Author: Jack Shaw

A great training package! This outside training group has a super online presence with an impressive list of companies, the right degrees (the right schools, too), tons of publications and pre-packaged training developed by someone else–experts, of course, and best of all–they are going to come in and tell you what they can do for your company. I hope by now you can tell I’m being facetious. I can think of a lot of clichés right now, but I’m going to resist and let you fill in the blanks. You know…the importance of what’s outside and what’s inside.

We all know how complicated the world of business is, and how easy it is to let someone tell us what’s going to work for us because it worked elsewhere. Did it really work elsewhere? This group said it did. There are company testimonials on the fancy, very professional-looking website, or the brochure, or the presentation; however, you know the proof may be in the phone call you asked your assistant to make to all the companies listed as references before you talk too much about business.

If the training group representatives are too busy to wait, maybe they don’t have the time to really take a good look at your company and see where it is differs from other companies, or see what your company really needs in the way of training that really does need customization, or really do the homework required. That’s a problem.

Does this particular training outfit look for ways your company is similar to other companies it has worked with and bring in the same or slightly modified to look customized for your company? Although it may sound a little fishy, it is a business reality in a capitalistic world. Time is money. An easier client may be the next appointment. That’s the reality.

I don’t like a hard sell, and I don’t care for flashy tactics. But we do get busy and the flashier professional look often wins. Why? Because it looks good on paper and can sell, sell, sell. Is that what you really want? To be sold, or to get results? I doubt being “sold” a bill of goods is what made you what you are today. Are you one to order a steak cooked one way and when it comes back another, do not send it back? Not unless you are willing to accept whatever the server brings you. That doesn’t sound like money well spent. The best return on the investment. So, what is? That depends on what your company needs.

I’m not saying the not-as-shiny-looking training group or individual that comes into your office promising results is better either. You want a return on your investment. A little research, a little more time spent checking references can save a lot in the long run. The new guy, the break off company, may take the time to see you get what you want. He has to earn your respect and the respect of those you know. If he broke away from another training group and started his own, check it out. It could be he didn’t like the way the group did business, and wanted a chance to try it another way–his way–or what he thinks is the right way. How does he answer that very tough question? Like someone in business competition or with sincerity you can feel. Feelings are allowed in business I understand. Facts and figures can be made up easier than creating a whole person. Feelings can fare better than facts and figures when personality and character counts.

Of course, when it comes down to it, busy people skip steps, multi-task, try to do it all; some times that’s not a good idea. Resist the urge. The bottom line is at stake. Yours. Your people trained in the way they need to be trained may not be in the “book” or “pre-packaged proven” tactics. They may be perfectly fine packages and tactics, but I’d rather have someone hash it out with the same kind of passion I have for my company, with my goals in mind–not a group or individual looking for a quick fix to throw together that will impress you and win the contract. Don’t be sold efficiency. Demand it. Demand it of vendors, too. Ride the bull if you wish, just watch out for the horns.

One last word of advice: look at the training representatives and ask yourself some questions. Are they salespeople or trainers? Are they looking to close or looking for opportunity to do it right. It’s all in the perspective.

There’s nothing wrong with big training groups, professional-looking accouterments, and strong, dynamic personalities. Some may be a perfect fit for your company; some not so much. You want employees to fit your company so why not hire the people who train them to be what you want them to be? Shouldn’t they fit, too? If you don’t do the hiring of outside trainers yourself and have an HR or training officer do it, you wouldn’t be wrong to ask them to check references before they bring you the possibly glitzy package they decided on. We aren’t infallible.

Of course, all opinions here are my own. Want to see more on this and other topics, check out my website. You’ll find my training and development articles, right here on the Free Management Library site. I write on other things, too, mostly about communication, behavior and human performance. Want to tell a different side to the story? Please comment here, contact me on my website, or e-mail me–and I promise to respond. Or, do a longer piece by guest writing on The Free Management Library by following the directions at the top of the page.

For a look at the human side of training from my Cave Man perspective, please check out my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. Happy training.

