CIASTD Monthly Newsletter

I can speak to this one as a former regional manager of a training and development function in a major organization. As the organization hit a tight spot, “training and development” was the first area to feel the budget squeeze and was the first area to get eliminated (my position included. First step, go from 5 regions to 3).

How often have you heard this story and why is it so often the case? I believe - and this is my own observation, so feel free to take issue with me - that we are frequently our own worst enemies. My experience has been that training and development is perceived by many (especially those who hold the budget and make decisions) as a function that is full of fluff and doesn’t contribute to the bottom line. In many cases, we do not do much to disabuse those people of that perception.

How many times have you seen people who - as they design training - are concerned about how much “fun” is built into the training? I heard one relatively new trainer make a comment at a CIASTD meeting a few years ago that she always made sure she had some games built into her training. My sense is that the decision makers don’t always perceive fun and games as creating leverage for the bottom line.

I won’t even go into evaluation, but I’ll ask a rhetorical question or two to provoke some thought before I move on. How significant a part of your training evaluations is the question about whether or not participants “enjoyed” the training, and how much does the enjoyment factor correlate to good training? If you’ve moved beyond that, excellent; if not, you might want to rethink your evaluation practices.

So much for that rant, it’s something I needed to get out of my system. Having said all that, I am very pleased that ASTD has taken steps to get us (I realize that’s a huge generalization) out of that mode in the way that the Competency Model is constructed.

There are three broad competency areas that form the Foundation level of the competency pyramid. They are Interpersonal, Personal, and Business Management. I believe that including Business Management competencies in the foundation of our workplace learning professional competency model is a huge step forward.

The economy is on the upswing and my sense is that companies are getting back into the mode of providing training and development. I know that segment of my business is picking up significantly. That could lull some of us into thinking that the good times are back.

But just as all the New Economy of the 90s did was to validate all the rules of the Old Economy (the internet just made it all move faster), there will come another down turn and we’ll see T&D getting whacked out of budgets again, unless collectively we improve our Business Acumen skills and raise ourselves to the level of strategic partners with the decision makers in Corporate America.

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March Meeting

Capturing Individual Spirit for Greater Productivity
Thursday, March 24 (Note the date change!)

By Erin Denney, Facilitator Staff Member

Join us for the upcoming March meeting with the program “Capturing Individual Spirit for Greater Productivity.” Presenting will be Julie Thompson, business consultant from the United Kingdom. Andrea Moore, Global Manager of Learning and Development for Premier Farnell plc, will be supporting. The presentation will run from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., with a cranberry juice cocktail networking session starting at 7:30 a.m.
Explore the true essence and meaning of human performance improvement by understanding who we really are and what we want. Using our new self-awareness enables us to recognize the same essence in others and to connect with them in a new way. It shows us how when we see and think differently. We act differently and that this is what produces outstanding results in our lives. Bringing this together in practice; you will learn how to help your colleagues to see the bigger picture and to experience their own value, purpose, and meaning as part of the organization’s strategy and vision.

Cost for the program is $25 for members, $35 for non-members, and $15 for students. There is, however, an additional $5 fee for walk-in registrations. You can register at the CIASTD website by clicking on the following link: Register Now!

The meeting will be held at Junior Achievement, 7435 N. Keystone Ave., Indianapolis, IN. Please note that the meeting is on a Thursday rather than a Friday, due to Good Friday.

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February Meeting Recap

Beyond PowerPoint: Designing Effective Materials
Friday, February 25

The February meeting featured a program called, “Beyond PowerPoint: Designing Effective Materials.” It was presented by Jennifer Dzwonar, Vice President at Borshoff Johnson Matthews.

Your supporting materials should be as dynamic as your presentation! PowerPoint has become both a blessing and a curse. In this workshop, participants will be able to determine the most effective visual aids and materials to use for their presentations and they learned how to create effective PowerPoint presentations, and design compelling and attractive visual aids – on a small budget, in little time and without an army of graphic designers.

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Member Profile

Sam Thompson
Profiled by Karen Zwick

Sam Thompson is a Regional Director of LantzQuest Preferred Partners, a division of LantzQuest Performance Strategies. LantzQuest Performance Strategies is a full-service human potential company. They partner with corporations and individuals to assist them in maximizing more of their potential. Since its inception, LantzQuest has worked with over 100 companies from 22 different industries.

