How to Build a Better Leader

While we often repeat Malcolm Gladwell's premise, in Outliers, that it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert at something, we rarely apply that idea to soft skills - like leadership. And that is quite possibly why we have such a tough time cultivating leaders in our organizations.

Joshua Spodek, author of the bestselling Leadership Step by Step: Become the Person Others Follow likens leadership skills to athletic or acting skills. You must participate, you must start small and perfect different aspects of the craft, you must put yourself in situations beyond your comfort zone to really explore and understand your capabilities. You aren't simply "gifted" the title (or skill) of leader.

Tom Brady recently led his team to a 5th Super Bowl win. But he didn't join the Patriots as a leader. In fact, he was a sixth-round draft pick (the 199th player to be picked!) and, when he joined the team, he was one of four quarterbacks (that's two too many by most NFL team standards). Luckily, Brady was able to hone his skills (both athletic and leadership) while out of the spotlight - the rest is history.

Jennifer Lawrence is the highest paid female actress. It seems as though she just exploded on the scene but in fact she started her "career" in school musicals and church plays. Her first time onscreen was in a supporting role 10 years ago. She's acted in dramas, comedies and sci-fi movies. She has been the lead...and part of an ensemble. She has honed her craft and is viewed as a bankable star in Hollywood. 

How Can We Create Our Own Bankable Stars?

According to Spodek, the first crucial skill to master is self-management. One cannot manage others unless he / she is in command of himself.

Next is communication skills. Spodek rightly points out that people hear what is said - not what is meant. Remember, it's the speaker's responsibility to ensure their message gets across.

The third key development opportunity is our favorite - constantly seek growth. Yes, increasing knowledge and skills in one's industry is a given, but Spodek suggests leaders-in-training should examine and challenge their core beliefs in order to be open to all possibilities.

Finally, Spodek stresses the importance of being comfortable with emotions - both one's own and one's employees. He suggests finding out other's passions in order to lead them in the way they want to be led. Daniel Goleman expresses this same sentiment but refers to it as empathy.

As you can imagine, none of the skills, above, are developed without devoted effort and analysis of what works and what doesn't. A little coaching doesn't hurt either - because it's nearly impossible to say to oneself, "You know what I lack? Self Management." (Thank you, Travis Kalanick, for shining a spotlight on that one.)

Leadership skills should be SOP (standard operating procedure), in terms of training, at all organizations. If your organization doesn't train for these - start today - before you find yourself with no quarterback.

How will YOU reinforce the learning, once the training is over?

Exit

The Training Doctor was once shown the door at a client site when our response to the question: How are you going to reinforce this learning once the training is over? was... "That's not our job, that's your manager's jobs."

It was an eye-opening experience to realize that a company requesting training didn't feel responsible for ensuring the training would work or benefit the organization.So before you design or develop any training program, be sure to ask your potential client (external or internal): How will this new knowledge or skill be reinforced on-the-job once the training is over?I

t is important for a business / business unit to take responsibility for the training's success. There is only so much an external consultant or even an internal trainer can do to ensure that people are allowed to practice and master their new skills on-the-job once they leave the training.An extra service you might provide to your client is to create a list of options / ideas to reinforce the training. For instance:

• They might schedule a weekly brown bag lunch check-in at which the newly trained employees could bring up new questions or share tips and tricks that they had learned since the end of the training and the practical application began. As trainers we know that it is not possible to teach everything in a training class and often the learners will discover short-cuts or other methods of working as they've had time to implement their new skills on-the-job; it would be helpful for everyone to know about the short-cuts rather than requiring each individual to figure it out on their own.

• The training department might send out a series of emails which would reinforce some of the key points of the training. For instance, following a coaching class, a series of weekly emails might reinforce each step in the coaching process, such as Week 1: Remember to ask the employee how things are going from their perspective; Week 2: Probe and ask additional questions based on the answer(s) you got to the How is it going query.  Week 3: Praise the things the employee has been doing right since your last coaching conversation, etc.