Some days I long for the days of just knowing and doing my part for the cave, but that was a long time ago. It was more basic then. I taught myself. Not really. I observed and modeled the behavior of others, my elders. They knew what to do. Sometimes, I saw what they did and thought another way might be useful and tried it. If that new way worked better, I kept doing it that way. If not, there was no point to keeping it.

I looked outside for the best ways to do things, and found others who had already discovered very good ways and copied them. It was simpler that way and saved time. I learned that if I sharpened my spear and kept it sharpened I was more likely to kill the first time I threw it and struck my prey. I already knew where the vital organs were; my father taught me–or was it my uncle? I taught my brothers. Later, when game was scarce I had to do what the others who couldn’t hunt did. I gathered roots, herbs, berries, fruits and vegetables–anything edible–even bark for medicine. Who taught me how…I can’t remember, but she was old and wise, experienced in the ways.

I became more and more experienced myself in other matters of my cave as well. Others sought me out to share that experience, and some of my own good ideas, too; and so I was proud. We even shared those ideas with other caves or tribes of the plains. In my own cave, I was recognized as someone good to follow–and others who sought to learn from my example, who followed me, who saw what I saw and did what I did.

It was a simple life. Hard but good.

Then, a stronger cave combined forces with another cave or tribe came and took our land with our natural resources, and many of our people. It made that cave stronger and us weaker. Only a few of us survived, and we started again. As one who was more experienced, I became one of the leaders. We found new land and new resources, and others like us, or those with another clan or tribe looking for a chance to do more for themselves –too make us strong again. And, we were.

We are strong and get stronger everyday. We stand up to the clan/tribe that defeated us before, and they regard us with respect; they dare not attack. They know we are smart. We find ways to work around each other, even together when we must. We map out territories; it works out well for everyone. We have even begun to send old and wise ones to teach them some of our new ways–especially if it helps both our clans. We have much to share. It is making us both solid and safe. It is our hope it will make us thrive as a people for a long time, and there will always be plenty.

The leaders must keep us secure. They know things. They must continue to be clever. That way we can always keep our people fed and healthy. The caves and the tribes all have smart people who learn what they need to learn. They seem to never stop. This, I think, is a good thing. We will survive and grow. We are a wise people.

Training changes you. It makes you better for the company and you can never get away. They won’t let you; you’ve become too valuable to lose to a competitor. Sure it makes it easier for you to do your job, but it makes you think of more things that make you even more invaluable to the company; it makes more work for you–okay, and more money, promotions-therefore responsibility, and prestige or reputation. Credibility. Can you handle it?

A little different approach, I admit. But don’t you get the feeling that sometimes it’s just so obvious–that it’s all around us, waiting for us to take advantage? The survival skills we learned in prehistoric times are still valid–only we have labels. See another article of mine, What Would the Cave Man DO: How We learned All We Know About Training. Training is not just part of a job; it’s part of life and survival of the fittest. The fittest are those who keep learning when you don’t have time to wait millions of years for evolution to kick in. Sorry, Darwin.

Please check out my other articles here on the subjects of training and communication. I love credibility in the workplace, seeing good plan come together, and I love seeing people who love their jobs. Specialists are great, but thinking outside the clichéd box belongs to those specialists and others, who are always willing to learn, always looking for connections; they are the cave man learners of today. I also have a website where my views go beyond training and development. I co-exist in another world of performance criticism and commentary as you’ll find on my website. Look under WHAT I SAY. You’d be surprised how these worlds intersect. Communication is after all, communication. The best communicators can sell anything or not have to. Our job is only part of who we are. Now, where did I put my spear…

For a different approach to what training is good for, check out this article by Robert Bacal, of Bacal and Associates: Training — Ugh! What is it good for?

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

For a look at the human side of training from my Cave Man perspective, please check out my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. Happy training.

We have to understand and cater to our worker needs now more than ever for a company to be successful. I’ve been mulling over this for some time–since I received the following comment:

In the past few years the training field perhaps more than any other has been undergoing tremendous transition and evolution–from a warm-and-fuzzy function housed in an office all the way down the hall to a strategically aligned business unit to…what? First lets review why training unequivocally has arrived as a profession…

I believe it was my job as a teacher of “fuzzy” subjects, as now, to take those “warm and fuzzy” subjects and demonstrate their relevance in the real world. When you’re a teenager, even a smart one, you still see the world in black and white. I probably won’t surprise you that I delighted in getting my college students to see the gray areas and venture out in the colorful creative world.

