Understanding Your Learners | May/June 2019

M A Y/J U N E 2 0 1 9

UNDERSTANDING YOUR LEARNERS

DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT | 16 Leveraging Diverse Thinking in the Workplace

LEARNING IN THE DIGITAL AGE | 32 How to Become an Effective Digital Learner

THE HUMAN FACTOR | 42 The Value of Human Interaction in Training

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PERSPECTIVES KEN TAYLOR

UNDERSTANDING THE LEARNER

How well do we really understand the corporate learner? Training managers suggest that the most common strategy, by far, used to understand what learners need is to approach the employee’s manager or employee directly. While that is not necessarily a bad approach, I believe it adds to one of our biggest challenges – aligning the goals of training with the business outcomes we are trying to support.

As a function, learning and development (L&D) should consider learner preferences when developing training programs. Both managers and employees can provide valuable insight into the direction of training development, including insight into specific topics, skills or knowledge needed to improve job performance. To make effective decisions, however, L&D must also consider how the training is delivered. This matching process is one where the learner’s preferences can be a key indicator of their willingness to actively participate in the program.

Training Industry recently conducted research on what learners want and how they want to learn. Not surprisingly, the research concluded – it depends. It depends on the topic, it depends on the department, but most importantly, it depends on the quality of the training.

A learner’s perception regarding the quality of the training changes based on the likelihood that they experienced at least some portion of the program in a modality they prefer.

Understanding why learners liked or didn’t like a program is a challenge for L&D. Learning is not linear and extends beyond the training event. The success of new products in the market indicate that the future of training design will be selfdirected, with the learner determining how much time they are willing to invest in the training and the order they prefer to consume the content.

In a world with tight budgets and lofty demands on the L&D team, this can be overwhelming. But I believe the secret may be in how we assemble our programs.

Microlearning content may be the key since it is easier to edit, update and keep current. Bite-sized learning empowers the learner to learn when they need it, even in the flow of their job. It also allows the learner to decide what parts of the program they want to consume, which does introduce some risk.

Approaching training design with a focus on understanding the learner is where the L&D team can have significant impact. Sure, the content must still be great, but how it is structured and delivered can enable L&D to meet the need for flexibility that today’s learners crave. Having empowered employees spending less time on learning and more time performing is really one of our core objectives.

As always, we would love to hear your thoughts about the perspectives shared in the magazine, and please feel free to send any content ideas for future consideration.

Ken Taylor is president and editor in chief of Training Industry, Inc. Email Ken.

A LEARNER’S PERCEPTION REGARDING THE QUALITY OF THE TRAINING CHANGES BASED ON THE LIKELIHOOD THAT THEY EXPERIENCED AT LEAST SOME PORTION OF THE PROGRAM IN A MODALITY THEY PREFER.

From my perspective, asking employees how they want to learn is not really a bad thing. It’s an opportunity to improve the learner experience.

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CO N T E N TS

TA B L E O F VOLUME 12

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ISSUE 4

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MAY/JUNE 2019

FEATURES

16 DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT

32 LEARNING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

42 THE HUMAN FACTOR

EV ID FO ECNAT RO P MI EHT

16 20

THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT

24 28

WHAT DOES PERSONALITY HAVE TO DO WITH IT ANYWAY?

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By Rick Bowers

Embrace diversity of thought to push your teams to new heights of creativity and authenticity.

TRAINING MYTHS THAT WON’T GO AWAY

By Le’a Kent

Examine training myths and assumptions to ensure an unbiased, fair approach to learning.

By Lori Preston

Approach training design with your learner’s personality traits and motivators in mind.

BACK TO PSYCHOLOGY BASICS: HOW TO KEEP YOUR LEARNERS ENGAGED

By Tiffany Poeppelman

Leverage the principles of human motivation to improve employee performance over time.

BECOMING AN EFFECTIVE LEARNER IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL EVOLUTION

By Matt Donovan

Learners must develop their own learning plans that guide them through the changing L&D landscape.

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4 KEYS TO MAKING CONTENT MORE CONSUMABLE FOR THE JUST-IN-TIME LEARNER

39

THE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHARACTER FITNESS AND HOW THEY GROW LEADERSHIP AGILITY

42

THE HUMAN FACTOR

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By Laura Whitaker

Learn how to develop training programs that keep learners engaged and increase accessibility.

By Pam Boney

Develop character fitness across four key areas to increase productivity and engagement.

By Caroline Murphy

Improve employees’ learning experiences by adopting a human-focused approach to learning.

ACCOUNTABILITY IN TEAMS: CHANGING PERCEPTIONS AND MOVING TOWARD IMPLEMENTATION

By Jason Weber

Increase communications and decrease conflict by implementing accountability in the workplace.

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I N THIS I S S U E

THOUGHT LEADERS

3

PERSPECTIVES

By Ken Taylor

Learn why L&D should consider learner preferences when developing training programs.

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GUEST EDITOR

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SCIENCE OF LEARNING

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By Leslie Yurocko

Model leadership behavior that will allow your employees to flourish in the workplace.

By Srini Pillay, M.D.

Brain science can enable smart learning design that improves the learner experience.

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BUILDING LEADERS

By Sam Shriver and Marshall Goldsmith

Sharpen your leadership skills by indoctrinating early, embracing reality and measuring relentlessly.

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WHAT’S NEXT IN TECH

59

SECRETS OF SOURCING

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PERFORMANCE MATTERS

By Julie Winkle Giulioni

Meet the needs of employees by tailoring L&D programs to their vastly diverse backgrounds.

By Stella Lee, Ph.D.

Incorporate thoughtful instructional design to create effective adaptive learning.

By Doug Harward

Training designers must understand the environment in which the employee works and learns.

LEARNER MINDSET

By Michelle Eggleston Schwartz

Training is quickly becoming a key differentiator between companies competing for talent.

INFO EXCHANGE

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CASEBOOK Follow Deloitte’s journey to gamify onboarding for new analysts using a zombie apocalypse.

GLOBAL OUTLOOK Drive customer needs by understanding social and cultural makeups in their individual regions.

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SHIREEN LACKEY Talent Management Officer, Office of Business Process Integration Veterans Benefits Administration

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GUEST EDITOR LESLIE YUROCKO

HELPING PEOPLE FLOURISH THROUGH GREAT LEADERSHIP

Employee experience is essential in today’s work environment. The way we experience work impacts our personal growth, our motivation and our interactions with the world around us. Simply put, employee experience impacts everything.

employees in their work environment.

Ask why they chose your company and why they stay. When we dig deeper and ask questions, we learn how to best support our people.

Understanding what motivates our workforce is more important now than ever before. How do they experience their work environment? What are their skills and passions? As their leader, how do you help people thrive? Use these four leadership strategies to create a workplace where employees can flourish.

Listening is a simple concept that most people struggle to master. Constant distractions create an environment where it’s easy to be inattentive as a leader. When someone stops by to speak to you, you may be distracted by incoming emails or upcoming deadlines and respond ineffectively. How are you eroding trust in this moment? Can you listen now or is there a better time to talk later?

UNDERSTANDING WHAT MOTIVATES OUR WORKFORCE IS MORE IMPORTANT NOW THAN EVER BEFORE. 1. BUILD TRUST Building trust requires vulnerability and courage as the leader. Demonstrating vulnerability allows leaders to share times they were wrong and the lessons they learned as a result. When leaders open up, employees feel comfortable sharing their struggles and triumphs as a result. This is how we create trust. Humility can go a long way when leading others.

Building trust also requires a genuine curiosity in the people you lead. Learn what excites, frustrates and fulfills your

2. LISTEN

Address the situation and avoid distractions in that moment. Plan another time to talk if you can’t give someone your undivided attention.

When people feel heard, they are more likely to approach you again in the future when they need your help.

Listening builds equity in relationships over time.

3. MODEL GROWTH To help people flourish, we need to focus on our own growth as leaders, too. Set goals for yourself and your work in order to model the importance of personal growth in the workplace. Then, share what you’re discovering in your learning with your employees. Remind yourself of why you chose the company and your beliefs in the people and communities the company serves. Our employees need to see us living these values, so

they know how to model and reflect positive workplace behaviors.

4. PROVIDE CLARITY For our people to thrive, we need to be clear with them. Do you wait for a yearly performance review to let your people know how they are doing and what they need to work on? Clearly communicating your expectations regarding employees’ strengths, shortcomings and progress should be consistently practiced throughout the year.

Clarity defines success. As the leader, it is also important to clearly communicate your own vision for your team. Share with your people what success looks like and how you can support them along the way. Guiding your team toward success requires honest feedback, even when the feedback may not be easy for the receiver to hear. Constructive criticism is the greatest gift you can give someone who truly wants to grow.

Helping people flourish is the greatest responsibility and gift as a leader. The ultimate employee experience occurs when people feel supported to become better versions of themselves. Creating this experience requires intentional and focused leadership that builds trust, listens carefully, models growth and provides clarity.

Leslie Yurocko is the director of talent development for RevLocal in Granville, Ohio. In her role, Leslie oversees training and professional development for operations employees. Email Leslie.

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To find out more about the innovative training solutions we provide, or to download a free report detailing this year’s top 10 learning trends, go to skillpath.com/trends19

SCIENCE OF LEARNING SRINI PILLAY, M.D.

SMART LEARNING DESIGN: HOW BRAIN SCIENCE CAN IMPACT LEARNING DESIGN

A lot of discussion surrounds the consideration of different learning styles when designing learning programs. Some people learn more effectively by seeing; others prefer hearing. Then, there are those who prefer reading and writing as educational tools. However, there is little evidence to support this approach to learning. In fact, most professionals either regard this approach to learning as a myth or agree that learning design should incorporate all styles.

Still, most brain experts agree that the brain changes in differing ways for different people. Age, gender and psychological traits all impact brain responses over time. If this is the case, what are some fundamental brain-based principles that may better inform learning design, and how can you implement them in your programs?

PUT RATIONAL LEARNING IN PERSPECTIVE For simple things, like learning how to use a new piece of software, following instructions may be enough. However, when complex leadership decisions are made under uncertain circumstances, the rational brain is a weak instrument.

Action: Change your organization’s approach to complex problem-solving by emphasizing that all rational approaches require engagement on an individual’s own terms. Phase out the use of rational strategies for complex problem-solving matters. To enhance engagement, present rational frameworks in user-centric experiences. Use your business approach to customers with your learners, too. Ask them what they want and build this into the design.

DON’T EXPECT FACTS TO SHIFT THINKING People do not live their lives by factual evidence. They cling to their beliefs. For example, in 1975, social psychology professor, Lee Ross, and his colleagues demonstrated that, when results are initially reported inaccurately then accurately at a later time, people still hold on to the initial information. Numerous other studies have confirmed this tendency.

Action: If you want people to change their behavior, aim for deep change rather than instruction and data. Design learning that allows people to explore their beliefs and how their beliefs differ from the facts.

Then, ask them to design actions to honor their new beliefs. Forming new beliefs is essential for new action.

PRACTICE DOES NOT MAKE PERFECT When you want to teach people how to navigate new systems or operate outside of siloes, don’t expect practice to make much of an impact. A recent metaanalysis by Princeton psychology professor, Brooke McNamara, and her colleagues demonstrated that deliberate practice only makes up 4% of the “success pie” for education and less than 1% in the workplace.

Action: People are not automatons. Pay attention to how they practice rather than how many times they repeat the action.

When designing learning, ask: “How might they be more engaged with this practice?”

For this reason, experiential learning is important. However, the experience should mimic the real-life challenge and

should take the following factors into account: How relevant is this learning? How congruent is the learning with students’ needs? How interactive is the learning?

FORMING NEW BELIEFS IS ESSENTIAL FOR NEW ACTION. MAKE UNFOCUS PART OF LEARNING DESIGN Too much focus can drain your brain of energy, create tunnel vision, prevent you from seeing upcoming opportunities and limit your creativity. Your brain needs breaks between periods of focus to allow your resting mind to piece together new information.

Action: Five to 15 minutes of napping can give you one to three hours of clarity.

Doodling can enhance memory. There are many other unfocus techniques that can improve learning as well. So, build napping or doodling breaks into your learning design. This will help learners absorb and retain information more easily.

The learner’s needs are important when designing learning. However, the emphasis should not be placed on preferred learning styles. Rather, emphasize creating learning programs that are user-centric, engaging and congruent with their beliefs. If you really want learners to absorb and process information, ensure that strategic unfocus is included in your learning design.

Dr. Srini Pillay is the CEO of NeuroBusiness Group. He is also assistant professor (part-time) at Harvard Medical School and teaches in the executive education programs at Harvard Business School and Duke CE. Email Srini.

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THE MOST INCONSISTENT THING YOU CAN DO IS TREAT EVERYONE THE SAME.

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PERFORMANCE MATTERS JULIE WINKLE GIULIONI

MEET TODAY’S LEARNER

Offering learning and development (L&D) solutions has never been more important or complex. This importance comes from a growing acceptance that today’s dynamic and disruptive environment demands an ever-refreshing flow of information and skills throughout the organization. This complexity comes from many different sources.

VIVA LA DIFFERENCE Today’s workforce spans four generations toiling side by side. And, as people work longer, that population will continue to become older over time. Age isn’t the only diversity factor at play, either. Now, more women are part of the workforce than any other time in U.S. history. But gender is just one part of the picture. Today, we enjoy greater diversity in terms of sexual preference and identification as well.

The workplace also represents the richness of various ethnicities and religions that help characterize the melting pot that is our nation. This diversity contributes directly to the bottom-line. According to McKinsey & Company, “ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to outperform their respective national industry medians.”

Legislation and greater workplace accommodations allow those with a range of abilities to contribute in ways they might not have in the past.

According to research from Deloitte Insights, “the U.S. labor force has become more educated in each

EXPECTATIONS OF LEARNING CAN BE DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT FOR EVERY INDIVIDUAL.

progressive generation.” Yet, many organizations find themselves with a population ranging from marginally literate individuals to those with multiple advanced degrees.

BEYOND THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF DIVERSITY But the differences don’t end there.

Beyond who comes to work, where and how they work differs dramatically.

Some still show up to a shop or store.

Others are co-located with colleagues in offices. A growing number travel to shared work spaces or work from home.

Once employees arrive wherever they might find themselves working, additional layers of differences emerge. How information and learning is consumed varies widely based on age, education, experience and evolving available technologies. And expectations of learning can be dramatically different from individual to individual.

MEETING THE NEEDS OF TODAY’S LEARNERS As a result of the diversity that’s at the core of today’s workplace, L&D practitioners cannot view training audiences as the monolithic populations we once did. Even segmenting an audience into sub-groups may not be sufficient in understanding and appealing to the broad and varied learning needs that exist within it.

