Category: Training & Development

Trainers who have nothing to say aren’t really trainers. They may be entrepreneurs really. Quite frankly some have just learned how to make a buck with social media in particular and are good at jingoism. Or, to give them more respect, they could be speakers and even trainers who have sold good training tools, depending on how rich the content.

Let’s not confuse these people with people who have 30 plus years of experience and know how to handle an audience. The ones I’m talking about are people with a gimmick–a slogan–a buzz word–a challenge… I like this one “a secret” for success in doing something. When I hear “a secret” I always hear Charlie Brown’s sister, Sally, singing from his musical, “Why are you telling me” from “My New Philosophy.” It almost makes sense in a perverse way. If it is a secret, why tell a room full of people and advertise for more people. Well, of course, it’s the mystery of it all, the drama. It’s the same reason, we put numbers in our titles: to promote simplicity in today’s busy and complex world. A total fantasy.

Now, let me tell you what this is all about and you’ll see why my opening paragraph fits as well. I was going down a list of “entrepreneurs” on LinkedIn talking about their training sessions, the titles of which sounded like something you could learn in a conversation. There has to be more to this. It must be me who has lost touch with the real world, you see.

My most basic of presentations is on presenting. In the title, I use what my audience can’t imagine possible, tell them it is very possible and more when we’re finished, but I don’t promise them the world. There is mystery there and a hint that it will be more than the basics, which it is. It’s catchy, but not jingoistic. I can’t display it here for copyright reasons.

In a way, it’s as if social media has changed the art of selling what we do as the film trailers we see of blockbuster films. What we do is about as content filled as some of those blockbusters, filled with a lot bang instead. They are trying to reach the most audience possible. Whatever happened to target marketing? I guess it’s still there. After all, I see these ads.

So, it’s a tough line. We want to sell our products so how do we compete with those above; they do seem to be doing a bang-up business. They seem to have this social media thing wrapped up. We have to do the same thing. How can you tell the good ones from the bad ones? You can’t. But now you have spend as much as they do on social media, including web pages to sell your training products or services.

For those you have followed or read my blog before, you know that I comment on everything training and sometimes other subjects. Okay, I speak my mind, but I put myself in the same category: trainer or speaker, at least most of the time. I’m going to share some of the words of another blogger, Peter Watts, (Writer, Coach & Trainer, and author of The Presenters’ Blog) who I found interesting. He believes using “I” and “holding firm with your beliefs” will help your sell their product or service. Essentially, he’s talking about your boss’s presenters. More of Peter in PART II.

How many times have we seen the boring business presenter? Again, I’m not talking about the famous speaker who has a 30 year track record. And the company so proud because he or she gave out so much information, while audience is scratching their heads hoping for an e-mail address for a follow-up. I had tried for years to make a case for a subject matter expert along side a facilitator – trainer – communicator to make the presentation manageable. “Too expensive,” they said.

The other way, of course, is to train the SMEs to be better presenters. “You can train the SMEs for a presentation next week,” the managers said. Yeah, that’ll work. Or, even better, they completely ignore the trainer they have and hire one of those jingoistic people who will spew a lot rhymes, alliteration and buzz words rather really teach memorable techniques.

That doesn’t happen very often anymore since I retired. Besides university students, I have company/corporate executives who travel a lot and would like help tweaking a speech or performance. My clients believe company/corporate image is important, even internationally. Normally, I will travel to an office, usually a conference room, and watch a dry run of speech, or we may sit down and look at the wording of his or her speech. I’ll ask my client about his or her audience and see how my client addresses them. Often we smooth out language to make it more conversational.

I apologize for talking in generalities; however, my client list is confidential. I do have a similar example that might work instead. A true story as well.

When I moved to Portland, Oregon after visiting Japan, the local media kept calling me asking if the President was in trouble with the Japanese when he literally lost his lunch on a Head of State visit to Japan. Of course, I didn’t work for the President, but I had recently been in Japan and studied the culture since I was debating taking a job there. (I had sent out some news releases upon my return to do communication training.) I’m sure his own people told the President not to worry. In fact, the Japanese were more embarrassed than he that it happened on their turf. — End of PART I

Note. You may have read this blog article in its entirety earlier, but in hindsight I saw that it was much too long to be a single blog and made it two. There aren’t many changes, other than editorial to make it work this way.

Click here to continue directly to PART II, which talks about…

How to Enhance Business Presentations with Opinion, or How to Give Content Rich Program a Personality

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

A final reminder: I do have a website where you can find other items I have written, including coupons for my best selling, The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development and my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! You might even get them for free. Happy Training.

The following is strictly commentary. The comments made here are mine and mine alone, and in no part are related to The Free Management Library.

Powerful corporations taking advantage the general population seems to be the stereotype, doesn’t it? Are, we, trainers, helping them do that? I know this sounds somewhat sacrilegious, since I, too, have been in the business. I have been watching a show on Netflix. I know. Don’t believe everything you see on television. This show is about a future where the corporations are united and are the government, and this corporate government is having the problems with anti-corporate factions, or freedom fighters.

