Forward Momentum: Delivering Results

by Rob Zell

When I started my career in the world of corporate training, my first assignment was to revamp the field curriculum for a retail establishment. I was brand new to the world of retail corporate training but I had confidence in my educational background and my common sense.

Unfortunately, I was faced with a boss who had an idea of training that was based on look and feel of the materials more than the content. We had many a protracted argument about what the materials should be and in the end, as you might imagine, he won out. Some classic blunders occurred along the way in the development of the materials:

1. The timeline was set without any knowledge of the scope of the work. This put the team under unnecessary pressure to reach an unrealistic deadline. Quality suffered both in the content (major pieces were missing) and presentation (typos, etc.). This led to costly reprints.
2. The presentation dictated the content rather than letting the content determine the presentation. This VP wanted books, flashy, slick, glossy books that were expensive to produce and not reusable. In a business with high hourly turnover, this proved to be costly and inefficient. This led to costly reprints.
3. The VP wanted all of the operations content reproduced in the training materials. There was already a voluminous Standard Operating Procedures Manual (SOP) that included all the relevant information. It was intended to be used as the fundamental resource of the organization. Rather than using this to supplement the training, we circumvented it. When operational procedures changed, the training materials were instantly out of date. This led to costly reprints.

See a pattern developing here? Had we followed some basic best practices of training development, we could have saved the company thousands of dollars. If you want to create quality materials that will stand the test of organizational change, follow some simple steps:

1. Make sure the desired behavioral change drives the delivery format. Work performed on the sales floor should be trained using tools that work on the sales floor or at a minimum simulate the sales floor experience.
2. Examine the scope of work before determining the timeline. Sometimes you don’t have the time for your perfect timeline. In this case, make sure you present the organization with good/better/best options so that your client can make an informed decision.
3. Teach people to fish. If there are tools that exist in the organization and are the standard for performance, make sure that the training materials refer learners to the tools. In the end, learners are better prepared to succeed if they know how to use the resources available.

What do you think? I was just starting in my career and didn’t have the tools or the political credibility to influence my boss. How have you been able to change the shape and direction of training when faced with similar obstacles?

By Rob Zell

As a learning professional, I am no stranger to having the business units that I support approach me with issues that require solutions. In most cases, they come looking for training solutions when the bottom line results aren’t appearing as expected. Their approach reminds me of one of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits.

During the Saturday Night Live Weekend Update, Kenan Thompson portrays a very concerned financial expert whose solution to the recent financial crisis is that someone should “Fix it!” In his humorous tirade, he outlines several steps that “someone” needs to do to fix the problem:

1. Identify the problem
2. Fix it
3. Identify another problem
4. Fix it
5. Repeat as necessary until it’s all fixed!

I’m sure many of you can relate to this.

Typically, the next step is to start problem-solving, asking tough questions about the environment, prior performance, management, obstacles, motivation, prior knowledge and a multitude of factors that likely impact performance. Unfortunately, the business didn’t come to you for questions; they came for answers. They might even feel frustrated because they perceive your line of questioning as an indictment of their own research into the issue!

Learning organizations are under huge pressure to generate ROI for training so they can’t run out training solutions for every issue that arises especially if the problem is unrelated to training. If they don’t respond they may be seen as uncooperative, and so the business unit takes matters into its own hands. Neither is a high quality outcome.

You need to do a thorough analysis of the problem, so look for ways to collaborate with the business owner to find the root causes. Engage them to help you explore the aspects of performance that you know are most relevant but that they may not have thought about.

The challenge is to be perceived as the team that helps the organization reach its goals in the best manner possible. By focusing on the desired behavior, we can usually offer our clients and stakeholders solutions that meet the need and get results by giving them the choice of options and showing them the ROI.

1. Always provide a good / better / best menu of choices with price points. Even the staunchest client has the good of the organization in mind. Faced with having to diminish results based on training cost, they will often choose the solution that makes the most sense.
2. Stay focused on the desired behavior. Clients love to talk about all the things they believe learners should know to do the job. Unfortunately, all that extra knowledge might be getting in the way. Document the desired behavior, run the task analysis and return with sound data to make your case for the simplest solution.
3. Get outside your own comfort zone. The best solution might be a simple communication piece or policy update that the learning organization is typically not responsible for creating. Look at that as an opportunity to collaborate across the organization and influence others to think about performance. This might also be a great opportunity to leverage some informal learning strategies like wikis or peer coaching rather than developing a full-blown training intervention.

Sometimes in order to “fix it,” training is not required. If based on your analysis you think there are better ways to solve the problem, offer up those solutions not as a trainer but as a performance consultant. Utilize what you know of visual media and learning to make communication tools and job aids easier to read and absorb. Make recommendations to the business regarding process or task changes. The simplicity of the solution may earn you more influence and credibility in the end and make an even bigger impact to the bottom line.

by Rob Zell

Many organizations are struggling today with the concept of incorporating social networks into the workplace. I don’t blame them. There are plenty of issues that immediately come to mind:

• How do you secure the information?
• How do you keep conversations appropriate for the workplace?
• How do you keep people productive?

There is plenty of information out there on this topic. A friend of mine sent me “a stack” of blogs and white papers that he uncovered to help me with some work I’m doing. The more I read, the more impressed I become with the usefulness of the technology and the speed it brings to organizations that embrace it.

As energizing as the technology is, there are those who worry that work will come to a screeching halt while employees tweet, blog, and update their status. Here’s the thing: they already are, whether you have a network or not.

