Career Paths - Why Your Company Needs Them

Do you work for (or own) a company that has career paths? There are a myriad of reasons why you need/want them.

𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙧𝙪𝙞𝙩𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩.
When you can show a simple diagram to a prospective employee and say, this is the learning path/career path we have identified for the starting position of (whatever you are interviewing for) people think "Wow! a future! I can go places with this company."

𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣.
People really don't want to job hop, what they want is to GROW in their careers and in their skills. But if your organization doesn't have a plan for how people can move up AND within the organization (not every move is up) then they *believe* they have to go elsewhere to grow. That's on you.

𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙘𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙨 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜.
Let's say you have a person who enters your company in a customer service role. By the end of year two, how qualified are they to be a salesperson (rhetorical question. VERY qualified.)? AND you probably have some salespeople who would be great in marketing or business development.

Focus your career paths on adaptable 𝙨𝙠𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙨.

If Janet knows A, B, and C - isn't she pretty much qualified to do L, M, and N?

⭐BONUS ⭐ When you have people who have moved around the company and understand its various moving parts, you have well-trained future leaders who know how to run a 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴, not just do a 𝘫𝘰𝘣.

The biggest misconception we battle when helping companies to develop career paths is that they think linearly. e.g.
𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘫𝘰𝘣𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘰 "𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘳" 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 "𝘸𝘦" 𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘫𝘰𝘣𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘰 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. WRONG.

For every starting point, there should be 3 - 5 possible career paths in your company depending on aptitude and interest.

⭐ Open the possibilities.
⭐ Develop career paths.
⭐ Conquer recruitment and retention issues.

If you'd like help developing career paths for your company - give us a call!

Future-Proofing Your Organization - Now is the Time to Strike

Companies have downsized dramatically in the last few months. As the economy turns around (as it will) and companies begin to rebuild, the smart-move is to methodically and purposefully build for the future by maximizing the productivity each employee is capable of. To do so, you’ll need a development plan in place before a hiring plan.

Step 1

Don’t think about the skills and positions you need to fill today – think about the ones you need to meet tomorrow. The World Economic Forum just published their 2020 Jobs Report (which looks ahead to the skills that will be needed in the next five years), and of the 15 skills listed, 11 are soft skills like creativity, negotiation, and self management.  (Note to job-seekers: these are the key words you’ll want to weave into your resume as well.)

While the skills they list may not align directly with your organization’s needs, you should spend some time identifying not just the skills, but the capabilities of your future workers. This is not an exercise that can be done in ten-minutes nor one that should be considered a “brainstorming activity.” The compilation should be something you let your subconscious work on as you observe present-work and consider where you want your business to be in the future.  One idea is to set up a whiteboard or post-it note area and as ideas occur to you, add them to “the wall.”  After a month or so, review the wall and see if you can bring the capabilities together into themes. For instance, “emphasis on the customer” and “collaborative teamwork” might both fall under a communication theme. With increased verbal communication skills your employees will be able to both form better relationships with the customer as well as work with their colleagues more effectively.

Step 2

Create a purposeful, long-term plan for developing the skills that your organization will need. Every organization is unique in terms of the soft skills they need to embrace.  For instance a hospital system may need to weave ethics and critical thinking into every development opportunity, while a manufacturing organization might need more emphasis on creativity and stakeholder management.

From the moment your newly-hired employees walk in the door, they should have a development plan, a career path, and an understanding of the five or 10 key skills needed by the organization (such as ethics or stakeholder management, as stated above).

What is most critical in this approach, however, is that the skill development is done consistently and that it is woven into the fabric of work responsibilities. What training and professional development has done to its own detriment, in the past few decades, is deliver skills training in isolation from on-the-job application.  Training classes have been reduced to mere hours instead of meted out slowly and methodically as the knowledge and concepts are needed (think of an apprenticeship model as the ideal), so employees are barely acquainted with the knowledge and skills they need to do their work and advance their careers.

In my 2017 book, Future-Proofing Your Organization, I provide an example of teaching risk management which isn’t focused on the concept of risk management so much as the command of risk management. Ensuring employees have a command of risk management requires teaching it from different angles and in different scenarios over time, not just in one short training class.

Step 3

Weave mentoring and coaching into all management and employee development activities. One of the most critical linchpins to developing capability is the use of mentoring and coaching as an on-going development process. Too often companies see these methods as “programs” that take time away from “the business.”  With just a few tweaks it is possible to integrate mentoring and coaching into the normal course of business and accomplish outsized ROI in comparison to the time, effort, and logistics required of training programs.

Going forward into 2021 and beyond, companies will do themselves the most good by re-thinking what professional development looks like and how it is delivered, so that they can create a fully-capable, maximum-output workforce that will future-proof their organization.

Are your workers operating in silos? Ugh

You Need a Leadership Development Program that Starts at Day 1 - and here's why

We wait too long to start leadership development. A 2016 meta-analysis of leadership development programs determined that most leadership development begins at age 46 AND leadership development almost always begins after someone is appointed to a leadership role. That makes little sense. Wouldn't you rather have an employee that learns feedback skills or problem-solving or strategy at the start of their career, rather than at the end?

There are a number of other approaches to as-we-do-it-today leadership development that are illogical - here is a sampling, with the rationale for a "better way."

• Leadership development programs are generally short-term (one week, 10 months) and generic - leaving the individual to figure out how their new knowledge and skills apply to the work that they are doing.
  • You want a development strategy that integrates work with learning and outputs.