Funny thing. We admire those heroes who think outside the organization protocols; if what they do benefit us, we are happy.

These heroes do not see black and white, but many shades of gray or even color; in some cases they see more of the real world we do not. I’d be willing to bet they are more than engineers, scientists, or business strategists; they are Renaissance men and women. They understand people and behavior, and they understand how they interact with one another.

Where did they get this wisdom? They may have learned the business and corporate side of an issue, but underneath it all is communication, plain and simple, as well as philosophy and psychology, and the arts (how we humans behave in a variety of situations), which we know was here long before discussion of management as we know it today, and I might even be willing to bet some of the principles we so admire in that field may have come from philosophy.

As for problem solving, decision making and leadership you have to go back much further.

So, “training unequivocally has arrived as a profession,” not today, but long before there was even such a thing as business management. See my article on “What Would A Caveman DO?” You may not like the idea that training may be “a strategically aligned business unit.” It doesn’t elevate the status of a “warm and fuzzy” to the cold, empirical world of business, does it? A hundred or so years ago, business could be just calculating and its only worries were profits and growth. Today the business world is different. It’s more sophisticated, more complex and based more on human ingenuity–human engineering–many different people and their innovations. There’s also a “warm and fuzzy” unit called customer service. Our people who work for us have to be motivated to work, and people have to want to deal with us as a company. It’s not just about survival–at least not what we usually think of as survival.

As we became bigger than a series of teams and become individuals working alone or sporadically in different teams, we began to work different projects with different people and stopped looking after one another. It became important to communicate well to make sure our orders were understood; it became important to have the entire company follow the boss’ vision.

We compartmentalized, and with compartmentalizing we put functions in separate areas so we could concentrate people on what they did best. Sometimes the compartments become disconnected through no fault of their own because they appear not to have a valid function. I worked at Air Force Logistics Command (that’s what it was called then), and wrote feature articles for the command news service. We had so 90,000 people in the command with more than 7,000 in the headquarters building alone. You could argue the Pentagon had more “compartments,” but I doubt it. The easiest way to get a story was to walk into an office at random and ask what they did there. Compartmentalization had gone so far as to make them lonely for attention even though I’m sure they had important jobs.

Like public relations, you may not think you need them until there is a crisis. Training has the ability to be a part of the organization because it deals with keeping people proficient and happy in their jobs; it promotes the company’s future without depending on sales, bonuses and profits.

If the term offends, don’t call it training. If it makes workers wary, call it something else. I’ve always liked “professional development” or even “personal development.” In the past, smart big companies someone or several people served those functions–maybe not in the same compartmentalized way as we do now, but they were aligned to business interests at the top.

My own definition of training is broad. Most activities I call training are as benign to you as reading email, reading a magazine on a related subject, listening intently at a staff meeting. These are all a part of continuous training. Our assessments tell the managers what is needed on the human resource side of things, our training plans tell us where we are going and how long it will take to get there, and if we have to hire more people.

Cathy Missildine-Martin, SPHR, of Intellectual Capital Consulting, has been a Human Resources specialist for more than 20 years. She knows how important it is for HR to be a part of the whole business picture–and that includes training. She is often asked by college students about why get into HR. I love her enthusiasm, and I think you’ll see some similarities in our answers:

1. Our company led a strategic boot camp in Atlanta a few weeks ago. It was an all day event spent working on linking organizational strategy to HR activities. It was awesome. I saw HR professionals from some of our biggest companies, from government and education and small business, roll up their sleeves and really get the “hard-stuff.” The conversations were awesome and each person was truly speaking the language of their business.
2. I see a lot of interest around metrics and analysis from HR professionals. As this work is my passion, I see the demand rising for this type of knowledge. Our C-Suite demands data and HR is gearing up to deliver. Brilliant!
3. Gone are the days just talking about being strategic and business partners and table sitters. I am so glad as I was so tired of those conversations. I now hear conversations around real business topics like how to drive strategy and how to make sure the workforce is as productive as it can be. Love it!