We see a little of that anti-corporate sentiment going on right now–that image in the media–the big corporation against the little man always makes a better story. In this TV story the focus is on a corporate cop who gets transported back to 2012 along with a bunch of criminal freedom fighters from that future world. Interesting premise except these freedom fighters are more like terrorists.

So, why am I going off on such a weird tangent? I’m sure you’ve heard it said that contempt grows from within. Stockholders want to make money and corporate officers want to get ahead. Who could blame them? However, it is they who are responsible for the widening gap between the highest paid and the lowest paid worker. Maybe it isn’t any of our business, but I think we have some responsibility to the people who are being trained by us to produce more for the company.

One way we can help is to encourage leadership, union and the workers whom we train that transparency is best for all. It does make for a happier and more contented workplace. And, with that we have made our customers happy. So it’s win-win.

I was not so amused the other night when a local professional theatre performed HAIR. Three of us reviewed it, and from the reviews I think I was the only one who had lived in the era because the other reviewers saw definite relevance to today’s world. I did not think there was much relevance in the way that the musical intended in 1968, when there was a mega-clash of freedom and the uptight corporate world. Now, it’s not like that; if the clash is coming, it’ll be economic, and corporate greed will be apart of that. That’s the world we live in today. By the way, HAIR was excellent in song, music, sound and choreography, but it did not resonate in relevancy. Yes, there is war, and yes there are people who oppose it, but far more people are understanding it all. They aren’t as divided, making eventual solution possible. HAIR was a wake up call in 1968; HAIR is a reminder in 2013 we need to keep things in perspective.

To be sure, we aren’t directly involved. We don’t have anything to lose really–business-wise. We can carry-on as always–do what we’ve always done and still make a buck. However, to not notice the world around us and the people we train who are part of that world may be a bit irresponsible. Perhaps, it just takes more of us being aware and analyzing our audience as best we can.

This has just been a couple of my thoughts on a Thursday afternoon. I hope maybe I’ve stirred some of yours.

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

A final reminder: I do have a website where you can find other items I have written, including coupons for my best selling, The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development and my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! You might even get them for free. Happy Training.

As promised, here is Part II of Useful Quotes for Training and Education. I have decided, on a whim really, that I will sit down with my new speech students and let them discuss the meaning of the following quotes, and how they might use them in a speech. Of course, there are useful quotes for more than speech class and some of these even fit the bill.

I often use these kinds of quotations to remind my trainees or students in anything I train or teach that learning isn’t just content in the classroom, that experience is important, that failure is only an obstacle, that every moment of everyday is a learning opportunity. It helps sometimes to throw out a name they know or why this person knows what they are talking about.

These quotes were gathered mostly from one site located near the bottom of your page; however there hundreds of similar sites all over the internet, so do a word search on just about any subject and you’ll find. “Robotics” and “artificial intelligence” are easy. Even why a particular law was passed or not passed. Anything. So, quotes are a great way to start or end your speech, or jazz it up in the middle. I have often found the inspiration for a certain viewpoint by following the lead of quote. Of course, it doesn’t always have to be the internet. I have book of quotations as well.

“We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way.” – John Holt

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” – Thomas Henry Huxley

“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo

“Since we live in an age of innovation, a practical education must prepare a man for work that does not yet exist and cannot yet be clearly defined.” – Peter F. Drucker

“Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” – Dianne Ackerman

“Fear is priceless education.” – Lance Armstrong

“Self education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. ” – Isaac Asimov

“Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the guru.” – Charlotte Joko Beck

“A sense of curiosity is nature’s original school of education.” – Smiley Blanton

“Teach them how to fly.” – Dan Chesbro

“The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.” – Marva Collins

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” – Calvin Coolidge

“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” – Albert Einstein

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” – Malcolm Forbes

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether 20 or 80, anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” – Henry Ford

“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.” – Anatole France

“Nine-tenths of education is encouragement.” – Anatole France

“Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.” – Anna Freud

“No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.” – Emma Goldman

“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” – John Harvey

“Learning is movement from moment to moment.” – Krishnamurti

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

“In the ideal college, intrinsic education would be available to anyone who wanted it… The college would be life-long, for learning can take place all through life.” – Abraham Maslow

“Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“What is defeat? Nothing but education, nothing but the first step toward something better.” – Wendell Phillips

“The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done – men who are creative, inventive and discoverers.” – Jean Piaget

“Do not…keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” – Plato

“Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.” – Plato

“Let early education be a sort of amusement. You will then be better able to discover the natural bent.” – Plato

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch

“When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.” – Chinese Proverb

“Human intelligence is richer and more dynamic than we have been led to believe by formal academic education.” – Sir Ken Robinson

“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.” – Carl Rogers

“Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don’t.” – Pete Seeger

“One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment.” – Merle Shain

“The cure for sorrow is to learn something.” – Barbara Sher

“The best teachers are the best storytellers. We learn in the form of stories.” – Frank Smith

“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.” – Mark Twain

“There are no mistakes or failures, only lessons.” – Denis Waitley

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William Arthur Ward

“Civilization is a race between education and catastrophe.” – H. G. Wells

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” – Oscar Wilde

“Education is the mother of leadership.” – Wendell Willkie

“I think education is power. I think that being able to communicate with people is power. One of my main goals on the planet is to encourage people to empower themselves.” – Oprah Winfrey

http://www.joyofquotes.com/education_quotes.html

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

I do have a website where you can find other items I have written. For more information on my peculiar take on training, check out my best selling The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development, and for a look at a world that truly needs a reality check, see my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! Meanwhile, Happy Training.

