Which takes longer to teach – how to launch a missile or how to sell insurance?

We often work with 2 and 3 clients simultaneously. It helps with productivity because sometimes you just hit a wall in your thinking when focused on one industry or topic and switching to another helps to get your creative juices flowing again.

One year we were working with both the US Navy and a large insurance company that sold disability insurance through employers (if you were an employee, you could elect to add this disability insurance through your employer).

The Navy project involved radar, sonar and firemen on a nuclear sub, working together to determine when it was appropriate to launch a missile – all three roles must work in unison.

The insurance company project involved training new-hires, right out of college, to sell their employer’s policies to companies.

The Navy required 6 weeks of training.

The insurance company required 40 weeks of training.

It is a dichotomy that has stuck with us for decades. It only takes 6 weeks to learn to launch a missile, but 40 weeks to learn to sell insurance?

Some of the explanatory factors may include:

• Launching a missile is based on very matter of fact yes/no decisions.

• Insurance sales is based on personal interactions – can you get past the gatekeeper? Do you have something viable to offer? Can you answer questions that will not be the same from prospect to prospect?

To teach sales you must teach a lot of variables and how those variables might present themselves. Every interaction will be different.

To launch a missile the people who execute are not the people who make the decision to execute – once they get the order, they combine their data and within very narrow parameters, choose the best opportunity to launch.

Take away – when determining the design of your training or how long it will take to learn – consider how many variables will be in play and how many you can account for in a learning environment.

The Difference Between Education, Training, and Learning

In our 30 years of consulting to organizations both big and small – it has become very apparent that most workplace training fails for one fundamental reason…

People don’t “get” the difference between education, training, and learning.

As an expert in the field, we often speak at industry conferences and always start with this distinction.

It is amazing to hear many people in the audience exclaim “ohhhh.”

Here is the distinction:

Education is something we’ve all experienced.

It is formal. It is typically done in large groups.

It is mostly a one-way flow of information.

It’s usually an expert imparting knowledge - which often takes the form of facts, rules, or underlying theories.

At the end of education we expect people to “know stuff.”

Training is more outcome based.

At the end of training you are expected to be able to do something or to behave in a certain way.

And training is dependent on education because you often cannot do new things without understanding certain facts or rules.

For instance,  you can’t hit a golf ball with accuracy unless you understand how your body position changes the trajectory.

But above and beyond that – there are many different techniques for hitting a golf ball …which can be learned through training.

Finally, learning is achieved when you have internalized something.

It is the point where somebody says “how do you do that?” and you don’t even know.

You forget what it was like to be a beginner.  

You forget what the steps are – you just do it.

So if we want to get to learning – which we do – how is that accomplished?

Three ways:  experience, spaced learning, and reflection.

First Experience – not all learning is done in the classroom or in a formal, prescribed setting, right? Think of all the things you’ve learned in your life. A well-known example is teaching a child not to touch a hot stove. Rarely do any of us actually teach that. If we were to educate the child we’d say “don’t touch that stove, it’s hot!” or  “be careful, you’ll get hurt” or the simple NO! 

But none of those words mean anything.

Inevitably we all touch a hot stove and IMMEDIATELY learn what we’ve been “taught” but didn’t internalize.

So – if you truly want someone to learn something – they have to experience it.

Next, spaced learning or practice.

Think about when you learned to ride a bike or drive a car.

 You didn’t take a class and then miraculously know how to do it.

You practiced over and over – repetition, yes, but also - you practiced over the course of many days or weeks - - spaced practice.

We simply do not learn something once, and change our behavior or our capabilities immediately.

And third: reflection.

Reflection is something only an adult human can do.  

Have you ever punished your child by saying “go to your room and think about what you’ve done.” That is futile. They can’t do it.

But you know that internal monologue you have running in your head… as you drive or when you’re in the shower …where you’re constantly reflecting on what has happened and whether you were satisfied with the outcome or not? That’s reflection.

In order to learn - people need time to reflect.

Sadly, we rarely allow for that in the workplace.

