Ayako Nakamura had been a trainer in Japan for companies like Hilton and Proctor and Gamble for more than a decade when she decided to start her own training consulting company, Dynamic Human Capital. In her second year as an entrepreneur, she attended her first-ever American Society for Training and Development international conference.
"At the pre-conference class, participants were talking about the conference as to which sessions would be good to go or 'must go' [sessions]," Ayako said. "Many suggested that any first time attendees should go to Bob Pike's session. So I took that advice. And his 90-minute concurrent session just blew me away!
"I so wanted to learn more about Bob Pike so I logged into The Bob Pike Group’s website, and decided to go to The Bob Pike Group conference that year. Learning more and more about Bob’s principles, it became so clear to me that this would work in Japan, too, and no one was offering anything like this in Japan!" Ayako shared. "I also appreciated and respected who Bob was...his principles, his very being."
Ayako then became a licensee of The Bob Pike Group which allowed her to bring the BPG Train-the-Trainer Boot Camp to Japan and train others in the training methods that encourage participation by learners.
In 2008, The Bob Pike Group awarded Ayako with the Global Leadership Award for her achievements in bringing BPG’s methods to Japan and publishing the Creative Training Techniques Handbook in Japanese.
"The Creative Training Techniques Handbook was critically basic to me as I started offering the Train-the-Trainer Boot Camp in Japan. I wanted every participant to read the book. It is fundamental," Ayako said. She then translated and published Bob's book The Fun Minute Manager into Japanese. "As I read Fun Minute Manager when it was published in English, I thought, 'We need this positive attitude more in our working environment in Japan.' Culturally, we tend to recognize 'hard work' but I believe we should have fun while achieving great results!"
Since teaming up with The Bob Pike Group, Ayako has trained more than 1,000 trainers in the participant-centered methods. In 2012, she was named the company's Licensee of the Year as her 2011 earnings doubled the earnings of her sales in 2009 and 2010. She is now certified in seven different BPG workshops and has earned the title of Master Trainer.
If you are interested in becoming an international licensee of The Bob Pike Group's workshops, you can click here or contact us at (952) 829-2653.