Quotes. Every speaker, teacher and trainer uses them so I thought I gather a few and place them here. It is interesting to note that some are subtle in meaning and some are not. Some will reach all of your audiences, some will not. Most importantly, I suggest to you that if the total meaning of the quote is not 100 percent clear to you that you do some research so you do and not lose credibility. For example, Descartes’ is quite unusual and stirring and few people know its origins. There are essays and books on the internet if you interested enough.

Better yet, pick quotes your audience will understand and be able to understand. You will notice I include quotes about education as well as training, not because they are the same, but because how we learn best is the same and you will see that expressed many times. Especially the act of doing rather of doing rather sitting in a classroom, which is more likely to be scene in a classroom than in a training environment.

Part II contains many more quotes, but I wanted to whet your appetite so you’d come back for more and if you have a favorite I haven’t listed, please feel free to put it in the comment section. First, is my favorite.

‘Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

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“I think, therefore I am (Cogito, ergo sum.)” – Descartes

“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” – Mark Van Doren, poet

“It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.” – Henri-Frederic Amiel (1821-81), Swiss philosopher, poet

“Learning without thought is labor lost. Thought without learning is intellectual death.” – Confucius

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” – Mark Twain

“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major-perhaps the major-stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.” – Jean Francois Lyotard, French philosopher

“There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.” – Arnold Bennett, British novelist

“What I hear, I forget.
What I see, I remember.
What I do, I understand.”
– Confucius

“When you know something, say what you know. When you don’t know something, say that you don’t know. That is knowledge.” – Confucius

“To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.”
– Lao Tzu

“Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two.” – Octavio Paz

“The road to wisdom?-Well, it’s plain and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.”
– Piet Hein, Danish inventor and poet

“Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.”
– Edward Young

“Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” – B. F. Skinner

“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.” – Mark Twain

“Retention is best when the learner is involved.” – Edward Scannell, University Conference Bureau, Arizona

“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” – Albert Einstein

“It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained.” – Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain

“The only kind of learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered or self-appropriated learning – truth that has been assimilated in experience.” – Carl Rogers

“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself.” – Galileo Galilei

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” – John Powell

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough we must do.” – Goethe

“Live as if your were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Gandhi

“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” – Socrates

“The teacher if he is indeed wise does not teach bid you to enter the house of wisdom but leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” – Kahlil Gilbran, poet and painter

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” – Marcel Proust, French novelist

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William Arthur Ward

http://www.citehr.com/41401-famous-quotes-training-development.html#ixzz2Qolspre6

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Stay tuned for Part II, probably coming out tonight or tomorrow; it just needs some formatting.

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

A final reminder: I do have a website where you can find other items I have written, including coupons for my best selling, The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development and my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! You might even get them for free. Happy Training.

Don’t believe me? It’s basic critical thinking. I look around the internet and people are always asking how do you do this or that, what are the steps? Sometimes I smile and say, “If I tell all my secrets…” Actually I have Mary Ellen Guffey to thank for her article, Five Steps to Better Critical-Thinking, Problem-Solving, and Decision-Making Skills from 1998. I’m just going to borrow her title points and we can try to fill in the blanks with training points.

1. Identify and clarify the problem.
2. Gather information.
3. Evaluate the evidence.
4. Consider alternatives and implications.
5. Choose and implement the best alternative.

At the university where I teach, we start the students off with critical thinking; the logic is to get the students not to just absorb material but to think about it and use it–not unlike training reasoning. I routinely refer to this as creative thinking because even though it appears dry on the surface, digging deeper, brainstorming, exploring, and playing what if are essentially creative tools.

Let’s put this in training terms now.

1. First, we want to know if the problem is real or perceived and the age-old training question: we want to identify that the problem a company has is indeed due to a lack of training. As you know some problems are not training problems at all, but organizational. I, for one, don’t like to do business with anyone who would take a job from me and do work that didn’t need to be done in the first place. So, we find out the extent of the problem and research the company to “clarify” the nature of that problem.
2. Next, we will gather information to evaluate the nature of the evidence (the causes, pinpointing the need that we have determined that needs to be addressed to help us determine what kind of training could be beneficial to resolve the issues
3. Evaluating the evidence for us means looking at all the factors that affect training an organization: size, level, method and balance that against possible solutions to the problems at hand. Not only that, but here we are looking for spoilers: misinformation, office politics, rigged statistics, etc. We need to ferret out the truth.
4. All the while we are looking at alternatives to training and different kinds of training, and even if we are the right trainers for the job, as well as the implications our training may have in the short and long term. We must take into account cost factors as well as methods. We are scrutinizing ourselves just as must as we have scrutinized the problem.
5. Decision time. It would seem now we have enough material to deal with, and that’s just from the company-level; there is also the hands-on training to consider that comes next, and to consider ways to monitor it in the future to see the training lasts or needs refreshers.

