Despite high levels of engagement, facilitative delivery styles, and even attempts at user-generated content, most training is still a fairly one-way communication vehicle; the trainer shares information, guides some discussion, and builds the group’s knowledge… all of which is important. But learning professionals are exposed to a lot of valuable data and input in the classroom: off-handed comments about customers and the culture; diatribes about working conditions; angst over lack of resources, tools, or equipment; frustration about work processes (or lack thereof). What if we found a way to systematically gather this input and funnel employee ‘intel’ back into the organization for careful consideration? What if: Workshop summaries highlighted the obstacles participants face to optimal performance… as well as their reactions to the training? Learning and development professionals systematically debriefed the work-process insights gained during training with line managers? The training function closed the loop with employees, reporting back the organizational response to their concerns and issues? Expanding the role of trainers and holding them accountable for being this critical feedback link could allow learning to travel in both directions, informing employee-centric changes that would enable performance, elevate engagement, and tap discretionary effort in the process. Image: By Cassowary (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons The post A Challenge to the Training Function: Is Learning a Two-Way Street? appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Ross Mason posted a blog postConnectivity: The Backbone of Innovation"Hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing." --T. S. EliotWho would have imagined just ten years ago that better connectivity would turn our phones into mobile power tools capable of accessing the Web, taking photos and video, sending text messages to friends, giving us driving directions and so much more?Who foresaw that social media would not only connect us with friends and business associates, but also open up new possibilities for interacting with customers and creating more effective business strategies?Who knew that the cloud would overhaul the way we interact with everything, from music and photos to data storage and business applications?What’s really interesting about each of those examples is that you could point to a predecessor that hinted at the revolution to come, but didn’t usher it in. For smartphones, it was feature phones. For social media, it was forums and bulletin board systems. For the cloud, it was everything from hosted storage to the first rudimentary online video services. At some point, each of those technologies reached a tipping point in adoption and sophistication that turned it into something much greater—something that caused a fundamental shift in the way we lived our lives. The Connected Age Is Just Getting StartedThe point is, more connectivity always leads to more innovation. And at some point, that innovation accelerates in amazing and unexpected ways. I believe we’re about to hit another one of those inflection points now, thanks to the growth of the cloud, the abundance of open APIs and the emergence of the Internet of Things. We’re about to move from a merely connected world to a hyperconnected one.Connectivity is just getting started. We’re not even close to realizing the full potential of integration for creating new capabilities, services and competitive advantages. In fact, we’re just entering a new phase of connectivity—an era focused on bridging siloed assets within the enterprise and integrating them with the resources of business outside the four walls of the enterprise. This new dimension of connectivity links systems, data and applications with those of partners, suppliers, customers and even employees—and the result is a new breed of service offerings and capabilities.  Consider the airline industry. In the past, each airline had silos of proprietary data: reservations, ticketing, seating charts and so on.  Today airlines compete not by hoarding and walling off that data, but by opening it up to trusted partners—exposing it in real time to online and mobile travel sites, such as Expedia, Hotwire and Kayak. And the most forward-looking airlines are now realizing that the more they expose and share, the more capable they are of creating new services that are truly differentiating. By sharing customer preference information with partners they can facilitate everything from faster check-in and boarding processes to customized on-board meals to personalized in-flight entertainment systems for selected customers.  Or look at the possibilities in healthcare. Leading-edge companies are realizing that by aggregating and connecting patient data—securely and in compliance with HIPAA and other regulations—they can create groundbreaking new services that improve patient care. For example, by combining data from patients’ electronic medical records and personal health devices with diagnostic databases, it is possible to offer personalized healthcare recommendations to patients—and even send them proactively to their mobile devices.So let’s hit the accelerator on connecting the unconnected. Because if you can find a way to simplify and fast-track integration—among devices, applications, clouds, and networks—you can boost innovation and create new business opportunities. You can design new services that draw on data from a broader range of sources. You can deploy new services sooner than your competitors. You can re-architect the customer experience. You can make changes to apps and services without re-coding for thousands of devices. In short, you can focus on innovating, iterating and differentiating.We are farther along the road to this vision than you might think. The core technology trend enabling this shift is the API, which enables organizations to provide their ecosystems with standardized access to data and application functionality previously only available internally. When APIs can be more easily aggregated and delivered to developers on demand, the move to the new "connected enterprise" - an enterprise that lives outside its own four walls - can accelerate.Yesterday’s integration issues were a source of angst, expense and delay, but we’re in a much different environment today. Connectivity is now a source of possibilities, opportunities and advantages. Because the sooner you shift your focus to exploring new ideas, the more effective you’ll be at competing and winning.Ross Mason is founder and VP of Product Strategy at MuleSoft.See More

Check out Avoid Making Assumptions  That Backfire!, recently published online in Learning Solutions Magazine.The article explores three of the most common assumptions that instructional designers make when writing—about knowledge, feelings, and culture—and suggest how to avoid them.  It is the first of several I am writing for that magazine that explores issues in writing e-learning programs.  Visit this link to see the entire article: http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/833/avoid-making-assumptions-that-backfire.

