The concepts of talent management and performance management sound great in theory: simplified processes that align employee development with the goals of the organization; employee grows, organization becomes more efficient, everybody wins and a workday at your office has become the physical manifestation of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Okay, so that’s a little unrealistic, but as exaggerated as that was, it’s still the general idea behind employee development. When theory meets reality, however, the end-product may not be the harmonious John Lennon Fantasy Office I like to think administrators and executives dream about at night.

At its core, the driving force of any development program is engagement. Employees have to not only participate in these programs, but actually care about the input and feedback they provide (for example, “I did well this quarter,” compared to “I was able to meet goals A, B and C, which resulted in a quantifiable success of X for the company and me”). But it’s not that easy to get employees to participate in this value-added manner, and it’s a mistake to think that the “what’s in it for you” spiel is the magical panacea to your engagement woes.

To know how to drive employee engagement, you must first put yourself in the employee’s shoes and ask how implementing a new development strategy will impact their day-to-day routine. So what are the additional engagement barriers you should be aware of?

·         “You’re messing up my daily routine.” Some people tend to be creatures of habit who don’t like changes to the system or structure of their workday.

·         “You’re taking time away from me being able to do my job.” Surprisingly enough, most employees do actually want to get their work done. By pulling them away from their current duties to work on something they see no immediate value in, especially when their job is deadline-driven, you’re creating dissonance regarding what you want out of them.

·         “Here we go again…” If your company has tried (or employees tried in a previous job) initiatives that required employee engagement before and wasn’t successful, you’ll have a hard time selling them that this time will be different.

If those are the barriers, how do you break them down and help your employees see the proverbial light? Well like most organizational matters, it starts at the top and works its way down. It may come down to taking a hands-on approach for the first run through of your development program. The best thing you can do is lead by example. You can tell me all day long what’s in it for me, but if I don’t see you doing it, then I have no reason to think you’re being honest about why I have to do it. You can't expect to sell employees on something you haven't sold yourself on.

I can't help it. I'm almost forty years old, and I love watching “Phineas and Ferb.” Yes, it's a children's cartoon. Yes, it's a little bizarre. Yes, it features a secret-agent platypus. But it's grown on me like mold on cheese, and I cannot contain my ruminations on the show any longer. First, a little background for those of you unfamiliar with the show: The title characters are creative, late-elementary school-aged step-brothers who can build anything…and do. Their goal is to make each day of summer vacation a spectacular one to remember. Each episode begins with a problem and revolves around the boys engineering an other-worldly solution (building a roller coaster, spaceship, clones of themselves, etc.). 

The "B" plot always revolves around Perry, the boys' pet platypus, who works in the aforementioned secret agent role to thwart the inventions of the evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz. The show is more formulaic than algebra, but that's part of its charm. Each episode ends with Dr. Doofenshmirtz' invention destroying all evidence of the boys' project, much to the chagrin of their older sister, who expends all of her energies trying to "bust" her brothers and show her mom what they've been doing.

It's a fun and funny show, and as I said it grows on you, especially once you start to get the silly conventions. But this is not a TV review; it's a musing on building and maintaining high-performing teams. We know it's not rocket science, but it can be daunting. As with anything else, when you've got information overload, it's hard to know where to begin. Getting back to basics isn't a bad start. What better way to do so than to take a few tried-and-true clues from some high-performing kids! Here are three things that struck me about the show:

1. People make things happen when they're positive. From a parental perspective, I was very pleased to note how incredibly positive this show is.  No matter the situation, the protagonists are optimistic. Every complication becomes a new challenge, welcomed as if it were a feature and not a bug. On the flip side, their sister spends all of her time pursuing a negative agenda, trying to bring Phineas and Ferb down. Best case scenario... it works. Worst case, you've spent all your time being angry, with nothing to show for it, and you may have missed out on a lot of fun along the way. This sets a great example not just for kids, but for adults as well.

2. You have heroes everywhere. Perry the Platypus saves the world in every episode, but nobody knows it. As Phineas says, "He's a platypus. He doesn't do much." While your employees may not be playing cloak-and-dagger to stop an evil scientist from, say, covering your city in tinfoil, or causing every building in the world to lean so that the Leaning Tower of Pisa would no longer be special, they may be saving your company in ways you never expected and will likely never know about, which is perhaps the real "evil" in corporate America today. Who are the Perry the Platypuses in your company? What are you doing to acknowledge them?

