3 Free Leadership Development Resources

Note: This article originally appeared on Forbes.com
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/09/26/how-to-develop-your-future-leaders-for-next-to-nothing/#69afc9ec2d11

Are you a business owner or managerwho knows you need to startdeveloping the future leaders of your organization, but you’re paralyzed by theidea of where to begin? No worries. This article will help you get started withno cost and minimal effort.

When people learn that The Training Doctor helps companies to develop their leadership strategy, we often hear, "Yeah, but we have no money.”

There are a LOT of organizations - big and small - in this same situation. And the good news is - leadership development does NOT have to be expensive or time-consuming. Here are three resources (and we have PLENTY more to share, if you are interested).

Reading and Discussion Groups

The best activity your company’s futureleaders can master is to be knowledgeable about business in general and yourindustry in particular.  A businessleader needs to know how a business works, not how a job is done. Assist yourup-and-coming leaders by subscribing to industry journals and general-businesspublications such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, or the Wall StreetJournal.

More importantly, form weekly orbi-weekly discussion groups around an article or two that you think isparticularly enlightening or that would be good for discussion. If you reallywant to go the extra mile, pre-formulate discussion questions that get awayfrom opinion (What do you think of that?) and lean toward critical thinking(Could that happen to us? What would we do, if that happened?).  It’s important to have your future leadersthinking about “the big picture,” and your company in the context of yourindustry and business in general.

Job Rotations

Job rotations are traditionallythought of as an activity reserved for “hi-pos” (high potential individuals).Why?

It’s important that your futureleaders understand how your business works, what departments areinterdependent, and especially how you make money. They cannot learn thesethings if they are stuck in the silo of their own department or role.

A job rotation doesn’t have to beextensive or lengthy, but it should give the “visitor” a thorough understandingof another department’s work processes, priorities, and constraints. Imaginehaving a customer service representative work in the sales department for aweek. They could travel on sales calls, learn about your competition,understand better about contracts and pricing and the customer lifecycle, andon and on. Wouldn’t that make them a much more knowledgeable and helpfulcustomer service rep? Now imagine the reverse - a salesperson on the phones inthe customer service department for a week. Wow.

When people have a perspective onthe whole organization they do their own jobs better, have better collaborationskills, better communication skills, more empathy, a better understanding ofthe constraints or opportunities throughout the organization, and are not justfocused on the role that they do at their own desk.

Tuition Reimbursement

Finally, my third free leadershipdevelopment recommendation is to institute a tuition reimbursement program.Now, this isn’t exactly cost-free because it will take a bit of money to hire alawyer and/or accountant to set it up correctly (for instance, the rules aredifferent for C-corps vs. LLC’s) but once that process is done, the payback isextraordinary.

First, you have little to managebut the reimbursement process because participants are engaged more with the institutionwhere they are taking classes. Second, you are able to take advantage of a taxcredit of slightly over $5000 per participant. Third, courses often requireon-the-job projects, which means that your company reaps the rewards of betterproject management or a better HR communications strategy, for example.

And individuals often feel loyaltyto those companies that help them to further their career and their education, soan added benefit is that you’ll see increased retention (which mutes thosecynics who worry “What if I train them and they leave?”).

Bottom line: You CAN afford todevelop the future leaders of your organization with little cost and minimaleffort by starting reading and discussion groups, instituting job rotations,and offering tuition reimbursement, for everyone, not just for those employeesyou think are “high potential.”

For more great suggestions for leadership development follow The Training Doctor on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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.

Got 5 minutes for professional development? Here are 3 resources.

Would you like to be in charge of your own professional development rather than waiting for a formal training process to be offered (and without even having to sign up for one!).  Here are 3 easy, free, and GREAT ideas:

Your local library (radical, right?) 