Instead, it’s time for L&D to reframe its thinking and update its fundamental mission to include “offering necessary and tailored learning to audiences of one.”

We must advance our thinking and build on evolving practices that enable us to meet the needs of each individual. And, many of the pieces of this philosophy are already in the works, such as:

• Microlearning: Being able to chunk content down into discrete and digestible elements is the first step.

But accommodating audiences of one doesn’t mean pushing all of the same assets to everyone. Flexible systems will allow for customized sorting, configuration and deployment of individualized solutions.

• On-demand learning: Pull (versus push)- based systems put the learner in the driver’s seat. This helps to accommodate the variability in terms of when, where and how learning is accessed. However, this only works when the right assets are curated or created, with an eye toward the widerange of needs that exist from person to person.

• Knowledge management systems: These internal repositories of information are naturally self-tailoring tools that meet individual needs, but only when they operate at close to the typical learner’s gold standard of Google searches. All of this demands an improved user experience that enables learning assets and resources to satisfy knowledge and skill acquisition requirements at critical points of need.

• Coaching: Whether in real life or virtually, with advancing technologyenabled tools, coaching is a natural way to address the needs of individuals and support their success.

Today’s learners are unique. And L&D is well-poised to offer solutions that will help individuals grow, optimize their talents and contribute to powerful organizational results.

Julie Winkle Giulioni has 25 years of experience working with organizations worldwide to improve performance through learning. Email Julie.

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June 17-19, 2019 // Raleigh, North Carolina

INSIGHTFUL AND ENGAGING MEET THE 2019 KEYNOTES

WHITNEY MORTIMER Partner and Chief Marketing Officer IDEO

SCOTT HARTLEY

Best-Selling Author and Venture Capitalist

ERICA JAVELLANA Speaker of the House, Zappos Insights Zappos.com

The 2019 Training Industry Conference & Expo (TICE) is an event for leaders and aspiring leaders in corporate learning and development (L&D). Our 2019 keynote speakers will offer insightful and actionable information on design thinking for L&D, human skills in an age of technology and creating a culture of service.

Learn more and register at TICE2019.com.

BUILDING LEADERS SAM SHRIVER & MARSHALL GOLDSMITH

INDOCTRINATE, EMBRACE AND MEASURE! If you ever have the opportunity to hear Jack Zenger speak at a conference, take it. There is perspective that comes with 63 years in the arena of leadership development that, quite frankly, is next to impossible to replicate.

As you might imagine, Zenger is a thought leader who has “been there and done that.” He not only understands people at a level most of us can only aspire to, but also understands the organizations that employ them.

In general terms, and in active acknowledgement of the alignment between Zenger’s thinking and our own, we offer the following observations: INDOCTRINATE EARLY This is a partial list of leadership skills most often worked on by C-suite executives participating in executive coaching: • Building trust • Listening • Delegating • Collaborating • Holding others accountable • Taking appropriate risks • Matching one’s leadership style to the specific needs of others Do any of these skills strike you as development needs reserved solely for the top echelons of management? As we have addressed in previous columns, one of the most significant professional advances many of us ever make is our first promotion into people management.

That’s the career juncture where we transition from being responsible for

“doing it” to a position where we are responsible for seeing that someone else “gets it done.”

Each of the skills listed previously are as critical to front-line supervisor success as they are to orchestrating targeted results in middle or upper management.

Therefore, introducing core, foundational leadership and influence constructs as early as possible must become a priority.

Is leading people more complicated in the C-suite than it is at the base of an organization? In a word, yes. But, distinguishing achievement at either level — and all of those in between— is the product of executing simple strategies in an effective manner.

EMBRACE REALITY Understand that leadership has very little to do with being an effective leader.

Effectiveness is focused on having the courage to take definitive action and becoming a catalyst for productivity.

In that regard, building leaders in an organization is a function of translating vision into targeted action. In large part, the key stewards of that migration are the managers of the people going through leadership training. That is the reality.

Ultimately, leaders develop leaders. That process can be significantly accelerated with effective leadership training, of course, but the best leadership training program ever developed, deployed in the absence of reinforcement post-training by line management, leaves you with little more than a random chance of training transfer and targeted behavior change.

Further, systematically developing leadership skills is one of the most iterative processes

imaginable. It requires the courage of the trainee to engage in a real-world setting, the intentional availability of the trainee’s manager to observe and provide feedback, and the willingness of the trainee to receive that feedback and act upon it — repeatedly.

ULTIMATELY, LEADERS DEVELOP LEADERS. MEASURE RELENTLESSLY To tap into the wisdom of Zenger one more time, consider that organizations that are serious about leadership development measure their efforts actively and experientially as opposed to passively and educationally. Stated differently, those organizations place a premium on what leaders practice and produce, as opposed to what they ponder and pontificate.

Typically, measuring the impact of leaders has always been a function of bottomline results, employee engagement and employee retention. If the organization is achieving objectives, that has something to do with leadership — likewise if they are not. It is the same with engagement and retention of key talent. Attrition and 360-degree survey trends are real, measurable data that indicate the degree to which leadership truly understands their people.

Marshall Goldsmith is the world authority in helping successful leaders get even better.

Sam Shriver is the senior vice president of commercial operations and product development at The Center for Leadership Studies. Email Marshall and Sam.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF D The word “diversity” often conjures images of a workplace consisting of people from different backgrounds, cultures and genders. While those things certainly explain a component of diversity, it’s only part of what diversity includes. Realistically speaking, physical and social aspects only make up about half of diversity. The remainder lies in diversity of thought.

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Not long ago, Denise Young Smith, Apple’s vice president for diversity and inclusion, received criticism for making remarks about white men t hat many con sidered to be co nt rover sial. S h e said, ”1 2 wh ite, blue -eyed, blonde men could be diverse.” Despite the way she framed her statement, Smith may have been on to something.

The point she seemed to be making was that you can have 12 different ethnicities of various ages with an equal number of males and females, yet you may not be fully maximizing the opportunities to drive diversity if you are not also considering diversity of thought.

What good is promoting diversity if everyone thinks the same way? The key

DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT

BY RICK BOWERS to successfully implementing diversity is to have a staff with diverse backgrounds and diverse thought. Only then will true innovation and growth be possible.

DIVERSITY IN HIRING When hiring, it is important to distinguish potential employee’s whose values align with the company’s core values. Once

a core value connection is established, another important consideration is diversity.

where the alignment to core values becomes critical.

Different backgrounds and thought processes bring unique viewpoints to the organization that help tackle problems for optimal results. It’s important to understand that while diversity can enhance team per formance, it can just as easily disrupt it. That ’s

How do you know whether someone’s thought process is going to fit into the framework of the team and the organization? Utilizing assessments can be a great indicator of how and why a person acts as he or she does on a regular basis. In addition, these assessments can be a predicter of future behavior.

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Understanding a person’s behavior style is a great place to start. Having this knowledge explains how the person regularly operates. When you add the component of motivators, you now also understand why a person behaves in a particular way. Taking it even further, including additional information, such as their level of emotional intelligence, can be a strong indicator of how a person will perform in a certain situation and whether they are capable of succeeding under pressure.

DIFFERING VIEWPOINTS IN THE WORKPLACE When people of diverse backgrounds work together, it can sometimes produce a slower, but more effective, overall process. Consider a workplace where several people on a leadership team have a dominant behavior style. They are motivated by maximizing resources and controlling their own destiny.

One member of the team, however, is completely the opposite. This employee is driven by experiencing the moment and by having an insatiable desire to help people. Behaviorally, the employee seeks out stability.

From time to time, those on the team with similar behaviors and motivators will get behind an idea and believe that their idea is the way to go. In these situations, the less dominant member of the team will lean into his or her steady behavioral style and, on occasion, demonstratively explain why the rest of the team might be missing the forest for the trees. This leader has been k nown to sit back , listen, let the others reach some sort of consensus, and only then speak up and voice an opinion. These leaders are known to get everyone’s attention and slowly, but emphatically, explain why the rest of the team might not be seeing the whole picture.

It’s this diversity of thought and behavior that allows the leadership team to see all sides of a situation before rushing to take action. While it may take a little longer, the result is an aligned team

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that moves in the same direction, to the advantage of the organization.

DIFFERENT LIFE EXPERIENCES LEAD TO UNIQUE AND DIVERSE THINKING Someone who has only lived their life in one city, one state or one country simply won’t have the same experiences as someone who has lived abroad or traveled extensively. Big ideas come from unique perspectives. Safe thinking won’t change the world, but diverse thinking can. Think about the impact of inventions like the iPod or the smartphone. Great ideas like those were generated from teams willing to challenge the status quo, try things untried and maybe even fail, before wildly succeeding.

THE KEY TO SUCCESSFULLY IMPLEMENTING DIVERSITY IS TO HAVE A STAFF WITH DIVERSE BACKGROUNDS AND DIVERSE THOUGHT.

ACQUIRED DIVERSITY Some diversity comes from traits people are born with; other forms of diversity are acquired through life experiences.

Experiential diversity comes from prior work experience. Educational diversity comes from things we’ve learned throughout our lives from schools, parents and friends. Ideological diversity comes

from viewpoints and belief systems we develop over time as we decide what we believe and how we choose to live our lives.

DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT IN ACTION They key to using diversity to an organization’s advantage is to use the strong relationships, unique backgrounds and diverse experiences of the team members. You may not always agree with each other, but the strong relationships will help overcome the disagreements, allowing the team to uncover the best plans of action.

Frans Johansson, renowned public speaker and author of the best-selling book “The Medici Effect,” says, ”Innovation happens at the intersection of ideas, concepts and cultures.” Taking two ideas that seemingly are not related and finding a way to join those ideas together is where true innovation occurs.

I n 2 0 0 4 , Anthony Lising Antonio, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, said ”When we hear dissent from someone who is different from us, it provokes more thought than when it comes from someone who looks like us.”

THE PROOF IS IN THE NUMBERS The McKinsey Study revealed some interesting statistics about diversity. The study concluded that gender diverse teams are 15% more productive and ethnically diverse teams are 35% more productive. The study went on to claim that for every 10% increase in ethnic diversity on the senior team, there is a 0.8% increase in earnings.

CREATIVE DISAGREEMENTS FOSTER GROWTH While the concept of diversity may be a relatively new concept, especially the focus on diversity of thought, the idea has been present in workplaces for generations. The former CEO of General Motors, Alfred Sloan, h a d

these thoughts in response to his team being in complete unison during one meeting: “Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here.” Everyone nodded. He continued, “Then, I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until the next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement, and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon. com, dislikes “social cohesion” and, instead, prefers open disagreement in meetings.

A leadership principle on the company’s website reads, “Have backbone; disagree and commit. Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting.”

It’s hard to argue with the success of either of these two mega-corporations.

BIG IDEAS COME FROM UNIQUE PERSPECTIVES.

HOW TO MAKE DIVERSITY WORK IN THE WORKPLACE Organizations need to embrace an appreciation of differences while promoting an inclusive and welcoming work environment. Finding common ground despite our differences is a way to build team rapport.

Organizations need to operate differently under this new model.

They need to train, hire, manage and promote differently. Posting job d e s c r i p t i o n s t h a t a t t r a c t d i ve r s e individuals is a good place to start.

Companies will attract opinionated candidates who are willing to challenge the status quo to apply for open positions. When training new hires a n d p ro m o t i n g, p ro g r a m s s h o u l d emphasize the company’s core values and how the employee upholds those values.

Great leaders push teams to new heights of creativity and encourage task-focused conflict. Most importantly, t he o rgan iz ation n eeds to foster an env iron ment wh ere ever yon e feels comfortable sharing their views and b e in g th eir auth entic selves.

Creating teams with people from diverse backgrounds, departments and specializations can be a great checks and balances system for any organization. These teams can challenge company strategy, products and preconceived notions with unique and different viewpoints.

CONCLUSION According to Employee and Family Resources, Inc., “Reinforce an inclusive culture by integrating both demographic diversity and diversity of thought. By integrating both, your organization will form a mosaic of differences that fuels ideas and new strategies for growth and innovation.”

Focusing on diversity in the hiring process may be an entirely new mindset for your company. Even if it is a whole new way of approaching the employer and employee relationship, diversity in the workplace is integral to growth and innovation within an organization.

Rick Bowers is president of TTI Success Insights. R ick ’s role is to envision the company’s future endeavors by creating and implementing cutting-edge solutions. Rick has led development at TTI Success Insights for over 30 years and is a current member of the Hartman Institute’s Board. Email Rick.

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THAT WON’T GO AWAY

BY LE’A KENT

There are some training myths out there that just won’t go away — even if they really should. Some of the most common training myths include the following: • If you build it, they will come • In-person training is the best way to teach soft skills • So-so learning experiences will have an impact anyway • Gamification is an automatic motivator It is imperative to ensure these myths aren’t hindering your critical learning initiatives and that you’re remaining realistic when designing your next learning program. Now, let’s look at these myths and their corresponding realities in more detail.

MYTH #1:

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME

Reality: Marketing communications are a basic fact of life when it comes to modern learning.

Even required courses need people to show up — as in be present, willing to participate and ready to learn. It’s even tougher with non-required learning. This is one of the inherent difficulties with offering learning catalogs or Netflixlike learning experience platforms and then calling your organizational learning efforts complete. Some learners might seek out personal development topics but, without support from their managers to take the time in their workday for learning, how many really will take advantage of a vast catalog, especially one that’s difficult to navigate or presents an overload of choices?

Paralysis of choice is a real problem when it comes to this approach.

Learning and development (L&D) must do more than simply throw

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resources out there and hope for the best. You can’t expect the learner to find business-relevant content and programs. The learning you’re offering must be successful in solving specific business and development challenges, and it needs to be easy to find. Then, you must guide the learner toward that information. Meet learners more than halfway. Then, they can do the learning and take your business initiatives the rest of the way home.

But even engaging learning needs marketing to show why it’s worth the time investment for learners – and managers. For instance, when Microsoft launched a voluntary, but critical, series of business acumen courses for salespeople, the course was marketed to managers and learners as an exclusive opportunity and privilege, hoping to get 500 learners interested. As a result, they ended up with a waitlist of over 1,000 learners interested in the program.

Make sure you are telling your learners why the company feels the course is important — pulling in a quick webcam video from a C-suite executive can be a great way to do this — how and why it will be a great experience and what skills they can expect to take back to the job from it.

Just a title in a catalog won’t do the trick.

You need to reach out and explain why busy learners will want to pay attention to your particular initiative.

MYTH #2:

IN-PERSON TRAINING IS THE BEST WAY TO TEACH SOFT SKILLS

Reality: Collaborative online learning has proven to be as effective, and even more so, than instructor-led training (ILT) for soft skills.