“So my message is this…Go into HR but go in with a business perspective. Lead the change, and make a difference. People being productive at work is the end game and HR can impact whether that gets done….or not!”

I’m sure, depending on your business size, training and development may not play a direct part all the time, but it certainly plays an important part. Remember, public relations and customer service? Someone has to consider issues other than business, but they are important issues that affect business, aren’t they?

Well, those are my thoughts on the subject. Applying what I know, coupled with some guesswork. We don’t have time for a history lesson, but if you have more information on the subject and care to share, please add your comments below. We can always learn from a good dialogue. If you want to know more about humble me and my thoughts on other subjects, besides training and development, check out my website. Thanks for taking the time to read this commentary and don’t hesitate to add your own.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

For a look at the human side of training from my Cave Man perspective, please check out my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. Happy training.

The Need: Training for Change ~

Marsh & McLennan Companies put out a white paper on Strategic Organization Design: An Integrated Approach

In the paper it states “every industry and business sector, competition continues to intensify. New players are suddenly changing the basic rules of the game with new products, technologies, distribution patterns, and business models. To succeed, leaders must understand the concepts and learn the skills involved in designing their organizations in ways that will unleash and maximize these core capabilities.”

Senior organizational leaders are constantly facing the need to restructure their organizations. That means changes. Changes in leadership, shifts in strategy, or other needed within an organization, creating the need for reorganizing. While organization design is one senior managers’ most powerful tools for changing the direction of their organizations, it can’t work without everyone being on board. Only then can it be a key in directing attention and energy to certain critical activities in an organization.

Organizational leaders, however, often lack the totally objective ability to go about it. It seems they know how to structure their organizations, but it’s not a one -person job. According to the Marsh and McLennan white paper:

“Efforts at restructuring are often uneven and unsystematic. Decisions to reorganize are often made with insufficient information and without a clear process to guide the effort. The result is that reorganizations often fail to produce the desired effects, leading instead to further confusion or problems within the organization.”

How does training fit into all this? Changes big and small must be made for a restructuring or reorganization to work. Ultimately no one can be left out. People need to accept change wholeheartedly for it to work. It is the disgruntled, misinformed employees especially among key staff, giving lip service to your ideas, that will bring it down or make it ineffective.

I have seen reorganization that involved only senior staff and the result was a long-term disaster, leaving not only organizational staff confused but also key partners and stakeholders. Clients were frustrated. Keeping as few key personnel as possible in the initial process is not such a bad idea, but there is one key I would not leave out. The training director, who will be invaluable when it comes to moving the entire organization to the implementation process with minimal difficulty and buy-in.

Granted there will always be issues when change comes into play, but leave that to those who can soft-pedal notion of change because that is what’s really bothering them–not the re-organization itself.

Change is more than just about immediate concrete changes. Let someone qualified in change to keep an eye on the personnel needs to deal with change; the training director should have a key role in analyzing those needs going into the process. Assuming the training director has a fair degree of autonomy within the company, he or she should understand how the company operates–if not the training director’s job just got more complicated. The same goes for public relations, public information, employee relations, and corporate communication.

Strategic Organization Design is a four-phase participative process intended to provide senior leaders with a systematic, step-by-step method for examining the structure of their organizations. The four-phases are as follows:

• Preliminary Analysis
• Strategic Design
• Operational Design
• Implementation

The preliminary analysis involves the collection of information necessary for making design decisions. Once you have accomplished the preliminary analysis. I am assuming it involves a participatory process providing for a systematic, step-by-step method for examining the structure of the organization.

The process should involve facilitation as a means of including participative training and gaining buy-in. Facilitated interviews are conducted focusing on the strategy of the organization, the key tasks being performed and current strengths and weaknesses of the organization. Some like to use the term, “structured” interviews, but I think that leaves opportunities for others to say just what you want them to say. With objective facilitation, more of the truth comes out. Not that your people are trying to deceive you, they are trying to be team players. That, of course, doesn’t help at this stage of the game when you are looking for flaws in current organizational design. Operational design involves the structuring of supervisory roles, information flows, and jobs within the context of the strategic design decisions. Implementation involves managing the transition from the current design to a new design.