So, there you have it. Five steps to analyze needs and solutions. It’s not as hard as it sounds. These are things you may be doing without thinking. Now you know what to call them: critical thinking about… or if you want to be different creative thinking about…, which is my choice. If you aren’t doing this already, maybe you should. It’s basic creative thinking. By the way, Mary Ellen Guffey is a business communicator with several books. I’ve heard there are striking similarities between good trainers and good communicators. Here’s another link you may find helpful in your search for connections: Using Design Method for Problem Solving.

Short one for me this time.

By the way, if you are looking for a good, how-to on doing a basic needs assessment, here’s a good place (besides our Training Library) to start: http://www.dirjournal.com/guides/how-to-conduct-a-training-needs-analysis/

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

I do have a website where you can find other items I have written. For more information on my peculiar take on training, check out my best selling The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development, and for a look at a world that truly needs a reality check, see my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! Meanwhile, Happy Training.

Everyone who follows this blog knows that I tend to take a softer approach to training that at times may not seem as traditional or as typical of the training principles you are taught in school. I also don’t tend to weigh my page down with off-the-shelf products, although guest writers are more than welcome to do so as long as they write generically about all such products. This blog is not to promote, but to share training ideas and best practices.

Putting people first is a part of any training for me, but there is a business side to it as well that we cannot ignore. Our clients are profit-oriented unless they are non-profit, but they too are still looking at a bottom line.

Training and development in any organization requires a training strategy to achieve success, and a method to make it happen (or implementation). We agree our leaders (as well as our trainers must have vision, focus, direction, and it only makes sense to put it in an action planning document.

Does that mean it is written in stone? I don’t think so, but it will remind us all of where we started and where we should be at all times. Should that change at any time, should we can change that statement to conform with our new vision, direction, focus, etc. immediately? Of course not. Changes to the plan shouldn’t happen whimsically, but only with great thought and discussion.

Without a training strategy or an action plan we do not have a mechanism that establishes for all our means to achieve these grandiose goals, which is what they are if they are not formalized in some way Therefore, the strategy will require vision, focus, direction and an action planning document.

A Training and Development Strategy is a mechanism that establishes what competencies an organization requires in the future and a means to achieve it.

• Having it in writing somehow makes it an indelible ink for the corporate culture letter and a motif for the corporate culture in general.
• Still another good reason is that a plan is always good. It may be a trite saying but it says it best: anything worth achieving, is worth planning for!
• To know how your product or service will be used and how it will affect others before you develop it–that’s planning for the future.
• Studies have shown that with a training strategy your productivity improves when just about any corporate spending had a plan.
• Many points can be put forward in favor of why you need a training strategy as long as it is related to that plan–even morale.

As part of an effective Strategic Training and Development Plan, you will need detailed versions of the following:

• Corporate/Organizational Vision
• Executive Mentoring
• Team Development and Team Building
• Management and Leadership Development, (not all agree with management as a part of this, but not all management are leaders)
• Competency Requirements and Skills Profiling,
• Objectives and Action Plans,
• Employee Training and Train-the-Trainer needs.

How do these items fit with the Big Five: Equity and Diversity, Organization (and Personnel) Values, Business Process (and Personal) Improvement, Change Management (and Personnel Adjustment), and Organizational Design and Structure?

Traditional approaches identify the customer’s training needs in terms of their organizational strategic plan, compare it with Human Resources’ strategic plan, focus on comprehensive interviews or focus groups, and see how it all meshes with personal development plans.

I would argue to keep personal development plans in the forefront rather than last because personnel matters like personal development plans tend to get lost or given short shrift in favor of the bottom line. People are an invaluable resource–more important than most managers and leaders seem to know when it comes to helping the company get behind productivity. Don’t forget, these are the same people who may be on the ground floor hearing what you are not. Ignore them or treat them like dogs and they may bark and bite instead of being your best friend.

Now back to business.

So how do you keep an eye on things? More planning. This is actually your Strategic Plan for Training and Development. It is the bigger picture. As on the battlefield, a strategic battle includes many tactical units like those below that help implement or make happen the bigger plan happen.

• Establish corporate/organizational development needs, present and future,
• Set organizational training objectives,
• Examine your personnel records with an eye for additional or missed talent to be part of your new training plan, (I find it useful to interview people who expressed an interest in training to become a part of the group during this time; their insight can be amazing.)
• Create a training action plan to make sure that you have the necessary systems in place, that you can access resources, other sources deemed appropriate or design training and position it in time for use.
• Deliver the training by any number of appropriate methods determined by value and cost effectiveness.
• Monitor the training value as well as employee need and satisfaction,
• Evaluate the training by assessment and sustainability overtime, and
• Revise training and/or training plan if needed, with a plan for making immediate changes to the training itself.

Don’t develop any plan, especially a Strategic Plan for Training and Development, if you aren’t going to use it.

