AchieveGlobal's blog

Gardening

By Andrew Calvert In writing my most recent blog post I was searching around for something pithy and clever to use as a theme. In vain (as we all know working to a deadline is a killer to creativity...). But then I saw this gem:

If you want to be prosperous for a year, grow grain. If you want to be prosperous for ten years, grow trees. If you want to be prosperous for a lifetime, grow people. –CHINESE PROVERB

Too often in the hectic pace of today’s just-in-time, make-it-now, instant-return world we forget that the development of our people – at all levels of the organization – is a long term investment in the future.

When you grow anything (and I have several years experience as an organic farmer to back me up here) you start by preparing the soil. You create a fertile environment where the all the prerequisites for growth and development are abundant. As plants respond to warmth, light and nutrition so employees respond to respect, collaboration and support. Once the soil is ready, you choose the right seeds to get the plants you want when you want them. So managers need to get the right people into the right positions so as to take advantage of the available conditions. Just as weeds (i.e. a plant in the wrong place) can consume vital resources, so employees in the wrong job can take away from the environment you strive to create. As a gardener prunes and weeds, and manager coaches and develops. Harvesting in the garden is a time of plenty, in the workplace it is a time where matured employees move onto the next suitable role for them in the organization.

Learning When the Score is Nil-Nil

By Andrew Calvert Manchester United played Tottenham Hotspur in the League Cup final a few weeks ago. The match was 0-0 at full time and remained scoreless after an overtime period. At that point, the match referee called the managers and team together to prepare a list – a detailed sequence in which all 11 players on each team would take a penalty kick. The team with the highest score would win (and get 12 months of bragging rights). During the eight minutes or so that it took to compile the list, the Manchester United goalkeeping coach took his goalkeeper aside and showed him a iPod video of Tottenham players taking penalties. A few minutes later, Ben saved one penalty and unsettled the Spurs’ other penalty kicks. Manchester went on to win 4-1. Click here to read an article about the event. What an excellent example of just-in-time, mission-critical, workflow learning mediated through technology! But if you think about it, the video and immediate coaching (valuable as they were) were only the tip of the process. This goalkeeper works out many times a week, conditioning his reflexes, and gets coaching in every aspect of his profession – penalty-saving just a part of it. So, a lot of thought, practice, and dedication – and then at the critical moment, the iPod video... Technology is good. It helps. But without practice and dedication, would this goalkeeper have saved the game? What are the lessons here for blended workflow learning in a corporate environment? I'd welcome your thoughts...

How Can You Prepare Managers to Support Training?

By Craig Perrin This is the fourth of my five-part discussion with Kim Stafford, AchieveGlobal’s Director of International Development. This week we ask, “How can you prepare managers to support training?” CRAIG: If we want managers to support training, we have to stop shaming them. Instead, we should reduce their coaching responsibilities by changing the way we train. Rather than big training events followed by inconsistent or short-lived coaching, we need shorter increments of training over longer periods. Instead of a two-day employee workshop every six months, what if we had a one-hour session with an immediate application assignment and ongoing collaboration with peers, every week for two months? What if we leveraged all the technology now available – Internet, intranet, YouTube-type video, online social networking? What if trainers helped peers to coach each other? What if we developed dedicated coaches – people who like to coach, with the time to observe, provide feedback, and recognize employees? This kind of training isn’t idle fantasy. It’s already here in many organizations, functioning very well, and taking this pressure off managers to be everything to every employee. KIM: That’s one approach, yet it’s not always realistic. For better or worse – and I think it’s better – most organizations will continue to deliver traditional classroom training. As a long-time former trainer and director of training, I’ve seen the power of classroom learning. The classroom remains the number one place where skill development takes place. Larry Bossidy, author of Execution, says “Every leader and supervisor needs to be a teacher; classroom learning should be about giving [both managers and employees] the tools that they need.” People are worth the effort it takes to develop them through formal classroom training and skilled coaching. Dofasco Steel’s tag line is: “Our product is steel. Our strength is people.” In my view, the best way to improve human performance is to prepare managers to coach and then to measure how well they coach. That’s also the best way to reduce turnover and move toward key business goals. I’ll leave you with this thought: The main way employees – whether managers or individual contributors – learn new skills is through training, and the main way they grow and develop is through coaching.

DEBATE: What is the best way to engage learners and motivate them to apply new behaviors in the workplace?

by Jack McDaniel Regardless of the learning modality, the best ways to engage learners are to 1) make the content relevant to their jobs, and 2) make learning highly interactive. Simple techniques, such as a case study real to the learner instead of a generic situation or a skill practice that resonates with the learner’s real-life situation, can make a world of difference. This kind of learner engagement can be accomplished easily in either classroom, virtual classroom or self-paced elearning. But it’s in the follow-up and reinforcement where the learning modality can make a difference – and using technology is clearly superior. Just look at the effectiveness of blogs, EPSS, discussion forums and communities of practice. A comment about this question: While it's true that relevant content engages the learner, organizational commitment is even more critical. This commitment reveals itself in the importance that the organization puts on learning, the rewards that come from improved performance, and endorsements and follow-up from the executive team down to the manager. Management teams must be engaged. They must help coach and reinforce the behaviors before, during, and after the learning, regardless of the modality. If learner engagement is relevant to your business, watch this video in which Todd and I continue this debate on AchieveGlobal Island in Second Life.