Tag Archives: training

What Is the Business Value of a Great Workplace?

Posted on February 13, 2012 by | Leave a comment

In their new title, The Great Workplace: How to Build It, How to Keep It, and Why It Matters, authors Michael Burchell and Jennifer Robin ask us to consider why leaders, trainers, and human resources executives should put effort into making their workplace “great.”  You may ask yourself the same question.  After all, with all of the challenges that organizations have faced in recent years, many leaders may consider organizational culture secondary to basic financial and operational needs.

But, organizations that are considered “great” places to work by employees are also able to leverage the human capital that they have spent years finding, training, and paying, to accommodate those needs. This book takes readers on a tour of many companies that have been placed on Fortune Magazine’s “Top 100 Companies to Work For” list, including SAS, Microsoft, Scripps Health, General Mills, Google, and others. It explores what they all have in common, regardless of their unique culture, size, or industry.  The authors show the value of these real-world examples by highlighting their commitment to three critical ideals: trust, pride, and camaraderie.

Burchell and Robin draw on over 25 years of studying great workplaces.  Today, they conduct the largest annual study of workplace environments globally. In The Great Workplace, they have synthesized this wealth of information into a  concise account of best practices for organizational culture that lends a warm, readable tone to a subject that is often treated with formulas and sterile definitions.

The message is simple: The great workplace is one where employees trust the people they work for, take pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with.  But achieving “great workplace” status is definitely a challenge.  The Great Workplace will show you all you need to know in order to make your organization the best it can be.

Register now for HRDQ’s next Webinar, presented by Michael Burchell and Jennifer Robin, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 from 2pm-3pm EST

What You Will Learn:

  • Explore the essential ingredients of a great workplace
  • Understand the business case for developing a great workplace
  • Discover the best practices that separate great workplaces from the rest
  • Learn how the learning and development function is positioned at the best companies
  • Realize how learning and development leaders influence the creation of a great workplace

Who Should Attend:

  • Management team members
  • Trainers and organization development professionals
  • Human Resources managers
  • OD consultants

Space is limited. You will receive a confirmation email containing detailed instructions shortly after you complete the registration process. Special offer for attendees! Join us for this presentation and receive an exclusive offer from HRDQ.

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Posted in Teams and Leadership

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58 1/2 Ways to Improvise in Training

Posted on February 3, 2012 by | Leave a comment

As a trainer or facilitator, there are many times when you are responsible for energizing participants and setting the tone for a stimulating learning environment.    58 ½ Ways to Improvise in Training (by Paul Jackson, HRDQ), presents a variety of typical “Activity Groups” and then addresses each one with six or seven flexible group activities to stimulate and loosen up your group. The author, backed by the practical expertise that he brings to the table from years of experience, created these activities to provide you with immediately usable techniques.  Even more, he adds variations to each activity, so they can be customized for your situation.

Activity Groups Included in 58 ½ Ways to Improvise in Training:

  • Alert and Energize
  • Working Together
  • Influencing Relationships
  • Resources
  • Emotions and Attitudes
  • Scenarios
  • Creativity
  • Wisdom

The author also emphasizes the invigoration of the trainer or facilitator, who is able to catch the “buzz” of energy created by the activities in the book, and pass that energy back to participants in the form of a high-impact, satisfying workshop and learning experience.

Within their groups, the activities are organized by their energy level, whether they are  team-oriented, and if they address the verbal, physical, or visual realms.  This augments the typical “time allotted and number of participants” information that a trainer usually has to settle for.  You also are given “side-coaching” tips to help you keep energy flowing throughout the activity, debriefing, and variations.

If you ever find yourself starting a workshop or training program with participants who seem distracted or apathetic, you will be able to pull out one of these 58 ½ activities and get the improvisational energy rolling. When you start presenting the curriculum, you’ll have an alert audience whose minds are on the task at hand and ready to learn!

58 ½ Ways to Improvise in Training is available digitally, or as a printed collection of loose-leaf sheets to meet your audiences’ needs.

And what is the “1/2” activity, in the 58 ½ activities that this book covers? You’ll find out when you open up the book yourself!

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Posted in Reach Your Audience

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The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, A Leadership Fable

Posted on January 21, 2012 by | 2 Comments

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni depicts a fictional, yet realistic, executive team in disarray.  Aptly subtitled “A Leadership Fable”, the tale follows a newly-appointed CEO in her quest to unify a broken group of managers into a cohesive team with functioning, professional relationships.

Far from a touchy-feely story of training exercises involving falling off a platform into their co-workers arms, the team learns why it is so important to trust one another.  Making the point that trust is the root from which every important action stems, Lencioni spells out a simple formula for success.  It is not easy, as he tells us, but it is simple.  Hard work and dedication are always necessary parts of any improvement or advancement, but never more so than when dealing with very different personalities.  We all know the Apprehensive Anthony, Negative Nelly, and Arrogant Amanda types, and Lencioni describes the firm, consistent manner in which they should be handled for the good of the team.

Written in an easy-to-follow story format, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team provides valuable insight into why it is difficult for individuals to accomplish results when not working as part of a cohesive team.  The Leadership Fable follows a progression that begins with a problem familiar to many:

  • Part One: Underachievement, depicts a team that is not working as such, and in turn, the company is faltering.
  • Part Two: Lighting the Fire, details the sometimes incendiary process of implementing a meaningful change.
  • Part Three: Heavy Lifting, narrates the sometimes arduous task of performing consistent actions to achieve lasting results.
  • Part Four: Traction, finally demonstrates measurable results.