3. Know what you're gonna do today. When the main plot complication is revealed, Phineas' solution is not far behind. "Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today!" is the phrase that sets the brothers in motion on their adventure du jour and provides a singular focus for their ambitions for the rest of the day. It's amazing how often we adults lack this focus in our daily work. Too often we have a vague idea of what we're going to "work on" today, a notion that becomes ever dimmer as we get buffeted about on waves of email, meetings, and instant messages, all essentially pulling us to do something else. Therefore, I propose The Ferb Challenge. Take two minutes while you load up on coffee and your computer boots-up to verbalize to someone (anyone) the one thing you're going to get done today. If you've got a big project, do your best to define exactly which pieces you're going to get done. Tell your boss, your dog, or your mom. Yell it, whisper it, or Tweet it. Doesn’t matter how or to whom- just do it, and hold yourself accountable.

OK, so this post was a bit gimmicky, but you read it, didn't you? Hope it was worth a few minutes of your time. Now what are you waiting for? What are you gonna do today?

In part 1 of the series, we saw how bad performance reviews can be reflected in our New Year's resolutions. This week, we'll see how to start using employee-manager best practices to improve your own goals.  With a few simple lessons from what makes a good performance review, you can turn your New Year’s disappointments into New Year’s accomplishments.

1.       Take Time and Careful Thought to Create Your Goals

A goal that is hastily made without much thought is not a goal, it is a compromise.  Think critically about what you want and need to accomplish in the coming year.  What is going to make my life, family, company better?  No more sandbagging or safety goals.  Challenge yourself to become smarter, healthier and a better person.

2.       Create SMART Goals

This sounds obvious in business, but your personal goals should meet this criteria.  Create goals that are measurable and can be broken down into manageable chunks.  Instead of “exercising more”, make your goal to go to the gym three times a week for at least thirty minutes.  If your goal is big, like going back to get an MBA, do the same.  Start with studying for the GMAT, set a test date, begin filling out your application.  You will ultimately find that this BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) is really a series of small, individually manageable tasks.

3.       Document Track Your Goal Progress Every Week

At Google, the weekly 1-on-1 with your manager is critical to the company’s success.  The same should be done with your personal goals.  Review them every week.  What did you do in the last week to meet your goals, what do you need to do in the next week to meet your goals.  If you keep these goals on your radar for 52 weeks, you might be surprised just how well you do.

As in business, your personal goals should be important to you. Just as committing to your organizational goals will contribute to your company’s bottom line and improve your career, doing the same in your personal life will improve your confidence and quality of life.  Whether your goal is as simple as living a healthier lifestyle or as challenging as going back for your MBA, you can take some of these simple steps to help you get there.

Good luck in 2012, and Happy New Year.

As we approach the holiday season and the New Year, I cannot help but think of the many things that make this time of year great: bowl games, time with family, my Bob Dylan Christmas album.

I am also reminded of the things that make this season annoying: cheap champagne, shopping and realizing that another year has passed me by.  It is the Resolution that I want to discuss with you today.  Too often, we allow our New Year’s Resolution to fall victim to many of the pitfalls we see in a bad performance review.

Last Minute Self-Evaluation and Personal Reflection
Every New Year, I make a personal inventory: what am I good at, what do I need to improve, what do I want to accomplish this year? 

Think about preparing for your annual review.  You scramble to come up with self-promoting talking points or areas for improvement that you intend to actually come across as strengths (“sometimes I spend too much time at the office”).  Eventually you sandbag a few vague, ubiquitous goals.

The bottom line: in both cases you are hastily preparing for the Ball to Drop, a little like getting ready for an annual performance review with Ryan Seacrest.

Uncomfortable Assessment of the Last Year
Those last 10 seconds are the longest and least comfortable of the year, like the days and hours leading to your year-end review.  What did I do this year?  Or worse, what were last year’s goals?  As tens of millions of people across the Eastern Time zone count down with me, I am thoroughly disappointed with the reminders of what I should have done better.

Ultimately you admit that you could have committed more time and effort to last year’s goals, but so much has changed since then and so many other, higher priority things got in the way.  You accept failure and you move on.

