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March 30, 2012
Dispelling the Myths of Creating a Winning Corporate Culture

Avoidance—and even outright denial—of the need to make corporate culture development a “Mission Critical Objective” lies in five common myths that destroy the impetus for any organized effort to create, build, and nurture a winning corporate culture.

By Joseph Gianni, President and CEO, 2logical

Few would deny the majestic power of a winning corporate culture. When the odds are stacked against the success of a mission critical corporate objective, a strong corporate culture can persevere through all kinds of challenges and setbacks—and make, well, even the impossible…possible.

Even in the most turbulent market conditions, a strong corporate culture can shorten the recovery time from minor or major setbacks by as much as tenfold, when compared to an organization lacking the “right stuff.”

March 27, 2012
Bridging Generational Workplace Chasms

The Department of Labor projects that by age 32, today’s young adults will have had approximately eight jobs, an average of about 1.5 years at each company. Here are best practices Ambius employs to attract and retain Gen Y/Millennial workers while honoring and empowering its Gen X and Boomer employees.

By Jeff Mariola, President, Ambius

 “All Baby Boomers who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964, are afraid of technology.” “Gen Y/Millennials (born between 1982 and 2001) don’t want to work hard.” Have you heard these stereotypes? As a “Boomer” who oversees thousands of people in North America and Europe, I believe there are inherent challenges in managing divergent generations of colleagues, but the opportunities for growth and renewal are far greater.

March 27, 2012
How-To: Cement Learning in Just 5 Minutes

One of the most common ways to reinforce key content is to make it available in a bite-sized format that’s easy for participants to review, useful for managers to reinforce, and easy to integrate as pre-work into related programs.

By Kendra Lee

When we as trainers create training, it’s not enough to just deliver it. If we want to make it stick, we need strategies to cement the content long after the program appears to be over.

One of the most common ways to reinforce key content is to make it available in a bite-sized format that’s easy for participants to review, useful for managers to reinforce, and easy to integrate as pre-work into related programs.

March 26, 2012
The Global Mindset

Professionals who lived abroad for several years have learned to develop a global mindset the hard way, often experiencing painful failures, being forced to re-evaluate the way they approach foreign markets. Training employees and giving them the tools needed to develop the global mindset needed to succeed prior to engaging in international endeavors is by far the most effective way to conduct international business and retain employees.

By Valerie Berset-Price

March 23, 2012
A Rant on Big Meetings

Traditional big meetings are the ultimate lose-lose. The organization spends tons of money and yet has little to show for it. Why? Because the entire focus is on the content and not on the attendees. All that matters is what’s being shown versus what’s being learned.

By Dan Cooper, CEO, ej4.com

A special piece of the classroom experience is a standard ritual in organizations—the traditional “big meeting.”

A front-line Marketing specialist attended the annual two-day sales extravaganza. The meeting consisted of a steady stream of product manager presentations for full eight-hour days, with a 15-minute break in the morning and afternoon.

March 23, 2012
The Do’s and Don’ts of Decision-Making

Great decision-makers know the necessary tools to cover all their bases before formulating the decisions: correctly framing the problem, using ignorance as a quest to gain additional knowledge, closing the gap between where you currently are and where you want to be, creating a questioning strategy, and embracing feedback.

By David Goldsmith

Great decision-making skills have never been more important then in today’s business environment. The playing field has been leveled because most individuals and organizations basically have access to the same technology, information, and markets as their competitors. What ultimately will distinguish competitors is their ability to make better decisions.

High-performing decision-makers act and think differently. Here, a look at the decision-making actions to be avoided and the tools for making higher-quality decisions.

March 23, 2012
What NOT to Say

When it comes to customer service, tell learners about the bad things that happened to you—primarily to make them laugh about it, but also so they think about what notto do or say to a customer. Document every customer service interaction you have, or the experiences of others you hear about—especially the bad ones—so you can pass along the dos and don’ts to your learners.

By Gisele Canova

March 19, 2012
How OD and CoPs Influence Performance

There is never one correct method to follow in prescribing training and/or performance interventions. A variety of solutions can be implemented based on knowledge sharing and a company’s organizational structure. Here’s a look at how Communities of Practice (CoPs) and Organizational Design (OD) influence employee performance.

By Alexandra Harocopos

There is never one correct method to follow in prescribing training and/or performance interventions. A variety of solutions can be implemented based on knowledge sharing and a company’s organizational structure. The best solution is figuring out what works well for your project and your organization. This article will examine how Organizational Design (OD) contributes to performance. It will focus specifically on the influence of knowledge sharing through Communities of Practice (CoPs).

What Is a CoP?

