Taking an Artistic Approach

I had a boss once who loved to draw on the white board. It became something of a joke on his team, that at the beginning of a meeting we would hide the dry erase markers before he came into the room. It never stopped him; he started carrying them around. Only recently do I truly appreciate his approach.

Sidebar for a personal story: My daughter’s soccer team recently ended their season and part of my end of season gift was a coloring book and crayons and the missive that it was something to help me reduce my stress (something of a gag gift). At home after the party, I sat down with the coloring book and colored a picture. I took the time to work slowly and carefully, experimenting with different colors and used shading to highlight areas. It took me back to a calmer time: I worked on the image for me, not for my boss, or my kids, or for the executive committee – just for me. I loved it.

I am known among my peers as the visual learning guy. I push hard on the team to use fewer words and more pictures in both the training materials we produce and the presentations we create. If an image is worth a thousand words then we should we be creating voluminous training in images, not pages of text. Too often, the push back is, “I can’t draw” or “I’m not creative.” Let me say now that everyone can take this approach give some processes and tools.

1.       Take some time to tap into your creative side. A quick search on Google yields a plethora of sites on coloring to relieve stress. I’m not saying you should make it a daily habit, but why not take a few minutes once in a while to doodle? It unlocks a thinking habit that thrives on free association and random connections that you might not have considered. Those links are the foundations of innovation and might lead to bigger and better ideas.

2.       Incorporate a process for thinking differently. The Six Thinking Hats framework developed by Edward de Bono is a wonderful starting point for organizing meetings and encouraging a style of thinking. Assign the role of Green Hat to various team members and have them work at being the creative, “blue sky” thinker. By assigning the role to a person you give permission for ideas to flow and remove limitations.

3.       Encourage mind-mapping as a technique for organizing information. On many occasions I find myself in meetings struggling to grasp how all the parts of a program or initiative are tied together. The various stakeholders have input into the problem and the resulting maelstrom can be hard to decode. A mind map can help illustrate the interconnectedness of all the ideas and make concrete the linkages that the entire team needs to see.

4.       Seek out visual representations of complex ideas. I have two sites I visit regularly to keep my mindset firmly planted in a visual approach. One is the RSA.org channel on YouTube. This British think tank does a fabulous job of linking thought leaders to artistic displays of the concepts. The images drawn in the videos make the presentations so much more vivid. Another is visual.ly a web site that shows how information can be presented visually and, in my opinion, more memorably.

Finally, let me say that visuals don’t have to be high end art work to be effective. A very simple visual can speak volumes to the reader and communicate at more levels than a paragraph of text. Visuals are great for learning, meeting management, brainstorming, even project management (what’s a WBS but a visual of all the tasks in a project?). Don’t fear the creative side, embrace it and take your projects and work into a different, better, more holistic place.

How are you using and visuals and creativity to work more efficiently in your role? If you aren’t using them now, how could you?

Running Fast Into the Dark

This morning was a very good run. The morning run after trick or treat is always dicey because

a. I've probably consumed too much sugar that I swiped from my kids' bags, and
b. I've had to unwind from herding hyper kids throughout the neighborhood with a couple of cold adult beverages.

This morning started pretty smoothly though and as I started to loosen up and get into my stride, I started to notice how dark it was. It seemed like there was very little moonlight this morning and as my dogs dragged me along our course I started thinking about how badly injured I could become running in the dark. The dogs have only two speeds: stop and fast and I started getting nervous about my potential to lose my footing. I also started contemplating how often training and development feels like wandering through the dark.

We often get approached with an "opportunity" or an "issue" or (my favorite) a "mission critical" need for training. There is usually an expectation that we take off at full speed into that space and start developing immediately. I'm all about responding to the needs of the business and will often (guilty as charged) start thinking about a brilliant training solution before I've researched the problem.

But, just like my morning run, I have some infrastructure that keeps me on course and makes for a quality outing.