• To be cost-effective, companies generally are selective about whom they will send through leadership development - sacrificing hundreds of capable individuals for the development of a few. Do you really want only a few people in your organization to be fully capable in their roles?
  • When leadership skills are integrated with regular activities and duties – starting on day 1 – the costs are minimal and absorbed daily, you don't need a "special event."

• As leadership development is currently administered...ROI is iffy. If your organization has 15 individuals, in 10 different disciplines, who have gone through leadership development this year - how do you associate their output with the learning?
  • When the learning process is integrated with every worker's role and responsibilities, you can easily connect output to increased knowledge and skill through various measure of productivity.

100% ROI 

Whenever I ask business owners and managers this question they are always a bit dumbfounded at the logic of it: Would you rather increase the capabilities and competencies of 15% of your employees? Or raise 100% of your employee's skills by 15%?

If every employee made better decisions, took responsibility for problem-solving, communicated better with their colleagues and other departments, understood who their stakeholders were... and more "leadership skills"... the efficiency and productivity of your company would be boundless.

But that "training" needs to begin on the first day they walk in the door. Your company should have a 3- or 5- or 10-year plan for the development of every employee. It should include skills building in the role they were hired for as well as broader, more business-acumen topics like risk, finance, and strategy.

And most importantly - it should include exposure to all areas of the business. Too many poor decisions are made because HR doesn't understand Ops, or Marketing doesn't understand Finance. When individuals understand the "big picture" of how your company operates - and they make relationships with people in other functions - companies run more smoothly, efficiently, and profitably. But they need to develop those skills at the start of their career, not the end.

Who "Gets" Leadership Development?

Why Not Everyone?

A question we are frequently asked - and frequently wrestle with in conjunction with new clients is - who "gets" to attend thinking skills / leadership development? It's a tough question to answer because on the one hand, the logical answer is "everyone."  Why wouldn't you want everyone in the organization to work smarter, make good decisions, understand the vision and mission of your organization, etc.? On the other hand, unless you are a small company of 150 people or less, that would be a prohibitively expensive endeavor. So the tough question is - how do we make the cut? Who makes the cut? Here are some "arguments" - none is "the best."

Argument #1

As stated in the headline - why not everyone?  Simple things - not full blown curriculums - could be enmeshed in everyday work responsibilities (much like Google's now defunct 20% time). Sending a business / industry article out each week via email, or leaving copies of it on the lunch tables, can help to ensure everyone has the same industry knowledge. By leaving articles on the lunch tables, spontaneous discussions can begin about the content and merits of the article. Managers can hold short, 20 minute, meetings two days after the articles are issued asking for feedback or questions about the article. 

To help managers, the department that issues the article can include 3 or 4 discussion questions they'd like the employees to focus on. This article sharing can be rotated throughout the organization. Much like "it's your week for carpool," it could be "your week for article sharing." 

Let's say your company works in manufacturing or healthcare - while there are plenty of articles about the industry itself, there are department-specific articles as well - manufacturing operations, healthcare marketing, etc.

This is just one small and easily do-able activity that can be rolled out throughout the organization. Why not increase the knowledge and capabilities of all your employees?

Argument #2

Focus on leaders in the organization.  We've spent so many years making individuals experts (through training) in their fields that they often don't have a big picture view of their organization or their role.  Sales Managers often don't appreciate the need for profitability which is a finance-department focus.  Charge nurses often don't appreciate customer service which is an operations (and accreditation) focus. By directly impacting the thinking skills and thereby the leadership skills of leaders in an organization there will be an immediate and beneficial impact on the departments that they run and the individuals that they manage.

Argument #3

Include all new hires - starting now.  If everyone who joins your organization is indoctrinated into a thinking curriculum from day one, they will grow in to your (smartest) future leaders. Over  a planned development process of 3 years, 5 years, or 20 years, you will have an organization chock-full of individuals who not only understand how the organization is run (because they will have had linear exposure to the organization), but they will also be knowledgeable and skilled in critical business topics such as communication, teamwork, risk management, continuous improvement, fiscal management and much, much more.

Because they have been brought-up in cohorts (The Training Doctor's branded design), they will have relationships and the ability to communicate with other departments and individuals in other disciplines.

The choice for every individual company will be different. Increase everyone's skills just a little bit?  Deep dive for leaders who will return the most immediate ROI? Or plan a long-tail approach to enmesh employees in "lifetime" development to create a leadership pipeline?

Developing the Solid 70

When your organization decides who gets training – who gets chosen? In terms of performance, employees can be classified as A players, B players and C players.

A players are your superstars – and make up only 20% of the typical staff. C players – those whose performance is passable but not great – make up another 10%.

The bulk of employees are B players – the solid 70. B players are the heart and soul of organizations. They do consistently good work. They represent your company – and your success. When a customer has an interaction with your company there is a 70% chance they are dealing with a B player. You want your B players to be the best they can be. Too often companies have such limited availability of training that it goes to the A players.

If you’d like to develop your solid 70, you can find a number of suggestions in this earlier posting. But it doesn’t have to be your responsibility to figure it out! During the next round of performance reviews (assuming your company still does them) ask individuals what they are interested in, what they would like to attempt or test, and what skills they would like to develop. 

No matter how good your A players are, they will never make up for the “solid citizen” B players. And the more you can incrementally increase the B player’s skills, the more your organization will benefit.  

