Fabulous use of animation to enhance a presentation
We recently watched a speech about Divergent Thinking and Education by Sir Ken Robinson. He says that the current (K-12) education system was designed for a different age.
Education is organized like an industrialized organization – for instance we send kids through school according to their ‘date of manufacture,’ (birthdate). Schools are organized by bells, separated by function (subject), and put through education in ‘batches.’
Within schools, working with your peers to find an answer is called cheating – outside schools it’s called collaboration.
One of his interesting points is that ADHD is not really the ‘epidemic’ it is purported to be. He postulates it might be due to:
Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth – they are being besieged with information everywhere they turn – from TV to computers to phones – and then we label them as deficient in some way when they get distracted.
Distracted from what, he asks? From the boring stuff delivered in the ‘standard educational system.’ He includes a map that shows that ADHD diagnoses increase as you travel East across the US. Interestingly, he also states that the increase in ADHD diagnoses correlates with the increase in standardized testing.I
In addition to the interesting facts that he shares through his speech, you will be AMAZED at the e-learning / illustration / animation that accompanies the speech. It TRULY is a work of art. Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/7rupsn2
People Need to be Working Smarter
We recently came upon an article written by Jay Cross, the guru of Informal Learning and were shocked (and excited!) to read: “I rarely use the word learning these days. Business managers hear learning and think schooling and don’t want to invest a dime in it. I’m tired of having doors slammed in my face, so I now talk about Working Smarter. I’ve yet to meet a manager who didn’t want her organization to work smarter (even though learning is a major component of doing so).”
Read about his other changes in perspective here.
Live It, Learn It
One of the basic design tenets subscribed to by The Training Doctor is Live it, Learn it. It’s an easy way to remember that adults are experiential learners and benefit more from having a learning experience than from being “taught.”
Essentially, when considering the delivery options available to you, always ask “is there a way to have the participants experience this concept rather than just learn about it?”
Here are some examples culled from TD designs for our clients:
In order to explain how a printed circuit board is conceived (from design) and produced (through QA) a Lego simulation was created that required the class participants to conceive, produce and QC their own circuit board.
To explain team formation (forming, norming, storming and performing) learners were put in to teams and given 30 minutes to complete a scavenger hunt. The debrief was a series of open-ended questions asking the learners to explain how their team approached the task and comparing each team’s process and outcomes to the others.
To teach surveying skills, the participants spent 1 hour in the classroom learning about the various pieces of surveying equipment and how to record readings. They then spent the next 3 hours on the grounds of the training facilities practicing surveying, in small groups, with a job aid and an instructor standing by as coach.
In a recent Training Magazine article, Bob Pike wrote of an activity he designed for trainers, to help them better understand how people learn. Throughout a two-day workshop he had his participants learn a fairly achievable skill: Juggling. By the end of the two-day event they were expected to pass a juggling “test” with a minimum passing score. You can read about their success and outcomes here.
It is quite interesting to read how some people quit before even beginning, some were motivated to be the best they could be – but not to help their co-workers, and the effect of extrinsic motivation.
James Kirkpatrick
Jim Kirkpatrick has developed and managed a career development centre since 1995, worked on strategic planning teams and consulted with organizations all across the world in topics on evaluation, teambuilding coaching and leadership. Jim conducts workshops in the Kirkpatrick Four Levels Business Partnership and his newest topic is Training on Trial, which is also the title of his most recent book.
T/D: Jim, the title of your book is very compelling. Give us some more background on why training is on trial.
Kirkpatrick: My father, Don Kirkpatrick, invented Four Levels, 50 years ago. I was recently looking at a quote that said, “Training managers had better be about the business of demonstrating their value before the day of reckoning arrives.” I shared this quote with him and I said, “Dad have you ever heard of this?” He said, “No” I said, “Are you sure? He said, “No, it sounds really, really timely!” I said, “Well you wrote it!” He said, “Really?” I said, “Yeah and you even published it, I am reading from the ASTD Journal. He said, “I still don’t remember.” I said, “You published it in 1959.”
