Learn2Develop - Thoughts from the World of Learning and Development

Have you left it too late to secure future talent?

2010-03-17T08:00:00.000Z

PwC have posted an interesting view point about the future of talent on their website.

If you want to hear about:

what the leading companies have been doing in the people space during the recession

what the HR function should be focusing on right now

how the talent landscape will change in the next 5 years

....then take a listen.

Or you can click on this link to see the video too.

Taking the change journey

2010-03-13T08:00:00.001Z

One of the parts of my job that motivates me is finding ways to help organisations change their behaviours in order to achieve something different. It is often a really tough challenge and I don't think even Mr Kotter has all of the answers.

Of course training and capability development is a really important change leaver that can have a powerful impact if used in conjunction with the many other levers that you can pull.

Holger Nauheimer published a Change Journey Map that helps people understand all of the different aspects of change that need to be addressed in order to be successful. The concept is simple but I like the insights he provides into the various places where you need to visit on your journey.

For example:

The Mall of Human Needs - a place to explore people's aspirations and potential reasons for resistance or The Gym of Skills and Capabilities - where we identify and grow the essential skills we need for the future.

If you are involved in change (who isn't..) the it is worth taking a look. If you want to know more then take a look at this video

Who is setting your capability development agenda?

2010-03-11T16:07:00.004Z

I read an interesting article written by McKinsey earlier this week discussing who is setting the agenda for capability development in organisations.

They have published a survey with some interesting results:

"Nearly 60 percent of respondents to a recent McKinsey survey say that building organizational capabilities such as lean operations or project or talent management is a top-three priority for their companies. Yet only a third of companies actually focus their training programs on building the capability that adds the most value to their companies’ business performance."

The article brings out a couple of key points:

Most organisations do not focus on developing the capability that they need the most
When senior executives are involved in setting the focus for capability development companies are more successful at aligning those agendas with the capability most important to business performance.

When I think about the different organisations I have worked with and worked for I have seen a wide variety of ways in which L&D budgets and focus areas are set. Some organisations follow a rigorous training needs analysis each year from which they recommend the focus areas for capability development. Other organisations just take a punt on what feels right to focus on. Are either of these right or wrong?

For me the most important part is looking at the business strategy of the organisation and then looking at the capabilities needed to achieve this. Whether you do this through some detailed analysis or not you have to make sure that there is a clear link. Having the 'top team' involved in this process is critical and without this you are having to second guess what the priorities really are.

The key question is how do you get the 'top team' engaged in the process? In some organisations (the successful ones) they already are engaged but for others there is still work to do....we'll leave that to another post though I think (I feel a discussion about HR having a seat at the board table coming on...!).

PS. This is my first post for a while following a bit of a break from blogging to focus on some other stuff. I doubt if anyone noticed but if you did......thanks!

Do you want me to listen or to read....?

2009-10-24T16:56:00.003+01:00

I attended a couple of days training this week, delivered internally. It was an interesting course and I met some great people. However there was a consistent bug bear for me throughout the course in the way that Powerpoint slides were used.

The web is full of discussions and articles about how to use (or not use) supporting slides for presentations (my favourite site is Presentation Zen). My particular pet hate is when a person stands at the front of a room and feels that they must have a slide behind them full of lines of bullet points or with a diagram so complicated that it needs 20 minutes to explain! Why do I hate this?

My style of learning is quite auditory. I like to listen to people tell me something and I like to hear people discuss things so I can hear different points of view. Putting up a visual slide doesn't really do much for me and actually makes it more difficult for me to concentrate on what someone is saying.
Do you want me to listen to what the presenter is saying, read the slide or do both? If you put a slide up then I am going to try and read it. When I am doing this then I won't be listening properly to the presenter. If the slide is full of lots of text then it is going to take me a while to read it.
The slide should be something that complements the presentation - not something that works against it. Just show something very simple on the slide - perhaps a handful of words or a picture that reinforces what you are saying.

Rant over.......

Learning that is free....and there's no catch!

2009-10-18T10:02:00.015+01:00

I read a great article in the Sunday Times last week that described a variety of learning resources that are available via the internet.....for free. I thought it must be too good to be true so I did some browsing of the sites and wanted to share my thoughts with you.

If you want access to completely free material of a high quality then read on.

Open Learn

This is an offshoot of the Open University that offers a large variety of courses covering a wide variety of subjects ranging from Arts and History to Business and Management to Mathematics and Statistics.....a truly broad curriculum.

The courses are available to download in a variety of formats (although I couldn't find audio of video) and each course has its own discussion forum. A facility to post a video log (vlog) is interesting and you can also create Learning Groups to learn with others wherever they may be. A browse through the Business Management sections found some courses that interested me:

- An introduction to business cultures

- Business organisations and their environment

- Creating an ethical organisation

- Managing project through people

Each course is about 6 hours and divided into various modules and you will find a student rating for each course (most of which have 4 or 5 stars).

You Tube EDU

This is a specific channel on YouTube devoted to educational material. Again you will find a variety of subject areas to choose from including Business, Literature, Law, Science and much more.

The format is the usual YouTube style video clip but there is some interesting material in there. A quick browse revealed some interesting clips:

- What is emotion? (Professor Veronique Tran at ESCP Europe)

- The Boat Race: A Perfect Crew?

- Michael Porter: Shared values in bringing about social change

Again some great material to use as part of a wider learning intervention or simply to learn in an interesting way!

MIT Opencourseware

This site, containing actual course material from MIT's course offerings is attracting 1.2m visitors per month. I think it is a really clever move by MIT that promotes their position as a thought leader and reinforces their brand.

There is an absolute plethora of material on the site with a large variety of formats ranging from actual course notes to multi media clips and material. The quality is second to none. The material includes course from the world famous Sloane School of Management including titles such as:

- Dynamic leadership: Using Improvisation in Business

- How to develop breakthrough products and services

- IT as an integrated force in manufacturing

Many of these not only include the actual course material but also video lectures and notes - fantastic!

iTunes U

As part of the iTunes store there is a special section called iTunes U. This contains a massive bank of free material provided by a variety of top educational sources such as Cambridge University, Stanford Business Management School and Oxford University. The format is the usual iTunes format (audio and video) so you can simply download to your iPod to listen to at your convenience. Here are a couple of examples:

- Leading Change: a conversation with Ron Williams

- Managing the Leaders by Dr Mark De Rond

- Let's have less pride and more shame in the work place

Again an incredible library of free resource.

The Sunday Times article had an interesting observation:

A small study by the University of New York in Fredonia claims that downloading a lecture can be more effective than actually attending one in person. Researchers compared 64 students, half of whom attended a lecture and half of whom received it via a podcast. In a subsequent test, those who downloaded the podcast performed better - possibly because a podcast allows you to replay difficult parts as and when you want.

So I really do recommend having a look around these sites - there is some great material out there that is definitely worth exploring.

Kolb - is it useful?

2009-10-13T08:30:00.003+01:00

I was asked to deliver a short session on Kolb recently which made me think about his models and how useful they are in practice. As I reflected on Kolb's model it made me remember how useful a tool it is for helping think about how people learn.....but of course there is a flip side too...

As a quick recap David Kolb is an Organisational Behaviour Professor who is probably best known for his work on experiental learning. Along with Roger Fry he created a model for learning that is generally known as the Learning Cycle.
I won't go into the detail about how the model works but for me it highlights a useful way of thinking about how people learn. Other sites have described this in some detail and I particularly like this one that shows it in an interactive way.

As well as the Learning Cycle, Kolb put forward 4 learning styles with each style representing a combination of two preferred styles. Kolb came up with the terms Diverging, Assimilating, Converging and Accommodating for these styles - see below.

Why is this useful?

A training course is not the complete answer! I have often heard about how the model can really help design a high quality training course. Using the styles and learning cycle we can create a rich experience that caters for the diferent ways that people learn. All of that is true but for me largely misses the point. Kolb's Learning Cycle shows how people learn in a continuous cycle based on a set of experiences. A training course may provide all of these experiences.....but only at a single point in time. So you may design the most fantastic training course but once people have gone back to their 'day job' how do you help them reflect on what they learned? How do you help them experiment and think about how they will use these new skills? How do you give them a set of experiences in which they can apply and develop further these new skills?

Coaching: I think Kolb's model is a useful one to support you as a coach. Clearly coaching has a strong role to play to help people reflect on their experiences but a coach can also help people think about new concepts, how they may apply them etc. In fact a coach has a role to steer people around the cycle many times... (I also think that Action Learning links strongly to Kolb's model too - read more about this here, here and here)

Understand your audience: If the only thing the model helps you to do is to think about your audience more and to adapt your approach accordingly.....then that is a good thing. Not everyone learns the same way that you do and you are very likely to have a mix of people in your audience - how will you cater for all of those different styles?

......and the flip side?

For me there are a couple of drawbacks to the model which means that whilst useful I don't think it should be taken to literally.

Simplistic: The model of 4 learning styles may be a little simplistic in practice. There may be many other styles that are appropriate to specific situations eg. simply memorising something through repitition. There are many other models on learning styles. For example Honey and Mumford developed Kolb's model further to create their Activist/Reflector/Theorist/Pragmatist model.

Realistic: The concept of learning stages doesn't necessarily fit with reality. People may jump around the stages at different times and out of sequence.

Evidence: I am not aware of much empirical evidence to back up the model

Culture: In my own experience, understanding the culture of your audience can have a huge influence on how you design a learning intervention. Compare a UK audience to a Saudi audience and you have two completely different styles just based on cultural difference.

So, Mr Kolb I like your model and have found it useful to keep my thoughts about learning and development on the straight and narrow - thanks! But it is not something that I use in a literal sense.....but I doubt that you expected people to do that anyway.

A model for culture change

2009-07-25T18:04:00.003+01:00

As a training professional we work hard to make sure we define our learning objectives correctly, we design the course to match the learning styles of our audience and sometimes we even evaluate whether it was all successful. Training can be a powerful lever of change…….but of course it isn’t the only one.

I am currently working with a client where they are looking to achieve a real shift in behaviour…..a culture change. Culture is one of those strange things…..people can usually recognise the culture in which they work or live…..but it can be difficult to describe. Some people say that it is just ‘the way things happen around here’ – which isn’t a bad description. In most organisations a culture just seems to develop over time – sometimes it is highly influenced by a couple of individuals (such as Google) whereas in others it has grown over many many years (IBM, Marks and Spencer etc). Most organisations would say that culture is something that differentiates them from their peers – for good or for bad!

So what happens when the culture in the organisation needs to change? Maybe it has morphed into something where decision making is no longer quick and easy, maybe people just don’t seem to enjoy working there anymore, maybe the organisation is becoming more sensitive to it’s environmental responsibilities….there can be a million different drivers. But how can you change the culture….is it possible? Well actually you can change organisational culture but it takes a huge amount of effort and coordination.

I really like the model shown above that helps understand the things that shape the way people behave in an organisation. Let’s take an example – imagine that the culture of an organisation prevents people from raising issues and concerns because there is a fear of retaliation. Look at the model but work from right to left….

What is the result? The organisation isn’t performing to it’s potential. Staff turnover is high and motivation levels are low.

What is the impact? People will be exhibiting the behaviour of not raising any issues and concerns they may have. They know what they should do but would rather keep the problem to themselves rather than risk the possibility of some sort of comeback by ‘management’

What is the manifestation? People have a belief that if they raise an issue then there will be a negative personal impact.

What is the shaper? People have this belief because they see role models that reinforce this through their actions. There are no processes that make it easy to raise issues and concerns anonymously. There are no people in the organisation to turn to for advice etc.

The shapers in the model are the important element here. These are the levers that you can pull in order to influence the culture and behaviours that you desire. So let’s revisit the example again but this time moving left to right.

Shapers: Let’s imagine that a series of training interventions were introduced for first level managers on how to create an environment with their people to discuss and raise issues openly. This was coupled with a communication campaign over an extended period that raised awareness and reinforced how important it is. The CEO and other senior managers regularly discuss the subject and even start to hold open session with people as a new forum for discussion. In addition new processes were introduced that enabled people to raise an issue anonymously and new roles were created in the organisation to provide an independent view and even an investigation if required. Competency and performance measures are introduced that encourage new behaviours. People start to ‘test the water’ – they raise an issue and wait to see what happens. If things go OK then they get some confidence back, they talk to their colleagues about their experience…..and the snowball starts to grow.

Manifestation: People’s beliefs have started to change. They now believe that they can raise an issue or concern without there being any negative impact.

Impact: As a result of changed beliefs, people’s behaviour starts to change. Managers are starting to have constructive and open conversations with their staff. You may see the new processes being used as people raise issues. Things start to change in the organisation as a result –maybe some people even get dismissed or disciplined. New people joining the organisation are selected based on a new set of criteria etc

Result: The organisation starts performing better. People are happier in their jobs and staff turnover goes down. The organisation is able to hold onto its talent and can even attract new talent in. As a result of people being listened to real improvements start to take place. Whereas previously people were afraid to raise their concerns about product quality or about a new market venture, the new environment is one where challenge is the norm – in fact the behaviour is encouraged and rewarded.

So it’s about identifying the suite of shapers - the levers you need to pull in order to impact the values and beliefs in the organisation. This is where the skill is – identifying the right levers, implementing them effectively and creating the necessary momentum. That’s the difficult bit and an area where consultants can play a really valuable role…..

Changing Culture..

2009-07-25T17:37:00.005+01:00

It's been a few weeks now since my last post....apologies for that. I have been travelling a lot with my work recently and having some great cultural experiences. It would be an under-statementto say that I have developed myself over the past weeks, facing many new challenges in delivering learning to a many diverse audiences including Australia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

The work I am involved with at the moment has entailed designing some learning interventions aimed at raising awareness and understanding around a particular subject. It is really the first step for the organisation along a 3 year journey to change their culture. The first step is to get people on board and then comes the difficult bit.....embedding these new behaviours so that they become engrained into everyday working life. I have explored how training can play a role in this here and here.

I particularly like to use something called the commitment curve that is a great tool to have a conversation with a client about culture change. It is shown below:

I am currently using it to explore the following questions with my client:

Where on the curve are you currently. How do you know you are there?
Where on the curve do you ultimately want to be. What will be different about being there? What will you see, hear and experience that will be different?

I believe these are really important steps to take before we can even contemplate what kind of interventions may be required to get there.

In my next post I want to explain a culture model that I am using. This is helping me think about the levers we can pull in order to create the desired culture. As you can imagine this is a very difficult undertaking but I think it highlights the fact that it is not just about training people or just about creating new policies and procedures......it is a combination of lots of things.

If you want to find out more about this then keep a look out for my next post.

Cultural Observations from Down Under…become a Yes Man

2009-06-25T08:30:00.000+01:00

The past weeks have been hectic – travelling around Australia doing some work for my client (although I did manage to keep tweeting….). A fairly gruelling schedule delivering a series of intensive training sessions across four cities with an audience that we weren’t expecting to receive us with open arms.