How Case Studies Aid in Teaching Thinking

What is a Case Study?

Before we jump in to the value of using case studies to teach thinking, it’s prudent to define exactly what it is we are talking about. Case studies are a way to present content in a narrative format, followed by discussion questions, problems or activities. They present readers with an overview of the main issue, background on the organization or industry, and events or individuals involved that lead to the problem or decision presented in the case.

As in real life, there is rarely a specific answer or outcome. Case studies are typically tackled in groups, although they can be an individual assignment. Learners apply course concepts in real-world scenarios, forcing them to utilize higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

Case studies are very beneficial in helping learners to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Using case studies puts the responsibility for learning on the learner himself, rather than relying on an instructor or facilitator to guide the learning process. Case studies model more real-world tactics despite the fact that the content is prescribed.

Case studies in a business environment are typically used as an activity to transmit the course content; requiring an hour to a few hours of work as part of the larger course requirements. While business-based case studies are generally focused on teaching business principles, The Training Doctor uses business-based case studies to teach thinking processes.

 Case studies pack more experience into each hour of learning than any other instructional approach.

Skills Taught Through Case Study Usage

While numerous studies have concluded that case studies are beneficial to learning simply because they are engaging and participative, there are many social and business skills which are taught through the case study process, as well.

If you are familiar with Bloom’s Taxonomy, you know that the “higher” levels of learning outcomes are analysis and synthesis – which case studies are able to achieve by presenting lots of information pertinent to various aspects of the case, and asking the learner to dissect and/or combine that information to arrive at a well-reasoned opinion or solution.

Additionally, as much work in the 21st century is accomplished via teams, case studies provide an opportunity to learn critical business skills such as communicating, problem-solving, and group work dynamics in general. NOTE: It is wise to ensure learners understand group dynamics, meeting management, group process (such as decision making and conflict resolution) and the like, before sending them off to work as a team.

Often the benefits of the case study approach are lost due to the learner’s inability to manage themselves as a group (which is also an important learning outcome!).

Outcomes of Case Study Learning

In addition to skills learned via case studies, there are business outcomes which are achieved, as well. Real-world business activities are rarely cut and dry. They are dynamic and fluid which can be reflected in a case study much more easily than in the linear presentation of content which typically occurs via lecture.

Case studies prime the learner to look at an issue from multiple perspectives and – when used correctly – from multiple disciplines as well. By extrapolating a business case study to their own work environment, learners are able to grasp connections between topics and real-world application which is often difficult to do in a traditional instructor-led course.

While arriving at an answer or solution may be the stated objective of a case study (what should Fred do next?), a greater outcome is developing the learner’s ability to apply problem-solving (or opportunity revealing) management to disparate information. In organizations with workers who are more tenured, the ability to insert their own experience and knowledge is not only helpful in keeping them engaged but beneficial for younger members of the group to hear.

It is a best-practice, when using case studies in business, to utilize groups from various disciplines within the organization. Different disciplines will bring different insights to the case, allowing for a more thorough discussion. Hearing various perspectives also teaches an appreciation for the “big picture” and demonstrates the importance of gathering all relevant data. For instance, in many of our case studies we ask “Who are the stakeholders and what are their interests?” It is difficult to answer this question if the group is all from the same department or discipline, they simply don’t see the other possibilities.

Additionally, case studies model the reality of business – there will always be incomplete information, time constraints, competing interests and conflicting goals, and one must still make the best decision one can – recognizing that in business no decision is ever “the right one.”

Where Do I Find Case Studies?

You can order case studies from Harvard Business Review or subscribe to The Training Doctor newsletter (right here, at the top of the page) where we release three new case studies each quarter. Additionally, you can always click on the "case studies" category of blog topics, on this page, to view previously published case studies.

Accelerate Learning through On-the-Job Assignments

Giving individuals assignments that complement their work, or allow them to experience new opportunities, abound inside companies, but we rarely ask workers to do anything outside their normal responsibilities. Here are some ideas to provide individuals with more business insight and experience without a formal learning process:

• Train a new hire or develop an orientation process for new hires to help them to be productive as soon as possible
• Develop a ‘calendar of events’ for your role which would enable someone else to take over in an emergency – what are the things that are required daily, weekly and monthly
• Conduct competitive intelligence
• Organize a lunch and learn with a guest speaker in your industry
• Create a master-mind group for your role / function
• Write a blog article “10 things XXX should know about XXX” (such as 10 things patients should know about the in-hospital pharmacy or 10 things patients should know about dietary restrictions)
• Develop a presentation for other departments within the company that explains your department’s priorities and working processes
• Create a workflow chart for your department and look for opportunities

What are the skills that are developed from these very generic on-the-job assignments? Decision making, interviewing, coaching, writing, facilitating, analyzing, planning, speaking and more. With just a little thought you’ll be able to come up with more personalized learning experiences that will benefit both the individual and the company as a whole.

Why do so Many Companies Get Training Wrong?

Earlier in 2017 I was interviewed by the BBC for an article on workplace training and specifically, why companies get it wrong so often. As one of a few expert sources for the article, my entire response was not included, but I wanted to share it with you here.

