What I learnt today...

CEO Leadership Camp - Sailing in the Greek Islands pt. 1

2011-04-25T14:20:00.000-07:00

I have both designed and delivered leadership development curriculum in the past, and sourced out vendors to provide leadership development programs. They are usually programs put together for a bunch of managers or directors, with a heavy focus on how to work well with your peers and be a better a manager, interspersed with some leadership quotes and inspiring speeches from historical figures. Sometimes this is all done in a classroom, other times a hotel conference room, and often has a small element of 'fun' team building- think outdoors rope course, or making ice cream as a group, or playing trust games. 1/2 the people don't won't to be there, and the other 1/2 are creepy because they do want to be there.
This was different.
Working at Gap Adventures is not like working anywhere else.
This program was not designed for executive directors or top managers, but instead for our CEOs - Chief Experience Officers (in other travel companies known as tour leaders). And this wasn't going to be held in a hotel conference room. True to form for Gap Adventures, this meant taking 12 of our best CEOs from around the world on a 7 day sailing trip through the Greek Islands. Did I mention that my job is awesome?

The fact that we are willing to provide such an opportunity for our staff is a goods indication of how much we value each and every employee. We are a pretty flat organization, and everyone is afforded the opportunity to meet their potential. Exposing our top CEOs to this type of experience is what Gap Adventures is all about- different than everywhere else, but only because everywhere else hasn't caught on yet (and we won't tell them.....).
When I was approached and asked to work on the leadership development program, I was very excited- not everyday that an opportunity like this comes up. But I was also pushed beyond my comfort zone- everything I had done in the past was always a mix of management/leadership- and to be honest probably focused more on the management end than the leadership end. Luckily, I had lots of people to help me get to know the audience (including the super talented Chad K who helped discuss and design things with me so that they fit and made sense for our culture). The initial challenge was to figure out what leadership meant for a group of people that were tour leaders, but not managers- they had no one reporting to them, and when they lead tours they are serving our customers. After some research, thought and discussion, we came up with a personal leadership model that consists of 3 main components:

Be authentic
Act with integrity
Connect to a purpose

I also needed a curriculum that could be flexible- the plan called for sailing each day, with some time each afternoon for learning- but with wind, boats, emergencies- everything could change, so the design had to allow for much flexibility.
Working with Chad, we came up with the following elements and learning objectives for the class to go through. Of course the activity names had to be fun and engaging as we were dealing with people who spend their days touring some of the most beautiful places, doing exciting adventure activities all day.
Each of the activities led to a specific outcome and provided participants with a chance to develop their own personal leadership capabilities, as well as provide them with some tools and techniques that they could share with others to help them develop.
I'll go into more detail on each of the activities in future posts, but overall the trip was a success. The CEOs brought so many viewpoints from around the world, and were committed to asking tough questions and exploring their own values, strengths, likes and dislikes. They were the most engaged group of learners that I have yet to come across, and because of this, the week was a massive success.
Oh....and it was kind of fun too.

Sales Training for a Younger Audience Part 3- Training Methods, Evaluation and Follow up

2010-12-29T07:44:00.000-08:00

All good training is highly participatory. The general rule for training design is that if presentation or demonstration is 1/3rd of the time spent in the training course, the remaining 2/3rds should be spent on application, review and/or testing. In other words, your training course should consist of no more than 1/3rd of the time when you have to listen to someone telling you or showing you what to do. You should spend 2/3rds of your time doing stuff.I think of all the training that is out there, and so much of it isn't training- it's a one way information dump- where someone stands in front of you and (worse case) reads a PowerPoint presentation to you. That's kind of like sleeping on your textbook as a method of studying for a big exam- it doesn't really work that well. As an instructional designer I used to always explain it to a facilitator as - "with good training design, you (the facilitator) should not be tired after a training course- your participants should be!" Of course, anyone who has facilitated before knows this isn't quite true- there's enough to do with ensuring all the activities run smoothly, the clock is managed, the participants' discussions stay on track and the learning objectives get met to exhaust a facilitator ever time.
So, to design really effective training, you want to make it participatory and you also want to vary the training methods. If you spend an entire day where your participants do the same activities over and over again (i.e. I will show you how to do this, you will roleplay doing this with a partner, then I will quiz you to make sure you do this correctly - for each topic, over and over again- you get the point) then the training gets boring. The key to varying training methods is to try to get a good mix of different activities- including things like role play, brainstorming, quizzes, scavenger hunts, creating questions, having discussions, etc...and varying group dynamics at the same time - work in pairs, work alone, in groups of 3, 4, as a large group. Using different media can be a good way to keep the training methods exciting as well- using presentations, videos, audio, whiteboards, flip charts, etc...
When we were creating the Rockstar experience- Star and Wade helped to come up with different training methods for each of the learning objectives. By the time we were finished, we ended up with a pretty good mix- varied methods, group dynamics and media used to create an upbeat enthusiastic training course. Below is an overview of what we picked.
One important consideration for your training program is how you will evaluate it. While I won't go into a complete post on training evaluation at this time, I will tell you about our level 1 evaluation- otherwise known as the 'smiley' sheets you get after training that measure training reaction or how the participants react to the training (think questions like -did you find this training useful?). Rather than rely upon my old templates for the training reaction survey, we went a slightly different direction- we changed the questions a bit, and completely switched the scale on which the participants answered the questions. A typical scale includes strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree- in other words -boring and not that distinctive. Instead-I updated them with some more relevant language- take a look at the example below.

We definitely set the bar high, as we were asking our participants to be Rockstars so we thought it only fair if we were too. Hence why strongly agree equals this was the best training ever on one question!
The training was delivered in December, happy to report that my co-facilitators Star and Wade did an amazing job and delivered the last 2 sessions expertly and completely without my help. We made some changes en route as we tweaked with activities and times- normal stuff that is part of the continual improvement process. The survey results have been positive and there's been some great feedback that has helped us improve our future course design as well.
As part of the follow up resources, I created a short video that recaps the theory overview we covered in this first course.

Now - just 4 more modules to go until we have a complete sales training program!!
Next post- recruiting methods with global scope!