My last posts have referenced how interesting it is to work with new cultures and I continue to be both inspired and grateful for the opportunity to be able to do this. Some cultural observations about working with our Ozzie brethren:

There is both a love for all things British and at the same time a strong desire to be independent and different. As a ‘Brit’ it makes working in Australia an interesting challenge, especially if you are looking to introduce new ideas and ways of working…quite a change management challenge. Personally I found the Australian culture to be a mix of UK and US which are in my view are two very different things! Their cities seem to have an US feel to them but their attitudes seem close to the UK.
The Australian culture is quite macho and quite hierarchical – sometimes subtly and sometimes very ‘in your face’. A number of our sessions started with people asserting themselves as the leader in the group with many local stories being shared! I made some fascinating observations of people ‘waiting their turn’ to speak and showing respect for the unspoken hierarchy within the group. I know this goes on across all cultures but it was something that stood out for me.
I think a lot of people living in the UK think they could just fit straight into the Australian culture……but that’s not true. They can have quite a laid back culture – things will get done and decisions will get made but only when people are ready to do so (reminds me a bit about Spanish culture).
In the UK we think we are the world leaders in culture – fashion, music, films….everything. However the Australians have two important (to me) items absolutely sorted – food and sport. I didn’t realise what steak was meant to taste like until last week (I will never be able to eat steak in the UK again). As for sport – the whole country is totally addicted to it. Whilst in Melbourne the Wallabies (National Rugby Union Team) were playing mid week, attracting an audience of 90,000. Two days later and just across town the local Aussie Rules football team were playing a regular league game – and attracted another 80,000 people to watch. Unlike the UK, tickets are very reasonably priced and families are very much encouraged to attend.

If you are an from Oz then I would love your views on the above, and also your own experiences of working with our friends down under if you are from elsewhere. My thanks to everyone I met in my time there – an amazing country and wonderful people.

As an L&D professional it really stretches and develops me by working with different cultures. A training intervention that may be very effective in one culture can be totally ineffective in another. If you want to develop yourself then spread your net wide. Become a ‘Yes Man’ when the opportunity arises – you won’t regret it.

Thoughts from the Middle East - Part 2

2009-05-30T14:01:00.002+01:00

Well, I am back in the UK now following my week in the Middle East. In my last post I was thinking through how I was going to approach this piece of work and the key principles I needed to stick to. So, did it all go according to plan....?

Well, on the whole the visit was a successful one. It is always a fascinating experience working with a new culture but there were a couple of important learning points for me:

Investing the effort in defining your learning outcomes up front and ensuring that people buy in to them is hugely beneficial. Even though the way the learning outcomes will be different for this environment we were still able to use them as the driver for the solution we came up with.
Getting the right local people involved is critical. More by luck than judgement we had some very influential local people involved in the process. This really opened up the doors and smoothed the way so that we were able to agree upon a solution. Next time I don't want to simply rely on luck.....
Taking the time to really understand the local environment and not making assumptions is important. I tried really hard for the first couple of days to put aside what the 'answer' is and just absorb as much of the local culture as I could.
Getting the local team to come up with the solution worked really well. I had prepared my thoughts on some potential options and also the criteria by which they should be assessed. This actually facilitated some really valuable discussion that led to them coming up with their own (and better) solution - great result!

Of course the next challenge is to create the solution (and very quickly) but I feel that the hard work is now done. Good learnings for me that will hopefully mean I can do an even better job next time.......which is probably in Australia....watch this space!

Thoughts from the Middle East - Part 1

2009-05-22T08:29:00.006+01:00

OK, I have to admit that I’m a little excited today! I am lucky to be in a job that I enjoy – it gives me the challenges I need at work but also enables me to balance it with other things that I enjoy in my life, with my family being the priority. However, right now I am sitting on a plane bound for the Middle East thinking about the week ahead and the challenges it will bring.

I have formally worked in the learning and development world for about 5 years now but been involved in the world of L&D for much longer. In that time I have been engaged in many aspects of L&D ranging from the design and implementation of learning programmes through to talent management and coaching. However this week I have a new challenge and that’s adapting a learning programme so that it can be deployed in a completely different culture.

Working for my current client I have been heavily involved in the creation of a learning programme which is being deployed through a mixture of elearning and ‘classroom’ based sessions. It’s more about raising awareness and building a common level of understanding rather than ‘training’ but it’s really been designed with a ‘Western’ audience in mind (USA, UK, Australia and some parts of Europe).

Deploying this learning programme to a Middle Eastern country just won’t work in it’s current form. Why not?

The obvious one is language. Whilst we have translated the course into a number of different languages already, Arabic isn’t one of them. The specifics of the Arabic language bring their own challenges, especially with an elearning course.
The main one though is culture. The ‘classroom’ sessions involve exploring and discussing some case scenarios that are designed to challenge people’s thinking and help them understand various perspectives. The simple assumption that this will also work in a Middle Eastern culture is just not true. Whereas in my culture people are used to discussing an issue and then listening to others points of view, this isn’t necessarily the case in a Middle Eastern culture. Here people are brought up to have a strong point of view and it’s a very proud culture – showing that your view isn’t the ‘best’ may not be easy.

So for me there are a couple of important principles that I intend to follow:

We spent a long time working through and agreeing the required learning outcomes (knowledge, skills and attitudes). These were the driving force in designing the programme and measuring it’s success. Whilst the way the outcomes are achieved may be different I will be looking to ensure that they are still central to all of our thinking.

I need to make sure I really understand the culture and not make any assumptions about what I think will work. Pay attention to the small things as well as the big items!

Understand the audience: I intend to spend a significant time understanding the various audiences that will be taking part in the learning programme. What’s different about each of them and what do they have in common. How will I know that what we are suggesting will actually work?

Help the local team develop something rather than ‘do it for them’. I think it’s really important that the local team really own the piece of work – after all they are the people that really understand their environment and are the people who will have to deploy it. Picking up someone else’s work is a recipe for failure….

Well, that’s my initial thoughts – I wonder what other factors will come into play……I’ll keep you posted! If you have any advice then that would definitely be welcomed!

Investing in Skills During a Recession

2009-05-16T11:26:00.004+01:00

Everyone who works in the world of learning and developing is witnessing the impact of the current recession. It will be interesting to look back and see which organisations managed to hold their nerve to continue investing in their people during the tough times.

Mike Rake, the chairman of BT made this short video recently to discuss this very point. He is also the chairman of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills who have recently published a report on this called "Ambition 2020: World class skills and jobs for the UK"

The report recommends the government adopt an ambition of being in the top eight countries in the world by 2020, and sets out five key priorities for achieving that aim. They are:

Create a clear and integrated cross-government strategy for economic transformation and renewal.

Develop a simpler, more agile and demand-led skills and employment system, capable of anticipating and addressing both existing skills needs and emerging industrial opportunities and challenges.

Transform individuals' aspirations, maximising motivation and opportunity for everyone to develop their talents.

Build employer ambition and capacity to be world-class, capable of competing globally as high skill, high value added organisations.

Support better integration of skills into economic development activity in cities and local economic communities.

If Mike Rake is putting his name to it then it's worth taking note.....

Feedback - food or fodder

2009-05-09T08:30:00.001+01:00

Someone said that “feedback is the breakfast of Champions” – it’s a bit of a cliché I suppose but my recent series of posts about feedback hopefully shows that the way it is delivered can have quite an impact – be it positive or negative.

In my work at the moment I have been evaluating some initial feedback from training that is currently being rolled out on a global basis. The audience for the training is large (100,000 people) and diverse so designing an intervention for such an audience has certainly been a challenge. Results so far are encouraging and we are now looking at what we do with the information. The process has made me think about some key learnings that I wanted to share with you:

What are you trying to evaluate? For me there are broadly two kinds of things that are useful to evaluate:

Did the intervention meet your desired learning outcomes? Assuming you defined some learning outcomes (knowledge, skills and attitude), how will you know if people have achieved them? Without wishing to delve into a debate about evaluation and Kirkpatrick, it is often valuable to ask delegates how well they have met outcomes. For example asking them if they feel confident in their ability to do something new, whether they know where to go for help etc (assuming these are defined learning outcomes).
Was the method of delivery appropriate? You will probably be able to tell this from the answers to your first set of questions about learning outcomes. However it is useful to know why….was the course too fast, too slow; was the content pitched at the right level (eg. was it patronising); would they have preferred classroom/elearning; was it relevant etc.

How are you trying to collect evaluation data? There are many ways to obtain feedback from your audience and you need to select the most appropriate medium. This could be via a survey (preferably online) but could also include a more qualitative follow up approach via focus groups or one to one interviews (a recommended approach). It is important to always try and get a representative view using some statistics and then some analysis.

Look for themes. When faced with a ton of statistics from your survey results it may be quite daunting. However the first activity is to pull out some themes. Start at a high level – did we broadly meet our learning objectives. Then, drill down further – did we meet all the objectives fully, were some met better than others etc. Once you have some themes the next step is to get some qualitative information to validate the ‘why’ – use focus groups, workshops and interviews to explore the themes further.

Don’t just focus on the negative. I always find it tempting to look at the negative comments – what didn’t people like, what didn’t work… However it is really important to also understand what worked well…..and why. It is really important to understand the positive items if you are to be able to replicate them again in the future.

Make it easy for people to give feedback or provide an incentive. Most people aren’t too keen on providing feedback and often it is the people who have strong feelings (positive or negative) that will provide it. So it’s important to make it as easy as possible for people to contribute their views.

Try and collate the feedback as soon after the course/event as possible. The longer you wait the less likely people are to provide it.
Give people an incentive for sharing their views. This doesn’t have to be a prize but can be as simple as letting people know how important their views are and how it will help shape future courses/events

Follow up with delegates. They took some of their valuable time to share their views with you so the least they deserve is to know what the information will be used for. Provide a summary of the key themes (what worked, what needs some attention) and what actions will specifically be taken as a result. Oh and one other thing – remember to say thanks.

Do something with it. There is no point in collating the feedback if you are not going to do anything with it. Sounds obvious – but I have seen feedback ignored on a number of occasions. Even if the message can be hard to swallow you need to take some action. Also remember to pass on any learnings to other parts of your organisation that may find it useful. If people didn’t like an approach to online training in a particular part of the business then this could be valuable information.

I would be very interested to hear your learnings too – if you can find a couple of minutes then please do let me know.

Feedback - are you a Cat....?

2009-04-29T08:00:00.000+01:00

What's your style of giving feedback....and have you even thought about it?

Are you a Cat?

The Cat is someone who wants to be liked. They don't really like conflict and believe it is really important to build really good relationships with people - that makes for a better working environment, right?

What's it like to be on the receiving end?

It's strange. All of the feedback that the Cat gave you was really positive, he even gave you some good examples. However your rating was 'meets expectations'....that just doesn't seem to make sense. I am not sure if I have done a good job or whether I need to do a bit better.

What's it like to be the Cat?

As the Cat you feel it is important that the person feels good about the feedback. You certainly don't want it to impact your relationship with them. You really want to try and avoid any conflict so it's probably best to avoid those negative thoughts that you might have. If only they knew what you were really thinking - imagine that!

If you are a Cat have a think about the impact you are having.

For some tips and advice on feedback check out these posts:

Different types of feedback and the difference between feedback and coaching

Specific tips on feedback and coaching

Feedback - are your a Parrot....?

2009-04-25T12:36:00.001+01:00

What's your style of giving feedback....and have you even thought about it?

Are you a Parrot?

A Parrot is someone who doesn't really have anything original to say about you. In fact they don't really have much to say at all. They seem to have a list of special phrases that they think are insightful.....but are really quite meaningless. For example 'attitude and aptitude gets you altitude..'.

What's it like to be on the receiving end?

Confusing! You were keen to get some feedback from them but it was like talking to a mirror. Whenever you asked for feedback they just seemed to ask back what I thought. When I suggested an area I should focus on they did seem to agree but didn't really provide any advice or suggestions.

What's it like to be the Parrot?

Well as a Parrot this feedback stuff isn't really top of your agenda. You know that the activity has to happen once or twice a year but you would rather get it over and done with quickly if possible. You are sure that people already know what they need to do and anyway that coaching course you were told to attend taught you that it is better for people to find out things for themselves. Sometimes, if I take some time to think about it I can come up with some good examples that might be useful to them....but that's not my job is it?

If you are a Parrot have a think about the impact you are having.

For some tips and advice on feedback check out these posts:

Different types of feedback and the difference between feedback and coaching

Specific tips on feedback and coaching

Feedback - are you a Bull...?

2009-04-22T08:00:00.002+01:00

What's your style of giving feedback....and have you even thought about it?

Are you a Bull?

A bull is someone who likes to 'tell you like it is'. They don't believe in 'skirting the issue' and feel it is their duty to deliver the message loud and clear. They believe that there should be no doubt in your mind about the message being delivered and really can't stand those HR types that just try and dress the message up with corporate speak...

What's it like to be on the receiving end?

Well, if you like to get your feedback in a very direct manner then it's fine. However for most people the messages are often delivered without any empathy or consideration of the emotional impact. For some people it can be quite upsetting and this can be made even worse if the direct message isn't backed up by any solid examples or constructive suggestions as to what needs some focus. Tears can be a common outcome from the feedback session...

What's it like to be the Bull?

As a Bull you think it is really important that people get the feedback that other people may not be capable of delivering. You feel it is your duty to avoid any 'flowering up' of the message - you don't want people to get confused now, do you? If people can't deal with the truth then that's surely their problem isn't it? You have often noticed that people find it hard to deal with the truth and some even seem to get all emotional - you just can't understand that....they should just deal with it and move on.

If you are a Bull have a think about the impact you are having.

For some tips and advice on feedback check out these posts:

Different types of feedback and the difference between feedback and coaching

Specific tips on feedback and coaching

Some irrational thoughts on training and change management

2009-04-19T13:46:00.003+01:00

McKinsey have recently published a very interesting paper entitled 'The Irrational Side of Change Management' You will need to have registered on their site to read the full paper but it is well worth it (and free). Thanks to my colleague Simon for pointing me in the right direction.

It provides some very insightful comments about traditional approaches to change management and how it is the practical implementation of the approaches that determine success or failure. It takes the following four conditions required for change and then examines what works and what doesn't:

a compelling story
role modeling
reinforcing mechanisms
capability building

All of the insights are essential reading but for Learning and Development professionals I found a couple to be of particular interest.

Let people write their own story:-

This reveals something about human nature: when we choose for ourselves, we are far more committed to the outcome (almost by a factor of five to one). Conventional approaches to change management underestimate this impact. The rational thinker sees it as a waste of time to let others discoverfor themselves what he or she already knows—why not just tell them and be done with it? Unfortunately this approach steals from others the energy needed to drive change that comes through a sense of ownership of the answer.

At BP, to develop a comprehensive training program for frontline leaders, a decision was made to involve every key constituency in the design of the program, giving them a sense of “writing their own lottery ticket.” It took a year and a half to complete the design using this model but was well worth it: now in implementation, the program is the highest rated of its

kind at BP. More than 250 active senior managers from across the business willingly teach the course, and, most important, managers who have been through the training program are consistently ranked higher in performance than those who haven’t, both by their bosses and by the employees who report to them.

Employees are what they think and believe in:-

As managers attempt to drive performance by changing the way employees behave, they all too often neglect the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that, in turn, drive behavior.

The articles describes a successful training programme that focused on the the mind set of the delegates and helped this determine the most appropriate training approach to help change their behaviour

Good intentions aren't enough:-

Good skill-building programs usually take into account that people learn better by doing than by listening. These programs are replete with interactive simulations and role plays, and commitments are made by participants regarding what they will “practice” back in the workplace. But come Monday morning, very few keep their commitments.