WRONG: Cram all the learning in to the shortest amount of time possible

Solution: Mete it Out Over Time

One of the biggest contributors to the lack of training effectiveness is that we simply don’t allow enough time for training. First, companies have cut what used to be an 8-hour training day back to 4 hours, or two hours, in many cases. Sometimes it’s even been turned into a boring PowerPoint self-study (this violates a lot of adult learning principles, but we won’t go there today).

Secondly, in combination with the shorter time allotted for training, we deliver all the content in one “sitting.” While this is a great approach for an overview or introduction to a topic, it never develops into learning and skill. So the first thing we must do to make workplace training better is to mete the content out, over time. Learners need an introductory period, a practice period, a period for reflection and a period for perfection. This process cannot be compressed into 4 hours. The brain doesn’t process new information that way and the body doesn’t develop the muscle memory or finesse it needs to perform a skill this way either. (Here is an interesting article on the benefits of spaced learning in training medical professionals.)

WRONG: Teaching things in "theory"

Solution: Real World Application

This best practice has two angles. The first goes hand-in-hand with the meted content suggested above. If you are going to space the learning out over a period of time, you have the ability to assign real-world activities to the learners. This allows them to put what they’ve learned into practice and develop a better understanding of the concept as well as the muscle memory required to perform it. For example, in a sales training course, if step one is to identify prospects – the assignment should be to return to the next lesson having identified and vetted at least three prospects using the skills taught in lesson one. The assignment after lesson two should be to again start at prospecting and then add step two. This allows the leaners to learn-do-reflect-perfect.

The other angle is to have learners work with real-world concepts during the learning time itself. You could have a training class that teaches learners to read financial statements such as profit and loss, cash flow, etc. in a “vacuum,” or you could have them learn to read these same reports while looking at the annual report for their own company, or their competitor. Rather than learning things in “theory,” have your workers learn the same concepts with real-world benefits.

WRONG: Not including management in the training process

Solution: Management Involvement

Management involvement is crucial for real learning in so many ways. First, it is important that managers understand what their workers are learning so that they can reinforce it (how many of us conduct a manager’s overview or ask for their participation before their workers come to us?). Second managers can assist in the practice/perfection phase of training by allowing their workers extra time to complete their newly learned processes (in other words suspending metrics during the practice phase) and by answering questions or providing coaching. Finally, managers are the best choice for evaluating the true outcomes of training. They are the ones who see if the workers are able to truly implement what they learned on-the-job.

WRONG: Having no real plan for training: who gets trained, in what, and why?

Solution: Make it a Strategy

I can’t decide if this failure is the most damning, or if the way we slice and dice content to cut it back to the most minimal amount of time it will take to transmit it is; so this is either #1 or #2 in terms of what companies do wrong when training their workers. For years now – decades- we have trained people in silos (if you are a salesperson all of your learning will be related to sales, somehow) and we administer training on an as-needed basis. If you are good at what you do, are performing well and aren’t in-line for a promotion – you could go years with no training at all. But in order to develop our workers, and our organizations, training needs to be a strategy. What could we teach someone that would make them that much better of a performer? Some “generic” topics that come to mind are finance, continuous improvement, and project management. There is no person in the workplace that couldn’t benefit from having these three skills; yet, if you aren’t a project manager, you’ll probably never get project management training. Companies are short sighted and tend to compartmentalize training as a “department” rather than utilizing training as a strategy that can make their organization better. If companies developed a strategic plan for employee development – like they do for company initiatives such as product launches or facilities expansion – in no time at all they would reap the rewards of a more capable, productive workforce. What are your thoughts? Why do so many companies get training wrong? You can see the original BBC article here.

Teaching Thinking through Adapted Appreciative Inquiry

If you've been a reader of this blog for any period of time, you know that using questions  is something we regularly advocate for in order to change people's thinking and thereby change their behavior on the job.

But what if your learners have no preconceived notions on a topic to begin with? What if we don't want to change their thinking, we simply want to e x p a n d their thinking? That's when Appreciative Inquiry  can be an excellent tool for teaching thinking skills.

Appreciative Inquiry, in its purest sense, is used as a change management /problem solving tool. Rather than gathering people (managers, workers, etc.) together and asking "What's going wrong, and how do we fix it?" Appreciative Inquiry instead asks, "What are our strengths? What are we great at? How can we maximize that and build on it to achieve excellence?"

Appreciative inquiry has been around since the late 1980's but hasn't been "in the news" much in the last decade or so. Perhaps it's time to revitalize the approach, with a different spin - let's use it to teach thinking. The way we envision using the technique is through possibility summits which help newer or younger associates within a company to help set the course for the future. Too often, when individuals have been with a company 20, 30 or 40 years, they are set in their ways. Why change? Things are working great.

But organizations that rest on their laurels are organizations that will ultimately fail. Younger associates may have great ideas but no knowledge of how to advocate for them or execute them. Appreciative Inquiry can help individuals and organizations to thrive. Here's how....

Adapted Appreciative Inquiry Process

Allow the "younger generation," if you will, to help envision the future and empower them to create it by utilizing an adapted Appreciative Inquiry Process:

First, craft questions that help to open up future lines of inquiry, such as "What is your vision (not expectation) for our company in five years?" "What do customers love about us?" "What are our strengths in __________ area or department?" Questions should be crafted to get at opportunities, competencies, and business ecosystems (such as working in conjunction with suppliers, competitors or customers). A more inspirational or free-flowing question might be: "It's 2025 and Fortune Magazine has just named us the most _______ company in America. How did we get there?"

