By Dan Johnson

Sustaining Improved Performance

In the malaise so common in today’s workplace, how do we engage employees in their work? How do we sustain their improved performance after a training or leadership development initiative?

A recent study published in Fast Company magazine highlights an interesting condition in today’s workforce. The study measured how engaged employees were in their work. The study results indicated that 29% of employees are engaged in their work, a staggering 55% are not engaged in their work, and 16% are actively disengaged! Given the state of our workforce today, how likely is it that employees in your training program sustain improved performance once the training program is over? What can you do to ensure that your training or performance improvement intervention “sticks?"

Here are some suggestions to ensure your training or performance improvement initiative results in sustained improvement for employees:

1. Ensure the training or performance improvement initiative is aligned with business needs and goals.
2. Ensure job expectations are aligned with the business need and goal.
3. Ensure the job is the right “fit” for the employee.
4. Integrate appropriate reward and reinforcement mechanisms. This includes formal performance management systems as well as informal feedback from supervisors.
5. Involve supervisors in the training or performance improvement initiative. Obtain their buy-in and agreement to recognize, reward, and support the improved performance of their employees. Hold supervisors accountable for rewarding and reinforcing improved performance of employees.
6. Use positive reinforcement. This technique not only rewards employees for doing what is expected, it also motivates them to go beyond what is required and instills employee commitment and loyalty. The employee’s supervisor and peers should be encouraged to use positive reinforcement when an employee exhibits desired behavior or improved performance.
7. Incorporate coaching into your interventions. Provide participants in training or performance improvement programs with 1-4 coaching sessions at the beginning and end of the intervention. The coaching component helps participants identify relevant ways they can use skills learned in training, develop clear goals and actions with respect to the training, and identify factors that may hinder the application of their new skills. Participants are held accountable by their coach for applying what they have learned in training programs, becoming aware of how the new skills work (or don't work) for them and creating new habits of using these skills. Coaching sessions can be in person or on the phone and often last 30 minutes or less. Coaching sessions can also be done one-on-one or in a group setting (such as a group meeting or group teleconference).

There are a number of studies that document the value that coaching can bring to a training program. For example, Xerox Corporation carried out several studies on coaching. They determined that in the absence of follow-up coaching to their training classes, 87% of the skills change brought about by the program was lost. (BUSINESS WIRE, July 30, 2001.) In another study reported in Public Personnel Management Journal, 31 managers that underwent a managerial training program showed an increased productivity of 22.4%. However, a second group was provided coaching following the training process and their productivity increased by 88%.

Think about the training and performance improvement interventions that you are in charge of. How many of these techniques are you using to sustain improved performance of participants? I encourage you to implement at least three of these techniques and even add some more of your own. You’ll not only sustain the performance of employees, but you’ll strengthen your professional credibility and enhance your value to your client or organization.

Dan is the founder and president of Performance Mastery. He has been in the field of performance improvement for more than 16 years and has gained extensive experience in management and leadership development, executive and personal coaching, training, and career development.

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1. 1. Jointly discuss and set performance improvement goals with employees to identify specifically how training can and should be applied to the job.
2. Meet with the employee before and after training to encourage and support use of the training.
3. Provide employee with an opportunity to use new learning soon after training.
4. Identify and remove any barriers that prevent the employee from using the training.
5. Enable the employee to conduct a briefing or teaching session based on their new learning.

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Six Sigma at Roche Diagnostics

At the August CIASTD meeting, attendees learned about Six Sigma. Three presenters from Roche Diagnostics gave an interactive presentation about Six Sigma at Roche. The presenters were: Jeanette Riedle, Deployment Champion; Deirdre Gengenbach, Master Black Belt; and Melanie McCarter, Black Belt and Trainer.

They began their presentation with an awareness exercise called “The Elevator Speech.” The purpose of the exercise was to identify what people already knew about Six Sigma. Everyone was given a blank sheet of paper and asked to take two minutes to write a 60 second speech that could be used if they were approached on an elevator. They wrote about the following topics:

1. What is Six Sigma all about?
2. How is Six Sigma different from other improvement methodologies?
3. How could you use an understanding of Six Sigma in your job?