Instead, a “field and forum” approach should be taken, in which classroom training is spread over a series of learning forums and fieldwork is assigned in between. Second, we suggest creating fieldwork assignments that link directly to the day jobs of participants, requiring them to put into practice new mind-sets and skills in ways that are hardwired into their responsibilities. These assignments should have quantifiable, outcome-based measures that indicate levels of competence gained and certification that recognizes and rewards the skills attained.

Some really good practical advice is contained in the paper and these are items that are simple to put into place. For me they have reinforced what I have also seen - both on the receiving end and the delivery end....

Feedback - are you a Hare...?

2009-04-19T08:00:00.001+01:00

What's your style of giving feedback....and have you even thought about it?

Are you a Hare?

A Hare is someone who is probably well intentioned but always extremely busy. Allocating some time to give feedback is always on the 'to do' list but other items always seem to push it down in priority - client meetings, that important sales pitch, meeting your own manager etc. The Hare often rearranges feedback sessions at the last minute and may have to cut them short to dash off to something else.

What's it like to be on the receiving end?

Even though the session has been rearranged twice, you are still looking forward to receiving some feedback from the Hare. After all you respect them and believe their feedback will provide some valuable insight. When the Hare does actually arrive it is a whirlwind of rushed messages that you find quite hard to decipher. Although there are some really insightful items you just don't have time to explore them further because the Hare has had to dash off to something else.

You are left feeling like you only have half of the picture and also quite undervalued as you seem to be low on the priority list. Clearly getting on around here means allocating minimal time to this sort of activity.

What's it like to be the Hare?

Well as the Hare you actually feel that feedback is important and have been thinking about what to say for a while. However there always seem to be other things that are more important too. However you always do your best to provide some insightful nuggets and of course they can always follow up with you if they want to know more....... Actually it is quite frustrating being a Hare because you really want to allocate more time to giving the feedback but never seem to be able to......maybe next time.

If you are a Hare have a think about the impact you are having. For some tips and advice on feedback check out these posts:

Different types of feedback and the difference between feedback and coaching

Specific tips on feedback and coaching

Feedback - what's your style...?

2009-04-16T08:00:00.003+01:00

I have been on the receiving end of quite a bit of feedback recently as part of our bi-annual performance review process. On the whole I have been impressed with the way the feedback has been provided and people have been prepared to share some really valuable insights. Lots of feedback food for me to consume and consider.

It was really interesting to observe the different styles of the various individuals that provided the feedback and how effective they all are (or aren't). Over the next couple of posts I am going to examine a couple of different styles of feedback delivery to compare their impact and effectiveness. Which one are you....the Hare, the Bull, the Cat, the Parrot.....? If you aren't sure then ask the people who are on the receiving end......they might just give you the feedback YOU need!

I have written about feedback in some previous posts so if you want some general tips then check these out:

Different types of feedback and the difference between feedback and coaching

Specific tips on feedback and coaching

Your Favourite Teacher....?

2009-04-13T18:10:00.002+01:00

It was the annual parents evening recently for my youngest son so my wife and I trotted up to the school to hear the low down on how he is doing. After crouching down onto the little chairs and sitting around the little table I felt like I had drifted back in time....and even started to get a little nervous myself.

The teacher started to tell us how well our son is doing and also some areas where he needs to focus on. The dreaded SATs exams are approaching and we all know how important it is to get good results......

Actually I was really impressed by how well the teacher really knows my son. He can see him for what he really is and recognises his strengths and works really to hard to help them come to the surface.

I came home thinking that the whole experience has so many links to the corporate world that we all live in:

How often is it that we only find out about our performance once a year? Sadly for a lot of people this is not unusual......
How may managers really take the time to find the strengths of their people, and then take the next step to make the most of them? Come to think of it how many managers even bother to look for strengths and just focus on those 'development needs'....?
How often are we too focused on results and not so much on how we might be able to achieve them. Are we focusing on the catch when we need to work on the throw?

It made me think about all the great teachers I have had in my life so far (...not just at school) and what they did to make me remember them. So this post is dedicated to them and how they have helped to shape my thinking......thanks!

If you have a moment then have a think about the people that have been your great teachers....what did they do and how can you learn from that?

A Carnival of Leadership....

2009-04-06T11:00:00.002+01:00

It's carnival time again at Dan McCarthy's Great Leadership blog. Check it out for insightful musings about leadership, management, coaching.....and just about everything for people in a leadership position.

Thanks to Dan for taking the time to put together another great collection.

Unlearning...stop before you start...

2009-04-05T10:17:00.004+01:00

I read an interesting article on the Training Zone site this week that focuses on the need to unlearn old ways before you can really take on board new ideas and techniques.

The ability to continuously change and develop is something that I have experienced and witnessed so many times not just in myself but in my work. It is always interesting to observe people who are stuck in their old ways of working and just stuttering in their ability to move forward.

From a training perspective it is really important for people to be able to take on new ideas so a technique that can help prepare them for this is worth taking note of. Here are some excerts from the article:

"Research in Denmark and the USA sheds new light on how most adults learn. It is based on the old concept of unlearning. As adults, much of the time we need to unlearn what we have picked up in the past before we can properly take on the new learning

At the University of Copenhagen, Professor Avril Einn has been working on the psychological principles behind this approach. "It is rather like having to empty a glass before we can fill it again," says Professor Einn. "Except that is not what actually happens in the brain. It is a mere psychological trick. If we believe we are letting go of old learning then somehow we are more open, more willing and more able to take on the new." This is based on ideas in psychosynthesis. "If you write down on a piece of paper something that has been troubling you and then tear up that paper, or burn it, somehow that symbolic act allows us to let it go. We have conducted research with over 2,000 subjects asking them to symbolically let go of past learning. Some have done this using their imagination, just in their own heads. Some have spoken it out loud. And some have written it down and torn it up."

What is most significant is the second phase of the study. What they have found is that almost every person is able to learn more and faster immediately after taking this preparatory action. On average people are able to learn, remember and use 39% more than was the case in a control group. This is a staggering increase. I have looked over the comprehensive research evidence and I have to say it looks both sound and compelling."

I can remember a leadership course that I developed and delivered with a third party. We gave the delegates the task of writing down some behaviours on a slip of paper and then screwing up the paper and throwing it in the bin. For some it sounded like a stupid gimic but they went along with it. For others they found it quite a difficult task and getting them to part with the piece of paper was quite a challenge.

However I do remember that for all of them it was clear that there was an emotional trigger taking place by undertaking the act. What was more interesting was observing any behaviour change that then took place. Those that grappled more with the parting of their paper typically had a greater change in behaviour....their glass had been emptied and was ready to be filled up with the new learning.

If you are currently designing a learning intervention and are particularly looking for people to take on new ways of thinking or behaving then consider how you will help them unlearn their old ways first....

Virtual Learning becoming reality....

2009-03-28T12:24:00.004Z

Virtual Environments such as Second Life clearly have huge potential for use as a learning tool. To date I have only really toyed with the idea but am an ever increasingly interested observer.

This article in Outsourcing Journal really caught my eye because it describes how Ernst & Young are using Second Life to train their auditors. My first reaction was to chuckle at the thought of bright young auditors sitting down at a screen in their pin stripe suits......but then I thought that if it works for an accounting firm who can be very conservative, then this technology is hitting the main stream!

Last year the firm completed a generational study, which pointedly asked Gen Y to list the differences between themselves and the baby boomers. "We learned this group has a greater comfort and confidence with technology," says Michael Hamilton, partner and chief learning and development officer.

The virtual world that has been created simulates a client environment (a cookie manufactuer). As the students move throughout the virtual warehouse, they face many of the real-life issues that may arise in an actual inventory. Students stumbled over cases of flour and other raw materials that appear to have been damaged by moisture. Should they count these as inventory even though they appeared to be unusable? Should the boxes of cookies on the shipping dock waiting for the next day delivery count as inventory? What about the cookies baking in the large ovens? Are they counted as inventory? When the students aredone, they have the opportunity to compare their inventory decisions and the logic surrounding those decisions with those of more experienced auditors

The project team divided the training class in two: half the group took the traditional classroom training, while the other half plugged in their headsets and headed off to Ernst & Young's island on Second Life.

Hamilton says one of the "ah ha" discoveries was that the young auditors who completed a simulated audit in Second Life were slightly less confident than their peers who completed the traditional training. "We suspect the auditors who participated in the traditional instructor-led training had an unwarranted confidence in their ability to conduct a physical inventory count," he reports. "The virtual learners had more anxiety because the simulation demonstrated they could not always anticipate real-world issues. This anxiety caused them to find the right person and ask the right questions. When you are learning a new skill, asking questions is an important part of the learning process" says Hamilton.

Lessons from the Outsourcing Journal:

Ernst & Young found 3-D learning better prepared new auditors by giving them real-world experience. It compared the results with new auditors who took a traditional instructor-led class.
3-D learning is a cost-effective alternative to on-site training sessions because it can deliver the two goals of the meeting: training the employees and creating camaraderie and collaboration.
3-D learning captures learning digitally, providing a record of what has been informal, on-the-job training. It is a good tool to capture the knowledge of retiring employees.
3-D learning is a good way for adults to learn because they can retain more knowledge.
Don't underestimate the time and effort needed to introduce learners to this new platform. Plan to help your learners through the initial set-up and orientation. Once they've been properly introduced, most enjoy the experience.
Consult with others working in this space. Old instructional design approaches simply don't work in the virtual world.

You can view a 3 minute tour of the virtual world here.

I think this is a great example of an organisation experimenting with the technology to achieve a real business objective.

If you want to learn more about virtual worlds then I suggest you also read this article that was published in Elearn Magazine. It provides an excellent introduction to virtual worlds along with some sound advice on taking your first steps.

As L&D professionals it is really important to keep up to date with this kind of technology. Sometimes you need to play with it before you can really see the potential.......so what are you waiting for.....?

Employee Engagement

2009-03-21T22:02:00.004Z

With the Credit Crunch in full swing and with more bad news being revealed each week, engaging your employees has to be a top priority for all organisations.

When things are tough people need to hear clear messages from the management team and understand what they need to do to get through it.

B&Q is a largely UK based DIY store that has recently won the Gallup Great Workplace award for employee engagement. Actually this is the 3rd time B&Q have won this award which is quite an achievement.

James K Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist of workplace management and well-being, said: “In good times, employee engagement is the difference between being good and being great and, in bad times, it’s the difference between surviving and not.

“In good times and bad, low engagement reduces performance and profit. And under the present circumstances, many companies can’t afford to let those drop.

It was interesting to note some of the 'tools' that B&Q used to increase employee engagement:

They created a forum for meeting and sharing ideas with the CEO
They created a consistent communication pack for managers to use with their employees
They launched an internal TV station
The CEO launched a blog

As you can see this really isn't rocket science but it does require focus, effort....and tenacity.

In earlier posts I have discussed a concept called the Commitment Curve. This is about how to move people to adopt change through a variety of interventions. Communication is certainly a key change lever and B&Q are a great example of this - well done to them.

Why Do People Succeed....?

2009-03-14T12:19:00.002Z

Why do people succeed? Is it because they’re smart? Or are they just lucky? Neither. Analyst Richard St. John condenses years of interviews into an unmissable 3-minute slideshow on the real secrets of success.

It's a really simple and funny presentation that could easily be used to kick off a training session as a thought provoker or discussion point.

I hope you like it!

March Leadership Development Carnival

2009-03-09T12:00:00.001Z

If you are interested in leadership development (of either yourself or other people) then I recommend you hop over to Dan McCarthy's March Leadership Development Carnival.

It really is a collection of high quality articles with content covering coaching, learning and development, goal setting, management.......and loads more.

Dan has kindly included one of my articles too on developing high quality learning - thanks Dan!

Tapping Talent - The way out of the credit crunch..?

2009-03-07T22:38:00.006Z

Some interesting research from Accenture recently has highlighted that approximately half of all women and men in the workplace don't think they are being sufficently challenged by their jobs.

What's more interesting is that 76% said they already have the skills to take them to the next level, but they are just not being utilised.

Wow - that's amazing! Think about how much latent talent is there just waiting to be tapped....!!

If we could just help people release even a fraction of that talent then maybe that's the way out of this credit crunch.

....and it is the role of you as a manager that has the most influence on this.

Check out the following posts toget some tips and advice on how to release this potential:

How to motivate people

Coaching and how to give feedback

The power of mentoring

Talent management has a huge role to play in the current climate - do you have the guts to take the lead in your organisation?

Training as a Change Lever Part 3......moving to adoption

2009-02-28T16:00:00.001Z

In my previous post on using training as a change lever we looked at how you start to move people up the commitment curve. This is all about raising people's awareness about a change and then starting to develop an understanding. As people start to become more aware then this is a critical time - it is an opportunity for people to become worried "now I understand how this is going to impact me......and I don't like it"

So how can learning and development interventions help people understand why the change is good for them (even if it may be painful) and then how can it move people into adopting the change themselves.......?

Whereas awareness and understanding are about providing a consistent and general view, the next step is about building on this but being more specific about your role.

Whilst it is of course important that people at all levels in the organisation are aware of and understand the change, it is the more senior managers that will initially have significant influence. Once people start thinking about the impact on them and their role they will need to be reassured and given the opportunity to discuss.

If your senior managers aren't equipped with adequate coaching and change management skills then this can really cause more problems and even create further resistence to the change.

What kind of change skills are useful to focus on developing - here are a couple?

Give them an understanding of why people resist change. A bit of theory can be useful and help managers spot certain types of behaviour. Point them towards books and papers by John Kotter and you won't go far wrong. My favourite is Leading Change....gold dust.

Teach people how to identify and manage stakeholders. Not only is this a great skill to have it is vital to manage change.

Help them understand how to move people to take action. Whilst worthy of it's own post (book...library) it is at the heart of any change. If your manager can do this......keep hold of him!

As well as equiping your managers for the change it is important to provide more role specific training for people. This will really help to equip them with the skills for their specific role. A great technique to help people consider new ways of working and thinking is the use of dilemmas.

A dilemma is a scenario that people are given to consider, discuss and debate. Typically it will be related to the change and will stimulate lots of discussion. For example if you are trying to introduce a culture of ethical behaviour in an organisation you might create real life scenarios that highlight a number of ethical dilemmas eg. dealing with a conflict of interest, dealing with dishonesty etc. If used well these can be a very powerful development tool and can really help people deal with change. Action Learning Groups, role plays and case studies are all training methods that fit very well with the use of dilemmas. Consider delivering some elearning first and then following up with classroom based discussion and exploration in more detail.

A final item to consider and one that will help you sustain the change, moving you right up the commitment curve. Look at the existing competencies that exist in the organisation. Do they reflect the required behaviour needed to drive through and sustain the change......it's unlikely of course. Undertaking an exercise that really examines what is needed and how these need to be layered into the competency model is critical to embed change. Again this is worthy of it's own post......so maybe that's one for the future.

Making Change Stick in an organisation is tough and it is something that I covered on this blog in other posts. So if you want to know more then check out these:

Making Learning Stick - Part One

Making Learning Stick - the role of the Line Manager

Ride the Credit Crunch with Action Learning

7 Principles for Leadership Development

The Role of the Line Manager....how to motivate people

Line Manager Tips - GROW, a model for coaching

In the modern corporate world and particularly in the current climate it is important for training professional to really be able to show their worth. Having a set of skills and tecnhiques that can help your organisation deal with change will guarantee you a seat at the top table...good luck!

Twitter progress report.......shows potential but yet to deliver..