Next, assign people who are newer in the organization to interview those with more tenure - using the questions created in the first step. This accomplishes two things: It devoids the idea that those at the top of the organization know best and opens up channels of conversation - It helps to develop relationships between people who might not normally interact in their day-to-day roles (for example, the CEO of the company being interviewed by someone in the shipping department), and the results of that can be amazing, not only for inspiration but for goodwill and long-term relationships.

Third, those who have conducted the interviews report back on what they've learned, and themes (strengths) and actions items are culled from the results.

Finally, the action items are prioritized (what can be done most quickly, what can be done most affordably, what will get us to our ultimate vision for the future, etc.) and assigned. Ideally, multi-tenure teams will be assigned to work on the action items, which helps to establish mentorship even if the company doesn't have a formal mentoring program.

Note: You may choose to focus these steps on a theme in order to keep the process more manageable. The theme might be #1 in Customer Satisfaction and the steps would then focus on that vision for the future. For instance: What is possible, in our billing department, to ensure we are #1 in Customer Satisfaction?

Benefits of Appreciative Inquiry Integrated with a Curriculum

When this type of activity is integrated with a Teaching Thinking curriculum, it exposes those enrolled in the curriculum to new ways of thinking that they simply would not come up with on their own. It also exposes them to real-world experience and capabilities, rather than contrived activities with expected outcomes. Finally, it unites the organization because everyone has a hand in the creation of the future (there are elements of social constructionism in this type of learning activity).Combining vision and experience enables an organization to reach new heights.

Why Knowledge Management is NOT the Answer

4 Levels of Learning Outcomes

According to Wikipedia, Knowledge Management (KM) is the process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization.

At first-read this sounds like a great idea, and many organizations have spent many millions of dollars in the last 20 years to collect and catalog the knowledge their employees possess, in order to "preserve" it and share it.

There is one glaring problem with this approach - knowing what you know and knowing how you arrived at the answer are worlds apart. As the illustration shows us, knowledge is at the lowest level of learning. Indeed it is the foundation upon which all learning, skill and ability is built, but having knowledge alone is not enough.

For individuals and organizations to have success, there needs to be a transfer of thinking skills- not just information. For example, in one organization we've worked with, the transfer of thinking skills started with asking senior associates to write a short synopsis of the six "defining moments" of their career - when did they have an “ah-ha” moment and how did it change how they worked? These were then categorized in to themes such as loss, growth, conflict, strategy, competitive advantage, etc.

The same senior associates were then interviewed to get more detail about their "stories" - what they had learned and how. Questions such as, "Was there a single factor that influenced your _____," or "If you had the opportunity to give advice to your younger self, what would you advise?"

Finally, the "best" stories in each category (loss, growth, etc.) were chosen and those same senior associates were interviewed, on camera, a'la 60 Minutes, to tell their story in five minutes or less. The previous steps of writing the story out and thinking aloud through interviews helped the associates to succinctly transmit the situation, the outcome and the lessons learned.

In just under two months the organization captured the best thinking from the most experienced people in the organization. The videos were used as "teasers" to get learners interested in the topic (theme) and the other stories were made available in a case study format for learner's reference.

The collection of thinking is available to be disseminated via multiple modalities - on the company's intranet, via a monthly internal newsletter, on-demand from the learning portal, and in leadership training offerings.

An interesting outcome of the project is that other associates have come forward to voluntarily share their thinking as well. They want to share their career defining moments and learnings with the organization and other associates. The organization now has an archive of what, why, and how, rather than a collection of simply what.

Invest in Critical Thinking = HUGE ROI

Some organizations still believe training is a cost-center rather than a money maker.

But the right training, applied at the right time, can have exponential returns! According to this short report on Critical Thinking, published by Pearson in 2013, the return on investment for critical thinking tends to be extremely high. Research has shown that when training moves a $60,000 a year manager or professional from “average" to "superior," the ROI is $28,000 annually. (emphasis, ours) 4

How would your organization like to make $28,000 per year, on each of its managers? We can help. It's what we do.

Would Your Employees Train on Their Own Time?

"The company has to look forward and transform. If it doesn’t, mark my words, in 3 years we'll be managing decline." [2016] Randall Stevenson, CEO of AT+T

AT+T has been swimming upstream for 20+ years now.

Long gone are the times of one landline in everyone's home. In order to survive, the company has adapted to, embraced, and conquered cellular networks, cable television, fiber optic networks, satellite networks and streaming networks - all on a national scale.

In order to keep up with the rapid changes in technology and infrastructure, their employees have had to constantly change, adapt and grow as well.

Is your company forward-thinking enough to do what AT+T has done?

Between 2013 and 2016 AT+T spent $250 million on employee education and professional development programs. According to Stevenson, the CEO, employees are expected to put in 5 - 10 hours a week in professional development - on their own time. The company pays for or supports their educational efforts but does not directly supply all the training that is needed.

Additionally, the company created their own masters program in conjunction with GA Tech; and then opened it up to the public via Udacity. There were two reasons for this . 1) they couldn't find enough people graduating with the skills that they needed to fill the positions they had open - so they had to create a bigger supply somehow, and 2) Any member of the "public" who enrolls is a potential (well educated) future employee - so they are building a pipeline of skilled employees.

Now THAT's a future-thinking organization.

