Content about Person Career

March 30, 2012
6 Management Practices for Affecting Workplace Climate

Many employees put teamwork and recognition at the top of the list of keys to improving workplace climate, but each business climate depends on the goals of the business. Focus on analyzing the kind of climate you need, whether it’s about innovation, customers, or collaboration.

By Maggie Walsh, Ph.D., Vice President and Practice Lead, Leadership for Forum

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
Salespeople Are Different—and So Are Companies

If your company’s sales training program isn’t in tune with the organization’s culture, history, and preconceived notions, it may bring polite nods but deliver little else. Here are five aspects that can’t be overlooked.

By Ken Wax

My recent article explored “10 Reasons Why Training Salespeople Is Different and What You Can Do About It” (http://trainingmag.com/article/yes-salespeople-are-different%E2%80%94and-so-training-them). It showed why the very nature of their work makes them different than most other groups.

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 21, 2012
Mentoring: Taking Time Saves Time

Many leaders, while well intentioned, often are unprepared or underprepared for the mentor role. Many claim the lack of time is the issue. Sure, it’s an issue, but probably not theissue. It is important to remember that taking time to prepare for mentoring ultimately saves time. Here are five steps to get started and five mentoring skills to cultivate.

By Dr. Lois J. Zachary, President, Leadership Development Services, LLC

Many leaders, while well intentioned, often are unprepared or underprepared for the mentor role. Many claim the lack of time is the issue. Sure, it’s an issue, but probably not theissue. It is important to remember that taking time to prepare for mentoring ultimately saves time.

How do we know?We’ve conducted hundreds of interviews with organizational leaders who are involved in mentoring relationships. What our research has demonstrated is:

March 20, 2012
7 Rules for Total Transparency

Companies today must do business at the speed of NOW. In the NOW organization, The Quarterly Target Review makes problems clearly visible to everyone, reveals gaps between targets and actual performance, and, thus, provides a pivotal tool for maintaining transparency.

By John M. Bernard, Founder and Chairman, Mass Ingenuity

Companies today must do business at the speed of NOW, and a business that cannot see its problems will sink. In the NOW organization, The Quarterly Target Review makes problems clearly visible to everyone and, thus, provides a pivotal tool for maintaining transparency. A formal review of work ON and IN the business, the Quarterly Target Review puts a microscope on the business, revealing any gaps between targets and actual performance.

March 19, 2012
2012 Top Young Trainer Award Winners

Trainingmagazine named the winners of its 2012 Top Young Trainer awards, recognizing the top 40 training professionals age 40 and under. All Top Young Trainer candidates had to be nominated by co-workers or industry peers. All nominators had to submit a nomination form and a resumé for their candidate.

Training magazine named the winners of its 2012 Top Young Trainer awards, recognizing the top 40 training professionals age 40 and under. These executives will be profiled in the May/June 2012 issue of Trainingmagazine and online at www.trainingmag.com, and they will be honored at an awards ceremony in February 2013 at the Training 2013 Conference & Expo, World Disney World Resort, FL.

March 19, 2012
New Hire Orientation at IMG College

IMG College thinks of its new hire orientation as the first opportunity new employees, or “team members,” have to experience the organization’s culture. Orientation focuses on the company’s three tenets of the “Total Team Member—Personal, Character, and Professional Development.”

By Margery Weinstein

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
Case Study: New Hire Scorecards at Discover Financial Services

Some organizations need specific scorecards that focus on the performance of an individual training program and the performance of learners as they make the transition from the classroom to the workplace. That’s the situation faced by the Training Center of Excellence at Discover Financial Services for the New Hire Program in its call centers. This case study describes that challenge and the solution the training team at Discover devised.

As balanced scorecards have become increasingly common tools used to manage entire businesses, many training and development professionals have tried to adapt them for use in our profession. For example, ASTD developed its Workplace Learning and Performance Scorecard in 2006, and Ajay Pangarkar and Teresa Kirkwood published their Trainer’s Balanced Scorecard in 2009.