After writing, members of the audience were asked to share their speech their neighbor on their right. Results were interesting. While many people had a basic understanding of Six Sigma, several had totally blank sheets of paper, and admitted that they knew nothing of Six Sigma.

The presenters had a ambitious agenda. They began by discussing the differences between TQM and Six Sigma. The explained a bit of history on how Six Sigma was brought into Roche, and then they showed a video where Roche employees told what they thought about it.

They presented a Six Sigma deployment roadmap. At Roche, they started in 2000 creating a vision and strategy. In 2001, they hired black belts and did a pilot. In 2002 they expanded the program and in 2003 they are working on ways to make it part of the culture. They are trying to make Six Sigma a part of the fabric of the business.

After the break they did a game that simulated defects in a production environment. A mixture of red and white beads was place in container. The “employees” (eight volunteers from the audience) were told that they had to get white beads out of the container, using a special spatula. Each employee would scoop out a group of beads, and the “inspectors” would count how many “defects” they had (red beads). The information was recorded on a spreadsheet for everyone to see. After the first round of scooping, the “board of directors” decided that some employees would need to be let go… that they needed to downsize. A group of stakeholders was asked to decide who would be let go (this was a group sitting at a randomly selected table in the audience section). Obviously the employee with the most defects was let go. This process continued for several rounds, with employees being downsized at different intervals.

The simulation game was fun, and very revealing. Employees were being held accountable for a process that was beyond their control. Nobody was examining the root cause of the problem, and trying to figure out how to get the red beads out of the container. The point was that Six Sigma takes a different approach and tries to identify root causes of problems.

Roche Diagnostics is the world’s leading provider of diagnostic systems and decision-oriented health information. Roche is dedicated to research, development, marketing and servicing of products and solutions not only for medical laboratories, doctors’ offices and patients, but also research and industry.

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Therapy and Flea Market – What a Combination

The Technology Based Training Special Interest group has rescheduled its August meeting to September 23! The next TBT SIG meeting will be held at the United Way of Central Indiana headquarters at 3901 North Meridian Street in Indianapolis on Tuesday, September 23, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. The agenda promises to be very valuable for everyone wanting to promote his or her company’s e-Learning program!

If you are responsible for deploying e-learning, then you know the challenges of increasing awareness and driving usage and results! Here's your opportunity to sharpen your knowledge and skills. This hands-on session, led by Stacey Toole and Steve Haigh from NETg, goes beyond the Marketing Your Training Program session Stacey and Steve presented at the ASTD meeting in July at Ivy Tech. Here you will have an opportunity take a deeper dive into e-learning marketing where we will brainstorm as a group, learn from each other, and create your own Marketing and Communication plan that you can use right away at your job.

A.J. Mason, from United Way of Central Indiana, will also share with us an overview of how United Way of Central Indiana supports capacity building among nonprofits in central Indiana and the training challenge of nonprofits.

Bring your best marketing ideas and samples (Flea Market) and your worst problems (Therapy) to this interactive roundtable session on developing effective marketing and communications for e-learning!

Everyone is invited to attend the SIG meeting. The evening’s sponsor will provide Pizza (by the way, we don’t have a sponsor yet, if you are interested in buying the pizza and getting some free advertising for your company!). There is no registration fee. To get a map of directions, or if you are interested in being added to the distribution list for the group, send an e-mail to Jay McNaught, jmcnaught@cinergy.com.

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Rick Brandon Provides Food for Thought
By David Llewellyn, Facilitator Staff Member

[As a regular feature of The Facilitator, "Member Profile" features a profile of a randomly selected member of CIASTD. At every meeting, we will randomly pick a member from those attending, and profile them. The idea is to help everyone get to know each other better. In this issue, we are profiling Rick Brandon.]

Do you live to eat or eat to live? If you’re like Rick Brandon you might have said a little of both. Prior to finding his way to the land of training and development and present position with American United Life Rick made a living in the food industry. “It’s a great way to work and have an adventure in life.” Rick was able to travel state side to places like Florida and spent five months on Cape Cod. “There was no running with the bulls,” he explained, “but I did watch a whale or two.”