That’s why I wrote the book because he’s talking 50 years ago, about the day of reckoning, that we need to be creating and demonstrating our value, and we still have not taken that seriously enough. We still believe that we get a free pass, as training people. We believe that we earn our keep by filling up classrooms and that we should be seen by the business as being valued for that. The day of reckoning is here, the free pass is over. We need to be not only creating value in the business, becoming business partners rather than training professionals, but we also need to be able to demonstrate that value.
This book is really a kind of wake-up call. The good news is, there has never been a better opportunity to make an impact. We talk about ‘wet cement.’ The cement is now wet with the current economic situation the way it is. Executives and Business Managers are looking for any kind of help to get an edge. It’s our great opportunity, so that’s why I wrote the book.
T/D: Before we get into the gist of the book, and hopefully some strategies you’re going to supply to us, how do you think we, as trainers, got trapped here - you said your father wrote this statement in 1959 and we haven’t changed a bit, really.
Kirkpatrick: You know, I really agree. There is research from 1975 that says 15% of what people are learning in formal training is applied to the job. Jim and Dana Robinson revisited that study 30 years later and it was still 15%. We are in cahoots because business says: would you please provide training? We say - okay. We don’t say - what are the needs, what will success look like to you?
T/D: So do you think we’ve propagated that role of being a service instead of a leader in a company?
Kirkpatrick: I think so.
T/D: We’re not reaching out to them, proactively and saying - what can we do for you as the training department?
Kirkpatrick: Exactly. We may try but we give up too easy. We don’t know how to make a business case. Training, in and of itself, is of very little value to business; it’s the execution. It’s about - are they doing what it is that they learned? And if not, what’s the point other than ‘check/mark training’? We’ve all been in cahoots together, it’s “us” as training versus “them” in business. We need to figure out how to become better partners with them. We talk about it, but people really don’t know how to do it.
T/D: So tell us how to do it. There is no seat for us at the table so first we have to shoulder our way in, right? You must have strategies in the book?
Kirkpatrick: That’s exactly right. How do you shoulder your way in? There is research that says 70% of training failure comes from the environment after training. In that people don’t get to use what they learned. Or the reinforcement and accountability is not there.
T/D: My most frequent experience is management doesn’t know what we train their workers on, so they don’t know how to reinforce it, they don’t know what to reinforce.
Kirkpatrick: Right, and then when it fails, the training gets worse and we happily pass it off saying ‘they’re not coaching,’ and ‘they’re not’ etc.; but it is our responsibility to go and help them do just that. So other than showing them research, is to ask them to fund one impact study and be able to show the power of your work. For instance I did it with L’Oreal in Paris. They were having trouble being respected by the business. We picked out one high impact program, ran the gamut, made sure the support was there, reinforcement, the managers knew their role, collected data, collected chain of evidence all along the way. We had a corporate jury and the training people went before the L ‘Oreal corporate jury, who are the senior partners, and showed them the power of the training. They called me 6 months later and said, “Will you help us prioritize the requests we are getting from the business?”
T/D: This is a brilliant strategy! Is it the training department that needs to recognize this and take the initiative to ingratiate themselves to the upper echelon of management? Or is it upper management “inviting” us, saying – you’ve got to prove your worth or you’ve got to get out of here?
Kirkpatrick: It’s both. The business is saying more and more “you need to demonstrate your value.” They are charging us with a crime or whatever you want to call it: ‘costs exceeding value.’ Honestly the biggest sell that I find is in convincing the training people that their job extends beyond, design, develop and deliver.
T/D: Yes. You’re going to love this; my analogy for trainers is that we are like flight attendants: “Bye bye, good luck, we’ll never see you again”
Kirkpatrick: The Four Levels of Evaluation has been whittled down to, smile sheets, tests, and hope for the best. People say - we never get to level 3, never get to level 4, we’re too busy doing our training. I say all you’re doing is putting a bulls-eye on your back saying – “Look how much we’re costing you by pulling people out of training.” So all we’re doing is saying when budget time comes, “We are fair game,” because all we are doing is costing, and we’re not demonstrating our value. We need to. The day of reckoning is here.
T/D: This is great Jim. Thank you for taking the time to “talk” with us.
How to A.C.C.C.E. Your Synchronous Design
More and more organizations are moving their learning events to synchronous delivery platforms. And more and more we see a lack of success in that arena because too often the platform is used as a presentation platform; in other words, the learning is really a one-way communication.