Saylor Frase posted a blog postParalysis Defines Washington’s Progress on Cybersecurity IssueIn his recent State of the Union address, President Obama urged Congress to pass legislation to meet the evolving threat of cyber-attacks, combat identity theft and protect our children’s information. "No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids," he explained.Let’s hope the President succeeds because up until now, the federal government has been tragically paralyzed. While a few regulations have emerged, none of effect have been adopted and those that have are underfunded or poorly enforced. Consider the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, proposed in July of that year. It would require companies operating "key infrastructure" for the nation to employ "best practice standards" for protection from cyber-attacks.The bill failed to pass the Senate, even though it received support from military and national security officials. Among opponents, the politically potent U.S. Chamber of Commerce worried it would create a financial burden for businesses. Even though massive breaches cost companies millions, and lead to loss of consumer trust and corporate reputation.Another avenue that has gone nowhere is the proposed improvements or augmentations of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GBLA), which would add further requirements for disclosure of security breaches by not only financial institutions but all industries that touch consumer financial information by accepting credit card payments (which are not currently under the regulatory umbrella of GLBA).These two regulation paths have stalled. But even if enacted as is; they still lack the teeth and funding to deliver real enforcement that would get companies to act in a meaningful and timely fashion. Then there is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2014, or CISA. This proposal, which would improve cybersecurity through enhanced sharing of information about threats and breaches, languishes in the Senate. The House passed similar proposals in 2012 and 2013 but not the Senate.Even the latest proposal would do little to prevent an attack or mitigate the damage. And as the recent Sony hack (by North Korea, contends the Administration) illustrates, determining where the penetration came from, after the fact, did little to alter its effects.One piece of legislation does look promising. The Personal Data Notification and Protection Act seeks to improve security of consumer data and improve the communication around data breaches. Few details are available but, the prospect of adopting a national standard seems possible - and that could be a step toward other sorely needed legislative protections.Frankly, it’s a puzzle why the spate of massive data breaches the past 18 months hasn’t triggered Congressional action. The sheer scope of the cyber-thefts, including some organized by foreign states, has served as a huge wake-up call. Still, lawmakers don’t seem to hear the bell.Still, dynamic standards for security infrastructure and the process by which those standards are employed are needed. Well-funded enforcement capabilities and stiff penalties are required to encourage adoption.In the end, though, no matter how good the proposed legislation; people and organizations must be moved to act. The road block is as much financial as it is technical. So, how do we as everyday citizens affect this situation? Aside from the obvious - educate yourself on the position of your representatives, petition them and vote accordingly - t here is actually another way you can vote that can be more effective than the ballot box: vote with your wallet.The main opponents to recently proposed legislation are convinced these new regulations would cost businesses too much money. If consumers change their shopping habits and refuse patronage to companies that have not adequately protected their customers’ data, Washington could begin to understand that doing nothing is more costly than investing in protection.Real effectual change will require foundational improvements to the way we employ cyber-security. Don’t put up with the loss of thousands of personal records, even if it was at the fault of your favorite retailer.It’s summed up nicely in the words of President Obama in the most recent State of the union address: "If we don’t act, we’ll leave our nation and our economy vulnerable. If we do, we can continue to protect the technologies that have unleashed untold opportunities for people around the globe."Saylor Frase is co-founder, president and CEO of Nuspire Networks, a state-of-the-science managed network security service provider.See More