We put people into 2 hour or 4 hour training classes and then release them back to their jobs where they get inundated with new and urgent things… and that’s the end of that.

And then we wonder why people don’t change their behavior … despite the fact that we provided them “training.”

So -  to reiterate:

Education, training and learning are different.

When people get to the point of having learned – they have internalized the content.

They know what they are doing…

why they are doing it…

when they should do it…

and how their behavior might have to change based on changing circumstances.

Here's How You Can Create Training Without Knowing a Thing About the Topic

Have you ever had to design a training program for a topic you just didn't get? Us too!

The wonderful thing about being a professional instructional designer is that you don't actually have to understand the topic, but you MUST understand the process of how people learn.

If you understand how to design learning - the topic is irrelevant.

For instance, we created Row, Row, Row Your Family Feud Boat (download, here) when we were charged with helping financial planners to overcome client objections to moving to a new platform.

At first, we referred to it as a "product" and we were quickly corrected: It's not a product, it's a platform.

When then changed our wording to "service." Wrong again. It's not a service, it's a platform. How could we design training to overcome objections to a platform if we didn't even get what that WAS?

Easy - you design a learning process and have the learners themselves fill in the content.

Check it out here. You can use this design for all sorts of topics.

Succession Planning? Start Here.

Many organizations are facing an impending loss ofleadership as the last of the Boomers are getting ready to leave the workforce.With the start of a new decade upon us, now is the time to plan for the next generationof leaders. But where to start? If your company does not have a leadershipdevelopment program in place, or if you haven’t really given much thought to howyour company will make an orderly transfer of leadership responsibility, 2020is the year to focus on this critical planning.

Below, I’ve outlined the first three steps in successionplanning. So as not to get overwhelmed, address them slowly over the next sixto twelve months and your organization will be ready to smoothly transfer thereins of leadership as the Boomers in your company begin to retire.

Step 1 - Consider who is next in line for leadership 

The outcome of this step is to determine where you want toconcentrate your leadership development efforts in order to achieve the most ROI.Do you want to concentrate your efforts on those who have been with yourorganization the longest and therefore understand its inner workings andculture? Or do you want to concentrate on younger generations who are lookingfor professional development as a primaryperk of employment and who may be with your organization longer, as aresult?

To gain better insight, take a look at who you presently employand what generational cohort they belong to. Currently there are fourgenerations in the workforce, the Boomers, Gen X, the Millennials and Gen Z whoare just entering the workforce. It is logical to assume that Gen X, being thenext generation after the Boomers, would be next in line to lead in yourorganization, but there aren’tenough of them. In addition, in a recent study conducted by TheConference Board, of data collected from over 25,000 leaders acrossindustries, it was determined that Gen X have been stymied from moving up thecorporate ladder by Boomers who have stayed on the job longer than previousgenerations. What this means is that there are a number of generations in yourworkforce who have not been indoctrinated into leadership development orleadership roles.

Determining where to apply development efforts is a criticalfirst step in determining your company’s leadership pipeline.

Step 2 - Determine What Skills Your Future Leaders Need

Once you determine who you’ll want to develop (as anaside, I advocate developing everyone as if they were going to be afuture leader; a rising tide lifts all boats, after all) you’ll need to identifywhat skills they will need to support your organization in the future.

To accomplish this, there are three sources of data you’llwant to collect and consider:

 1 Look at the jobdescriptions of each of your current leadership roles to determine what skills areidentified as necessary in today’s environment. This is just a baseline, as weknow that today’s business environment is accelerating and changing at a pacenever experienced before and what your organization needs today may not be whatit needs tomorrow. Be sure to identify leadership skills and behaviors, such asmanaging a team of five or fiscal responsibility, and not job tasks such asmonthly reporting. If possible, “read between the lines.” For instance the taskof “standardize procedures to improve efficiency” really means having theleadership abilities of analyzing, forecasting, and planning.

2 Pay attention to what industry experts and yourprofessional association are doing in the realm of the “future of work” andwhat is predicted for your industry. Some of the current concerns includeartificial intelligence and robotics, consumer pressures (suchas related to the environment), and changing buying habits – all of whichwill require your company to adapt. What do you need to start training yourfuture leaders for, today?

