Content about Entertainment

May 17, 2013
Showtime! Improv Tips for Training

If you have ever seen an improvisation performance, you have witnessed a team of performers spontaneously creating comedic scenes from audience suggestions. While you can’t make up your training on the spot the way professional improvisers do, you can borrow some of their methods and philosophies to inspire your creative process.

By Tom Yorton, CEO, Second City Communications

Regardless of the role you play in developing and delivering training to your staff—from CLO to instructional designer to field trainer—the landscape is changing quickly, and your challenges are multiplying, including:

March 27, 2012
How-To: Cement Learning in Just 5 Minutes

One of the most common ways to reinforce key content is to make it available in a bite-sized format that’s easy for participants to review, useful for managers to reinforce, and easy to integrate as pre-work into related programs.

By Kendra Lee

When we as trainers create training, it’s not enough to just deliver it. If we want to make it stick, we need strategies to cement the content long after the program appears to be over.

One of the most common ways to reinforce key content is to make it available in a bite-sized format that’s easy for participants to review, useful for managers to reinforce, and easy to integrate as pre-work into related programs.

March 27, 2012
Salespeople Are Different—and So Are Companies

If your company’s sales training program isn’t in tune with the organization’s culture, history, and preconceived notions, it may bring polite nods but deliver little else. Here are five aspects that can’t be overlooked.

By Ken Wax

My recent article explored “10 Reasons Why Training Salespeople Is Different and What You Can Do About It” (http://trainingmag.com/article/yes-salespeople-are-different%E2%80%94and-so-training-them). It showed why the very nature of their work makes them different than most other groups.

March 16, 2012
Corporate Training: Are Managers Born or Made?

Managers with a growth mindset are more committed to their employees’ development, and to their own, according to Carol S. Dweck, author of “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.” They give a great deal more developmental coaching, they notice improvement in employees’ performance, and they welcome critiques from their employees, she writes. “Most exciting, the growth mindset can be taught to managers.”

By Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

Millions of dollars and thousands of hours are spent each year trying to teach leaders and managers how to coach their employees and give them effective feedback. Yet much of this training is ineffective, and many leaders and mangers remain poor coaches. Is that because this can’t be trained? No, that’s not the reason. Research sheds light on why corporate training often fails.

March 5, 2012
Creating Smart Trust

A Smart Trust culture is a culture of immense momentum, possibility, and power, according to Stephen M. R. Covey and Greg Link, authors of  “Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-Trust World.” Smart Trust is not built on the assumption that what we need is more rules, more regulations, and more referees; it’s built on the evidence that extending trust and creating a high-trust culture in which top performance is expected brings greater dividends for stakeholders on every level.

March 1, 2012
Case Study: The UPS Store/Cal Poly Training

Tapping the resources and expertise of California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), The UPS Store created a hands-on training program to help its nationwide franchise network say, “We can print that.”

By Marianne Hamilton,Training and Development Manager, The UPS Store network

When the franchisor of The UPS Store decided to grow its business printing services, it knew it needed a training curriculum for its franchisees that was consistent, scalable… and convincing.

March 1, 2012
Case Study: The UPS Store/Cal Poly Training

Tapping the resources and expertise of California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), The UPS Store created a hands-on training program to help its nationwide franchise network say, “We can print that.”

 

By Marianne Hamilton,Training and Development Manager, The UPS Store network

When the franchisor of The UPS Store decided to grow its business printing services, it knew it needed a training curriculum for its franchisees that was consistent, scalable… and convincing.

February 28, 2012
Core Competencies: Setting Training Up for Failure?

Letting the Training department assume responsibility for core competencies sets you up for failure. You’re not in a position to implement organizational strategies. What you can do is provide a direct link between the core competencies your organization has chosen and your department’s specific training offerings in terms of employee competence.

By Dan Cooper, CEO, ej4.com

When it comes to training, the “competence” word gets thrown around a lot. The assumption is that everyone knows what it means, but that often isn’t the case. You need to make sure you know which of two definitions you’re talking about, and what the training department is signing up for.

