Interpersonal Skills are a combination of affective and cognitive skills. They are a content type that doesn’t always make the lists of content types. At a big meeting of training, organizational development, and various other flavors of performance improvement professionals at a large Fortune 500 company, we had a little incident. Barry (not his real… Continue Reading
One of the little chores that can take time and be really tedious is figuring out timing for a workshop or event. Now that I see such an easy way to do this, I cannot believe the amount of time I’ve spent trying to estimate timing, then adjusting for one thing, then maybe adding or… Continue Reading
But wait! What if you don’t feel so independent… What if you feel like this? I have too many things hanging over my head… things that must be done…. In fact, I am a slave to my list. I can’t bear to look at the darn list, but it visits me in my dreams. Or,… Continue Reading
What do you do if you’re pretty sure people are going to hate a class, but they have to take it anyway? Here’s an example… I had to teach people who were losing their jobs how to coach the new people who would take over their work. (Yikes!) A big company (which shall remain nameless)… Continue Reading
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
The other morning I was on the verge of procrastinating by reading fascinating things on the Internet. Not that this would ever happen, but honestly, sometimes it does. Anyway, this little phrase came to me: “Occupy Your Time” Now, in the sense of filling up one’s time, the Internet is a willing ally. TV, too.… Continue Reading
Let’s say we’re on a project team. We haven’t worked together before. Maybe we normally work in different organizations. There’s important work to do, and we’re the ones to do it. Working Together Well Also, we have a clear goal to create something. Our work requires contributions from the whole team. Let’s make this go… Continue Reading
Part of a Series: Here’s Why I Love Content Types: And You Should, Too (Show How)—Practice, Practice, Practice—(Add Feedback) Psychomotor Skills. This is the physical stuff. Coordinated muscle movements. There are “fine” motor skills, like typing, suturing a wound, or filling a cavity and “gross” motor skills, like swinging a golf club, making gestures during… Continue Reading
Everyone says to design for your learners. And of course that’s essential. The Learners Are Ready, but Did We Think Enough About the Instructor? But sadly, the best-designed program in the world won’t work if the instructors-trainers-facilitators aren’t able to deliver it. Just because you could manage a complicated group activity, that doesn’t mean that the… Continue Reading
Working together over a distance, across time zones, across continents, is perfectly manageable for many projects. I’ve been on dozens of virtual teams that accomplished great work—sometimes without meeting quite a few of my teammates in person. Don’t Forget Team Members Who Are Out of Sight Still, some virtual teams work better than others. Here… Continue Reading
