The Performance Improvement Blog

Investing in Training in Downturns and Upturns

The U.S. is emerging from a training drought that occurred during the worst economic period since the Great Depression. At least, that’s what’s indicated by organizations that do this kind of
research. ASTD reports an increase in spending on L&D in 2010 (latest year for which data is available); they estimate companies spent about $171.5 billion. Bersin & Associates reports that corporate spending on training increased 9.5% in 2011 – the largest gain in three years.  And Training magazine’s research found a 13% increase in spending on L&D in 2011. Each of these studies uses a different method for calculating spending. However, the trend is undeniable: spending on employee training is increasing.  

With this increase in spending comes a great opportunity to do things right. In our book, The 5As Framework, Sean Murray and I wrote that most training programs significantly impact only 10% to 20% of their participants. This represents a huge waste that no organization can afford any longer. As the worldwide recession comes to an end, organizations must use every dollar very wisely. Garry Marsh, director of the U.K. company THM Business Simulations, gives us some thoughts about best ways to use those dollars. Here are those seven ideas with my spin on each one:

• Get it right first time – Think in terms of what learners need, not the latest training fad (content or delivery). Only provide experiences that will help learners improve performance and contribute to achieving the strategic goals of the organization – no more and no less. Pay attention to the quality of content and quality of the learning intervention.
• Keep employee satisfaction high – Involving employees in opportunities to learn is an effective way to increase engagement. Many employees value learning more than a pay increase. To keep engagement high, make continuous learning part of the culture of the organization.
• Train your managers – Many managers did not reach that position because they were great managers of people. This is something that all managers need to keep learning. And if organizations want to prevent their top talent from leaving as the economy improves, they must give managers the opportunity to learn and grow.
• Focus on customer experience – All organizations should have the improvement of customer experience as one of their top strategic goals. To achieve this goal, they will have to train employees in how to create a better experience. Learning about the customer experience should be on every manager’s agenda.
• Spend less, get more – Organizations should not rely on the usual suspects and usual methods for delivery of training. It’s about learning; it’s not about glitzy programs. It doesn’t have to cost much to develop talent. Maybe a manager will become a more effective team leader with the help of a mentor. Maybe a manager will become more effective at giving performance feedback with the help of a coach. Maybe a manager will become better at financial management by attending the CEO’s “open-book” meetings.
• Be ready for the upturn – As the economy improves and companies start hiring again, the best talent will look elsewhere. They have stayed only because nobody else was growing and hiring. Unless managers continue to see opportunities in their current organizations and they feel respect from their leadership, they will be gone. Organizations should do something about these conditions now.
• Look after yourself – Many resources are available to help any organization be successful while keeping costs low. Look for help internally and externally. Use what the organization already owns when that makes sense and then go outside to peers, consultants, and training organizations when they can help you improve performance and achieve your business goals.

 

Can Groups Be Creative?

It would be easy to become anti-teamwork after reading “The Rise of the New Groupthink”, a Sunday New York Times opinion piece written by Susan Cain, author of the forthcoming book, “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.” She writes a thought-provoking article that challenges the prevailing thinking about employee innovation and creativity. In effect, she makes the case for solo innovation. While I agree that organizations try to do too much in groups, I fear that an article like this might prompt managers to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Cain starts with this generalization about workplaces:

Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

This describes the image, not the reality. First of all, most of us are in work groups, not teams, at least not the kind of teams that Katzenbach and Smith (and others) define as being a team. And work group meetings tend to be poorly planned and badly run. I’ve posted about this previously. As for people skills, managers sure don’t act like these are prized abilities. A command-and-control management style still dominates the workplace. And regarding collaboration, too few managers and employees know how to collaborate effectively. To them, collaboration means ccing everyone on an email.

There is much rhetoric about teamwork and collaboration, but these behaviors are still very rare in organizations today. So to indict the current work environment as not being conducive to creativity and innovation because it is too collaborative misses what is actually happening in the typical workplace. In fact, employees are not collaborative enough.

Cain is also critical of group brainstorming.  She writes,

…brainstorming sessions are one of the worst possible ways to stimulate creativity…The reasons brainstorming fails are instructive for other forms of group work, too. People in groups tend to sit back and let others do the work; they instinctively mimic others’ opinions and lose sight of their own; and, often succumb to peer pressure.