How Apprenticeships and Teaching Thinking go Hand-in-Hand

If I were to ask you to picture a cell phone - would you picture a baseball sized item, battleship grey, with a silver antenna you had to pull out of the top? Of course not. That is a cell phone of yesteryear.

Yet, when we mention the word "apprenticeship" to organizations or individuals, the most frequent reaction is, "Oh, that's not for us/me; apprenticeships are for manufacturing, hands-on labor, blue-collar jobs."

Not so! Those are apprenticeships of yesteryear.

Welcome to the new era of apprenticeships - they just might save your organization.

On June 29th President Trump signed an Executive Order - Apprenticeship and Workforce of Tomorrow - to expand apprenticeships in the US.  The goal is 5 million apprenticeships in the next 5 years (currently there are 450,000 registered apprenticeships in America).

It shall be the policy of the Federal Government to provide more affordable pathways to secure, high paying jobs by promoting apprenticeships and effective workforce development programs.

According to the Department of Labor, companies in all sectors of the American economy are facing complex workforce challenges and increasingly competitive domestic and global markets. Apprenticeships are one key to helping people who have been left behind by shifts in the economy and how work is done.

The Success of Apprenticeships

Apprenticeships are a standard route to a career in much of Europe. Germany, especially, is known for its exceptional apprenticeship model. In Germany, half of high school graduates choose a track that combines training on-the-job with further education at a vocational institution (as opposed to the US, in which less than 5% of young people participate in apprenticeship programs). The mainstream nature of apprenticeships in Germany contributes to the country having the lowest youth unemployment rate in Europe.

Apprenticeships are an acceptable and highly respected alternative to college. At the John Deere plant in Mannheim, over 3,000 young people a year vie for 60 apprentice spots; likewise, at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, over 22,000 applicants vie for just 425 places.

Another benefit that Germany reaps from its well-seasoned apprenticeship program is keeping manufacturing jobs in the country. However, apprenticeships are no longer focused solely on manufacturing or "trades." Apprenticeships are now common in IT, banking, hospitality, and healthcare.

In the future, there will be robots to turn the screws. We don't need workers for that. What we need are people who can solve problems - skilled, thoughtful, self-reliant employees who understand company goals and methods. (German educator)

Perhaps it won't work in America

There are a number of reasons why apprentice programs may not work in America, unfortunately. Naysayers cite costs, stigma, cooperation, changing belief systems, and turning a big ship around. In short, it's not going to be quick, and it's not going to be easy.

In the United States there is a tendency toward higher education as the path to career options, although a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education admits "something about the path from college to career is not working for many people. “In recent decades we've seen corporate America severely reduce the budgets of training departments and cut back the hours allotted for training, per individual. The cost of apprenticeship programs is largely borne by the employer (German companies say their costs range from $25,000 to $80,000 per apprentice) and take two to six years to complete.

One program, at a Siemens plant here in the US (Charlotte NC), reportedly spends $170,000 per apprentice. Cost should be seen as an investment, say German proponents. Rather than looking for immediate ROI, companies need to look to longer-term benefits such as a ready and able talent pool, long-term employees (studies have shown that apprentices stay with the company that trained them - a loyalty is established), and workers who understand their organization's culture and goals.  Additionally, there is a social component - skilling individuals for blue-collar, white-collar, and jobs of-the-future is one of the best ways to cure income inequality.

Americans aren't simply going to jettison old attitudes and decide, for example, that long-term gains, however broad, should trump short-term ROI.

Unlike in Europe, where apprenticeships are integrated into the educational system (in Switzerland students are introduced to apprenticeships as early as fourth grade and Swiss high schoolers are ready to work upon graduation, having started their apprenticeships around age 15).

The minimal apprenticeship programs currently available in the US are "marginalized and have almost no connection, or very limited or tenuous connections, to either our secondary-education or our higher-education systems," says Mary Alice McCarthy, who directs the Center on Education and Skills at the think tank New America.

Despite these perceived drawbacks and challenges, the Department of Labor is ready to help those organizations that do want to begin apprenticeship programs.

The Benefits of Apprenticeship Programs

First, the benefits to individuals: The benefit most widely touted is "college without debt." Apprenticeships always include some form of higher education; sometimes the ratio is 1:1 (equal amounts of time in the classroom and on the job) and sometimes the proportion varies one way or the other. Many apprenticeships culminate in a two-year degree, but the length of time to achieve it may not be exactly two years.  If one is enrolled in an apprenticeship, the employer pays for most, if not all, of the tuition with the associated college. Generally employers partner with local colleges (such as community or technical colleges).

Another individual benefit is "earn while you learn." All internships are paid positions. The apprentice does not make the same wages as a fully qualified individual in the role, but that is offset by the amount of tuition they are the beneficiary of. Also, once the apprenticeship is completed, the individual's compensation usually rises substantially.

Other advantages include having a "foot in the door," having re-marketable skills (although, as cited earlier, most apprentices stay with the employer that trained them), and a work-record that aligns with their degree (as opposed to most college graduates who have a degree but no real-world work experience).

Likewise, there are substantial benefits to the employer: One of the most attractive benefits of instituting an apprenticeship program is the ability to "grow your own." Even if companies can find qualified individuals in the general population, oftentimes they come with abilities that don't mesh with the new employer.