The last several sections of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team specifically detail the five dysfunctions and their symptoms.  Finally, there is an assessment included to be used for diagnosing your team’s particular problem areas and suggestions for overcoming each dysfunction.  The lasting message of Lencioni’s tale is best articulated by the author himself:

Patrick Lencioni, Author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

“As much information is contained here, the reality remains that teamwork ultimately comes down to practicing a small set of principles over a long period of time.  Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory, but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence.”

With this book, you’ll be able to develop a group training session to introduce every member of your team to the theories in this helpful tale, or use it in every day practice as a manual to reinforce the constructive work habits that breed success.  Read this best-selling book today and implement its  suggestions to get your team on the road to success!

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Posted in Teams and Leadership

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Ron Roberts Book Signing: The Well Balanced Leader

Posted on January 18, 2012 by | Leave a comment

On Thursday, January 19th, Ron Roberts will be signing copies of his newest title, The Well Balanced Leader: The Egolibrium Method and the Nine Behaviors of Successful Leadership, at Barnes and Noble in Devon, Pennsylvania.

Egolibrium speaks to the instrumental balance between the identity of the individual and one’s performance as a member of a team.  In The Well Balanced Leader, Roberts focuses on nine behavioral pairs that need to be examined and controlled in order to maintain this balance. 

He provides a self-assessment, along with activities and suggestions geared toward developing each pair.  This assessment will be available in the HRDQ Store in late April.

If you are fan of his work, or are about to become one, we highly recommend joining Ron for a short presentation, and to get your signed copy of The Well Balanced Leader, on the 19th.  The event will begin at 7:00pm.

Meet Ron Roberts on Thursday, January 19th at 7:00pm

Location:
Barnes and Noble
150 West Swedesford Road
Devon, PA 19333
(610) 695 6600

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Training on Trial: How Workplace Learning must Reinvent Itself to Remain Relevant

Posted on November 11, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Training on TrialIn Training on Trial (Amacom, 2010), Jim and Wendy Kirkpatrick guide trainers and employee development professionals through the new role of training professionals. The main thrust of this title is neatly encapsulated in this quote by the authors:

“We survive and thrive when we understand that our role as workplace learning professionals is not to deliver training programs but to extend learning from episodic interventions to continual on-the-job enrichment. Ultimately, our role is to deliver demonstrated value to our business partners.”

While most of us can agree with that statement, the Kirkpatricks go on to provide a wealth of real-world data that shows how trainers and employee development professionals have been failing in their role, and they even posit that the role itself has fundamentally shifted. But all is not lost. This book provides practical solutions to repositioning the trainer-to-executive relationship, re-assessing how to provide return on expectations (ROE vs. ROI), and even walks readers through many training industry “stars” of the corporate world and shows us how we can learn from them.

We recently caught up with Jim and Wendy Kirkpatrick to talk about this honest (and sometimes painful) look at the role of training and development in general, the expectations we have of ourselves, the learners and the leaders in our industry.

HRDQ: This book gives straight talk to all of us in the training and development industry. Were people calling for this, or did you feel that it was just really important to open up or “frame” this conversation?

Jim: To be honest, I don’t think they were calling for it. I think that they saw the problems and realize that there is a “disconnect,” as evidenced by executives who don’t prioritize employee development initiatives, they cancel appointments, or give other indicators of how they feel about the training department in their organization. Trainers and employee development professionals can see the “disconnect,” but they didn’t understand that we share much of the blame for the problem.

Wendy: That’s right. We are the ones on trial and have to prove ourselves innocent. What happened to the economy in 2007-8 didn’t cause the problem, but exposed that training was inadequate for business. Once we started to give that straight talk, then people were happy –it was good news, because they can act on it. The responsibility is on us.

HRDQ: Have there been any surprises for you in the way readers have responded to or utilized the book?

Wendy: The return on expectations has become a movement. ROE can be measured as a matrix of various data points, dollars or in many other ways. On the other hand, ROI is usually a narrow term, and it attempts to measure success or failure by isolating one core data set or variable. That is where these two concepts (ROE vs. ROI) are completely different.

Jim: ROI ignores all the other factors that are such an important part of the business partnership formula that we talk about in the book. This is a fundamental shift that we have seen take off recently, especially since the publication of Training on Trial.

HRDQ: What is the core idea that you would like readers to take away?

Jim: When all is said and done, we still remain focused on learning versus training. As you know, learning is level 2 in the Kirkpatrick Evaluation Model, but it is not making any contribution unless people apply it. The allure is that learning is the Holy Grail, but it is not. We always ask people to add “performance” to really emphasize the transition. We want to pay special attention to potential to perform versus performance itself.

Wendy: In other words, let’s connect learning to the doing and impact!

Readers will find themselves instantly engaged in Training on Trial, since the Kirkpatrick’s message is embedded in an expanded courtroom metaphor and real-life examples and anecdotes. Even more, Wendy Kirkpatrick takes us through her own journey of learning with a first person account of her experiences.

Visit our Recommended Reading section today to find your next training resource!

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