog typing a love letter reading "woof woof" and saying "I am writing you a love note"