As is true of the restaurant business, so it is in training; there is an affinity for people, an interest in what is new (continual learning), and perhaps a sense of daring. These are the building blocks of a successful career. For Rick the transition from “food for sustenance” to “food for thought” was hastened by his desire to learn and to develop people. He explained that his first job out of restaurant management was at Boeheringer Mannheim, now Roche Diagnostics, where he was afforded the opportunity of career counseling and mentoring. It was out of that experience and self-examination that he realized his calling. “I want to understand the theory and the concept(s), but what I really enjoy, is to figure out how to apply it all . . . to make it work.” During his seven years there, he was able to garner a great deal of experience in the training field as well as earn a Masters Degree in Adult Education.

Rick left Roche to expand his career horizons and spent two years at Sterling Fluid Systems as their Training and Development Manager. Ever eager to delve deeper into ways to create performance solutions beyond the “when can we have another training session” approach he began to search for such an opportunity. While serving CIASTD in the area of membership development, a fortuitous conversation occurred with our current chapter president, Dan Johnson. Prior to leaving American United Life to launch his own performance consulting enterprise, Dan had developed and nurtured a performance consulting practice and was looking for a good right hand. The timing could not have been better. Rick is now well into his third year at AUL as Manager of Performance Improvement where he serves as an internal consultant to managers. Duties include Program Management for Leadership Development, Performance Coaching, Facilitation of Six Sigma courses, and the occasional facilitation of more traditional classroom fare.

When not at AUL or working on yet another advanced degree, this time an MBA, Rick shares his life with his wife, two teenage daughters, a dog, cat, and, reluctantly, with a few uninvited garden variety chipmunks.

When asked for a bit of wisdom Rick was humble but unequivocal: Focus on results, keep on developing your skills, and have a good time at it . . . Outcome will always become important when times are tough. And times are tough.

Sounds like a recipe for success to me.

[Note: we missed the employee profile for July. We will run two profiles in the October issue to make up for this omission. Our apologies to David Wachtel, who was selected for the July member profile.]

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Why They Resist
By Nicole Kobrowski – Facilitator staff member

There are many reasons adult learners may resist a learning experience. The appearance of not wanting to learn may not be the case. Below are some common reasons learners may appear uninterested in what facilitators have to offer.

“Do What? I don’t think so!” We all have our comfort zone, and the idea of doing something new can be terrifying. Added trauma comes from appearing foolish in front of co-workers, subordinates or even complete strangers. Making a comfortable learning environment is critical for overcoming these fears.

“I’m Back in School….Again!” Sometimes learners bring baggage from other learning experiences, many times experiences in higher-ed or even high school. Comfort is a factor here as well as communicating to your participants that this is learning on their time for them - and not for the sake of state or college standards. Explaining how a typical class runs in your learning experience will help put your participants at ease.

“Hey! I Hate Your Style!” Even the most sensitive teacher has to realize that you can’t please everyone all the time. Some learners clash with our teaching style – even if it is adapted for the good of the whole. Instructors need to realize this but also reflect and decide if they really have been teaching the best way to suit the learners or the way that they would like to teach.

“Thank goodness I don’t need this information, because I don’t understand it anyway!” When working with learners, two kisses of death are unclear instructions and lack of timeliness and relevancy of the material. You can easily correct any confusion on what is expected or what is going to take place in the class. But most instructors have a problem when it comes to knowing the learner. Often you are thrown into a situation where you don’t know the participants and it is much like a trial by fire. What you can do to combat this is ask questions before you set foot into the classroom and once you are there, ask more. Tailor any material you must work with to make it more relevant to the learners.

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Case Studies Engage Learners
By Kristin Lively-Smith, Facilitator staff member

Imagine sitting in a training session and you are presented with a problem at the very beginning and promised that by the end of the session you will have the tools to solve the problem. You are also assigned to work with a couple of other people on the issue. Time to work on the dilemma will be provided.

As an instructor I have found that case studies are a great way to involve the learners from the start. By putting them with others in the class, learning is instantly socialized. Participants have an opportunity to try the new tools in a safe environment and can draw on their own experience and expertise at problem solving. They also realize the importance of what they are learning and how it relates to their daily life.