If you haven't been to your local library since high school, it's time for a visit. Believe me, it's probably more up-to-date than the training department in your company.  My favorite part of the library are the LIBRARIANS.  They are a fount of information and know where to look for information if they don't know it themselves.  They can point you in the right direction, request resources for you, pull reading lists, and more. I use one particular librarian as my personal research department; she is awesome and she loves the work because she doesn't have many customers asking her for corporate research.

Deep dive in to podcasts 

Would you like to be "better educated"? Find a podcast on an "academic" topic (finance, economics, astronomy). You'll be surprised at how much a topic you knew nothing about informs your present-day life.Maybe you'd like to increase your business acumen. Look for podcasts that focus on engineering, logistics, marketing, human resources, etc. Give yourself a bigger perspective on the work that you do, or the industry that you are in.

One of my favorite podcasts is Freakanomics, because, it turns out, economics plays a role in everything; and it can be fun!  I especially like that this podcast has a transcript of all the shows on its website.  Earlier this year they did a series on the "Secret life of a CEO" and had hour-long interviews with Jack Welch, Satya Nadella, Mark Zuckerberg, and Indra Nooyi, among others.

Look at LinkedIn

One of the things I love about LinkedIn Learning is that you can filter for exactly what you want. You can choose an industry, and then a field, and then the type of learning (video, full blown course), what level of knowledge you are looking for (beginner, intermediate, advanced), and finally how long it takes to complete. Often, when I get that :15 minute reminder that I have a meeting coming up, I have time to fill. I love looking up 5 minute or less nuggets to expand my knowledge on all sorts of topics. How can you not spare 5 minutes to expand your thinking? 

(Note: If you are a paid member, LinkedIn Learning is free AND if you scroll down the right side of your "home" page, you'll find a new suggestion for a course, every day. It learns your preferences and will start to suggest shorter lessons in topical areas you've shown an interest in.) 

Happy Learning!

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.  

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.

It Ain't Learning if it's Microlearning

Microlearning is the short-term, focused delivery of content or involvement in an activity. Lately I’ve seen a lot of chatter about best practices for “microlearning.” By most standards microlearning should be less than six minutes and often the suggestion is that it is no more than two minutes.

The thinking is that learners have the “capacity” to sit still and watch an informational tutorial for only so long before they’ll zone out, hit pause, or be interrupted by their work. Companies that create micro learning promote it by touting its ability to quickly close a “skills gap” – a learner can learn a new topic or take advantage of a refresher, in a short snippet that they can apply immediately. About to close a sale? Watch this microlearning video on 5 steps to closing a sale. Need to perform cardiac surgery? Look at this flowchart which will lead you through the process (I’m kidding. I hope.).

Another advantage – per proponents of microlearning – is that the learner himself can control what and when to learn.

Pardon my upcoming capitalization: THIS IS NOT LEARNING. This is performance support. How and when did we get these two terms confused?

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.

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.

Smart Pills - Is it Possible to Enhance Your Thinking?

are smart pills real?

Thinking - like any skill - requires practice to improve... right? What if there was a way to make yourself smarter with no effort? What if you could just pop a pill to increase cognition?

The smart pill idea was introduced to the mainstream by the movie Limitless in 2011 (and subsequently a TV show by the same name in 2015).In the movie the main character, Edward Morra, is able to become hyper-focused, productive and perceptive through the use of a nootropic drug called NZT-48. He is able to write a book in four days, make rationale and spot-on stock picks and more.

Believe it or not, there is some truth to this. Many ADD / ADHD medications are considered smart pills - not because they make people smart(er) but because they can help people to focus and concentrate - thereby being better able to take-in and process information. Just as a computer enhances efficiency by helping you to create and store information, a smart pill can increase mental efficiency and abilities.

The most commonly used smart pill in the US is Modafinil - which is used off-label for increased wakefulness and focus. The original purpose of the drug is to solve narcolepsy and certain types of sleep apnea. A 2008 article by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington dubbed it an entrepreneur's "drug of choice" as opposed to illicit drugs which might cause addiction (Modafinil has no side effects and is not habit forming), although he does question the wisdom of staying up 20 hours straight.

