Training Book Reviews

Building the Learning Organization: Achieving Strategic Advantage through a Commitment to Learning, 3rd edition. By Michael J. Marquardt. 2011: Published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 240 pages.

I am in the process of starting with a new company as an operations trainer for a call center.  As I venture in new corporate waters, I am tempted to compare the culture and environment of my new employer against that of my former.  While I am excited about the new opportunity, I find myself curious about the role of training in my organization.  Is it valued?  Is the training department viewed as a legitimate business partner?  It is against this backdrop that I read the third edition of Michael J. Marquardt’s Building the Learning Organization. 

Marquardt begins his text by using an analogy from the world of biology.  He states that if businesses cannot expect to remain competitive and relevant in the marketplace unless they create a forward-thinking mentality and create a learning organization.  Unless they want to go the way of the dinosaurs, companies must adopt creative, cost-effective, and continual learning processes.  “Learning must take place almost as a by-product of working, in contrast to acquiring knowledge before performing a particular task.” (ix)  However, Marquardt also points out that it is not enough for companies to learn.  They must also discover and implement faster, more efficient ways of learning.

The writing is straightforward, free of cumbersome language.  This allows the reader to focus more intently on the model that Marquardt presents for instituting a learning organization.  He starts by defining the different types of learning (Adaptive, Anticipatory, and Action).  He then outlines the three levels of learning (Individual, Group/Team, and Organizational).  Finally, Marquardt lays out the different skills that can be learned ( Systems Thinking, Mental Models, Personal Mastery, Self-directed Learning, and Dialogue).  The whole book is presented in a systematic, building block framework that is easy to follow, yet presents challenging material.  Marquardt provides several case studies to illustrate the concepts he writes about and he supplies data to support the urgency of his case.

As I read Building the Learning Organization, I was struck at how anxious I became to run out and implement these ideas in my new job.  I want my new company to be one that is a learning organization.  I want it to be one that understands the need to have knowledgeable employees that have received more than just the initial job training to perform their tasks.  I am asking myself how I can engage in dialogue with my new leaders and clients about how to turn the concepts written in this book into a viable and profitable reality.

I recommend this book to learning professionals at all levels within a training organization.  The tenets brought forth by Marquardt provide a valuable blueprint for instituting a work group committed to seeing its organization grow and develop.  More importantly, I recommend this book for leaders all across any company or organization.  In order for your teams to be successful, they will need to immerse themselves in professional growth and development.  Reading Building the Learning Organization will provide you, as their leader, immeasurable insights in how to make that happen. Order your copy today!

Reviewed by Jeff South

Make Talent Your Business: How Exceptional Managers Develop People While Getting Results By Wendy Axelrod and Jeannie Coyle. 2011: Published by Berrett-Kohler, 210 pages.

According to recent research, when most leaders are asked about the status of their employee development program, they are likely to express that it sits squarely in the “top 5” for importance, but shakes out to the bottom, both in investment and returns. How can we all realize better results in our employee development efforts, regardless of industry or company size?  Wendy Axelrod and Jeannie Coyle have given us a new way to consider this often overwhelming area that falls in the laps of HR managers, department managers and executives.  In their new title, Make Talent Your Business: How Exceptional Managers Develop People While Getting Results, Axelrod and Coyle guide us through a new process for employee development, which resulted from their combined 40+ years of experience and an extensive research project, where they enlisted over 100 representatives from companies of all sizes to gather information and find solutions for all of us.

And what is the underlying takeaway?  Use the work itself as a development tool. 

In the authors’ words, “Are we saying that the one thing that matters most is done the least? Yes. We believe that a major reason that using the work itself as a development tool is so rare is that managers simply don’t know how to package together work and development or how to put themselves in the picture every day to support development.” How can you make every day a development day?  Use these four approaches:

1. Tuck development into work
2. Create the right stretch
3. Seize development moments
4. Leverage team learning

The authors take readers through each approach and show us how to integrate them into every work day.  Although these approaches in themselves are worth putting to work right away, this book gets kudos for adding “toolkits” into each concept, giving leaders actual discussion guides for implementing the tasks within each approach.  They also show us ways to increase the value of many tools typically supplied by organizations, such as a 360-degree feedback tool and mandated number of classroom training hours per year.

Finally, have you considered which of your employees need to develop political skills or have you addressed the psychological side of development? It’s all covered here.

Reviewed by Marcia Young

By Jane Bozarth, Ed.D. 2010: Published by Pfeiffer, 192 pages.

In  Social Media for Trainers: Techniques for Enhancing and Extending Learning, author Jane Bozarth shows readers not only how to increase the impact of training programs but also how to broaden their influence beyond the classroom. If you thought printed handouts offered added value to your courses, you’ll be blown away by all the ways in which you can use social media to make the courses you teach reach your attendees where they spend their time every single day, not just on training day, and that place is in the world of social media.