March 16, 2012
Corporate Training: Are Managers Born or Made?

Managers with a growth mindset are more committed to their employees’ development, and to their own, according to Carol S. Dweck, author of “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.” They give a great deal more developmental coaching, they notice improvement in employees’ performance, and they welcome critiques from their employees, she writes. “Most exciting, the growth mindset can be taught to managers.”

By Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

Millions of dollars and thousands of hours are spent each year trying to teach leaders and managers how to coach their employees and give them effective feedback. Yet much of this training is ineffective, and many leaders and mangers remain poor coaches. Is that because this can’t be trained? No, that’s not the reason. Research sheds light on why corporate training often fails.

March 15, 2012
Inspiring Brilliance in Customer Experience

Communications company Everything Everywhere initiated the “Brilliance Program,” which aimed to make it the best-loved communications brand in the industry. How would to achieve this goal? By narrowing the score variations on performance between agents, and ensuring that customers consistently walked away from every transaction feeling loved.

By Nick Lane, Director, Strategy and Planning, Everything Everywhere

March 14, 2012
Social Learning Starts with Online CoPs

Two key characteristics of online CoPs set them apart from all other traditional methods of group collaboration. Unlike apprenticeships, brown bag lunches, or other informal methods of collaboration where information can be lost unless individuals take it upon themselves to spread knowledge, online exchanges allow you to capture, tag, and categorize information to easily search for later use. Secondly, this information can be accessed from anywhere around the world at any time.

By Brandon Williams, Consultant, The Educe Group

If you build it, will they really come? Drive the adoption of enterprise-wide social learning technology by creating thriving online communities of practice.

What Is a Community of Practice?

March 13, 2012
Will the Customer Service Process Ever Be the Same?

Whether we like it or not, the customer service process is going through a permanent change that we cannot avoid. And while it may be an awkward, uncomfortable embrace at first, over time, it will become second nature. But in the meantime, how do we work the customer service process we know and love into a new, digital era?

By Joe Cortez, Interactive Media Specialist, Signature Worldwide

Technology has driven us into some new, unforeseen territory in the last few years. Before, when you had a problem with a company (or its level of perceived service), you would have to call an 800 number and navigate through a touch-tone menu of options just to speak to someone who hopefully could resolve your problem. Today, instead of dealing with the company directly, you can express your dissatisfaction through a public medium such as Facebook or Twitter.

March 12, 2012
Engaged Leadership’s Role in Organizational Safety and Success

Where there is a culture of leadership engagement—where leaders are seen as plugged in and responsive to their employees; where employees feel their leaders are concerned with their everyday activities, personal well-being, and overall security—those are the places where you see engaged employees on every level.

By Bill Whitmore, Chairman, President, and CEO, AlliedBarton Security Services

There’s a direct connection between engaged leadership, workplace security, and organizational success, regardless of your product or service. Psychologist Abraham Maslow identified safety and security as among the most basic human needs on the road to self-actualization—achieving one’s full potential. It, therefore, follows that if your employees don’t feel safe and secure, they’re not going to do the best job for you.

March 8, 2012
Small Business Dynamics
How can women and minority business owners be most successful? Use your diversity position as reason to conduct strategic planning...dealing honestly and forcefully with the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your business. Thus, you will initiate more partnerships and carve a market niche.

By Hank Moore, Corporate Strategist

How can women and minority business owners be most successful?

See yourself as a plus to the business world, not as a liability. We are all minorities operating in the whole, as do professional specialties within the company’s big picture. Through diversity, each element blends and supports others, as does the corporate visioning process. Major public sector contracts require qualified minority subcontractors. Select partners, and show good faith efforts to procure and execute contracts.

March 7, 2012
The Drum Cafe Experience
An empowering, unifying, and uplifting experience is what conference attendees were a part of when musical motivator Drum Cafe kicked off  the Training2012 Conference & Expo in Atlanta February 13-15.

An empowering, unifying, and uplifting experience is what conference attendees were a part of when musical motivator Drum Cafe kicked off  the Training2012 Conference & Expo in Atlanta February 13-15.

March 6, 2012
Supercompetent Speaking: Tips for Visuals

A picture really is worth a thousand words. So when it comes to professional presentations, good visuals not only help personalize your talk, they save time and more easily transmit your ideas. They also can help the audience remember and integrate your message better. But always remember that too much visual information presented too quickly can be confusing.

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

While the information we gather with all our senses can be vitally important, we human beings prefer the visual medium over all others. Our brains just work that way: We possess the ability to differentiate and process subtle differences in light intensity, color, and movement almost instantly, even though images tend to contain much more information than other sensory inputs.