Training or informing of those changes is a critical role the trainer can simplify. It most likely will involve key staff, including the CEO. If everything comes down from the top, it will be disputed–especially if the employees feel they weren’t consulted along the way; again, that’s the job of training, public information even an employee representative.

If you do nothing else, enlist the aid of training to start a campaign of adapting to change; that, at least, will tell people change is coming and how to cope with it. Knowledge of the some of the options won’t hurt a thing and might help. You might have a genius out there who sees what you and your senior staff do not–maybe a process so simple it elicits a, “Gee, why didn’t I think of that.” Yet, another good reason to them involved.

While an employee representative sounds perfect, be careful. You most definitely need information on the employee impact of the union to your plan, but you also want to work out solutions beneficial to management and employees before implementation. Training and public relations can help since it is their jobs to communicate the right message.

To get people thinking about change, hold a good idea contest, with the winner getting some time off or a bonus, for the most innovative idea for moving forward with the reorganization. Now you’ve stimulated the employees, maybe even excited them with the prospect of change. If your changes involve letting personnel go, a box as for suggestions on dealing with that issue might be useful to generate ideas while letting everyone know that is not the primary goal of the reorganization.

Marsh and McLennan Companies also have white paper on Using Organizational Assessment to Lead Change.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

For more information on training development or delivery, presentation development or presenting, speech development or speaking, check out my website. Please feel free to comment. I’m open to all views. My own views of training are influenced by a background in psychology and communication as much as my experience as a national training developer and trainer. My views are my own and I hope that I stimulate ideas in the course of presenting them. For a look at the human side of training from my Cave Man perspective, please check out my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. Happy training. I look forward to hearing from you.

In response to one of my articles, someone asked me, “Since when did training become part of a company’s success strategy?” Or, something like that. I think it was when companies started giving employees the freedom to control their professional destinies. At least that was when it became necessary. Before then, employees were told every move and how hard to work to keep their jobs. If you depend on people to do their jobs without a whip or club of losing their jobs–if you don’t need to motivate them to do what you need them to do, or don’t care if your employees contribute extra and unique ideas to the success of the company, I guess you don’t need training to be part of that equation.

Once people know their jobs, it is critical to maintain that level of proficiency, hopefully without whip or club, through continuous learning. I never gave the that training label much thought, and a definition here is really unnecessary. It’s perfectly stated, at least the way I see it. There are no steps because we are doing it continuously. We don’t take steps. Every article I write on training belongs under the Continuous Learning category. Why? Because if we hold a job–any job really, or we are involved with training in any way, learning to do our jobs better, maintaining our competitive edge, we need continuous learning. It’s not just about reading the latest journals. Even reading our emails that have nothing directly to do with our jobs contribute to our continuous learning.

If you believe that you have to sign up for additional training courses, refresher courses, enrichment courses, education courses to be completing your “continuous learning” requirement, I think you would be mistaken. In times of plenty it was so easy to use that avenue to check it off the training list. The trainers said you had to have it, and that was one way to take care of the requirement, and, of course, there were and still are, plenty of peddlers who will sell it to you online, too. Was it so easy that way that we have become complacent in seeking out other kinds of sources? There are other sources for learning everywhere you look–that is, if you’re looking for them.

Actually, it’s even easier than you think. We even have some free sources we can turn to as well, and some as useful, depending on how we use them. What if your company can’t afford to buy the commercial products or services? That’s a reality in today’s market. We trainers certainly want the business as much as anyone, but there are ways we can recommend that are free that can help in tough times. Anything that helps us stay current, consider other options, reflect on best practices or failed practices is worth learning. While paid “extra” training is nice, it’s sometimes just not practical or affordable to everyone in business. An employee who shows initiative in seeking out expertise, knowledge, etc., that will help him or her do a better job can only look good to his superiors. Continuous learning opportunities abound right in front of you, and those are the ones most overlooked.