Sales Training for a Younger Audience Part 2 - Learning Objectives

2010-12-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

Learning objectives. For years, it has been repeated to me that one of the principles of adult learning is that we need to tell people what they are going to learn. And so, after analyzing your learners, listing the tasks that they need to learn, prioritizing that list, you move on to creating learning objectives. A good learning objective always starts with an action verb, and is always measurable- which is important because you generally want to test to ensure that the objective is achieved at the end of the training. Ideally you just include one thing per objective. So..here's an example of what we came up with-after doing our analysis and identifying some of our constraints (which included the fact that we could only have 3 hours to train people, and we were working on a week and 1/2 timeline).
At the end of this training, participants will be able to:

Identify the role of a counselor sales person.
Adopt a traveller's viewpoint
Prepare for a call
Maintain enthusiasm from call to call

So- this is pretty standard stuff and not that exciting. And while I know that learning objectives are important as they allow participants to 'know' what they will learn and then gauge whether they learned it- it also seemed to me that it was wicked boring. And given the culture and audience that I was dealing with- I was more than a little worried it might lead to me losing the group before we even began.
We also had the issue of what you call the training- I didn't think "consultative sales training' was going to fly around here. Wade and Star agreed- so we brainstormed some different options and got some input from John and Amanda.
As such- we went for a funner name and a redesign of learning objectives- tried to put a cooler spin on it and ended up with this:

Next post- training methods, evaluation, etc...

Case Study: Sales Training for a Younger Audience Part 1

2010-12-01T09:20:00.000-08:00

Over the past week, I have been putting together a sales training session for employees at my new job. My audience is younger than I am used to, and the culture is far different than anywhere I have worked before (all in a good way!). Luckily, I have two people working with me (Star and Wade), who have been here for a while and are making sure that we consider the culture and audience when designing the training. Having two experienced people working with me is a massive plus!!
The project began with the VP of sales (John) asking for some sales training for his sales reps (a mixture of inbound and outbound sales folks, within different segments). In our discussion, he explained that while they were good at the product and process knowledge part, they had never really received any formal training on how to sell from a soft skill perspective. After some discussion with him around the current level of expertise with his staff and some time job shadowing with some of the reps, I felt I had a basic understanding of the needs. I discussed a variety of different sales models with John before agreeing upon a sales person as counselor based approach. The counselor approach is simple enough- it involves maintaining a problem solving mindset while collaborating with the customer to find the best solution for their needs.
Getting his buy-in on the model we would use for the training was key- if there's ever a fundamental disagreement on the theory behind your sales model, you wouldn't want to waste any time designing training. I showed him the stages of the model and explained how the focus on determining needs is much greater in this model versus a traditional model and that's there an added focus on support after the sale. I tested his acceptance of the theory by posing an extreme question: "I'm saying that if during the discovery phase, the sales rep discovers that the customer would best meet their needs by using one of our competitors, than I would expect the sales rep to direct them there, rather than pushing for a sale with us that would not meet their needs. Are you in agreement with that?" He was (I love working with people who get it- to build long term relationships you need to act with integrity- something they term "Do the Right Thing" here as one of their core values- this then leads to long term value) so were off to the races. Of course, he wanted the training to start the next week...so it was straight into creating task listings, learning objectives and picking our methods - something I'll write about in the next part.

Principles of Training

2010-04-21T07:06:00.000-07:00

I took a degree in Kinesiology (from Dalhousie University). Often, I am asked by people how I ended up in HR and learning. If you don’t know (and trust me, lots of people do not) Kinesiology is the study of human movement. Many of the courses were focused on how you could set up training programs to improve physical performance. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the principles of training your body apply to training and development and how we learn new knowledge, skills and behaviors.
Below are five principles of physical training and how they relate to best practices around learning and workplace performance improvement.

Principle of specificity:

Specificity is an important principle in training, where the exercise must be specific to the type of strength required, and is therefore related to the particular demands of the event. In other words- if you want to run a marathon, train for it by running marathons. Don’t go swim everyday in order to become a better runner.
In terms of workplace learning, this principle means that you really want to focus on exactly what the skills are that need to be learnt. You don’t want to waste time talking about background or theory too much, you want to move directly to the skills that are to be learnt. If you are training people on delivering a sales pitch, some background theory is okay to set the scene, but you should be focusing on actually delivering the sales pitch in the class. This is where performing a proper needs analysis is key; you have to really determine exactly what skills are lacking before you design and deliver training- otherwise you are bound to miss the mark.

Principle of adaption:

The principle of adaption is the way the body 'programs' muscles to remember particular activities, movements or skills. By repeating that skill or activity, the body adapts to the stress and the skill becomes easier to perform. The first time you decide to run 5 km, you’ll be very sore. Do it every day for 3 weeks and your body adapts and it becomes easier and easier.
For workplace training, this is a simple one- practice makes perfect. If you want to get better at performing a skill- like using Microsoft Excel, or pitching a product, or managing your time- then you need to practice the skill so that it becomes easier to do. The more you practice, the more your mind will refine the skills and change the behavior necessary to support the task. This is why I always support the 70-20-10 model for development- 70% of your learning will come from actually doing the skill you are trying to develop.
Principle of overload:
The principle of overload states that a greater than normal stress or load on the body is required for training adaptation to take place. In other words, if you want to get stronger, you have to increase the load on your body in order for body to adapt and grow. If you always run the same route at the same speed, or lift the same weight in the same fashion over and over again, you will eventually plateau and not see any improvements in your conditioning.
In terms of workplace learning, this principle means that you have to continue to push yourself to expand your skills, knowledge and develop new behaviors. Practicing skills or behaviors you already have will allow you to hone those skills, but adding complexity, depth or new context will provide much more benefit. In designing training, you want to make sure that skills build upon one another, so that after someone had mastered a skill, the training becomes more complex in order to allow more growth and improvement. If we go back to our sales pitch, after mastering the basic pitch, we might want to focus on how to deliver the pitch to people with different backgrounds, or how to alter the pitch when faced with a specific objection.
Principle of recovery:
The principle of recovery states that rest is required in order for the body to recover from the training and to allow adaptation to take place. If you train or compete continuously, without rest, you will eventually burn out or injure yourself. Allowing your body time to rest allows it to recover and become stronger.
From a workplace learning perspective, there are two similarities. One- is that you have to be rested in order to learn. Scheduling training at a time when work is too busy, or attending training when you aren't well rested- leads to poor retention. Just like you wouldn’t run a marathon on a ½ night’s sleep, you wouldn’t want to attend a day long learning seminar when you were that tired. The body needs rest to perform, and the brain needs rest to learn (read more about the value of sleep here!)
The second point is that training needs to be designed with adequate periods of recovery scheduled. If you’ve ever been to a 3 day conference that is jam packed with learning events and returned to the office only remembering one or two things, then you know what I mean. The proper spacing of training allows people to retain much more- if you create learning in smaller chunks, with more repetition and with more space in between- people will learn much more. The recovery time that’s built in allows people to reflect upon what they’ve learned, try to apply it and really integrate it into their lives before moving on. There’s some great new software called SpacedEd that is designed with this in mind- smaller chunks, more repetition, with breaks in between. To take a look, enroll for this test course in Management 101 that I’ve set up (it’s free!).
Principle of Reversibility:
The principle of reversibility states that if an athlete ceases training, the benefits of the training will decline and return back to the pre-training state. In simpler language, this principle is often called: “Use it or lose it!” If you stop training, you will return to the pre-training state.
From a learning standpoint this principle means that you should design training understanding that much of what people learned will be forgotten. This means that your training should include job aids, performance support tools and reference materials that participants can access after the training has finished. That way, when they’ve forgotten what to do, they’ll know where to go to find out what to do. In such a way I am often not a fan of showing people the intricate details of how to use Microsoft Excel for example, but more important is that they know how to use the help function in order to find out how to do things when they need to do them. It also means that you shouldn’t waste time training people on skills that they aren't going to be using- because if you do, they will often not practice them afterward and they will quickly forget everything they’ve learned.