1. I always stop to stretch. Stretching after a half mile or so allows me to loosen up the muscles once they've gotten warm and keeps me injury free. Likewise, when provided an opportunity to bring a training solution to my client, I usually let my creativity run a bit and then rein it in to consider the situation and look at other solutions that that would be more effective.
2. I usually run in the same general area. I prefer running on the street or on sidewalk. I have a history of ankle injuries so protect them at all costs. Because I run on the same streets and go pretty much the same way every time, my dogs are used to the course and are able to lead pretty effectively. By having a consistent process by which we analyze a situation, design solutions, develop using templates and evaluate coursework, our training team can navigate the muddy waters of operations training and keep on course with sound designs and solutions.
3. I pay attention to the signs my body is sending me. Is that a knee twinge? Is my calf tightening up? Why is the bottom of my foot hurting? Being in tune with those signals allows me to make adjustments along the way and complete a workout. Maybe not as fast or as far as I had planned, but mostly injury free. Training projects also have signs for how things are progressing. Your analysis uncovers mitigating factors, your clients give you feedback on the design, and your target population informs the implementation plan. Pay attention to those signs and respond accordingly and you'll keep the project on track.

Running is a microcosm of life; I find metaphor in running for the things I do everyday. If work is supposed to be like play then why shouldn't it have comparison in the things we do for fun? Yet even in the things we do for fun we have routines and processes that keep it fun and rewarding. What are things you do in your role that keep your training programs on track and make them rewarding for your organization?

Charge That Hill!

I am a runner and I love it. I enjoy the challenge of speedwork Thursdays and my long run on Sunday mornings. It is hard to describe the sense of accomplishment you feel after completing a good run; a feeling like you have really conquered something. Then again, maybe it’s just runner’s high.


Back in my high school teaching days I coached Cross Country and I used to take my team to a particular part of town for a hill workout. I knew that by having the kids train on hills they would be better prepared to deal with them in races. In fact, they would have the confidence and endurance to “charge the hill”; they would pass runners on the hill and leave them behind.


Maybe that’s why I include hills and speedwork into my weekly workouts. I want the challenge and I want to build the muscle memory and confidence for whatever I might face down the road.

Learning organizations often find themselves in a rut. Requests come in and are summarily processed. Courses are developed and posted in the curriculum library. We use the same tools, the same process, the same format, every single time. My challenge for you today is to work in some new routines to your “training workout” and see how it enhances your performance.

Try something new

Occasionally it’s nice to add in a new twist to my workout. I’ll run the last half mile at race pace (which isn’t that fast, don’t get too excited). Or I’ll decide to chart a new running path and explore parts of the community I’ve never been in. I always learn something new on these runs, usually about myself.

As learning professionals, we need to be ready to model the most important part of our title: learning. That means getting out of the comfort zone and trying a new technique, testing a new process, delivering a new topic or designing a new tool. It doesn’t mean you have to do it forever, just long enough to give yourself some perspective.

Take a longer-term view

This week I’ll be running a measly 24 miles. For many runners, that’s half their weekly mileage (for optimists like me, that’s double some people’s mileage!) but I have some longer term goals. My goal is to complete a triathlon and maybe a half marathon in the next year. That means I’ll need to continue to build my weekly mileage to reach that longer distance.


As learning professionals, we add value by encouraging our clients to take a longer-term view of the business and consider how this intervention will affect performance today as well as performance down the road. How will the solution be used in the future? How well does it fit in the larger curriculum? How do we build connections between existing learning? How can we keep the solution from becoming irrelevant? With these answers in hand, you have a view to create training that accomplishes today’s goals and tomorrow’s.

Overcome an obstacle

There are plenty of days that I wake up and don’t want to run, much less run uphill. But I know that if I challenge myself, I improve my chances of completing the task in the future. Succeed or fail, I will have learned something about myself and about running hills. By learning I am better prepared for the next hill and have increased confidence overall.


I’ll bet there is someone you dread having to work with. Maybe that dread is felt for an entire team or function unit (“Oh %$*^,” you’ll say when assigned the project. “I hate working with them.”) The challenge is to examine why and look for ways to overcome it. When you do, you will learn more about them and that can only help you serve them in the future (and you will have to again at some point). You will learn more about yourself and why you react to them the way you do. By tackling the obstacle head on, you demonstrate leadership to peers and supervisors. By demonstrating leadership, you build the credibility of your organization.