ILT is often treated as a flagship or premier experience. But translational difficulties to real application (e.g.,

SO-SO LEARNING SIMPLY ISN’T SATISFYING ENOUGH FOR TODAY’S TIME-STARVED LEARNERS.

awkward role playing) are inherent in ILT because you’ve uprooted people from the work context and from repeated opportunities to practice. With sustained online approaches like corporate MOOCs or even self-directed experiences that are expected to last over a period of time, you can get the sustained realworld practice and reflection that is the foundation for behavioral changes.

• Let learners learn from each other’s practice attempts (via video teach backs, for example)

ILT is no longer the gold-standard; not only because you can now replicate classroom collaborative interactions online, but also because you can do so many things that aren’t available in the classroom through online learning. Facilitators are finding that their online learners are better prepared than their classroom learners, and with good reason.

Reality: No, they won’t!

For example, with online learning modalities you can: • Leverage the wisdom of multiple SMEs at once • Have all the learners in a course participate in discussions, not just the loudest or most extroverted • Space out practice, reflection and application over more than just a few days in a classroom

MYTH #3:

IRRELEVANT OR GENERIC LEARNING EXPERIENCES WILL HAVE AN IMPACT ANYWAY

Think back to the last crappy training you were forced to take, most likely for compliance. Maybe it was ethics, maybe it was sexual harassment, but chances are, if it was LMS-based or classic e-learning, it was boring and the only parts that stuck in your head are the ones that make a good water cooler story about how unsuccessful the training was. The multiple-choice quizzes you guessed your way through, the videos you multi-tasked through, the scenarios you barely read — did they change your behavior? Chances are, they did not.

Perhaps that’s too extreme an example.

What about generic training that starts everyone at the same level without regard for previous experience, so you have to wade through the basics when

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what you really need is an advanced application idea? Or learning programs that don’t draw a straight line to how you realistically do things at your company, such as the sort of sales plans expected of you? Whatever small impact such programs have will surely fade by next week. So-so learning simply isn’t satisfying enough for today’s timestarved learners.

DEVELOPING LEARNERS IS BOTH AN ART AND A SCIENCE.

MYTH #4:

GAMIFICATION IS AN AUTOMATIC MOTIVATOR

Reality: Without real human emotions related to motivation, bells and whistles are only dinging and whistling to themselves.

Making people “play” during their learning experiences is only a successful form of gamification if it reinforces information or behavior change. Don’t get me wrong, gamification can be an outstanding way to supplement the learning in a program. However, it should be done with intention and an understanding of human behavior.

Gamification doesn’t incentivize people on its own. When it works, it is tapping into an existing motivation within the target audience, who can see that the points and badges are stepping stones to achieving their goals. If those goals are meaningful and motivating, they will resonate with the training audience outside of the course itself. Goals such

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as career advancement and leadership opportunities, or simpler motivations like money or glory, are all possible outcomes of gamification.

It is important to remember that, with gamification, some learners are motivated by accumulating points and badges, and some aren’t. Not everyone wears a Fitbit! Therefore, be sure to provide a wide-range of reinforcements, like discussion notifications, peer rewards, the opportunity to interact with peers and ample chances for instructors to highlight good work done on the job by applying the course’s skills and knowledge in order to impact the business.

Developing learners — getting them to change behavior and stretch themselves in new ways that impact the business’s bottom line — is both an art and a science. We need to understand what motivates our learners and show them how the training is relevant to them and what they need to achieve. Talk to your learning audience and meet them where they’re at — your gamification efforts will pay off tremendously.

CONCLUSION Overall, we find these myths to be both prevalent and counterproductive in the world of training. Take a moment to examine your own assumptions about learning in 2019 and your business’s specific audiences, and then ensure you’re looking at the challenges facing your L&D organization with clear eyes.

Once you’ve done that, implementing engaging learning initiatives rooted in the realities of learners’ lives becomes much simpler.

Le’a Kent is the senior director of learning experience design at Intrepid by VitalSource.

Email Le’a.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Want to go deeper into the science and facts? Check out these resources about Myth #1: If you build it, they will come.

“Online Interaction Quality Among Adult Learners: The Role of Sense of Belonging and Perceived Learning Benefits“

By Nguyet Diep, Celine Cocquyt, Chang Zhu, and Tom Vanwing Technology does not guarantee increased success of learning. Learning success still requires effective facilitation by real people.

“Teaching and Learning in Workplace: Contemporary Perspectives”

By Amit Bhardwaj, Kavitha Nagandla, Esha Das Gupta, and Saadon Bin Ibrahim Learn about the four critical aspects to building professional competence through learning in the workplace: active participation, self-regulation, reflection, and ability to learn from experiences.

“What Makes Professional Development Effective? Results From a National Sample of Teachers”

By Michael Garet, Andrew Porter, Laura Desimone, Beatrice Birman, and Kwang Suk Yoon Quality professional development activities are necessary to achieve meaningful outcomes. Learn how sustainment of learning over time and substantiality of learning hours have positive influence on enhanced knowledge and skills.

Power Talent Development

Onboarding

Career Pathing

Development & Learning

Succession Planning & Talent Assessment

Performance, Goals & Compensation

LEARN MORE

What Does Personality Have to Do With It Anyway?

By Lori Preston

What? He kept trying to high-five the CEO? Is he crazy?

Behavior = Knowledge + Skill + Personality + Attitudes + Motivation

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It was a complete disaster. He was so excited that he closed the sale, he thought the client was as excited as he was. I was so embarrassed for him. We have a real problem now.

Business managers look to their training professionals to share knowledge and support behavior change. Training programs typically focus on sharing knowledge and building skills while staying away from personality. However, personality has a significant impact on behavior.

The business world moves fast. Therefore, overly-simplistic models are often used to make quick decisions. Asking, “Is it a skills issue or a personality issue?� is one of those over-simplifications used to assess a performance situation.

Unfortunately, this simplification creates the illusion that personality and skill are distinct, separate and easily identifiable.

When you observe a behavior, the reality is it is hard to know what you are seeing.

Knowledge? Skill? Personality? Attitude?

Motivation? The cause of the behavior can be easily misdiagnosed. What if it is a personality issue? Is that fixable or, as adults, is it too late for change?

Business Professionals and IO Psychologists Don’t Always Agree In the cross hairs of business practice and the science of psychology is the topic of personality. What is the disagreement? Consider this exchange between a CEO and an industrial and organizational psychologist:

CEO: I won’t hire someone into a sales

hunter role unless persistence is part of their personality.

IO PSYCHOLOGIST: I wouldn’t be so

quick to call persistence a personality trait.

CEO: I disagree. It is absolutely a

personality trait. I have seen it exhibited in many situations.

IO PSYCHOLOGIST: Research shows that

you don’t know if the persistence you are seeing is a sustainable personality trait or if it is a situational behavior caused by some external motivation, such as fear of failure or promise of reward.

Why is this disagreement important?

Einstein believed the quality of the solution you generate is in direct proportion to your ability to identify the problem accurately. Quickly and wrongly labeling something as a personality trait predetermines management and training decisions that often miss the mark.

Behavior must be examined more closely to determine if it is a personality issue or a gap in skills or knowledge before we decide how to address the behavior.

Which is Personality and Which is Skill?

A former NHL hockey player, now in the business world, is intensely quiet and focused. He always chooses a seat in an empty row in a classroom. He rarely smiles or looks around. When his turn to present comes, he shocks the room with a charming sense of humor and animated smile. He engages each person with high energy and eye contact. And when he is done, the moment passes and the quiet intensity returns.

So which part was personality? Which was skill?

You likely guessed it. Two well-known personality tests confirmed his personality was thoughtful introversion.

When asked about his presentation

success, he said he was motivated by another personality trait: drive to achieve. He did what he had to do to achieve the results he wanted. If that meant he had to master the skill of presenting, he would master that skill.

Will People Overrule Their Personality Preferences to Get a Different Outcome?

Only if they want to. This is called selfmanagement. Yet, self-management comes at a personal cost. Acting in opposition to your personality is paid in emotional labor, the energy it takes to regulate feelings and expressions to fulfill the requirements of the job despite your natural approach. It might sound like, “Does acting this way come naturally to you?” or “Would you be willing to act outside of your comfort zone to achieve a different result?”

So yes, people can regulate their personality to exhibit the behavior they need, but they need to be motivated to expend the emotional labor to do so.

Training can teach skills, but, without the specific personality traits present to fuel the interest and energy, it may never transfer to the job.

What Can Be Done When Traits Best Suited for a Desired Behavior are Not There?

Trainers fall in love with the people who have the personality type that naturally fuels the skills being taught. Those are the participants you see quickly excelling in the program and are excited to put the training to work.

Then there are participants who feel out of their comfort zone and require more emotional labor to practice the behavior in class. They may exhibit frustration, impatience or negativity. They may need a substitute fuel to drive their interest and behavior.

Training must serve those with and without desired personality traits. This can be tackled through the training program design.

Behavior must be examined more closely to determine if it is a personality issue or a skills gap before deciding how to address the behavior.

Design Training to Include the Fuel Needed to Drive Behavior Change Intentionally designing elements into training programs for those without the personality traits to fuel the behavior change is a new opportunity. Yes, training is in the business of personality.

Consider these factors when designing a training program that promotes behavior change: • Use personality assessments when benchmarking star performer’s behavior to identify the personality traits most correlated to the desired behavior.

• Show participants that their personalitybased preferences don’t necessarily control their destiny. Share success stories that demonstrate they can perform the new behavior with or without the personality trait.

• Consider personality traits that predict the degree of emotional labor needed to execute the desired behavior. Design training to provide the fuel for those without the driving personality traits.

You achieve better training outcomes by including and engaging this group of learners.

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What can provide the fuel to replace the natural enthusiasm the others are feeling?

• Include the emotional appeal for using the new skills. Experiential learning is better than simply relaying information in this case.

• Connect participants during and after training to leverage the social motivation to use the new skills.

• Connect the use of the skill to something intrinsically rewarding for them.

• Help them anticipate the external rewards that await their changed behaviors (i.e., higher job performance).

Design Fuel That Transfers into Learners’ Work Environments Include these factors in your program design in order to hold learners accountable for using their new skills on the job: • Ensure there is a job feedback mechanism that demonstrates how the new skill is enhancing their performance.

• Establish a process that expects the use of the skill upon their return.

• Enable leaders and others to coach learners on their new skills.

• Create social pressure or rewards to use the new skill regularly on the job.

• Ensure their leaders understand, reinforce and recognize the new behaviors.

Support Leaders in Helping Them Overcome the Cost of Emotional Labor “How long will I have to do this?” is the cry of an individual living outside of their comfort zone. This is where people may run out of fuel to perform the new behavior, as it is using up valuable energy.

Will they last? Will they still be happy and engaged? Can they excel? These are legitimate questions for the leader to address once employees return from training. The goal is to create new desired habits in their people. Give leaders recommendations on how to foster behavior change in their newlytrained employees: • Explicitly reward the use of the new behavior.

• Ensure there are other parts of their job that are rewarding enough to make this a worthwhile trade-off.

• Acknowledge this is outside their comfort zone. Ask them how motivated they are to make the change and for how long.

Training must serve those with and without desired personality traits.

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• Continue to acknowledge the extra effort needed by those without the desired personality traits to sustain a level of performance, even though a habit will ease the effort over time.

• Remove the permission to use old habits.

Energize Learners to Produce More Behavior Change from Your Training Programs Facilitators are expected to be motivating in the classroom. Arm them with the skills they need to motivate learners by highlighting the personality traits that support the desired skills. This enables them to identify those that will require more emotional labor to do so.

To provide more value to the learner, give them tips on how to refuel themselves following the training program, such as working with a peer who excels, practicing with a colleague on a weekly call or utilizing a personal coach. The fuel will be needed until new habits are formed and they taste success. Design your programs to provide these practical fueling plans.

Training is the business of personality. It is essential to design and deliver training solutions for learners who naturally possess personality traits that align with the desired skills and trainees who will have to expend additional emotional labor due to their personality. By accounting for both groups of learners, you will see a significant increase in workers adopting behavior change.

Lori Preston is an organizational development consultant at Revenue Storm, a global sales consulting firm. With 30 years of experience in the industry, Lori has become a change management expert with her latest research focused on neuroscience.

Email Lori.

Success in the Digital Age: New Skills, Mindsets and Roles Success Success in the Digitalin Age: NewDigital Skills, Mindsets and Roles the Age: Success in the Digital Age: New Skills, Mindsets and Roles

New Skills, Mindsets and Roles

Digital technologies and tools are transforming how we live, work and interact with each Digital technologies tools areexpectations transformingabout how we live, work andshould interact with each other—and raisingand everyone’s what businesses provide. other—and raising everyone’s expectations about what businesses should provide.

Digital technologies and tools are transforming how we live, work and interact with each other—and raising everyone’s expectations about what businesses should provide.

Smart companies are adopting radical new Smart companies are adopting radical business models and reaping big new 1 business models and reaping big business benefits.

1 business benefits.

Smart companies are adopting radical new business models and reaping big business benefits.1

58.1%

42.6%

Operational 58.1% Efficiencies Operational Efficiencies

Business 42.6% Innovation Business Innovation

58.1%

42.6%

54% Customer 54%

53.8% Business 53.8%

Operational Efficiencies

Performance Business Performance

Satisfaction Customer Satisfaction

Business Performance

Customer Satisfaction

Business Innovation

54%

53.8%

To score these kinds of successes with digital, organizations need employees To score these kinds of leaders successes with organizations and who candigital, excel at new skills. need employees and leaders who can excel at new skills.

To score these kinds of successes with digital, organizations need employees and leaders who can excel at new skills.

Algorithmic Algorithmic Thinking Thinking

Data Data Literacy Literacy

Critical Critical Thinking Thinking

Algorithmic Thinking

Data Literacy

Critical Thinking

The ability to be “T-shaped”—bringing deep knowledge and expertise in specific functions, fields, or The ability toalso be “T-shaped”—bringing deep knowledge andorganization expertise in is specific functions, or industries—while conversing in other disciplines across the a critical attributefields, for success. industries—while also conversing in other disciplines across the organization is a critical attribute for success.

The ability to be “T-shaped”—bringing deep knowledge and expertise in specific functions, fields, or industries—while also conversing in other disciplines across the organization is a critical attribute for success.

LEARN HOW TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS

Organizations need workforces that include new roles: Organizations need workforces that include new roles:

+1-866-757-3177 | skillsoft.com

Organizations need workforces that include new roles:

Cloud Engineers Cloud Engineers

Data Scientists Data Scientists

Experience Experience Designers Designers

1 “The 2017 State of Digital Transformation.” Brian Solis and Aubrey Littleton, Altimeter, October 2017.