It Works

In addition to anecdotal evidence that nootropics work, a meta-analysis of 24 studies was conducted jointly by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Oxford, which showed that Modafinil does indeed increase cognition. What's interesting is that the most benefits are derived in relation to complex tasks such as planning and decision making - as opposed to simpler tasks such as pressing the right button at the right time. Given today's business environment, which requires quick and complex thinking tasks - Modifinil might be the next required "tool" in a company's toolbox.

Increased Focus Isn't Always the Best Outcome

The Harvard / Oxford study also cautioned that focused thinking is not always the desired outcome. There is evidence that divergent thinking is inhibited by the drug, so jobs and tasks that demand creativity and innovation may suffer.

Do Smart Pills Create an Ethical Dilemma?

The use of smart pills poses some questions for the workplace, such as: should stimulant use be banned or approved? We do allow caffeine and nicotine which have similar effects. How do we differentiate or draw the line for a drug such as Modafinil?

The TechCrunch article joked that venture capitalists might require business owners to take the drug, to ensure their investment / company success. Some colleges are already banning the use of these drugs (Duke University has revised its policy on drug-use to include banning "unauthorized use of prescription medicine to enhance academic performance"); but other "smart drugs" include Ritalin (which increases memory and retention) and Adderall, so aren't schools then penalizing young people who need these medications? (Note: The percentage of young adults prescribed ADD / ADHD medication nearly doubled between 2008 and 2013.)

Research suggests that cognition-enhancing drugs offer the greatest performance boost among individuals with low-to-average intelligence (Scientific American March 1, 2016). So banning the drugs could harm both those who need it and those who could most benefit from it.

We ask these questions because this is where the discussion is happening right now, but give it a few years and we'll be having these same discussions in the workplace - either because everyone will be looking for an advantage in order to get ahead, or because the youth who have relied on these medications for success in childhood will graduate to working in business and may still be taking these cognitive enhancers.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is - smart pills don't increase the size of your brain or the number of neurotransmitters, or make you able to learn something you aren't inherently able to learn in the first place. They simply help you to focus for longer periods of time, thereby increasing your abilities related to complex cognitive tasks.

When it comes to learning, one millennial cautions: While smart drugs allow for instant improvement, they overlook what can be learned from the process of improving. Here here!

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.

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.

Teaching Thinking Through Synthesis

Synthesis

According to Bloom's Taxonomy   Synthesis refers to the ability to put parts together to form a new whole. This may involve the production of a unique communication (theme or speech), a plan of operations (research proposal), or a set of abstract relations (scheme for classifying information). Learning outcomes in this area stress creative behaviors, with major emphasis on the formulation of new patterns and structures. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, one definition of synthesis can be:

a combination of thesis and antithesis into a higher stage of truth

What do these definitions mean for us in the training department? How can we teach thinking through synthesis? Here are a few ideas:

• In relation to Bloom's definition - ask your learners to read a case study, whitepaper or even an article on a topic and then distill it down to (options:) the most important idea, the most critical sentence, a sentence of their own making, three key words.  If you are working with a group of trainees, give each of these assignments to different individuals or small-groups and then compare and contrast their responses.  This process requires people to truly think about the content and how to express that content in a way that is easy to remember and agreed upon by all.

• In relation to Merriam Webster's definition - have learners read two opposing articles, whitepapers, etc. and then come up with a new, balanced viewpoint or stance.  Rarely are ideas completely opposed, so working with the ideas to identify their common ground is very useful in having a well-rounded understanding of a topic.

Interview with Karl Kapp re: Gamification

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kapp_book_image

What inspired you to write this book? T

wo things compelled me to write the book. The first is that I had been working on the concept of "gamification" before I even knew the word. I was/am a big video game fan and wanted to try to bring game concepts into the learning I was designing. I had started to do that but never had a word for it. Then, one day, I saw the word gamification and I said "that's it, that's what I've been trying to do." So I started researching the concept and learning more and more about it.