For example, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock health system in Lebanon NH runs a 15-month long apprenticeship program to train medical coders, pharmacy techs, and medical assistants. The program was instituted to fight the constant battle of trying to find appropriately skilled individuals in the local area, but the health system's director of workforce development also cited the challenge of hiring workers from other hospitals in the area who "often don't have the same level of competence."

An apprenticeship program also ensures a steady-stream of skilled individuals for the key roles an organization has identified. Rather than trying to beg, borrow or steal already trained employees from other organizations (which doesn't ensure the "ideal" candidate and can cost tens-of-thousands of dollars in recruiting, interviewing and onboarding costs) an employer knows the quality and capability of the apprentices in their pipeline. Apprentice programs quell the panic of "where will we find xxx?"

Apprentices have also been "schooled" in the company culture, work-ethic, values, processes, etc. Many employers cite these intangibles as "invaluable." For instance, at Bosch, a manufacturing organization with facilities in Germany, as well as South Carolina, US, a mistake on the factory floor can potentially cost a million dollars; the director of the apprenticeship program says that the company is confident in the skills as well as the level of responsibility their apprentices have when on the job. In many ways apprenticeships offer a substantial return on investment.

Apprenticeships are no longer limited to manufacturing or construction, as in the past. Today's apprenticeships prepare individuals for careers in healthcare, IT, financial services, insurance and more. In fact, instructional design would make an ideal apprenticeship topic because it is a nuanced skill with much theory to know and practice required to master.

Finally, the Department of Labor is ready with grants and support to help organizations begin apprenticeship programs. The DOL cites benefits such as attracting a new and more diverse talent pool, investing in talent that keeps pace with industry advances, and closing gaps in workers' skills and credentials which undermine productivity and profitability.

Apprenticeship Programs Align with Teaching Thinking Skills

Many of the approaches and benefits of apprenticeships are also built in to a teaching thinking curriculum.

The extended timeline for learning (years, not days or hours), the on-the-job experience and practicality, the incorporation of coaches or mentors, teaching soft-skills such as teamwork and self-management, the structured nature of the learning process which ensures that all participants are learning the same skills in the same order and on the same timetable, the focus on white-collar jobs, and more.

Soft skills are actually better taught in a business environment than they are in a classroom. In a classroom the consequences are very different.

How to Get Started

If your organization would like to explore the possibilities of an apprenticeship program, call us, or go to the Department of Labor web page for resources such as a Quick-Start Toolkit, a list of tax incentives and credits, and information on how to access federal funding to build your program and / or pay stipends to your learners.

Where do Attorneys Come From?

If you work for a large enough organization, you undoubtedly have a law department.

Have you ever wondered where the attorneys come from? Not straight from law school, that's for sure. Your organization acquired them from somewhere else - usually from a law firm.

Law firms are in an unenviable situation. First, they must deploy employee training from day one - law school does not make one an attorney, it simply teaches one about the law. Second, the average tenure at a law firm is 5.4 years. And, most lawyers who leave their firms do not go to another firm - they usually go to corporate America.

So, you're welcome. Law firms are footing the bill for you to the tune of $200,000 per attorney according to our source.

What roles would you train for - from scratch - in your organization? What jobs does the organization prioritize? How does your company stay in business - who are you dependent on? How much is your company willing to invest to "grow" a stellar employee? See this related article for some ideas on how to training employees from the ground up.

How to Build a Better Leader

While we often repeat Malcolm Gladwell's premise, in Outliers, that it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert at something, we rarely apply that idea to soft skills - like leadership. And that is quite possibly why we have such a tough time cultivating leaders in our organizations.

Joshua Spodek, author of the bestselling Leadership Step by Step: Become the Person Others Follow likens leadership skills to athletic or acting skills. You must participate, you must start small and perfect different aspects of the craft, you must put yourself in situations beyond your comfort zone to really explore and understand your capabilities. You aren't simply "gifted" the title (or skill) of leader.

Tom Brady recently led his team to a 5th Super Bowl win. But he didn't join the Patriots as a leader. In fact, he was a sixth-round draft pick (the 199th player to be picked!) and, when he joined the team, he was one of four quarterbacks (that's two too many by most NFL team standards). Luckily, Brady was able to hone his skills (both athletic and leadership) while out of the spotlight - the rest is history.

Jennifer Lawrence is the highest paid female actress. It seems as though she just exploded on the scene but in fact she started her "career" in school musicals and church plays. Her first time onscreen was in a supporting role 10 years ago. She's acted in dramas, comedies and sci-fi movies. She has been the lead...and part of an ensemble. She has honed her craft and is viewed as a bankable star in Hollywood. 

How Can We Create Our Own Bankable Stars?

According to Spodek, the first crucial skill to master is self-management. One cannot manage others unless he / she is in command of himself.

Next is communication skills. Spodek rightly points out that people hear what is said - not what is meant. Remember, it's the speaker's responsibility to ensure their message gets across.

The third key development opportunity is our favorite - constantly seek growth. Yes, increasing knowledge and skills in one's industry is a given, but Spodek suggests leaders-in-training should examine and challenge their core beliefs in order to be open to all possibilities.

Finally, Spodek stresses the importance of being comfortable with emotions - both one's own and one's employees. He suggests finding out other's passions in order to lead them in the way they want to be led. Daniel Goleman expresses this same sentiment but refers to it as empathy.

As you can imagine, none of the skills, above, are developed without devoted effort and analysis of what works and what doesn't. A little coaching doesn't hurt either - because it's nearly impossible to say to oneself, "You know what I lack? Self Management." (Thank you, Travis Kalanick, for shining a spotlight on that one.)

