Category Archives: Training and Development

ASTD Goes Platinum

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A post from HRDQ President, Brad Glaser

A post from HRDQ President, Brad Glaser

Years before the majority of today’s training professionals were in grade school, 15 men from the petroleum industry gathered for the first meeting of the American Society of Training Directors. It was the beginning of the ASTD we know today. It was 1943 — a time when the world was in the midst of World War II. A time when training was emerging as a formal organizational function, corporate strategy, and necessity of a highly skilled workforce.

ASTD 2013

From chalkboards and whiteboards to smart boards, e-learning, and virtual classrooms, the face of training has experienced an amazing transformation since that first meeting 70 years ago. And ASTD has been a guiding influence every step of the way. Now the world’s largest association dedicated to the training and development field, ASTD represents every industry — and every sector — across 122 U.S. chapters, 100 countries, and 39,000 members. While its name has since changed to the American Society of Training & Development, its mission remains largely the same: to empower professionals to develop knowledge and skills successfully. ASTD’s goal is to raise the standards of the training profession and it accomplishes that through its publications, forums, education, research, resources, and conferences.

I attended my first ASTD conference when I joined HRDQ fresh out of college. I’ve been there nearly every year since, and I’ll attend the 2013 International Conference & Exposition next week when training professionals from around the world come together in Dallas, Texas. Frankly, there isn’t a better way to catch the latest trends, meet face-to-face with training colleagues, hear from industry leaders — and simply be inspired. Be sure to visit HRDQ in Booth #1053. We look forward to seeing you!

How has ASTD influenced your career? Post a comment and tell us.

HRDQ @ ASTD 2010

HRDQ @ ASTD 2010

I Am Going To Train You To Be Accountable – NOT!

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Linda GalindoBy Linda Galindo, author of The Accountability Experience, first posted on her blog 12/14/12

Imagine yourself sitting with your leadership group as an Executive Retreat on the topic of Accountaility is about to start. In your mind it’s going to be some type of training. Are you bored, excited, nervous, ready to engage?

The speaker is introduced and begins with a question: “How many of you would experience a much better work life if the people that worked for you had a higher level of personal accountability?” Every hand in the meeting room goes up.

Why? Why would everyone around you demonstrating a higher level of personal accountability make your work life better? What benefits could possibly ensue if tomorrow you walk into your organization filled with employees who have upped their level of personal accountability?

If you cannot specifically answer this question as the CEO, COO, CAO, CIO, or C-whatever, don’t bother with accountability training in your organization.  WHY?! Everyone usually “senses” the better results in work culture that would emerge but only a rare and exceptional leader will brave the mirror being turned on her or him to ensure personal accountability starts at the top.  The shock and horror of learning that “I am remarkably unaccountable for a person of my status, when all this time I thought I was very accountable” is more than the run of the mill “leader” can take. They prefer spending resources to train everyone else to be accountable completely clueless that without demonstrating personal accountability themselves, they are on a fools errand.

There is no doubt in my mind (and experience) that accountability education is the foundation for long and sustainable success if leaders are willing to face the downsides that come with upping personal accountability. Yes, downsides.

Just as you can imagine all the great stuff that comes with people being more personally accountable, you must understand how dramatically your life will change as a leader when personal accountability really takes hold en masse among employees.

It’s similar to the out of control feeling as the roller coaster car crests then…DROPS. That fantastic, giddy, fun, scary RUSH!!  You know you will be fine (with that tiny doubt the whole thing could go off the rails).  Some won’t even get on the ride, positive they will never master their fear, or the urge to barf.

For those of us engaged in connecting personal accountability with desired results through educating and facilitating, not training, success is guaranteed. It’s a giddy, scary, wild ride. Accountability “training” is safe. If it’s the outcomes leadership can name that an organization is after, start with where you are using the Accountability Assessment and then educate and facilitate.  Be the personal accountability train to avoid getting run over by accountability training.

The Accountability ExperienceStart here: The 85% Solution, then here The Accountability Experience, and download the free recorded webinar Accountability Now! From Top to Bottom and you’ll find out how your organization can successfully instill and apply the mindset of personal accountability in the workplace!

Putting it All on the Table

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With Thanksgiving behind us and 2012 coming to an end, it’s time to look back on a year of hard work and size up your own harvest – the results of your training.

There are so many benefits to soft-skills training that you probably see the results around you every day:  efficient communication, happier employees, stronger teams, abundant leadership, and clear values (Better learning.  Better Performance.  Better Life – we totally know).

And it’s no secret that measurable results lead to continued support and appropriate funding; but how can the results of training be measured?