Some ways to get the most out of case studies:

1. Have explicit directions for what is expected. (What are they going to do with this at the end of the class? These should align with your objectives.)
2. Be available and provide materials if they have questions or want to do further research.
3. Know what answers you are looking for and be prepared to facilitate the group if they miss an important point.
4. Be prepared for some surprises. Usually they are pleasant surprises, but sometimes the participants think of things you didn’t.
5. This should be obvious, but make it applicable to their reality.
6. Don’t be afraid to group people randomly or select the groups yourself. This will allow them to interact with people they might not normally talk to.

Because I am internal consultant, I live and breathe the same issues my clients do. I find it very easy to create my own case studies based on what I hear as the “word on the street”. These situations can (and should) be presented generically so that they fit any department and not single people out or embarrass them. Depending on the situation, I have presented some very specific situations and some very general ones, when more than one tool from the class should be utilized. Case studies can be used for technical and “soft skills” training. I have even combined both for cases in which the technical and the people side of an issue need to be explored. They are also a great way to measure success, as learners will show what they know and sometimes create solutions that even the trainer hadn’t considered!

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Zap the Gaps! Target Higher Performance and Achieve It!
By Kenneth Blanchard, Dana Gaines Robinson, James Robinson

Reviewed by Nicole Kobrowski – Facilitator staff member

Back with another book in the Performance Management field, guru Dana Gaines Robinson, James Robinson and Kenneth Blanchard have woven a reality-based, down-and-dirty, reader-friendly book on how to improve workplace performance.

Blanchard, known as “The One-Minute Manager” and his parable type format, teams with problem solvers Dana and James Robinson to use a GAPS approach to resolve business problems. (G)o for the Shoulds, (A)nalyze the Is, (P)in Down the Causes, and (S)elect the Right Solutions. By using a fictitious case study scenario, the authors clearly demonstrate how the space in "between what is and what should be" can be bridged.

Written for CEOs, managers- not HR or OD people, this book attacks problems at grass roots levels. The authors show execs how to stop looking for stopgap solutions and deal with the real issues.
The book is entertaining and very readable and gives you the desired result, which is to know how to solve problems better and more accurately by understanding the root cause of the problem.

Zap the Gaps! Target Higher Performance and Achieve It! ! can easily be read in a sitting or two, but you will certainly reflect on its value for some time to come.

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In each issue of The Facilitator, we will list members that have joined or rejoined CIASTD since the previous issue. Since the last issue of The Facilitator, we have signed 7 members:

If you are a member of CIASTD, and would like access to the complete membership list, it is available (password protected) on our Web site at www.ciastd.org.

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By Jim McFarland, Facilitator Staff

Whether you’re part of a large enterprise, small business, or private industry, everyone has had an opportunity to work with other people to accomplish some common purpose. We’ve all been part of some amazing teams led by some talented facilitators but we’ve also had to endure a project with some “nincompoops” that made us wonder just why we wanted to work with that company. Thinking back, what are some of the characteristics of the worst teams you have ever been on? On the other hand, what are the characteristics of the best teams you have ever been on? And if given the chance, how would you describe the characteristics of your ideal team?

Why do people work better in teams?
Assuming the tale to be true, the diversity of thinking can oftentimes lead to a much better conclusion than the singular nature of one person’s perspective. So, why do people tend to work better in teams?

• Teams provide encouragement, accountability and affirmation to their participants. It’s focused attention on the person
• Members’ first responsibility is to serve each other in the team then to serve those outside of the team. Each wants to ensure the success of his comrades.
• Team participation is personally rewarding. Teams build trust and camaraderie by overcoming obstacles together.
• Real teams have more fun. Most people enjoy being part of something larger than themselves.

But even after all the work to gather people together in a team approach to a project, maybe you still buy into this kind of thinking:

1. “I can do it faster by myself” – Why waste time getting others involved when I already know how to do it?
2. “I can’t trust other people to do things right” – Bill has had a problem handling this job before, I’m not sure he would be up to it this time
3. “Building Teams takes too long” – After the time it will take to get the right people together, I could have had the job done.
4. “I can’t find the right people” – I keep telling HR we need to hire some more technicians. Now there isn’t ANYONE else in this company who could fill this last team position.