Cloud Engineers

Data Scientists

Experience Designers

HOW TO KEEP YOUR LEARNERS ENGAGED

BY TIFFANY POEPPELMAN

When trying to design a learning strategy, learning and development (L&D) professionals often focus heavily on the initial knowledge gained through the learning event or technologies, rather than approaches for long-term information retention and application. So, how can L&D leaders draw on well-established science to ensure the shelf lives of their skills do not decay over time on both an organizational and individual level?

Beyond new technologies that allow for the creation of microlearning experiences (small, bite-sized content that can help “drip feed” information over time), there remain core elements missing from training programs; these core elements are rooted in basic psychology principles, such as motivation and influence tactics, that tap into human emotion and make training stick.

The principles of human motivation go back decades, when many psychologists

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began to uncover new ideas such as goal-setting theory, needs-based theory and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. For training experiences specifically, this article will focus on goal-setting theory, which was originated by organizational psychologist Edwin Locke.

learning programs can be designed and leveraged to motivate employees toward high-caliber, efficient work.

Locke’s theory includes self-efficacy — an individual’s self-confidence in knowing he or she can be successful in a task — and goal commitment — ensuring one is committed to seeing a goal through. Using these continuously-proven principles,

• Embedding motivational and goalsetting strategies into training

There are three critical psychology elements that can help L&D programs sustain skills and make learning engaging, including:

• Using influence tactics to build emotional connection and appeal with learners

• Making programs memorable through marketing and branding tactics both before and during the training event

1. Embed Motivational Strategies in Training Through Goal-Setting Locke’s goal-setting theory is grounded in the impact of goal commitments, which have been shown to improve individual task performance. When applying this idea to training, one best practice is to ensure learners set goals within and beyond the classroom. By doing so, learners are more likely to commit their time to goal completion and create a learning plan, which can ultimately lead to better performance.

INCORPORATE BASIC PSYCHOLOGY PRINCIPLES THAT TAP INTO HUMAN EMOTION AND MAKE TRAINING STICK.

For goal commitment, consider the following tactics: • Aligning the individual’s goals with the company’s goals and vision • Asking learners to individually set and clearly write down goals that will help them succeed in their current and future roles • Ensuring learners’ goals are SMART — specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely • Encouraging the learner to openly share his or her goal commitment — for example, with a partner or team

member during or immediately after the training • Incorporating opportunities that build a learner’s self-confidence in training programs, especially when tasks feel “too challenging,” including practice application opportunities such a as role-plays, video recordings, behavior change reinforcement through feedback and/or real-life practice with a coach All these strategies work to ensure the learning program’s objectives are both meaningful and timely — and can increase a learner’s motivation to achieve specific goals. By raising a learner’s level of self-efficacy, he or she will likely put more effort into tackling challenging tasks; this increased selfefficacy may also lead to long-term retention and knowledge transfer.

2. Leverage Influence Strategies to Engage and Persuade Learners Persuasion and influence aren’t just for sales professionals and senior leaders.

In fact, many L&D professionals must leverage their own influence strategies to keep their learners’ attention. One notable author and researcher on this topic, over several decades, is Robert Cialdini. Through his work, including “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,” Cialdini presents a clear breakdown of the tactics used to influence others, including consensus or “social proof,” liking, authority, reciprocity, consistency and scarcity.

Below is a brief overview of these tactics and examples to apply in training: • Consensus or social proof: People are more likely to do something if others are doing it as well. Sharing specific examples of good behavior already seen in a company is impactful.

Reference actions from well-respected leaders and leverage best practices

from organizational top performers.

This strategy will increase awareness of best practices in the industry and will inspire learners to follow suit.

• Liking: People are more open to opinions from those they like. People learn and seek guidance from those that they’re similar to and that they personally like. Try to find examples that are localized to your office or market to truly have a message resonate in learners. For instance, consider embedding memorable speakers or other internal stakeholders who have a likeability trait to ensure course participation.

• Authority: People tend to follow people of authority. Quite simply, encourage senior leader involvement in training and/or ask them to help reinforce commitment and goalsetting strategies that ensure people follow those in authoritative positions.

Ask trainees to share their goals with senior colleagues who can provide feedback and hold them accountable.

• Reciprocity: People feel a strong pressure to give to those who gave to them along the way. One way to bring this idea to life through training is to include a mentorship model that involves contributing back to the learning program over time. This might look like a coaching session or paired matching approach to invest in practice opportunities or drive more self-efficacy after the training.

• Consistency: People will make sacrifices to appear consistent in their actions. If a person agrees to do something, most will do anything to ensure they honor that agreement consistently over time. By writing goals that can be completed alongside daily habits and sharing commitments with others, learners will be encouraged to embed consistent practices as part of their daily routine.

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GO BACK TO THE BASICS OF PSYCHOLOGY AND LEVERAGE THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN MOTIVATION TO ENSURE IMPROVED PERFORMANCE OVER TIME.

• Scarcity: Lastly, the more a person sees something as rare, the more valuable it becomes. By building a sense of rarity into a learning program, either through individual sign-ups or limited participation, it can help drive the value of completing the program for any learner.

3. Make Programs Memorable through Marketing and Branding Tactics Making training stick can also happen before the training begins. By embedding cutting-edge marketing approaches and unique messaging, learners will already be interested in learning before they hit the classroom. Fortunately, L&D and HR professionals don’t need a marketing or communications background to understand that memorable, engaging messaging works to promote programs of all kinds.

Learners, just like any consumer, appreciate creative communications

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that have an emotional appeal. One way to achieve this appeal is by embedding stories into learning, which helps humans remember information. Leveraging messaging from senior leaders about the importance of attending a specific program, or only opening up a limited number of seats for the training, can help amp up its appeal.

Applying gamification principles to a training program not only makes learning more engaging but also lures learners into a fun environment that motivates their senses through competition or points-based reinforcement. This tactic can be great for marketing and appeals to many personality types and helps ensure your program is both memorable and long-lasting.

Lastly, a branding strategy that can drive memorable learning programs focuses on creating a theme that makes learning a fun experience. For example, creating a theme (e.g., buzz terms or catchy phrases) through a fun title, related activities, company giveaways/prizes,

unique learning content and posttraining takeaways can help employees shift from thinking of the training as a mundane requirement to an interactive, fun experience for all.

Knowledge transfer in the modern business world is becoming a complex, intricate process with the addition of new capabilities that extend outside of the classroom…but mobile-accessible and microlearning technologies are simply not enough to enact lasting change. Human motivation tactics, embedded influence strategies and effective marketing are key elements that can lead learners to more quickly adopt new strategies and form longterm commitments to organizational and individual goals, which will have a significant impact on organizations across industries.

As companies move faster and demand change, it’s important to ensure learning programs drive people’s motivation and reinforce key organizational concepts.

Encourage learners to set goals that are attainable, realistic, require a sense of ownership and offer a measurable timeline to completion. Additionally, keep learners guessing on what’s next by embedding fun branding strategies, which will also sustain engagement over time. Try something new in your next program to ensure learners have fun on their way to mastering innovative concepts and ideas. But, most importantly, go back to the basics of psychology and leverage the principles of human motivation to ensure a greater likelihood of improved performance over time.

Tiffany Poeppelman is the Global Head of LinkedIn’s Business Leadership Program (BLP). She is passionate about inspiring people to think differently about how to optimize future business opportunities amid the changing requirements of the global workforce. Email Tiffany.

TAILORED LEARNING SOLUTIONS

UNDERSTANDING FIRST A strategic, consultative approach to learning is one that understands your key challenges—and delivers outcomes to support your critical objectives. This is what targeted, data-driven learning solutions are all about. This is how Raytheon Professional Services will impact the performance of your people and your business.

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“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

— Attributed to Alvin Toffler as an output of conversation in his book “Future Shock” The first rule of modern learner-centric experiences is that learners must be accountable for their personal learning journey. How can learners create and follow an effective plan to get the most out of their learning experiences? There are four key tactics to becoming an effective, accountable learner.

1

EMBRACE THE PARADIGM SHIFT FOR PERSONAL LEARNING

Those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn in the face of increasing disruption will quickly lose ground to those who can. Employees who can evolve and adapt

in the workplace increase value for their organization. Learners now need to know how to access all that is available to them, understand their evolving jobs, and identify the requisite knowledge and skills to do new jobs. This is not an individualized activity. Learners need to understand the role of collaboration in their own learning and know how to establish a learning network to maximize their success.

Learning and development organizations have been changing for years, but the changes that have already occurred are transforming how learners can and will learn in the future. Table 1 highlights the key features of these old versus new paradigms.

Table 1.

Old Paradigm

New Paradigm

Organizations direct employees what, when and where to learn.

Employees have more ownership of what, when and where to learn.

Career progression is linear, following traditional career paths.

Career progression is less linear and evolves through the combination of the skills needed to succeed in emerging roles.

Managers drive career growth for employees.

Career growth is a shared activity in which learners are more involved in determining their path.

Learning activities are discrete and provided primarily through L&D platforms.

Integrated work-learning ecosystems provide an organic structure of learning experiences.

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It’s an exciting time; learners have both the access and agency necessary to control their learning experiences.

They just need to hold themselves accountable to ensure that access and agency do not go to waste.

2

ADOPT FUNDAMENTAL BEHAVIORS FOR SUCCESS

Let’s examine the five fundamental behaviors instrumental to a digital learner’s success: • Take Action: Don’t wait to be directed; take initiative. As a digital learner, look for trends in your work and start identifying the skills and knowledge you need to succeed. With all the disruption in work and personal life, committing to continuous learning is critical.

Learners have both the access and agency necessary to control their learning experiences.

• Build Your Network: Some of the best content isn’t available within your immediate circle of peers or on your internal search site. Find others who can guide you and thought leaders you can follow. A strong network is critical to finding answers and insights when applying a new skill, as well as in situations where something has changed or something goes wrong.

• Join the Right Communities: There are communities of practitioners doing what you do, facing the same challenges and overcoming them in different ways. The sooner you join and become a contributing member of such a community, the better prepared you

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will be when responding to change.

• Share Your Expertise: When it comes to your network and communities, it’s a two-sided relationship. You have a lot to learn and a lot to share, and doing one makes doing the other easier.

Providing valuable contributions builds your peers’ confidence in you, which in turn builds your network.

• Be Curious: Don’t become complacent because you think you know enough about a topic or area related to your job. The world and your field change every day. To stay competitive, scan for new trends and developments on the horizon so you can plan and respond accordingly.

3

TAKE OWNERSHIP OF YOUR LEARNING NEEDS

When you think about what you need to learn and when, recognize that not all learning needs are met in the same way.

In their Five Moments of Learning Need model, Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher identify distinct moments when learners need information or instruction: 1. Learn or do something for the first time.

2. Learn or do more of something.

3. Apply and refine.

4. Adjust to change.

5. React when something fails or goes wrong.

Most of us are comfortable with finding solutions for the first or second moments of need. We look in the normal places for a course or an instructional piece to introduce us to a concept. However, when we need suppor t when first applying a new skill or when something goes wrong, we often need different resources, and the typical places we look aren’t always the best.

Fo r e x a m p l e , w h e n t a k i n g o n a woodworking project, like building a table, you might start with a simple blueprint and a YouTube video that provides an overview of the process. You learn the concepts from these sources and then have to apply them to the task at hand. During the process, you find you’re having difficulty cutting the table legs to the same length, so you return to YouTube and find there’s no video for fixing short legs. You then turn to a woodworking blog or community, and search for tips to ensure equal leg lengths. Here you find a video for creating a tabletop saw sled, which will solve your problem.

This example highlights the need for a range of learning resources that provides learners with solutions. Developing a range of resources requires a learning network, and learners need to think strategically about their networks. These networks need to include suppor t for innovation and skills mastery, and it’s up to you as the learner to build your network.

4

CREATE A DYNAMIC, SELFDIRECTED LEARNING PLAN

Although there is no secret recipe for creating a dynamic, self-directed learning plan, the following are tips for creating an effective, personal learning plan: • Think about your learning goal. Compare how you’d create your professional learning experience to how you wo u l d u s e d i g i t a l re s o u r c e s t o pursue a personal passion. Undertake all lear n in g th e same way you’d undertake something that matters deeply to you.

• Begin with the end in mind. Identify your learning journey. What will it take to learn, then master? What knowledge do you already have?

Assess what needs to happen alon g th e way, from in d i v i d ua l

learning to application to learning from others’ successes and failures.

Consider how the learning content is delivered (i.e., courses, videos, blogs, forums, podcasts).

• Assess your own capability. Are there specific traits or behavior patterns that may make you less likely to make a bold, dramatic move? You may struggle if actions such as reaching out to a subject matter expert, connecting to a community new to you or searching the digital field for those with skills you want to attain make you nervous. Be aware of these potential stumbling blocks. Tools like StrengthsFinder, DiSC and MyersBriggs Type Indicator can provide insights into your personal patterns.

• Leverage your internal and external networks. Think about contacts inside and outside of work, those you know and those you want to know, and then connect. LinkedIn and Twitter are excellent resources. Find communities of practice by reading and following blogs and connecting with contributors.

Find out what these folks are reading and consider adding those books and articles to your own reading list. Follow people on social media, participate in Yam Jams, TwitterJams, and LinkedIn and Facebook groups. They’re out there. Go find them.

• Explore the full span of resources.

Explore curated sources of reliable content to achieve your learning goals. Many learning platforms like LinkedIn Learning and Udemy offer incredible courses covering a variety of subject matters. Consider using a productivity app to help you manage when and what you’re working on, so you can schedule your own learning plan. Managing the analog and digital self-directed learning that happens outside of a traditional platform is an important part of planning and completing the journey. It’s important enough that many learning companies are developing mobile productivity apps of their own.

Gone are the days of traditional career paths and linear progression.

• Opt in to new learning experiences.

Get comfor table in unfamiliar learning environments. These new experiences aren’t generally personto-person anymore, as many bodies of knowledge incorporate various new

technologies like chatbots to help you search more effectively. Try them.

CONCLUSION Gone are the days of traditional career paths and linear progression. As learners gain knowledge across digital platforms and learn using less linear pathways, they need to be held accountable for how they learn in the modern work environment. The onus is now on learners, and they must play a central role in their own learning and development. By using the tactics laid out in this article, learners can develop their own dynamic learning plans that guide them through the changing L&D landscape and create modern learning experiences that keep them competitive.

In the end, it ’s all up to you as the learner. Are you ready to embrace the new paradigms, adopt the five fundamental behaviors, take ownership of your learning needs and create your own personalized learning plan? If so, you’ll be well on your way to becoming an effective learner in the digital age.