2009-02-21T08:30:00.001Z

I have been using Twitter for 10 months now so it's time for a review of how we have been performing together......

It has been amazing to watch how the tool has grown from a niche toy into a huge social networking tool used by such a wide variety of people. I notice now that even Andy Murray, Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross are using it. With respect to learning and development there are clearly many professionals using it too. This article highlighted 100 learning professionals to follow but I suspect there are many more now.

When I first started to use Twitter I could think of lots of ways it could be used for real business value - I even posted my thoughts about it. I started to play with it, Tweeting about whatever was on my mind, linking to my blog and also to my nokia sports tracker site. It was interesting and strangely addictive especially as more people started to follow me.

But how is it being used as a business tool, particularly with respect to Learning and Development? I can see the potential, I really can. Training Time posted some interesting thoughts on this recently and I fully agree with their ideas. It clearly has bags of potential.

However here are some of the areas that have held our partnership back so far:

In the low risk corporate world people are often very reluctant to use a tool such as Twitter. Apart from the name being perceived as 'unprofessional' by some camps there has been some concern in using a tool that might not be there tomorrow (yes I know they should just try it etc but the corporate world doesn't always think like that)
Quite often the computers, blackberries and phones that companys provide their people with are 'locked down'. This means people can't add on neat little applications to either their pc or their mobile device. Whilst you can access Twitter via the web it is these little applications such as Twirl that make using it so much more easy and effective - especially to interact with other Tweeters. (My organisation is currently experimenting with a tool called Yammer which is a bit like Twitter but for use within a closed community).
Many people just aren't ready for this stuff. If you live in the world of blogging, facebook etc then it is a natural extension of what you already do. Many people don't live in this world and would feel very uncomfortable utilising a tool such as Twitter.

If you have examples of it being used in earnest in a learning and development context then I would really be interested to know more. In the meantime I will keep tweeting........follow me here

Put yourself in their shoes

2009-02-14T12:34:00.003Z

I have written a number of times on this blog about how to design high quality learning interventions. For me it always starts with investing time and effort in defining what outcomes you want for the learners. These are outcomes can be divided into:

Attitude: what mind set do you want people to have
Knowledge: what do you want people to know
Skills: what do you want people to be able to do

A simpler way of remember this could be 'think, know, do'.

Getting this piece right will drive the whole design and delivery of the learning intervention. It will also make it much easier for you to evaluate whether you have been successful because you have been very specific about the outcomes you want to achieve.

However, whilst defining clear outcomes will help you on the route to success, there is one other factor that you must consider..........know your audience. The way that you can achieve these outcomes will be very different depending upon the audience. Can you imagine wanting to achieve the same set of outcomes with a group of pensioners compared to a group of school kids - you would approach things very differently.

A colleague of mine, Emily recently attended a training course and kept a learning log through the week. It actually provides quite an insight into the world of the learner - something that all learning professional need to be able to do. Here are some extracts:

"The day started with a long journey to Swindon in the rain. This reminded me how important location is for events, as despite my enthusiasm and excitement about finally being on the course, I felt slow to engage. I can only assume that other shared this feeling, as the day got off to a slow start with low energy in the room".

That's already a fantastic insight into the world of the learner. As learning professionals it is so important to consider factors such as location etc. The first hours on a course will set the tone for the week and you can be easily get this wrong.

"Day 4 - highlight of the week by a clear mile. Thursday was a full day of simulation involving actors. What an experience - this was a real life case study involving actors who are playing out your worst nightmares. The real insight this gave me was how powerful nerves can be in affecting your most behaviours around building rapport and engaging with people"

Another valuable insight into how the learning intervention had an impact on what the learner was thinking (remember those attitude outcomes..).

"The trainers on this day acted as mentors for each of the teams - in the true sense of the word, rather than just supporting the administration of the process. This added even further depth to the practical experience..."

Again, a great insight into how the trainer can act in different ways to help coach the learner through the experience - helping them achieve those outcomes.

Thanks so much Emily!

So if you are currently embarking on the design of a new training course, or even a presentation remember:

Think about the outcomes
Know your audience

If you remember these things then I am sure you will achieve great results!

Using Training as a Change Lever......awareness and understanding

2009-01-31T13:25:00.009Z

This is the second part in my 'Using Training as a Change Lever' series.

Getting people in an organisation to change can be a tough nut to crack. There are many change levers that you can pull and training is certainly one of

them. Of course in practice the trick is to pull a set of levers adjusting each one all of the time as you steer your course through the change maze.

So how can you use training to get people moving along the commitment curve ?

Let's think about an example - imagine you are a large financial institution and you realise that you need to change certain aspects of your culture, perhaps implementing more formal controls into your environment. Most people in the organisation will just not be interested in changing unless they understand what is behind the change and how this could impact them.

Specific training interventions can have some real impact here. For example rolling out a short piece of eLearning to every employee that details what the company is doing (and why) and

what kind of changes need to take place. What does this do?

it makes sure that every person is aware of the change
it provides a consistent level of messaging to everyone in the organisation
it provides each employee with a base level of understanding about the change.

Of course this now means that people are starting to think about the "what's in it for me" (WIIFM) question and will generate all sorts of queries and debates. Therefore making sure the managers and leaders in the organisation are equipped with the right information is vital.

As with all training it is important to think carefully and agree the outcomes that you want as a result of people receiving it. Thinking about the commitment curve then you need to think about the following:

What are the differences in skills, knowledge and attitude that we want from people as they move from 'awareness' to 'understanding' for example.
How will you know that people have moved up the curve - what will it look ad feel like (both as an observer but also as an individual going through the change)
How will you be able to measure and therefore demonstrate that people have 'moved'?

If you go through this process then the learning interventions you design will be focused on achieving the right outcomes giving you a good chance of success.

So for example there may be a whole series of learnlets that you develop to achieve your outcomes and make the learning stick. Here are a couple of examples of 'learnlets' that are useful at the early stages of the commitment curve:

regular talking heads from a variety of people across the organisation. Demonstrating how the change will impact them, what it means to them and how they are dealing with it.
regular briefings from senior management updating people on what is happening. There are a huge variety of ways to do this. Think about blogs, Twitter, video blogs, wikis and any number of social networking tools.
short bites of eLearning that focus on a particular aspect of the change. Regular 10 minute chunks that people get used to receiving. It means minimal impact on their job but a regular 'drum beat' of information.

As you can see many of these items are about communicating information - it's about raising awareness and starting to develop an understanding.

As a learning professional you need to be creative, work closely with the Communications function......and be tenacious. People don't like change - you will meet resistence at every stage.

In my next post I'll take a look at how we start moving people towards adoption - another set of challenges! If you are up for that then check back soon..

Using Training as a Change Lever....Part One

2009-01-31T12:56:00.007Z

One of the things I love about my job is that I get to work with lots of different organisations who all have one thing in common - they are facing some significant change.

For some of them this is critical for their survival over the coming years, for others it represents huge opportunity with the promise of gold at the end of the rainbow. The current economic climate means that just about every organisation out there is facing some sort of change challenge.

Why do organisations often find it hard to change? Well for me the answer lies with the fact that organisations are made up of people.......and most people by their very nature want to keep things as they are. They need some (quite often significant) motivation to go through the pain of change and need to believe that there is something 'in it for me' (the WIIFM principle).

I really like the model shown below known as the Commitment Curve. It shows how a persons level of commitment will go through various stages starting from 'contact' where people are just starting to hear about the change, right through to 'internalisation' where people are creating their own innovative ways to change and really owning it.

What I plan to discuss over the coming posts is how training can play a role to help move people up the commitment curve. I will base this on my own experience of what I have seen works and what fails! I will also discuss how you can evaluate the success of your interventions.

The next post will focus on raising awareness and generating a level of understanding about the change......stay tuned....

Blue Monday....it's up to you...!

2009-01-24T11:47:00.004Z

Apparently last Monday was 'Blue Monday' - the low point following the Christmas and New Year break. It is apparently the time when we are hit with a combination of receiving the credit card bills detailing our indulgent spending and also the time when we realise another year is ahead and maybe we have already let slip on a couple of those New Year resolutions!

I was reflecting on my past week at work (which included Blue Monday) and it has been an incredibly busy, hectic and tiring one. I am working on a client project at the moment and we are approaching some tight deadlines. I have worked 65 hours in 5 days which included not getting home until 1:30am on Thursday night.

However, I feel really good about it.....surely that shouldn't be the case!

Over a coffee yesterday with my coach (the company I work for connects everyone with an internal coach) I was chatting about my current project. I realised that the work I am doing right now ticks many of my career boxes and is providing me with real motivation. So much so that despite a few hours sleep I was happy to be back in work on Friday morning!

However, if you took away the motivation factor I would be looking back on the week through a very different set of eyes. I would be looking for ways to 'take something back' by going home early or moaning to my friends and colleagues. I was about to write that I am lucky, but actually I changed jobs last year following a re-evaluation of what I want to do and where I want my career to go.

The credit crunch is providing thousands of people with an opportunity to really evaluate whether their career path is really the one they have chosen or whether it is something they have drifted into. If it is the latter then Blue Monday probably takes place every week. Redundancy can provide a release from the 'golden handcuffs' - where people feel trapped in a job by the money and subsequent lifestyle. Family, mortgage and even status can provide people with a million reasons just to keep plodding along.

On the news this morning was a guy who had been made redundant early last year. Since then he has started his own business working on something he is passionate about. He was so enthusiastic that the presenter asked what motivated him. His reply was simple ' I am doing what I love doing'.

Are you doing what you love doing? If not then what are you going to change?

Now that's what I call leadership.....

2009-01-17T12:22:00.004Z

I was mesmerised by the story this week about Captain Chesley B Sullenburger III who crash -landed a plane in the Hudson River in New York.

In case you didn't see the story the flight took off from LaGuardia airport and hit a flock of birds. Incredibly this caused both of the engines to fail immediately. Captain Sullenburger was faced with a split decision as to what course of action to take. He decided to glide the plane and it's 155 passengers safely onto the Hudson River apparently landing so smoothly that some of the passengers didn't know it was a crash land.....until the water started rushing in. The crew immediately evacuated the plane and every member was led to safety. Captain Sullenburger refused to leave the plan until he was 100% sure that there was no one left on board, walking up and down the aisle 3 times himself just to be sure.

Someone, somewhere must be welling up with pride that their training and pilot development programme has produced such an exceptional result. Captain Sullenburger clearly had many, many years of experience but this was all built upon a solid foundation of learning that he received primarily during the Air Force as a fighter pilot. Pilots are trained to deal with these high pressure situations that require a combination of split decision making, calmness and the application of incredible skill.

If you are looking for an example to demonstrate that great people development is a combination of 'teaching' and on the job learning then here it is. Captain Sullenburger had received the best training possible but applied and refined his skills over a 40 year period.

If there was ever a person you wanted to have flying your plane then he is your man. Of course there are many other pilots and crew out there who are also primed, trained and ready to deal with such a situation.

I take my hat off to all of you and those who are responsible for their development.

Who have you inspired today?

2009-01-10T10:20:00.004Z

Who have you inspired today?

It sounds like one of those fluffy questions that those HR people like to ask you whilst you are standing at the water cooler. However I have been thinking recently about some people that have inspired me to do things that I would not otherwise have done.

Here's a summary (I have not included names but I think the individuals will know who they are):

Earlier this year I was chatting with a colleague who told me about his blogging experience. I was amazed and inspired to start my own blog......and a whole new world opened up for me.
One of my training suppliers engaged me in a series of conversations about my beliefs and values, and how this shapes me as an individual. This sparked my fascination in the whole subject and has eventually led me to even focus on it as a career.
Watching Lewis Hamilton win the Formula One World Championship and to observe his focused and determined approach has inspired me to set my own expectations at a higher level.
6 years ago I was moaning to my boss about how I didn't like my job anymore. He asked me what I wanted to do......and I couldn't answer. This motivated me to really think about it.....and resulted in a total career change.
Researching my family history and finding out how my Great Uncle was killed in the First World War has inspired me to value all sorts of aspects of my life in many ways.

Each one of us is touched and inspired by others. Each one of us touches and inspires others.

We don't always know this is happening but just stopping to think about it now and again can help focus on where we are and the impact we have on each other.

Who have you inspired today?

Join the leadership carnival

2009-01-05T16:05:00.005Z

It's carnival time again over at Dan McCarthy's Great Leadership blog.

If you are interested in leadership development, succession planning, talent management, career planning.....or just want to discover a real gold mine of quality information, tips and advice.........then don't delay, click today!

How to embed learning...

2008-12-31T12:47:00.005Z

I came across an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal (even though I live in England...isn't the web cool!) called 'Lessons Learned - The key to effective training isn't necessarily what happens in the classroom. It's what you do afterward.'

It is a great article about how you really embed learning in an organisation following a training course. This is something that I think it is really important to focus on and I always ask myself the following questions when putting in place a training programme:

1) What are the outcomes that we want to achieve (think/know/do)?

2) How will we know if we have achieved these outcomes?

Big questions......but not always easy to answer.

The WSJ article provides some interesting tips on helping with this:

Ask the delegates to put an action plan down on paper. The act of writing it down can really help people think about it more deeply and also makes them more likely to take action.
Measure results. If delegates know they are going to be observed and measured following a training course, then they tend to do something about it.
Help from peers. Get people together in peer groups following a training session. Share experiences and you will find that people benefit from the support and encourgement.
Supportive superiors. An actively involved boss greatly increases the odds that an employee will apply what they have learned back in the work place
Access to experts. Research shows that employees who participate in follow-up meetings with instructors after training are more likely to apply new skills and knowledge on the job.

The article provides some real life examples that support these points and has a practical tone to it - something that I like! If you have any other tips then I would be interested to hear from you.

Time for reflection...

2008-12-23T16:52:00.003Z

I am really looking forward to my Christmas break and taking some time to be with my family. For me it is also an important time to just sit back and reflect on whether I am focusing on the right things in my life. Everyone clearly needs to shift their focus at different times but it is important to do this in a conscious way.

Techniques such as the 'wheel of life' can be really useful to help with this. Have a think about where you would have plotted yourself 5 or 10 years ago compared to now. Are you focused on the right things or is it at the expense of other things?

More Line Manger tips: GROW - A model for coaching

2008-12-20T14:20:00.002Z

Whilst not formally qualified in coaching I often find myself in 'coaching conversations' with people - not always those that work for me. Initially I found this uncomfortable but I persevered with it as I seemed to be getting some positive results. The breakthrough came when I learned about a simple model called GROW that provides some structure to the coaching conversation.

I thought it would be useful to share with you as it is a tool that every line manager should have up their sleeve....

GROW is simply a set of questions that you ask the person that you are coaching. The sets of questions are grouped into:

1) Questions about Goals. Questions such as 'what would you like to discuss'?, 'how do you know that this is something worth achieving?'. These questions are designed to help the coachee think about where they want to get to and how much it means to them.

2) Questions about Reality. Questions such as 'what is happening at the moment', 'what is holding you back'. These questions are designed to understand where you are starting from.

3) Questions about Options. Questions such as 'what is the right thing to do', 'what would you do differently if you were to start over again'. These questions are designed to explore what is possible and any resources that can help you achieve your goal.

4) Questions about 'What Next'. Questions such as 'what are the next steps', 'rate on a 1 - 10 scale your motivation to achieve the agreed actions. What prevents you from being at a 10?'