However, so many people, in my opinion, were getting gamification wrong. People were focused on the least exciting elements of games (points, badges and leaderboards) and they were focused only on making learning fun.

So the second reason I wrote the book was to try to provide research-based explanations and techniques of why gamification should be about engagement and not about "fun."  I always say, "if you want someone to have fun...give them the day off." If you want them to learn, create engaging instruction. 

If you could distill your message down to just one - what would it be? 

Gamification is about engagement. The elements from games that make them engaging and interesting are the elements we should use in gamification of learning and instruction. We should not take a superficial dive into gamification, we need to really explore the elements of games that lead to engagement and learning. And, if I could sneak one more message in here it would be that gamification is based on research-backed principles. The ideas of learner motivation, spaced practice and spaced retrieval used in gamification have been shown to lead to positive learning outcomes. It's not bells and whistles, it's based on sound scientific methodology.

How would a learning professional best use your book?

 I've written two books about gamification. One has a white cover (Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education) and one has a black cover (Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook: Ideas into Practice).

The book with the white cover is designed to describe why gamification is effective, to highlight the research behind gamification and to explain how to match instructional content to certain types of games. It is more on the theory and justification of gamification.

The book with the black cover, the field book, is more about the implementation, it explains how to design interactive learning with gamification, games and simulations. It's the "how to book." 

Do you have a personal motto related to the book?

My motto is to help people understand the convergence of learning, technology, games and gamification through engagement, fun, laughter and insight. 

Bio

Karl M. Kapp, Professor of Instructional Technology, Bloomsburg University, Lynda.com author and author of six books including the Gamification of Learning series. 

The Limits of Working Memory and Training Effectiveness

learning

In this fascinating blog post from Patti Shank on the ATD site, she discusses the reasons we can't have a one-size-fits-all approach to training.

Aside from the typical learning styles excuse, Patti explores an interesting point related to neuroscience: knowledge and experience dictates the way we can present the content and further impacts the way the learner is able to work with it.

The crux of the difference is working memory vs. long term memory. When newbies are learning a topic, everything they "know" is in working memory - and they are paddling madly to keep processing and applying that information to the learning process. But when a more knowledgeable or more experienced employee has long-term memory associated with a topic, we can work with that topic in deeper and more meaningful ways for the learner.

This chart is an excellent comparison of working memory approaches to training vs. long term memory approaches.  This chart may cause you to rethink your training designs altogether.

Entry Level Employment Skills - What Do Employers Want?

Last month SHRM and the consulting firm Mercer issued a joint report titled EntryLevel Job Applicant Skills.

They assessed 15 skills and attributes employers commonly look for including dependability, communication, creativity, and integrity, to name a few. The top "vote getters" (skills or attributes deemed most important) were:

• Dependability and Reliability

• Integrity

• Respect

• Teamwork

Interestingly, these are all soft-skills and attributes rather than the hard-skills (communication, problem solving) that many employers are saying candidates are missing at the entry-level. Less than a quarter of the survey respondents said mathematics was a critical entry-level skill.

The #1 tactic suggested for securing entry-level positions was career-related internships. Internships are able to help a potential employer assess the skills bulleted above. Panel interviews are the most widely used interview technique for assessing the desired attributes.

This study / survey has interesting implications for training...

• If candidates lack these attributes... can we train for them?

• Are these attributes prerequisites to skills training or entirely different from them?

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

frustrated-with-computer

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?

Teaching Thinking Through Comparison

fruit

One of the best ways to understand or learn something is to relate the new information to something you already know. Most people don't do this naturally, however. They often struggle with understanding new information and resort to memorization rather than working with the material to really understand it and internalize it.

Since most people don't take the time to do this on their own (or don't know how  to), you can assist their learning by designing activities which cause them to focus on this comparison.