Matt Donovan is vice president of digital learning strategies and solutions at GP Strategies. Email Matt.

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Today’s learners are surrounded by digital content on screens. Whether using a smartphone, tablet, TV, laptop, gaming system or the GPS in your car, information can be found on nearly any topic within a matter of seconds.

Many of us have become accustomed to the consumer-grade experience of finding the perfect video on YouTube to learn how to do something. Search engine optimization aside, how do learning professionals need to approach creating digital content that captures the attention of learners who need to integrate the learning into their work in an organic way?

Let’s examine four key areas content creators must focus on when developing learning solutions grounded in how, when and where the modern learner wants to engage with content.

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1

CREATE PERSONAS TO HUMANIZE YOUR TARGET CONTENT CONSUMER

When a training initiative fails, the problem can usually be attributed to misunderstanding the target audience.

The misunderstanding can come from a lack of information, but it can also be blamed on a failure to humanize the target audience.

Knowing the target audience is crucial when developing effective learning content. Performing a proper audience analysis means engaging in the process to uncover the target audiences’ specific characteristics and barriers that prevent them from achieving the desired behavior change. Unfortunately, the audience analysis is usually the first step that gets skipped when faced with time crunches and unrealistic deadlines. Without the

information captured in an audience analysis, learning professionals end up playing a guessing game to determine the necessary behavior changes, learning objectives and strategies that are relevant to their audience.

KNOWING THE TARGET AUDIENCE IS CRUCIAL WHEN DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE LEARNING CONTENT.

Beyond gathering demographic information, creating targeted personas allows content

creators to discover the habits, preferences, pains, expectations and motivations that inform better decision making regarding the treatment of content.

DON’T:

WHY DOES METADATA MATTER?

• Place large chunks of text on graphics or in videos.

When creating ideal content-consumer p e r s o n a s fo r a t a r g e t a u d i e n c e, something shifts in the way designers and stakeholders approach decisions regarding the training design. Suddenly there is a clear picture of who the learner is and how they will use the training to solve a problem, answer a question or learn a new skill. Using personas can help ensure that the content created is not simply a good idea in theory; personas also ensure the content is realistic and useful for the person doing the work.

• Use “Click here” when link ing to content (hyperlinking the title makes it decipherable by screen readers).

Metadata matters because algorithms are written and work based on the metadata that is available. Having good metadata will help to ensure that your content will be delivered when it’s needed. Metadata happens behind the scenes and, when it works right, it isn’t noticed; it just works.

INTELLIGENT CONTENT IS THE KEY TO DELIVERING THE RIGHT CONTENT, TO THE RIGHT LEARNER, AT THE RIGHT TIME AND FOR THE RIGHT REASONS.

2

APPLY BASIC STANDARDS TO MAKE CONTENT MORE ACCESSIBLE FOR EVERYONE

Content loses its value if learners cannot access it. Accessibility standards improve the usability and overall user experience for all users, including learners with disabilities. This means taking a holistic approach to thinking about usability and accessibility. Here are some basic dos and don’ts to consider when making content more accessible:

DO: • Provide alternate text that describe graphics.

• Write instructions that are clear and concise.

• Offer captions and transcript alternatives for audio and video.

• Include descriptive titles on pages for navigation.

• Use color only references for navigation.

3

ORGANIZE AND STRUCTURE CONTENT TO MAKE IT INTELLIGENT

Intelligent content is the key to delivering the right content, to the right learner, at the right time and for the right reasons.

Intelligent content is a term used in content marketing that describes the way content is organized and structured, allowing it to be more readable and efficient for both humans and machines.

An easy way to think about how content is organized and structured is to think about it in chunks, sequences and layers.

Content chunking is the method of outlining content into short, bite-size pieces that are easier to manage, easier to remember and easier to find. Think of each chunk of content as a single thought, idea or subtopic. This way of organizing content also helps when sequencing the information for delivery. Layering refers to where subjects belong in the sequence, from simple to more complex levels of mastery.

4

LABEL, DESCRIBE AND TAG CONTENT TO MAKE IT DISCOVERABLE

Intelligent content is structured to be more efficient in delivering the just-in time learner what they need. To make the right content more discoverable, content should be categorized with meta labels, descriptions and tags.

More than likely, you are already creating some forms of metadata to describe, tag and label the content you publish. However, if not done intentionally, you may not be using your metadata to its full potential. Labeling content correctly can automatically create useful metadata, but keep in mind that the quality of the metadata determines how it performs. Having a consistent metadata strategy is a powerful way to make content more discoverable for the learner in their time of need.

To start thinking about a metadata strategy, start small and focus on building consistency. Here are some areas to include when considering a basic metadata strategy: • Titles: Writing effective titles isn’t easy.

Make sure the content has a meaningful title and subtitle that contains relevant keywords. The title is often displayed as the first line in search results. Therefore, titles are important in helping content consumers decide if your content is what they need.

• Descriptions: Think back to the last time you bought a book. You likely took a moment to read the back cover before deciding if it was worthwhile.

Descriptions are essentially the back cover of your content.

• Date: Include the publish date to h elp user s deter min e t i m e l i ne s s and relevance.

• Author: Include the content author’s name and contact information.

• Tags and keywords: Enter relevant keywords that describe the content.

Tags are often displayed in search results and provide content consumers with an idea of what the content is about. Tags may also direct consumers toward your content and help the them find it.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER As content providers in today’s digital culture, it is necessary to rethink our role in how content is designed to meet the needs of today’s learners. Focusing on these areas with the just-in-time learner in mind will help your company create content that is ready for any digital technology to serve it up when, where and how it is needed.

Laura Whitaker has been the lead for content standards for SAP’s global learning team since February 2018. Her passion for helping people in all aspects of content creation has been the driving force throughout her 10+ years of experience. Email Laura.

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First, Dare to Imagine: Imagine working on a team where your uninterrupted creative time is sacred, and you spend chunks of time engrossed in exploring your ideas. You wake up after a good night’s sleep knowing you’ll have the time to bring your ideas into reality. Everyone is aware of your crucial role in accomplishing the creative purpose to which you are all devoted.

Imagine working on a team where your colleagues have great respect for your contributions, and you never worry about them hurting you. What you do well is valued, and nobody expects you to be good at everything. You know everyone generously contributes to making your work even better.

The

Imagine working on a team where accomplishing results and faster progress are the only reason you ever have meetings. Transparent systems ensure everyone is responsible and held accountable. Everyone agrees to make decisions based on the given information and will adapt if we learn something different later.

Dimensions of Character Fitness and How They Grow Leadership Agility

By Pam Boney

Imagine working on a team that stays radically focused on crucial priorities and no one tries to be everything to everyone. Everyone knows your core competencies and what you need to succeed, so everyone is selective about expending resources.

Now, Reflect on How to Lead a Team Like This: First, you must think about what makes your team members tick. How can you best support them? Who do you need to be to help them accomplish your most compelling purpose?

Teams like this are so committed that they devote passionate, discretionary effort into their work every day. They have something to prove. They want the world to be better in some way.

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Teams like this move dirt. Build stuff.

Invent things. Solve problems. Catalyze change. Challenge old conventions.

Disrupt corruption. Produce new energies. Most of all, they give us hope for our future. They inspire us to believe again. They help us decide to be part of the solution instead of giving up.

How are They Able to Accomplish so Much, so Fast?

The nascent field of neuroscience is discovering some answers about why some people and teams make the most of their potential while others fade into mediocrity. In short, they use four essential neural processing networks to help them optimize their energy and efforts. And perhaps even more importantly, these networks help them know what must be avoided at all costs.

They know that fear is distracting and that strength is empowering. So, they create an environment where fears are processed

respectfully, but quickly, and strengths are optimized at the same pace. They know that ego-sensitivities just slow things down. So, they have a plan for how to glean the value out of natural fears while moving forward anyway.

BEING PART OF A TEAM AND KNOWING THAT OUR CONTRIBUTION MATTERS MOTIVATES US TO SERVE ONE ANOTHER.

What Makes These Teams Different?

There’s an underlying engine that drives the immutable passion of these teams

and enables them to transcend more primal human desires. It is the one capacity that is uniquely human and sustainably good for all of us: character strength. And if you are to lead a team like this, you need to be incredibly fit in four very important ways:

1 | Inspirational Fitness Meta-Strength: Resilience (Spirit) Character Strengths: Openness, Inspiration, Creativity When our minds are at peace and free to wander, we have the space to imagine beyond our immediate senses and ego-needs. In modern brain science, we’re learning that this ability is only possible when our “default network” is engaged. This network is a complex set of brain parts that “light up” when we are not engaged in tasks or experiencing external stimuli. When we’re in this default state, we can ruminate on topics that interest us and imagine what we might do with them. This part of our brain imagines what is possible and

THE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHARACTER FITNESS Agile leaders and their teams make optimal use of four essential neural processing networks to help them know what to avoid and what to do for the best outcomes. Agility in each of these four dimensions of character fitness enables leaders and their teams to thrive in a world of constant change.

TO DEVELOP

PRACTICE

AVOID

Inspirational Fitness

Freedom, ideas, creative offline time, trust in ultimate productivity

Excessive meetings, constant interruptions, fear about empowering others

Emotional Fitness

Trust good intentions, forgive mistakes, appreciation, inclusion, harmony

Blame games, triangulation, dismissiveness rewards that cause internal competition

Instinctual Fitness

Notice sensations, listen to hunches, be direct and courageous, decide and engage

Impulsivity, inaction, conflict-aversion, risk-aversion, lack of accountability

Rational Fitness

Radical prioritization of initiatives systemic disciplines, lean teams, good data analysis

Competing priorities, conflicts of interest, unrealistic goals, unrealistic timelines

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seeks solutions to improve our wellbeing. This ingenious ability to improve our circumstances is, in itself, inspiring.

It’s what we must use if we expect teams to do great things under our leadership.

2 | Emotional Fitness Meta-Strength: Humanity (Heart) Character Strengths: Trust, Empathy, Likability When we feel appreciated and valued by others for who we are, we’re able to work with them in ease and trust. Not having to prove to others that we’re superhuman or perfect rewards us with their acceptance. Being part of a team and knowing that our contribution matters motivates us to serve one another. In modern brain science, this is called the Reward Network, which is the set of systems that continuously seeks pleasure and avoids pain. Since we are social beings, this part of us seeks connection with others for pleasure and experiences rejection as painful.

Indeed, our dependence on one another for survival is an important behavioral motivator.

Similarly, emotional intuition is crucial to our ability to lead interdependent teams effectively.

3 | Instinctual Fitness Meta-Strength: Courage (Gut) Character Strengths: Integrity, Boldness, Confidence When we follow hunches that come from well-informed instincts, we are using heuristics (rules of thumb) to make decisions faster. If we conducted a thorough analysis every time we made a decision, our brains would be overwhelmed. Modern brain science calls this the Affect Network. It activates physical responses to common, previously experienced patterns of incoming stimuli. The emotions that result from those “good” or “bad” experiences are much faster than conscious thought. They apply meaning to that stimuli, which helps us determine

whether it will ultimately make us feel good or bad. These hunches are shortcuts based on a database of good and bad experiences over a long period of time. They play an important role in our decision-making if we learn when to trust them and when to re-examine them. Fit leaders need to stop and listen to warnings from a variety of perspectives instead of moving forward impulsively on a hunch alone.

FOCUS WHERE YOU HAVE THE MOST CONTROL: OVER YOURSELF AND THE WAY YOU LEAD.

4 | Rational Fitness Meta-Strength: Wisdom (Head) Character Strengths: Perspective, Focus, Discipline When we use our minds to focus on goals and use rational judgment to weigh the long-term consequences of our impulses, we are selective about how to use our limited resources. Since we cannot possibly solve every problem in the world, we must be wise enough to focus our resources on those we most need to accomplish. In brain science, this complex self-regulation process is referred to the Control Network. It enables us to align our behaviors with our most important goals and hold conceptual goals in our minds while organizing and completing tasks that require in-the-moment concentration.

Developing mindfulness practices helps us accomplish goals through mental discipline. As we focus on the task at hand, we can simultaneously and selectively search for new stimuli and decide whether it’s useful to the overarching goal and should be quickly incorporated. As leaders, this selectivity allows us to delay gratification in service of a longer-term outcome.

The Ultimate Character Strength Challenge These four dimensions of character fitness enable human creativity, accomplishment and sustainability over time. Without balanced strength in each of them, we fall prey to our ego-fears about loss of approval, status, power and

recognition. This wastes precious time that could be applied to our goals. Being fit leaders requires each of us to commit to building our own character strengths so that we can evolve and adapt to our ever-changing environment.

Remember that whenever we are finding fault in others, we are likely avoiding our own shortcomings. Instead, focus where you have the most control: over yourself and the way you lead. Everything you do to become more fit and agile in each dimension of character fitness shapes your team’s climate and ultimately determines whether your team will thrive and flourish.

Pam Boney is a team agility coach, a tech startup founder and business strategist with over 36 years of professional experience in leading, advising and coaching individuals and teams to achieve exceptional performance. She is the designer and author of the Tilt 365 framework. Email Pam.

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The Human Factor

By Caroline Murphy

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“THE MIND IS NOT A VESSEL THAT NEEDS FILLING BUT WOOD THAT NEEDS IGNITING.” – PLUTARCH, GREEK HISTORIAN

This is a wonderful time in the evolution of the human experience. Technological advancements continue to abound and astound. Seemingly everything we could ever want is at our fingertips.

More and more, as humans come to depend on digital solutions and artificial intelligence, digital solutions and artificial intelligence become dependable. So, it is natural that when it comes to performance development, more and more companies are looking for e-learning options when weighing the pros and cons of sales training.

The potential benefits are clear, as such options can cut the cost of time and money in half. It is worth exploring learning experiences that leverage the convenience and enjoyment of e-learning solutions. As the training industry does its best to keep up with the technology race, the question of the human factor becomes increasingly relevant. In today’s

technologically evolving environment, is the comparatively higher cost of in-classroom, facilitator-led training necessary? And ultimately, is it worth it?

Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist and pioneer in the field of memory and psychology introduced both the forgetting curve (the rate at which information is forgotten) as well as the learning curve (the rate at which information is learned) in 1885. According to his research, nearly half of what is learned is forgotten within days, depending on the strength of the memory. That said, when considering the billions of dollars invested in training each year, it’s worth ensuring that the investment is equally aimed at the strength of the memory intended by that training.

This article addresses three critical components of the learning process: predisposition, the learning event,

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and application and reinforcement.

Furthermore, this article aims to assess the value and necessity of human interaction during all three components as it pertains to the strength of the memory each are designed to ensure.