At The Training Doctor, we use the acronym A.C.C.C.E. (pronounced ACE) to ensure our synchronous designs are interactive and engaging. Here is what you can do to ensure that yours are as well:
A = Active
The learners should be active participants in the learning process, not passive recipients of information. In order to keep them active, use the variety of tools that are available in any synchronous platform: chat, feedback tools, polling, etc.
C = Create Content
Rather than simply deliver content, have the participants create the content with you. For example, instead of saying “There are two types of feedback: Reinforcing and Developmental,” and then going on to define or describe each; say “There are two types of feedback: Reinforcing and Developmental – using the text tool, give me an example of what each would sound like, by writing a sentence on the whiteboard in the appropriate area.”
C = Contribute to Lessons
It is impossible to create a synchronous class without making it part of a blend to some degree. Think “before” and “after” assignments and ensure your learners’ independent work links to the course content. For example, prior to a lesson on service standards, assign the learners to investigate whether their company has a list of service standards and, if so, to bring one example to class to share with the rest of the participants.
C = Collaborate
The final C stands for collaborate. One of the best features of a synchronous platform is the ability for learners to collaborate. One of the best learning strategies for adults is utilizing collaboration (collaboration enhances critical thinking skills). However, non-stop collaboration can turn in to a frenzy of participatory activities without a real connection to the content or one’s fellow learners. Choose collaborative activities carefully and ensure you allow enough time to for true collaboration to occur (and not simply discussion or comparison).
E = Engaging
Finally, E stands for Engaging. Most people are visual learners, yet the synchronous environment forces auditory delivery of information (that way that people LEAST prefer to take in information). In order to counter the auditory overload, ensure your slides are colorful, include visuals, and are dynamic (for instance, instead of displaying a slide with 5 bullet points, have each bullet build individually). You can further maximize the dynamics by asking participants to write on the screen / whiteboard which will add color and variety as well.
We risk losing or alienating our audience when they are not constantly part of the learning process. By following the A.C.C.C.E. method of synchronous design you can ensure that your learners are engaged visually, auditory and cognitively throughout your learning event.
Technical Writer salary - small gains in 6 years
We came up on this factoid in one of our 2003 newsletters:
According to a recent survey (March 2003) by Business 2.0 magazine, the average salary for a technical writer in America is $52,875.00. Just out of curiosity we looked up “today’s salary” at Glassdoor.com – which was updated 27 May – and found the national average to now be $57,000.
By the way, Business 2.0 no longer exists; it was bought by CNNMoney in 2007.
Prompting Learning
The brain is a complex piece of machinery. It’s capable of keeping track of a myriad of things – your first grade teacher’s name, your upcoming flight itinerary, how much is left in your checking account, all your sibling’s birthdays. . . and then it is capable of completely purging what you learned in that training class last week.
Part of the reason that we purge things is that they hold no meaning for us. One of the tricks we can use to help our learners to retain information is to enable them to encode meaning to the topic. When people associate some kind of personal meaning to new information, it is much more likely they will remember it.
Here are some ideas:
When teaching a sales class, give participants 10 or 15 minutes to write the script they will use for their upcoming conversation with Client X. Don’t give them a generic assignment of writing the script, but a more personal assignment of, “Choose a client you intend to call on next week. Write the script with him in mind.”
When teaching a new hire, ask them, “How is this similar (or different) to what you did at your last job?”
When teaching leadership skills, ask “Who can bring this concept to life with an example from your own work as a new supervisor or manager?”
Ed Betof - Leaders As Teachers
Ed Betof is a senior fellow and academic director of executive programs in Workplace Learning Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania and also teaches in the Wharton Executive Education High Potential Leadership program. Ed’s newest book is entitled, “Leaders as Teachers, Unleashing the Teaching Potential of your Best and your Brightest.”
T/D: The title of your book is a very compelling title and one that I am proponent of. What’s the major concept behind, “Leaders as Teachers”? It’s not new, right?
EB: The idea is not new. In fact, the idea of leaders serving as teachers goes back centuries. If you think of elders, shamans, and artisans bringing up apprentices behind them, and today, so many different organizations that are human service organizations such as scouts and 4-H, you’ll see it, too. But in the corporate world, it’s very inconsistent.