Half-Hearted Agreement on Next Year’s Goals
5…4…3… 

As the time counts down you think of the coming year and what you need to do.  Can I run more often?  Eat healthier?  Talk to my parents more often?  Increase revenue, customer satisfaction?  In those final seconds, you manage to agree that these are your goals.  They are challenging on the surface, but they are safe because they will be accepted by your friends and co-workers, yet vague enough that no one can be disappointed in you when you fail.

364 Days Avoiding my Half-Hearted Goals
You made it, another year behind you.  You celebrate with your friends with too much cheap champagne that tastes a bit like low-grade carbonated anti-freeze.  You spend a few weeks trying to commit to your new goals.  You run several times a week.  You eat salads for lunch.  You call your mom and dad.  But as you sink into the daily grind, things get in the way and you stop going to the gym, you get back to burgers at noon, and get too busy to

make a call home.  Like every year before, your New Year’s resolution is officially pronounced dead before it has a chance to make an impact.

How do you fix this endless cycle? Tune in next week to find out!

First let me just say- I’m a chick. A chick who loves anything clothing and shopping related. A girl who’s style and tastes can change as often as the Kardashians’ rag mag headlines.  As I was surfing fashion blog land, I came across the history of the Little Black Dress (LBD).  The LBD: a ubiquitous go-to staple of any woman’s clothing arsenal.  Words like “long-lasting,” “timeless,” “essential” and “appreciated by the masses” consistently materialized as I scanned the origin of this long-standing wardrobe champion. 

Being the dedicated and engaged employee that I am, I started to think about how this relates to our clients, their own elearning programs and the best ways to create a successful program– a difficult and time-consuming task at times– but there are steadfast best practices that I always speak to our clients about.  One practice that I’m a particular stickler about is spelling out the WIIFM (the “what’s in it for me”) for your employees. Cue the light bulb and accompanying orchestral music and I’m thunderstruck with this thought- WIIFM is the LBD of marketing your elearning program!

In order for any client to get ROI on their elearning investment, it is crucial to develop a marketing strategy surrounding your learning program.  This strategy can include anything from awareness messaging, rewards and recognition initiatives, or custom training portals.  But one success staple that cannot be ignored is the WIIFM.  Just as the LBD is the go-to item in a large closet of options, identifying the WIIFM is any manager’s must-do first step when strategizing a marketing program.

It is imperative that employees ultimately understand what’s in it for them.  As you are creating your marketing campaign for your learning program, you must ask yourself a few questions:

·         Why is it important that an employee uses elearning?

·         What is a user’s motivation to drive his/her development? 

·         Who’s paying attention– who will recognize the user for his/her efforts?

·         Why should an employee care?

These sound like no-brainer questions, but you’d be surprised how often they are overlooked.  Be clear, specific and honest about how an employee will be impacted by using your learning program.  Authenticity in your messaging will go a long way. Take it a step further and have a well respected leader deliver the message.  It is important that the message is more than the mommy mantra of “because I said so.”  No one will buy into superficiality. Employees need a good reason to use the content.

Feel free to incorporate the answers to these questions into other initiatives like cash rewards and such, but the rule remains the same:  If the WIIFM isn’t solid, then it doesn’t matter what you do to the rest of your marketing program.  Anyone can gussy-up a simple black dress with baubles and bling, but the foundation is still the same. The additional pizzazz is nice, but if the foundation is flawed, so is the entire outfit. 

If you grab users’ attention up front and consistently reiterate the WIIFM throughout your campaign with awareness messaging and recognition programs, you’ll undoubtedly experience the ROI you seek in the long run. The WIIFM is fundamental in driving any learning program just as the LBD is a must-have garment to any savvy woman’s wardrobe. 

This post was written by MindLeaders courseware developer Bill Swann.

Have you ever had to take a course, attend a seminar or just simply have to listen to someone speak who quite frankly did not know how to convey their “expertise” in a clear and effective manner? Whether it was a bad high school teacher or an over-their-head conference speaker, I would bet just about all of us have. It can be difficult to listen to these people, let alone actually retain any of the information they tried to impart to you.

As a course developer with MindLeaders, I have to constantly be mindful of this. While recently revamping our sexual harassment compliance courses, I had to rethink and evaluate some of the basic learning design elements in the course in order to make it as effective as it could be.

The tendency with many course videos is to choose the extreme example to best illustrate their point. This is often the case when it comes to sexual harassment courses. Scenes typically suffer from severe overacting or just plain poor acting and give the very real impression of unreality. This doesn’t help anyone, as many of the most obvious examples are just that: obvious. The black-and-white is easy to understand, it’s the gray area that people need help with.