Component 1: Predisposition We’ve learned a lot about learning.

Neuroscience and our own human experience have given us enormous insight into what it takes to learn a new skill, method or behavior correctly, so that the learner can effectively implement it into his or her working life, even when the shortcut of falling back into old habits is ever so tempting.

This is especially true in sales training where the sales professional, whether a novice or veteran, comes to the table

Emotions are contagious, and they are profoundly relevant to the learning process. with a lifetime of already learned and, often, deeply embedded methods and styles of sales skills (i.e., communicating, listening, asking questions, managing resistance, negotiating, etc.).

The greatest obstacle to learning something new is replacing – or unlearning – the familiar and habitual.

Therefore, a learner’s attitude about learning going into the process is crucial for success.

An adult learner must feel personally incentivized. In “Writing and the Brain: Neuroscience Shows the Pathways to

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Learning,” neuroscientist and educator Judy Willis explains, “…that is when the brain predicts pleasure and applies efforts to achieve the desirable goal.”

To this end, the value of a powerful and relevant predisposition cannot be underestimated. Learners need to hear from a human who has walked in their shoes, who can empathize with the discomfort of setting aside old ways and share their experience of the value of learning the new ways. More than anything, learners need an answer to the questions, “Why do I need to learn this?” and even more, “Why would I want to learn this?”

Managing learners’ expectations and attitudes about the value of the learning is the first worthwhile investment, and an empathetic human can have considerable influence over the necessary attitude and enthusiasm of learners prior to the learning event.

Component 2: The Learning Event In Andrea García Cerdán’s article, “Mirror neurons: The most powerful learning tool,” Cerdán asserts, “humans are social beings programmed to learn from others.”

The human brain is hardwired to learn through observation and mimicry; wired with mirror neurons, it cannot help itself.

When the goal is to learn a new set of human behaviors, the best resource we may have is a human model. It is of course possible to have the behavior modeled on a screen, in the form of a video or virtual simulation, however, most learners must be able to continue to ask the questions: “Why?” or “What if?” Some brains simply cannot learn until those fundamental questions are answered – and then answered again, and again, to the learner’s satisfaction. They, of course, must have the opportunity to practice the new behavior, with a pair of human eyes and ears watching to

Making Learning Stick We forget half of what we learn within days! To make it stick, consider these human factors: • The learning must be relevant to the learners! Predisposition to the value before training makes a difference.

• Emotions matter: the better the feelings, the stronger the learning.

• Social settings create more opportunities for dopamine (good feelings) to be released and multi-sensory learning, strengthening the neural pathways created in the brain.

• Use it or lose it: learning must be applied immediately and consistently with a coach to ensure it’s being applied correctly.

correct, coach and advise. They must have the opportunity to continue asking questions, to express doubt and share the excitement when something clicks.

The same mirror neurons that create our aptitude for observation and mimicry also give empathetic teachers the ability to influence learners’ emotions and attitudes during inevitable moments of frustration and enthusiasm. Emotions are contagious, and they are profoundly relevant to the learning process.

Research shows that the limbic system, the emotional part of the brain, can either open or shut down the learning process entirely. Stress and frustration can make it physiologically impossible to learn something new; conversely, the release of dopamine, the “feel good” sensation, motivates the brain, allowing it to create more connections and activate more neural pathways, increasing and enhancing the learning process, leading to longer-term memory.

Nothing ensures the success of a new endeavor as much as intentional coaching.

In the article, “Learning and Memory: How Do We Remember and Why Do We Often Forget?” published by BrainWorld Magazine, Kenneth Wesson notes, “learning experiences become more memorable when social-emotional memories are part of the learning event, which is why cooperative learning is such a powerful memory-enhance.”

A human teacher is a necessary component of that cooperative, social learning environment.

Component 3: Application and Reinforcement If the forgetting curve is correct, and learners have only days before they forget half of what they’ve learned, the learning experience must extend beyond the workshop itself; just as importantly, the application phase must begin immediately. After all, we only have a matter of days! In this way, e-learning apps, digital reminders and every other technological tool we can dream up are equipped for reinforcement and motivating the learner to apply these new skills.

That being said, it is crucial that participants are applying new behaviors in

their intended way as they move into the application phase of the learning process.

In Andy Hunt’s book, “Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware,” Hunt points out that people at a lower skill level tend to overestimate their own abilities by as much as 50%.

This can be a problem when sending someone with newly acquired (and likely, lower) skill set out to practice new skills. If they are unable to perceive their own progress clearly, it can be difficult to actually progress. It is easy to practice something incorrectly, even with the best of intentions, without the help of a coach. Whether that coach is a manager, colleague or the original facilitator, nothing ensures the success of a new endeavor as much as intentional coaching. A learner must continually have another person with whom they can ask questions, express frustrations and share success stories.

The Human Factor With all that neuroscience continues to teach us about how we learn, when it comes to sales training, we must also consider what “sales” is.

Sales is a social science and an emotional art; at its heart, it’s the process of building relationships with clients and

customers while guiding them through the frequently emotional waves of the buying process. A sales professional is like a doctor whose essential job it is to guide a patient from a problem to a solution. More than simply understanding the technicality of the solution, though, the doctor must also have the social and emotional means to understand the patient.

We might call this “the human factor.”

We might also call it empathy, trust, confidence, patience, intuition or, simply, the ability to deeply connect with another human being. While there are multiple areas in which we can, and should, celebrate the effectiveness and convenience of e-learning and digital resources, teaching that critical human factor is simply not one of them.

The bottom line is this: If the question is “is training worth the cost?” the answer is, “only if the participants are effectively trained.”

Caroline Murphy is the president of Acclivus Corporation, a global performance development firm. Acclivus “R3 Solutions” refers to the only fully integrated curriculum designed to help organizations build strong relationships, produce optimal results and generate profitable revenue. Email Caroline.

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ACCOUNTABILITY IN TEAMS:

CHANGING PERCEPTIONS AND MOVING TOWARD IMPLEMENTATION

By Jason Weber

I have a question for you. How important is accountability in a team? Assuming you answered something along the lines of “very important,” the next question is imperative. How much training have you received on how to hold someone accountable? If you are like the majority of those I have worked with, your answer is most likely “very little” or “none at all.” These two questions have been instrumental in how I have approached the topic of accountability within teams.

Before diving into the process of implementing accountability, there are a few items to address. First, holding someone accountable is a good thing.

Many people view holding someone accountable as a negative. Similar t o h a v i n g d i f f i c u l t c o nve r s a t i o n s, many people don’t enjoy the idea o f acco u nt a b i li t y d i scussio ns due to negative past experiences. They worry about how the other person will respond, or they lack confidence in knowing that having the discussion is the right decision.

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To better understand this, let’s examine three viewpoints that influence how we work with accountability. I like to call them “leveraging our viewpoints,” and I feel this concept is at the foundation of any accountability discussion. These viewpoints include our: • Assumptions: things that we believe to be true — even without facts to support our views or opinions • Perceptions: an intuitive understanding of situations • Expectations: a strong belief that something will happen Let’s specifically focus on perception and accountability. We all perceive e x p e r i e n c e s d i f f e r e n t l y, a s t h e y are unique to each individual.

Knowing this, let’s look at two possible workplace situations: • You are in a meeting with your team, and your supervisor is detailing a

change process your team will be leading. While listening and reviewing the detailed plans, you find yourself informed and ready to move onto the next steps. However, you notice that one of your peers is becoming increasingly resistant and frustrated by the proposed change.

• You are meeting with your supervisor and he or she tells you that an additional person will be joining your project team to help move the project along. You become defensive and are bothered that your supervisor made this decision without consulting you first.

Each of these examples has a negative impact on someone in the scenario.

Why? Because perception has caused us to take what could be a normal situation and turn it into a negative one.

However, there could be a variety of reasons for having a negative reaction to these scenarios.

When thinking about your peer who appears to be upset about the change, consider the following possibilities.

Maybe they have been through this type of situation before and had a negative experience. Maybe the details regarding the change are not specific enough, and they are tired of feeling left out of decision-making conversations.

Both reasons could be why your peer is resistant to the change.

Next, let’s consider the situation in which you are bothered by your supervisor adding another member to your team without your consideration — you likely had the following concerns: Does your supervisor think you cannot be successful with your current team? Does your supervisor think you are not doing a good job? Why wouldn’t the supervisor have given you a heads up?

We could develop any number of responses to these two scenarios.

However, the moral of the story is that we don’t know why someone reacts the way they do in any given situation.

We can assume, but ultimately, we don’t have fac ts to suppor t such assumptions. Leveraging our viewpoints in any situation allows us to remain unbiased and non-judgmental toward others during difficult situations in the workplace. We must remain mindful that there may be a reason we are not aware of that is causing someone’s negative response to the situation at hand.

So, when applying this belief to our teams, think about a time when your perception of a situation was wrong.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you played out a scenario in your head negatively, only to realize the experience was a positive one?

Or, have you found yourself coming up with multiple rebuttals to push back something you were expecting to happen, but never occurred? I believe this is why many of us struggle with

accountability discussions. We worry that the outcome will be negative — so, instead of developing talking points, we develop excuses to not to have the discussion and end up justifying the behavior we needed to discuss in the first place.

CHANGING OUR PERCEPTION So, how do we overcome these thoughts, and how do we not let past negative experiences get in the way of our application of accountability?

First, we must accept that we cannot change the past. If someone had a negative experience in the past, that is out of our control. What we can do, however, is acknowledge that experience.

If we are made aware of people’s past experiences, we can focus on creating positive experiences moving forward which will, hopefully, result in a positive perception shift.

Next, we must be intentional in allowing individuals the opportunity to share their insights regarding how they perceived a certain situation or action.

One of my favorite resources on the topic of accountability is “Crucial Accountability,” a book by VitalSmarts.

One of the tools the book mentions is called “The Conversation Planner.”

This tool uses the following format to structure accountability discussions: Describe the Gap: Start by sharing what was expected versus what was observed.

Expected: “My understanding was that you were going to .”

Observed: “Instead, you

.”

End with a question: “What happened?”

“How do you see it?”

Then, once we have the proposed accountability conversation, we need to

allow that experience to end. Meaning, we need to move on and not bring up the incident unless it is appropriate to do so. This is one of the key ways we can help change the perception of accountability discussions.

Holding someone accountable is a good thing.

If you have ever made a mistake and were called out for that mistake, I would imagine you would want people to drop it and move on. The same feeling applies for accountability discussions.

Please note, I am not saying that once an accountability discussion is completed we must forget about it. Rather, it is important that we move on and allow the employee the opportunity to learn from their past behaviors and implement necessary changes moving forward. If the behavior continues, however, then we can bring it to attention during another discussion.

UNDERSTANDING EXPECTATIONS Bringing accountability into teams is something you can do right away. There is no need to wait for the next evaluation period. One of the most impor tant items needed to start this process is simple: expectations.

One of the most common reasons for becoming frustrated is because our expectations are not being met.

Think about the previous examples mentioned, and then think about a time when you were frustrated at work. Why were you frustrated? You likely had one of the following answers:

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• What does success look like to you?

The purpose of asking these questions is to understand your peers’ expectations.

Once we are aware of such expectations, we can determine how to most effectively work with other team members. While we cannot always accommodate everyone’s individual preferences, we can remain aware of them and acknowledge them when necessary.

To build on this, let’s change the direction of these questions in order to focus on the team: • What does effective communication look like to us?

• When being assigned a project, what information is important to us?

• How do we prefer to handle conflict?

• What does success look like to us?

• “I wish they would communicate more.”

• “Why didn’t they ask me first?”

• “I wish they wouldn’t be so rude when they are talking to everyone.”

When we step back and look at these responses, it’s likely that the frustration was due to unmet expectations. We all have expectations regarding how we want others to act. What makes someone a good communicator? What makes someone a good decision maker? What makes someone a good leader? Each of these questions could have several answers. How I answer them will probably be different than you. No answer is right or wrong, it is simply a difference in how we view those questions. The same goes for implementing accountability into our teams.

If I have an expectation, then I need to tell you about it. This seems fair, right? How many times do we have those discussions with our teams

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about what you expect and what they e x p e c t ? T h e s e c o nve r s a t i o n s m a y seem awkward, but think about all the miscommunications that could be avoided if we all knew what was expected of us from the start? If we share our preferred mode of communication, how we deal with conflict and how we work through change, it will reduce anxiety and increase productivity and communication alike.

An easy way to incorporate this strategy is to have your team define a term collectively. At your next team meeting, take five minutes to ask a question you would like your group to define.

For example: • What does effective communication look like to you?

• When being assigned a project, what information is most important to you?

• How do you prefer to deal with conflict?

We must be intentional in allowing individuals the opportunity to share their insights regarding how they perceived a certain situation.

Now that we have the communication around expectations active in our teams, it is important to discuss the team’s performance expectations. Once these have been explained, we can use them as the guiding pillars to drive our team’s success both now and in the future.

Jason Weber is the director of enterprise training and development for the State of Wisconsin Department of Administration.

Email Jason.

CASEBOOK

DELOITTE’S JOURNEY TO GAMIFYING ONBOARDING FOR NEW ANALYSTS

BY MELISSA SCHNURE, ANDRÉS PETERS AND KATHARINE SUETTINGER

In this age of digital disruption, when companies are encouraging employees to be more agile, it’s no surprise that employees expect the same from learning and development (L&D) organizations.

Modern learners tend to crave flexibility in where and how they learn and typically seek out experiences that actively engage them. But what does it take for an organization to embrace technology and design a learning experience for the modern learner? For Deloitte’s Human Capital practice, it was a zombie apocalypse.

LEADERSHIP’S CALL TO ACTION Two years ago, a L&D analysis revealed that while spending to onboard new analysts to the Human Capital practice was high (relative to other career levels), feedback on the experience did not demonstrate an increase in the program’s value. The team continually heard that participants wanted an experience that allowed them to work at their own pace and focus on topic areas based on their own development needs. So, the L&D team set out to design a more costeffective, engaging way to deliver three full days of in-classroom content.

Working with business stakeholders, the team weighed the benefits and drawbacks of several options and determined that a fully digital, gamified solution that – while more labor intensive from a design and

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development perspective – would yield the most impactful outcome in the long run.

Taking cues from pop culture, they determined the theme of the game – a zombie apocalypse – and situated the learner as the main protagonist whose role is to find a cure and save humanity by making informed choices to complete a series of challenges in a self-paced, digital experience. The purpose of the game, titled “The Chosen Analyst,” is to provide training around basic consulting skills – including PowerPoint, Excel, professionalism and more — that were previously developed via in-classroom modules. The newly gamified approach enables analysts to work at their own pace, rather than forcing them into a one-size-fits-all timeline. The virtual nature of the program also has the added benefit of significantly reducing time out-ofmarket for these professionals.

