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August 10, 2012
Losing It in One Easy Presentation

Author Bill Lane has seen only a few a careers destroyed at senior management levels by awful presentation skills. But he has seen more careers destroyed, or set back, as a consequence of one poorly prepared, rambling, artless, and useless presentation. Find out what NOT to do when it comes to presentations.

By Bill Lane

I have seen only a few a careers destroyed at senior management levels by awful presentation skills. But I have seen more careers destroyed, or set back, as a consequence of one poorly prepared, rambling, artless, and useless presentation.

Here’s how to do it—how to “Lose It” in one business presentation:

August 8, 2012
3 Ways to Unleash Someone’s Potential

The best things you can do to facilitate someone else’s success go beyond addressing their skills, behaviors, habits, and mindsets. Unleashing potential in others is about three things: seeing them for who they can become, holding them accountable to that vision, and then walking the walk yourself.

By Rory Vaden

I study successful people for a living. I’m fascinated by what makes them tick, and the behaviors and habits that drive them to achieve great things while the rest of us settle for mediocrity. I use the insights gained over the years to help other people become more successful, and have learned that the best things you can do to facilitate someone else’s success go beyond addressing their skills, behaviors, habits, and mindsets. Unleashing potential in others is about three things:

July 23, 2012
Self-Image, Self-Communication, and Performance

Self-image is essentially how you view yourself—what strengths and weaknesses you believe you possess and what you believe you are capable of achieving. Self-image management starts with consistently sending the correct messages to yourself about yourself. Continually focusing on experiencing the success you desire causes your own belief in your ability to grow.

By Jason Selk

July 20, 2012
How to Run More Interactive Meetings

Don’t let your meetings turn into a weekly data dump. Surely, with all the new methods of communication (e-mail, company portals, etc.), you can find a way to disseminate data effectively. Instead, use your meeting time to share ideas and listen to your people. And, every meeting should have some element of training.

By Darryl Rosen

Do you use meetings to routinely dump mounds of facts, features, goals, and inventory levels on your team? Do your meetings exist solely for the purpose of disseminating information, or is some interaction built into the agenda?

July 18, 2012
I Want to Work There!

Can training help organizations foster engagement?  We looked at the 2012 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list (produced by Great Place to Work Institute) to find leaders in employee engagement and cross-checked it with our 2012 Training Top 125 and Training Top 10 Hall of Fame lists, which boast leaders in training. Some 19 companies appear on both lists; here are 12 of their stories, plus tips you can apply in your own organization.

By Lorri Freifeld

“TGIM” (Thank God, It’s Monday) is phrase rarely heard from employees. But most organizations wish it were. Research continues to show that engaged employees are productive employees. And productive employees mean a bigger bottom line.

July 18, 2012
Last Word: Less Teaching…More Learning

To engage your learners and ensure knowledge transfer, incorporate a four-pronged approach in your training sessions.

By Michael Rosenthal

Q: While I have been working in L&D for several years, the combination of a promotion and a consolidation now demands that I facilitate soft-skills workshops, as well. I want my sessions to stand out, engage the audience, and result in knowledge transfer. Any tips?

July 17, 2012
Life Is What You Make It

Creating and maintaining a positive attitude is the most efficient and low-cost investment you can make to improve your life. A positive way of thinking is a habit that must be learned through repetition and conscious effort on your part.

By Liggy Webb, Founding Director, The Learning Architect

I am delighted that I will be doing a monthly online column for www.trainingmag.com, and I am looking forward each month to sharing with you positive and insightful information. My work as a presenter and writer takes me all over the place, and as an international consultant with the United Nations I go to some fascinating places.

July 6, 2012
The Art of Interviewing Like a Pro

Focusing on the needs of others is one of the secrets to mastering the interview process and landing great opportunities. If you can find out at the beginning of the conversation what the interviewer is hoping for in/from a new hire, the rest of the dialogue has a much higher probability of being useful and relevant.

By Michael B. Junge

June 27, 2012
How-To: Journal the Journey

Formalize the feedback loop by keeping a journal of what you do every day. Acknowledge what you did, how things are going, and where you plan to focus your attention next.

By Jason Womack, MEd, MA, Founder and CEO, The Jason Womack Company

We love to read about life. We talk about what happened, who’s doing what, and where people are going. One look at the newsstand in a bookstore or airport and the headlines of what people did compete for your attention!

June 15, 2012
What Business Acumen Can Do for You

Many people, even those with jobs that others think of as incredibly complex, view their business much like rocket science: a lot of complexity, hard-to-understand data and formulas, communications in a language that barely resembles English. Yet most of them wish they could more clearly understand the business of their business and how to help their companies perform better. What they seek is business acumen.