Core Competence

February 28, 2012
Tips to Re-engage Your Team

Almost everyone in the workplace has been “doing more with less” for a long time. Yet productivity has risen 2.3 percent annually during these tough times as fewer employees accomplish miracles by working more hours and taking on bigger workloads. Is it possible to get higher productivity without burning people out?

By Carl Eidson, Ph.D., Vice President, Business Development, Wilson Learning

February 27, 2012
New Article: The Right Choice

A person is the result of all his choices, both the right and the wrong ones. With a right choice, a person develops, matures, actualizes, and grows. A wrong choice is detrimental to growth. A person can make right and wrong choices, and in the course of a lifetime, knowingly and unknowingly, he makes both.

By Darryl S. Doane; Rose D. Sloat; and David S. Doane, Ph.D.

A critical component of my focus may be the right choice. We once heard a story of a farmer who had an old mule. One day, the farmer is out working and hears a distressful wailing that sounds as if something terrible has happened.

February 27, 2012
The Right Choice

A person is the result of all his choices, both the right and the wrong ones. With a right choice, a person develops, matures, actualizes, and grows. A wrong choice is detrimental to growth. A person can make right and wrong choices, and in the course of a lifetime, knowingly and unknowingly, he makes both.

By Darryl S. Doane; Rose D. Sloat; and David S. Doane, Ph.D.

A critical component of my focus may be the right choice. We once heard a story of a farmer who had an old mule. One day, the farmer is out working and hears a distressful wailing that sounds as if something terrible has happened.

February 21, 2012
Best Practices and Outstanding Initiatives

Trainingeditors recognize innovative and successful learning and development programs and practices submitted in the 2012 Training Top 125 application.

BEST PRACTICES

Edward Jones: Practice Makes Perfect (Sales Training)

Each month, Edward Jones hires more than 150 new recruits with little financial background, then trains them to serve clients well. This organic growth is achieved through extensive training, including coaching by veterans, online study, virtual classes, weeklong stints of classroom training, and recorded role-play.

February 20, 2012
Field Tips

Many employees claim they learn best while doing, so they prefer to dive right in and learn as they go when they get a new job or take on new responsibilities. But the most successful and quickest learning on the job takes place when there is a formal on-the-job training (OJT) program—a fact many organizations and managers fail to take into account.

By Lorri Freifeld

Many employees claim they learn best while doing, so they prefer to dive right in and learn as they go when they get a new job or take on new responsibilities. But the most successful and quickest learning on the job takes place when there is a formal on-the-job training (OJT) program—a fact many organizations and managers fail to take into account.

February 20, 2012
Mohawk Maximizes Learning

For flooring manufacturer Mohawk Industries, it is not enough to teach employees how to be great. The long-time Training Top 125 contender focused last year on helping employees to blaze their own learning paths while meeting organization imperatives. That meant improving the technology that supports employee performance, as well as creating new social networking platforms to enable learners to challenge and teach one another.

By Margery Weinstein

February 20, 2012
Talent Tips: Transparency in Training

Are we being transparent within the field of learning and development these days? Have we been totally open and honest about what we are doing? Do we hide and cover up the real facts behind the results of training dollars spent?

By Roy Saunderson

Has the demand for candor, openness, and personal responsibility in society—a.k.a., “transparency”—effectively affected the field of learning and development?

February 20, 2012
Training Today: 2012 Resolutions

Want to have a wickedly successful 2012? Vickie Milazzo, RN, MSN, JD, owner of Vickie Milazzo Institute and author of The New York Times bestseller, “Wicked Success Is Inside Every Woman” has some ideas about where to start.

Want to have a wickedly successful 2012? Vickie Milazzo, RN, MSN, JD, owner of Vickie Milazzo Institute and author of The New York Times bestseller, “Wicked Success Is Inside Every Woman” (Wiley, 2011,
www.WickedSuccess.com), has some ideas about where to start:

February 20, 2012
Training Today: Tech Talk (Jan/Feb 2012)

Find out about the latest advances in training technology.