THE DESIGN PROCESS The design team brought together individuals from across the organization, including instructional designers, graphic designers, learning program managers and, importantly, existing analysts in Deloitte’s Human Capital practice. The existing analysts’ role was to provide perspective on the realities of how their roles worked within the context of a project. This insight allowed the team to sequence the activities in a way that made sense and was realistic to the analyst

experience, despite it being framed around a zombie apocalypse.

In order for the game to be successful, the team based the design on two major objectives: developing a compelling storyline and ensuring the activities were seamlessly integrated into the story. To tackle the first objective, the design team held virtual “table reads” during which team members would walk through the entire story as one character to both identify any awkward phrasing or unnatural language and determine the appropriate tone for the character.

MODERN LEARNERS CRAVE FLEXIBILITY IN WHERE AND HOW THEY LEARN AND SEEK OUT EXPERIENCES THAT ACTIVELY ENGAGE THEM.

To meet the second objective, the team had to determine the right size for each activity, balancing microlearning principles and the need to provide learners with enough content to meet the learning objective. Final activities included drag and drops, multiple choice questions and activities outside of the game, such as data analysis. Learners were given a maximum of three attempts to complete each activity correctly, after which they were provided with the correct answer,

along with an explanation and directions to additional resources. The design also included starts and stops in the story, which allowed the content to be modularized, ensuring learners did not have to complete the entire game in one sitting. At the end of each module, learners received a code that was used to unlock the next module.

After finalizing the story and activities, the game design was handed over to the development team. Each module went through the following design process: 1) Storyboard Design – high-level design of the module 2) Storyboard Review and Approval 3) Alpha Design – flash development of the module 4) Alpha Stakeholder Review and Approval 5) Gold Design – updates to the module based on the Alpha stakeholder review 6) Gold Stakeholder Review and Sign-Off As each module was signed off, it was packaged with other modules and reviewed to ensure each module flowed naturally into the next.

While the game is meant to be a standalone experience, the team also curated a separate platform to house additional performance support. This included additional resources

THE GAMIFIED APPROACH ENABLES ANALYSTS TO WORK AT THEIR OWN PACE, RATHER THAN FORCING THEM INTO A ONE-SIZEFITS-ALL TIMELINE. that directly supported an activity or topic in the game, or development content that complemented the game and helped learners find where to gain additional practice in any of the skill areas (e.g., resource guides, video tutorials and additional courseware).

LAUNCH AND FEEDBACK The game launched to the incoming class of Human Capital analysts in July 2018 and received overwhelmingly positive feedback. Learners were excited to experience a gamified learning approach and appreciated having access to additional resources. While the game was designed to be self-paced, some learners played the game as a team and then engaged in discussions and informal knowledge sharing; this form of social learning further increased the program’s impact.

The Human Capital leadership team was introduced to the game through a threeminute trailer. They were as thrilled with the game’s concept as they were with its business impact – decreased time-out-

of-market for new analysts, innovative design and an annual reduction in analyst onboarding costs.

And all the analysts had to do was save the world…

Melissa Schnure is a L&D manager supporting Deloitte Consulting’s Human Capital practice.

Andrés Peters is a L&D manager supporting Deloitte’s Government & Public Services practice. Katharine Suettinger is a development leader supporting Deloitte Consulting’s Human Capital practice. Email the authors.

LESSONS LEARNED

•

When creating a story-based learning experience, having a table read with character acting can help identify issues with story flow or dialogue.

•

Music can have an incredible impact on the overall effectiveness of the story. We used it as a way to spike attention and draw our participants into the immersive experience.

•

Consider technology from a continuity perspective — as the project was built on Adobe Flash Player, this course will have to be redeveloped using more current technology in 2020 — when Adobe Flash Player is phased out. This was highlighted at the start of the project and factored into our future release schedule.

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G L O B A L O U T LO O K

CREATING AN AMAZING LEARNING EXPERIENCE: TRAINING AND GAINING SOFT SKILLS

BY SUSAN SHEPPARD

From the time the term “soft skills” was coined by the U.S. Army in 1972 as “important job-related skills that involved little to no interaction with machines,” to today’s workplace, soft skills have typically taken a back seat to hard skills in the workplace.

Fast forward 60 years and we find that the information technology (IT) community, along with training and business experts, revived the term to distinguish between the technical and interpersonal skills needed on the job.

Today, the term soft skills is associated with a person’s ability to connect to others on a personal level. These skills include reading body language and understanding and honoring differences in personality types.

In the past, soft skills were considered an inherent quality rather than something that could be taught. Today, training for soft skills is just as important as training for hard skills.

WHY SOFT SKILLS MATTER In today’s technology and data-driven world, children are taught hard skills almost from birth; how often have you’ve seen a toddler mesmerized by an iPad? Unfortunately, focusing solely on technology — which is intended to bring us closer together — often pushes us further apart. In today’s techenabled world, texting, emailing and browsing social media often replace face-to-face communications.

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Soft skills are harder to come by when people rely on technology for communication at such an early age.

But, developing soft skills is worth the investment, as “someone with strong soft skills will earn up to 15% more over a lifetime,” according to research report “Backing Soft Skills.” So, while both types of skills are necessary, soft skills can more greatly affect an employee’s capabilities related to job performance.

SOFT SKILLS CAN MORE GREATLY AFFECT AN EMPLOYEE’S CAPABILITIES RELATED TO JOB PERFORMANCE.

Employers will often train new employees with the soft skills they want to see on the job, rather than expecting that a candidate automatically has the behaviors needed for optimal job performance. That’s where professional trainers can help: social skills, communication skills, time management and critical thinking skills are four types of soft skills training commonly requested by employers.

Organizations often seek employees who can effectively communicate, problem solve, work on a team, excel at time management and show flexibility

in the workplace. These skills are in demand across industries, especially in sales and business development positions. These types of positions typically require a great deal of personal interaction with clients and, often, having strong communications skills can make or break a deal.

Time management and productivity are critical skills that still live in the curriculum for technology solutions training today. The evolution from paper-based planners to cloud-based training solutions still relies on skills that emphasize the methodology and psychology behind time management.

Global organizations are investing in both soft skills research and training for employees. In 2015, McDonald’s U.K. initiated a campaign to encourage the investment in soft skills within its company and among other organizations in their nation. According to the campaign research, by this year “over half a million U.K. workers will be significantly held back by a lack of soft skills – an issue forecast to affect all sectors.”

TRAINING AND GAINING SOFT SKILLS The bad news is that soft skills are not necessarily inherent. The good news is that soft skills can be successfully trained.

One example of this is the following case study of a pharma company, which illustrates how using soft skills and interactive resources during

training maximized participation and understanding of complex topics. The key learning objective – how to drive customer needs by understanding social and cultural makeups in their individual regions – was successfully taught using soft skill techniques.

CASE STUDY: THINK CRITICALLY. WORK COLLABORATIVELY. APPLY GLOBALLY. Background: A pharma company has recently expanded its workforce worldwide. About 30 new sales and marketing managers have joined the company from different regions. While many had a background in marketing, they were still new to the organization and its products. The workshop’s goals included training the reps to identify social and behavioral patterns in their markets by using soft skills such as social dynamics, motivations, attitudes, emotions and desires.

The training consisted of two workshops for the company’s international team.

The training intervention asked the reps to create a customer profile, build a customer persona, use insights to understand customer’s needs, create value propositions and develop journey mapping.

After consultation, design managers developed a creative approach to the training scenario, which taught and utilized soft skills to show managers how to think about and understand their target markets. The workshops trained

the employees to use soft skills such as critical and strategic thinking — with a focus on collaboration — and engaged them by utilizing their senses.

exercises were provided for the reps to use when they were back home to gain a deeper understanding of their customer’s preferences.

At the end of the workshops, the reps were successfully trained to understand the persona of the physicians in their regions, differentiate between two physicians’ practice styles (patient or science-centered) and determine possible motivations to get them to try their new product(s).

The training also helped participants look at their physicians as real human beings in order to understand their individual motivations and needs. To do this, the program included short presentations followed by interactive workshops. The activity was structured to lead the sales reps through the critical thinking process to come to their own conclusions about who they were targeting.

The training program taught the following lessons for teaching and understanding soft skills:

SOFT SKILLS ARE HARDER TO COME BY WHEN PEOPLE RELY ON TECHNOLOGY FOR COMMUNICATION AT SUCH AN EARLY AGE.

LESSON #1 - TEACH CRITICAL AND STRATEGIC THINKING Applying critical and strategic thinking is, well, critical. Despite their marketing background, this situation held some challenges – the reps would need to use their own judgment about how best to connect with their target audience based on cultural differences. Training

This transformative training approach ensured that the reps understood the thought process that would lead them to apply their interpersonal communications skills to best serve their target markets.

LESSON #2 - CONSIDER GLOBAL DIFFERENCES When developing training for a global group, it’s important to consider cultural nuances. Recognizing that there were a variety of cultures present at the training, the recommended plan was to allow the reps to create their own customer “picture.” Called a “persona,” the idea was to identify and personify a typical type of doctor who they might reach out to in their specific country or region.

A customer persona is a research-based representation of a customer segment

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and is used to help understand what goals the customers is trying to achieve, his or her individual challenges and how to satisfy unmet needs.

LESSON #3 - KEEP IT SIMPLE Rather than requiring reps to complete SWOT charts using an influx of words to describe a persona, a more creative and simple approach was recommended.

important than gaining new knowledge is understanding how to apply that knowledge in the field. By asking the reps to work collaboratively during the workshop, they learned about each other on a personal level and about specific challenges in their individual countries.

The learning activity ultimately became a collaborative one that helped develop key critical thinking skills.

The reps were split into two groups and participated in workshops to develop two types of personas —the first represented a doctor who leaned toward a scientific approach and the second represented a doctor who was more patient-centric.

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT SOFT SKILLS CAN BE SUCCESSFULLY TRAINED.

LESSON #4 - BUILD IN COLLABORATION Collaboration is a soft skill that requires practice. The learning activity taught these reps that what is more

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Touch: Once the groups had agreed on the persona they wanted to exemplify, they created posters using the images they cut out from the magazines.

The actions of flipping through the magazines, touching and cutting the paper was a tactile involvement that, while simple, provided stimulation to help the reps apply, understand and remember the details of the persona.

AT THE END OF THE DAY - AN “AMAZING” LEARNING EXPERIENCE

The learning activity was to create a poster of the persona, and the training process helped simplify the learning activity as much as possible, by letting participants select text and images from magazines that personified their customers.

As a result, the training program reinforced the learning objective: that while the interpersonal approach might be tailored for each region based on individual personalities, there proved two types of personas to target, and these types of people would react positively to a similar marketing process.

prepared list of questions to be discussed.

In addition to the cue cards, attendees viewed videos that provided clues about the two different attitudinal profiles.

LESSON #5 - ENGAGE THE SENSES One of the most important aspects of this customer’s training experience was engaging learners by using as many senses as possible.

Hearing: Engaging in dialogue with others about a new topic is often the best way for individuals to learn a new skill or information. Encouraging conversations about how to identify personas gave the reps time to absorb more information than if they had been trained in a traditional format, with a trainer directing them through a lecture.

Sight: The process of discussing the persona, and then finding pictorial examples in magazines, engaged the reps’ visual and tactile senses. To guide their visual activities, the workshop’s groups were provided with cue cards as a training resource, in addition to a

At the conclusion of the two-day workshop, attendees learned how to think critically when planning their marketing activities, how to understand customer personas and how to use those personas as a tool in building their value proposition and journey maps. Each group shared their posters and through discussion and dialogue helped the other group to understand the thought process that went into their personas.

Deemed “amazing” by our client, these workshops successfully taught their key learning objective – how to assess a customer’s needs by understanding the social and cultural makeups of individual regions by developing and utilizing individual and group dynamic soft skills.

Susan Sheppard is the strategic marketing manager at Eagle Productivity Solutions (a division of NIIT), a global innovator in training, learning and consultative services.

Her experience includes marketing and launching new brands, companies and technologies into healthcare, government and manufacturing industries worldwide.

Email Susan.

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WHAT’S NEXT IN TECH STELLA LEE, PH.D.

CREATE EFFECTIVE ADAPTIVE LEARNING FOR YOUR LEARNERS Personalization and adaptive delivery has consistently been mentioned as one of the top emerging trends in e-learning. Adaptive learning comes in many varieties, from simple preassessment to artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that dynamically adjust content, activities or learning sequences. These systems make use of learner profiles and feedback, instructor interventions, assessment results, learning management systems (LMS) and related platform data, and deep learning algorithms to provide a personalized learning experience.

With thoughtful instructional design, adaptive learning can be especially useful when there is a large cohort or when learners are interacting with online material on their own. It provides tailored learner support and delivers content at the appropriate level and sequence. However, many challenges exist in creating effective adaptive learning. Below are some areas to inform your design process: 1. USE ACTIONABLE DATA Adaptive learning will improve as more data are collected, but only if the data provides insights learners and course designers can act on. For example, in adaptive learning design, it is not entirely meaningful to collect data on how frequently a learner logs into an LMS. On the other hand, formative assessment data (e.g. quick checks for understanding or a feedback mechanism where learners can enter comments) could be useful when assessments provide results that course designers use to adjust the content sequence, or for learners to be able to seek further clarifications.

2. KNOW WHAT TO ADAPT Adaption could be many things. You can adapt learning at a macro level for a curriculum – provide pre-test to assess learners’ knowledge, allow learners to skip certain learning modules, or ask people for their learning preferences. At a micro level, learning materials can be adapted based on what learners have done and clicked on, where they want to go, and how to re-sequence content based on the interaction. Adaptive assessments can be applied to adjust the level of difficulty for each question, as well as regulate the frequency of the tests. Know what you need to adapt for your learners and select the appropriate type of technique accordingly.

3. APPLY SOUND PRINCIPLES For adaptive learning to work well, it is pertinent to apply sound pedagogical principles. Adaptive learning has less to do with the technology and more to do with how the learning design meets objectives and competencies. Learning theories such as spaced repetition could be integrated into the adaptive algorithm to spread out learning across multiple sessions and remind learners what they have forgotten. Spaced repetition theory incorporates increasing intervals of time between reviews of previously learned material that leads to greater retention of knowledge. The intervals could be adjusted based on each learner’s performance, test scores and other attributes. Instructional designers who work on adaptive learning systems must have a deep understanding of pedagogical principles in relation to the target learners: how these principles are applied, how the learners interact with the systems, and to what extent does the

adaptive design reflect the underlying assumptions of the learners.