I ran for and was elected to one of three open local school board seats earlier this month. The experience was filled with learning… about politics, our community, campaigning, and myself! As a Type A, highly driven, excellence-oriented achiever, I’m accustomed to setting my sights for the top. The highest A in a class, sales leader, #1 utilization rate, off-the-charts end-of-class ratings. Like so many others (you included, I would imagine), I have spent a lifetime developing an unconscious habit of striving for the top… in all things - those that matter and those that don’t.  School. Work. Words with Friends. So, imagine my discomfort when earlier this summer, I realized that in this political contest, I could simply not earn the most votes. Two factors were working against me: a very full fall business and travel schedule, and a decision to ask supporters to donate to our schools rather than to my campaign. With my time and funds greatly limited compared with other candidates, I had to reframe my goal. With three open seats, I didn’t have to be #1… I just had to be in the top three. As simple as that awareness was, it was also profound, liberating, and challenging. Coming off ‘automatic pilot’ was a daily struggle. Reminding myself that a wider swath of performance could still translate to success became a mantra.  Stepping back to determine where 100% effort was necessary (and where it wasn’t) built a new mental discipline. What do we lose when success is myopically defined as one point (the highest one) along a continuum of results? The creativity that comes from a mindset of growth versus performance. The ability to savor and celebrate a broader range of successful outcomes. Perspective and the ability to focus on the bigger picture. A full range of experiences that are passed up because of the excessive effort invested in reaching the pinnacle. So, election night came and supporters gathered to await results. People took turns refreshing and updating the election results site. Finally, the first batch of ballots had been counted… and I was in second place. At another time, in another context, I would have been devastated, humiliated, and completely dissatisfied. But I wasn’t.  My goal was to be in the top three… and I was right there, right in the middle.  I couldn’t contain myself and happily yelled out "I’m number 2!"  My reaction quickly spread and the celebration was kicked into high gear. Now, I’m not suggesting that we all become slackers or slugs (not that those of you reading this could ever do that anyway!). But I do find myself wondering about the opportunity cost associated with allowing ourselves to get drawn into the habit of unconsciously striving for the top when there’s a wider corridor of performance that actually could define success. What have you lost out on as a result of that battle (mostly with yourself) for #1? Time with family? Better working relationships? Interesting opportunities and experiences? As I turn the page on this campaigning and election experience, I take with me several lessons: The democratic process is pretty cool. We need to trade our habitual (sometime lazy) way of thinking about success for greater mindfulness as we define our goals. Broader satisfaction and happiness comes from becoming open to expanding our definitions of success from ‘one point’ at the top to a range, corridor, or swath of performance or results. Sustainable success comes from understanding that time and energy are limited resources that must be consciously invested toward authentic and genuine goals. And here’s my challenge… that I share with you: How can we bring greater consciousness to our goals and greater mindfulness to their pursuit?  Because I can tell you from personal experience, there’s a certain sweetness in second. Image: www.istockphoto.com The post Striving for Second… or Maybe Third appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Background: To introduce the community of authors for the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication to the nature and methods for creating integrative literature reviews, we are holding a second introductory workshop.  The first one, was a success, but many people who wanted to participate could not, because of scheduling conflicts and asked for a second session.About the Workshop:  The goal of the workshop is to not only teach participants how to prepare an integrative literature review, but to help them start one and receive feedback on the work-in-progress (with the hope that the finished review will be submitted to the Transactions).  Some reading before the first four class sessions; research occurs in the gap between the fourth and fifth session and participants prepare an early draft before the sixth session. The workshop leader is Saul Carliner, Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Director of the Education Doctoral Program and Associate Professor at Concordia University in Montreal, and a past recipient of back-to-back Frank R. Smith Awards for Best Article in the peer-reviewed journal, Technical Communication. Who Should Attend:  Faculty, Researchers, PhD students, and advanced master’s students (who have completed a research methodology class) in Technical and Professional Communication or a Related Field.  Schedule:  The next 6-session workshop is scheduled:Thursday, April 26  11 AM - 12:15 pm EasternThursday, May 3, 11 AM - 12:15 pm EasternThursday, May 10, 11 AM - 12:15 pm EasternThursday, May 17, 11 AM - 12:15 pm EasternThursday, June 7, 11 AM - 12:15 pm Eastern Thursday, June 28, 11 AM - 12:15 pm EasternLocation:  Webinar using Adobe Connect.  You’ll need a computer with a live internet connection at the time of the class.  (Sessions are not recorded.)Fee:  No cost, but a commitment to (a) preparing a draft of a literature review during the course of the workshop and (b) submitting a completed integrative literature review to the Transactions for consideration within 9 months of the completion of the seminar.   To enroll or receive more information:  Contact David Price, Editorial Assistant, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication: tpc.editorial@gmail.com.