• Suggest a follow-up check-in two to three weeks after the training (allowing time to practice on-the-job).  At this follow up meeting the trainer would be available to answer questions or provide reinforcement of the key concepts.

• Many times managers do not realize that their employees do not come back "fixed" after the initial training, and don't realize that they have to allow for time for practice on-the-job, so a simple suggested schedule for managers which identifies the time needed to practice (such as week 1 allow one hour of practice, week two allow 30 minutes of practice, etc. ) might be all that is needed to see success soar. This approach not only reinforces what was learned but gives employees permission to practice on the job, knowing that it is supported by management.

Whether or not you provide the suggested reinforcement techniques, the responsibility for reinforcing the new knowledge and skills lies with the managers. Trainees must be given time and permission to practice their new knowledge and skills until they are more competent than they could have been by simply "being trained."

Who Will Give Their Sign-Off on the final design of the training?

frustrated-with-computer

Who will give their sign-off on the final design of training seems like such an obvious answer that it does not need to be asked, right?

Wrong.

Not asking this  question could result in a lot of wasted time and effort. Just like a needs-analysis,  to determine exactly what type of training would meet the audience's needs, asking  Who will be the final sign-off on the design is a way to ensure that the training you design meets the needs of the organization.

The Training Doctor was once involved in a project for a retail organization: working with the corporate Director of Operations to design training for the stores. The entire training had been designed and developed in close-association with the Director of Operations, who gave her approval. The program was then presented to the vice-president-of-something, who said within the first 5 minutes of seeing the final product: No, No, NO - this is not what I wanted at all!

In order to save yourself and your organization unnecessary frustration as well as lost time and money - whether you work internally or externally - be sure to always ask, Who will have the final sign-off on the training and, ideally, have a conversation with that person at the start of the project in order to understand what the expectations are. Who would have thought that the Director of Operations could have gotten it so wrong?

What is most important in solving this problem - Quality, Speed or Cost?

Most of us know the 3-points of any project: quality, speed, and cost, and the fact  that it is impossible to have all three.

Given the reality of today's training environment  in which budgets are slashed and time allowed for training has been reduced, the question: What is most important in solving this problem, quality speed or cost, is critical to ensure success with any training endeavor.

If quality is most important, then your project will take time and undoubtedly will cost "more" money than a project that doesn't have quality as its most important factor.

If time (project due by the end of this month) is the most important factor, then quality will take a back seat and higher costs will probably prevail in order to get more people or services involved in the creation of the training.

When designing and developing new training for your orginization, this is a very useful question to ask because it helps you to know where to assign your resources and/or it helps you to know what resources to ask for.

So, if time is the most important factor, you may want to request an extra pair of hands such as a consultant or a temporary service. If quality is the most important factor, you may want to price the project and then request an extra 25% in funding.

What is most important to solving this problem: quality, speed or cost is a critical business question which will help you to create a better training product and outcome.

Where were you in 1991?

Twenty-five years ago The Training Doctor was born!

Here's a look back at what else was going on at that time. Where were you?

• The Persian Gulf war ended with a cease fire

• Boris Yeltsin was the first elected president of Russia

• George Bush (#1) was president of the United States

• The median US household income was $30,000

• Unemployment was approximately 7%

• A first-class stamp cost 25 cents

• The NY Giants won the Super Bowl by one point (the cost of an ad was $800,000 compared to $5 million+ today)

• Nirvana (the band) becomes an American icon

• Dances with Wolves won an Oscar for best picture

• Tim Berners-Lee created the internet! (thank you, thank you)

• Richard Branson completed the first transatlantic hot air balloon flight

• Dr. Seuss died

Where Have All The Corporate Universities Gone?

The simultaneous impact of several major forces contributed to the decline of Corporate Universities.

Organizations began to adopt a bottom-line approach focused on cost cutting to improve efficiency during the global economic meltdown of 2008. Investments in learning and development initiatives declined, which impacted leadership commitment towards sustaining CUs.