I decided to build on some initial concepts and principles put forward a number of years ago by Noel Tichy and build a book that was both a strategic book as well as a how-to book.
T/D: Noel Tichy used to be the Director of the Leadership Development Center for GE years ago.
EB: Yes and he is a professor at the University of Michigan.
T/D: My very first thought when I read the title of your book, “Leaders as Teachers”, was Jack Welch. He was so well known for going to his up-and-coming managers training programs and being an interactive part of their leadership development. Who can argue with the success of GE? Why hasn’t the concept of leaders as teachers taken off as much? I assume the book is filled with examples.
EB: The book is filled with hundreds of examples of ways that it can be done. They actually fall into just over 50 categories. I call them 5 buckets and about 50 categories within the buckets. One of the reasons that it is inconsistent is that when people think of a leader as teacher, they think of somebody maybe teaching a whole course or standing up and lecturing for an hour or hours on end - it’s quite to the contrary. The approaches that we suggest in the book are very practical. They’re forms of active teaching, active training, and active learning and we know that they work because I spent the last ten and a half years of my corporate career building a leaders-as-teachers process at Becton Dickinson and Company where we had over 550 leaders, managers, and professionals teaching around the world. Not that many years before, we had only 9.
T/D: Who’s perspective is the book written from? Is it from a trainer’s perspective that you need to harness the value of the leaders in your organization or is it speaking to the leader saying, you need to add value to your organization by contributing to the development of people?
EB: That’s an excellent question! I’ve tried to write the book so that it could be read in several voices by several different types of people. On one hand, senior executives could read this book and it could help them reach out into their organizations. In fact, the forward of the book is written by the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at BD, Ed Ludwig, who to me, epitomizes a senior level leader-teacher.
On the other hand, a very major audience for the book would be learning executives, learning leaders, and day-to-day people who are training, and trying to involve others in their organizations to be involved in that training, learning, teaching process.
T/D: You just gave an example of someone that you say epitomizes a senior leader in a teaching position. Tell us what that looks like.
EB: It could range from Jack Welch coming in and teaching as part of leadership programs, to conducting town meetings, to facilitating sessions, to being involved ahead of time in needs assessments in the organization. There are a few different ways that leaders can contribute as teachers and they break down into five categories. One is the identification of learning needs and the design of learning solutions and programs, and working with those who are professionals to do that by providing a lot of input.
T/D: I won’t stop you from telling us about the other four but I want to ask, how time intensive is that role?
EB: It can be very small to more significant. One of the objections that people frequently hear in organizations is, “I don’t have time to teach.”
T/D: But I would think to help design it, that’s too minutia for a leader.
EB: I would say quite to the contrary because in today’s organizations, Noel Tichy and his original work back in the 90’s made the point that teaching organizations are winning organizations and I couldn’t emphasize that point more. In companies that believe that their leaders have a responsibility to teach, to coach, and to mentor others, that is not only part of their job, it’s a very significant part of their job. So my answer to the question of how much time does it take is, “it depends;” but I don’t answer in percentages, I answer as what role does a leader have and how is that best carried out? Part of that role should be a teaching, coaching, mentoring role
T/D: What are the other buckets?
EB: I started with the identification of learning needs and design of learning solutions and programs. Second is live teaching. There’s probably 20 different ways or more that that could take place. Teaching through the use of media or technology. A good example for that is an interview like this, or in some organizations where they will do a video of leaders and stream it, or podcasts and things like that.’
The fourth category I call pre-program and post-program teaching and coaching to help ensure applications. Very frequently somebody will attend a training or learning course and they don’t even know why they’re there. But if you pre-coach a person before they leave for that learning process we know very clearly that there will be impact and follow through on learning. The “pre” part is much more important than we ever even knew..
The fifth category is training, coaching, and mentoring leader teachers. So after one becomes experienced themselves in teaching, facilitation or in any of these categories or buckets that we’re discussing right now, then we want multiples of yourself. Just like you’re developing a pipeline of talent in technology, a pipeline of talent in leadership, develop a pipeline of teachers in your organization.
TD: The book is full of ideas to help you get that pipeline started to grow exponentially.
Organizations don't need training...
