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Behavioral skills are tomorrow’s success!

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There is a lot of talk about the challenges in hiring and recruiting skilled employees. To make it more concerning industry analysts are warning employers that college graduates that meet technical job-specific skills today will need to upskill and be trained for the same role in about 6 years.

Perhaps it’s time to examine the real needs of the organization today and in the next 24 to 36 months. New research on successful candidates reveal the need employers have is centered more on behavioral skills so while technical skills might get you the job it is the competencies, behavioral skills, around communication, adaptability, prioritization and time management, working on and with teams – these Higher Order Thinking Skills are needed for employees to be successful operating across functional, organizational, and time-defined boundaries.

Check out this video and let’s discuss how we can partner with you to define the real-world behavioral skills these roles need and create the path forward to bring people with purpose into a productive environment.

If you would like to learn how to implement and use workflow learning and develop thinking workers using learning as a strategic business tool send me an email or call me and let’s talk! Use the contact button above or visit our web site!

Better thinking brings better performance!

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Connecting context to content matters and I have discovered along the way that aligning people’s passions with purpose, through the use of learning, brought better results. Learning is not the focus, improving performance and solving the issue in the workflow is.

John Hagel’s Learning Pyramid brings a focus on thinking skills based on passion. Tapping into people’s hearts and focusing on the bigger picture results with responses that is more than simply retrieving facts, people use their critical thinking skills and apply these skills to think broadly through issues.

Check out this video and see how starting with the emotional connection, creating the WIIFM, and connecting to people’s capabilities and you will see a worker who finds solutions and keeps learning (even though they don’t really call it that!).

If you would like to learn how to implement and use workflow learning and develop thinking workers using learning as a strategic business tool send me an email or call me and let’s talk! Use the contact button above or visit our web site!

Go Backwards to move (people) forward!

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Sounds strange doesn’t it?  Going backwards but changing how you develop training and supporting people at the time and place of kNOW is how we can move forward.  Now I come from the classical school of ADDIE where instructional design has Curriculum driving the process.  Work with a SME to identify content, develop the lessons and modules, select media and then add in assessments.

My focus is on impacting and improving performance especially in the flow of work and I have realized it’s time to go backwards.   Backwards design begins with 3 questions: How do you define success? How does the business measure success? How do you create the path to their defined success?

There are detailed ways to use these 3 questions and if you would like to learn how to implement and use backwards design in your development process check out this short video, Go backwards to move forward!  If you would like to learn more about using backwards design in your development process or using learning as a strategic business tool send me an email or call and let’s talk!  Use the contact button above or visit our web site!

Coaching – it’s where leadership begins

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I had an amazing leader once, she later told me she enjoyed how I could make her ideas actually work but what I am forever grateful for is that she gave me a gift of feedback on Capturehow I came across – I’ll share with you my #1 strength is focus so when I am really listening to someone I am locked in and my problem solving skills kick in by listing all the barriers and challenges of the situation being discussed.

Instead of telling me directly that I came across as negative she began the process by asking me what I was thinking and then shared that she thought I was upset by my reaction. Then she suggested I ask a question or 3 to give myself some time to think thru the situation, and she also suggested I smile.  You see, if I can figure out the barriers then I can start the solution process but what she shared was that while she knew I would solve the problem getting there was painful.  She coached me on a life skill that helped me at home and at work!

It used to be that you got a coach when you weren’t performing, and coaches were only for senior leaders.  What we see now is that coaching is an integral component of leadership development.  Coaching can help people develop and hone their skills and abilities and move forward on a performance and career pathway by dealing with issues that could become problems if not identified early –like my list of barriers instead of listening and asking questions and smiling leading to solutions.

There are other advantages too and if you would like to learn how to design and implement coaching into your leadership development process check out this short video, Coaching – it’s where leadership begins.  If you would like to learn more about using learning as a strategic business tool send me an email or call and let’s talk!

It’s not the ROI, ROL matters more!

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I had a conversation recently with a learning leader at an organization who was being pushed to show their ROI – return on investment.  Granted in the last couple of years they have brought a new LMS online andCapture added designers to the team so management wanted to know if the expenses were paying off.   But our discussion started with how many clicks had been captured, the test scores of the online modules, and how many people had taken these modules and trying to divide these into the expenses… well you get the picture.  And that’s the point – that isn’t where you truly measure the ROI. You need to have a more strategic view of the organization to determine the ROL – the Return on Learning.

Measure what matters and focus on what matters to the organization.  Key business functions such as First call resolution, lower product defects, higher quality scores, upselling numbers – the point is what are you doing to impact the business?  To truly measure the ROI you need to focus on the ROL. Start by using my favorite 4 letter word to start with – PLAN: Prior (to) Learning, Assess Now.  Take ownership of the learning solution you are developing by first (prior to learning) gathering the current operational metrics (assess now) that you will be measuring against, so you can identify clearly to yourself and your client that the solution you put in place made a difference at the business level.

Want to learn how to measure the return on your learning efforts then check out this short video about Return on Learning!  If you would like to learn more about using learning as a strategic business tool let’s talk!