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 9, 2012
Goals for Optimists and Goals for Pessimists
Most goals can be promotion focused or prevention focused, writes Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson, in “Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals.” Promotion-focused goals are thought about in terms of achievement and accomplishment. They are about maximizing gains. Prevention-focused goals are about fulfilling responsibilities. They are about minimizing losses. The trick is to be able to identify your focus, and then do the things that will work best for you.

By Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson

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 7, 2012
Why People Don’t Remember You
The reality is that if you sell complex solutions, for example, it’s difficult enough to get people to understand what you do in the first place, much less enable them to remember what you do a few days later. That’s where your “unique sales stories” come in. They not only enable people to understand what you do, they also enable them to repeat your story to others.

By Mark Satterfield

To set the stage for what I’m about to share, let’s focus on something that would appear to be “a blinding grasp of the obvious.”

In order to get more referrals, people need to know who you are and what you do. You need to be top of mind when opportunities arise for people to send business your way. Now, if you sell a tangible product, this may be relatively easy. Need tires? Go to Bob. But what about when you sell services, especially high-value services that don’t lend themselves to a 10-second elevator pitch?

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.

March 5, 2012
Leading the Facebook Generation

Our younger colleagues keep us on top of our game, and we can learn a lot from them. Doing so requires that we take a fresh look at how we manage work and lead people. We should be looking for ways to give them opportunities to make the leaps forward based upon their mental models.

By Ty Kiisel, Manager, Social Outreach, AtTask, Inc

I work with a team of mostly young people. Except for the fact that I’m a 50-something guy who rides a Harley rather than a 20-something guy who rides a bullet bike, there’s no real generation gap among my colleagues. Of course, there are some age-related differences, but, for the most part, they are minor things less associated with work and more related to fashion and other personal preferences.

March 2, 2012
7 Ways to Tame Your Office Tyrant

Terrible Office Tyrants (TOTs) are managers who have trouble modulating their power when frustrated or under stress. Fortunately, you have the opportunity to proactively manage the “toddlers” running amok in your office by using humor, common sense, and rational thinking, and by setting limits to bad behavior.

By Lynn Taylor

In a time of record unemployment rates and job insecurity, many people get stuck having to deal with less-than-ideal bosses. The boss’ tantrums and stubborn, whiny, or needy behaviors are reminiscent of a boss stuck…in his Terrible Twos, a.ka., a Terrible Office Tyrant or TOT. 

March 1, 2012
Case Study: The UPS Store/Cal Poly Training

Tapping the resources and expertise of California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), The UPS Store created a hands-on training program to help its nationwide franchise network say, “We can print that.”

By Marianne Hamilton,Training and Development Manager, The UPS Store network

When the franchisor of The UPS Store decided to grow its business printing services, it knew it needed a training curriculum for its franchisees that was consistent, scalable… and convincing.

March 1, 2012
Case Study: The UPS Store/Cal Poly Training

Tapping the resources and expertise of California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), The UPS Store created a hands-on training program to help its nationwide franchise network say, “We can print that.”

 

By Marianne Hamilton,Training and Development Manager, The UPS Store network

When the franchisor of The UPS Store decided to grow its business printing services, it knew it needed a training curriculum for its franchisees that was consistent, scalable… and convincing.

February 29, 2012
Training Corporate Workers Like Fighter Pilots

Creating a virtual environment provides context and focus during training that is difficult to achieve using any other method. It’s your best bet for creating aces within your own organization.

By Eric Vidal, Director of Product Marketing, Event Services Business Segment, InterCall

February 28, 2012
Core Competencies: Setting Training Up for Failure?

Letting the Training department assume responsibility for core competencies sets you up for failure. You’re not in a position to implement organizational strategies. What you can do is provide a direct link between the core competencies your organization has chosen and your department’s specific training offerings in terms of employee competence.

By Dan Cooper, CEO, ej4.com

When it comes to training, the “competence” word gets thrown around a lot. The assumption is that everyone knows what it means, but that often isn’t the case. You need to make sure you know which of two definitions you’re talking about, and what the training department is signing up for.

Core Competence