Four Key Skills to Change Company Culture by Joseph Grenny

Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs’ culture came under fire following an employee’s scathing op-ed piece in The New York Times. The employee lambasted Goldman Sachs for claiming to uphold one set of highly moral written cultural rules but in reality operating on quite another. He wrote about the enormous gap between what employees were told to do and what they actually did when interacting with customers and colleagues.

Unfortunately, corporate cultures, or cultural operating systems, like the one contested at Goldman Sachs are the rule rather than the exception. Powerful and toxic unwritten rules are steering our organizations to year-end reports filled with disgruntled employees, dissatisfied customers and mediocre results.

Cultural operating systems (COS) are the written and unwritten rules that guide employee behavior and influence the bottom-line. The measure of a good cultural operating system is the degree to which it enables an organization to execute superbly and innovate consistently.

Read More: Four Key Skills to Change Company Culture

More Related at: Human Capital COP

Time Management Training by ASTD

Time management training defines the elements of effective time management and provides a blueprint for improving organizational skills and increasing productivity.

Time Management Training reveals how to help others develop strategies for increased productivity and effectiveness. Workshops cover scheduling, delegating, procrastinating, managing distractions, overcommitting, managing email, and completing paperwork.. read more

From Traditional Instruction to Instructional Design 2.0 by Jane Bozarth

The opportunities to broaden the reach of the L&D department, and promote participant interaction and shared learning, are now limitless with social media.

We’re working in a wonderful era of easy-to-use, readily available social media technologies ideally suited to learning and instruction. These tools―blogs, wikis, social networking sites, microblog sites, video sites, and more―provide wonderful, new opportunities to invite participation from our learners.

Anecdotal reports from learning and development (L&D) professionals indicate that trainers and instructional designers are enthusiastic about and interested in using new tools and approaches, but just don’t have a good understanding of how to do so. Industry news and technology aficionados offer frequent updates about new social media tools (such as the recently launched Google+) or updates to old ones—often without much in the way of ideas for integrating them into practice.

Advantages are many: Social media allow more participation over a span of time, encourage people to “learn out loud” for the benefit of others, and provide ways to more closely embed learning into work. So what are some strategies for workplace learning practitioners seeking to incorporate these new tools into their training design?

Read More: From Traditional Instruction to Instructional Design 2.0

More Related at: Training Magazine T+D Current Issue

Training Certificate | Train-the-Trainer Program by ASTD

The Premier Train-the-Trainer Program.
This three-day workshop is a practical, how-to overview of the entire training function. It prepares new trainers with critical training skills and introduces seasoned practitioners to the latest techniques for delivering powerful training. This includes being introduced to the ASTD Competency Study, which forms the foundation of the ASTD Training Certificate.
More Details: Train the Trainer Details

•  Nov 12-14, 2012 - San Francisco, CA
•  Nov 28-30, 2012 - New York, NY
•  Dec 11-13, 2012 - Chicago, IL
•  Dec 17-19, 2012 - Atlanta, GA
•  Jan 27-29, 2013 - San Jose, CA
•  Feb 06-08, 2013 - Alexandria, VA
•  Apr 15-17, 2013 - Los Angeles (El Segundo), CA
•  May 16-18, 2013 - Dallas, TX
•  Jun 17-19, 2013 - Alexandria, VA
•  Jul 10-12, 2013 - Seattle (Kirkland), WA
•  Sep 16-18, 2013 - Philadelphia, PA
•  Sep 18-20, 2013 - Alexandria, VA
•  Oct 02-04, 2013 - Toronto, Ontario
•  Dec 04-06, 2013 - New York, NY

Investment:

• Member Price: $1,395
• List Price: $1,695

Program Details           Registration Details         Learning Objectives

Testimonial: 

             I just want to mention how life changing the certificate program was. I don't use those words lightly. I had never attended anything like the ASTD Training Certificate and my eyes were opened to the world of training and development. I was energized to reach new heights with my training. It's not often that something is not only career changing, but life changing.