When I first started to use these questions it was all a bit clunky. However once you start using the technique often it quickly becomes more natural. Now I find that I can build them into a conversation much more easily. The key thing to remember is the order that you ask them - always follow G.R.O.W. The questions are extremely powerful as they really help people think deeply and clearly about their goals and how to achieve them.

Give it a try and I am sure you will see the results

If you want to know more about GROW then check out the following links:

Mind Tools - they use a slightly different definition of GROW but the same principles apply

For a useful worksheet to use when having the conversation then check this out.

For more on GROW and other coaching techniques Clare Chapman offers some useful articles.

Specific tips on coaching and feedback

2008-12-12T08:00:00.003Z

In my last post we started to look at how feedback and coaching are important elements of a line manager's role.

As a line manager there are a couple of specific components that are worth focusing on with respect to feedback and coaching:

Being as specific as possible and avoiding generalisations

Thinking about whether this is the right time

Avoiding being judgemental and focusing on being descriptive

Providing a balanced view

Having a two way conversation

Maintaining self esteem.

The following table gives some specific examples for all of these components.

Click on the image to make it bigger and print it out as a reference.

As with all development this requires practice so don't expect to get it absolutely right first time. Also, the next time you are on the 'receiving end' have a think about why it went well, or not so well. Which of the components above were in place and which weren't - why and how did that make a difference?

Leadership Development Carnival

2008-12-08T08:44:00.004Z

Dan McCarthy's Leadership Carnival has come to town again........and is definitely worth a visit for the latest thinking on the subject of Great Leadership.

If you haven't visited Dan's blog before then I recommend it highly for not only insightful thinking but also some really practical advice and tips on all things leadership.

In this month's carnival my pick of the most interesting links cover topics such as:

- 6 powerful questions to ask in your Performance Review........I have made my own notes on this!

- Succession planning strategies

- The Workplace of the Future

......and loads more....

More Line Manager tips - feedback and coaching

2008-12-05T17:30:00.011Z

If a line manager is not taking steps to develop the people that work for him then they aren't doing their job properly. Of course as a line manager there a hundred different priorities that need to be sorted out but how often is people development near the end of this list?

One of the key ways in which a line manager can do this is to provide some good quality feedback and little coaching now and then. It doesn't take a huge amount of effort (but it does require some) and the rewards can be very high for both the line manager and the individual.

First a question - what is the difference between feedback and coaching........?

Feedback is what happened and can be praise or for issues identification
Coaching is how to improve

As a line manager you need to deliver both and in sequence - feedback and then coaching.

There are lots of types of feedback that you need to provide to your people.

Consider the following types of feedback:

Reinforcing: encouraging what they are doing right. If people know that they are doing the right thing then they will keep on doing it. If they aren't told it they may well assume that it must be wrong!

Correcting: adjusting what they are doing wrong (the opposite of reinforcing)

Confronting: probably the most difficult type of feedback and the one that many line managers avoid. Conflict is inevitable and there are likely to be performance issues.

Of course, what is most important here is how you provide the feedback. Many line managers often fire the feedback like a bullet from a gun.....and then wonder why it didn't go down very well.

Just take a moment to put yourself in their shoes -

How might they be feeling?
What would be the best way to deliver the feedback?
Is this the right time to provide them with feedback?
How can I remove emotion from the situation by keeping things factual?

In my next post I will give some further insights into the best way to provide feedback including some specific examples.

....and now with your coaching hat on some questions to ask yourself.

Do you genuinel believe that every member of your team has untapped potential?

You, the person you are coaching and the operating context all affect the way a task is done. If you thought about all of the variable how might things work differently, rather than just following a process that you always use?
Everyone has their own way of learning. Do you coach the way you would want to be coached?
Your team member will have their own perspective - on their performance and on you. How is your coaching affected by what you believe your team member thinks of you?
You can't like everyone. What impact does liking or disliking a team member have on your relationship with them?

In my next post we will look at some of the key components in a bit more detail with some examples and advice on how to coach and provide feedback....

The Role of the Line Manager – how to motivate your people…?

2008-11-28T17:20:00.006Z

As part of my recent Making Learning Stick series I had a number of emails and comments on the piece that focused on the role of the line manager.

It is great to see people agree that the line manager has a key role to play in the development of their people. Sadly, not all line managers live up to this expectation and we all have our own experiences I am sure!

Therefore I will be posting some tips and advice of the coming weeks targeted specifically at helping line managers be both better role models but also to help them develop the skills that they need. As always I will try and keep this practical and pragmatic – my aim is for it to be as useful as possible!

One of the key roles of the line manager is in motivating his employees and in the current climate this is more important than ever. Loads of research has been done on what motivates employees (if you want the theory then check out Herzberg and McClelland) but for me it boils down to one key factor:

If you feel good about your job then you will be motivated. The better you feel, the more motivated you are.

OK, I here you say – so what is the secret of making people feel good about their job? Actually, that’s also quite straight forward:

I feel good about my job when I can see that what I do makes a difference.

As a line manager some of the motivating factors are in your control and some aren’t. The kind of things that you can influence are:

Achievement: can your team see how they are achieving things over a period of time? It is really easy to drift from week to week without looking back and reflecting on what you have achieved. Incremental achievements over a period of time can add up to some big things. As the line manager just take a moment to remind people how much they have achieved so that they can realise their contribution.

Recognition – do your people feel that all of those long hours, sweat and stress are being recognised? Recognition doesn’t have to mean an ‘employee of the month’ award. Often a simple conversation can work wonders or perhaps just talking about it at a team meeting. If people don’t feel they are being recognised then they will be thinking ‘why do I bother’…

Interesting work – interesting work means different things to different people. For some it is variety and being exposed to new situations whilst for others it could be fixing things or solving problems. As a line manager take a bit of time to understand what aspects of their jobs your people like and don’t like. Next time a new piece of work needs doing use these insights to allocate the work according to both their interests and also to the areas where they want to develop.

Responsibility – When people are given responsibility to complete something they will feel like they both own the task and have control over what they are doing. Of course people may need some coaching and hand holding but be careful not to micro manage them. A good line manager will allocate responsibility within his team. A great line manager will allocate this according to development needs and will even (carefully) let people fail if it provides a positive learning experience.

Advancement and Personal Development – If people can see themselves progressing in an organisation then this is usually the result of the first three items being put into practice. As a line manager you should make it clear to people what they need to demonstrate and achieve in order to advance in the organisation. Giving them lots of constructive feedback along the way is how a good line manager steers people towards their career goals. When a pilot steers the plane he makes a series of really small adjustments all of the time rather than yanking at the controls – this is how a good line manager looks after his people.

If you are a line manager have a think about your team and how often you are considering these motivating factors. It really doesn’t take much………..but it does require some effort. The best bit is that when you are able to motivate your own staff then it is one of the most rewarding and motivating aspects of being a line manager – a definite win/win situation!

Make Learning Stick....with a Personal Development Plan

2008-11-23T13:00:00.000Z

This is my final post in my Making Learning Stick series.

Making Learning Stick is all about getting the most from your learning investment - something that is currently more important than ever for everyone involved in L&D. From the emails and comments I have received it's clear that this is something on the minds of many people involved in L&D at the moment.

In my final post I want to highlight how having a personal development plan (PDP) can be a useful tool to help people grow and develop.

Like most people I have had various development plans over the years - some detailed and some scribbled together 'on the back of a fag packet'. However the ones that helped me the most had a couple of things in common:

1) I wrote them - they were not written for me. I found that the objectives I set myself were usually more challenging that the ones someone else thought up for me. I know where the limits of my comfort zone are more than anyone else.

2) They were written following discussion with someone who I respected and who was interested in my development. I have had some good and bad managers over the years (who hasn't!) but the good ones took the time to talk with me about what I wanted and how I could get there.

3) These first two points are great starting points but for me my most successful PDPs have been the ones that have changed and developed over time. Finding the motivation to do this is much easier if you can see yourself making progress and also if you have someone giving you a gentle shove now and again.

The simple act of going through the motions of writing a PDP makes you really think about who you are, what you want to do and what the routes are to get there. Making Learning Stick in an organisation means helping people take real ownership for the own personal development. There are many tools that can help you do this, most of which do not require large investment........

Make Learning Stick: Part 4 - Social networking tools

2008-11-15T10:45:00.000Z

This is my fourth post in my Making Learning Stick series.

Making Learning Stick is all about getting the most from your learning investment - something that is currently more important than ever for everyone involved in L&D.

In this post I want to focus on how social networking tools can be used to Making Learning Stick in an organisation.

An important aspect of helping people to learn and then embedding that learning into their 'day job' is providing them with ongoing support following a learning intervention. In a previous post I discussed how the role of the line manager can play an important part in this. However as a L&D professional you should consider social networking tools as part of your blended approach to learning.

If you are not familiar with what social networking tools are available then check out this great presentation from Jane Hart. It gives a really good overview of the Top 100 Tools For Learning so it is important to first know what is out there. So how can they be used to Making Learning Stick?

I believe a key way that they can be used is as both before and after any learning intervention:

Before the learning intervention:

Wouldn't it be good if you could start to engage with delegates before they actually attended the course?Perhaps start to embed some key messages with them, interact with them, start to gauge what is on their mind....? Social networking is a great way to do this and here are 2 examples:

Use Twitter to drip feed messages about 'what is coming' and encourage people to tweet back and also with each other. People can tweet via SMS through their mobile phone so it is very easy to both access and use. See this article for more information about how Twitter can be used.
Set up a blog that provides both more information about the course they will be attending including some links to other interesting items. Also encourage people to start sharing their experiences and to communicate with each other. You need to provide some sort of carrot to attract them - be creative.

Following the learning intervention

Once people have been on a course then the learning process has only started. It is the period following the course when people need the most support to help embed the learning into their roles. Again social networking tools can play a role in this:

Creating a community of like minded people can be a very powerful support network for people. The use of blogs and also tools such as facebook can be a great way to do this. Make sure that you let people know about this during the course (let them try it out) and keep the tool updated with interesting stuff.
Consider using tools such as a Wiki to provide supporting information for people. You could initially populate it with relevant information and then let people edit and update themselves. For a great example of how a Wiki was implemented then watch this video that Jay Cross shot about how Intel use it (Intelpedia). Another tool that is great for aggregating information is Delicious. You can tag web based articles, stories or news items that are relevant to your audience and then share them very easily to create a wealth of supporting information.

As an L&D professional you should be familiar with these tools. If you aren't then I recommend getting to know them - try them out and play with them. They can be a great way to Making Learning Stick in your organisation.......and they are free!

Make Learning Stick....Part 3....the start is not the end......

2008-11-08T11:31:00.007Z

This is my third post in my Making Learning Stick series.

Making Learning Stick is all about getting the most from your learning investment - something that currently more important than ever for everyone involved in L&D.

In my last post we looked at the role of the line manager and what a big influence this can have on the employee when they return back to their day job following a learning intervention. In this post we look at other ways to help support the employee back in their work environment.

How often have you seen people attending a training course where they are totally fired up and commited to changing their approach or behaviour?

As the L&D professional you return home feeling on top of the world thinking that your efforts have made a real difference. As the employee attending the course you genuinely want to change and are looking forward to applying your new skills and knowledge. However when Monday comes around and you get totally consumed back into your day job, how often have you seen people revert back to their original position? Some people who are more resolute may manage to resist for a few weeks but even then things start to tail off.........why?

The reason for this is because the learning only STARTED during the training intervention. You only learn about something on a training course. It is when you go back to the work environment that you really learn how to do something. If you think about the learning intervention in this way then there are a host of other things that need to form part of it.

In my previous post we talked about how the line manager needs to be part of this. Assuming that the line manager knows what to do or even what the training involves is probably not a good thing!

So what should I do to implement an integrated approach to learning?

1) Ensure that the line manager for each of your delegates has been informed about the training being attended. Remind them to have a conversation with the delegate before the training to discuss what outcomes they are looking for and then to have another conversation after the training intervention to see what happened and what needs to happen next. Personally I make sure all of the line managers are emailed but this depends on the scale of your audience. In addition you can make the initial conversation a pre-requisite for the course. Ask delegates to bring along the agreed outcomes and ask them to be prepared to discuss this.

2) Plan specific events or activities following the training that will reinforce the messages. These can take many different forms so here are a few ideas:

Help the delegate understand what other development activity is now useful to them. Give this to them to take away and discuss with their manager. It could be further training or specific roles and activities in their workplace. I call it the 'what happens next' list. On a more formal scale this is a development plan - but we will discuss this further in another post.
If it is appropriate for your workplace and you are looking to change behaviours and elements of your culture then you can reinforce messages by using marketing material. For example if you are trying to make your people more client focused then put up some posters around the place that reinforce this message perhaps in a humerous form. Put them in places where people will discuss them (break out areas, near the water cooler etc). Try and be provactive - the aim is to get people talking about it.
Think about how you might use some of the newer social networking tools to reinforce the messages. Again I will look at this further in another post.
Think about how you can build a community of like minded people. This can be a very powerful for people to support each other. Again, look out for another post on this.
Action learning can have a huge role to play in embedding the learning and developing people. I recently published a separate series on this so take a look at that.
Keep in contact with the delegates. I make a point of talking to delegates when I see them in the office? How are things going? Can I connect you to other people who could help? What have they noticed about themselves? What barriers have they experienced? If you can't do this individually then send them all an email, arrange a follow up conference call - keep it in the forefront of their mind.

Sending people on a training course can be an important part of people development. However it is definitely only the start of the learning process for people. Taking a much more integrated approach to learning is another vital ingredient to making learning stick in your organisation.

Lewis Hamilton: Leadership and Talent Management In Action

2008-11-05T08:30:00.001Z

Well done to Lewis Hamilton for winning the F1 World Championship. It is a great achievement for anyone but particularly for Lewis who is only 23.

For me the Lewis Hamilton story is one that has many interesting links and examples to the world of learning and development. In particular there are two areas to highlight:

Talent Management

Lewis’ talent was identified by McLaren at a very young age as they saw some specific qualities that they knew could be nurtured. You could say that Lewis was identified as a ‘high potential’ very early on in his career.
McLaren carefully developed Lewis over a period of time. They gave him increasingly challenging roles and assignments as he progressed through the various racing formats. These were meticulously planned with the goal of helping Lewis achieve his potential.
Lewis was taken under the wing of a hugely experienced mentor – Ron Dennis. Not only did Ron provide feedback and advice to Lewis, he also fought his corner for him when required. F1 is a fiercely competitive business and there are hundreds of eager drivers just waiting to step up. Ron had the belief in Lewis and put his own neck on the line.

Leadership Qualities

Listening to Lewis speak after his championship winning race in Brazil he continuously referred to his success in a collective way. For example “as I approached the last lap I knew that we still had a chance and that we just had to keep going”. Like all great leaders Lewis always wants to make sure that the praise and recognition is centred on the team and not himself.
Last year Lewis missed out on the title by a single point and this was largely due to a couple of mistakes he make. However Lewis made it very clear that he took responsibility for them and that he would learn from them and come through a stronger person. It is a great example of how people only really develop by making mistakes on the job and then using the learning to really grow as a person.
There are many factors that can influence a successful outcome in Formula 1. However if you look at the ability of the drivers there is very little to separate them – they are all extremely talented and capable. The one thing that does differentiate them though is mindset and attitude. Lewis has bags of belief in himself, but in a quietly confident way. Whilst those around him are getting emotional (and even attacking him personally) Lewis has always remained calm and confident. At no point was this more obvious than when he overtook the Toyota on the final lap in Brazil to win the title – nerves of steel and resolute belief.