So how do you help compliance trainees to understand the gray areas? There are three critical points to consider any time you’re trying to teach someone anything:

·         Real-life examples. The simple act of hearing someone talk about his or her experience carries much more emotional impact, than acted-out scenarios.  It also makes room for the time factor that is missing with typical video vignettes -- e.g., someone can talk about experiences that evolved over time as opposed to one isolated scenario.

·         Short and sweet. Don’t spend too much time presenting in one format. Varying content with interactivity will keep the learner’s attention.

·         Engagement.  Lead with a hook. It's a way of tossing the learner something different in the early going to catch their attention. For example, with sexual harassment compliance training some experienced trainers have noted the tendency of students (especially male students) to respond more strongly when told about cases in which a male was the victim of sexual harassment.

Of course, these ideas apply to a lot more than just elearning courses. The same principles that govern this learning design philosophy work just as well when giving almost any kind of presentation. What other factors do you think make for more effective learning?

Being a part of the elearning industry these past years, I know the value of managers who embrace and help drive a training program of any kind. Because I want the clients I work with to have successful programs, I’ve always stressed the importance of manager buy-in without much considering alternative points of view…until recently, that is.

After attending the Best Practices & Solutions User Group Conference held at MindLeaders headquarters here in Columbus, Ohio, I had some conversations that made me reconsider my views on the matter. I recognized that in order to understand ways to help develop and execute a better strategy, it would be beneficial to gain a fuller understanding not only of their employee culture but also of their manager culture. Within the manager culture there are often two distinctive approaches to training and development:

Manager Buy-in is when a manager believes training should be driven by the goals of the company. The manager believes employee training and development will help his or her bottom line. The manager embraces it by having conversations with employees where training needs are discussed and the pursuit of training is highly encouraged.

Manager Endorsement is when a manager believes training should be driven by the individual employee. The manager believes that it is up to the employee to recognize and drive their own development needs, offering guidance only on occasion.

It was a client of mine, Gabriel Urrea at Esurance, who helped me to understand that these two methods aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive and that there is a real purpose for the use of both strategies at any given time. Gabriel reminded me that training has many purposes in an organization, from technical process that have timelines, to simply making training available for general development.

The purpose and goal of training must be clear and the limits or conditions must be understood by all. Most companies have multiple goals and purposes for training and sometimes they are in conflict. The real problem is when an organization picks one strategy (buy-in versus endorsement) as the only strategy.

As a manager, what would you do if you had an employee who sought training that did not align properly with or was even contrary to the goals of your department? Do you have your people’s goals in writing? Do you know if they align? If their individual goals align with overall business objectives and department goals, then endorsing their training efforts will ultimately help you in the long run.

What do you have for the brand new, never-been-before employee or supervisor with little or no experience? This person may not be aware of the training they themselves need in order to be fully-equipped and effective in their role. They don’t know what they don’t know, so they don’t know what training will help. What is the behavior they need in order to exhibit success? In this particular illustration, the manager endorsement strategy would not work simply because as managers, we need to understand what it is our employees may be new to and guide them into the training they need to be successful. After the employee has the basics, it is up to the employee then to continue to drive that path, as long as it is aligned with company and department goals.

So as you are developing a strategy keep in mind that you may not want to adopt or enforce just one. Your strategy must support the goal and each goal may call for a separate strategy. Alignment then becomes an ongoing process, and a good strategy is only as effective as its execution.

What’s the difference between getting things done and getting things done right? It might seem like an easy answer to many of you with a managerial perspective: Results- the bottom line. But that's a little too general. That’s how we evaluate how well a job is done, but it doesn't speak to how the job gets done well. Allow me to explain…

At some point in the distant past, some philosopher or generally observant person somewhere said something along the lines of, “Everything starts with a thought.” Taking that seemingly-obvious statement to heart, that’s where our discussion of the genesis of success should begin: In the minds of individuals (specifically, employees), and how they think, learn and develop.

