The Performance Improvement Blog

Instant Coaching

Are trainers and coaches being replaced by a 99 cent app? I knew it was only a matter of time. You can now download iPocket Coach for your Apple iPhone. This Web 2.0 tool promises to give managers "the guidance they need to manage their people - on demand." Clearly, technology is changing the field of

management training and development as fast as it is changing everything else in our lives.

I'm intrigued by this idea of making helpful advice easily accessible and timely. Much of the time, it is impractical for managers to wait for their next scheduled training session or even for their next coaching session...if they even have a leadership coach. Managers need just-in-time alternatives and more can be done to use technology to prepare managers for learning and to sustain that learning over time. However, I bristle at the notion that all they need is a list of recommended behaviors on an iPhone to get through the next difficult management situation.

The marketing video at the iPocket Coach site is a great example of the best and worst aspects of instant coaching. In the video, a manager uses the app to prepare herself for a difficult performance review conversation with one of her employees. That's fine; however, we can't tell from this short demonstration if she asked helpful questions, gave useful responses, or made this a learning opportunity for the employee. And the supervisor of the manager, who pops his head in the door to remind her that she should have the performance review and then he returns later to make sure it was done, displays a very typical but very poor example of supervision. He's the problem, not the manager who needs a little guidance on conducting a performance review.

I believe Web 2.0 tools of all types, including iPhone apps as well as wikis, blogs, Twitter, and other social media, have tremendous potential for supporting manager learning and leadership development. As with any new technology, we need entrepreneurs who are willing to experiment with new learning tools in the marketplace and then continuously improve these tools. At the same time, we need to continuously ask ourselves, "Are we oversimplifying the learning process to the point where we might be doing more harm than good?"

Great Expectations: College Completion and Job Success

College completion, whether a two or four-year degree or a certificate from an occupational program, is being touted by President Obama and others as essential for a robust U.S. economy and for world-wide competition for goods and services. Significant federal dollars and philanthropic monies are being invested in efforts to help young people and laid-off workers succeed in college. As businesses emerge from the recession they will be looking to college graduates for the talent needed to succeed. And yet, the goal of college completion remains elusive for many students.

A controversial new book by William B. Bowen, former President of Princeton University, Michael S.

McPherson, former President of Macalester College and currently President of the Spencer Foundation, and Matthew M. Chingos, graduate student at Harvard, titled Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities, gives us some hints as to the reasons why college completion is so difficult. One of their major conclusions is that the expectation of completion has a significant effect on whether students complete or not. And this expectation is greater at some colleges than at others. This finding is consistent with the notion of “anticipation” in learning that I have written about previously.

David Glenn of The Chronicle of Higher Education writes:

One plausible hypothesis has to do with peer effects. If you're at a selective college surrounded by smart, ambitious kids, you're likely to apply yourself to your studies because that's the local norm. The classic examples here are small liberal-arts colleges. "If you go to a small college, you're part of a quote-unquote class, and everyone expects to graduate," Mr. Bowen says. "There's a lot of pressure to live up to that expectation. That's less true at a big complicated place."…Could less-selective universities somehow bottle some of the selective colleges' intensity, and thereby improve their graduation rates? "Our broad finding," Mr. McPherson says, "is that institutions that create a higher expectation of student success have higher graduation rates. And that seems like something that should operate up and down the line, for anyone who goes to school."

Colleges need to create a culture of completion just as businesses need to create a culture of learning. The significant effect of this culture might not be so much the actual degree or certificate, but rather the act of completing something important. The CEO of a large real estate company told me that he can tell the difference between sales agents who will be successful and those who will not by who has completed college and who hasn’t. He said that it’s not the knowledge that they have, it’s that they finish what they start and they have confidence in themselves. I’m not going to argue causality with him, but I do concede that college completion is an indicator of successful people.

ADDIE Is Alive!

The ADDIE debate is raging again and I feel compelled to weigh in. For those of you not familiar with ADDIE, it is a model for instructional development. Like any model, it is simply a guide for ensuring that the critical elements are considered when developing training programs; it is not the real world. The model’s elements are: 1) Analysis; 2) Design; 3) Development; 4) Implementation; and 5) Evaluation. You can follow all of the debatable issues on the blogs of Clark Quinn, Ellen Wagner, and Brent Schlenker.