As a learning and development professional I think it’s important to find good examples of real world examples that help to illustrate development issues and approaches. Building your own catalogue of these over time can often help your influence with the people that matter.

Make Learning Stick......the role of the manager

2008-11-03T08:00:00.003Z

If there is one area that can have the most influence on embedding learning (making learning stick) it is the role of the line manager. So, what is the role of the line manager....?

1) Prior to the learning intervention even happening a good line manager will have frequent discussions with their people about their development needs. Some of these may be formal but some will also be informal - chats on the phone, a quick catch up with a cup of tea etc. This means that the line manager is aware of the development needs and can help the employee recongise them........and to then take some action.

2) OK, so it is agreed that you need to undertake some sort of development activity. The role of the line manager here is to help the employee to be really clear what outcomes they are looking for following the development activity. Are you expecting some behaviour change, are you expecting to be able to undertake a new kind of role etc? This really helps to focus the employee on their needs and to both build on strengths as well as identifying any blind spots.

3) Even during the learning intervention (eg. if it is a 5 day programme) a good line manager will check in to see how things are going. What have they learned? Do they still have their outcomes in mind.

4) Following the learning intervention it is really important to sit down and have a discussion about what they learned. What are they now more aware of, what are they going to focus on. A good manager will encourage the employee to come up with the items themselves. Write it down as part of your development plan.

5) The following days and weeks are the most crucial to making the learning stick. It is so easy to fall back into your previous thinking or ways of working. A good manager will be regularly monitoring progress. A great manager will have agreed specific tasks and/or assignments that will force the employee to apply the new behaviours.

6) A continuous loop of feedback, review and action with the employee is then what is needed to really embed the learning. What development is needed next to build on this success, what assignments might now be appropriate?

Making learning stick is the responsibility of the learner. However, the manager can have a highly influential role in helping make this happen!

Make Learning Stick.....Part One

2008-10-31T17:49:00.004Z

The amount of effort that can go into the design and development of a learning intervention can be very significant. If you are dilligent you might even think about measuring some of the benefits......and this is often where things go wrong.

Measuring the benefits of a learning intervention is GOOD but it is important that you make the learning stick. How do you really embed learning after an intervention so that real behaviour has taken place.....permanently? You could show that the training course was a great success but what about 2 weeks later when everyone is back to their usual work environment......?

In the next series of posts I will look at ways to make learning stick in your organisation. With resources tight now this is more important than ever. If you have less money to invest in people development then you need to squeeze everything you can from it!

Why is L&D more important than ever?

2008-10-29T08:30:00.002Z

If you work in L&D you may think that the current times are tough. Your budget is being slashed and maybe training has already been frozen or slimmed down. Before you reach for your noose there are some incredible opportunities out there for L&D at the moment.

The recent collapse of the financial markets was largely due to the lack of regulation in place. The banks could do what they liked......and we are now all paying the price. Now that the banks are back under the control of the govt (in the UK the govt now owns most of them) then that will all change. There will clearly be a focus on introducing new regulations and policies but perhaps more importantly a focus on changing the culture and inherent behviours of those in the banking industry.

Can you imagine how many people are going to be impacted by this....? Each organisation is going to have to make sure that their people fully understand these new regulations - without it they won't be able to do business. If that wasn't a large enough L&D opportunity then how about the behavioural change piece. How can you change the behaviours of such a large group of people?

I am already talking with clients about these opportunities. To say they are receptive is what you might call an understatement....!

What other opportunities are out there for L&D professionals.....?

Education vs Training

2008-10-25T11:15:00.002+01:00

In the past couple of weeks I have gone from watching the news eagerly each day to becoming quite nonchalent about the shrinking economy, the falling stock markets and the weakening currencies.

In the corporate arena I have noticed that each part of the company is having to work really hard to justify their existence. This is even more obvious about this time of the year when budgets for next year are being finalised.

If you work in L&D then you need to have your ducks lined up, your business case in hand and your sponsors well prepared.

You may find it helpful to read this article by Paul Kearns on the Training Zone site. Paul starts out by illustrating the difference between 'eduation' and 'training' and uses a really funny example of sex education.

"I'm happy for my teenage son (or daughter) to receive sex education but I don't want him (or her) having sex training!'

He discusses how sex education teachers might evaluate their work using the Kirkpatrick approach. Can you imagine the level 2 check - kids putting a condom on a banana..........and how about level 3 - the practical application...!!!

Of course being able to evaluate the ROI of any learning intervention requires you to focus on the practical application of the new skills, knowledge etc. If you can't show how it is having a postive impact on the business then it's a waste of time and money.

So remember the following items to make sure that your L&D voice is louder than everyone elses:

Always have crystal clear, measurable, organisational objectives right at the beginning of any training activity. Pick items that are in the language that the business understands - increased sales or reduced costs for example.
Despite being tempted to see all 'trainees' as homogeneous we should view everyone as a unique 'trainee'. It might sound bleeding obvious but not everyone is the same - you can't deliver training off the shelf and expect it to have the same impact on everyone.
There is little point running training programmes that are detached from all of the other extraneous factors that influence behaviour. You need to integrate it into the culture of your organisation and the way in which everyone works in the real world.
Some things will always happen by chance, or even by accident, but training should endeavour to make things happen by design.

Keeping focused on business impact should mean you get your fair share of the cake...

Leaving - A Talent Management Opportunity

2008-10-17T20:31:00.008+01:00

I left my company today having worked there for nearly ten years. Obviously this was a major decision for me and something that I thought about a lot.

The whole leaving process wasn't a good experience and I am therefore leaving the company with a few negative feelings. It reinforced my belief that I have made the right decision to leave. Of course I will move on and am already excited about my new job which I start on Monday.

In the current climate there will be a lot of people leaving companies, many of them involuntarily. However if handled correctly organisations have an opportunity to leave a professional image with the departing employee. Why is this important? Well it is entirely possible that the person leaving now might well be on your 'shopping list' in the future. What simple things can organisations do better?

Make sure that at least all the adminstration takes place correctly. Arrange for them to return company property etc. Don't just leave it up to the individual and hope for the best.
Have a proper exit interview. Encourage the individual to be frank and honest about why they are leaving.
Take some time to plan a handover. Make the process as easy as possible with enough time for someone else to pick things up. Where possible get things out of their brain and into a document of some sort.
Communicate with all parties concerned. Don't try and brush things under the carpet and hope no one will notice.
Make sure you provide easy ways to maintain links with the individuals. Well run alumni schemes can be a gold mine for future talent.
Be civil and professional - try not to let emotion and feelings cloud the process.

I'd be interested to know other people's experiences - what did 'good' and 'bad' look like?

Training Qualifications....worthwhile....?

2008-10-14T08:30:00.001+01:00

For the past couple of years I have been designing and delivering training programmes without any formal training qualifications (apart from NLP Practitioner). I seem to have been doing OK - maybe I was lucky. Feedback has been positive and we even measured good ROI.

However when I read this article from Training Zone I got a bit concerned. I just didn't realise what a plethora of training related qualifications there are out there. Here are some of them:

CIPD Certificate in Training Practice
ITOL Certificate, Advanced Certificate & Diploma in Training & Occupational Learning
Doctorates in Education & Training
Masters Degree in Learning, Education and Training
Certificate in Post Compulsory Education & Training

.....and so the list goes on.

Most of my learning has definitely come 'on the job' and it has been more about understanding the business and then delivering development activity that supports it.

I would be interested to know your views on this but I suspect the answer is a mixture of some academia layered with 'hands on' practice - I guess that's a blended approach with lots action learning thrown in to the pot!

Warren Buffet on Talent Mgt

2008-10-12T08:30:00.001+01:00

The current credit crunch is shaping a major rethink for many investors, forcing them to take stock and rethink their priorities. Some investors will lose out, others will win.

For those engaged in talent management - recruitment, assessment, development, coaching and succession management - it is a good time to evaluate their leadership investment strategy and game-plan. And who better to learn from than Warren Buffett, the most consistent and successful investor in the world?

Download AMAzure's take on how Warren Buffett might approach talent management here.

It applies an interesting slant on talent management using Warren Buffet's own philosophy. He has achieved 20% compound growth per year by investing in businesses that:

he understands
have favourable long-term economics
are run by able and trustworthy economics
come with a sensible price tag.

Even if you just take 5 minutes to read the short document I am sure you will find it worthwhile.

Leadership Development - beating off the crunch

2008-10-10T17:30:00.006+01:00

Leadership is really under the spotlight at the moment. Gordon Brown has been getting some negative reviews of his performance over the past months and Henry Paulson is both a hero and a villain.

So how can we help our leaders and managers develop? If we can help to equip them for times like these then that can only be a win/win situation.

Training Zone have some interesting thoughts on how good leadership development is a vital tool to beating off the crunch.

"So what kind of development is most likely to enable that transfer of learning into practice? There are no guarantees that it will always work, but the kind of characteristics of a development programme that are most likely to produce real performance changes are:

1. Clearly defined learning outcomes that are linked to the identified needs of the learners and to organisational goals.

2. Flexible learning that fits into the working practices of the organisation and its business cycle.

3. Short, focused learning programmes that enable flexibility yet are part of a larger programme that has a coherent structure and inter-relationships between the elements.

4. Structures that encourage learning transfer and performance change.

5. Mechanisms for assessment that focus on application and performance."

Wally Brock also has some interesting advice on leadership learning on the job:

"Yet, despite recognition of its importance, leadership development is going nowhere fast. Confidence in leaders has declined steadily over the past eight years, and most leaders are not satisfied with their organization’s development offerings."

There's lots of good material about leadership development and succession planning in the Summary and the whole report. There's material on the differences between line executives and HR executives, too. Each of them blames the other for the problems with leadership development."

Finally Art Petty has some great advice on Teaching a Senior Team to Dance with Leadership Development. There are 8 Steps to the dance so I suggest you put your best foot forward.

All L&D professionals have an opportunity to really engage with the business to show how they can really add value and support. Are you up to it?

Do we need a stress awareness day at the moment?

2008-10-09T15:15:00.000+01:00

If you are connected with the Financial Sector at the moment then you will be surrounded by stress and worry at work. Even if you are not directly connected (who isn't?) then just turning on the news brings more tales of woe.

It made me chuckle that November 5th is National Stress Awareness day. Surely they got the date wrong by about a month! Do we really need to be made more aware of stress?

Having said that as a good manager it is an area that you need to be both aware of and prepared for. Do you know how to recognise stress and do you know what to do about it - both in yourself and others?

If you want to know more then read this informative article in this month's Management Today.

There is no specific law in the UK on stress, but under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 you must take measures to control the risk. Failure to do this could cost you dear in an employment tribunal. Watch your back!

Mentoring - another way to focus on L&D during tough times

2008-10-07T18:26:00.000+01:00

Mentoring schemes are a great way to support the development of your people. If you don't already have a scheme in place then now is a great time to start one.

The mentoring relationship can be a win/win situation for both people involved. It's a great way for senior people to spot talent and the less experienced people get a great opportunity to impress as well as receiving their words of wisdom and guidance.

For great tips and some more advice check this article out.

100 Learning professionals to follow on Twitter

2008-10-06T11:15:00.000+01:00

I have been using twitter for a couple of months now and sort of 'poking it with a stick'. I could see it has potential but I wasn't quite sure how I could really make the most of it. However I read a post by Jane Hart on the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies web site and this has now all changed!

Jane has listed the twitter addresses for a whole host of learning and development people. I connected with about 50 of them over the weekend and can now see what a powerful network this is.

Take a look yourself and start tweeting by connecting with me.

10 Reasons to be cheerful

2008-10-04T12:00:00.001+01:00

It's not all doom and gloom out there. Management Today have come to the rescue with 10 Reasons To Be Cheerful.

Being a bit of a greeny my favourite one is:

" REDUCED CARBON FOOTPRINT. Recession equals reduced consumption, fewer hydrocarbons burned and less CO2 emitted. QED. The roads are already less congested and petrol sales have fallen for the first time in 10 years. Airlines are canning less-popular flights and routes and parking surplus aircraft in the Arizona desert. Bus and train travel is booming, and the high cost of electricity and gas is encouraging householders to don another jumper rather than turn up the thermostat. It may not be fun but it's good news for the planet."

Action Learning - the Final Part

2008-10-03T09:45:00.000+01:00

OK, in parts 1 and 2 we looked at how action learning works, the principles and also who needs to be involved. In this final part we are going to look at how to get action learning started in your organisation and how to best integrate it into other learning activities.

What do you need....?

Step 1: You Need Some Participants

It is really important that the people taking part in an Action Learning Set are there....because they want to be there. They should be open minded enough to approach the experience with a positive mindset - it is no place for cynicism. The individuals need to be prepared to share some of their issues and problems with the view to being able to resolve them via their participation in the group.

Try and get together a mix of people perhaps from different parts of the organisation or individuals with differing levels of experience. This all helps to provide the participants with a different view point on their problems and challenges. Hierarchy should be left at the door. However do avoid having an employee and their manager in the same group...

For your first Action Learning Set it may be useful to invite people who could become future facilitators. Having their own experience will be invaluable and of course they will also help to spread a positive message.

Step 2: You Need a Facilitator

In Part 2 I described the role of the facilitator and it is particularly important at the start of the action learning process. Whilst you ultimately want the group to be self facilitating they will almost certainly need a helping hand at the beginning.

The facilitator should have specific experience of action learning and will most probably also be experienced in coaching or mentoring. They need to be removed from the content and just facilitate the process.

Step 3: You Need a Sponsor

Ideally each participant should have someone senior sponsoring their participation. The sponsor should be interested in the outcomes and actions for the individual. A key reason that action learning fails is the struggle for individuals to find the time to participate. The sponsor can play a key role here.

Step 4: Select an Environment

This also shouldn't be underestimated. The environment should not contain any references to hierarchy and the layout should encourage the involvment of everyone (probably chairs in a circle). The participants may be wary of this to start with (it's not alcoholics anonymous.....) but it is an important part of the process. Clearly there are some ground rules to be agreed by the group ranging from turning off phones to commiting to follow through on

any actions etc.

It is also worth thinking about how you will measure success for both the group and also the individuals. What are the outcomes that the individuals are looking for? Translating the outcomes into tangibles will make it easier for others to understand the benefits of the approach.

It's all in the blend....

As with all learning interventions success usually comes from providing a blend of learning offerings to your organisation. Action Learning can play a really important role on its own but can be even more powerful when integrated with other activities:

Following a formal learning intervention such as a classroom based course it can be extremely useful to form an action learning group for the paricipants. For example you may have been learning about emotional intelligence but the real learning comes when you return to work. That's where you need the support and coaching from an action learning group.

Think about how you can use action learning as a tool to develop your talent. You may wish to offer it to your 'High Potentials' initially to encourage their peer networking. It is also a great way for participants to develop their own coaching and listening skills.

Think about grouping your action learning sets into themes. For example you may want to start one for the sales community. They may all have a common goal of achieving their sales target but they will individually have their own sets of problems and challenges to overcome.

Think about how you can join up with action learning groups from other organisations. For example in the UK the Whitehall Industry Group (WIG) faciliate groups that span many organisations and sectors.

....and if you want more..

