Go Ahead - Try It!

I like to learn. No, maybe that's not entirely true.  I like to have knowledge but I'm not always amenable to the process of leaning.  I tend to want the knowledge to somehow download into my brain like Neo learning kung fu (yes, that was a complete nerdy Matrix reference I am proud to say). What I also know, though, is that the best way for me to learn is to process the knowledge in smaller pieces. This way I reduce my chances for frustration and increase the chances that I will retain what I have learned as it is easier to apply a bit of knowledge at a time rather than large volumes of data.  It's just how most of our brains work. 

Reducing the learning process to a shorter period of time is also a great way to introduce yourself to something new.  Matt Cutts, an engineer at Google, would agree.  In this short TED talk he mentions the various 30-day "experiments" he completed where he committed to trying new things for 30 days.  It is surprising how little time you need to practice something before it becomes ingrained as habit.

Check out the talk below and go out there and try it!

How Not to Conduct Team-Building

I'm green and gold. I learned that I am green and gold through a team building exercise that was intended to bring insight to "an individual's pathway to self-confidence and esteem".  The pathway is part of the "True Colors" system of identifying character. The exercise was meant to be both fun and practical and it was, at least, interesting. The majority of the staff participated in the exercise fully, curious as to what their color/s would be. There were, however, some of the staff who sat in the room, arms crossed and head shaking in sarcastic disregard, who were less than fascinated by the whole attempt. While I wouldn't label the exercise a disaster, it was not altogether successful in building team togetherness and structure. Based on the MSN Careers article, The worst team-building experience you've ever had, others have had much more disastrous team-building experiences.

This comment,  regarding a ropes course that rubbed everyone the wrong way (yes, pun intended), from Rebecca Staton-Reinstetin, president of Advantage Leadership Inc sums up the main reason why a team should be well-developed prior to such an exercise: "It was an extreme example of how team-building events are mistaken for the long, hard work of actually building a team with shared goals and responsibilities". Put another way, any team-building exercise must start with a team - and a group of people who happen to work together does not make a team. Where to begin? Start by ensuring team members understand the "big picture" and the reason why their collective work is important to the organization and to each other. Susan M. Heathfield, human resource contributing writer for About.com puts it this way "You need to differentiate this overall sense of teamwork from the task of developing an effective intact team that is formed to accomplish a specific goal. People confuse the two team-building objectives. This is why so many team-building seminars, meetings, retreats and activities are deemed failures by their participants".

One of the best team-building experiences I have had was with a group I undoubtedly consider a team. We had been through forming, storming and norming and were comfortable and efficiently in our performing stage - the goal of any team. The goal of the exercise was to pass a ball between all the participants' hands within a few seconds time. We had sincere fun trying to come up with creative ways we could accomplish this goal. We first tried simply passing the ball to each other - not quick enough. We then tried lining up with our arms outstretched and having someone from the team run past us all while running the ball across the top of our hands - still not quick enough. We then, in a wonderfully symbolic show of a group of people working together, stood huddled in a circle while placing our hands clasped and in a circle and stacked on top of each other. All it took was one team member to drop the ball from the top and - tada - mission accomplished... 

Pinch a Penny Now, Lose a Dollar Later

What was your last shopping experience like when you ventured into a discount retailer (and, yes you have been in one admit it)? If your experience was like many other individuals' you were greeted by a retail store with merchandise strewn about, items in the wrong locations, advertised items missing from store shelves, not many employees around to ask questions of, and (if you found an employee) were met with a gaze from a tired, distracted, and overextended (or worse - a disinterested) employee. Conversely, what was your last experience when shopping at a "full price" retailer? For the most part, polls have shown that shoppers are willing to pay a small premium for better service and a better selection. People like to feel their shopping list is as important to the retailer as it is to them (after all, you earned your money, they should earn the right to take it as well). Don't worry there is a human resource connection coming.....