Haider Nazar's blog post was featuredThe Participation Economy and the Fourth Phase of RetirementToday, we are in the midst of a financial technology revolution. It is dramatically changing the way we pay at the register, how we interact with our bank, and our opportunities to secure credit. But one of the most exciting changes is upending how Americans save for retirement and generate long-term wealth.Historically, I view retirement planning as having experienced three great innovations or phases. I recognize that there are many other factors at play here, but for purposes of this column I have simplified each to make a point.The first was the advent of social security. The prospect of a government controlled program mandating your savings over the course of a career and then managing payments to you in retirement still serves as a safety net and primary retirement plan for millions of people. However, growing expenses and declining revenue have called into question the long-term solvency of the program. A Summary of the 2014 Annual Reports on the status of social security and Medicare predicts that social security reserves will be depleted by the 2030s and will only be able to pay partial benefits to recipients thereafter.The second was the growth and popularity of company funded pension plans. American workers could count on years of hard work paying off in a generous pension plan that paid for retirement alongside social security. However, beginning in the 1980s, workers saw an abrupt decline in these employer-funded plans. The number of defined benefit plans fell from 38 percent of workers in 1980 to 20 percent by 2008 (BLS, 2008). And that number continues to steadily decline today.The third act was the rise of 401k and self-funded retirement plans through an employer. Between those same years of 1980 and 2008, these defined contribution plans grew from just 8 percent to 31 percent of working Americans (BLS, 2008). This rise in popularity corresponded to growing fears around the viability of social security and the drop in employer sponsored pension plans.From a young age then, most of us have had this retirement formula drilled into our heads - invest early, invest often, use a 401k and IRA. We trusted that this formula would sustain us through our Golden Years. But the sad truth is that even this path to retirement and creating wealth is no doubt broken.The Great Recession proved that market volatility could snatch away 401k gains just as an entire generation of workers were entering retirement. Further, the mounting evidence of high fees and the impact to a 401k account are making younger investors cautious.According to the Department of Labor, even a 1 percent difference in fees and expenses can reduce an account balance at retirement by 28 percent. In their example, $25,000 invested in a 401k with a .5 percent fee will grow to $227,000 over a 35-year horizon. That same amount in an account with a 1.5% fee will net only $163,000.So where does that leave Americans planning for retirement? I would argue on the cusp of something even more exciting - the dawn of the fourth phase of retirement planning. What I call the Participation Economy.From the earliest incarnations of eTrade to a shift to ETF investing and the advent of P2P and crowdfinance, the democratization of wealth creation has begun. Investment advice and vehicles that used to be reserved only for the wealthiest are now being cracked open and made available to the rest of us. The result will be a brave new world where financial advisors will either embrace alternative investment vehicles or be disintermediated like travel agents and taxi cab drivers before them.This access is allowing individuals to participate by lending money to their neighbors, crowdsource funds for businesses and new ideas, and unlock new asset classes. Crowd finance is the most exciting trend in this new Participation Economy. It enables individuals to diversify beyond small return P2P loans available through companies like Lending Club or startup investments on sites like Kickstarter, and instead access one of the most proven and highest returning asset classes available to investors - real estate. An investor in New Jersey can take part in a condo development project in San Diego through an online connection that delivers fully vetted deals, local market experts, and secure investment tools for much greater returns.Now with the launch of these online real estate marketplaces and platforms, investors can take control of a higher performing and more diversified investment portfolio for retirement. Instead of placing all their eggs in a fee-based 401k, they can fund an ETF, put money to work on Prosper or Lending Club, and begin funding online real estate deals to grow a larger, more stable and higher returning overall retirement portfolio.Taken in sum, the Participation Economy fundamentally changes the way we build a better future for ourselves and for generations to follow.Haider Nazar is CEO of LendZoan.See More