Second, professional associations, consultants, and leading organizations shifted their attention towards talent management. Organizations became inwardly focused on improving and developing their existing human resources..

Third, the changing demographics exacerbated socio-cultural pressures on traditional universities and questioned their legitimacy and value in society.

Because corporate universities were established to closely approximate traditional universities in terms of developing cutting edge knowledge and innovation, they were affected by these contextual factors, and suffered from decreasing interest. A shrinking global market, privatization of education and a spurt in the private online education providers, and the increasing demands for complex skill sets demanded individualized approaches for developing the full potential of human resources.

What happened to the "L" in L+D?

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L+D stands for Learning and Development. In years past it was referred to as T+D which stood for Training and Development. We guess at some point there was a shift towards sounding as though we were doing more for our constituents than simply training them.

Unfortunately, the truth is, we are still T+D. Where is the L in L+D?

In the last decade-plus, training budgets have been cut, time allowed for training has been drastically reduced, coaching has been all but wiped out, and "learning strategies" have become self-service, self-directed, eLearning in many organizations (choose from this menu of management classes).

But true learning requires a long tail. It requires interaction with others in order to vet multiple ideas and arrive at the best one, or perhaps a hybrid-NEW-best idea. It requires coaching. It requires experience that informs future experiences and what one "knows to be true." Learning and development is a misnomer and perhaps a sad relic of what we thought this profession would become during the rise of corporate universities (see Where Have All the Corporate Universities Gone? below).

Organizations are consistently announcing that their businesses are suffering from a lack of skilled employees and a lack of bench strength for management, and yet there is little being done to ensure that our role in L+D is actually focused on the L. This truly requires the L+D department to have a seat at the table, to help organizations strategically plan their future through their people, but that vision is, sadly, far from reality in many organizations. 

Interview with Will Thalheimer, PhD

Thalheimer (1)

What motivated you to write this book?

I've worried about my own smile sheets (aka response forms, reaction forms, level 1's) for years! I know they're not completely worthless because I got useful feedback when I was a mediocre leadership trainer-feedback that helped me get better.

But I've also seen the research (two meta-analyses covering over 150 scientific studies) showing that smile sheets are NOT correlated with learning results-that is, smile sheets don't tell us anything about learning! I also saw clients-chief learning officers and other learning executives-completely paralyzed by their organizations' smile-sheet results. They knew their training was largely ineffective, but they couldn't get any impetus for change because the smile-sheet results seemed fine. 

So I asked myself, should we throw out our smile sheets or is it possible to improve them? I concluded that organizations would use smile sheets anyway, so we had to try to improve them. I wrote the book after figuring out how smile sheets could be improved.

If you could distill your message down to just one - what would it be?

Smile sheets should (1) draw from the wisdom distilled from the science-of-learning findings, and (2) smile-sheet questions ought to be designed to (2a) support learners in making more precise smile-sheet decisions and (2b) should produce results that are clear and actionable. Too often we use smile sheets to produce a singular score for our courses. "My course is a 4.1!" But these sorts of numerical averages leave everyone wondering what to do. 

How can trainers use this book to assist them in the work that they do?

Organizations, and learning-and-development professionals in particular, can use my book to gain wisdom about the limitations of their current evaluation approaches. They can review almost 30 candidate questions to consider utilizing in their own smile sheets. They can learn how to persuade others in using this radical new approach to smile-sheet design. Finally, they can use the book to give them the confidence and impetus to finally make improvements in their smile-sheet designs-improvements that will enable them to create a virtuous cycle of continuous improvement in terms of their learning designs.

Getting valid feedback is the key to any improvement. My book is designed to help organizations get better feedback on their learning results. 

Do you have a personal motto that you live by?

Be open to improvement. Look for the best sources of information-look to scientific research in particular to enable practical improvements. Be careful. Don't take the research at face value. Instead, understand it in relation to other research sources and, most importantly, utilize the research from a practical perspective. 