I love learning and I love running. Running is a metaphor for life. By the simple act of getting out of bed in the morning and strapping on my shoes I prove to myself and the world that I can face up to the challenge of the day. When I take in every run as a chance to learn and grow, I return home healthier, stronger, smarter, and more confident and not the least bit tired.

How Is Your Organization Perceived?

Wow – I now understand what writers mean when they say that to be a writer you have to approach it as a job. I have fallen way behind.

Not long ago my daughter had one of her friends over for play time. Since they were forced to include my son (the dreaded “little brother”) they had chosen a game they could all participate in, called “School.” As you might guess, one person plays the teacher and the other two are the students. Mostly it’s an excuse to show how much more education the girls have over my son – they are in third grade, he is “merely” a first grader. On this day I was shocked at how mean the “teacher” was portrayed:

“Sit down!”
“Back to work!”
“Do that again and you’ll have extra math problems to do!”

It made me wonder if this was normal for the school day and so I asked about it as innocently as I could. I was informed that lots of teachers are mean but you get used to it.

That got me thinking about how training departments are perceived. I’ve been in several training organizations that have been seen as obstacles to implementation. Much the way teachers my daughter and her friend have experienced, these organizations meant well and were dealing with their own constraints.

Learning organizations often find themselves caught serving two masters: they want to deliver only the best, most effective training interventions that have ROI impact. They also have Operators and Leadership telling them to “put together a course on….” Often the latter will not deliver on the former. The training manager tries to influence, coach, and persuade the organization to see things differently, to see the value of a different approach or to acknowledge issues of system failure or bad performance management.

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

1. Always provide a good / better / best menu of choices with price points. Even the staunchest client has the good of the organization in mind. Faced with having to diminish his or her own results based on training cost, they will often choose the solution that makes the most sense. This is particularly effective if your organization requires the project owner to pay for the training rather than drawing from the L&D well.
2. Stay focused on the desired behavior. Clients love to talk about all the things they know that learners should also know to do the job. Unfortunately, all that extra knowledge might be getting in the way. Document the desired behavior, run the task analysis and return with sound data to make your case.
3. Get outside your own comfort zone. The best solution might be a simple communication piece or policy update that your organization is typically not responsible for creating. Look at that as an opportunity to collaborate across the organization and influence others to think about performance. If you drive the change, you can be seen as an organization that “gets things done.”
   

It is important for the success of your organization that you be seen as the group that says “yes.” You can’t afford to say yes to everything, but make sure that you are seen as the provider of quality solutions and not a barrier to success. You want clients and stakeholders to look forward to interacting with your team, not dreading it.

Now go out and create some great solutions or I’ll be posting differential equations!

Gooooooo Dawgs! ....Building Season.

I am a proud University of Georgia alumnus and support the Red and Black year in and year out. This has been a frustrating season as our results on the football field have been lackluster (though other programs are doing very well). Back in my college days when the team went through a rough patch here and there my friends and I joked that it was “building season.”

This year I initially complained that this was Mark Richt’s fault. Obviously he didn’t develop a successor for Matthew Stafford. Hasn’t he ever heard of bench strength? Where’s the succession planning? I realize that often these phrases are used in a corporate context but doesn’t it still apply?

I am not a college football expert. Frankly, I have no idea what I’m talking about regarding Richt’s decisions. Overall, I like him as a coach and a leader and I hope he stays a long time. I do know a thing or two about training and bench planning. Regardless of your stand on Georgia football, the context can help us think about planning in your organization.

1. It isn’t enough to coach and develop current leaders. Candidates need time and opportunity to experience real life situations. Once you identify the back-up quarterback, this up and coming leader needs a chance to get on the field. It isn’t enough to put them in when you’re up by 30; future leaders need the chance to experience the normal pressure of the role. This is easier to do in the office than on the football field…or is it?
2. Play to the strength of the successor. Don’t expect that a successor will be exactly like your current leader. The current leader leveraged a set of skills and leadership characteristics to be successful. The successor may have the experience to do the job tasks and have different leadership characteristics that can impact how the job gets done.
3. Never stop developing bench strength. Just because you have a replacement lined up doesn’t mean you can’t prepare a second replacement or start cross-training leaders across functions. This is critical to building a well-rounded, engaged team.
4. Give up and coming leaders the opportunity to actually lead the team not just be the voice of the team. Being the go-to person while you are on vacation is a nice pat-on-the-back for your successor. Unless you empower your stand-in the right way, it hardly puts them in a position to be a decision-maker or to hold the team and other leaders accountable to organizational goals.
   