When I was in my 20s, a friend of mine challenged me to go a week without visiting the mall. (We really only had one in the small city in which I lived at the time.)  I couldn’t do it.  In those golden days, a large enclosed mall was truly the center of shopping.  They contained nearly every type of store (though few in the US had supermarkets, a staple of early malls in Canada and other countries).  But they were a weather proof hangout; I almost always ran into someone I knew at the mall.  But with the rise of big box stores and the return-with-a-vengeance of strip malls in the 1990s, followed by the rise of online shopping in the past decade, coupled with the remaining scars of a few recessions and a heck of a lot of overbuilding in-between, many malls aren’t what they used to be.  Some are dead or in hospice care, as noted by the DeadMalls.com website.  Others are discovering life beyond retail, as noted in How About Gardening or Golfing at the Mall? reported by Stephanie Clifford in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/business/making-over-the-mall-in-rough-economic-times.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=all). 

In a world where perfection and strength are highly valued, we’ve lost our appreciation for vulnerability and the gifts it offers. Last week I had the pleasure of judging a student competition. More than one hundred high schoolers taking part in a Youth and Government program presented mock legislative bills they’d prepared with the goal of selecting the best few to pursue and refine as they readied themselves for a statewide convention. The students approached the podium, one after the other… funny, smart, insightful, compelling, and prepared. It was an impressive display. Then one 15-year-old stepped up and for the first 30 seconds (of her 90 total to speak) she was comfortable, authentic, and powerful in her delivery. Then something happened.  She lost her place or her train of thought and stopped. Impressively, she took a deep breath, gathered herself, and continued on…. for a few more seconds. And it happened again. It was clear that she was holding back considerable emotion and I fully expected her to leave the stage. Yet again, she gathered herself together, abandoned her notes, looked right at the audience and continued on until her time was up. At which point, she promptly sat down and began to cry. Was she disappointed? Embarrassed? Humiliated? Who knows.  But she was vulnerable. And she immediately experienced the benefits of that vulnerability. She enjoyed tremendous empathy and kindness on the part of her peers who provided pats, hugs, and verbal encouragement. She also earned the respect of everyone in the audience. Afterward (in private) she received a volume of very supportive feedback that far exceeded what other students received. She was the clear winner of the night, regardless of the nature of the bill and despite some delivery challenges. This reminds me of some research I’d done years ago while developing customer service training. Apparently loyalty is greater when a customer experiences a well-recovered service failure than when service is simply delivered without a problem. Imperfection is a part of life. The opportunity - and the gift - lies in responding to it authentically and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. These moments of vulnerability offer powerful opportunities for support, connection, and growth. What about you? How has vulnerability served you? Image: Liz Price The post The Value of Vulnerability appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

New Hire Scorecards at Discover Financial Services, recently published in Training Magazine online and co-written by my student Alexis Belair and I, describes how Discover Financial Services (the Discover card people) developed a series of scorecards, reports that visually report the progress of their new hire training programs.   Written with the close cooperation of Jon Kaplan, a training director at Discover, and Doug Anderson, manager of this project, this case study not only describes the report, but also describes the challenges, costs, and development resources needed to prepare these reports.  Read the entire case at  http://www.trainingmag.com/article/case-study-new-hire-scorecards-discover-financial-services.