Result? An outcome many organizations end up with are committees whose members simply do their individual tasks together with additional paperwork. Consider how you run your “TEAM” meetings. Do you foster committee purpose or team purpose?

Definition of a Team
If you really boil it all down, there is a simple definition of what a team really is in the marketplace: A group of people with complimentary and diverse skills, strengths and talents who are committed to:

1. A common purpose
2. Each other
3. Achieving the team’s mission
4. Holding each other accountable

In your personal leadership style, what do you do to contribute to a healthy team or detract from a health team? The following paradigm illustrates how much we lean to one mode of leading to another.

The Doer will want to micro manage all components of the team. They shut down any initiative or response from individuals in the group by taking on more than delegating. The Deserter will step in and offer some pleasantries but will leave little or no guidance for the group to know whether they are making the best decisions. Facilitators know when to jump in and take charge and when to shut up and listen. It’s a tightrope act requiring assertiveness and proper listening. Consider your own experience being part of a team. What impact did your type of leadership have on this team? What did it feel like to be under each type of leader? Reflect back and assess how your leadership style has impacted—either positively or negatively—people you have led.

Following some basic characteristics of understanding what teams are, how they differ from committees, and having a commitment to the group will not only enhance your times together but will lead to higher morale and commitment to the organization’s vision, goals, and objectives. Be a TEAM Leader!

[Jim McFarland works for the Vision Management Group. Jim routinely contributes similar articles that are intended to help us stay “sharp” as trainers.]

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The Society for Technical Communication, Hoosier Chapter, invites you to its September seminar, "Information Modeling for Content Reuse." The presenter, Ann Rockley, is an internationally known content management expert and author of Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy.

Rockley's "Unified Content Strategy" is an innovative and common sense approach to creating, organizing, and publishing content that has been adopted by organizations around the globe. Please feel free to share this invite with others. Bring a friend or two. It's free!

Summary of event details:
Topic: Information modeling for content reuse.
Presenter: Ann Rockley, President, The Rockley Group
Date/Time: September 17, 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
Location: Indianapolis, IN
Venue: The House Café, Glendale Mall, Indianapolis (formerly Houlihan's)
Information about the venue: www.thehousewebsite.com
Cost: Free to TechPoint members and guests
Questions: Scott Abel (abelsp@netdirect.net)

Description of event:
In this 90-minute session, Ann Rockley, an internationally recognized technical writing and content management guru, will teach you how to design information models that support content reuse. Specifically, you¹ll learn how to analyze content, create semantic models, define element types, determine reuse methods, produce reuse maps, and design metadata for reuse, retrieval, and tracking. You¹ll learn how to create effective information models for any type of content, for use with any technology. Participants will learn how to create effective content models that support content reuse.

Ann Rockley, President of The Rockley Group, Inc. (TRG), is an information management consultant who specializes in the development of enterprise content management and unified content strategies. Rockley is a recognized expert in the field of content management, a frequent contributor to a wide variety of trade publications, and a featured speaker at industry conferences in both North America and Europe. Rockley is an Associate Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication and has a Master of Information Science from the University of Toronto, where she teaches Enterprise Content Management. She is a member of the Board of Advisors for The Content Management Systems Evaluation Lab (CMS Evaluation Lab) at the University of Washington Information School (Executive Director, Bob Boiko), as well as a participating member of the Drug Information Association, Association for Information and Image Management, American Medical Writers Association, and the American Society for Information Management.

Rockley is also the author of Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy with TRG Senior Consultants Pamela Kostur and Steve Manning, (New Riders Publishing ISBN 0-7357-1306-5, Oct. 2002.) She can be reached at 905-415-1885 or rockley@rockley.com, www.rockley.com.

The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is an individual membership organization -- the largest organization of its type in the world -- dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication. Its 25,000 members include technical writers and editors, medical writers, content developers, documentation specialists, technical illustrators, instructional designers, academics, information architects, usability and human factors professionals, visual designers, Web designers and developers, and translators - anyone whose work makes technical information available to those who need it. To learn more about the Hoosier Chapter of STC, visit www.hoosierstc.org.

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