Action learning really does work and is most definitely worth the effort. If you want to find out more then here are some useful resources:-

More information on starting an action learning set from Wendwell.
Tips for success from the assocation of coaching.
The International Foundation for Action Learning www.ifal.org.uk/
The Action Learning Matters project www.alm-vol.org.uk
Action Learning Matters (A resource pack on action learning, NACVS 2004)
‘Action Learning’ – an introduction (VAN Briefing No. 50 September 2000)
Real Problems in Real Life (Ian McGill and Liz Beaty, Management Skills & Development magazine September 1996)
Action Learning: Research & Practice A journal dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and practice through action learning.
World Institute for Action Learning
Action Learning Associates
Action Learning in Practice by Mike Pedler

Action Learning....Part 2

2008-09-29T11:21:00.015+01:00

.....my second post on Action Learning focuses on what the elements of it are and how they fit together....

What is Action Learning and why bother....?

Action learning is an approach to management development – its supporters would say that it is the only really effective way to develop managers . Not only does action learning achieve growth in individuals – it does it in a way that delivers direct benefits to the business as the development is focussed on overcoming challenges in the real work of the individual.

Compared to traditional training programs, action learning is relatively inexpensive as there is not the cost of trainers or the need to develop training materials. But action learning is not cost free -participants are required to attend action learning set meetings. Each one lasts a couple of hours and they are scheduled at regular intervals (eg. monthly) for a period of about 6 months.

How do the elements fit together...?

1. Experiential learning – take action to solidify learning and reflect on action to increase learning in a continuous cycle

2. Cooperative approach – people take turns to help each other with their problems. Working openly with colleagues helps the person to externalise their thinking and gain insights into the reality of their situation.

3. Questioning process – others are there to help the person understand their situation, their options and their choices. Colleagues are not there to give advice or direction –they act as a mirror to improve the quality of the individual’s reflection on their situation.

What's in it for me....what's the deal?

Participation in an action learning programme imposes three obligations on participants

As ‘problem owner’, to take the challenging actions that have been agreed in the action learning set (ALS) meeting, so you actively experiment with new ideas and gain new experience.

As ‘problem owner’, to reflect openly and honestly with others on the action that you have taken so that you can learn fully from the experience and plan further actions during the ALS meeting.

As ‘supportive colleague’, to help others reflect on their actions by questioning and challenging what they have done and plan to do in a supportive manner, in the ALS meeting

Action learning programmes are run by the combined efforts of participants, for the benefit of participants. A collaborative partnership amongst all set members is essential for everyone to benefit and everyone must ‘pull their weight’ – by attending set meetings, by engaging with participants when at the meetings and by moving their own actions forward in between meetings.

So participation in an action learning programme is first and foremost an opportunity for personal development. The cost to the individual is measured in the time they give to the programme, the tension they may feel as they open up to others on their problem (opportunity) situations, their willingness to give support to their colleagues on the programme.

Who else needs to be involved....?

The role of the facilitator:

In establishing the set, the facilitator guides the formation of the participant group, helping in the definition of its purpose, the selection of its members, the engagement of stakeholders (especially line managers and sponsors), the preparation of participants – so they understand what they can expect from action learning and what they will be expected to give in return.

At the first set meeting the facilitator will help participants to establish appropriate ground-rules, explain how the process within the set meeting interacts with activity outside the meeting to produce Action Learning, explain the way that dialogue should be handled within the set meeting, and explain how each person, at different times, takes on the role of ‘problem owner’ or ‘supportive colleague’ to create a powerful learning environment.

Once the process has started, particularly after the initial meetings as participants gain confidence with the process and build trust in each other, the facilitator will intervene less and less. Their aim is to set up an environment where dialogue is driven by participants and outcomes are owned by the participants. It is common (and healthy) for established sets to meet without facilitation.

The role of the sponsor:

As sponsor, your interest will be in the project or process that is to be the subject of the individual’s actions and reflection in the meetings. You will want to stay close to what is happening so that the organisation benefits just as much as the individual. And you will want to help the individual to benefit the organisation.

The role of the manager:

As manager of the individual, you are interested in their development, their welfare, and their productivity. Balancing these three will need your support for the individual, in the (potentially) emotional cauldron of an action learning set where personal challenges are being confronted openly and perhaps for the first time. However, as senior-level people themselves, you will want to ensure that the individual takes ownership of their own development within action learning, engaging fully in what is being offered to them.

In the next post we will look at tips for getting Action Learning going in your organisation and also how to integrate it with your other learning activities.

Ride the Credit Crunch with Action Learning

2008-09-29T09:56:00.006+01:00

In my experience the use of Action Learning within organisations has grown over recent years as a great way to support the development of people.

In the current environment where there is a tightening of purse strings action learning is a fantastic way to continue the development of people in your organisation in an extremely cost effective way.

I will be publishing a series of posts that will help you understand what action learning is, how it can be used, why it is so important and how it can support and be integrated with other learning activities.

Today I want to start by giving you some background:

What is Action Learning.....?

Action Learning was pioneered by Reginald Revans in the 1940s. Through his own observations during the Second World War and work in the mining industry Revans believed that managers posessed within them the latent knowledge to solve their own problems, if only they could first gain an insightful understanding of that problem and the uniqueness of their place in it. In his view academics might develop general theories and teachers might explain them, but only the individual could learn by practical experiment how to make these theories work for them.

Some of the core principals of action learning:

The Central Theme of Action Learning - that managers learn best with and from each other, in efforts to treat real problems in real time by regularly explaining among themselves what they are trying to do, what is stopping them from doing it and what they intend to do about it.
The first qualification of management is to take and implement better decisions. To identify their problems (and opportunities) more precisely, to specify more clearly their courses of action to follow these into practical effect.
The challenge of continuous learning - only if managers are constantly faced with the insistent obligation to improve their performance continuously (as they must in a changing world) are they likely to want to learn as part of their daily routine.
The learning equation (L=P+Q): The rate of learning (L) is a function of the acquisition of programmed knowledge (P) and the developing of questioning insight (Q). P is obtained from colleagues and Q is obtained from action learning. The qualities of P and Q are not related. Indeed P may actively inhibt Q.

"The Origins of Growth and Action Leanring": Revans 1982

In the next post we will explore how the elements of action learning fit together - how does it work and what is an action learning set.....

A second bite of the Apple - some words of inspiration

2008-09-24T09:00:00.001+01:00

Sarah, a friend of mine pointed me to this great speech that was made by Steve Jobs back in 2005. If you feel you are at a bit of a cross roads in your life or career and want some inspiration then this should be top of your reading list.

Steve tells 3 personal stories from his life that have shaped who he is and what he does.

"Connecting the Dots"

"Love and Loss"

"Death"

Here are some excerpts:

"You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all

matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

"....for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked mys

elf: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about

to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The Crunch Starts to Bite...

2008-09-22T08:56:00.003+01:00

A few months ago I put up a post about the Credit Crunch and whether this was having any impact on L&D budgets. The response that I received was fairly mixed - some people were cautious but hadn't yet seen any impact, some had already experienced an impact whilst others predicted no change.

I suspect that the picture may now have changed and I would love to hear an update from you all.

When the pressure to meet targets is really on this is the ultimate test for an organisation's faith and commitment to its people. If you have to put some L&D investments on hold for a while then don't break the golden rules:

Communicate, communicate, communicate: most people will understand if some L&D activity has to stop in the short term if you explain to them why. Communication with people in different but consistent ways to make sure the reasons are clear.
Postpone the L&D rather than cancel it: If people know that their training will still be taking place but just a little later than expected then that's a much better message than 'all training is cancelled....".
Budget for the postponed training: If you are putting back L&D activity until next year then make sure you include it in next year's budget.
Focus on no cost L&D activity: Demonstrate your ongoing commitment to developing people by encouraging and facilitating L&D activity that has no or minimal cost. For example ensuring managers are equipped to and are having appropriate coaching conversations with their people, ramping up the use of web based learning, encouraging lunch time masterclasses, set up action learning groups, facilitate a mentoring programme, encourage work shadowing, ecncourage people to document their personal development plan and 'best next move'.....

Tough times can be a really interesting time for L&D professionals. You may have to be creative but it means you have a chance to demonstrate your real worth to the organisation. Are you up for the challenge....?

Experiential Learning

2008-09-15T14:43:00.006+01:00

I came across an interesting presentation on TED today by Jonathan Drori called "Why we don’t understand as much as we think we do".

It asks what appear to be some basic science questions that most people can't answer. For example "Could you draw a diagram of the solar system showing the shape of the planets' orbits?"

Interestingly people mostly get the answer wrong (I did). Jonathan emphasises the points that quite often we teach theories without really spending much or any time actually playing around with things to see if the theory actually makes sense. If we are told something then we generally will accept it and then even find examples that reinforce the belief.

Why is this relevant to learning & development? It made me think about the folowing important factors to consider when designing some learning:

It is really important to give people the opportunity to try stuff out for themselves. Tell them about a new approach, technique, theory or concept but let people make their own connections.
You may need people to 'unlearn' things before they can take on a new concept. We are creatures of habit and like to do things the same way. Create an environment that encourages people to try something new but also show them that there are benefits to doing things differently - give them a carrot.
Be clear that you can only give them a taste of the real thing in a learning environment and it is back in the real world where the real learning will take place You can learn about things on a course but the real learning takes place when you get back to work. People need support back in the work place to both reinforce the learning and to stop the old habits slipping back. Without support the training will have minimal impact on performance.
Ensure that the people providing support are actually involved in the course, ideally in delivering it. You want to make sure that a consistent message is being applied. If they can't be involved then make sure they are briefed appropriately.

So, another question from Jonathan:

"How does an aircraft's wing create lift?...........and ensure you explain how planes can fly upside down"!

Apples and Pears....

2008-09-09T12:39:00.004+01:00

Delivering training in a corporate environment can be a really rewarding and interesting job. One of the big learns for me over the past years is that it is increasingly important to deliver the learning in a way that is as engaging as possible.

How can you deliver learning in a way that appeals to a distracted, busy, multi tasking audience that has a wide range of personalities, learning styles and age......? This is perhaps even more relevant now that training can be delivered through such a wide variety of channels be it face to face, webinar, on demand, mobile learning etc.

On the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies site I was recently pointed to an interesting article that Tom Brigham of Learning Circuits has written. It describes how to train multi taskers and has some really practical advice covering 4 main themes:

Start Strong
Think in Pictures
Use Words - Not Corporate Cliches
Vocal Variation

Personality preferences should also be a consideration when designing your learning. Speakingofmbti gives some excellent advice on this in a recent post including specific considerations to make for each of the E/I, S/N, T/F, J/P combinations.

Finally when thinking about visual learners have a read of Presentation Zen's analysis of John McCain's recent address to the Republican Convention. It makes some insightful comments about the use of the background visuals used during his speech and the impact (or lack of) that they made.

Who said it was an easy job...?

Coaching Return on Investment

2008-09-05T13:59:00.004+01:00

I was interested to read John Castledine's recent post(s) on Performance Support v Training:

"Performance Support is defined as providing the right people with the right information at the right time. In other words: expanding just-in-time 'coaching' to replace (where appropriate) just-in-case training."

One of the themes discussed is why some people seem to get more out of the training than others. Clearly there is a lot behind this ranging from personal styles to evaluation techniques.

For me it highlights the important part that coaching plays in the learning environment, both in it's own right but also to support other learning interventions. Coaching doesn't have to be delivered by external suppliers (although there are good reasons for doing this), it should also be part of every manager's toolkit.....but sadly in my experience it isn't.

Top-Consultant.com published a survey recently by HDA Associates that looks at measuring the return on investment of executive coaching:

"Astute businesses should only invest in executive coaching if a compelling business case can be presented; this inevitably requires an understanding of the return on investment executive coaching yields. In this short article, HDA goes some way towards proving the valuable role coaching plays in improving business performance, by showing evidence of the tangible business benefits observed as a result of coaching."

They found that outcomes-focused executive coaching delivers tangible business benefits, particularly where the following combination of ‘success’ input elements are brought together:
– Coaching is the ‘right’ approach for the individual
– The ‘right’ coach is selected to match the coachee
– Personal goals and objectives are closely linked to hard business outcomes

In my view if coaching is treated as an integrated part of the learning environment then this is going to enhance the chance of success further. You can learn about something during a training course but the real learning takes place back at the work place.....and for this people need ongoing help and support. This can be the difference that makes the difference......

What's the Wordle....?

2008-09-04T11:15:00.008+01:00

Although Wordle has been around for a while now I hadn't really paid too much attention to it. For those who don't know Wordle is an application that can analyse text in a document, web page etc and will create a neat graphic that represents the key words used. The larger the words the more frequently it occurs in the text. I pointed Wordle at my blog and got the results shown above (click on the image for a larger view).

It is quite interesting and actually helps me understand more about the impression I am making using my chosen words. For example I think I must use the phrase 'really great' a lot! Why not give it a try.

I am not sure how applicable this could be to a learning environment but if you have some examples I would love to know.

New Browser from Google

2008-09-02T09:58:00.004+01:00

Google, in traditional fashion have decided to launch their own browser called Chrome. They have started from scratch to really think about what people need both now and in the future.

However the thing that impressed me most was how they are communicating their initial thoughts and ideas via the Google Blog. They have published a Google Comic that provides a really easy way to learn about what they are proposing and even some of the more technical aspects behind the browser's architecture.

I found it a really great example of how to deliver some learning content in a simple way. Check it out.

7 Principles for Leadership Development

2008-08-28T17:03:00.002+01:00

Plato reckoned he needed 50 years to prepare individuals for leadership in his ideal political state. “We don’t have that luxury” for business leaders in the 21st century.

There are no instant quick-fix solutions to build the kind of leadership capability that sustains high levels of business success, but some organisations have identified strategies and tactics to speed up the development process with significant gains in organisational performance.

AMAzure have come up with Seven Principles for Leadership Development as well as including a couple of mini case studies to illustrates some of the real life development situations that both organisations and individuals face.

Principle One: Recognise that not everyone can be a leader

Principle Two: Start with the individual not the solution

....read the article if you want to find out the remaining five.

25 Tools for Learning Professionals

2008-08-28T13:41:00.003+01:00

Jane Hart at the Centre For Learning and Performance Technologies has created an interesting list of 25 Tools every Learning Professional should have in their Toolbox - and all for FREE!

I am familiar with about half of them and have recently had my eyes opened to the potential of Twitter. I posted about this myself recently but also found another interesting post by @willyf demonstrating how he used the tool to get introductions to CEOs.

I hope you find this useful.

25 Tools

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: learning tools)

Reading, relaxing and learning....

2008-08-27T16:01:00.004+01:00

I've just spent two weeks resting- fantastic! For me it is always a chance to catch up with my reading list. Here are the highlights of my learning:

Maverick by Ricardo Semler. The story of an unfashionable Brazilian manufacturer of industrial machines. However their ways of working are completely different to most companies - being able to choose your own salary and scoring (and publishing) your bosses performance amongst other approaches has led to great success for the organisation.

Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet. Daniel is an Autistic Savant (think Rain Man but without the social constraints). He can learn a new language in 4 days and is a total visual learner. Using his visual skills he was able to memorise pie to 20,000 places....I have trouble remembering my wife's name!

Coaching with NLP by Joseph O'Connor and Andrea Lages. A really practical guide to coaching both other people and yourself. It also serves as a great example of how to blend some core NLP techniques into real world situations. As a result I have thought deeply about my values and objectives for the future.