3 Hold one-on-one interviews and ask your current leaderswhat prepared them for the role they hold today. Most often you’ll learn thatformal development is not credited as much as mentorship, on the job learning,and a wide array of experiences.  Theseinsights will help you to decide the best course of leadership development, foryour organization, going forward. For example, you could put four future-leaders through an off-site leadership development program or you might chooseto institute a job rotation program for everyone at your company. The twooptions might cost the same amount, but will return vastly different results.  You’ll want to thoughtfully consider howpeople truly learn leadership in your organization.

Note: Be very concerned if the majority of responsesare, “I learned it at my previous job,” because that means you are doingnothing to develop leaders in your organization and are instead relying onother companies to develop them and hoping you can then hire them away. That“strategy” puts your company in a very precarious position; the topic ofanother article entirely.

Step 3 – Consider How You Will Develop Leadership Skills

Once you have identified the skills that should be developedin your future leaders, you’ll need to determine how to get them those skills.  Creating a formalized leadership developmentprogram is a time consuming and arduous process – which is why most companiesforego it and instead cross their fingers and hope their future leaders will“appear” when needed.

Sending people out for leadership development can be cost-prohibitive and because of that, the number of individuals that get developed is generally far fewer than is needed by any organization. A smart option for most companies is to mete leadership development out to everyone, through easy-to-implement activities such as reading groups or lunch-and-learns, and on-the-job projects such as a multi-discipline initiative. Over time, small and consistent development opportunities will build the leadership skills your organization needs and alleviate succession planning concerns.

Once you have considered and acted upon these first three steps in succession planning, you’ll be well on your way to ensuring that your company has a leadership pipeline capable of continuing excellent work despite a rapidly changing business environment.

Note: This article was first published by Training Industry Magazine.

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.

Are You A Slow Thinker? Good for you!

First, a quick tutorial on Fast and Slow thinking – or System 1 and System 2 Thinking as popularized by Nobel Prize winner Danny Kahneman - in case you are not familiar.

Fast / System 1 Thinking

System 1 thinking can be thought of as our “immediate response” to something. When the alarm goes off in the morning – we get up. We don’t stop and ponder – what is that noise? what does it mean? should I get up right now? There is an immediate understanding of the information coming in and an immediate and knowledgeable response to that information. (Caution! This sometimes leads us to applying bias to situations that do in fact require more thought, and System 1 can be manipulated through the use of priming and anchoring.)

System 1 also enables us to do several things at once so long as they are easy and undemanding. System 1 thinking is in charge of what we do most of the time.

However, you want system 2 to be in control.

Slow / System 2 Thinking

System 2 thinking is the kind of thinking that requires you to struggle a bit. In this short (4:22) video featuring Kahneman, he gives the example of being able to answer 2x2 vs. 17x24.

The latter causes you to pause and put more mental energy in to arriving at the answer. If you’d like to try a fun activity to test your slow thinking ability, click here. Or watch the famous Invisible Gorilla video which illustrates that when System 2 is concentrating on one thing (counting the number of passes) it cannot concentrate on another (seeing a gorilla walk through the frame).

With practice System 2 can turn in to System 1 thinking, as in the case of a firefighter or airline pilot. Once sufficient application of System 2 thinking has occurred over an extended period of time and in varying circumstances, it becomes “easy.”

System 1 is all about “knowing” with little effort – as an expert is able to.

System 2 Thinking in Learning

What does System 2 Thinking mean for learning in organizations? Quite a lot, actually.

In a recent blog post by Karl Kapp, in which he describes purposefully causing his students to struggle, he states, “Unfortunately most learning is designed to avoid struggle, to spoon feed learners. This is not good… The act of struggling and manipulating and engaging with content makes it more meaningful and more memorable.”