Everything related to what you do for a living is reflected everyday in the media. An article talking about the current economic trends so common today mentions your particular type of business, or related business. That’s information you can add to your knowledge of what it is you do. It’s important to know how to relate what you do to the world around you. In talking about training and development, and education in general, we have to talk about the world of work. Educators need to know what companies want so they can prepare students to enter the world of work. That’s your world. Some great scholarly knowledge or research might just be waiting for you to add to your professional knowledge repertoire.

Not only does the news and information media provide learning, but so do the social and professional networks. They are filled with perspectives, best practices and good ideas we can use. Twitter can be a wealth of knowledge if you check out the links. Granted, sometimes these links are filled with “selling points,” but even what someone else is selling and how they are selling it can be important. Get in the social and professional mix by throwing in your expertise and opinions, ask questions, and build professional relationships with others in similar positions in similar companies. You never know what expertise will be yours for free. It’s bound to make your job more enjoyable. Problem solve, exchange ideas. The networking, useful in so many ways, is a bonus.

If you have read many of my articles here, or others on my website, you’ll notice I am always looking for connections. And, with my diverse background my connections may seem far afield, and yet, I am amazed at how so much connects. Now, I’m not trying to be the smartest kid in the class, or the one with the most knowledge on everything; I’m always looking for ways to do my job better. Continuously learning and noting new information (at least being aware of it) is essential to demonstrating you are on top of your game. This includes making connections with material you come across in related areas. I’m sure you’ll agree that not knowing so and so at Company X was doing this truly innovative practice and his company was getting tons of notice is not a way to impress your boss. Knowing similar approaches that might work for your product or service, or the mere fact you have explored these other avenues makes you look good.

I’m always interested in what you have to say. Never know when you will spark an idea for a new blog–one you’ll appreciate. Don’t agree with my point of view? give us you. I’m all about communication and networking. I’ll probably ask to connect with you on LinkedIn. For more articles that reach as far as business applications communication and performance skills, please check out my website. Also, check out my site if you need training developed or a program presented? Let’s chat. I mean what I say when I say my place or yours; have passport, will travel. All you have to do is pay travel and expenses. For reasonable market prices, you get guy who’s passionate about communicating, who looks at motivating people to love what they do and to love training. I love a good challenge. I’m the guy who said “you could train people to read minds“–almost. I also said I’ll “make your mission impossible an affair to remember.” I’ll work with your trainers, staff, executives at any level to get the job done. Oh, and did I say I’m a believer in continuous learning?

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

For a look at the human side of training from my Cave Man perspective, please check out my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. Happy training.

In training, using what tools and methods work in any given environment has to be what we are about. While e-Learning design is certainly not my specialty, it is the specialty of Tobias Jedlund, winner of the Best eLearning Designer award, who is my guest blogger today. You can reach Tobias at Tobias.Jedlund@redvector.com.

What follows is an interview between Tobias and the award’s organizers, Maestro eLearning.

Q. What kind of eLearning work do you do?

My day typically consists of course development. The duties that go along with that include writing, organizing, and arranging content. Once the content is organized, I develop supporting interactions, graphics, animation, audio, and video elements.

Other parts of my day may include maintenance, review, and supporting co-workers in course development and other multimedia needs. Currently I am spending the majority of my time incorporating audio into our courses.

Q. What are some of your trustiest resources?

• Photos.com
• FlashKit.com
• Lynda.com
• theElearningCoach.com
• Lectora’s user community
• Websites: just about anything that I come across that inspires me (colors, interaction, layouts, navigation, designs)
• Design books for web, graphic, media, and art
• Personal sketches/drawings

Q. How about tools? What are some of your most useful e-Learning tools?

• Lectora
• Adobe Photoshop, Flash, Captivate, Media Encoder, Premiere, and Acrobat
• Microsoft Office
• Audacity
• Snag-it
• iMovie
• Quicktime

Q. For course development, how do you organize your content? What’s your process?

After receiving the content I go through the following steps:

1. Determine target audience and purpose of the course.
2. Read through the content to gain an understanding of the material.
3. Create learning objectives.
4. Break up content into manageable sections and chapters. I typically create an outline.
5. Using the outline as a guide, I begin laying out the text in our development tool. Essentially I am creating a storyboard.
6. As I am laying content out, I make notes regarding images, interaction, page design, and media elements.
7. Review the content and make adjustments to text as needed.
8. Create and develop all the graphics, images, interactivity, and multimedia content.
9. Create checkpoint questions.
10. Review course and make any final edits/updates.