I agree with the proponents of ADDIE that it is a useful heuristic for developing an instructional program. Although, I like Christopher Pappas’ non-linear version with evaluation at the center.  But I’m an evaluator, so to me everything starts and ends with evaluation (I know… to a hammer everything looks like a nail.). For example, if at the outset, you discover that a learning intervention is not evaluatable (yes, this is a word), that is, that the results can’t be observed, then it is probably not worth doing.

What is missing from the ADDIE debate is a larger framework for ensuring that whatever learning intervention is designed has important business results. To me, ADDIE is useful, but not the whole picture. This bigger picture includes what Sean Murray and I call the “5As Framework”: 1) Alignment; 2) Anticipation; 3) Alliance; 4) Application; and 5) Accountability. We we will be publishing an ebook about this framework in the near future. It is our observation that far too much training is designed by highly competent instructional designers, using ADDIE or some variation, only to have little impact on the business of the organization. If instructional designers want to make a real difference, they need to be asking the "5As" questions in addition to ADDIE.  

Are the learning goals and objectives aligned with the strategic goals of the organization?

Do learners and their bosses anticipate learning and success?

Are learners and their bosses in an alliance for results?

Is application of new learning immediate and sustained over time?

Are learners, their bosses, and organizations accountable for learning and business results?

Attention Deficit in the Workplace

We live in a world of distraction. Cell phones are always with us and always on. Blackberrys and iPhones constantly tell us, "You've got mail." News is 24/7. Whoever survived downsizing is supposed to do the jobs of two or three people. TWD (texting while driving) has become so prevalent there is a name for it and legislation against it. Open space offices, although designed to promote creativity and teamwork, also increase interruptions and stimulate a chaotic work environment. No doubt, some people thrive in this kind of environment, but for many others it is detrimental to their productivity and health.

According to Geri Markel, there are eight demons that contribute to distraction in the workplace. She writes:

In this 24/7 world, the lines between work and life are blurred and distractions interrupt and interfere with performance. Labeled as demons, there are eight types of distraction that negatively affect attention, memory, organization, executive function, and critical thinking.

The eight demons of distraction include technology overload, interruption by others, over-scheduling and inappropriate multitasking, noisy or messy [work] space, stress, fatigue, illness or medication, and unruly mind.

What Markel means by an "unruly mind" inlcudes hyper-attention to one thing at the expense of everything else, constant daydearming, or a racing thought process.

Markel says these demons can be managed, but it requires a plan, a strategy, tools, feedback and support from others, and, I would add, determination. Markel's book offers some methods and tools for getting these demons under control and using them to their advantage. The goal is to become more attentive, less stressed, and more successful. We could all use that!

Another Take on Leadership

It seems like a never ending debate: What are the competencies of an effective leader? Steve Tobak offers yet another take on leadership in his list of core competencies:  

Flexibility. Willingness to change direction, do what it takes, let go of personal agenda, and swallow pride, all for the greater good and the overall health of the business.

Honesty. Courage to look people - especially customers and authority figures - straight in the eye and tell them the genuine truth, regardless of consequences.

Leadership. This is not as complex or subjective as you might think. Leadership is the ability to encourage people to follow you, especially when they don’t have to.

Accountability. Willingness to take responsibility, own a problem, and be held accountable over the long haul, regardless of the risk.

Intelligence. Anybody who denies this is full of it. Everything else can be learned, but not this. Forget old notions of book smart versus street smart. You have to be both.

This is an interesting list from someone who has been in a number of top leadership positions. However, I don’t agree with Tobak that everything besides “intelligence” is learnable, at least not by the kind of structured leadership development programs typical in business today. All of these competencies, if not learned very early in life, have to be shaped over time, from many experiences, and with much feedback from mentors, coaches, and co-workers followed by personal awareness and reflection.

An example of someone who exhibits these competencies and the long struggle (out of necessity) to become an effective leader is Jeff Benes. On August 25^th, as part of his radio show “The Story”™, Dick Gordon interviewed Benes, who is part owner and CEO of the North Carolina company Catalyst Manufacturing Services. Benes exemplifies the competencies identified by Tobak, but his path to success was bumpy and difficult. Benes’ story is probably not going to become a Harvard Business Case or be featured in Fortune, but it is a story that demonstrates some of the best values in business management and leadership. Not learned from an MBA program or from attending leadership workshops, his competencies were learned from trial and error in real world experiences over time by observing his world and with much support from others.