Another important job of System 2 thinking is that it is in charge of self-control. This is an important skill / quality in the workplace. It allows us to measure the information coming at us and respond appropriately (which means, sometimes, not responding at all). Controlling thoughts and behaviors is difficult and tiring. Unfortunately many people find cognitive effort unpleasant and avoid it as much as possible (so says Kahneman in Thinking Fast and Slow).

Because of this tendency, we need to make teaching thinking skills a priority in workplace learning and development.  This could be a challenge. Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, says that older Americans may be better equipped for serious thinking because they didn’t grow up with smartphones and can “stand to be bored or more than a second.”

And a study conducted at Florida State University determined that a single notification on your phone weakens one’s ability to focus on a task. The ability to focus is crucial not only in completing tasks but in learning new things as well. The ability to focus without distraction and to perform cognitively demanding tasks is THE job skill of the future.

Silo’d Learning is Limiting Workplace Learning Potential

For years, possibly decades, we have helped people develop expertise around specific jobs, or how to do their current job better. We've kept them learning "up" a topical trajectory, much like a silo.

What was often neglected was the need to expand knowledge, skills, and abilities overall. What we’ve got now are millions of Americans who are very skilled in a narrow area of expertise, but not well prepared for upper management or executive positions because they lack general business intelligence.

While it might seem obvious to only include salespeople in sales-training, what would be the detriment of including the administrative group that supports the salespeople, or the customer service representatives who support the customer after the sale, or the field service representatives who actually see the customer more frequently than anyone else, or manufacturing who will learn how their product works in the “real world?” Wouldn’t each of them learn more about how to do their job well, and learn more about the business as a whole by participating in a developmental topic that is ancillary to their current work?

Estimates are that by 2030, Baby Boomers will be completely out of the workforce. This presents a call to action and an opportunity, because the generation with the most breadth and depth of work experience will be leaving the workforce. We – as L+D departments and professionals – need to quickly rectify the silos of specialists we’ve created by broadening the role-specific training of the past in order to address the workforce needs of the future.

Our challenge is to develop a new generation of company leaders capable of making well-rounded and well-informed decisions based on their experiences in a multitude of business areas. The focus on job-specific training is a thing of the past. Organizations must focus on developing well-rounded individuals who can take the organization into the future. The future success of our companies depends on the actions we take today to develop our future workforce.

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.

Why the Ice Bucket Challenge is a Great Example of a Lack of Thinking Skills - but an awesome fundraiser!

Do you remember the "ice bucket challenge" of a few years ago? It was a fundraiser of the ALS Association. ALS is also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease.

In case you are not familiar - the challenge was to dump a bucket of ice water over your head (or have someone do it for you) OR make a donation to the ALS Association.

One of our colleagues uses his Ice Bucket Challenge experience to illustrate the lack of thinking skills prevalent in society: His children challenged him, via social media, to take the challenge.  Seeing the bigger picture, and not really wishing to be drenched in ice cold water, AND due to the fact that he had had a family member die of ALS, he chose option B - making a donation to the ALS Association. His children (who were adults, by the way) were FURIOUS that he didn't "do it."  He explained to each of them that the challenge offered two options and that he actually made a bigger impact by making a donation to the cause rather than just a silly video. No matter. To this day they rib him about not being brave enough to take the ice bucket challenge.

What thinking skills do you see as lacking in this scenario? Here's what we see:

• Inability to see the "big picture"

• Not understanding the purpose of a request - but going along with it anyway

• Group think

• Choosing to ignore facts that don't "suit" you

• Not asking about or looking for alternate "solutions"

• Not looking for (or understanding) long-term ramifications

When working with your learners - the above bullets can be used as great discussion starters for any topic. Just pause. Look at the big picture. Seek alternatives. Think individually. Is this a solution for "right now" or more long term? What are the options? What is the best option?

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Facts about the Ice Bucket Challenge

• 17 million people doused themselves with cold water; 2.4 million people posted videos of themselves on Facebook

• 2.5 million people donated money to the cause during the challenge; close to 1 million made no subsequent donations

• $115 million dollars was donated to the ALS Association in 8 weeks!