Will Thalheimer, PhD, PresidentWork-Learning Research, Inc.

What is the Business Goal for this Training?

It is surprising how much training exists that doesn't have a real connection to the goals of the business. Perhaps these are legacy courses left over from a time when there was a need and organizations are still offering them. But these days you want to ensure that any training that you are asked to develop anew has a clear business goal.

In discussions with the business process owner who is requesting the training, be sure that they can articulate what the expected business outcomes are for the training. Not only does this assure you that they have truly thought through the need for the training that they are requesting, but it also establishes an ROI point for you (which is something else that is seldom targeted in training design).

If a sales manager requests training in negotiations or cross-selling - you can be relatively sure that there is a business outcome expected from that training. If a sales manager instead asks for team building or training on a particular software - dig a little deeper to find out what they believe that training would accomplish for the business / their business unit.

If an operations manager for a manufacturing facility asks for a course in quality control or machine calibration - there is probably a link to the output of that department. If, however s/he asks for forklift safety you may want to investigate how that will positively benefit the department and its deliverables to the organization.

Not only will asking "How does this training link to the business goals of the company / department?" save you time and money by not developing courses that have no real relevance for the business, but you'll be seen as a thoughtful contributor to the business overall rather than an order-taker of training requests.

Train People BEFORE You Hire Them

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Latin America and the Caribbean will need about 1.2 million software developers within the next decade, according to growth projections, and yet "official educational institutions" only graduate 1000 coders a year. What to do?

How about starting a training division to train people you'll need in the future? A start-up in Lima Peru did just that. Called Laboratoria, the company began training coders because it could not find qualified personnel for its growing web design business. Last year 1,200 people applied; the company trained and graduated 150. This year they hope to graduate 300 .The training is 9-5 daily, over 5 months. Training is free and 60% of graduates landed entry level jobs upon graduation. (Although Laboriatoria was created from one company's need, graduates are not obligated to go to work for the parent company; what they ARE obligated to do is give back 10% of their earnings for the first three years following graduation, to help continue to fund the free training for others.)

Similarly, Code Camp was started in Charleston, SC because of the growing "Silicon Harbor" of technology companies in the area. Two such company owners grew frustrated with not being able to find the right talent and decided to "grow their own." Classes are now offered Saturdays and in the evenings so working professionals can get the training they need to change or further their careers. There is even a 4-session Kids Camp for kids aged 10 - 14 years - why not get them in the pipeline early?

The next time your Talent or HR department is lamenting the lack of qualified candidates - consider growing your own!

Dare to Compare

Training Magazine and Wilson Learning Worldwide recently completed a survey of 544 learning practitioners, surveying how well the respondents felt the L+D department was achieving its objectives, what modes of training delivery they felt were worthwhile, and whether they were considered a strategic partner of the business or not. The summary categorized L+D organizations as "Strategic," "Emerging," or "Lagging".

Here are some of the interesting results:

Strategic L+D departments are more likely to:

• Speak about L+D as an investment rather than a cost

• Have executives involved in program launches

• Mention learning in the company's annual report

• Take an active role in reviewing L+D initiatives

On-the-job training and formal classroom training were the top 2 preferred delivery methods across all three spectrums. The least effective delivery methods were learning libraries, mobile learning, social media, MOOCs and self-paced printed manuals.

The summary of the article suggests ways that L+D departments can become more strategic. See the article here.

It is definitely worth the read - especially if you'd like your organization to become more strategic.

The Dark Side of Leadership

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Bold, innovative leader or r narcissistic, paranoid personality disorder? You decide.

A series of articles and research papers investigate the "dark personality traits" of leaders. While most of us are looking forward, toward ways to develop our future leaders (topics, training, experiences, etc.), some researchers are investigating the personality traits that bring our "rising stars" to us in the first place.