A solid understanding of the ROI Methodology will allow any trainer present to illustrate the effect their work has on a company’s bottom line.

Dr. Patti Phillips is a world-renowned expert on ROI, and she’s here to help.  Author of The Bottomline on ROI, Patti facilitates workshops all over the world and consults with USA and international organizations – public, private, non-profit, and educational – on implementing the ROI Methodology.  On Wednesday, December 19, 2012, she’ll be presenting a free webinar introducing you to the concept of ROI and how it can be implemented in your organization.

Start your new year off right by communicating the quality of your crop, and securing seeds for the coming seasons:

Communicating From Earth to Mars: Averting Communication Disasters

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In 1999 the Mars Climate Orbiter burned up as it entered the Martian atmosphere after $125 million spent in development and nine months of travel.

The cause? A lapse in communication.

It all came crashing down because the navigation team and the designers of the spacecraft weren’t communicating essential information in a common language; one used English measurements and the other used metric to relay vital data.

“It is very difficult for me to imagine how such a fundamental, basic discrepancy could have remained in the system for so long,” John Pike, Space Policy Director at the Federation of American Scientists, said about the incident in a Los Angeles Times article. While it may be hard to imagine, it happens all the time to organizations around the world and employees at every level. The good news is such an enormous, costly communication disaster can be easily averted.

It starts by making sure information is continuously and precisely conveyed to all involved in a project, both within and between teams. In a recent Harvard Business Review blog post, Georgia Everse reminds leaders that “there is no such thing as over-communication.” She urges them to avoid jargon, build a common language, and “be explicit about using terminology that resonates with everyone in the organization.”

In Personality Style at Work, Kate Ward suggests that in order to convey your message clearly and accurately one should avoid sweeping generalizations and check for understanding to make sure the message was understood in the way it was intended. Following such simple steps can keep the lines of communication open and prevent chaos in the future.

HRDQ’s What’s Your Communication Style can help identify communication problems and improve communication skills, BEFORE they result in the crash landing of a promising project.

Avert a communication disaster and see how HRDQ can help today!

Read more about Kate Ward’s advice!

The Ultimate Low-Cost, High-Return Training

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In difficult economic times, it becomes very important to prove return on soft-skills development and training.  So how do you keep your training expenses low, and your return high?

Be Precise.

Design your training around the needs of your organization.  Do you have a limited time to deliver a wide breadth of information?  Has a problem arisen that requires soft skills in seemingly disparate areas?  Is your organization undergoing structural or cultural change?  Be able to handle tough situations head on.  With modular training programs, you can design a unified training session that directly targets the needs of your group.

Be Affordable.

By choosing cost-effective training solutions (both affordable in price, and requiring minimal staff time), you’ll not only be saving your department’s budget, you’ll be allowing yourself time to get into the fine points of your training and make it the best it can be.  By investing directly in content, you can package your messages as simply or elaborately as the situation calls for, and save a great deal of time that could be spent in the classroom, reinforcing messages, planning, and improving practices and processes.

Be Flexible.

The highest return on training can be achieved through reinforcement.  Is your training flexible enough to function as an introduction, a full course, and a refresher – with minimal effort to reshape it?  By offering options for content delivery, you’ll be able to reach a larger audience, and keep them learning over a longer period of time.

Be Interesting.

Return on training means information sinking in with your participants.  If you’re able to deliver one-of-a-kind training – unique content that’s been well-researched and uses methods proven to facilitate adult learning – you’ll leave your attendees with a rich learning experience that will translate to better performance and a continued interest in learning.

Here’s How:

We’ve designed the Reproducible Training Library (RTL) to provide all of those benefits and more.  The RTL’s Ultimate Collection is a library of 87 classroom and 36 e-learning programs, developed by expert trainers, and covering a comprehensive range of soft-skills topics.  With both instructor-led and self-study options in 19 subject areas, the RTL will never leave you searching for the content your team members need.

While each program is complete and can be used “right out of the box,” they are also completely customizable.  The content you receive can be taken apart and reassembled, re-designed graphically, joined with other content, and reproduced as often as needed.  Unlimited-use programs with no licensing fees means a one-time, low-cost purchase of proven effective content that works for you – however and whenever you need it.

Get started with reproducible training at:

www.ReproducibleTrainingLibrary.com

Simulation as a Diagnostic Tool

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There are many factors in successful teamwork.  When conflicts arise, or performance declines, it’s not always simple to find the root of the problem.