Leadership skills should be SOP (standard operating procedure), in terms of training, at all organizations. If your organization doesn't train for these - start today - before you find yourself with no quarterback.

How will YOU reinforce the learning, once the training is over?

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The Training Doctor was once shown the door at a client site when our response to the question: How are you going to reinforce this learning once the training is over? was... "That's not our job, that's your manager's jobs."

It was an eye-opening experience to realize that a company requesting training didn't feel responsible for ensuring the training would work or benefit the organization.So before you design or develop any training program, be sure to ask your potential client (external or internal): How will this new knowledge or skill be reinforced on-the-job once the training is over?I

t is important for a business / business unit to take responsibility for the training's success. There is only so much an external consultant or even an internal trainer can do to ensure that people are allowed to practice and master their new skills on-the-job once they leave the training.An extra service you might provide to your client is to create a list of options / ideas to reinforce the training. For instance:

• They might schedule a weekly brown bag lunch check-in at which the newly trained employees could bring up new questions or share tips and tricks that they had learned since the end of the training and the practical application began. As trainers we know that it is not possible to teach everything in a training class and often the learners will discover short-cuts or other methods of working as they've had time to implement their new skills on-the-job; it would be helpful for everyone to know about the short-cuts rather than requiring each individual to figure it out on their own.

• The training department might send out a series of emails which would reinforce some of the key points of the training. For instance, following a coaching class, a series of weekly emails might reinforce each step in the coaching process, such as Week 1: Remember to ask the employee how things are going from their perspective; Week 2: Probe and ask additional questions based on the answer(s) you got to the How is it going query.  Week 3: Praise the things the employee has been doing right since your last coaching conversation, etc.

• Suggest a follow-up check-in two to three weeks after the training (allowing time to practice on-the-job).  At this follow up meeting the trainer would be available to answer questions or provide reinforcement of the key concepts.

• Many times managers do not realize that their employees do not come back "fixed" after the initial training, and don't realize that they have to allow for time for practice on-the-job, so a simple suggested schedule for managers which identifies the time needed to practice (such as week 1 allow one hour of practice, week two allow 30 minutes of practice, etc. ) might be all that is needed to see success soar. This approach not only reinforces what was learned but gives employees permission to practice on the job, knowing that it is supported by management.

Whether or not you provide the suggested reinforcement techniques, the responsibility for reinforcing the new knowledge and skills lies with the managers. Trainees must be given time and permission to practice their new knowledge and skills until they are more competent than they could have been by simply "being trained."

Who Will Give Their Sign-Off on the final design of the training?

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Who will give their sign-off on the final design of training seems like such an obvious answer that it does not need to be asked, right?

Wrong.

Not asking this  question could result in a lot of wasted time and effort. Just like a needs-analysis,  to determine exactly what type of training would meet the audience's needs, asking  Who will be the final sign-off on the design is a way to ensure that the training you design meets the needs of the organization.

The Training Doctor was once involved in a project for a retail organization: working with the corporate Director of Operations to design training for the stores. The entire training had been designed and developed in close-association with the Director of Operations, who gave her approval. The program was then presented to the vice-president-of-something, who said within the first 5 minutes of seeing the final product: No, No, NO - this is not what I wanted at all!

In order to save yourself and your organization unnecessary frustration as well as lost time and money - whether you work internally or externally - be sure to always ask, Who will have the final sign-off on the training and, ideally, have a conversation with that person at the start of the project in order to understand what the expectations are. Who would have thought that the Director of Operations could have gotten it so wrong?

What is most important in solving this problem - Quality, Speed or Cost?

Most of us know the 3-points of any project: quality, speed, and cost, and the fact  that it is impossible to have all three.

Given the reality of today's training environment  in which budgets are slashed and time allowed for training has been reduced, the question: What is most important in solving this problem, quality speed or cost, is critical to ensure success with any training endeavor.

If quality is most important, then your project will take time and undoubtedly will cost "more" money than a project that doesn't have quality as its most important factor.

If time (project due by the end of this month) is the most important factor, then quality will take a back seat and higher costs will probably prevail in order to get more people or services involved in the creation of the training.

When designing and developing new training for your orginization, this is a very useful question to ask because it helps you to know where to assign your resources and/or it helps you to know what resources to ask for.

So, if time is the most important factor, you may want to request an extra pair of hands such as a consultant or a temporary service. If quality is the most important factor, you may want to price the project and then request an extra 25% in funding.

What is most important to solving this problem: quality, speed or cost is a critical business question which will help you to create a better training product and outcome.

Where were you in 1991?

Twenty-five years ago The Training Doctor was born!

Here's a look back at what else was going on at that time. Where were you?

• The Persian Gulf war ended with a cease fire

• Boris Yeltsin was the first elected president of Russia

• George Bush (#1) was president of the United States

• The median US household income was $30,000

• Unemployment was approximately 7%

• A first-class stamp cost 25 cents

• The NY Giants won the Super Bowl by one point (the cost of an ad was $800,000 compared to $5 million+ today)

• Nirvana (the band) becomes an American icon

• Dances with Wolves won an Oscar for best picture

• Tim Berners-Lee created the internet! (thank you, thank you)

• Richard Branson completed the first transatlantic hot air balloon flight

• Dr. Seuss died