Megan Berry's blog post was featuredHacking Diversity: How the Culture You Set Drives Who You HireLeaders in the technology industry are talking about trying to hire more women, yet issues like a prevalent "bro-culture" are causing women to "leave in droves." Too many people hear this and think that the problem is not them. However, to drive change, leaders at technology companies need to step up and be part of the solution.Here are five recommendations for technology startups -- from Silicon Valley to Silicon Alley -- to keep in mind when creating a culture that welcomes women and diversity.Silence Is an EndorsementAs a manager, you see just the tip of the iceberg of team interactions, but you also set the bar for what’s acceptable and even rewarded within your company overall. While you might not join in a sexist joke, not commenting on the joke or stopping it is, in fact, an endorsement. This is a reality that often goes overlooked. Managers who immediately speak up when they see inappropriate behavior can make a difference in changing a culture.Watch Out for 'Bro-Toxic' CultureThe devil is in the details when it comes to company culture. This is why countless startups spend money on beers, lunches, off-sites and ping pong tables to build camaraderie and morale. With this in mind you must watch out for the small pieces of your culture that cause unintentional exclusion of women from team interactions - everything from men only drinking sessions, to only sending a woman to get coffee for the meeting, to who’s invited to the senior level brainstorm or speaks at your all hands meeting. These passive cues show what a company values. Try having a sign-up sheet where each member of a team is responsible for getting the coffee or having a public rotation for which department heads speak at a meeting. These are things you can do to be a proactive part of the solution.Start on Day OneMake hiring a diverse team a priority from the beginning. It only gets harder to hire a diverse staff as the company grows and many leaders find themselves in a self-perpetuating cycle. When prospective employees research your company, meet the team and are introduced to your culture, they will recognize a predominantly male workforce and that may make them uncomfortable or dissuade them from applying, reinforcing your lack of diversity. Changing a culture is infinitely harder than starting it out right, so pay attention to who is highlighted on your website and what words you use to describe your ideal candidate in your job descriptions.Don’t Shoot the MessengerWomen in tech -- just like everyone else -- are working long hours and focused on how to help their companies succeed. They would much rather be a thought of as a person in the technology industry and not worry about being thought of as a "woman." It’s not easy to speak up and often, it comes back to hurt the person that does. So if someone in your company speaks up about an issue, listen to them very carefully and appreciate that they valued your input and trusted you enough to come forward with their concerns.Keep Talking About the IssueI have been fortunate to work with the team at Lerer Hippeau Ventures (a RebelMouse investor) to address the gender issue. Instead of shying away from tech’s diversity issue, they have decided to keep talking about it. The group has dedicated an enormous amount of time to bringing in more women founders in their portfolio and better diversity in all the companies they work with. It doesn’t mean they’ve solved the problem (as an industry, we’re far from that) but their effort goes a long way.This is an industry-wide issue that won’t go away in a day, but if more companies push to change their culture from the inside, we can start to run this around. Start-ups must face the issue head-on and hold themselves to the highest standards when hiring new talent and building their culture.Megan Berry is Head of Community and Social Product at RebelMouse. See More