>> Novero introduced the Solana Tablet/PC. With a simple twist, this slim laptop screen rotates to create a mobile 10-inch tablet for reading, games, or hundreds of applications. It contains two USB ports, audio and microphone jacks, video output, built-in card reader and SIM card slot, Windows 7, and Android 2.3.

February 20, 2012
Verizon’s New Number is 1

One may be the loneliest number, but Verizon isn’t complaining. After appearing five times in the Top 10 over the last six years, the telecommunications company captured the No. 1 spot on the Training Top 125 for the first time in 2012.

By Lorri Freifeld

One may be the loneliest number, but Verizon isn’t complaining. After appearing five times in the Top 10 over the last six years, the telecommunications company captured the No. 1 spot on the Training Top 125 for the first time in 2012.

Despite a relatively flat training budget and a work stoppage that resulted from the expiration of union collective bargaining agreements, Verizon remained steadfast in its commitment to effective training tied to corporate strategic goals—and had the results to show for it.

February 13, 2012
Content Curation Strategies for Corporate Learning (Part 2)

With content curation, the running theme is to enlist yourself and other knowledgeable and passionate subject matter experts to filter and provide context to the resource materials that they value the most—trusting that your knowledge also will provide value to others interested in the same subject. Then the communities and portals we develop and support will become sought out as trusted sources of sustainable learning and performance in their own right.

By Chris Frederick Willis, CEO, Media 1

February 3, 2012
Conference Highlight: The Reframing Meeting

Help your company or clients understand that you have more to offer than simply executing their orders. Here are resources to help you prepare for a make-or-break reframing meeting.

 

In the third of three posts, Training 2012 Conference & Expo speaker Dick Handshaw talks about establishing your position as a strategic partner.

January 27, 2012
Digging Deeper: Measuring the Success of Your eLearning Program

One noteworthy conversation from a week of discussion on Training’s LinkedIn Group.

 

Thanks to Brenda Quinney (Sales Training Manager at RSA) for this thought-provoking question, and to our LinkedIn Group members for their insightful answers.

Q: How do you measure the success of your elearning program? Do you survey your learners? What questions do you ask?

 

January 26, 2012
Rethinking the Games People Play

Applying game sciences to recognition and performance improvement programs is much more than just creating a game. It’s essentially a way of creating a series of interlocking and customizable experiences that enrich a relationship with a brand or company. Gamification is about finding new ways to appeal to the basic human drives that motivate us every day.

By Jerry Klein, Senior Solution Design Strategist, Maritz Motivation Solutions

We live in a world increasingly obsessed with games. From celebrity athletes performing before worshipful throngs to teenage boys lost in World of Warcraft, games engage and delight all ages. Businesses can capitalize on this trend toward play. Applying the mechanics of gaming to non-game activities can help to engage people in new and exciting ways.

January 24, 2012
Conference Highlight: The End from the Beginning

Design training with the end in mind for efficiency and effectiveness.

 

Training 2012 Conference & Expo speaker Dave Goodman gives real-life examples of the value of new perspectives.

January 20, 2012
Conference Highlight: Create a Powerful Executive Presence

You may have the right knowledge, the right skills, even the right attitude, but if your presence lacks, so does your training.

 

Training 2012 Conference & Expo speaker Dianna Booher explains the importance of communicating through our presence just as strongly as our words:

January 20, 2012
Podcast: Insights on Manager Led Development of Employees

In this podcast, Corporate Leadership Council Director Kimberly Shells shares more Council research findings and discusses how manager-led development can help managers drive employee performance and development.

Only 45 percent of managers are effective at developing their direct reports. Research shows, however, that managers who ARE effective can improve staff performance by 25 percent and significantly increase retention/commitment. So, what makes the difference? Quite simply, manager-led development. Managers who deliberately help employees maximize the learning potential of every project while connecting them with proper training and other development opportunities offer the winning development combination.