4. PUT LEARNERS IN CONTROL The promise of adaptive learning is to create a learner-centered experience that is sensitive to your individual needs, as well as context. Learners should be in control of their learning journey and the adaptive systems need to benefit their learning process, support them in becoming self-directed learners and contribute to their overall learning experience. Learners need to have the ability to choose, provide feedback, adjust and be informed about how decisions are made based on assumptions about them.

In other words, adaptive systems must be transparent in how and what they adapt.

It is difficult to make informed decisions and correct the paths we are on in we don’t know how our systems function.

ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS MUST BE TRANSPARENT IN HOW AND WHAT THEY ADAPT. Adaptive learning can be an effective way to bring individualized learning to large cohorts or to engage learners in a self-paced online learning environment.

At the same time, we need to be mindful of how this technique is best utilized to cater to the diverse learning needs.

Dr. Stella Lee has over 20 years of experience in consulting, planning, designing, implementing, and measuring learning initiatives. Today, her focus is on large-scale learning projects including LMS evaluation and implementation, learning analytics, and artificial intelligent applications in learning. Email Stella.

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Understand the Leadership Development Market

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6 KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING YOUR LEARNERS’ ENVIRONMENT

It’s simple to say that understanding a learner’s needs is the key to successfully designing and delivering effective training solutions. As training professionals, we often get caught up in focusing our energy on creating engaging content and losing focus on how to facilitate behavior change. While content can be entertaining and memorable, if it falls short of truly changing behavior based on the needs of the business, then the time spent in training is wasted.

From where I sit, designing great content is not just about understanding the learner, we must also understand the environment in which the learner works and learns. Therefore, I’d like to recommend six keys to understanding a learner’s overall environment, which will allow you to consider the broader learning experience.

1. UNDERSTAND WHAT LEARNERS DO Designing training for a specific role requires fully understanding the job of each learner. Breaking down a job into elements or tasks is fundamental to truly understanding a job and eventually teaching a learner how to proficiently complete the job. Understanding the tasks and the time it takes to complete each task proficiently is a true deep dive in understanding a job done well.

2. UNDERSTAND WHY A JOB SHOULD BE DONE A CERTAIN WAY Understanding why a job should be done a particular way provides incentive and motivation for employees to do the little things needed to be successful.

Communicating the benefits to the organization and the employee is critical to helping learners understand the purpose behind each required task. If the meaning of our job is only to complete mundane tasks, then job satisfaction will be low with little motivation to do more than is necessary.

IF TRAINING FALLS SHORT OF CHANGING BEHAVIOR BASED ON THE NEEDS OF THE BUSINESS, THEN THE TIME SPENT IN TRAINING IS WASTED. 3. UNDERSTAND THE RISKS OF DOING A JOB INCORRECTLY Doing a job incorrectly will always have consequences. The risks of failure may be as simple as negative feedback from a client or it could be as serious as risk of life or bodily harm. Regardless of the magnitude, helping the learner understand the consequences of failure will help them to be conscientious about performing each task correctly. Of course, teaching how to respond to a crisis is critical, but preventing it from occurring is what the training is all about.

4. UNDERSTAND WHAT MOTIVATES LEARNERS Success in a profession, just like success in life, is defined differently for every individual. Every employee has their own motivational triggers. Understanding what motivates our learners can help us more effectively design learning

experiences and add elements that may improve employee performance.

5. UNDERSTAND WHAT HINDERS LEARNERS FROM DOING THE JOB CORRECTLY Oftentimes, jobs are not properly designed and do not provide the necessary information or tools to successfully perform the job. These hinderances can prevent high-level success on the job. When designing training, training professionals have a responsibility to the business to communicate any of these hinderances to those responsible for the job design to prevent failure, risks or economic impact. We must teach employees to recognize these hinderances and communicate when they need more resources to perform a job.

6. UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS OF HOW A LEARNER SHOULD MASTER A JOB Every job has a preferred process for a learner to become proficient. The process for learning how to play a piano is different from the process of learning the skills to be a nursing assistant. Therefore, designing a learning system for each job should be specific to the tasks, job motivations, risks and hinderances associated with that role.

It takes understanding how to integrate classroom, on-the-job, on-demand, and social learning experiences into one learning system to get the learner to proficiency as quickly as possible.

Doug Harward is CEO of Training Industry, Inc. and a former learning leader in the hightech industry. Email Doug.

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MORE PROFESSIONAL WINS = MORE REASONS TO CELEBRATE

Regardless of where you are on your professional development journey, Training Industry has a program designed to meet your needs.

Our suite of continuing professional development programs position you to improve outcomes, drive business results and gain more wins for you and your organization.

Explore the catalog, register and be one step closer to celebrating.

View the calendar.

LEARNER MINDSET MICHELLE EGGLESTON SCHWARTZ

CREATING A CONTINUOUS

LEARNING CULTURE

Personal and professional development is an important focus area for employees.

Today’s workforce wants the flexibility to learn in the context of their daily workflow and access to relevant training at their fingertips. This need for growth and development is driving changes in the way many companies structure performance evaluations, professional development and feedback. Employees are pushing for more consistent updates on their performance and continuous learning opportunities.

Training is quickly becoming a key differentiator between companies competing for talent. Organizations should position training as an employee incentive and add it to existing benefits packages alongside retirement, health and wellness options. Having professional development opportunities listed on job descriptions is very attractive to today’s applicant pool.

Employees want to work for companies that value lifelong learning and focus on helping their employees succeed both inside and outside of the office.

Learning and development (L&D) can play an integral role in making training accessible to employees to attract and retain talent.

Here are some tips on how L&D can create a continuous learning culture that reflects the values of today’s workforce.

CREATE AWARENESS FOR TRAINING RESOURCES Marketing creates transparency. While organizations may offer training opportunities, employees may be completely unaware of these offerings.

L&D cannot rest on the “if you build it, they will come” mentality. L&D must ensure

employees know that training resources are available across the company through marketing initiatives such as emails, newsletters or posters in common areas.

There must be visibility of training offerings to ensure employee participation.

SECURE MANAGER INVOLVEMENT Having managers involved in L&D is crucial to employee success. In fact, two-thirds of employees say that they would be motivated to learn if their direct manager was involved, according to a LinkedIn Learning report. L&D should provide managers with adequate training on how to support employees throughout their development. Managers should meet regularly with employees to create a development plan, recommend training opportunities and discuss how to apply new skills on the job.

EMPLOYEES WANT TO WORK FOR COMPANIES THAT VALUE LIFELONG LEARNING. CONSIDER A LEARNING LIBRARY Whether your training organization is large or small, resources should be easily accessible to learners. A collection of content could be as simple as a company intranet or as complex as a learning library backed by a learning management system.

A learning library is a relatively inexpensive way to provide employees with access to approved content on external sites.

By ensuring resources are organized, accessible and easily searchable, learners can find the information they need when they need it most.

CONNECT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT TO COMPANY GOALS Employees want to see how training will help them improve their current skills and lead to new career opportunities.

Showing employees how their role ties to the organization’s strategic goals can broaden an employee’s perspective and create more engagement in their job. This transparency will motivate employees to take training seriously when they can connect the training to current and future benefits.

MAKE ACCESS TO TRAINING A CORE COMPANY BENEFIT Employees want to learn but squeezing another item on their already full to-do list is overwhelming. Even if they manage to set aside one hour between two time-sensitive meetings, the likelihood they will be able to concentrate and absorb the content is slim. The speed of work is increasing and technology is accelerating the amount of work that can be squeezed into a standard 40-hour work week. Managers must advocate for their employees by helping them make time for learning.

Prioritizing learning can help retain and attract new talent in today’s competitive business environment. L&D can play an integral role in championing employee development and ensuring the continuous flow of learning to meet the needs of employees across the business.

Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, CPTM, is the editorial director at Training Industry, Inc. Email Michelle.

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CLOSING D E A L S EMERALD GROUP ACQUISITIONS CREATE A PORTFOLIO OF LEARNING BUSINESSES

BY TARYN OESCH

Emerald Group was founded in 1967 as a publishing company whose goal was to “champion new ideas that would advance the research and practice of business and management,” according to Emerald Publishing’s website. Since then, it has expanded, finding a natural fit for learning and development (L&D) products and services as part of its mission to “help [people] make decisions that count based on research that matters.” It acquired GoodPractice, an e-learning and LMS company, in 2015; Towards Maturity, an L&D research firm, in 2017; and Mind Tools, a digital learning and performance support company, this spring.

“Our two businesses have grown around a shared ethos of delivering researchled learning solutions supported by a firm evidence base,” says Peter Casebow, CEO of Emerald’s corporate learning division, says of Emerald and Mind Tools.

“Bringing together two leaders in this space [in GoodPractice and Mind Tools] will allow Emerald to strengthen our offerings and the service we provide to our clients, while supporting a greater number of learners worldwide.”

Recent Training Industry research pointed to a widespread belief among executives that training is important to business results – but also that training is not as effective as it needs to be to provide a source of competitive advantage. These findings indicate that learning leaders should connect L&D to long-term business strategy; “take risks with the form and function of the L&D practices”; and find ways to integrate talent management, acquisition and development. Similarly, according to

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the press release announcing the acquisition, Emerald Group’s “ambition is to unlock the talent and potential in people to help make decisions that lead to real change and positively impact performance.”

TAKE RISKS WITH THE FORM AND FUNCTION OF THE L&D PRACTICES.

“We started Mind Tools because, as managers ourselves, we struggled to find resources to help us develop our own careers,” said Mind Tools cofounder James Manktelow in the press release. Providing training in topics from leadership and team management to stress and time management, in formats from templates and worksheets to microlearning and infographics, as well as an app, Mind Tools is aimed at managers wanting to develop their personal and professional skills.

However, it also has a corporate arm and boasts customers such as Mastercard, AstraZeneca and Randstad, according to its website. It offers online content as well as a learning management system (LMS) and reporting, and while its website says its services are aimed at all levels, Mind Tools is a member of the leadership training market, one of the fastest-growing segments of the training industry. Indeed, Training Industry’s 2019 report on the leadership training market found that self-paced learning, whether online or offline, has been growing in popularity over

the last few years, partially due to the rise of dispersed teams and the virtual workforce.

While Emerald Group’s focus right now is on integrating the businesses successfully, Casebow says, “We are ambitious to grow and will continue to explore the market for suitable opportunities that meet our strategic vision. Emerald Group is growing faster than the industry average and facing the disruption we see coming to the academic publishing market,” (learning leaders know well the impact of disruption). “Our ability to be agile in the market is really helping us respond quickly as the client needs evolve. From a learning perspective, the demand for tools to support workers at the point of need continues to grow, and we’re seeing global growth in all areas.”

Casebow believes that the interest in “how data, analytics and AI can improve the quality of solutions for learners” is well deserved, but he doesn’t anticipate any significant breakthroughs this year. “There are some very interesting experiments going on, some of which we’re involved in and others, we are watching with interest. I suspect the main breakthroughs in this area will come in 2020 and beyond.”

So, stay tuned for updates from Emerald Group and Mind Tools – and other companies across the leadership training market – as they continue to innovate in the way they deliver leadership development programs online, in person … and whatever comes next.

Taryn Oesch is the managing editor of digital content at Training Industry, Inc. Email Taryn.

C O M PA N Y N E W S

ACQU I S I T I O N S A N D PA RTN E R SHIPS Alight Solutions, a key player in technology-enabled health, wealth and human capital management (HCM) and financial solutions, acquired the Workday and Cornerstone OnDemand cloud practices of Wipro Limited. With the acquisition, Alight Solutions now has a presence in 11 countries across the globe, and over 300 colleagues will join the existing Alight team.

KnowledgeCity, an online employee training provider, is partnering with public libraries across the nation to provide access to its thorough e-learning library of professional development courses. The acquisition will offer local communities free, unlimited access to the e-learning platform and will help public libraries remain relevant in an era marked by technological advancements.

Unit4, a global leader in enterprise applications for service organizations, acquired Intuo, a rapidly growing provider of talent enablement solutions.

Now, Unit4 boasts an extensive HCM portfolio covering people, finance, project and planning in the cloud for mid-market organizations — allowing the organization to better meet the modern workforce’s needs.

PrismHR, a leading human resource outsourcing (HRO) software platform, acquired AgileHR, a major provider of cloud-based talent management software, including its numerous talent management solutions. The acquisition highlights PrismHR’s dedication to equipping its HRO customers with a variety of innovative, effective solutions for their SMB clients.

MIS Training Institute (MISTI), a leading global information security, information technology (IT) audit and internal audit training company, acquired LeaderQuest, a major provider of cybersecurity and related IT training for veterans and those looking to break into the IT field. As a result, MISTI will expand its curriculum by offering customers a wider range of cybersecurity certification training options.

Learnlight, a global language, intercultural skills and soft skills training provider, has acquired Arenalingua, a German language training company, in support of its European expansion efforts. As a result of the acquisition, the total number of trainers at Learnlight will increase to over 3,000, training over 150,000 learners per year in more than 150 countries.

INDUST RY N E WS THE FIRST OFFICIAL JEOPARDY! TRAINING GAME

At the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn 2018 Conference and Expo, Jeopardy!

Productions and The Game Agency, LLC soft launched the only official Jepoardy! training on the global market.

The training blends the familiarity and playful aspects of Jepoardy! with The Game Agency, LLC’s rapid customization and publishing in order to create effective, engaging training programs for a variety of industries.

UNLIMITED ACCESS TO DIGITAL AND BUSINESS SKILLS COURSES

Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) has improved Active Placement, their reimagined approach to outplacement, by offering unlimited access to reskilling and upskilling for digital and business skills. Those who receive LHH’s Active

Placement support will now have access to over 13,500 reskilling and upskilling courses from LinkedIn Learning, in addition to digital literacy assessments, learning paths and curriculum from tech education center General Assembly.

GAMIFIED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO RECRUIT, TRAIN AND RETAIN EMPLOYEES

Using gamified artificial intelligence (AI), ImmersionOne is helping companies find and retain top talent. The platform can also be used to effectively onboard new employees and help retain employees through interactive corporate learning and development programs. ImmersionOne’s recruiting tools including games and mobile apps are meant to entice potential job seekers, while its training proves engaging and fun for employees at large.

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE PLATFORM TO HELP MAKE BETTER TALENT DECISIONS

Checkster, a leading provider of collective intelligence solutions, released The Checkster Platform —which uses artificial intelligence to provide companies with an accurate view of the quality and fit of its employees. The platform is meant to help companies make more informed talent decisions by improving quality of hire, engagement and retention rates, respectively.

INTERESTED IN SUBMITTING COMPANY NEWS? PLEASE SEND TO EDITOR@TRAININGINDUSTRY.COM

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