Performance Management and Reviews

2010-03-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

One of the key components of a talent management system is a performance management system. So what- is performance management? In simplest terms, it’s a way to manage the performance of your employees, ideally to maximize their performance. Originally defined in the 50s’ it describes a way to manage the results employees produce. In theory and at its simplest, a typical performance management system consists of 3 main parts:
1. Identifying (or clarifying) performance measures
a. Figuring out how performance for any particular role should be measured and then creating a climate of shared understanding between manager and employee about what is to be achieved
2. Providing feedback and coaching for performance
a. Developing people to increase the chance that measures will be achieved
3. Evaluating performance
a. Providing formal ratings to the employee, as well as allowing the employee and manager to agree upon the employee's areas of strength and areas of opportunity.
Now, in the real business world (as opposed to the theoretical) what typically happens is that step 1 gets done poorly, step 2 rarely gets done and then step 3 becomes a farcical popularity contest as managers rate people on their last couple weeks of work. Why is that? Well, because (like good design of anything-) you have to put a lot of work into the preparation stage (step 1) in order to make things work well at the later stages and people just plain don’t like to do that. As I mention before- the default for human behavior is the lazy procrastinator. Also, step 2 requires continual monitoring and communication- something that the busy managers of the world typically don’t enjoy. You can never really cross ‘give feedback to staff’ off your list, as it is a continual process and for that reason it typically isn’t done enough or well when it is done. That leaves us with step 3, which ends up being the crap shoot that it is.
So…what can you do to make it better? Let’s look at the three steps.
1. Focus on shorter term goals- look to identify performance measures that are meaningful right now- that your employees are working on currently- rather than picking goals that are vaguely aligned to some year long strategy that probably won’t happen anyhow. They don’t have to be grandiose performance measures- keep it simple and focus on hard deliverables with a timeline and a measure of quality (if you’re dealing with a top performer- make it a little harder each time- more on that later).
2. Set a regular time with your employees to give them feedback- whether it’s a recurring one on one or quick meetings after key deliverables are met. Use the time wisely- provide objective feedback on what is done well, what could be improved upon and any ideas for process improvement at the same time. Make sure you write all this down somewhere you can easily access it.
3. If you do those 2 steps well, the actual final rating is pretty easy. You’ll be prepared with notes from all your one on ones. They’ll be no surprises for your staff because you’ve been giving them feedback on a regular basis. Use the time to step back from the day to day to look at the bigger picture. Look for trends of performance improving or declining, areas that are working well and spots to improve. This is the useful part of the year end review.
I blogged about this over on the Rypple website a few months ago. They have a great tool called Coach that makes step 1 and 2 very easy to do and is worth checking out.

Listening to improve…

2010-01-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

Want to be a better employee? Manager? Spouse, parent or friend? One way to improve in all areas of life is to work on your listening skills. While hearing is something that is automatic and unconscious, listening is a skill which requires conscious effort to improve. The benefits of becoming a great listener are numerous. People like to talk about the things that are important to them and being a good listener gets them motivated, it shows them that you care about them and makes them enjoy your company.
Listening though, is not easy, as our brains have many competing thoughts on the go at any given time. But if you are willing to commit the energy and effort it takes to improve your listening skills, you can; so below are 10 steps to help improve your listening skills. If you do, you won’t regret it!

Ten Steps to Improve your listening skills:

1. Learn to say: “Not right now”. If you are busy or unable to give the person your full attention, ask to reschedule your discussion until a better time.
2. Eliminate distractions Turn off any email notifications, phones, etc.. in your physical environment.
3. Be present in the moment- use all your focus to listen deeply. Note- this can be the hardest part.
4. Take notes. Note taking will help you capture important themes, and serve as a good reminder after the session.
5. Ask clarifying questions (or paraphrase) to ensure you are understanding, and to encourage the speaker to share more.
6. Stop talking. You shouldn’t be speaking for any more then 20% of the time if you’re a good listener.
7. Resist the urge to give advice. Most of us have an urge to suggest solutions, to ‘fix’ the problems or challenges people are facing. Don’t offer solutions, instead ask the speaker what they might do to overcome their challenges or what approaches they might have already tried.
8. Treat all conversations like they were the first. People change all the time, so you have to ignore your preconceptions, biases and stereotypes- listen deeply each time to ensure that you are actually hearing and not relying upon past conversations to form opinions.
9. Practice listening on a regular basis- make it a conscious effort to listen more carefully several times a week. Review your notes on a regular basis and take a quick moment after each session to see if you’ve followed these steps well.
10. Ask for feedback after you’ve listened. The best source for feedback would be the speaker- consider asking them afterwards if the conversation was helpful, if they are glad they you spoke, etc. The most important measure will be if they come back to talk to you again!