Naturally, training is only as good as your corporate or organizational leadership is willing to support it. Get their buy in first. Make sure you have it worked out to the fullest and it is a win-win. Know what kind of leader your boss is. Some are more impressed by numbers, so find them and give them to him or her. Find other companies where this kind of program has made a difference and give him its statistics. If he or she craves love of his or her people demonstrate how this plan will make everyone one big happy family. Obviously if the boss is a very ordered kind of person he or she will love this plan. I think you get the idea.

As for marketing this for company support, make sure you have done your homework, i.e., products and services will benefit how? How much? By when? What this plan going to cost? In the long term? What about outsourcing trainers? I don’t like that idea. Where is the money going to come from? Not my budget! Be ready to anticipate and answer all the questions. Be ready to adjust. Most of the officers will want to make adjustments. Just keep your customers in mind, cost for value received, establish roles and responsibilities, (you don’t want people pointing fingers in a time of crisis so plan early), and give your training plan a slogan–something related to the company vision; it’ll help keep everyone on the same page. And with any luck, you’ll have an up and running plan that works.

See, I told you I can organize.

As for a good and reasonable, different source on how to do a basic needs assessment, check out this link: http://www.dirjournal.com/guides/how-to-conduct-a-training-needs-analysis/

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

A final reminder: I do have a website where you can find other items I have written, including my best selling, The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development and information about my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! Happy Training.

Truly commentary. In a recent comment, I promised that my next blog would focus on talent and performance. Some see talent as something you have or you don’t. I don’t see it quite so black and white. I believe someone can have inherent talent (or a natural ability) and others have to work hard at “feeling” it. For some it comes easy–for others not without dedication and much education and training. Which “talent” is better to have? Not so fast. Either can be great. It depends on luck, attitude and determination. The same would go for consistent performance.

Both topics (talent and performance) seem natural for someone like me with experience in worlds that may seem totally different and yet when I’m through re-visiting these definitions, I think you’ll agree talent and performance used as they are used this mysterious other world can offer insight in the business world. While I have a masters in performance criticism that was intended for live theatrical performance, I examine organizational performance in much the same way. Believe it or not, those worlds aren’t that far apart.

When we say someone in the theatre is talented we mean they present us with evidence immediately that they should be able to do a professional job for us, whether it is through a resume, a past or recent experience (a performance) we have seen. No matter if the talent is acting, directing, dancing, singing, etc. As the late, great actor, Robert Shaw might say as he did in The Sting, “Ya follow me?”

So it goes. Talent is immediately demonstrable in some way. And that goes for business as well. “Right, boyo.” In theatre, one performance is done, that one is over. If your error was horrific enough to cast bad light on the rest of the show, you could be be fired and an understudy or new actor steps in. Sound familiar in business? It happens all the time. In both worlds.

In business or other organizations what may bother the “cast” is unknown, unnoticed or unimportant to onlookers. Unfortunately, some employers will take that opportunity to make sure that the employee who errs stays put (with a scowl and fear of losing his or her job) or ensures that one mistake or misstep affects this employee’s potential for future promotion in favor of someone who has not had a “bad day.”

I think a bad day is worth learning from, don’t you? If anything, standing behind your employee at a time like this without malice will have a positive effect. Or you have the two scenarios mentioned above.

While talent is immediate and meant as a badge of credibility, performance is another matter entirely. One can have the talent and have a bad day, and leaders could wonder about the talent human resources saw at first, but usually both good bosses and HR will attribute it to a bad day. At least I hope they do. No one is perfect or consistent all the time. In theatre, no one show is exactly as the last especially to the cast. The audience rarely notices.

There is another instance: he or she may not have displayed a certain talent before but suddenly found the inspiration and unique situation that brought it to the surface (now) during the performance of regular duties. The employee is not displaying the talent he or she was hired for, but more than he or she was hired for, too. This complicates things, too, for employers with a less than positive leadership style. The employer can ignore, make sure it doesn’t happen again. Obviously this employer wants to keep this person at this level. The excuse is that “this person is needed at this level; after all, someone has to do the work.” What it really means is that the employer doesn’t want to do the work to promote, reassign and re-hire.

In the government ranks, I found this practice deplorable and a detriment to morale. It certainly had nothing to do with leading by example, but everything to do with power and the worse kind of character traits I can imagine. I was once ordered not to give my assistant work that would allow her the ability to show on her resume she was doing more than she was hired to do because we might have to promote her then. As a supervisor myself at another time, I was notorious for promoting people out of my office often to my own disadvantage, but those people deserved it. Even though I had fewer people to do my job, my employees were loyal and hard-working without asking.

Now, what does this mean to trainers? We add still another element to the party. Knowledge, and sometimes skills, if what we are training is skill-based. What category do we put it in? Talent or performance? Hopefully, the added knowledge will help both. With added skills, we are mostly likely to see improvement in performance.

So it goes. Talent is essentially immediate demonstrable talent, performance is one positive such demonstration, and extra knowledge plus training skills enhances both when applied appropriately. However, behind all of this the employer and employee relationship affects it all. In fact, that relationship can destroy, not only good employees, but poison others’ morale and loyalty. A lot can be said for company morale and loyalty; I doubt I’m the first to say the lack of high morale and loyalty can make a potentially great company a mediocre one.