 The holiday season is upon us again.  A chance to spend quality time with family and friends. A chance to punctuate key relationships with specially-selected gifts. A chance to end the quarter/year strong. But also, a chance to become completely overwhelmed and enjoy none of it! And that’s because too frequently we get swept up in the frenzy and hypnotized by the advertising and hype, unconsciously playing out old scripts that are no longer relevant today. So, this holiday season, take control. Be more deliberate. Choreograph a sense of ease that will shine more beautifully than the brightest twinkle lights. Intentionally SHAPE the quality of this holiday season with these five sanity-saving strategies. Shorten the season. My inner retailer comes out this time of year… as I want to put up the Christmas tree before the Thanksgiving gravy even cools. But, it’s hard to sustain holiday cheer for that long. So, compress it. You get to choose the timeline… not Macy’s.  Start later. Stop earlier. Take a break in between.  But savor the concentration. Hit the pause button for just 60 seconds and do nothing more than activate your senses. Take in the smells, the sights, the textures and more with 100% of your attention for just one minute… and discover how refreshed you’ll return to your previously scheduled life. Adopt a ‘less is more’ mentality. Find ways to trim back your expectations… of yourself, of others, of the magnificence of the gifts you give. Whittle down the list to just those individuals for whom gift giving is genuinely joyful. Bake only the cookies you really enjoy. Consciously wringing greater enjoyment from fewer activities can completely change the holiday dynamic. Pen your own holiday poem. As silly as it sounds, capturing highlights of your year (or your life) in rhyming verses quickly becomes a ‘flow’ activity. You realize the multiple benefits of personal engagement and reflection… and you have something pretty entertaining to share with family and friends. Exchange experiences. Let’s be honest. Does your friend really need a motorized grill cleaner… or anything else for that matter? Stop the madness… and the senseless shopping. Negotiate with friends and family to share experiences rather than items. A special dinner out. A trip to a theme park. An early morning hike. For the ultimate holiday ‘two-fer’, schedule something that all parties will enjoy and not only will you have exchanged a gift (that won’t be returned), but you’ll have experienced that quality time that the holiday season is all about. So, what about you? What do you do to take control of the holiday madness and shape a more conscious experience for yourself and those around you? How could greater consciousness during the holidays support you throughout the rest of the year? The post SHAPE the Holiday Season for Greater Satisfaction appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Why Don’t We Read About Architecture? asks Allison Arieff in a recent blog post for the New York Times.Among the many reasons she suggests (including the difficulty of bloggers about architecture to think critically with the pressure of posting as many as 5 entries per week) is language:"Writing about architecture is like mangling language, and far too often the experience of reading architectural writing feels about as pleasurable as tooth extraction."She elaborates on the ways that critics make their work unbearable to read. Although Arieff focuses on the challenges of writing architectural criticism in a way that compels the general public, I’m reminded of the many ways that academics in my own disciplines make their research and theory inaccessible to the practicing professionals whose work the researchers want to influence.    Check out Arieff’s post at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/why-dont-we-read-about-architecture/?hp.

Informal Learning Basics, my newest book from ASTD Press, should hit bookshelves at the end of May. This book, which explores one of the hottest topics in training today, describes how training and development and other Human Resources professionals can better harness informal learning.  By some accounts, informal learning—in which learners define some combination of the process, location, purpose, and content of learning and may or may not be conscious that learning occurred—provides as much as 70 percent of all learning in the workplace with little or no involvement of training and development professionals.   So readers have realistic expectations and plans for the application of informal learning in the workplace, the book first describes how informal learning works and identifies how to use it effectively at key touch points in the life cycle of a job.  Then, to help readers harness the power of informal learning, this book describes how readers can support 22 specific types of group and individual informal learning,  how social, enterprise and other instructional technologies can assist in those efforts, and how to evaluate informal learning.  Each chapter includes exercises that help readers apply the concepts presented in the book and worksheets that readers can use when planning informal learning efforts in their organizations.Keep checking this blog for updates on the publication.  