Mark, a past participant of the
Training Certificate Program 

ASTD's Coaching Certificate

Help others develop, take action, and make better decisions.
Improve your clients' ability to set goals and achieve satisfying results by helping them identify and take advantage of their natural strengths. Participants will learn a model that outlines a coaching process they can use with individuals, teams, or an entire organization, and will practice foundational coaching competencies through role plays, group exercises, and case studies.
More Details: Coaching Certification Program:

•  Nov 14-15, 2012 - Dallas, TX
•  Nov 26-27, 2012 - New York, NY
•  Dec 11-12, 2012 - Chicago, IL
•  Feb 14-15, 2013 - Los Angeles (El Segundo), CA
•  Mar 04-05, 2013 - Alexandria, VA
•  May 17-18, 2013 - Dallas, TX
•  Jul 18-19, 2013 - New York, NY
•  Sep 23-24, 2013 - Alexandria, VA
•  Nov 14-15, 2013 - New York, NY

Investment:

• Member Price: $1,095
• List Price: $1,395

Facilitators: Lisa K. Nabors, R.W (Bob) Johnson, Virginia Bianco-Mathis

Program Details           Registration Details         Learning Objectives

Testimonial: 

             Participating in the ASTD Coaching Certificate Program was an invaluable experience that will benefit me tremendously in my professional career. The facilitator demonstrated his vast knowledge from more than 20 years as a coach by providing guidance through real-world examples of situations that we may encounter, along with the necessary coaching skills. In addition, the program was structured to help ensure that we understood how to apply the principles we learned in actual circumstances.

Fred Polirer
Performance Specialist
Administaff

Career Wellbeing

Gallup researchers recently conducted studies of people in more than 150 countries to identify core elements that define human wellbeing. Their research is detailed in Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements by Tom Rath and Jim Harter.  Their findings describe the human experience from suffering to thriving in five universal categories of wellbeing: career, social, financial, physical, and community.
Career wellbeing was determined to be the most critical of the five elements. “Career” is defined as what you do each day and how you occupy your time, including home and family care, volunteer work, community participation, school, or other activities.
Read More: Career Wellbeing    
More About Career Development

Blended Learning Certificate by ASTD

Go beyond traditional classroom learning.

Today's learning professionals are under pressure to address ever-evolving skills needed in their organizations, and they are being asked to do so with limited resources and time. This ASTD program provides the roadmap for creating high-impact solutions that address these needs by combining various learning platforms, methods, and formats to motivate learners, produce real results, and increase productivity. After this workshop, participants will be able to take immediate steps to design blended learning solutions using the tools and action plan provided.

•  Nov 12-13, 2012 - San Diego, CA
•  Nov 28-29, 2012 - New York, NY
•  Dec 04-05, 2012 - Chicago (Schaumburg), IL
•  Jan 28-29, 2013 - San Jose, CA
•  Mar 18-19, 2013 - Alexandria, VA
•  May 17-18, 2013 - Dallas, TX
•  Jul 15-16, 2013 - Los Angeles (El Segundo), CA

Facilitators: Edmond Manning, Jennifer Hofmann, Nadine Martin

Pricing:

Member Price: $1,295
List Price: $1,595

• Blended Learning Program Details
• Registration Details

The Science of Happiness at Work

What drives you to be happy at work and why does it matter? The iOpener Institute and ASTD are giving you the opportunity to take an evidence-based benchmarked assessment. This new and unique tool will offer you personal insights and an understanding of how to leverage happiness at work for yourself, your teams and your organizations.
But why does it matter? Our empirical data shows Happiness at Work drives increased performance, productivity and a sense of achieving potential.  Seven years of research and development have resulted in ROI-linked metrics that enable orgs, teams and individuals to assess the status quo, analyze the results then act on the findings.

Read More at: The Science of Happiness at Work 

Communities of Practice

ASTD’s Communities of Practice help you find information that is relevant to your needs, and connect with today’s thought leaders.
Each community focuses on a key area of the learning and development field and is led by a community manager whose in-depth knowledge of their field will ensure that the content, offerings, and resources are consistent with your needs.

Communities of Practice:

Workforce Development

Career Development

Government

Higher Education

Human Capital

Learning and Development

Learning Technologies

Sales Enablement

Senior Leaders and Executives

Global HRD

ASTD TechKnowledge® 2013 | San Jose, California

In San Jose, California, January 30 - February 1, 2013, ASTD will welcome more than 1,200 people who focus their daily attention on the design and delivery, management and strategy of technology and learning to the 2013 TechKnowledge® Conference and Exposition. Attendees will come together alongside 70 exhibitors in the learning technology space to learn, network, and move people forward through the application of learning and technology.