Leader Development and the Dark Side of Personality (Leadership Development Quarterly); The Dark Side of Trait Leadership (Penn State Psychology Blog); Dark Side Personality and Extreme Leader Behavior (slide show from Kaiser Leadership Solutions presented at the 28th Annual SIOP Conference) The "father" of the Dark Side (the Hogan Development Survey (HDS))

Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will find the top 3 personality predictors for leadership derailment, by industry (in general terms, of course).

Case Study: Bite-sized Instructor Led Training

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When we think of bite-sized learning, we often think of something that is self-paced, just-in-time, mobile or e-Learning.

We recently visited with a client that is providing bite-sized learning (10 minutes or less) delivered by live instructors. Picture this: a room of 40 trainers who sit in cubicles wearing headsets, at desks with two computer monitors. The trainees call the trainers when they are ready for their lesson. The trainees go in to a queue and any trainer can pick up the call and teach any topic thanks to a script that pops up on one screen. On the other screen they document the learner, the lesson, and the advice / next steps prescribed for that learner.

In a 10-minute-or-so conversation, the trainer and trainee discuss how the last lesson has been working for the learner, practice a read-through of the new lesson, role-play the new lesson, audio-record the new lesson and listen-back for a self-critique as well as a trainer critique.

Lessons are meted out, one-per-week, for a period of weeks depending on the topic. The learner is expected to practice one minute technique during the week and then the next technique is introduced, the following week.

Bite-sized learning? More like crumb-sized learning! And SUPER effective. Just ask their 850 clients!

Interview with Author Yael Hellman - Learning for Leadership

Yael

What motivated you to write this book?

In my years of teaching leadership, I noticed a huge gap between leadership theory and how my students, from all walks of life, actually turn into leaders. I saw that by respecting their varied life experiences, abilities, and learning preferences, I inspired them to value those qualities in themselves AND in those they would lead.

I also saw that traditional lecturing and assignments didn't produce the self-reflection and emotional intelligence leaders need. So I created a participant-centered group environment safe enough to contain and ignite individuals' unique energies and openness to experience. Turned out, this facilitative approach (which decades of research on leadership teaching supports) actually cultivates deep, lasting leadership skills through immediate, hands-on practice. I wanted to share what I learned training leaders in business, public service, and academic settings.

So Learning for Leadership; A Facilitative Approach for Training Leaders culls my best techniques, resources, and lesson plans. Perhaps most important, it presents real-life accounts of the pitfalls and potentials of facilitative leadership teaching to inform and encourage other instructors.

If you could distill your message down to just one - what would it be?

Leadership teaching-like leadership itself--is not for the faint of heart. You must be a lifelong learner to know yourself, your triggers, and your dynamic, and then to recognize those in others in order to reach and to motivate them.

How can trainers use this book to assist them in the work that they do?

Learning for Leadership; A Facilitative Approach for Training Leaders briefly outlines how adults learn so trainers can approach them appropriately and effectively. The book offers on-the-ground activities and projects that let participants experience-and so truly learn--the instructor's points. Its concrete tips facilitate the learning AND the teaching of leadership by helping trainers meet the intellectual and emotional demands of an experiential, participant-centered group. Its clear theory and tried-and-true practices let instructors in business or any context develop profound, practical executive wisdom in their trainees.

Do you have a personal motto that you live by?

Know yourself, and know your trainees. Only then will you see when to lead and when to follow, and be able to transform learners into leaders." (Hellman, p. xii) 

Grow Your Own Pilot!

Many organizations have realized that in order to be successful they simply haveto "grow their own" skilled workforce. It is impossible to buy, borrow or stealthe skills they need from their competitors or the population in general.  Oneimpressive example of this is Jet Blue Airlines, who announced, in November, thatthey would begin training their own pilots. The current "source" of new pilots isaviation school or the military. Jet Blue is being quite proactive in this endeavorbecause they see a pilot shortage looming as the older generation retires. It isprojected that the training will take four years. Quite an investment! The AirLine Pilots Association - North America's largest pilot union - says "this is notan effective way to secure qualified aviators." HUH? If you're thinking of a careerchange, check it out: http://www.futurebluepilots.com