My basic philosophy: growth in all areas of our life is important. We all don’t need promotions when we demonstrate new talents. In life, all we need is affirmation. On the job, sometimes it’s the same. Just remember it is a part of our lives and so positive reinforcement and encouragement when we have a bad day makes work harder than fearing for our jobs. Let’s not forget (and I say this with head bowed) those employees who have gone “postal” so much so it is a part of our vernacular. Perhaps we don’t have all the talent needed for a promotion, or maybe we would rather be a specialist. Maybe recognition and encouragement here and now is enough.

My point here is simply pay attention and actively encourage supervisors to observe and reward positive behavior while ignoring the occasional misstep. I have never found that observation to be solely the job of human resources (it literally can’t be in most cases), but also of company and organizational leaders in general. By encouraging the creative growth of your employees, you encourage the creative growth of your company. You inspire free thinking and enthusiastic support. All of these factors singly and together affect the talents and abilities the individual believes he or she has and performance he or she is capable.

As a trainer, by making your presentation, however canned a part of it may be, by keeping it personal to the trainees, by understanding their needs, you aid in their performance. Isn’t that what we’re there for?

Remember Maslov’s Heirarchy of Needs!

Something to think about.

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

A final reminder: I do have a website where you can find other items I have written, including coupons for my best selling, The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development and my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! Happy Training.

Happy training.

What is that exactly? Where do trainers come from? Are they born or made, as I like to ask my University students of “speakers.” Trainers are a little different. Trainers are made of parts, like the human body, and have many interacting functions or working parts. Without some parts they die. With others, they thrive.

Following the basic tenets of leadership, trainers, it seems, are:

• designated or assigned
• assumed as a matter of position
• discovered as they emerge over time with the company
• discovered as they emerge during a serious situation or crisis
• educated to be trainers

Like leaders, trainers can be designated or assigned the task and have to learn the material or are a subject matter expert (SME) already. You could hold a high position that includes the training aspect and therefore it is assumed you are responsible–essentially, no training needed for you (not really), or after the company gets to know you and has seen you communicate and present material in a variety of ways perceives you to be a person who has qualities that may be deemed worthy of an in-house trainer. This would be an emergent leader. In your case, an emergent trainer. There is the leadership that emerges during a specific experience for example, a high-stress, extremely important problem-solving situation where your leadership/training abilities are noticed. That is known as situational leadership and let’s say trainer. Perhaps, you are too young for a leadership position, but training is a good place to start. There is another that might be compared to a company bringing in an outside executive. You just finished a graduate program in human resources and training. So, you are educated for the task.

It is nice to be put in the same league with leaders and in some ways I think just as important. Many decisions are made at that level that are not training issues that can be discovered before undertaking extensive measures to train staffs of managers and lower level employees. However, we run the gamut of the business, corporation, and non-profit world.

We are at all levels–entry-level to senior staff. Where we are in the organization depends a lot on where we came from–how we got to where we are. Some of us were so dedicated we learned all we could from books, courses, and other trainers. Some of us had a training plan all made out for us by our predecessors. Is that wrong? I’m not here to judge your work ethic; I’m just trying to provide some enlightening views. There are probably a lot more of comparisons I can make with leaders, but I won’t go into that now. I want to clear the air. Our goals are the same wherever we are placed in the company or organizational chart. Sometimes we have a chance to move mountains, sometimes not. I know what it’s like to be stuck. That’s one of the reasons why I write.

My interest in people is two-fold: how do people perform under pressure and what makes people act the way they do in a group.

After publishing almost 200 training and development blog articles, about a 100 theatre critiques and articles on performance, four books, including a novel, it is about time I introduced myself again and why I write about training as way I do–not as an expert on training with a lifetime of training experience, but more as an observer. If you’ve read my blog before you know my background as a communicator. As well as having done professional acting on stage, film and commercials, I teach at a couple of Universities when I have an opportunity as a visiting professor.

I am retired from the Federal government where I was “discovered” and made a trainer after the training officer saw that I had skills. It had taken a long time to emerge as a trainer over time. Human Resources is always slow in government. So why bother? I wanted to do something different. The signs were obvious it seemed to me; I was a public affairs officer with years of experience. Before that Federal job, as Air Force officer, I was selected to teach at the U.S. Air Force Academy and ran the Summer Survival Training Camp. I was recruited out of Officer Training School to give presentations about the Air Force around the country–later to talk and lead people through the inside of Cheyenne Mountain. My education is unique: an interdisciplinary dual Masters in English and Speech/Theatre and another Masters in Social Psychology. The interdisciplinary degree is in performance criticism.