ASTD TechKnowledge®
Registration Details
For Exhibitors

Conflict Management: Lessons From The 2nd Grade

“An 8-year-old's conflict management toolbox proves that managing conflict is not as sophisticated as you might think”

A mother of 8 year old son, Bonnie Hagemann, posted the same conflict management toolbox as it would be of higher organizations, this surprised Saundra Stroope, who helps employees and leaders develop skills to resolve conflicts as her job. She found out that toolbox of that 2^nd grader were almost exactly the same as practiced by her. Same as asking for help, compromising, avoiding, sharing, humor, negotiation, ignore and more.

As it is known that conflict resolution is a skill that differentiates high executives from average workers, although how a conflict is taken care of, is never a defined procedure. It varies from experience to practices.

Read more at; Conflict Management: Lessons From The 2nd Grade

The T+D Blog Is on the Move

You may have noticed that most of ASTD's blogging activity (including for T+D) is over on the official ASTD blog. Please head over there to view news stories and other ASTD topics. The T+D category is located here, so check it out, and leave a comment if you are so inclined.

Cheers!
T+D Editorial Team

Improv....As a Training Tool

The world of improv is gaining steam as a accepted method of training in the workplace. Years ago, workplaces used to hesitate to use improv as a form of skills training because there was a stigma attached that anything fun and entertaining is not proper in the workplace. Just as games and simulations are becoming accepted and preferred training methods, improv is gaining in popularity.

A recent article highlighted two hotels--one in Chicago and one in New York--that were looking for a new, unconventional way to train employees. The hotels were looking for ways "to improve hosts’ communications skills, to help them read guests’ body language, and to establish an immediate rapport with guests," according to the article in The New York Times.

What new and innovations training methods have you or your staff used to make learning stick?

The Story Behind Employee Engagement

Check out the great article in Bloomberg Business Week this week on employee engagement. It delves into the issue of employee engagement, examining what it is, how managers need to approach the issue, and the definition of it. As Dov Seidman writes, "Employee engagement is a condition—manifested by the inspiration an employee unleashes in his or her work when he or she is deeply connected to a mission, purpose, and the values that connect us."

Do you have best practices for how you keep your employees engaged? How do you teach your managers to approach this workplace issue? And, why are so many workers disengaged?

Employee engagement is a hot topic today because the workplace is changing at lightning speed and if companies don't take the time to build a culture of engagement in their workplace, they will had a hard time retaining valuable employees.

Culture of Learning

I ran across an interesting article today that examines workplace cultures and asks the important question, "What are you doing to help the people who work for you or with you to be better?"

Have you ever taken the time to create your defiition of the perfect learning culture? What does it look like? What role do you, as learning professionals, play in that culture? Do you even know what a learning culture looks like? What tools, initiatives, and competencies does a learning culture need to sustain continuous learning?

These are important questions that need to be answered. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this topic.

It’s Complicated: Organizational Risk Management

The biggest challenge in improving enterprise risk management is the complexity of implementation, according to 45.9 percent of respondents of a Deloitte online poll.

"Executives relying on conventional wisdom often miss the unconventional realities that can make risk management appear insurmountably complex," said Frederick Funston, a principal with Deloitte & Touche LLP and author of the recently released book, Surviving and Thriving in Uncertainty: Creating the Risk Intelligent Enterprise.

Respondents reported that most risk management initiatives spearheaded by senior leadership within organizations are focused on developing sustainable and repeatable skills, processes, and tools (29.7 percent) and improving the transparency of risk management for the board, employees, and other key stakeholders (17.9 percent).

Meanwhile, target areas for improvement include failure to challenge fundamental business assumptions (22 percent); inability to anticipate potential causes of business failure (15.6 percent); and failure to maintain constant vigilance for threats and opportunities (13.1 percent).

Funston recommends that executives and boards work toward risk intelligence as opposed to mere risk management. Methods he recommends include acting on knowledge on-hand, but being prepared to adapt; creating the tone at the top to incorporate risk intelligence into core business processes; leveraging the best of organizational culture, while improving cross-functional preparedness and coordination; focusing efforts on the few vital risks and opportunities, as opposed to ones that are trivial; and demanding discipline and accountability in execution by linking metrics to compensation and performance management.

The poll was taken during an April 2010 Deloitte webcast, which included more than 1,650 business professionals from the following industries: consumer and industrial products; financial services; technology, media, and telecommunications; and energy resources.

Recession Woes Change to Talent Management Worries

As the recession gradually wanes in its intensity, companies are growing increasingly concerned about key talent leaving. Sixty-four percent of companies are worried they may lose managers in a better job market, according to a survey of 262 companies by global talent management firm OI Partners, while 48 percent are worried they may lose executives.