• The year prior to the ice bucket challenge the ALS Association received $19.4 million in donations

• People who chose the ice water over a donation were referred to as "slacktivists" or arm-chair activists

• The success of the ice bucket challenge caused the Muscular Dystrophy Association to end its annual telethon fundraiser citing its need to "rethink how it connects with the public"

• One death was attributed to the challenge

• The Ice Bucket Challenge has become an annual "event" held in Aug - so get your video camera's ready (or, preferably, your checkbooks)

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?

Teaching Thinking Through Comparison

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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.

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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.

Just In Time Training Has Run Out of Time

Many organizations today are facing a skills shortage. They simply cannot find people with the appropriate skills to run their businesses. As a result, they are forced to hire those that they can and then apply skills-training to make them a worthwhile hire for the organization.

This process can be thought of as a just-in-time skills training program in which the training isn't applied until it is needed (although in 2015 / 2016, skills training is in constant demand).The future-cast for this lack of prepared workers is that in another 10-15 years, the crisis will be a lack of prepared leaders.

In order to prevent businesses (all of society, really!) from bouncing from crisis to crisis like a ball in a pin-ball machine, it's time to address the root cause. It's not that younger generations have suddenly lost entry-level skills - it's a result of never having learned those skills to begin with. You cannot be expected to perform something you never learned to do.

What training professionals can do today to mitigate the current skills deficiency, as well as to thwart the void of leadership in 2025 and beyond, is to rethink the idea of just-in-time training. Rather than applying skills-only-training at the time of need, develop a broader approach to preparing all individuals in the organization by teaching thinking skills.

Is it possible the mortgage meltdown could have been avoided if thoughtful people had contemplated "what could go wrong with giving people 100% financing?" in addition to knowing how to fill out a mortgage application? We think so.

Is it possible that the automobile manufacturers would not have needed a bail out if some thought had been given to the "downside" of leases (massive churning of new cars) rather than simply teaching selling skills? We think so.

It's relatively easy to overlay thinking skills on top of job-specific training. For instance, when teaching how to prepare financial reports, a discussion can be had around the topics of ethics and erroneous reporting (intentional or not), and the ramifications to the organization of inaccurate financial reports (underestimating income, miscalculating forecast, personnel balancing). When teaching business writing, there might be a research project associated with the implications of having a paper-trail or the importance of choosing words that are unambiguous.

It is important to teach not only "how to," but "what if." Asking learners to think deeper and wider about the skills they are learning will help them to contribute more to the organization now and in the future.

Reading for Fun - and Comprehension

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Do you prefer reading from a printed page or a digital screen? Do you comprehend more when reading from paper than from a screen (or vice versa)? Does your age play a role in your preference? What about your attitude? These are all questions which have been studied in the last 20 years or so - in other words - in the "digital age." While definitive results elude us, here are some of the more common findings:

• People approach computers and tablets with a state of mind less conducive to learning than they approach reading from paper

• E-readers prevent people from navigating long texts in an intuitive and satisfying way

• People report that when they are trying to locate a particular piece of information, they can recall where it appears in a text - not so with digital displays of the same content

• These navigation difficulties subtly inhibit reading comprehension

• Reading digitally leads to more difficulty in comprehension because it is more physically and mentally taxing

• When reading from a screen, people spend more time browsing, scanning and hunting for key words

• When people really like an e-book they go out and buy the paper version! According to research by Microsoft, people see e-books as something to use, but not own

Makes you re-think the delivery modality of your training materials, no? Learn more about the research in this area by reading this Scientific American article (on line, of course).

Train People BEFORE You Hire Them

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Latin America and the Caribbean will need about 1.2 million software developers within the next decade, according to growth projections, and yet "official educational institutions" only graduate 1000 coders a year. What to do?

How about starting a training division to train people you'll need in the future? A start-up in Lima Peru did just that. Called Laboratoria, the company began training coders because it could not find qualified personnel for its growing web design business. Last year 1,200 people applied; the company trained and graduated 150. This year they hope to graduate 300 .The training is 9-5 daily, over 5 months. Training is free and 60% of graduates landed entry level jobs upon graduation. (Although Laboriatoria was created from one company's need, graduates are not obligated to go to work for the parent company; what they ARE obligated to do is give back 10% of their earnings for the first three years following graduation, to help continue to fund the free training for others.)