Formal, discrete learning programmes are the exact opposite of what organisations need.
Quote: Perry Timms. TrainingZone.co.uk
Are you ready for the 'unseen' worker?
According to IDC (International Data Corp), by 2013, 75 percent of the US workforce will have the ability to work remotely through mobile technology; which will put pressure on employers to adapt on-boarding and training methods....
Adult Learning Theory
At 8:00am today you can learn all about Adult Learning Theory in less than 30 minutes.
Where: Training2012 in Atlanta. See you there!
Make strategic decisions about training needs
Oftentimes, when training fails, the Training Department appears to be responsible; but WE know that's not the case. We can forestall a poor reputation by asking a number of strategic questions before committing to providing the training. We like to call it....The 60 minute Needs Analysis
The questions fall in to 3 categories:
Questions of Stakeholders
Questions about the learners
Questions about the intended curriculum
Want to learn more? Come see us at Training 2013 in Orlando FL, February 18 - 20.Here is a $200 discount code: CT2SP
The Lone-Ranger Trainer, an interview with Jane Bozarth
T/D: If you’re the first trainer or a one person training department, how would you get started? How would you set up?
JB: I think especially for the first one, there’s a temptation to think that there’s nothing already in place but very often there is. Perhaps there was some kind of mandatory training done five years ago or there’s been some kind of tutorial for using the company telephone, for example.
The first-time trainer walks in and it’s just so overwhelming. They don’t know where to start because they've got all these different people making different demands. As a quick exercise I would invite the reader to answer the following questions.1. What do you believe your job is? What is your job in this organization? 2. What does your boss or the person who hired you think your job is and what your role in the organization is? And 3, What do your co-workers think your job is?
It’s really critical that you are very clear on the different expectations of the different people with whom you’ll be interacting. I have seen trainers go into an organization and make big mistakes by not being really clear on what their boss wanted them to do or what their co-workers thought they were there to do.
The other thing that I would warn you about is to find out what promises have already been made. If your not the first trainer the organization has ever had, it's important to know who your predecessor was. Different trainers have different styles and they have different approaches. Are you trying to fill big shoes and are people looking to you to fill the same shoes? Or perhaps the new trainer may have been brought in intentionally to correct deficiencies the prior trainer had or to do things the prior trainer didn't do.
For instance, I once replaced a trainer who was very, very popular but she never did any training. She saw herself as the organization’s one-on-one HR consultant. People would call her day in and day out with questions about the performance management policy or leave procedures - things that I was never going to do. Therefore, finding out who you’re replacing, whether they were formally in a training role or not, can be really important. Also finding out if you’re replacing someone who’s weak can be a great thing; capitalize on that.
T/D: This is wonderful information. Is there other information that’s useful to a new trainer when they’re just getting started?
JB: The biggest mistake I see new trainers make is that they go into their offices or their cubicles with piles of policy manuals and prior training materials and perhaps whatever else has been dumped on them and they don't actually do any further research.
Don’t be a little office mole. Get out. Find out what the standing meetings are and get invited to those if only to come in and say, “Hi I’m Jane.” Find out who the key players are and make a point of introducing yourself to them.
I had a new boss one time who had been in place for a couple of months who stopped me in the hallway to ask who somebody was that was walking by. It was one of our senior managers. He was someone she should have met the first week she was there and remembered his name – she should have made it a point to speak to him when she saw him.
You’re never going to get credibility or get a foothold in the organization if you’re not informed. Find out who the players are. Find out what their needs and problems are and find out how to support their projects.
For more information on Jane Bozarth, visit www.bozarthzone.com. To hear the complete hour-long interview you can order the CD or downloadable Mp3 at The Accidental Trainer Store on our website.
The Training Doctor is the sponsor of our free “Accidental Trainer Power Interviews.” Remember when you can’t find it off the shelf The Training Doctor is your custom instructional design and solution and you can find us at www.theaccidentaltrainer.com.
What do you earn?
Click here to learn how your earnings compare with other training professionals across the US. Here’s a preview:
Overall salaries if you’ve been in the profession:
Three years or less: $70,881
Four to seven years: $76,285
Eight to twelve years: $78,581
Thirteen year or more: $92,815
(link this to the click here)