The LantzQuest Preferred Partner program is offered to select companies, such as PEOs, staffing, HR services, accounting, business planning and related businesses. The partnership allows these companies to expand their service offering to include professional training and coaching without adding infrastructure and overhead to their business.

Sam earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue University and a Certificate in Human Performance Improvement from ASTD through their partnership with IUPUI.

Sam is an active member of CIASTD. He is currently serving as the VP of Finance on the CIASTD Board of Directors.

Sam has 13 years of experience in the financial services industry where he held positions including individual contributor – broker, leadership/management, and training roles.

When asked to suggest good reading, he recommends The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Sam said, “It’s a very powerful book that introduces four basic agreements to follow to transform lives. It promotes personal freedom and accountability for the choices we make as individuals. It emphasizes that we hold the power to choose and create our present and future.”

Sam’s favorite website is http://www.businessballs.com. He finds this website to be a great resource for stories, quotes, games, and information that is entertaining and relevant to training and development.

Sam’s advice for new professionals:

Spend time thinking about what you really want and then build a plan that will get you there. Allow enough flexibility to change the plan to take advantage of opportunities and shifts that will inevitably occur.
Few people become successful without the help of others. Obtain assistance building and executing your plan. Find a coach and utilize him, or her, to get the maximum benefit. Network and seek out people that have experienced success on the path you select.
No amount of money, prestige or security is ever worth sacrificing your character or happiness. If ever in a situation that does not match your beliefs or who you are, take action to change it immediately.

Sam resides in Fishers with his wife, Jennifer, daughter, Mackenzie, and son, Sammy IV.

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Books in Review

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots:
A Bullfighter’s Guide
By Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, and Jon Warshawsky
Review by Jay McNaught

This book practices what it preaches. It advocates clear and concise business communications that is free from jargon. The book is written in a straight-forward manner that is entertaining and conveys a sense of humor. The reader knows something special is in store when the book begins with a dedication to Mr. T. According to the dedication, Mr. T said it best, “Don’t gimme none of that jibba-jabba.”

It discusses the obscurity trap, the anonymity trap, the hard-sell trap, and the tedium trap. Throughout the book, samples are presented from real-world business writing that does an excellent job of illustrating these traps. Here is a sample the authors offer illustrating the use of jargon:

Platform Symphony is a leading enterprise-class software that distributes and virtualizes compute-intensive application services and processes across existing heterogeneous IT resources creating a shared, scaleable, and fault-tolerant infrastructure, delivering faster, more reliable application performance while reducing cost (2005, p. 24).

The authors quip, “Clearly they are targeting the impulse buyer for heterogeneous enterprise-class fault tolerant thingies” (2005, p. 24).

One point in the book really jumped out at me, “… press releases seem to show that the more time is spent on a message, the worse it gets” (2005, p. 12). The authors attribute this to the number of editing and review cycles. I have personally witnessed this phenomenon when I ask for suggestions on communications I draft at work. I am convinced that if I let enough people edit and review a communication, it would eventually say nothing!

I particularly enjoyed the research the authors conducted for this book. They called it the “Starbucks Study.” Their approach was simple. They hung out a Starbucks and showed people various writing samples. “One was straight and clear, the other was typical corporate speak – full of bull” (2005, pg. 17). After the participants read the samples, they were asked to pick words that best described each sample from a list of adjectives. From this study the authors concluded that straight and clear communication is superior to communication that is full of bull. This study has given me inspiration for my own doctoral research.

Overall, this is a solid book that makes excellent observations about communication. It offers practical advice on how communication can be improved. I highly recommend this book for anyone who needs to communicate in business (and who doesn’t?).

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New Members

In each issue of The Facilitator, we will list members that have joined or re-joined CIASTD since the previous issue. Since the last issue of The Facilitator, we have had these new members.

Sue Amyx
Todd Harrison
Tracy Laycock
Cynthia McCorkle
Anglea Downey
Daniel Wilson
Michelle Prieb
Ann Willoughby
John Robinson
Crissy Goode
Melanie McCarter
Linda Potts
Adam Stedman

If you are a member of CIASTD, and would like access to the complete membership list, it is available on our web site at www.ciastd.com.

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