The challenge is to make all these things happen within a learning culture and to build formal and informal systems that will support old and new leaders. Some ideas include:

• Classroom experiences - Great for best practice sharing and leader networking.
• Wikis and blogs - Useful for capturing ideas that team leaders and managers can search later.
• Just-in-time tools: Provide questions that any leader could access to help them facilitate a book or article review, meeting agendas, short instructional videos, podcasts, audiobooks, etc.
• E-learning – Distribute training that communicates the leadership platform provides consistency across the organization and the opportunity to learn at one’s own pace.
• Mentoring programs – These should be learning opportunities for mentors and mentees so be ready to help both sides prepare for the relationship.
• Blended programs – Well sure, why would you only choose one way when multiple means have the best chance of ensuring execution?
  

My Dawgs will come out of their slump (soon I hope) and at least we beat Georgia Tech. Your business has the chance to avoid dips in performance by making sure leaders are in the wings and engaged in the business rather than feeling ignored and constantly put off. By continuing to develop future leaders and keep them engaged in the growth of the organization, you can keep your business growing and thriving.

Dad, can I have a "do over"?

Remember those? The "do over" is a childhood standard, practiced on playgrounds and classrooms, at friends' houses and on the street. It is a universal code that erases the prior result, without erasing prior learning.

How great would it be if we could bring that forward to adulthood? I find it interesting that as we get older we often disagree with that idea. You hear things like, "You have to pay for your mistakes," or "You should've known better, now live with it." But we certainly don't wish that on our younger selves, and we all learned and improved via the "do over."

The forward thinking learning organization creates training that allows learners the chance to practice and fail. I can't think of anyone that learned to ride a bike without ever falling. No one learned to read without stumbling over words. No one learned playground games without a practice round in which feedback was delivered (often in a non-constructive manner).

Likewise, as trainers, we should create learning experiences that provide an opportunity for people to fail and then try again. Not just a chance to hit the "reset" button. Give learners the time to try, contemplate, reflect, discuss, process, plan, and then try again.

Some of you may be asking, "I don't have that kind of time in these economically challenging times." I'm glad you brought that up because it gives me a chance to refer back to some of my earlier posts on blended learning, failing and informal learning. The learning experience might be a computer based simulation, followed by a web seminar, social sharing sites, classroom sessions and several outside readings. It then closes with another web based engagement.

Packaging learning and development in a way that allows participants to try, fail, and try again is critical to long term behavioral change. Desired behavior is never created by magic wand, or dunking in the waters of the latest model. Long term change is created by constantly creating context, providing opportunities to process and reflect and the chance to practice and get feedback to become more successful.

2 Minute Drill

Just a few quick hits while I work on some other postings:

1. I knew my teaching experience should count for management experience. Check out Steven DeMaio's post at the Harvard Business School website : Obama: Principal-In-Chief.

Relate it to your organization: Is the leadership in your organization supporting and developing you to do a better job meeting the needs of your customers? Is your leadership building your credibility or working around, possibly acting to keep their own risk lower?

I won't dwell on this, but if you read it, please forward it to your friends who don't appreciate the importance of school principals as leaders. I've been saying for awhile that principals need more leadership and management training before being handed the keys to the building.

2. Technology moves pretty quickly. Keep up with the ever-changing tech landscape and think about ways to use it for learning and organizational development.


3. Things won't always be this bad. Just the other night I saw how 7-11 is expanding, taking advantage of real estate that has become available. I'm wondering what kind of leaders they are preparing right now to handle that kind of growth?

How are you preparing leaders to handle your future growth and future challenges? When was the last time you checked out your leadership curriculum to make sure it was still relevant?


Enjoy these topics. Throw one on the table at your next meeting and see where the discussion goes. Let me know what you and your teams think.