Similarly, Code Camp was started in Charleston, SC because of the growing "Silicon Harbor" of technology companies in the area. Two such company owners grew frustrated with not being able to find the right talent and decided to "grow their own." Classes are now offered Saturdays and in the evenings so working professionals can get the training they need to change or further their careers. There is even a 4-session Kids Camp for kids aged 10 - 14 years - why not get them in the pipeline early?

The next time your Talent or HR department is lamenting the lack of qualified candidates - consider growing your own!

Visuals Enhance Learning

"Pictures are understood on many levels. The most literal level is what the picture depicts. When you see a line drawing of an airplane, you recognize the shape and features of the object and identify it as an airplane.

“On another level, the context of the picture provides meaning. The same picture of an airplane on a freeway sign means that an upcoming exit will take you to the airport. This is a different context than a photograph of an airplane you may see in an airline advertisement, which suggests that is is persuasive rather than an informational purpose.

“Understanding the meaning of the picture depends on the context of where the picture exists. Another level of meaning is based on the style of the graphic. This is expressed in many ways, such as through symbols, spatial layout, and accepted conventions. For example, certain attributes of an illustration indicate when a drawing is an architectural blueprint and when it is a scientific illustration.

“There are also metaphoric meanings in some graphic. Metaphors convey meaning beyond a simple depiction and provide another layer of meaning."

Excerpted from Connie Malamed's Visual Design Solutions - a fantastic text for understanding the power of using visuals in learning.

Teaching Thinking Through Journaling

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Journaling is an incredibly useful technique for teaching thinking skills. It is underused in business (except for nursing) perhaps because it is often associated with emotions - which we rarely deal with in the business world. (We like to stick to facts and rules and processes.)

Journaling is a helpful thinking tool for a number of reasons:

• It causes us to reflect on what has happened, (which, again, is not something we often take time to do) and reflection often leads to introspection and insight.

• It increases vocabulary skill by forcing us to put our thoughts in to cogent words.

• It allows us to analyze a situation more objectively by writing it down, leaving it be, and then revisiting it a few days or weeks later.

• It contributes to emotional intelligence (through introspection and objectivity).

• It can allow us, as trainers, to gain insight into someone's critical thinking

If you'd like to add journaling to your curriculum, here are some questions to have your learners answer. Giving them questions helps to overcome the angst of "what do I write?" The more they become able to answer these questions, the more they will be able to expand their responses and break free of the questions.

• What happened?

• Why did this happen?

• How did _______ affect the situation? (people, policy, activity, etc.)

• How did I react to the situation?

• Was my reaction based on any assumptions?

• What new insight or knowledge have I gained?

• How will my new insight / knowledge affect my future work?

• Is this insight / knowledge / future work context specific - or are their broader implications?

Case Study: Bite-sized Instructor Led Training

telephone

When we think of bite-sized learning, we often think of something that is self-paced, just-in-time, mobile or e-Learning.

We recently visited with a client that is providing bite-sized learning (10 minutes or less) delivered by live instructors. Picture this: a room of 40 trainers who sit in cubicles wearing headsets, at desks with two computer monitors. The trainees call the trainers when they are ready for their lesson. The trainees go in to a queue and any trainer can pick up the call and teach any topic thanks to a script that pops up on one screen. On the other screen they document the learner, the lesson, and the advice / next steps prescribed for that learner.

In a 10-minute-or-so conversation, the trainer and trainee discuss how the last lesson has been working for the learner, practice a read-through of the new lesson, role-play the new lesson, audio-record the new lesson and listen-back for a self-critique as well as a trainer critique.

Lessons are meted out, one-per-week, for a period of weeks depending on the topic. The learner is expected to practice one minute technique during the week and then the next technique is introduced, the following week.

Bite-sized learning? More like crumb-sized learning! And SUPER effective. Just ask their 850 clients!