I hope you can see why my focus is people-based. I don’t knock the use of technology, but I want to make sure it is getting through, that it is not part of the frustration of taking the training itself. If it is, I try to report it and offer ways to fix it. I know “learning theory.” I’ve had those classes. Maybe not couched the same way as in “Training Programs,” but, in fact, it was a very strong interest of mine, why I love teach as well my personal interest in classroom teaching. It may sound egotistical, but I’m good at it. I can talk. I was an actor and a director, a professional speaker, as well as a speech coach for executives. Would you expect anything less? I have to assure my University speech students this my speech classes are not performance classes, that their classes also have to do with organization.

As a trainer as well, in whatever kind of training I’m doing, I treat my trainees as individuals; they are not the company some people put on their resume. The company name does not go on my resume because I do custom work and that is confidential. That doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be on other resumes. It’s just me.

I don’t feel classroom training is in lieu of any other kind of training. Not all training has to be done in the classroom. Some can be done on a handout–if you trust your staff to read and sign that they did, or a CD or DVD for them to see, or computer-based or a combination, etc. All this training depends on the type of business, company or organization we are talking about. Needs aren’t always the same.

I turn down work as often as I accept it; maybe, that’s the beauty of retirement, or a wife who is a working professional. If you are an in-house trainer, advise your boss on what you think is needed, but in the end, it is he or she who makes that decision. Again, it will depend where you are in the hierarchy.

To me, there is no one training product or system that does it all. No one trainer that does it all. I know some trainers and vendors will hate me for this: no long term contracts. I know there are in-house trainers who are so insecure they always buy off-the-shelf products or hire out-of-house services. All I can say at this point, is be careful. Try whatever someone is trying to sell in the short term, check references, and look for articles that may talk about the programs they use in an unbiased way. Obviously, not the vendor’s website.

As for me, the buzz word is customize. Customize with your own creativity. Create in the classroom. Problem-solve in small groups. Use products you know personally that work. Test products of which you’re pretty sure of the result.

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

A final reminder: I do have a website where you can find other items I have written, including coupons for my best selling, The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development and my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! You might even get them for free. Happy Training.

My Cave Man Guide to Training and Development is a “fuzzy” approach, closer to the humanities than the sciences. But I don’t apologize for it. It is from the humanities that we see creativity affecting human behavior directly and therefore human performance in literature, in art, in theatre, in dance, etc. Why not performance at work?

Psychology and the study of social behavior has always straddled the line between the humanities and sciences. Psychology has roots in philosophy and biology–so much so that even today psychology departments are hard to locate in the larger scheme, and psychology departments themselves are divided into areas from physiological to social psychology areas. That is not to say training is not a science, it can be treated as such; however, for me, since training deals with people, I see more of an application for the humanities.

Not everyone agrees, I know, and that is why there are so many different approaches to selling training. I’m here to comment, and you can,too. I’m always looking for guest writers. All we ask is that you stay generic in your approach. We’ll give you full credit and link to your site.

Chris Winters, of advanceassist.com, publishes a page very different from mine where he showcases some similar points of view, some very different from mine; however, his approach seems to have more of a scientific approach–or I should say, a scientific looking approach. Please correct me if I’m wrong, Chris. I say this with much respect; I would think his goes over well in the boardroom. It puts training on par with other business plans.

However, essentially what trainers do is related to what teachers do with students, which is provide information that stays with our client’s people and works to make the organization stronger. Chris’s point of view often spells out how that will be done, appearing quite scientific:

“The Training & Development (T&D) and Instructional Design (ISD) profession modifies and refines production practices over time in concert with technology and cognitive research. Resources available here have expertise and deep experience to enable T&D/ISD if non-existent and if it exists offer effective remote support for ISD…

(Planning), Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation (P)-ADDIE.”

I never thought of training as a “warm and fuzzy,” but I get it now. When I taught English, speech and theatre at the U.S. Air Force Academy, I taught those “warm and fuzzy” subjects to future pilots, astronauts and other officers who would leave the Academy with the equivalent of an engineering degree no matter what their major. There was no English major by the way; although we did have a film club, a speech forensics club and a drama club. So there was interest in those “fuzzy” subjects even if they did seem off point to the cadet career goals; some actually liked them, but wouldn’t admit it for fear of being uncool.

The best reason for looking at training in the the humanities area is the same reason the humanities are called the humanities. We deal with the subject of human beings. Humanities looks at who we are. Through the humanities, we look into the souls of the human race to see what motivates us to live, thrive and die for causes, and for such mysterious characteristics totally human-made as loyalty and love. It’s not that science is inhuman either; it’s just our perspective is that it is so numbers driven, it leaves people out, and people are an integral part of what we do.

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 them to see the gray areas and venture out in the colorful creative world. In this case the world of work. I believe I owe a duty to both the employee and the employer. Maybe I lose a few return visits; but, just maybe, I earn some respect from the work force, and when it all plays out the employer knows where it came from. We all have skills and we use them accordingly. Mine are humanistic and communicative. My science is psychology, which you can’t deny is a very human science. Some employers won’t give me the time of day; however, the business scientists, that’s another story. Do me a favor. Remember the people and I’ll remember the science.

Funny thing. We admire those heroes who think outside the organization protocols; if what they do benefit us, we are happy. Those are the leaders who generally think outside the box. They very often are humanists if you ask them, but company loyalists to the bone. Steve Martin’s wonderful play, PICASSO at the LAPIN AGILE tells us both scientists and artists can come up with equal amounts of genius but it just takes a different form in the result.