For more- check out the slidecast below I posted to slideshare.

The Art Of Listening

View more presentations from Phil Wylie.

Employee Engagement, Motivation and Retention

2009-11-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

Managers can improve engagement, motivation and retention by getting to know their employees. This can be as simple as walking by to ask them how they are doing and what they’re working on. It can be finding out what their interests and strengths are or where their passions lie. For the most part, good managers do this without thinking about it. Being genuinely interested in their staff makes it authentic, it makes the employee feel like their manger cares for them; something that they will then reciprocate.

For some though, whose’ people management competence isn’t high, they have to work a little harder on it. Scheduling time to meet with employees to talk about their interests, strengths and areas of opportunity is a good start for these managers. Some managers think that there is no place for ‘getting to know’ their employees; that the workplace should be all about work. The reality is quite different. A common phrase around retention is that people join companies, but people leave their manager. Taking the time to get to know your employees and their interests ends up producing more effective employees and retaining your staff longer. It’s one of those things that feels right because it is right.

One thing managers often forget to do is to continue to ‘check-in’ with their employees on a regular basis (especially those managers who aren’t naturally good at people management). Every individual’s engagement, interests and strengths change over time, so it’s important for managers to check in with their staff on a regular basis to find out if anything’s changed. I have managers use this simple fulfillment survey as a tool to determine if the needs of the employee have changed. Managers have their employees complete the survey and have a quick meeting to discuss the results twice a year. A simple question also works as well- asking your employees- what gets you most excited? Or what do you really want to work on? If you’re working with a virtual team, you can use a rypple question to track this over time. (and even though each employee is unique- compiling stats from all your employees starts to give you an idea of the ideal profile for future employees that work on your team) A key part of engagement is employees choosing work that they feel is meaningful, that interests them, stretches their ability and allows them to do their best. If you can get to that by asking a few simple questions to find out what’s really motivating your employees- what’s stopping you?

Explaining HR...to a non-HR person.

2009-09-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

So....what is Human Resources? How do you explain it to the new President you now report to?
It's a tough question to answer, because most people have a pretty engrained stereotype of HR people in their heads. They picture the "super nice", "let's talk about your feelings lady", (yes, I said lady- statistically there are more women in HR) who reminds you of your mom in a business suit (and who may or may or not be as useful as your mom would be in the office).
So...we've got our work cut out in explaining what HR is (let alone how it can add value to a business at a strategic level). The first step is to help increase the awareness of your new manager as to all the different tasks that HR is involved with. When doing this, I like to frame things in terms of the employee life cycle. At each stage of the employee life cycle, there are different activities that need to be performed by the business. So, I usually like to begin by sharing a slide like this:

You'll notice that I like to make things simple; you could break things into quite a few more stages if you wanted to (I always try to make things easier to understand and not the opposite- some people manage to thrive on making simple things complicated). After we've established that there are 3 main stages of an employee's
'life' with the company, we can add a variety of processes/activities that occur under each of them.

A slide like this maybe:
I'd use this slide to go over each of the areas, explaining in a little detail what each of them meant and it's implications. For the onboarding stage, this would be explaining: recruitment would consist of finding potential employees, while selection would be picking the right one. Orientation would be getting them ready to work. During the maintenance stage, this is where you have to explain that much of the work falls to the managers. But, if there isn't an HR presence there to assist in the creation of sound policies and to provide useful tools (so that things are done in a fair, and uniform matter across the organisation), there is a big risk of having angry employees, losing employees or just plain having crappy, non-productive employees (which could be the worse of the three). The progression stage of the cycle implies that all employees eventually become ex-employees, whether they get fired, get promoted, leave or retire.
The next part of explaining the work you do comes down to showing all the different activities under those categories- which you can do different ways. I've seen groups recap their work over the past year or quarter (we screened 8 million resumes, or we delivered this many training hours, etc...) or you could just list some of the activities under each category like so:
Now this isn't even a complete list of activities, we're missing quite a few things- I've put engagement under all three of the cycles- because an employee really begins their engagement experience with a company from the moment they read the job posting and it continues until the day they leave. I've also listed compensation below- everything from payroll, benefits, perks, etc... all of that has work at all stages of the employee life cycle.
At this point in the meeting, we've achieved step 1- there is an awareness that HR is responsible for more then just talking about feelings with employees like they were someone's mom.
That doesn't mean that we've convinced them that we add strategic value to the organization yet (more on that later)....but they should at least have some idea at this point what HR is.

Talent Management- What is it and what’s the point?

2009-09-08T11:25:00.001-07:00

Talent management is a term that was coined in the late 90s’ to define a strategy and set of human resources processes related to the recruitment, development and retention of employees. Talent management’s main goal is to provide companies a sustainable strategic advantage by maximizing the contribution of employees* within their organization.

*assumption-you know that great people is what makes a great organization. If you don’t realize this, please stop reading.

A talent management system is something that provides businesses with strategic insight into succession planning, recruitment, employee retention and training/development.

One of the outcomes of a talent management system is a talent list which ranks the contribution of employees to the organization. This list is then used to inform decisions around promotions, development opportunities, compensation and succession planning. Another outcome is profiles of the top employees, which can then be used to apply to recruitment and training in order to create more top employees.

The first step in creating a talent management system is to create measurements with which to assess talent within an organization.

Components may include:

· Performance management outputs

· Competency assessment outputs

· Any survey outputs- employee engagement, leadership values, 360

· Existing profiles (personality assessments, strength finders, etc…)

Ideally there should be feedback from the employee, their manager, their peers as well as their business results over time. The richer the data that comes in, the more accurate and useful the system would be.

Once the system has been set up, the following objectives should be set:

Identify, select, and cultivate "key talent" - the employees your organization cannot afford to lose.
Locate and develop highly qualified backups for key positions, which are critical to organizational continuity.
Allocate training resources/development opportunities to employees based on actual and/or potential contribution to organizational excellence.

Attached is an image detailing how an ‘average’ organization’s employees breakdown. I’ll post more on the different groups later.