Some of you may be familiar with the methodology of learning called Bloom’s Taxonomy. It’s taken as religion in some sectors, but in 2001 it was given an upgrade for the digital age. Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy accounts for how people think, learn and develop in the ever-increasing presence of technology, specifically the Internet. So what does this digital development process entail? Glad you asked:

·         Remembering (low-order thinking, or LOT)

·         Understanding

·         Applying

·         Analyzing

·         Evaluating

·         Creating (high-order thinking, or HOT)

Think of the “Creating” level as the objective. If you are cognitively capable of executing at the previous levels, you will, in theory, be intelligent enough on the given topic/subject to produce your own thoughts on it (that’s a base-level explanation, but it will do for our purposes).

So now that you have been thoroughly schooled in the way of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, we can go back to the original question of this post: What’s the difference between doing a job and doing a good job? According to BDT, it’s the line between applying and analyzing. It’s one thing to do something (an extreme example, but think of a drone) and quite another to know why you did it, where it succeeded or failed, and how to create something new from that knowledge.

This is the line between success and the status-quo, not just for the individual, but for the organization. It’s critical for everyone to understand the why and how of what they do in order to do it effectively and adjust to the dynamics of their industry.

Like many things in life, one answer begs another question. How do you bridge that gap between low-order thinking and high-order thinking? In some cases, the organizational culture will either facilitate or inhibit this leap. In the case of many individuals, HOT isn’t inherent- it needs to be taught. You need to make sure you have the development and training resources that will instill this thought process as a natural part of the way employees do their job. Achievement isn’t driven by doers; it’s driven by creators- high-order thinkers (HOT)- and that’s what you need your employees to be.

You may or may not have heard, but the job market and economy aren’t in the greatest shape right now. Needless to say, this could be troublesome for those of you seeking employment or considering a career change. Despite the recent woes in many U.S. job markets, there is still hope. Statistics released by Jones Lang LaSalle show job growth in the high tech market is 4 times the national average. Times being what they are, it’s not a bad time to consider the benefits of transitioning to a career in information technology. So what are some of the benefits the IT field offers?

Specialization options. From support to networking to software development, IT professionals have a variety of options when it comes to areas of specialization. Naturally, you can increase your credentials by specializing in more than one field.

Location options. With nearly every business maintaining an online presence and moving to digital storage of all of its paperwork, you can look for an IT job in just about any city you want. Recently, Business Week released a list of the 10 cities with the biggest growth in tech jobs.

Room for growth in the industry. The world is showing no signs of regression regarding technology. As more advances are made, more opportunities will become available to you.

In demand. Tying into the previous points, IT assistance is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity for businesses. They need qualified people to help them in a variety of way, from development to maintenance.

With the economy in a constant state of limbo, it’s important to keep your options open, and right now, IT appears to be the best option job-seekers have going for them.

Mike Larsen is Product Manager for Talent Development at MindLeaders

The other day I was contemplating a "big idea." Truth be told, I have no recollection of what the idea was, as I promptly forgot it. I was leaning back in my office chair, as I like to do when I think "big thoughts," and noted again the torn foam padding on the chair's arms, and my thoughts went in another direction. Namely that I had just finished thirteen years with MindLeaders and it occurred to me that I've had this chair since Day One. It's broken-in just the way I like it, and fantastically comfortable. So in six offices and in two buildings over thirteen years, I've sat in this chair. I started thinking about the number of hours I've been in it, allowing for the fact that half of any given day is spent in meetings, and came up with a conservative calculation that exceeded 10,000 hours.

That number struck me, as it might strike many, as having special meaning. In Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, he makes the case that success in a given field generally takes 10,000 hours of work (I'm oversimplifying, but that's the magic number).  However, I also recalled Geoff Colvin's subsequent book, Talent is Overrated, which built upon Gladwell's premise. Colvin argues that it's not so much the hours, but how you're spending those hours. "Deliberate practice" is the art of maximizing those hours such that you are able to monitor and continuously improve upon your performance.

This is not an easy thing, for two main reasons. First is the planning discipline and knowledge involved in "practicing" your work. Top performers isolate minute pieces of their work and devise ways of intently practicing each. Second is the ability to look objectively and critically at one's own performance, to provide necessary feedback into your "practice" loop. Practicing without this feedback is a waste of time. As we know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity. The best performers are those who know what they are trying to do, can see what they did wrong, make adjustments, and repeat again, and again, and again.

How well did I spend my time in my chair? In the above context, far from optimally. But the rearview mirror is overrated. The better question is how can I best spend my next 10,000 hours? Whether you're on your 100th or 20,000th hour in your chair, are you making the most of it?