By Kevin Cope, Founder, Acumen Learning

Years ago a colleague of mine was consulting with a group of senior NASA managers at Cape Canaveral. He tried to explain, in simple terms, an organizational change strategy. The managers seemed confused. In an effort to clarify, he said, “Please don’t make this more complicated than it is. It’s not rocket science.” To which they sincerely answered, “We wish it were. We’d understand it better!”

June 11, 2012
Train to Last!

The reason so many of our attempts at improving ourselves fizzle is that we sabotage ourselves. Positive Intelligence is a measure of the percentage of time your mind is serving as opposed to sabotaging you. Unless your Positive Intelligence meets a critical threshold value, your self-sabotage will more than negate your attempts at self-improvement.

By Shirzad Chamine, Chairman, CTI

Billions of dollars are wasted on training and development each year. Within six months of most expensive trainings, whether meant to strengthen leadership skills, emotional intelligence, selling ability, or customer service, many participants can barely recount what they learned or point to what has changed.

June 5, 2012
Besting the Culture Challenge

The trouble when training abroad is that you can quickly lose your footing. You still have content knowledge, of course, but the forces of language, culture, religion, and learning styles can challenge your traditional training tricks and wreak havoc on your educational spider-sense.

By Tim Toterhi, Senior Director, Global Learning & Development, Quintiles

June 5, 2012
Leadership Development that Really Works

In the beginning, emerging leaders at Chick-fil-A would work diligently to pay attention to what more seasoned leaders said and did. And when senior leaders saw a young person exhibiting leadership tendencies, they would move to help them grow. But as the company grew, it realized it had outgrown the “emerging leaders should pay attention” phase. So began a leadership development journey that continues today.

By Mark Miller, VP, Organizational Effectiveness, Chick-fil-A

I’ve been selling chicken for more than 30 years and in the training profession for just over a decade. However, throughout my career, the question of leadership development has been ever present.

In the early days, we had a sophisticated process for leadership development. I call it emersion and osmosis. It was built on two tenants:

June 1, 2012
10 Tips for Leaders to Make Your Meetings GREAT!

Meetings matter. If done well, they multiply our time, increase our productivity, tap into the collective wisdom and creativity of the group, yield better decisions and better results. But most of the meetings we attend are not the model for productivity and efficiency. Here are 10 tips to help your team master a few basics for empowering your meetings.

By Mark Miller, Vice President, Organizational Effectiveness, Chick-fil-A

Meetings matter. If done well, they multiply our time, increase our productivity, tap into the collective wisdom and creativity of the group, yield better decisions and better results.

Let’s face it—most of the meetings we attend are not the model for productivity and efficiency. Done poorly, they are a colossal waste of time. Here are 10 tips to help your team master a few basics for empowering your meetings, starting today.

May 31, 2012
3 Steps to Support Virtual Teams

HR and talent management professionals can foster the success of virtual teams in their organizations through proper selection and training of virtual team talent, appropriate technology selection, and training programs designed to ensure virtual leaders possess the right combination of communications skills and business acumen.

By Meena Dorr, Director, Corporate Relations, MBA@UNC

May 29, 2012
How-To: Make Your Leadership Development Relevant, Viral

Developing your leaders to successfully negotiate the daily challenges of doing business has never been more critical and necessary—or more difficult. Here are a few keys to enabling your leaders to embrace new solutions and propagate them throughout the workplace.

By Brian Fishel, Chair, Best Practice Institute’s Senior Executive Board,and Louis Carter, Founder and CEO, Best Practice Institute

Developing your leaders to successfully negotiate the daily challenges of doing business has never been more critical and necessary—or more difficult. Here are a few keys to enabling your leaders to embrace new solutions and propagate them throughout the workplace.

May 29, 2012
Soapbox: Consultative Leadership

There are as many schools of thought about leadership as there are leaders. But in the larger view, one can say there are two basic types: leading “at” and leading “with.” And these two opposite models or sets of comprising actions can be called “Command and Control” and “Consultative Leadership.”

By Jim Hornickel, Director, Training & Development, Bold New Directions

There are as many schools of thought about leadership as there are leaders. But in the larger view, one can say there are two basic types: leading “at” and leading “with.” And these two opposite models or sets of comprising actions can be called “Command and Control” and “Consultative Leadership.”

May 29, 2012
World View: Focus on Norway

The educational standards in Norway are high. Norwegian employees welcome opportunities to learn and are generally attentive, hard-working trainees. Norwegians prefer a mix of training and learning methods: Lecture, group work, discussions, role-plays, and action learning are all common.