How to Plan Your Training Budget

2009-09-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

Who gets to go on training? This is a fun question that everyone likes to participate in, mainly because who wouldn’t want to spend a day (or more) out of the office, perhaps learning something, meeting some new people, or maybe just drifting off into space instead of working?

Training and development opportunities are great for employee engagement, development and retention. The best companies in the world invest heavily in T&D for their staff.

So, as a HR learning person, it often comes down to me to define the training budget strategy. There are several different ways to spread out a training budget, each one fraught with it’s own unique challenges. Let’s take a look at some of these.

My recommendation would be to use a combination of system 3 and 4; with solution 3 being used only being used when absolutely necessary. Some people would say if you have a large training budget, you could start by giving everyone a small amount (#2) and then reserving the rest of the budget for strategic assignment; I see this as still be wasteful, they’ll be people who don’t want to go on training that it gets wasted on. Strategic assignment is definitely the best way to go, but you have to spend the time classifying your employees. The good news is that you if you do this, you can use the talent list for other things as well- such as succession planning, defining competencies and role profiles, as well for mentoring and internal promotions. I’ll post about how to go about implementing a talent management system (and creating a talent list) next.

Simplicity and flow

2009-08-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about simplicity. Many of the solutions to big problems we have today, either in our personal or business lives, or as companies or just as the population on this planet, have really simple solutions.
It's not that we don't know how to fix our problems, we just have problems executing and following up. Typically we lack motivation until the very last minute (we are a race of procrastinators) and we lack the will power to stay the course as soon as things get difficult (we are really all lazy Homer Simpson types). Two of the most valuable attributes someone can have is the ambition to be motivated to improve and the resilience to prevail in the face of adversity. But it's rarely that we don't know the solution or that the problem is too tough.
I was also inspired by the concept of 'flow'- immersing yourself deeply into an activity for which you are passionately inspired and then creating something of beauty.
While the experts (such as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi-see his TED talk) talk about child prodigees and brilliant creators as an examples, I believe that everyone can get into their state of 'flow'- where time speeds past, actions become automatic and you are able to create something unique and beautiful. Part of the challenge becomes finding out what inspires you, what you are good at and what you value. Then it becomes a matter of recognizing what 'flow' is and understanding how to get there. It's a very zen concept, which makes me enjoy it even more.
Anyhow- I put together a slide show introducing my thoughts (and others of course) on the ideas of simplicity and flow, complete with some tips on how to get there. Take a look at it here and please make sure you vote for it in the slideshare contest....you never know I might win a macbook!

Simplicity and flow

View more presentations from Phil Wylie.

Top ten tools for learning

2009-08-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

The explosion of new online tools to aid learning, sharing and creating content in the past few years has been nothing short of extraordinary. It seems like new tools are cropping up all the time, some filling needs that I didn't even know existed. While limiting this list to ten is difficult, here my best shot at the top ten tools I currently use as a learning professional. (note- ask me tomorrow and they might very well change, such is the pace nowadays.) These are in no particular order....

Google Reader: how else could I organize and keep up to date with all the innovations and great ideas out there? The latest social features offer some promise as well to help sharing of ideas.
Clearfit: great (free- up to a point) web application that allows you to complete a personality assessment that you can then turn into a job profile or a development guide. From a learning perspective, it's all about the development guide, it shows you areas of strength, opportunity and recommends activity for improvement. From a talent management perspective, it's all about recruiting guides- it gives a list of questions to ask candidates as well as a scoring guide for their answers.
Rypple: amazing feedback tool. (free - up to a point) Allows you to gather anonymous feedback from others to help improve. Simple to use and straight to the point, serious thought has gone into this web app. Their new touchbase program also aims to replace performance reviews, which is awesome. From a learnig perspective- getting quick, honest feedback helps you learn.
Athenaonline : great development tool. (free- up to a point) Site filled with smartbytes- short videos- of information - coaching tips from various thought leaders on a wide variety of management topics- everything from strategy to creativity and coaching. Particularly good for leadership development activities.
Survs: free surveying tool, like surveymonkey but offers variety of levels for administrators, which makes it easy to set up surveys for people and show them what they need to see. From a learning perspective, this is a great tool for uncovering needs.
Captivate: I love Captivate and have since it was Robodemo. Amazing way to share information and train using variety of media. If done right, it can replace alot of facilitators out there.
Snagit: Easy way to share screen captures/create captions and send information in a simple visual way.
Slideshare: Another great to share information- the powerpoint presentation format has morphed and now that you can add audio this tool is a fanstastic way to share full presentations.
Google Documents: Still isn't beautiful to look at, but in terms of functionality and collaborating on documents with groups- googledocs has it all.
Teambox: Fantastic project management tool, so that you can create projects with shared accountability and learn from each other. So easy to use and yet has everything you need.

So, there they are for now....what do you think?

Learning, development and training; some definitions.

2009-07-31T05:23:00.000-07:00

As someone who has had multiple titles involved all three of these words, I often get asked what's the difference between learning, development and training? Aren't these all the same things...? Here's my two cents today.