One thing that I am passionate about is visuals. My background is media production and that is what got me into Instructional Design. I am currently working on a visual arts degree and one of my goals is to successfully integrate visual art theories and design into the eLearning environment.

Online courses have to compete for attention in a world of 3D movies, phone apps, and social media. As online media continues to evolve, learners demand an ever-increasing level of style and engagement in every interaction. They are expecting a “wow” factor, so the challenge for instructional designers becomes how to create courses with high engagement and visual impact that still deliver the highest quality content to meet course objectives. There needs to be a balance so that visuals enhance the transfer of knowledge instead of hindering it.

I truly believe that there needs to be a shift from the way eLearning is presented. I look forward to the future of eLearning and the challenges that this industry will have.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

About the Interviewer

Maestro eLearning is a customer service company in the business of creating custom online training courses. They’re collaborating with industry professionals to deliver more value in their series “Trainer Talks.” If you would like to participate in an interview or suggest an interview candidate, perhaps a top-performing employee or a brilliant colleague, contact genatyalor@maestroelearning.com.

For more information on a multitude of different approaches and viewpoints on training and development as well as other practical topics about businesses, nonprofit and government organizations, look to this blog and The Free Management Library. For more information on the Blog Host, (Jack Shaw), and other articles I have written on related subjects, please check out my website. By all means, if you are a guest blogger in your own right and have something to say, please let me know at jshaw2040@yahoo.com.

Feel free to disagree with my point of view and provide your own if you are so inclined. There’s plenty of room for different opinions and gives us balance. Also, if you have a topic you’d like to hear more about, let me know. A discussion you’d like to get several points of view? I like to keep it lively and interesting.

For a look at the human side of training from my Cave Man perspective, please check out my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. Happy training.

As I often get my inspiration from networking with other training professionals, I ran across a response to a question posted on LinkedIn. This question comes up for time to time, and it’s a good question: What is the difference between a good trainer and a great trainer? I found Avinash Naidu’s answer to be exactly what I was looking for so I rushed out and asked him if I could use his response.

Of course I didn’t fly all the way to Bangalore, India. I used e-mail, and he graciously gave me permission.

Avinash Naidu’s institution, Maarga Life Foundation, a premiere life skills institute in India, is transforming the lives of people by teaching them key skills that is helping them lead successful and happy lives. As you are reading this, he is out there solving emotional problems of people, mentoring, coaching and conducting training programs for corporations.

“There is very little to debate on while deciding between a good and a bad trainer (in the context of training). The problem arises when we have to choose between a good and a great trainer. Anybody who is passionate about training can deliver a good program, but only a selected few can combine passion, intelligence, commitment, and cutting-edge skills to deliver programs of lasting value.

“Here is a common misconception while judging the value of a training program. If the trainer is able to engage the attendees throughout the session, and is able to create a wow factor by the end of the program, he/she is usually considered to be a great trainer. But, nothing can be further from the truth. A training program’s real worth can only be judged based on the lasting value it is able to create. Almost all trainers, with a little effort, would be able to create that wow factor. Most companies fall into the trap of believing that an engaging program is a great program. I believe that if engagement is the most important criteria, then attendees are better off watching a meaningful two-hour movie than attending a day long training program! Great trainers have the ability to move beyond engagement levels to create programs of lasting value.

“Here is one way of delivering an outstanding program of lasting value. Firstly, even before starting the subject of discussion, powerful learning states have to be created by getting the attendees on to thinking, analyzing, learning and interpreting mode. This is absolutely necessary to move the attendees from a judgmental mode to an accepting mode. Secondly, the golden rule of communication has to be followed –that is, if you want to influence somebody, you already have to know what influences them.

