Skip to content

Have Training: What Should We Measure?

Sooner or later, organizations responsible for providing learning & development opportunities have to decide whether to measure how they’re doing. It’s a great idea to use measures to… Improve what we offer (to do a better job) Prove that what we offer is worthwhile (show why we should keep our jobs) What shall I count… Continue Reading

Posted in instructional design, performance, training

August 22, 2014

A Business Essential: How to Say “No”

I was telling my Book Club friends about Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. They asked me if it’s one of those many business books that should really be an article. Kind of a fun and ironic question about a book that is all about doing less to achieve more. Behind This Screen: Tips for Saying… Continue Reading

Posted in healthy living, performance, productivity

August 12, 2014

What if Less Really Is More?

I keep seeing suggestions for living a fuller, richer life without quite so much in it. But also, there’s tremendous pressure for many people to constantly do more. I was talking with some leaders recently who said that they are bombarded by ever-changing priorities. Make this a priority, but then make that the priority. They… Continue Reading

Posted in healthy living, motivation, performance, productivity

July 22, 2014

Turning Mistakes into Coachable Moments

Rachel was all full of angst because Ken, another supervisor in the same department, was upset with her. (Wrongly, she felt.) Feedback and Coaching Without Thorns She was explaining the story to Abe, her manager (one of my favorites of all time), with a fair amount of drama on her part. For some reason, I… Continue Reading

Posted in learning, performance

June 27, 2014

Sexual Harassment Is Not a Training Problem

When I was at TRADOC (Army’s training HQ) recently, I had about a minute to explain that fixing the sexual harassment issue is (mostly) not a training problem. Prickly Pear Cactus, Coyote Creek Trail Meaning, you cannot fix a problem with sexual harassment and assault by making everybody take any amount of training. (This is true for… Continue Reading

Posted in instructional design, performance, training

June 6, 2014

I Want to Tell You About Stereotype Threats

Let’s say you belong to a group of people about whom there are common stereotypes. And let’s say that you are about to do something that is supposedly difficult for someone of your race or gender. Just before you start, someone reminds you that your group usually does less well at this kind of task.… Continue Reading

Posted in learning, performance

April 4, 2014

Seriously, It Is Not Always Training—Good Designers Get This

In some circles, the term instructional design elicits this kind of statement: “Oh, well, instructional design assumes that training is always the right answer. And of course we know that’s not true.” Not a Problem That Training Will Solve I ran into a version of this statement just the other day.  So I started to… Continue Reading

Posted in instructional design, learning, performance, training

March 25, 2014

Serious eLearning Manifesto

March 13 and something cool happened. What? Michael Allen, Julie Dirksen, Clark Quinn, and Will Thalheimer launched their eLearning Manifesto, with its 22 principles for designing better elearning. Lighting Up the eLearning World Why? Sadly, much of today’s elearning offerings are, well, terrible. How? They talked about it via a Google hangout, which was broadcast… Continue Reading

Posted in instructional design, learning, performance

March 14, 2014

Objectify This: A Brief History of SMART Criteria

If you’ve taken a management class or read a productivity blog or two, you’ve probably run into the idea of writing SMART objectives. SMART most commonly stands for “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.” SMART Basics. We want to write clear, helpful objectives. We should state exactly what we decided to do (Specific), and by… Continue Reading

Posted in motivation, performance, productivity

January 21, 2014

4 Steps to Making Things Better—The Nutshell Version

Sitting with people who have big brains, talking about wide-ranging problems, sometimes there’s floundering. The conversation goes this way and that, with lots of good points made, but little hope of arriving at a plan for action anytime soon. Here are four questions you can use to move the conversation toward a solution that you’re… Continue Reading

Posted in instructional design, performance, productivity

January 17, 2014