By Lyrae Myxter, Senior Marketing Advisor, EnCompass LLC

While there were human inhabitants in what we now know as Norway 10,000 years ago, the formation of the Norwegian nation began in the 10th century. Norway officially gained independence in 1905. It is now a prosperous country that, like other Scandinavian countries, combines a market-oriented economy with a guarantee of social welfare benefits.

May 24, 2012
Trends in HR Software: Implications for Learning

Recent trends such as integrated learning and talent management, mobile use, gaming theory, and learning software company acquisitions all have major implications for the training market.

By Dr. Katherine Jones, Director and Principal Analyst, HCM Technology, Bersin & Associates

As Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson, “the game’s afoot!” Sherlock implies excitement, intrigue, choices to be made—and risks to be run. For HR and learning professionals, we can easily suggest the same—the game is afoot as we face increasing change and innovation that has ramifications for the world of training.

May 16, 2012
Leading Virtual Teams

Leading virtual teams presents tough challenges, even with all the technological innovations available. The latest tools instantly can connect people across the globe, but dispersed teams still face a huge hurdle to success: building and sustaining effective working relationships. Here are five tips that can help.

By Beth O’Neill, Senior Consultant, Interaction Associates

Does the following scenario sound familiar? Rich is leading a Product Development team with members in Salt Lake City, New York, Zurich, and Hong Kong. To help focus the team and set goals, he convenes an online Web meeting. Most team members are joining via the Web and on the phone—except for Rich and three colleagues, who are in the same room in the New York office.

May 9, 2012
Fostering an Ownership Mentality

Discount Tire Company uses a roles-based management system that gives each assistant manager enhanced training opportunities by focusing each, in turn, on specific aspects of store operations. As each assistant rotates through the different management roles, each becomes more expert at his job and is, thus, a more effective manager. Even better, each spoke as if he were the owner of that operation.

By Michael Rosenbaum

It’s difficult to think of clipboards as an innovative training tool, but a visit to a local tire store reminded me that even the most basic tools can deliver strong impact.

In this case, the training system employed a roles-based management (RBM) style, a deceptively simple management training process employed by Discount Tire Company. I encountered RBM while researching the company for my book “Six Tires, No Plan,” a biography of company founder Bruce Halle.

May 8, 2012
How to Maximize Trade Show Exposure

Exhibiting in business-to-business shows requires different skills and approaches. The objective should be qualifying prospects, rather than selling. Here are tips for what to do before, during, and after a trade show to make the experience a worthwhile one for your business.

By Hank Moore, Corporate Strategist

The number of companies participating in trade shows increases each year. While sales objectives are most common, trade shows also may be behavior, product, distribution, or marketing oriented. Booth exhibitions are viable and cost-effective sales tools to:

April 18, 2012
Hiring: The Broken Process

The broken pieces of the hiring process result from inaccurate assumptions. We assume that if job candidates have 10 years of experience, they must know what they’re doing and are likely to succeed in the job to be filled. We also assume that off-the-shelf training will be effective for employees, regardless of their unique strengths and weaknesses.

By Herb Greenberg, Ph.D., Founder, Caliper Corporation

You’re looking to make a hire. So, you advertise “10 years of experience required.”

I cannot tell you how often I’ve asked groups to whom I’m speaking, “Why 10 years?  Why not eight or 12 years?” There is never a solid answer. 

April 11, 2012
Make “Value-Added” Really Valuable

The majority of salespeople make routine sales visits without thinking, “How am I going to earn their business?” and “How can I make my selling proposition so compelling that no one else will stand a chance?” That’s why it’s critical to focus on adding value to your repertoire, along with providing education for your clients. Focusing on these two areas will bring in huge increments of revenues.

By Bill Blades, CMC, CPS

Smart salespeople can earn more clients in five months by being interested in the success and happiness of others than in five years of getting clients interested in them. Yet, the majority of salespeople make routine sales visits without thinking, “How am I going to earn their business?” and “How can I make my selling proposition so compelling that no one else will stand a chance?”

January 12, 2012
Conference Highlight: Dan Pink on the Surprising Science of Motivation

Training 2012 Conference & Expo speaker Dan Pink is changing how we teach and lead by bridging the gap between scientific study and business practice.

How can you help clients and co-workers use the training you’ve spent hours preparing? Dan Pink, a Training 2012 Conference & Expo speaker, shares the surprising truth about what motivates us. This fascinating presentation covers everything from out-of-the-box thinking to economic reform—well worth watching!