Learning is an interesting concept. All of us are familiar with learning because if you don't learn, you can't survive. From an evolutionary standpoint, it's as simple as the dodo bird. The dodo bird existed on the small island of Mauritius with no predators. When predators were introduced to the island, the dodo didn't realize that they were dangerous, and in less then 100 years since it's discovery, it became distinct. So when someone tells me they are fan of lifelong learning, this is akin to them telling me that they are a fan of breathing. Learning isn't something we do fun- it's an absolutely necessity.
From a workplace learning perspective, development is usually defined as improving your overall knowledge, skills and abilities (competencies) so that you will be able to take on new, different or more difficult work in the future. In much the same way as a flower grows from a bud to full bloom, development takes time; the changes are gradual and the process is different for everyone. Development involves learning, but in the workplace learning context, is more targeted then just general learning. It involves a conscious effort to evolve in a specific direction- to become a red flower instead of a yellow flower or a plumber instead of a professor.
If someone tells me that they are a fan of professional development, I take this to mean one of two things: that they are affiliated with a university and want to start paying them lots of money to gain their institutions piece of paper (future rant about the value of degrees and the demise of the university model to come later) or that they like to see employees with a plan. Having employees that are motivated, ambitious and focused on development is a good thing for a business. Workplace development though, requires a defined partnership. The person has to come with the desire. Some people are fine where they are. They don't want to learn, grow or evolve at all. (this people should read more about the dodo) But if you have the desire to grow and evolve, you have the first (and most important) part of the partnership. The second part is the guidance, which comes from the mentor/person (could be a manager but could be someone completely outside of the workplace) who helps guide the development. The last part is the support, which includes allotting the time and provide support to the activities, which is usually something ingrained in the culture of an organization. Of course, if you don't have support or guidance, you can still have development- ever noticed how weeds manage to grow even in the harshest climate? But if you foster and encourage development you manage to grow more and better.
In terms of how we develop; there is a model called the 70-20-10 rule. Of course it's not really a rule and of course it's not really accurate for anybody, but it does reinforce the idea that we do all learn differently and that the majority of that learning comes from actually experiencing new knowledge/skills and abilities versus just hearing about them. Think of learning how to golf. Is it enough to watch tiger woods? Or to hear from a golf pro about the proper stance? Those things are good, no doubt. But to really improve, you have to start swinging the clubs. In terms of workplace development, reading books on leadership is good, watching a good leader speak is good, but there is no replacement to leading an initiative, a team or a cause yourself- this is how we truly develop.
Training, in comparison to learning and development, is all about giving you the knowledge and skills to succeed in something you are going to be doing right away. You aren't learning things that will apply down the road; or things that don't apply. (this is all presuming that we are talking about good training- bad training does lots wrong) Think about learning how to swim. Yes, this is something you would learn (to adapt, so that you don't drown in water) and develop over time; but the actual act of learning a new stroke- say backstroke, if taught in a swiming class- is an example of training. You would hear about the stroke, watch it be modeled, try the stroke, get some feedback from the instructor, practice again, etc...then there would a test to see if you could do it. Refining your stroke over time would be more learning and development, but that actual event would be training. So....subtle differences behind each of the words....and I've left some out, but maybe that's a start for now.

Knowledge Mashups

2009-03-06T10:52:00.000-08:00

So, further to the last slideshow I posted online; I shared with someone who organized the conference that I was at. They really enjoyed it and suggested sharing it with the academic who's work it was based on; but was worried that they might be upset that I was 'stealing' their work. It made me think about what I was doing with it. I created the slideshow to help communicate the ideas and concepts I had learnt throughout the day. It helped me solidify my own learning and then pass that learning on to others. Never had I thought about 'stealing' someone's ideas; which begs the question- is it possible to steal someone's ideas nowadays? Are all ideas free? Is there power in possessing ideas? I still end up thinking we should be sharing our ideas, not getting possessive. The way I figure is if you have good ideas, you'll have more; making you valuable all the time as a consultant, speaker, employee etc... not just valuable for that one idea or that one set of ideas you once had.
I created another slideshow- which I think of as a knowledge mashup- because I've taken some knowledge and concepts from a source and then added my visualizations, chunked it according to what I believe is learnable pieces and re-packaged it. Sure, it's not my content, but I have added value and hopefully I've made some of these ideas more accessible so that they can help others. Makes sense in theory, no? Anyhow- below is the Power Of Persuasion; which I added sound to on slideshare. (first time, don't know how much I like it) Hope you enjoy.

The Power Of Persuasion

View more presentations from Phil Wylie. (tags: behaviour change)

Problems are ideas!

2009-02-26T14:04:00.001-08:00

Attended a good seminar last week; the topic was employee ideas as source of business improvement. There were a few key things I learnt from it. The presenter was a big academic; brilliant but awkward and while he had great stories, his presentation slides were incredibly dry and boring. His presentation was good because the content was so solid; despite his delivery (which wasn't that bad) and despite (more so) his slides. (which he read to us....ugggg)
As part of my own learning, I summarized his presentation into more visual slides that I've uploaded to slideshare; I've embedded it below here. I found thinking about taking his presentation and distilling it down to the essence of what it meant to me was a good learning method- the old book report/ or teach someone else after having been taught yourself method. Of course, when I shared my slides with colleagues, it also reinforced the learning.
From his content; the 2 a-ha's were:
1) Problems are ideas.
2) Problems have 1/2 of the solution embedded in them.
Simple enough stuff; but if you think about problems that way, it really opens doors for some great improvement opportunities.
Here's the slideshow. Hope someone enjoys its.

Have more breakthrough ideas

View more presentations from Phil Wylie. (tags: ideas creativity)

Concentrating under pending layoffs

2009-02-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

So, all the conventional life coaching will tell you that you should focus on the things you can control and not worry about things that are out of your control. Nowadays, with looming layoffs and massive job cuts rampant in the workforce, this is easier said then done; and survivors are left wondering if they will be next.
How then, are you expected to concentrate and get work done? I suggest the following approach.
1)Make sure that your resume is up to date.
2)Make sure you have copies of your latest work- email yourself work you've done or back it up on storage.
3)Send yourself a copy of your contact list to your home email address.
4)Spend some time checking out job boards, and being aware of current opportunities. (remember, the best time to look for a job is when you have one)
Once you've covered all those bases so that if you do get fired you're prepared, all you can do is relax and continue working. Continue to try to make yourself indispensable; make sure everything you do adds value to the business. Make sure that when management is mentioning your name, you are classified as critical, high potential, high performing, etc...

And remember, no matter what happens, behind every change is an opportunity.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-29T12:54:00.000-08:00

Aren't the holidays fun? Friends, family, shopping, turkey, traffic, stress....wooops- I meant fun.
Sometimes the holidays are more difficult then hectic work weeks. I was happy to come in today to work to decompress, organize and relax. (yes, weird- relax at work- a novel concept)
As it's quiet in the office today, it's been a great time to reorganize all my links, folders, documents, etc...and get ready for the new year in true getting things done fashion.
Along the way, I ran into this link, which I just love for setting the mood, and relaxing - it will does a good job synching music, photos and film to create an ambiance: check it out.