At HRDQ, we are firm believers in the effectiveness of experiential learning.  What – at first glance – may seem to be an indecipherable problem might become very clear in the context of a simulation.  By taking our everyday habits into a simulation, we highlight the ways we act as a team.  It creates a safe environment, where skills can be measured in action without jeopardizing an important team project.

One of our most popular simulations is Jungle Escape.  It’s been an HRDQ best-seller for 30 years, and continues to build and revitalize teams every day.  Jungle Escape is an eye-opening diagnostic tool that takes teamwork back to fundamentals.  Something as simple as measuring planning time against implementation time can shed light on all aspects of a team’s dynamic – and Jungle Escape does just that.

The scenario charges teams with the (hopefully!) unfamiliar task of constructing an escape helicopter.  After carrying out the simulated task, teams are presented with their planning to implementation ratio, and introduced to 3 types of teams (Fragmented, Divergent, and Cohesive).  After learning which type of team behavior they’ve exhibited, the 9 Elements of Effective Teamwork give participants specific reflecting points to guide improvement.  They help identify problem areas so that solutions and improvements are possible.

While Jungle Escape is about team dynamics, it also provides a look at individual behaviors, and how each individual can take action to improve the function of their group.  Participants will be able to put their knowledge to work in any team situation or group interaction.  It will instill in them a heightened awareness of what it means to be part of a team, and how each member of a team can be a leader – regardless of their title or rank.

This memorable experience will stay with participants throughout their careers.  When learning is fun, people want to keep doing it.  By creating a positive atmosphere for self-assessment and team improvement, Jungle Escape can transform the future of your teams, your organization, and their continued growth.  Get started today!

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The ROI in the ROI in Training

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“In an economy where good jobs require postsecondary education and training, the growing economic divide between those with and those without postsecondary education and training will continue to widen, fostering intergenerational reproduction of economic and cultural elites inimical to our democratic ethos and our worthiness for leadership in the global contest of cultures.”

~ Anthony Carnevale
   Director
   Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

The job of a trainer extends far beyond the company he works for.  Training is a lasting, irrevocable asset that individuals carry with them throughout their careers.  Training doesn’t just improve the performance of an employee, team, or organization.  It improves the workforce of an entire economic system – which, in turn, ensures the success of individual organizations into the future.

It’s easy to see the limitless benefits of training in the workplace.  But, when it comes to organizational development, it can be difficult to articulate the value of training to a specific company or department.

Dr. Patti Phillips, president of the ROI Institute, has boiled down the ROI in Training to a science in her book The Bottomline on ROI.  Not only does she lay out methods for collecting data and calculating ROI, but shows readers how to present this information in a way that is clear, direct, and effective in communicating the value of training to your organization.

The Bottomline on ROI can help you evaluate your organization’s training programs– to measure their value, improve their efficiency, and to establish training as a meaningful and profitable investment in the future of your workforce.  Calculating and delivering ROI has never been easier or more effective.

Rounding Out a Job Description

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The actual scope of a job is more than the tasks we perform every day.  Especially for those of us whose positions center on interpersonal relationships, there are added responsibilities that are less tangible.  Sometimes, these responsibilities can be more important than our daily tasks – and they require soft skills.

In a recent study of nurse managers, 80 percent reported that they seek new hires with informatics, communication, and leadership skills.  In the same study, 98 percent of practicing nurses reported a desire for more education and training in these areas.  Of this new data, Sheryl Sommer, director of nursing education and curriculum at ATI Nursing Education, said “Nurses require a special set of skills to provide safe, quality nursing care. While historically not the focus of nursing education programs, skills such as communication are critical to improving provider outcomes, lowering healthcare costs and improving the patient experience.”

It’s clear that even jobs heavy on technical skills, like nursing, require additional training and education.  When taking on a role with added interpersonal responsibilities – particularly a leadership role – there is a lot to consider when redefining our position.  It can be a real challenge to take on and adapt to a new job description.  When considering what’s involved in an elevated position, leadership expert and HRDQ author Kevin Eikenberry explains,

“There is one job description and one title, but the role is more complex than that…

[A person in a supervisory role] will have management responsibilities.  These generally include…forecasting, planning, budgeting, monitoring, and managing processes; and communication around these important activities….

[They] will have leadership responsibilities, too.  [They] will be coaching others, facilitating meetings, influencing others both in and outside of [their] group.  [They] will have goal setting responsibilities and will be expected to engage [their] team successfully – so that they get great results.

Admittedly, these two roles (management and leadership) are interconnected, yet they are fundamentally separate, too.  One role is focused on resources and things, the other on people and helping them succeed.