I believe the problem is in the implementation, not the method. Any group that makes a list of ideas these days calls it “brainstorming”. This is not the kind of brainstorming which results in new and better ideas. When done right, brainstorming is free-flowing, non-judgmental, and relies on the dynamic interaction of everyone in the group, regardless of status. Unfortunately, every manager thinks that he or she can manage a brainstorming session. After all, how difficult can it be to ask a question and make a list of the answers? However, effective brainstorming requires highly skilled facilitation and not every manager has the skills and temperament needed to provide this to a group. An effective brainstorming leader ensures that everyone is engaged in the work, encourages everyone to contribute their own feelings and beliefs to the conversation, and doesn’t allow one or two people to dominate the conversation.  

Isolating everyone and putting up barriers to interaction is just as counterproductive as forcing everyone to interact with others all day long. Some people need some quiet and solitude to be at their productive best and some people need some social interaction. Even the research cited by Cain supports this notion. Not everyone in the research populations she cited seeks isolation. The last thing you want to do is label someone “introvert” based on an assessment tool and then make that person toil alone until they come up with the next big idea. While some people can’t tolerate frequent interruptions, becoming tense and irritable, others thrive on the chaos and perform best in that kind of high-energy, social environment. 

We need to do a better job of helping employees figure out in what kinds of environments and on what kinds of projects they work best and provide those conditions for them. We need managers who take responsibility for helping employees optimize performance. And we need leaders who can build teams that nurture creative and innovative thinking.

Thank you, Susan Cain, for stimulating this blog post.

 

Ban Those Words!

In my last blog post, I wrote about the Harvard Business Review blogger Dan Pallotta and his post titled, “I Don't Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore.” He writes about business buzz words and how they get in the way of clear communication. Speaking of words that do not improve communication, Lake Superior State University recently announced its "37th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness."

The words for 2012 are:

1. Amazing
2. Baby Bump
3. Shared Sacrifice
4. Occupy
5. Blowback
6. Man Cave
7. The New Normal
8. Pet Parent
9. Win The Future
10. Trickeration
11. Ginormous
12. Thank You In Advance

Read the entertaining comments about these words on the LSSU Web site.

What words do you think should be on the list? "Learning Organization" would be my nomination.

What Do You Mean?

Dan Pallotta, president of Advertising for Humanity and HBR blogger, in a post titled “I Don't Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore”, writes about business jargon and how it affects communication in organizations. The blog post must have hit a nerve because it has broken the record for most comments to a single HBR Blog Network post.

One of these comments is a perfect way to begin 2012. That is, with humor that pokes fun at ourselves and the way we talk to each other. The commenter, BrainToniq (Scott Ohlgren), writes as if talking to his staff:

While in the run-up to transitioning in this phase of right-sizing and redeployment, we still need to—at the end of the day—drill down and make sure that our mission-critical, goal-oriented core competencies are in alignment and on the same page as the most current best-practices paradigm. While we as a customer-centric longtail company are still on the runway, we need to each firewall enough time to allow out-of-the-box thinking and strategize the low-hanging fruit in the marketplace. Envisioning the metrics here will require accountability management on each team member to come up with a value-added solution that doesn’t require putting out fires or a lot of bandwidth. Bottom line? The truth is we have to step up, work smarter, not harder, and create a Web 2.0 solution. This is an exciting model for limitless potential and mutually agreed synergies!

I’ve got an open door policy, so touch base and keep me in the loop. If we can move forward and proactively get on the same page about this, it’ll be a win-win-win. Remember: our people make the difference.

Come again? The truth is this is how we sound sometimes. And with email, text messaging, and all of the forms of social media, the use of buzzwords to replace plain speaking has gotten much worse. We are sacrificing clarity for brevity, which means there is greater risk of miscommunication.

Dan Pallotta’s solution is to “speak authentically” in communicating with employees and customers. He writes:

You will gain tremendous credibility, become much more productive, make those around you much more productive, and experience a great deal more joy in your working life if you look someone in the eye after hearing one of these verbal brain jammers and tell the person, "I don't have any idea what you just said to me."

Let's hope communication improves in all of our organizations in 2012.