September / October 2012

By Margery Weinstein

By Margery Weinstein When Medtronic, Inc., a Minneapolis-based provider of medical technology, needed a way to give high-potential employees a sense of teamwork under pressure, it turned to simulation technology. The company incorporated a team-based leadership simulation from Enspire Learning into its Emerging Leader Program (ELP) that creates insights on personal leadership styles. It also allows emerging leaders to practice cross-functional teamwork that deals with ambiguity under time pressure, communication across the enterprise, and making strategic trade-offs.

By Lorri Freifeld Companies such as FedEx, The Hartford, and Union Pacific offer some of their leaders the opportunity to climb Mt. Everest. But the trek does not require parkas, ice axes, or karabiners. Nor will participants feel the least bit cold. They must, however, make life-and-death decisions about who gets how much oxygen, correctly calculate the weather when the weather station is knocked out, and determine what to do when one of the team begins to experience hypothermia.

By Margery Weinstein

Training magazine taps 2012 Training Top 125 winners and Top 10 Hall of Famers to provide their learning and development best practices in each issue. Here, we look at strategies to foster technology innovation and implementation and onboarding. TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION By Lou Tedrick, SVP-Workforce Development, Verizon A chef eats the food she prepares. A mechanic fixes his own car. An accountant balances her own checkbook. And at Verizon, employees use the technology they sell.

By Gail Dutton

By Gail Dutton IT departments can’t ensure data security. Despite firewalls and anti-virus and anti-malware applications, cybersecurity experts say most computer systems already are infected, and there’s little IT administrators can do to prevent it. That’s the biggest surprise non-IT employees experience during computer security training. “Non-IT employees think cybersecurity isn’t their problem...and that IT has taken care of it,” notes Prenston Gale, director of information security for Dynamics Resource

By Peter Post It’s 1:50 p.m., and you’re starting to feel uncomfortable. The meeting you’re in was scheduled for 1 to 2 p.m. But there is no end in sight, and you have a meeting scheduled for 2 to 3 p.m. with your team to finalize a project that is due at the end of the week. Back-to-back meetings are a scourge to businesspeople. Managers share their experiences and frustration with back-to-back meetings with me, so I often offer this scenario as a problem-solving exercise in business etiquette seminars for new hires.

By Roy Saunderson As we scour the Internet, study research journals, and review the latest leadership and learning and development books, it is easy to get a little overwhelmed about where to focus and how we can best make a difference in the workplaces we serve in.

By Neal Goodman, Ph.D.