March 5, 2012
Creating Smart Trust

A Smart Trust culture is a culture of immense momentum, possibility, and power, according to Stephen M. R. Covey and Greg Link, authors of  “Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-Trust World.” Smart Trust is not built on the assumption that what we need is more rules, more regulations, and more referees; it’s built on the evidence that extending trust and creating a high-trust culture in which top performance is expected brings greater dividends for stakeholders on every level.

February 29, 2012
Developing a Drug-Free Workplace

Small to mid-sized companies, which employ 75 percent of Americans, implement drug-free workplace programs only 5 to 10 percent of the time. Here’s how to help convince management of the need for a drug-free workplace program and the steps to set up such a program.

By Michael Rich

Almost 70 percent of drug users are employed, 20 percent admit to using marijuana on the job, and more than 30 percent know of the sale of illegal drugs in the workplace. It is staggering numbers such as these pushing 90 percent of all large businesses to adopt drug-free workplace programs.

February 28, 2012
New Article: Developing a Drug-Free Workplace

Small to mid-sized companies, which employ 75 percent of Americans, implement drug-free workplace programs only 5 to 10 percent of the time. Here’s how to help convince management of the need for a drug-free workplace program and the steps to set up such a program.

 

By Michael Rich

Almost 70 percent of drug users are employed, 20 percent admit to using marijuana on the job, and more than 30 percent know of the sale of illegal drugs in the workplace. It is staggering numbers such as these pushing 90 percent of all large businesses to adopt drug-free workplace programs.

February 28, 2012
Tips to Re-engage Your Team

Almost everyone in the workplace has been “doing more with less” for a long time. Yet productivity has risen 2.3 percent annually during these tough times as fewer employees accomplish miracles by working more hours and taking on bigger workloads. Is it possible to get higher productivity without burning people out?

By Carl Eidson, Ph.D., Vice President, Business Development, Wilson Learning

February 27, 2012
How to Teach a Course That Doesn’t Exist

People—usually successful, senior-level people—will speak of this course easily, almost casually. They seem to know it well, as if they’ve taken it themselves. And the day may come when you hear it requested, with little further explanation, as the cure to some pretty serious problems. What course is this? It’s called “Sales 101”—and no one has ever taken it.

By Ken Wax

People—usually successful, senior-level people—will speak of this course easily, almost casually. They seem to know it well, as if they’ve taken it themselves. And the day may come when you hear it requested, with little further explanation, as the cure to some pretty serious problems.

What course is this? It’s called “Sales 101”—and no one has ever taken it.

February 27, 2012
New Article: The Right Choice

A person is the result of all his choices, both the right and the wrong ones. With a right choice, a person develops, matures, actualizes, and grows. A wrong choice is detrimental to growth. A person can make right and wrong choices, and in the course of a lifetime, knowingly and unknowingly, he makes both.

By Darryl S. Doane; Rose D. Sloat; and David S. Doane, Ph.D.

A critical component of my focus may be the right choice. We once heard a story of a farmer who had an old mule. One day, the farmer is out working and hears a distressful wailing that sounds as if something terrible has happened.

February 27, 2012
The Right Choice

A person is the result of all his choices, both the right and the wrong ones. With a right choice, a person develops, matures, actualizes, and grows. A wrong choice is detrimental to growth. A person can make right and wrong choices, and in the course of a lifetime, knowingly and unknowingly, he makes both.

By Darryl S. Doane; Rose D. Sloat; and David S. Doane, Ph.D.

A critical component of my focus may be the right choice. We once heard a story of a farmer who had an old mule. One day, the farmer is out working and hears a distressful wailing that sounds as if something terrible has happened.

February 23, 2012
Good Employee Health Leads to Improved Company Performance

Historically, businesses have viewed employee wellness as a way to lower health-care costs. But the rewards of wellness go far beyond reducing the price of employee benefits. If people feel good, they perform better. And if they perform at a higher level, so will your company. Here’s the evidence that shows the direct links between good health and improved company performance.

By Dr. Jack Groppel, Ph.D., Co-Founder, Human Performance Institute, and Vice President, Applied Science and Performance Training, Wellness & Prevention, Inc.

February 21, 2012
The 2012 Training Top 125

Training magazine’s 12th annual ranking of the top companies with employer-sponsored workforce training and development.

The best learning and development organizations support business initiatives tactically and help drive strategic change. Verizon did just that, earning it the No. 1 spot for the first time on the Training Top 125. Verizon and the other 2012 Top 125 winners continued to invest in training, collectively dedicating a mean of 4.52 percent of their payroll to the training budget. Some 24 newcomers earned a spot on the list this year, the 12th in a row Training has ranked the top companies of employer-sponsored workforce training and development.