Content about MIX

In September 2010, ESL Federal Credit Union added both Business Banking products and services to its financial services portfolio and small and mid-sized businesses to its membership mix. The new business processes, procedures, and offerings were foreign to front-line staff and support functions. So before launch, the company’s learning and development (L&D) team delivered a blended curriculum that included instructor-led training, a custom practice database, and a comprehensive CBT module.

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.

The single, most basic difference between an ineffective group interaction and a highly productive one lies in the existence of a single component—the role of the Synergist, says Les McKeown, author of “The Synergist.” Introducing the Synergist role to your people interactions, he says, blows past the lengthy and complex list of all possible symptoms of team and group dysfunction, and instead concentrates on just one thing: the single root cause of team and group dysfunction.

Verizon Wireless’ Critical Thinking training program helps leaders make better decisions and stimulates new thinking that can drive breakthrough innovation.

David Horsager, author of “The Trust Edge,” studied the underlying connection between success and trust, and he identified eight key areas he describes as Pillars. They are the bedrock that creates The Trust Edge, the competitive advantage gained when others confidently believe in you.

When you’re meeting with someone—for example, a new customer or a potential vendor—you will get more from that meeting if you understand learning preferences.

What does it take to develop talent—through training—to get results, especially under demanding circumstances? While simple training as a strategy won’t contribute enough, an overall program with an integrated action-learning, workshop-oriented, and results-focused approach can deliver powerful business results.

Your voice creates an immediate impression—and needless to say, that impression must be a good one. Among other things, it’s a powerful indicator of your emotional state, including how you feel about your topic and the people you deliver it to. It follows, then, that you must learn to use your voice as a musician would use an instrument, to deliver your message with precise, positive emphasis.

Change style assessment creator Chris Musselwhite knows firsthand how personal change style preferences can not only make you more effective in times of crisis or change, they also can help you make better decisions on a daily basis. “Depending on whether people see change as a danger, a challenge, or an opportunity,” he says, “they have corresponding individual preferences that reflect their relationship and reaction to structure, rules, and authority when dealing and making decisions involving change.”

“Boundary Spanning Leadership”authors Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason offer five key connecting tactics to overcoming a “clash of civilizations” in the office, whether it’s between two different teams who are unable to see eye to eye; departments that are operating with each other like tectonic plates; or a level of incivility has grown so great that reputations and are jobs are about to be on the line.

A thought occurred to me a few weeks ago as I donned coat, boots, gloves, and hat to battle yet another foot-plus of snow and ice with my trusty shovel: This overly wintry weather that plagued the country for the last few months (seems like years to me) is much like the recession we’ve been locked in for so long. Just when you think you have it licked, the plow comes along and dumps another pile of snow in your driveway, and it starts to sleet again.