Dealing with a Sniper

2008-12-01T07:10:00.000-08:00

What is a sniper? A sniper is someone who hides in the distance, while taking shots at you. In this case, I am talking about people who hide beneath a veil of anonyminity while making malicious comments in the form of questions. For the most part, a sniper can't exist if there's no place to hide. Allowing people to post anonymously is a dangerous tactic, as people feel more comfortable attacking you when there is no accountability. When you ask them to reveal themselves, their willingless to be malicious disappears. From the behaviour point of view, malicious sniping is usual the sign of someone who has some suppressed emotions- they are frustrated, depressed or angry for some other reason. Trying to see their point of view is one way to get inside their head, but it is made difficult if you don't know who they are. I guess this is a cathartic post to allow me to vent my own frustrations...and I think it's working... here's a video from Rick Brinkman on the topic of behaviour and personality...

Growth Mind-Set...

2008-11-21T09:21:00.001-08:00

"You're born with what you got. I do things this way, because I'm that type of person. That person sure is smart. Oh, he's an innovator, that's why he can do that. I could never do that, because I am more like this."
All of the above are fixed mind-set statements, that hinge on the belief that intelligence (and or other attributes, such as creativity, outgoingness, etc..) is static. When we think that our skills and abilities are as fixed as our personal appearance, we get trapped into accepting that we can't change them. As a result, we get used to thinking that we are limited to what we think our personal view of ourselves is.
What is that makes one person better able to do something then an other? Is it because they are smarter? IQ tests have no correlation with monetary success in life, nor happiness indexes. The one common attribute that successful people have is that they try harder. The fundamental belief behind this is that intelligence (and other attributes) can be developed. This is known as a growth-mind set. In contrast to the fixed mind set, these people look for challenges as chances to grow, they push harder when faced with resistance, they learn from mistakes and they continually improve.
It's a simple concept- but like everything that is an art- easy to understand, hard to do. Consider next time you think: "I can't do that". Why not? Is it fear that's stopping you? Is it your own perception of your abilities that's stopping you? What's the risk of trying?
Why not embrace the growth mind set, give it a try and see what happens?

Complacency versus Urgency

2008-11-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

The world is changing, faster and faster. The exponential curve that population is increasing by is matched by a similar rate of change in all areas: technological, innovation, medical, financial etc...
This is not rocket science. Neither is the idea that people don't like change. I've delivered lots of training on change and I can tell you that people get very stressed about change. It seems like they stop thinking about how to deal, they lose the ability to be proactive and they make worse decisions about how to proceed.
Here's a great article about the difference between complacency and urgency. In it, John Kotter notes that people often confuse urgency with busyness. The pace of change has made many of us busy, but when we don't stop to prioritize, to figure out what is urgent and what is not- we end up busy, but not productive. The key to urgency is wanting to decrease what's not helping you win, what's wasting your time and focus only on the things that are truly important. Not an easy thing to do, but definitely a great goal and a way of maintaining some control on your happiness- many studies have shown that when you focus on what you can control and making it better- versus just worrying and working on everything that crosses your desk- you'll be much happier.
The flip side of this are the people who have become complacent. Suggesting that things are the way they are and that's that is tantamount to 'learned helplessness'. Letting change happen to you is a sure fire way to become unhappy and get stuck in a downward spiral of anger or depression.
You have to work at the urgency thing- re-energize yourself, see failure as a learning opportunity, adopt a 'growth mind set' approach (more on that later) and try your hardest to change things, and win everyday.
The alternative is far worse.

Having Difficult Conversations

2008-10-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

Frequently, in both business life and personal life, we have the opportunity to help others improve by providing honest and critical feedback. Typically, most of us avoid these difficult conversations like the plague. Some people love giving this type of feedback, but they lack the skills to be able to do so effectively (i.e. no filter, no foresight) and end up alienating those they are trying to help. There are a few people who, in certain circumstances, have mastered the art of having difficult conversations.
I designed a learning solution specifically aimed at trying to improve this skill. The first part of the solution was a workshop that consisted of presentation/lecture, group work and role plays around basic theory. The second part was individual coaching on real-life, specific messages that managers had to deliver. The reason why I separated it, was that people didn't want to discuss the real-life difficult messages that they were going to deliver in front of a crowd. So, after they had some time to soak up the simple theory, they could then apply it to a real life solution and get personalized coaching on how to do it. (of course, it always is simple in theory, but doing it for real always is a lot tougher!!!)
Sounds like a good plan, no? And it's no coincidence that this is happening at the same time as our 6 month performance review check-ins....and bonus that the economy is tanking so efficiencies must be maximized more then ever. (i.e. more difficult conversations needed!!)
Anyhow...here's the slideshow used in the workshop, the job aids were related to actual activities that we did in the workshop, but I wanted to include them in this presentation to give people who missed the workshop more tools and things to think about....

Having Difficult Conversations

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: difficult conversations;)

For evaluation of training, it will be pretty informal, due to the nature of this place....

Don't ask for feedback if you don't want it.....

2008-10-01T06:21:00.000-07:00

Accepting feedback is a difficult task. You have to do your best to remove your ego from the occasion, keep your spirits high and your energy positive when accepting feedback.

It's easy to discount feedback, to attack the person giving you the feedback or to just ignore feedback, but that doesn't help you improve at all.

At the same time, some people take feedback far too seriously- they get crushed by it, lose their confidence and then become far too self-conscious to be effective at their jobs.

The balanced approach to receiving feedback is the best way- it sounds simple, but it's very hard to master.

You want to evaluate what the feedback is, consider how it could make you better; all without taking it too personally. Feedback is an important glimpse into how others feel about you, or about something you've done, so you don't want to dismiss it all, but you always have to consider it's sources as well.

It takes a high level of maturity and composure to accept honest feedback; then to recognize what you can improve at and what areas you can't.

The point of this post was brought up by a recent work experience; someone asked for feedback, got it from a large group of people, then realized that it showed lots of areas for improvement and got upset.

If you're not ready to accept feedback whether it's good or bad, then it's really best to not ask for it. Playing the blame game afterwards, or dismissing the results really devalues the entire process and makes it far less likely that someone will want to give you honest feedback in the future.

So, in summary- if you don't want to see feedback as a tool for improvement, if you're not ready to accept positive and negative feedback- then don't ask for it.