Since we as trainers are looking at people who invariably are human beings, we need to look at them humanistically, in tune with their needs and desires, perhaps closer to Maslov than Human Resources, which is more black-and-white, and see how that works. Use the science, the statistics, the charts, and training plans to instill faith in the business end of training, but leave the actual training to a humanistic approach. Not all employees are created equal. Otherwise, we’d have good reason to believe in automaton society, or one run by corporations. Granted, this is not a democracy, but is filled with people who believe their efforts are of value, perhaps more than they get paid. They believe they themselves are of value. Respect that. Self-worth versus hope. Hope in the company? Company loyalty?

Something to think about.

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

A final reminder: I do have a website where you can find other items I have written, including coupons to get my best selling, The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development and my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality for free! Happy Training.

We talk about being the fly on the wall or the mouse in the wall that can hear every thing going on everywhere. This is more than water cooler buzz. Employees want to know what their bosses really think of them and bosses want to know what employees think about them, about the company, etc. Training is often sought out as the reason when something doesn’t feel right in the company anymore. Sometimes it is a training problem. Often it’s not. The solution, however, can be found by the mouse in the wall.

I believe Anonymous(e) Training (its sophisticated name) is coming back. I just made up that term, but I think it’ll make sense to you in a minute. You’ve seen Undercover Bosses or some other reality show like it. There is another related reality show–where someone comes in from outside and discovers what’s really wrong your failing business. Now is the time for Anonymous(e). The mouse in the wall can determine what, if any training, needs the company has, and idenify the other general needs that training can’t fix.

Now, I’m not saying it’s because of Generation Y that we need to do this, but they are our youngest workers. We need to start there anyway.

With more free time and easy access to electronic devices, the new generation entertains themselves clandestinely rather than work. Talk about productivity taking a dive and the only person who seems to care is you. Any time they are bored, out come the electronic devices; they can do both: the minimum standard at work and play games, surf the Net, watch videos, or listen to outrageous. What does it matter? They’re getting the job done. You may say, “It’s not true.” It is. The minimum standard can kill productivity, but you knew that already.

I’ve heard it from my own students’ mouths–that is from those who work. They do it in class, too. They are truly multi-tasking. Don’t think they won’t do it in a meeting. They can turn off the sound and still use their smart phone or tablet a hundred different ways and still look like they are paying attention. They can’t really help it if their brains operate faster than the information they are handed. Attitudes worsen usually when they are given something in a form that is foreign to them–in paper. It’s not a giant leap backwards, but it does feel a bit awkward. When was the last time, you used an actual typewriter?

Consider this, the newest generation of college grads rarely take notebooks to class–at least not paper ones. Some of the students may have gone to a high school that had all their books online. In fact, it’s rare that my college students have to buy books. They are quick to say their minds are so used to flying faster than they used to the second they become bored they turn to electronic games or the social network. And they are addicted to their use as well.

Getting them to go “cold turkey” in the office is easy. Buy a couple of devices that make getting a signal impossible. Now you may find more people taking smoke breaks, but you can manage that as well. That’s the Y generation, I think…just one group of workers.

X and the rest of us come next.

Most of us have adapted, except poor, old Betty in the corner there. She’ll sit there until she dies; she even take a downgrade rather than learn something. But we have adjusted, and we find that some of us are just as addicted as the Y generation. That’s not the worst of it. We are looking at our job differently. We are sure we are doing the job as we used to only it doesn’t seem good enough. We used to get awards. Office politics, boss’s pet, etc. Anyone to blame but ourselves.

Here’s where Anonymous(e) Training comes in. The mouse has to be a real “people” person to ask random employees to give him or her a run-down of the office. If the office is big enough, the mouse will be practically invisible; however, in a smaller office, the manager may have to announce a new person in the office just hired (not high enough up, low enough to be non-threatening) and the mouse will be going around getting “acquainted.” How it functions. Who’s the boss’s pet? Who’s the biggest slacker or slackers. Believe me, the mouse will get different takes from each person, except on those things that really matter. That’s what we want to collect.

Some bosses object to having a stranger lurking about the office and having his or her employees “airing the bad laundry” “telling all the dirty little secrets” “telling where the bodies are buried”–whatever cliché you want, but that’s not what we are looking for as trainers.

I realize that corporate consultants can do the same thing and that they usually perform their analysis from higher up. They could do this if they were young enough to fit in, while trainers are looking to see if there is a training solution at area closest to where productivity actually happens. It’s not meant to be a situation where the trainer is going to inform on the employee for saying something negative about the boss personally either, but rather form generalities that management can fix on its own or discover what is truly a training issue.

Now, we just need the owner, CEO, board chairman, president of the company or whoever makes those decisions to let the mice in.

Well, that’s all for me. I hope this blog was a little different. I do try to be different and I hope that sometimes I make sense.

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

A final reminder: I do have a website where you can find other items I have written, including coupons to get my best selling, The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development and my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality for free! Happy Training.