Let's go back to the discount store with the unhappy employees. What we know, as human resource professionals, is that unhappy employees = lower productivity, increased use of sick time, and lower ratings on customer service. So why are discount retailers (and many other areas of industry) lowering wages and shedding experienced employees? Yeah, yeah - we know - it's to be able to make those shrinking budgets. What if, though, we were actually accomplishing the reverse with our actions? Instead of steering our organization through an economic downturn we were further jeopardizing its health by driving customers away?

Professor Zeynep Ton, of MIT's Sloan School of Management, has ten years of research to back up why it might not be such a good idea to put the squeeze on your employees. In the Future of Retail: Companies That Profit By Investing in Employees at Time.com, Ton's research finds "companies that buck the status quo and invest heavily in their workforce actually are able to not only compete with their competitors on service but on price too". This upends the notion that to compete in the market as a low-cost leader, a company must have a low-cost workforce. In fact, Ton states that retail chains that experience high levels of success "invest heavily in store employees, but also have the lowest prices in their industries, solid financial performance, and better customer service than their competitors".  

What, exactly, makes successful companies successful anyway? It's in their "business card".  Remember the old standby in business - it holds true today: your employees are the face, the "business card" of your company. The experience customers have with your company is heavily influenced by their interactions with your employees. Ton's research found "all sorts of efficiencies that become unlocked once you have a highly trained, highly motivated workforce". 

So take a cue from those that are successful now, and are set to continue their success and growth once the economy turns in their favor: invest in your employees. Yes, pay them a decent wage, provide a content rich and inclusive training program, offer great benefits, and promote a culture of innovation - then, maintain as you enjoy success...   

Grooming Your Unicorn

I am going to begin this post by restating something I have said in the past: happy employees = more productive employees = increased sales, etc.. Shawn Achor, Harvard-trained psychologist and happiness researcher, understands this.  Archor says that we should be looking to design programs around the outliers, the star performers (sometimes so rare they are akin to mythical beings) instead of utilizing "one size fits all" programs implemented with the average employee in mind. Think about that. Most programs are developed using the mean rather than those "odd" employees who offer unique and innovative solutions, who continuously take initiative, and who may not fit the prototypical employee in your organization. As you will see in Archor's TED presentation below, that employee is more apt to turn stresses into challenges that beg for solutions they are happy to work toward.

So go out there and benchmark your stars rather than the average and "groom your unicorns".

A Beta You

Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, has written a book titled The Start-Up of You. In this interview, Hoffman speaks to Time.com about how putting the effort into developing yourself can payoff in your career. What I especially liked was the statement to consider yourself as the beta version.  You are out there, working and learning but at the same time you should be in a state of constant development and improvement: a "permanent beta" state. 

Application over Calculation

This week I had the pleasure of attending a leadership seminar presented by Dr. Bill Daggert of the International Center for Leadership in Education. The seminar itself surrounded a belief that our present education system is not asking the right questions and is afraid to make the real changes required to meet the demands of future (and present, really) business workforce needs. To summarize: we must focus what Dr. Daggert terms "rigor and relevance". During the wrap up of his presentation, Dr. Daggert mentioned the unique web search engine Wolfram Alpha. Actually, Wolfram Alpha is more a computational engine.  Conrad Wolfram, the man behind the Alpha, feels about math instruction much the same way that Dr. Daggert feels about education in general: application should trump calculation.  

I mention all of this because what both Dr. Daggert and Mr. Wolfram are so passionate about has implications in any field - certainly within the field of business and human resource management. In fact, business has been behind much of U.S. education policy. Why? Not preparing students for the skills they will need now and in the future will have a deeply negative impact on the future of U.S. businesses - and, because human resource managers are partners in making their organization successful - we must pay attention to this as well. 

Take a listen to the TED talk where Mr. Wolfram outlines why the educational system should embrace computers and stop forcing an industrialized society mentality on students. Listen to what he says and take away how you can apply these concepts to your profession (and maybe affect an impact on the future)...

Bottom Up Leadership

It seems the cry of any human resource professional organization in recent years has been for human resource professionals' to stake their place at the strategic planning table. One of the best ways to ensure a place at that table is to show what human resources does to support the profitability of the organization. Employee development = facilitation of new ideas = increased profits. Yes, there is a connection between it all. 