One way is to ask them to create an analogy. For instance, How is continuous improvement like a game of golf? Like building a house? Like shopping for a car? Like a basket of fruit?

Another option is to create a story. Assume your learner must learn the inventory  layout in a cooking store. Their story might be about a customer who is throwing  an important dinner party for their boss. What will they need to make it successful?  What would you suggest they buy? Where are those things located in the store?

If you have an on-going curriculum, asking your learners to relate a new topic to  the topics they've already learned is a helpful technique. This type of activity  not only causes them to have to really understand the new material, but to understand  it in a bigger context.

Try any one of these activities in your next training course and see if your learners  don't say, "Oh, now I get it!"

Stop Teaching So Much! Learn to Chunk.

frustrated-with-computer

We recently reviewed a day-long course on coaching which was actually an excellent class, the only thing it suffered from was the typical: Too much content!

The course taught 4 different coaching techniques and their best-use given a particular type of workplace situation or a particular type of worker, and then participants were given some time to choose one of their own workers with whom they thought the technique might work. Finally, they were divided in to trios to practice the technique.

This learn-and-practice process was repeated four times for each of the four techniques.  The problem with this course was that the learning outcomes were just not going  to be that great. It is impossible to learn four different techniques, and remember  when they apply, and the nuances of usage, when you get back on the job when you've been taught them all in one-fell-swoop.The expected learning outcomes for this class just weren't being achieved, despite excellent content and a "reasonable enough" teaching strategy.

While it certainly takes longer to teach in chunks, and allow participants real-world  practice and application, it does lead to better learning outcomes.The next time you are designing a course - especially one that requires practice in order to master - ask yourself: Will people really be able to do Skill #1 when they are back on the job if that information and technique has been "over written" by additional knowledge and skills by the end of the day?

Chances are, you can achieve much better learning outcomes by chunking the content and the periods of teaching, and allowing your participants to have time to not only reflect on what they learned, but also put it in to practice, and then reflecting on how effective that practice and its outcomes really were.

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.

Teaching Thinking through Changing Perspective

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One of the ways you can help people to improve their thinking skills is to ask them  to change their perspective on a topic. To think about it from another point of  view.  This is very easy to do in a training situation - since we have folks captive  and can ask them to try an activity in a way they are not naturally inclined to.

Unfortunately, we often miss this opportunity in training and instead ask our participants  to answer a question based on their own perspective or opinion. For example, how often does your training program ask something along the lines  of: Now that you have read the case study, what are the three main factors affecting  the situation? Since people respond with their own opinion, we never tell them that they are wrong, of course (nor are they wrong), but do we ever conduct "round 2" of the questioning / debrief and ask the learners, What if you were the banker, contractor, pilot in the situation? THEN what would you say are the three most important factors?

Here are two techniques for getting people to change their perspective on a topic:

1. Collaboration - Having learners work in groups is an easy and natural way to  hear more than one perspective. Some care needs to be given to structuring the collaborative activity so that "minority viewpoints" aren't ignored. Perhaps rewarding the group with the most perspectives? Or the most unique perspective?

2. Suggest the other viewpoint - Credit here goes to MindGym and Sebastian Bailey for this simple exercise presented at a conference in 2015.  In this type of activity you'll tell the learner exactly the perspective you want them to take. Bailey's exercise went like this: Close your eyes and picture your living room for 30 seconds.  Now, picture it again, from the perspective of an interior designer. Again, think of your living room, from this perspective, for 30 seconds. Once more, think of your living room, and this time from the perspective of a robber. What are your insights? What do you see differently? What “Ah-ha” moments have you had? What did you "see" as the interior decorator that you didn't see before? What about from the perspective of the robber?

Interestingly, asking people to change the way they view a situation is something  that develops with maturity. It is almost impossible to ask anyone under the age  of 18 to change their perspective on a situation. Once someone IS able to look  at things from various points of view however, it is wise to continually build that muscle and it will expand their thinking abilities in all areas of their life.