The Performance Improvement Blog

Alan Beaulieu on the Economy and Training as a Competitive Advantage

The economy is on the rebound and companies need to make hiring and training a priority. This was Alan Beaulieu’s message at a meeting of the Washtenaw Economic Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan that I attended on September 16^th. With all the negativity about the economy, especially in Michigan, it was refreshing and comforting to hear these words from a highly respected economist. Beaulieu is President of the Institute for Trend Research (ITR), a 60 year old firm with an unusually high level of prediction accuracy, including warning his clients about the start of the Great Recession in 2008. He is co-author of the recently published business strategy book, “Make Your Move.” He not only makes predictions; he presents the economic evidence for those predictions.

According to Beaulieu, the economy will grow slowly and steadily over the next two years. He said that this is the perfect time for companies to bring in the people they’ve been reluctant to hire and prepare those people to help their companies achieve a competitive advantage. He said:

This is the time when we want to make sure that all of our employees are as trained as they possibly can be. We want to make sure we are driving all of the efficiency we can. Cross train. Super train. Reduce work hazards. Make sure the product knowledge is where it should be. Because we can’t waste time losing a single sale because we have somebody who is rude to a customer, doesn’t know the product, or doesn’t know our competitive advantage.

If companies are going to emerge from the Great Recession in a better place than where they started, they must invest in people. It will be their competitive advantage. 

 

We Are What We Choose

In a commencement address to the Princeton class of 2010 titled “We Are What We Choose”, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, asked graduates to consider these questions:

How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

Will you bluff it out when you're wrong, or will you apologize?

Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

When it's tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

As a former college career counselor, I don’t believe that a set of questions, even if posed by one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time, is going to turn Princeton graduates into creative, passionate, risk-taking, determined, and thoughtful individuals. That requires a particular personality and life situation. But I do think that this is a fascinating set of questions that career-oriented people should ask themselves from time to time and leadership coaches should periodically discuss with their clients. It just might make for some kinder, entrepreneurial leaders. 

Evaluation Reinforces Learning

Evaluation of training and other learning interventions (e.g., coaching, Web-based programs, mentoring, internships), when done well, enhances learning. The very act of asking questions about what   someone knows or what they have applied reminds learners about the content and what they had intended to do with the content. A New York Times article by Benedict Carey that I cited in my recent blog post about learning styles, also addresses the value of causing the brain to re-examine content that had been learned but then forgotten. Carey writes:

No one knows for sure why. It may be that the brain, when it revisits material at a later time, has to relearn some of what it has absorbed before adding new stuff — and that that process is itself self-reinforcing.

“The idea is that forgetting is the friend of learning,” said Dr. Kornell. “When you forget something, it allows you to relearn, and do so effectively, the next time you see it.”

That’s one reason cognitive scientists see testing itself — or practice tests and quizzes — as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future.

This observation argues for follow-up evaluation. Evaluation is not only a way to judge the quality of the learning intervention; it is essential for retaining learning and being able to apply that learning when it is needed. If you want to get the most out of programs intended to improve leadership and management, the evidence suggests that you must follow-up with an assessment of learning and of the application of that learning.

Learning Styles: What Do We Know?

An Appalachian Mountain Proverb goes: It’s not what you don’t know that’ll hurt you, it’s what you do know that ain’t so.

I thought of this proverb when reading Benedict Carey’s New York Times article, Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits. He reports on a survey of learning-styles research that appeared in the journal, Psychological Science in the Public Interest. The authors found no credible evidence that matching teaching styles with learning styles (e.g., auditory, visual, kinesthetic or right-brain/left-brain) helps people learn more effectively.  They write:

Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis.

We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice.

Given that attention to learning styles has permeated the field of employee training and development, I think we need to take these findings very seriously. Is the learning-styles emperor naked?  Or, is there still reason to believe that understanding and identifying learning styles has relevance to learning in organizations? 

Mike Myatt's Top 31 Leadership Blogs for 2010

If you’re like me, you appreciate seeing someone else’s “top list” for a topic of interest. It helps me sort   through the thousands of blogs that I don’t have time to read. Mike Myatt gives us some help on the topic of leadership with his list of Top leadership blogs. Although numbered here, Myatt listed these in no particular order.

1. N2growth Blog
2. John Maxwell on Leadership
3. Extreme Leadership
4. Tom Peters Blog
5. Leading With Purpose
6. Lead By Example
7. Daniel Pink
8. Weekly Leader Blog
9. Next Level Blog
10. Wally Bock’s Three Star Leadership Blog
11. All Things Workplace
12. Marshall Goldsmith Blog
13. Seth Godin’s Blog
14. The Management Experts
15. Leading Blog
16. Great Leadership
17. Robin Sharma’s Leadership Blog
18. Lead Change Group
19. Ramblings From a Glass Half Full
20. Management Excellence
21. Daniel Decker
22. Leader Talk
23. Orrin Woodward
24. Tanveer Naseer
25. Big Is the New Small
26. Scott Gould
27. Leadership Solutions
28. Ron Edmondson
29. Leadership Freak
30. Serve to Lead
31. Random Acts of Leadership

Most of these blogs are new to me, so I look forward to reading them. Thanks, Mike!