GAINING by training — that’s The Critical Difference, a Bury-based public sector specialist in leadership and management development says.

The firm is poised to capitalise on its success with the launch of new company, Solution Focused Training.

Located at the town’s Warth Business Centre, the company will roll out its training programme to North West businesses after making its name in the education and youth services sectors.

The Critical Difference has so far helped transform more than 30 failing schools as well as injecting even greater efficiencies into well-performing educational and youth organisations.

The new venture is being launched by a trio of training experts. Peter Hook, Aimee Samuels-Meens and Karen Hirst all have extensive experience in both education and business.

Solution Focused Training will deliver training, team development and performance management, using three core training programmes.

Peter is managing director of The Critical Difference and senior partner at Solution Focused Training.

He said: “The launch of Solution Focused Training is an exciting opportunity for the company as we strive to become Europe’s leading provider of solution-focused training, both in the public and private sectors.

“Solution-focused training is an extremely simple, pragmatic and straightforward approach to leadership and management.”

He added: “This course will help provide tangible evidence that shows the answer can often already exist within an organisation. At the very heart of the solution-focused approach lies the principle of doing the obvious things well.” The Solution Focused leadership programme has been created and refined by Peter and Aimee over the past four years. It has been designed around seven key principles.

These include enabling companies to work towards solutions rather than away from problems; identifying people or situations that produce excellent results, even during difficult times. It is also allowing companies to create realistic and sustainable goals and focusing on small steps through comprehensive action planning and good questioning.