Here's a video from Marshall Goldsmith that talks about accepting criticism....sorry- no embed code!

http://www.athenaonline.com/knowledge/Containers/sbfree.asp?id=1387&bhcp=1

Creating something for yourself

2008-09-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of blogs on the web, there's a lot of content being generated everyday. The motivation for creating content is about as diverse as the people posting the content. Lots of people are posting to gain something; financial, reputation, to satisfy their egos....
Others seem to be posting as a diary, reflecting upon learning and not intending it to do much else. I think my favourite blogs are the ones where the person is really writing for themselves- but they've spent so much time doing so that their reflections can become fresh learning for me. I would fall in the category of writing for myself and in that spirit...here's a presentation from a few months back that I created to capture some of my own thoughts around what is going on in the learning field. (not for work or for share, but just for me.)
We'll see if this slideshare embed code works:

Learning

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: knowledge training)

Online Identities and Privacy

2008-09-12T06:39:00.000-07:00

I was speaking with my better half yesterday about using Facebook to stay in touch with peripheral friends.
Most of it was due to me reading this great article on social meeting from the New York times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html?_r=2&sq=&st=nyt&oref=slogin&scp=3&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

She doesn't have a Facebook account, because she thinks her privacy is at risk. She also mentioned that she's afraid of people she doesn't like bugging her all the time.

I thought she might be missing the point....having the ability to contact peripheral friends doesn't mean you have to. And as for creepy people tracking you down through Facebook- if they were really creepy, they would find you anyways.

Privacy has always been an illusion that we have- none of us are truly ever alone, there are always things (cameras, people, animals) watching us. As we move into the future and there's more and more cameras set up in public/private places, everything will be recorded. Just like everything online is recorded, so will our lives in public.

I suppose it's easy to lament this loss of privacy, but on the flip side there's connections that are formed forever, there are memories that are always accessible....

They say the brain needs to be able to forget things, in order to make room for new things and so that we are able to see broader patterns in life..
...if we outsource our memory to machines- doesn't that just us free up more space to think?
Is it bad to have an accurate history of life in public?

Career Coaching...

2008-08-25T08:24:00.001-07:00

There are 2 small posters I keep by my desk. I keep them facing the chairs by my table, so that if you're sitting in my 'visitor' chair, they're right in front of you. Here's the first one:

A lot of times people are upset about their job, their boss or some other facet of their life. It's the first step towards change....knowing that something is wrong. There are quite a few steps afterwards though too....and when you know your job isn't working, you then need a plan of what it is that you want to do. There are lots of theories and resources out there for people to use, but in general it always requires a good period of self-reflection around what you actually like, are good at and feel like makes a difference. This powerpoint nicely summarizes Dan Pink's new book, that isn't rocket science, but does contain some simple steps for career counselling that I wish someone had shared with me when I was in highschool. http://www.slideshare.net/garr/career-advice-08

The one question I always ask though when people are upset/complaining about their job/life is- "so what are you going to do about it??" Knowing something is wrong is important. Moving on towards fixing it is even more important.

Naps Rule

2008-08-15T10:44:00.001-07:00

So, today, for the first time ever, I decided to try out the 20 minute nap at work thing. I closed my office door, put my feet up on one chair, closed my eyes and tried to nap. Can't say that I had an actual complete sleep, but I did get a little rest. Most experts agree- (http://www.brainrules.net/sleep/?scene=2) naps are good for you and make you more effective. It definitely gave me more energy!!! If only I could get a couch in my office.....
Great link to a pdf on how to nap and the benefits: http://multimedia.thestar.com/acrobat/be/c2/8e11fbc747899ec61a915fba76b5.pdf
Here's hoping you get lots of rest!!!

Coaching Upwards....

2008-08-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

So....I completely forgot that I had set up this blog.
I was looking at some presentations that I had put up on slideshare.net, and saw an embed to this page, which was my blog. Weird.
Anyhow, it was a good excuse to write something new.
Coaching up is today's topic- had an employee in who was having problems with their manager and wanted to deliver some feedback to them.
That's a difficult thing to do. I discussed a few common techniques- asking questions to solicit their manager's opinion, trying to see if they recognize that their behaviour is affecting outcomes, listening and trying to coach.
It's always a challenge when the manager is not open to feedback.
I found this survey online- it's pretty basic, but was a good learning tool.
Check it out: http://www.coachingandmentoring.com/Quiz/coachingup.htm

Switch up...what I learnt today

2008-01-25T07:09:00.000-08:00

So...after not using the blog at all, I am switching tactics. Going to try and track what I've learnt (by each entry, which I hope is frequently) that day. This could be a good way to summarize my learnings and then to reinforce my learning. Plus, if I ever go public, maybe others could learn from what I had learnt. (grandiose ideas....keep dreaming)
One thing I'm not going to do, is give props to the places where I've found my learnings....yes, I am getting most of these links from others, but in the new future of the collective intelligence- no one really owns information and while I am grateful to those that have directed me, it takes too long to document paths.
Today's learning- from Bill Strickland's TED talk ( http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/209)
You have to change the way people see themselves before you can change their behaviour.
This speaks to all the low confidence types who can't envision themselves living their dreams and aspirations, to the underpriviliged, to the pessimists, to the timid- you have to begin by inspiring them to know that anything is possible and that it can in fact be done. Bill talks about how you have to treat them with respect, like they are already living their dreams as a first step. In terms of training and coaching, I think it means to spend a little more time convincing people that are valuable, telling them that you believe in them and their dreams.

My first post

2007-07-31T06:19:00.000-07:00

I guess I read enough of other people's blogs, that it's finally time to start my own- despite the fact that I've heard that blogging is on the decline, that's it past it's prime and that no one will probably ever read this.
I've never kept a diary, never felt the need to send useless updates to my friends via email, facebook or anything else....so now I wonder what I will write about....
I read a post about Jerry Seinfeld's secret to productivity, which boiled down to working on something every day- if even for just 10 minutes, as a way of becoming successful...
So...I don't know that this will relate to success, or even that it will be enjoyable or enriching...but perhaps it will allow me to reflect upon my day, what I've learnt and what I hope to achieve. Hey, if I do it enough, it might one day prove to be an interesting read for someone...all that being said, I guess this is my welcome to the blogsphere...
Praises