“First few hours of the training program should be dedicated to understand more about the attendee’s interests, aspirations, beliefs and influencing factors. Once the basic rapport has been established, important ideas have to be conveyed and the attendees should be allowed to present their interpretations. This process has to be followed to convey all new ideas – build rapport, present the idea, accept the interpretations. Finally, the trainer should use this entire process to create strong, unforgettable mental images that the attendees can hold on to long after the training program has ended. The ability to artfully do this differentiates an ordinary trainer from an extraordinary one.”

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

If you would like more information on Avanish Naidu or his Foundation, click here.

As for Jack Shaw, his training blogs can be found on this site, and related blogs on other topics through his Actingsmarts website under What I Say. For a look at the human side of training from his Cave Man perspective, please check out his book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. Happy training.

Today mentors can and should provide expertise to protégés (males) or protégées (females)–essentially less experienced individuals to help them advance their careers, enhance their education, and build their networks. While mentoring is an important aspect to leadership training, it does not hold to a typical training environment or process; however, its tradition has existed even longer than traditional training.

Wikipedia always comes to the rescue when you need immediate clarification and not too much depth. It describes “mentoring” as a process that always involves communication and is relationship based, but its precise definition is elusive. There are two basic types of mentoring involving the training and development process that we are concerned with in this forum:

1. the new-hire mentor. In this case, a more experienced person, not necessarily one of the people high up in the company heirarchy but high enough “sponsors” a new employee, giving them a polite tour of the corporate culture and then there is
2. the high-potential mentorship. Usually, when we think of mentoring, we think of this kind–where especially selected employees are offered the opportunity to develop a relationship with a senior leader.

Both fit Wikipedia’s general definition: “Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé).”

Even so, can you train mentors and mentees to maximize the benefit and miss the formality imposed by training?

I think it’s possible, but there has to be some structure–points that focus and provide opportunities for mentees to learn important points of interpersonal and public communication, problem-solving/leadership techniques, company technical expertise and time management.

The only difference here and regular training is that the mentor is the trainer. Once the mentor is aware of the need for this focus, most leaders/senior management understand the need for training, and some would even welcome some structure to a system that is still sorting itself out.

Let’s face it: a mentor with a plan–that’s training. The new-hire mentor, as a mid-level employee, has nothing to lose and everything to gain if he treats his own mentee to real training, and guides him or her in the same way as the higher-level mentor; and his mentee would be a fool not to accept it. In the case of a high-potential mentorship, the bigger problem may actually be the trainee, the protégé or protégée–better known as the mentee who feels entitled to special treatment.

In this situation, we simply can’t train for the mentee position; someone has to be anointed–which, by the way, is not intended to be a negative sense. By virtue of being in that prime position, we may have someone who will only take direction from his or her mentor. That is why it is the mentor that must “do” the training.

To be one of the “anointed ones,” someone has to be noticed–having those qualities perceived by the the company or its leaders as “the right stuff” to be a leader of the future. That being said, it is important to note that Tom Wolfe’s novel, The Right Stuff, about the early space program is not about those men who do, in fact, have “the right stuff” defined by what is needed to fly a rocket into space, but rather what is perceived by the public as “the right stuff.” We know now that the Mercury astronauts were not selected for their ability to fly jets, but rather their reputation, and physical ability to take the rigors of space. Monkeys and dogs did sit in the same place and perform the same functions.

Unlike Wolfe’s message, which was not one of promise or fulfillment, the mentor program of today–just like the mentor program of days long past–still strive to select the very best and make it work. No one will argue the importance of such a program to the retention of key personnel and corporate knowledge.

A mentor will sometimes see himself or herself in an employee and decide this person with their guidance and wisdom can one day run the company. To make the mentoring process work, there has to be a deliberate effort to mold and shape an individual. Shadowing alone is not enough. Training mentors to train their mentees may be one way. Mentors who take the job seriously stand to do great things for a company’s future and much for their own legacy.

Mentoring in Europe has existed since at least Ancient Greek times. It’s really only since the 1970s that mentorism has spread in the United States, mainly in leadership training contexts. It has been described as “an innovation in American management.” If done well, the mentoring process will indeed serve the individual by providing the necessary exposure to the reality, the best training an employee can have, i.e., the experiential training needed to do the job.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

For a look at the human side of training from my Cave Man perspective, please check out my book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. Happy training.