Finally with the Olympics in full flow I read Kelly Holmes - My Autobiography. Kelly won two gold medals at the Athens Olympics in 800m and 1500m. It is a real insight into motivation and objective setting. She had just two objectives for her life from a very early age......and achieved both.

If you get some reading time - all are highly recommended.

Time for some rest.....

2008-08-10T21:48:00.003+01:00

I am off for some rest for a while. Lots of interesting books to read so see you at the end of August.....

The Ultimate Stretch Opportunity

2008-08-07T15:33:00.007+01:00

Well, lucky old Kevin Pietersen has been given the role of English cricket captain after Michael Vaughan's surprise resignation......how often does that situation occur in business.....alot in my experience?

This raises two interesting points. Firstly there was clearly no succession plan in place - lots of hurried interviews and discussions took place and out popped 'KP', thrust in front of the waiting media! Secondly you have to ask the question whether he is ready for it...?

Good talent management means providing people with the stretch opportunities they need to grow and develop. However when you put people into these positions you have to provide much needed support and coaching. Without these factors the individual might still make it........but it won't be easy.

Good luck KP, I hope things work out!

The First Learning and Development Carnival comes to town!

2008-08-02T10:13:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the first edition of the learning and development carnival. Hold on to your hats because there's a gold mine of top comment and material to experience....

I am really excited to be able to bring this to you and we have over 30 submissions for our maiden voyage from top bloggers like Dan McCarthy, Jeanne Meister, Tom Haskins, Wally Bock, Clive Shepherd, John Castledine, Anna Farmery.....and more!

I've grouped the articles into some (loose) themes for this carnival:

- Developing and Managing Talent

- Learning 2.0

- The Credit Crunch

So let's not waste any time with the first theme:

Developing and Managing Talent

If you are interested in learning to assess how good a leader someone really is then your first stop should be Dan McCarthy's Great Leadership blog. This is a fantastic "Alladin's Cave" of Leadership material. Dan has a very informative article on different 360 tools, personaility profiles etc that can be used for this purpose. As is always the case with Dan his own insights are of the most value, particularly his top tip of asking for feedback.

Also check out my own posts on my favourtie 360 tool and the Insights Discovery tool - both of which can also be used in this context.

Joy Kosta of the Human Capital Institue on her excellent HCI Talent Development Blog discusses the critical Emotional Intelligence competencies that people in professions learn to be successful....whether you are a tinker, tailor, soldier or a sailor...

But identifying talent isn't just about competencies and 360 tools. Respected blogger and general management guru Wally Bock presents Feedback: breakfast of champions posted at Momentor. He also discusses making the most of every opportunity that falls into your lap in his post What good can I make of this? , even if they don't initially look that enticing! Using internships can also be a great way of discovering and developing talent. Check out his post Internships, then and now

Art Petty discusses the importance of being able to ask Great Questions on his Art Petty on Management blog. As he says: "Learning how to ask compelling questions in a non-threatening manner is one of those unexciting but absolutely critical skills for an emerging leader to develop."

Mentoring can play a key role in developing talent. Dr. Joe Capista presents Why Small Business Entrepreneurs Need a Mentor posted at The Success Triangle, saying, "A mentor is a must for the success of your small business. A mentor is a person .......you learn to trust over a period of time. Learn how to find the best mentor for your needs.". Also take a look at his Mirroring Your Mentor’s Success post and if you want to learn how a mentor can help you handle frustration then read his How To Effectively Use Business Mentoring post.

For more advice on developing people, including yourself then look no further than the basket of goodies below:

Anna Farmery runs an excellent blog called The Engaging Brand. This not only provides some wonderful insights into the world of personal development but has some great articles on leadership. For example check out this post on why leaders don't blame.

I also really recommend reading Tom Haskins' blog growing changing learning creating. Tom's posts are guranteed to make me think twice (if not thrice). Tom presents When learning it really happens - a wonderful look at how you know if the learning is really sticking......and why.

Of course developing good learning in the first place can be an organisational challenge as Dan McCarthy highlights in his post presents HR and Training: Let’s Partner for Great Management Development Programs

For an insight into whether money motivates people check out Fred Black's Toilet Paper Millionaire! posted at Fred Black: Internet Business Blog..

Mental toughness is a key attribute for success. Ralph Jean-Paul presents Develop Mental Toughness posted at Potential 2 Success, saying, ""MVPs, CEOs, extraordinary leaders, and successful people of all kinds have it and so should you"

What is success anyway? Dr. Joe Capista presents Success Means Different Things to Different People posted at The Success Triangle

Are your prepared for Success? Emmanuel posts at Emmanuel Oluwatosin: Inspiring Excellence, Realising Ambitions.

...and being smart doesn't guarantee succeess either. Fred Black presents Why Do Smart People Sometimes Find Success So Difficult? posted at Fred Black: Internet Business Blog..

How do you inspire others? Shamelle presents 10 Vital Actions To Inspire Others And Gain Respect posted at Enhance Life. " Your actions make a difference in my life and my actions make a difference in your life. As a result, certain vital actions CAN inspire and motivate others."

Also on motivation....Dereck presents A guide for increasing your creativity posted at I Will Not Die and Avani presents How to get motivated and stay motivated posted at Avani-Mehta

Phil B presents a useful approach to development

Jerome Ryan gives some good advice - Why Giving Yourself Space Is So Important posted at Dating Tips, Fitness Tips, Daily Blog of the TheFitnessPersonals.com.

Fiona Cheyney provides us with some insights into the Performance Management process on her new blog Developing Daily.

Learning 2.0

Learning 2.0 means looking at the current technology innovations, making sense of them and thnking about what it means for the world of L&D.

John Castledine presents Enterprise 2.0 - A Strategic Framework posted at The Emerging Role of the Learning & Development Consultant, saying, "This model of Enterprise 2.0 suggests a framework that positions Web 2.0 enhabled L&D activities as primarily associated with building professional collaboration"

Jeanne Meister has a great article on ‘Online Communities of Practice’ on her 'must read' New Learning Playbook blog. "Companies spend time and resources designing online communities of practice but often overlook basics and importantly the types of measures that show the impact to the business"

Ralph Jean-Paul presents How to Run a Blog Successfully without Having a Computer posted at Potential 2 Success, saying, "I don’t own a laptop, iPhone or any other wireless device with internet access. But because of some new productivity practices, I can run my entire blog without having a PC currently in my home."

Twitter is a social networking tool but can it support learning and development? Find it in my own post here.

Established blogger Clive Shepherd presents More technology means more training at lower cost in the UK posted at Clive on Learning.

....and the talk of being on a tight budget brings me to the final theme of the carnival.....

Credit Crunch

The economies of the world are turning down so if you want some sound advice then look no further:

Marie Adams presents 5 tips for employee training on a tight budget posted at Thoughts from Training Time, saying, "Discover ways to stretch your training budget without jeopardizing the quality of your employee training program."

I posted my own article on the credit crunch and how it is affecting training budgets here

SpiKe presents 6 Tactics For Staying Sane When You Are Unemployed posted at Organize IT.

For staying sane even when times are tough Arin Vahanian presents Why It Is Necessary To Live NOW posted at Super State.

Sales and revenue generation become even more of a focus in tough times. Anya Portnik presents Why you must run sales competitions and How to use email when prospecting posted at Gavin Ingham.

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Wow - what a ride. It's an amazing collection of knowledge, advice and experience. I do hope you have found something that 'presses your button' or perhaps have made a connection that didn't previously exist.

Look out for the next carnival.............coming soon. If you are interested in hosting it then let me know.

It's about time....

2008-07-29T14:26:00.002+01:00

How many of you really take time out of your day to 'think'.

An interesting article from the BBC highlights how few of us actually do this but also how important it really is. Take a look to learn about how David Cameron, Barack Obama, Leonardo Da Vinci, Tony Buzan and more take this really seriously. Did you know that Da Vinci had a bed in his study so that he could take a nap......now there's a thought!

As Tony Buzan says: ""If you don't give the brain breaks, it will take them, in the form of loss of concentration, or what we call a mental breakdown."

I'm off for a snoozzzzze....

Why business is like....a climbing party....

2008-07-28T10:36:00.003+01:00

Management Today had an interesting short story in their April issue. It highlighted an interesting point about Talent Management and the importance of giving people the opportunity to grow and develop. Sometimes it is not until people are given a chance that you can see their real potential.

The next time you despair of a 'talent deficient' team member, question whether their (or your) view of themselves may be stifling their real potential. Just because someone is struggling at something doesn't mean they don't have potential...

Being a Role Model....

2008-07-23T15:33:00.006+01:00

Companies can define what competencies they want leaders to have but unless people actually live up to and demonstrate the desired attributes, behaviours and competencies then it doesn't really mean a thing.

Part of developing into a successful leader is identifying key role models (both in your own organisation and outside it) and to examine what they are actually doing. How are they behaving? How are they interacting with others? What are they actually doing? Be as specific as you can and then see if you can apply it yourself. Also take note of what isn't working and examine why.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1) Why do (or don't) people do what you ask them to do?

2) Why do (or don't) you do what people ask you to do?

It's also useful to think of yourself as a role model for other people. This helps raise your awareness around everything you do, to refine it and improve over time. Feedback of course is key to this - without it how will you know how effective you are being.

For me there are two perhaps less obvious (particularly for our US colleagues) role models that exhibit some great leadership qualities:-

Alex Ferguson, Manager of Manchester United Football Team ....no, not soccer ;-)

Alex is the probably the best manager in the history of world football having won more trophies than anyone else in English Football, with 21 years and 1000 matches of experience under his belt. In this time Manchester United has remained successful with numerous changes to the players over the years. The one thing that has stayed constant is him.

As with all great leaders Alex delights in the success of his team. He sets the direction, gets them 'on the bus' and instils such a strong belief in their ability that success is an inevitability. His passion for Man Utd is ferocious even after all these years. Witness him jumping for joy or spitting out his chewing gum - the reaction is always there! He protects and promotes his team at every opportunity but is never the one that takes the credit.

Florence Nightingale. Heroin of the Crimean War.

Whilst not a glamourous role model, Florence was an incredible leader and change agent - she left a massive wake wherever she went.

Florence lived in a time where women really were second class citizens and where war was a place only for men. Despite this Florence used her own influencing skills and sheer tenacity to force through changes in the nursing practices for soldiers fighting at the front lines. Her continuing efforts around health, nursing and hygiene saved not only thousands of lives but laid the foundations for general nursing practice around the world. An incredibily driven woman, Florence was never satisfied with her achievements and in true humble fashion is buried in her local church near Romsey in Hampshire. This is despite being awarded the Freedom of London and being the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit.

Both of these role models have achieved amazing things because they have been able to:

Paint a compelling picture

Move people to take action

Guide emotions and passion

Manage and maintain energy

For me they demonstrate the 'how' of leadership rather than the 'what'.

What does being a leadership role model mean for you?

(For more Great Leadership tips check out the new Leadership Development Carnival)

Crunch Time for L&D Budgets...?

2008-07-23T12:29:00.010+01:00

The news is just filled with doom and gloom about recession and a general slow down in world economies. For most organisations hard times means 3 things:

- Cut back on travel

- Cut back on training

- Cut back on marketing

I was listening to a CEO only last week who joked:

"In the last quarter we need to be careful about our spend on travel and may need to look at our marketing budgets too. I assume that we already put a stop to training in June.....(cue an embarrassed snigger from the CFO sitting on the sidelines)"

Personnel Today posted an article recently "Training budget cuts predicted by learning and development managers". This surveyed 120 L&D Managers from Private and Public sector about their training budets.

"..44% expected cuts, while 54% expected budgets to remain stable and just 2% expected an increase."

This is probably not a surprise with non skill-specific, soft skills, team building and diversity training taking the biggest hits.

One of the surveyed managers summed it up:

"If you want to cut a leg off your organisation for short-term gain, then cut back on training. If you want your organisation to continue to flourish during an economic cut-back, maintain training standards and levels."

The short term view that many (but not all) organisations take to training can potentially have a damaging impact longer term. I know from my own experience that if training budgets are cut this can have quite an impact on moral and communicates quite a negative message to the work force.

I would be interested to hear from others in the world of L&D - are your budgets being cut.....?

Using Twitter for real business value...?

2008-07-12T15:07:00.004+01:00

Twitter has been around a while now and has become an established social networking tool. As with all new concepts the way that people use them can often surprise the people who originally came up with the concept.

I have been thinking about how Twitter could be used to help support learning and development activity. I found a really interesting paper here (and also inserted below) by Dr Gabriela Grosseck and Carmen Holotescu (of the University of West Timisoara) that provides some background to Twitter along with a discussion about how Twitter could be used in an educational environment. It provides both advantages and disadvantages and is certainly worth a read. (On an aside note, having used the internet for 15 years it still amazes me how it provides access to so much information!).

Below is an extract detailing some of the potential uses for Twitter in an educational environment:

Conference or as part of a presentation or workshop. Twitter can provide a simple way for attendees at a conference to share thoughts about particular sessions and activities with others at the event and those unable to attend. Twitter works well for an undercurrent dialogues, being a way to organize, give quick updates, and rapidly point to resources.

For reference or research (almost the entire edublogosphere is connecting via Twitter). Higher education (especially) is using the technology to relay important information to students in a more timely manner.

Facilitating virtual classroom discussion by using @username. It directs the ‘tweet’ at the intended recipient whilst allowing every student to also see it.

Twitter facilitates a Personal Learning Network (PLN) in the edublogosphere. In this context students can ask questions of those they only know online [Belshaw, 2007].

Reference services (in libraries). People could "follow" a Twitter account to learn about library events, new books, or get responses to library user questions.

Here is the full paper:

Can we use Twitter for educational activities? - Upload a Document to Scribd

For me, here are some other ways that Twitter could be used in a corporate learning environment:

To help embed learning after a specific intervention: For example, people receive some quality training and then return to the work environment to apply it. To really help embed it they need support and would benefit from sharing experiences. Twitter can help people feed off each other whilst providing access to experts for advice and support.

To support a talent management community: Connecting a community of like minded individuals and faciliting a focused way of communicating with them.

Facilitating a learning culture: Encouraging people to share experiences with each other, offering tips and advice. You could choose to 'follow' the subject areas you are most interested in.

Supporting performance management: Providing the ability for Performance Managers to share ideas, request advice etc with/from each other. Particularly useful if they are geograhically dispersed.

In addition I can see lots of uses amongst project teams and sales/bid teams to help them communicate and stay in touch with each other and the rest of the organisation. The fact that it utilises SMS is a real advantage I think.

Please let me know how our organisations are using it or your thoughts on how Twitter (or other social networking sites) can be used to support a corporate learning environment.

Carnival of Learning and Development

2008-07-09T09:13:00.005+01:00

Step right up folks because the Learning and Development Carnival is coming to town...

The world of L&D has always been an exciting place to live....it constantly changes so quickly! I am looking for contributors to the First Edition of the L&D Carnival. This could cover anything related to L&D including the use of Web 2.0 tools, learning styles, coaching, personal development, elearning etc...

The first L&D Carnival will be early August, please submit your posts using the carnival submission form by July 31st.

Irrelevant posts will be automatically rejected. A link back is a must to promote this carnival on the web. Please submit one recent (last 2 weeks) post along with a brief (1 line) description.

Thanks and I am looking forward to receiving your contributions!