Most organizations probably have a break room with the standard microwave, water cooler and coffee machine. Yours might be more high tech with a vending machine or two, maybe a TV running cable news or company announcements. You might have comfy chairs or even a video game machine. Of course if you are Google you have snacks, food service and even games. At some point in the day, people will gather there and chances are they will: 

• Talk about the business and what they are working on (which you probably don’t want just anyone to hear).
• Talk about something inappropriate (but hey, you weren’t there so it’s not like you’re responsible right?).
• Be unproductive.

To the best of my knowledge, and I admit I haven’t done any research on this, I don’t think anyone is trying to ban break rooms. In fact, more companies are focused on what goes on in the break room as a way to reinforce culture: team message boards, specialized services, recognition walls, fun artwork, etc. (See Google). To make matters worse, many of the people who “pop down” to the break room aren’t being social or engaging in your culture because they are on their Smartphone tweeting about how lame your organization is for not doing more to engage in social media.

So why not encourage dialogue and interaction in a controlled setting? There are some good tools out there that organizations are using to create conversations and accelerate productivity. Tools like Yammer (yammer.com) and even Microsoft Sharepoint encourage the kind of sharing that you desire. These tools have built in search functionality. With some training, your employees can quickly find the information they need. Learning often takes place on the job, with information shared between peers or handed down from supervisor to employee. With unlimited access to a monitored knowledge base, your employees can get immediate answers to performance questions and more importantly can get the right answer rather than the best shortcut.

Finally, in this increasingly virtual age, gathering around the water cooler is hardly feasible. With teams spread out across the globe, tools that shorten the distance between teams and improve working relationships aren’t just nice to have. Tools like these are a competitive advantage.

With the right tools and some cultural motivation, your teams can spend time in virtual space talking about the business, sharing best practices, adding productivity and providing real-time feedback on the state of the business. If that isn’t a strategic advantage, I don’t know what is.

By Rob Zell

In too many classrooms, in too many organizations, training is failing. It is failing to focus on changing behavior and failing to engage workers in the joy of learning. Not just learning for the sake of knowledge; do that on your time please, not on the company dime. I mean learning that enhances your job performance. By building your confidence, you feel better, perform better and help the company meet its targets. Now that is return on investment.

We all went to school at some point in time. There are still people in the workforce who got to their post through hard work and experience, without advanced degrees. Even they spent some time in a classroom. That classroom experience has forever jaded them to what good training and development should look like. While I still remember some basic geometry and most of my grammar rules, none of those classroom experiences have stuck with me in great detail. Yet through trial and error, not to mention infinite parental patience, I learned to ride a bike and can still do it reasonably well. I propose that to cross generational lines in training and development we go back to the experience of learning to ride a bike, with a bit of a technological twist worthy of the 21^st century.

Engage learners in the idea

Do you remember riding a tricycle or a big wheel and watching enviously as the big kids rode a two-wheeler? There was a deep longing to be “big”. You probably envied the freedom and power that only comes on two wheels. In the workplace, learning professionals need to focus on creating the desire to learn by showing off the people who successfully use knowledge to be successful. The forward thinking learning organization engages in shameless self-promotion, sharing the stories of previous learners who are using the training curriculum to achieve organizational, and very likely, personal success. Use tools like:

• Blogs
• Short videos
• Newsletters
• Lunch and learn seminars
• Podcasts

By sharing success, we show off the freedom and power that knowledge brings. Everyone, regardless of age, likes a good story. The challenge is presenting the story in a variety of methods that appeal to your generationally diverse workforce.

Let people try and fail

I don’t know anyone who hopped on a bike on day one and rode successfully. There is always a great deal of wobbling, some falling and inevitably a skinned knee or two. Luckily, we lived through it. We bear our battle scars proudly because we know that the ability we gained was well worth it. Learning in the workplace can, and should, have the same format. No one likes to fail. While Millenials may be more willing to take risks, Boomers may prefer to play it safe and Gen X’ers are sure the whole thing will fail. Here is the good news: if you have them interested and engaged in the story, you can get them involved in a learning experience that allows them to try it out at their own speed. Try presenting your content in a variety of ways:

• Self-guided study through articles with accompanying questions
• Online articles and forum threads
• Simulations
• Case studies

You should also be ready to provide learners with “training wheels” or that parental hand on the back of the seat. Consider job aids and other performance support tools that learners can take back to the job to help them build confidence and gain proficiency.

Let learners show off

Once you could ride, you probably started trying stunts. You started small, maybe with quick turns and sudden stops, seeing how much tread you could leave on the pavement. With greater confidence, you let go of the handlebars, first one hand, and then two. Maybe you started building ramps, “popping wheelies” or simply dared to let a friend ride on the handlebars. No matter the stunt, you showed it off to your friends and everyone tried to expand their skill. When we tap into the diversity of the workforce, we can start to see how we interpret and apply knowledge differently. Through sharing and discussing, learners teach each other, coach performance and reinforce success. Learning organizations can reinforce this behavior through classroom experiences or online through wikis and forums.

Rider for life

Riding a bike is a skill we never really forget. Sure, it may get rusty and you may wobble a bit your first time riding after a long hiatus. Muscle memory will eventually take over and soon you’re riding with confidence. Learning in the workplace can be a similar experience if we approach it in a way that

• Engages the learner in the value of the knowledge
• Allows the learner a chance to try it out, potentially fail in a safe environment and learn from the mistakes
• Encourages sharing and group learning

As learning professionals, let’s strive to make the experiences we design as fulfilling as riding a bike.