Bringing out ‘who you are’
Loretta Gunewardene was never any good at science. “Strangely enough my children were very good at the subject,” she laughs easily. It was in the field of speech and drama that this self-confessed “shy child” found her niche, blossoming thereafter. Today, Loretta has, in her pocket, training experience of over 19 years in the subject of professional skills. She has trained over 56 companies and her clients range from CEOs of companies to lawyers, pilots and members of airline cabin crews.
‘Professional skills’ or “soft skills” as they are more commonly called, range across several topics, such as a person’s personality traits, communication ability, attitude and social etiquette. Professional skills management is recognised globally and is integrated by companies and organisations to enlighten their employees on professional etiquette and attitude. Loretta who is a trainer focuses on several of these aspects with her own approach to the subject influenced by international standards of representation and PR management.
The key to being an effective Professional Skills trainer is all in one’s communication skills. Incidentally, Loretta stumbled upon the profession by chance having had no connection to professional skills training before. Her resume is multi-faceted, she has worked in the fields of accountancy, marketing, banking and speech and drama. Through her varied work experiences she always retained an ability to interact well with people. Her positive attitude and networking skills didn’t go unnoticed and her cousin who recognised her people skills gave her, her first big project; conducting a workshop for Carson Cumberbatch PLC. Since then she has trained about 50,000 people.
Having received training by several American authors Loretta always keeps her style of teaching fresh and interesting. “When I first started it was quite a dead field because very few people understood what soft skills really meant,” she says. One of her philosophies; “communicating with a difference” reflects her creative approach to conducting workshops. “There are times where I have started a workshop with music and dancing” she laughs remembering the initial bewildered looks of her clients who towards the end of the session would be completely at ease.
Her programme consists of 15 topics ranging from business etiquette, communication skills to professional appearance. According to Loretta building up confidence is the key to strengthening one’s professional image. Confidence is also a feature that she has found greatly lacking among Sri Lankans. “Most people are very scared to express their ideas,” she states. There is the feeling that many associate being confident with being overly forward. The projection of self esteem and a positive attitude can go a long way with clients, she explained. A person’s self esteem can be affected by their families and even teachers in school she explained, noticing low self esteem especially among younger people. Having been a timid youngster herself she thanks her speech and drama teacher Mrs. Wendy Whatmore for instilling confidence in her from a very young age.
The near future aspires to be eventful for Loretta. Having been appointed by global management company Accenture to train their professionals in the region she is also busy conducting training for the CHOGM 2013. She is also publishing a report on training in Sri Lanka for Global Entrepreneurship Week. Her next step is to hopefully go global with her workshops. “We are lucky to live in a world where technology allows us to break geographical barriers giving us so many opportunities” she says of one client who resides in Kurunegala whom she coaches via Skype. An important feature of Professional Skills is flexibility. “It’s all about moving with the times. We need to be able to adapt to change.”
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