Employee development is not about a staid development program. You know, the one that is executed in a perfunctory manner and no one remembers when it was developed? It is about an adaptable and open conduit for the flow (in both directions) of development. As you will hear in the interview below of Brad Anderson, former CEO of Best Buy, this can be referred to as "bottom up leadership". Anderson supports the "collapse of distance between the person who can see the customer need" and those at the top. 

Are You Turning The Key In The Right Direction?

Being in the field of education and loving TED as I do (see post from September 6th), I felt compelled to view one of the most popular talks on TED. It is a talk given by Sir Ken Robinson, creativity expert and author, on the topic of how schools kill creativity. The talk is quite entertaining and interesting so take a few moments to watch it. What I found most interesting about the talk and in reading over some of Robinson's work, is the connection between education and human resources. Now, in this circumstance, I am using the term human resources to mean humans as a resource. I make the clarification because I think we, as human resource professionals and managers from all walks of life, forget that is the general scope of what the profession deals with. 

The education, in all manners (e.g. formal, organization-driven, on-the-job, etc...) of human resources is integral to moving forward in any business. The following quote by Robinson in his book Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative sums it up nicely:

It is often said that education and training are the keys to the future. They are, but a key can be turned in two directions. Turn it one way and you lock resources away, even from those they belong to. Turn it the other way and you release resources and give people back to themselves. To realize our true creative potential - in our organizations, in our schools and in our communities - we need to think differently about ourselves and to act differently towards each other. We must learn to be creative.

How is your organization supporting education, training and development, creativity? Are you unintentionally marginalizing the talents of your employees by utilizing a "one size fits all" training program? Is your training program designed such that instead of proving flexible training and open access to resources it forces employees to mold themselves into the construct of the program and cuts off open access, thereby "turning the key the wrong way"?

The Three "D's" of Training

Let's face it. Budgets are tight and the outlook, judging by the swirl surrounding the debt ceiling agreement and Wall Street's reaction, is not promising relief in the short run. If your organization is not one of the few flush with cash reserves (okay, if your organization isn't Apple) then your organization is not likely placing hiring at the top of the priority list. What should, however, be at the top of the priority list is employee development. The ongoing development of your employees is key to the continued success and growth of your business. Concentrating efforts on developing employees provides both short-term and long-term benefits like:

• aids in succession planning initiatives
• enables cross-training
• allows for lateral movement (crucial at a time where positions are being consolidated or moved due to restructuring)
• creates greater employee job satisfaction through greater autonomy and a sense of value to the organization

My organization has a separate department that is devoted to the development of our employees. The department offers in-house training, which is termed "in-service training". Employees can sign-up for either a mandated or self-initiated training via a self-service system that is web based. This is a vast improvement from our previous method - printing and distributing hard copy booklets listing all training offerings. Due to training and development having such importance now more than ever, I began to research how other companies transformed their employee development. I came across a video for a presentation by Martha Soehren, Chief Learning Officer of Comcast, who spoke about how Comcast transformed the design, development, and delivery (hence, the three "D's") of their program. I have included a link to the video Consolidating Multiple Technology Platforms to Bolster Learning Capabilities at Comcast Cable should you want to take a look. Here is a bit of what I took from the video (with my notes added):

1. Perform a task analysis of your present system, including a look at trainers' functions. Are trainers performing administrative tasks? How much time are trainers able to devote to actual training rather than administrative tasks?
2. Define your goals. Ensure the goals are quantitative as well as qualitative.
3. Create realistic timelines. Build in checkpoints and points where you will readdress components that are not working.
4. Train the trainers. This is an integral piece to any successful training program. How many of the trainers in your organization have received training on offering instruction?
5. Review tasks assigned to supervisors. These are your coaches and act as support for the new skills being practiced by employees. Are supervisors spending an inordinate amount of time mired in administrative tasks?

An additional point comes from a recommendation by the American Society for Training and Development: trainer to participant ratio should be at approximately 1:250. Remember, though, this is a guideline and may need to be adapted based your organization's particular needs. In the same respect class size will be dictated by training content and participant composition.