Organizations may not be off base in their fears as more employees voluntarily quit their jobs in February, March, and April of 2010 than were laid off, based on information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. February 2010 marked the first time in 15 months (since October 2008) that this was the case.

"There is a lot of pent-up frustration among employees who have survived layoffs, cutbacks, salary freezes, and other givebacks," said Tim Schoonover, chairman of OI Partners. "Companies have to demonstrate to employees that they are valued by investing in their career development, or they may lose them.”

The costs of replacing employees at the managerial and senior levels are quite significant when considering recruitment and training of both the employee who leaves and the new worker, lost business, and severance pay and benefits. For an executive, these expenses would amount to two and a half times her salary, and for a manager, two times his salary.

To retain managers and executives, 44 percent of companies are offering better salaries and benefits, and 60 percent are using in-house trainers and coaches.

In addition, organizations are also paying closer attention to who they hire in the first place as hiring the wrong managers and executives has been reportedly tied to low employee morale (83 percent), decreased worker productivity (78 percent); lost business and market share (53 percent); and high employee turnover (54 percent).

“Companies need to adopt an effective talent management strategy to identify, develop, and retain top talent and ensure that employees are achieving their full potential,” says Schoonover. “The survey demonstrates that businesses need to focus on coaching executives and managers in motivating employees, engaging them in their jobs more fully, and promoting better teamwork.”

Matrix Management

1. Is the matrix structure increasing in your organization? Let us know if you are seeing a trend towards flatter reporting lines and increased emphasis on collaboration. How does this relate to the strategy? What are the implications for the training function?

Vetting the Veteran Hiring Process

While military veterans already have trouble translating their experience to the civilian job market, HR departments also overlook Department of Labor programs that identify military veterans who are seeking jobs.

Forty-eight percent of HR professionals polled said that transitioning from the hierarchy and structure of a military culture to the civilian workplace presents a challenge, according to a Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) report called “Employing Military Personnel and Recruiting Veterans - Attitudes and Practices.” Another 36 percent of respondents said that another hurdle is the amount of time it takes military vets to adapt to the civilian workplace.

The survey did show that 50 percent of organizations that hired veterans made a specific effort to hire these candidates, but raising this percentage is a necessary objective to assist in lowering veteran unemployment. Nearly 70 percent of HR professionals reported they are mostly unaware the Local Veterans’ Employment Representative (LVER) program while another 70 percent said they were unfamiliar with the DOL’s Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP).

“The high unemployment rate of military veterans is startling,” says SHRM President and CEO Laurence G. O’Neil. “SHRM is committed to working with federal agencies such as the Department of Labor and civilian HR professionals to create initiatives that get veterans hired.”

In fact, among the HR organizations that hired military employees, approximately 97 percent of HR professionals reported they bring a strong sense of responsibility to their work. In addition, other outstanding qualities reported included working well under pressure (96 percent); seeing a task through to completion (92 percent); strong leadership skills (91 percent); a high degree of professionalism (91 percent); and strong problem-solving skills (90 percent).

Good response on potential solutions explored to help hiring of military veterans by HR departments included instituting programs to train veterans with additional skills for the civilian workplace (39 percent); instituting programs to help veterans transition their existing skills to the civilian workplace (36 percent); and providing assistance in identifying and reaching out to qualified veterans (32 percent).

The survey sample included 429 randomly selected HR professionals from across different industries and the U.S.

Talent Glass Is Half Full

Executives believe in the possibilities of high-potential performers. Sixty-four percent of global leaders said they currently have or plan to implement high-potential talent management programs in 2010, according to the Pulse on Leaders survey from PDI Ninth House.

Respondents were leaders from 100 global organizations based in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

High-potential leaders are defined as “those with the capability to take on significantly more responsibility and challenges—often in an accelerated timeframe—and to climb several levels beyond a current role.”

Focusing on exceptional talent for professional development programs can often have a significant return-on-investment. For example, one global technology organization that worked with PDI Ninth House on a program to help top employees lead important projects led to a 20 percent, or roughly $25 million increase, in revenues.

However, 26 percent of respondents reported they don’t have a high-potential program in place nor do they plan to implement one this year, and another 10 percent reported they don’t have the resources to institute a program.

PDI Ninth House recommends these programs because they focus on skills, values, and motives; they provide networking opportunities and relationship-building; and they enforce versatility, as well as providing intensive feedback, hands-on opportunities, action learning, and stretch assignments.