…this still isn’t [their full job].  …[Few people] are full-time managers/leaders (regardless of what the job description says); [they] still have other work to do, too.  It is likely they still have responsibilities more closely connected to [their] past comfort level and expertise.”

He’s created a 3-sector venn diagram to illustrate the many roles of an individual in a leadership position:

Even prepared with the most thorough of job descriptions, new leaders need additional skills to adapt to a change in responsibilities and goals.  Kevin’s training series, Remarkable Leadership, is an all-encompassing guide to integrating the soft skills needed for leadership and management with the hard skills of any technical position.  Make sure your new leaders are prepared to round out their job description with HRDQ leadership resources!

Get started with Remarkable Leadership today!

Back to Basics: Project Management

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Project management is changing.  The use of agility systems has tripled since 2008, and managers need to accommodate changing technologies and methodologies as they surface and proliferate.

Now is the time to strengthen basic project management skills – fundamentals that enable anyone, in any business environment to contribute to the success of their team.  Lou Russell has over 30 years of experience helping businesses reach their full potential, and managing projects of her own.  From her expertise, we can learn to manage projects (and project teams) in changing environments, matrix teams, and agility-based cultures.

Stressing a fast pace and flexibility, Lou developed Rocket: The Project Management Game – a competitive team simulation of project management.  In it, she sets out a simple, four-step model for managing resources; and challenges teams to build a rocket to spec, on time, and on budget.  The experience of putting project management skills to use will not only help individuals learn the fundamentals they need to handle any project that comes their way, but bring teams together as they work to solve problems and remain organized and productive.  Rocket has been an HRDQ favorite since 2009.  Trainers respond to its experiential nature, saying, “It takes a little more effort to do experiential training vs. a lecture, but a month later I know I’m going to get an e-mail saying, ‘A-ha! I get it!’”

In her newest title, Managing Projects: A Practical Guide for Learning Professionals, Russell presents a companion to your project.  Intended to be read in tandem with the steps of project planning and execution, Managing Projects is a schematic for success – laying out not just what needs to be done, but how and why.  Acknowledging that “how” is not always ideal in the real world, Russell provides for stress, change, and deconstruction as part of any project – a key idea for those working with agile methods.  Through clear expository language, visual diagrams, and narrative metaphors, Russell accounts for varied learning styles and gets her messages across to any reader.

Agile project management is here to stay.  Revolutionize your team by first getting back to basics, and keeping your projects on track.  With Rocket and Managing Projects, you’ll have everything you need to reinforce project management skills at every level.  Get started today at the HRDQ Store!

Active Training Resources for Experiential Learning

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Each of us has our own learning style.  The challenge of any trainer is to provide effective training across all styles – and we believe the solution is Experiential Learning.

Our training solutions don’t just tell how something should be done. They show you. With HRDQ’s materials, your audience is asked to reflect, experience, practice, modify, and integrate. Learners are given the opportunity to engage in exercises that enable them to discover the value of a skill—and then practice doing it. Once they’ve done it, they know they can do it even better the next time. And that’s what leads to improved performance and results for your organization.

We also believe that learning is never complete.  In order to remain a healthy (employee, leader, teammate) person, we must always be learning – about ourselves and others, about what we do and how we do it.

While Experiential Learning lends itself very well to in-depth training sessions with ample time for discussion and reflection, it is also a fantastically appropriate vehicle for refreshing your team with interim support.

With HRDQ’s range of training activity collections, you can make sure your team is always learning, always engaged, and always working toward common goals.

Pump them Up is a collection of 35 two-hour workshops on various aspects of teambuilding.  The collection includes a team assessment to determine needs and areas for improvement, and activities for enhancing your team’s goals and procedures, leadership, communication, trust and conflict resolution, problem solving and decision making, group dynamics, and growth and development.

The Exploring Personal Styles Activity Collection, the perfect follow-up to any personality-style training, helps participants learn to accept and appreciate their differences. With over 30 activities ranging from light and easy-going to more in-depth, this Jungian-inspired collection generates compelling group discussions and insight into the unique qualities of each personality dimension.

Pen and Paper Games for Training, a collection of 40 activities that exercise both the logical left and creative right sides of the brain, is appropriate for both group learning and one-to-one coaching. The collection has many different applications including communication, presentation, listening, and problem-solving skill development. The exercises range from quick, adrenaline-raising energizers to complex activities.

25 Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Activities takes your team through the process of solving problems – from recognizing the issue at hand to developing a plan to acting on that plan to reviewing the results.  This collection provides activities that strengthen and reinforce the skills needed at each step of problem solving – ensuring preparedness no matter where you are in the process.

Keep your training active and memorable with Experiential Learning from HRDQ!