The author walks us through the main social media outlets:

•         Twitter
•         Facebook
•         Blogs
•         Wikis
•         Other Tools

Within each section, Ms. Bozarth gives us the big picture, including how to view each particular tool, its advantages and disadvantages, getting started using it, pre-work tasks, and in-class uses. However, what experienced trainers will find most enlightening are the sections on formative and summative evaluation and post-class work, which further extends the life of the training.

Not ready to jump into all of the social media tools? This book will still become your most valued partner in offering innovative training programs. You can read the overview of each tool and then decide which one you use to get your feet wet. How about a blog post to stimulate discussion on what was learned in class or a tweet that reinforces learning with quick quotes or terms that encapsulate the main ideas in the course that employees attended yesterday?

Everyone is looking for employee development options that offer higher impact while keeping costs down. Whether you are a trainer, training manager or CLO, once you read Social Media for Trainers, your mind will reel with the possibilities. As a trainer, you will be able to offer value-added training programs that likely surpass your competitors’ services.  As a training manager, you will have new tools for assessing prospective vendors. As a CLO, you will be able to lead your organization to new training and development excellence by helping multiple departments integrate social media tools into their employee learning cycle.

This book conveys groundbreaking ideas in a conversational style that will allow anyone to integrate social media into training, regardless of their technical skills. It is bound to become part of the new canon, opening up all of us to new possibilities.

Reviewed by Marcia Young

By Henry L. Thompson. 2010: Jossey-Bass Publishing, 336 pages.

“At first I thought I was reading a neurological text, until I realized he was establishing a foundation for those who would become practitioners, learners, and trainers.”   ~   Jim Beeler, book reviewer

Dr. Thompson offered a completely new look at stress and its relationship to the workforce.  I started reading The Stress Effect with a curious eye toward the relationship between stress and decisions in the title.  Dr. Thompson delivers on his title, and then some.

The Stress Effect targets leadership and draws on decision making examples provided by leaders in stressful times.  Dr. Thompson points toward the fallacy of thinking a great response in one situation would “be a one size fits all” leader.  He leads the reader through the connections between stress and decision making, and the relationships between emotional intelligence and stress.

The first half of The Stress Effect draws the reader into the workings of the brain.  At first I thought I was reading a neurological text, until I realized he was establishing a foundation for those who would become practitioners, learners, and trainers.  Having read more “clinical” versions on brain interactivity, I noted his writing was more toned down.  He wasn’t opening my head for me to see, he was opening my eyes to my head.  He built his case slowly, methodically, and purposefully to provide practitioners the tools necessary to continue building their own stress programs.

Nearly mid-way through his book, Dr. Thompson shifts gears from relationships of subjects to relationships between the subject and preparation for responding to stress.  I certainly appreciated the offers for preparation.  It was not long before I understood more about previous practices and real life events in my life.

While The Stress Effect is timely, the lessons from Dr. Thompson are timeless.  The reader soon learns stress is not an either/or condition, it is a “level of” condition.  As Dr. Abraham Maslow pointed out in his Hierarchy of Needs, any one of our needs creates stress to some degree, but not necessarily the same degree or with the same effect.  A level of stress in one areas can impact other areas, depending on its severity.  It is the leader who needs to understand stressful situations, how to respond to or lead people through stressful times and events, and the consequences for both solutions and chronic conditions.

As his final chapter, Dr. Thompson offers the Seven Best Practices.  His ARSENAL provides readers a glimpse of practices to reduce, resolve, or remove stress. There are ways to reduce stress through practice, planning, and processes.  ARSENAL provides the reader tools and ideas to overcome many of life and workplace stressors.

At first thought, I looked at The Stress Effect as purely organizational or business.  While those are his target audience, I submit that he provides readers with a span to cover all phases of life.   His analogies, examples, and connection with life are easily transferable to both the CEO and the mother faced with a household emergency, from the pastor serving his congregation to the fireman responding to a call, and from the child reacting to bad grades to the teacher’s response.

I highly recommend The Stress Effect.  Dr. Thompson’s approach is on target for practitioners, trainers, educators, and students of emotional intelligence.  Understanding stress, the effect on both decisions and personnel, the consequences on the entire organization, and resulting effects on customers, economics, and service are critical.  While many debate the recovery of the recent global downturn, the world will not soon recover completely.  Stress remains in nearly every household, in every organization, and in every mind.  It is one of those things we know has happened or will happen, but with The Stress Effect we will have an ARSENAL to at least address the situation before more dumb decisions are made.

Reviewed by Jim Beeler