Chris Knight's blog post was featuredGigaOm Shutdown Is a Sad Reminder That the Media Business Is ToughI have known and worked with Om Malik, founder of Gigaom, since his days as a staff writer at Red Herring, the once-thick print magazine covering tech innovation that flourished during the dot-com boom days. And continued working with Malik and editorial colleagues at Business 2.0, one of my all-time favorite tech business magazines that shut down in 2007.The Business 2.0 networking parties were "da bomb," and in a small way made up for me missing out on most of the The Industry Standard’s rooftop parties (where all the Internet movers and shakers mingled) when I was a junior account executive for Julie and Lerry at Wilson McHenry Co. in the late 1990’s.Gigaom was a passion project for Malik, who wrote last night on his personal site:"Business, much like life, is not a movie and not everyone gets to have a story book ending… I might have left Gigaom, the company, over a year ago, but Gigaom, the idea still lives in my heart. Goodnight sweetheart, I still love you!"I remember the early, ebullient days of Gigaom - back in 2007, when Malik and team hosted its Pier Screenings events along the Embarcadero. The gatherings were an AB FAB blast, and one of our co-founders’ proudest moments was winning a Citizen Journalism Award for a self-produced piece on the world-famous San Francisco Gay PRIDE event earlier that summer. Judge Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist) compared Celso Dulay to Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, and Kara Swisher of WSJ and Re/code fame gushed that this was a new style of first-person journalism being born.The media industry is a very tough business today. It reminds me of my summers growing up on my family’s cotton farm in Brownsville, Texas. There was so much work and care that went into blossoming and harvesting the white fluffy cotton in the late summer and fall. And while cotton filled a real need for people, as does journalism, falling prices and competition from larger, corporate farms made it very difficult to survive and thrive.Unfortunately, the main revenue source for media companies in the form of traditional advertising has been gutted during the last decade. With the move to mobile formats, publishers make as little as 10 percent (according to some media industry pundits) compared to the same content in print format 10 years ago.And now, with the democratized power of social media, there’s a very low cost of entry into becoming your own mini media powerhouse. Just like everyone taking photos w/ fancy software filters now diminishes the demand and price for professional photographers.So, it’s with sadness that we bid adieu to Gigaom, its talented staff, and Malik’s dream.Goodnight, sweetheart. We still love you.Chris Knight is founder and creative director at Divino Group, a brand marketing and PR consultancy based in San Francisco.See More

Can I just rant for a moment? Have you ever noticed how asking for feedback sometimes invites frivolous, nonsensical, and insignificant information? Do some people believe that ‘I don’t have anything to offer’ is not an acceptable response? Why do they feel compelled to fill the dead air with something/anything? I’ve encountered a couple of situations recently that bring this problem into clear focus. A mid-level manager solicited feedback from her team on a variety of leadership competencies as part of her professional development. The analysis report was confusing, so I was asked to come in and gain a better understanding of the situation. Interviews with her staff revealed that two individuals over-emphasized issues that they admitted were not important because they "figured that’s what the questionnaire was looking for." A client shared very significant feedback that would have changed the direction and outcomes of a high-stakes project. When a meeting was requested to explore his perspective and revise the plan, he replied, "I’m really swamped. Just never mind. I’m good with what you originally submitted." A request for feedback is not an envelope that must be filled with something/anything just  to get it off your desk. A request for feedback is: An invitation to engage in an important dialogue… one that you can decline if you’re not available or have nothing to offer. A sacred trust… an opening from someone who values your opinion and is making him/herself vulnerable in the process. A moment in time when you can make a significant difference - to a person, process, or project. The opportunity to offer feedback in support of others is serious business. So to make sure that your feedback is focused rather than frivolous, ask yourself the following questions. How hard am I having to work to come up with an answer? If you are racking your brain and struggling to respond, you may not have any feedback to share. Going back in time, dredging up unrelated examples, trying to connect dots where they don’t exist does not generate meaningful or actionable feedback. So, just forget it. How important is it? You can likely find something to say in response to any feedback request, but what difference will it make? So, the person’s voice is a bit high… or if he or she uses a different process to get to the same results. If you can’t come up with a ‘so what’, it’s likely not worth passing along. So, just forget it. How much am I willing to invest in helping the person address it? This is key. Important, relevant feedback is significant enough that you should be willing to provide additional information, context, or support so that the person requesting it can take action. If it’s not worth it to you to make that investment, that might be an indicator that it doesn’t warrant sharing. So, just forget it. Feedback requests aren’t obligations that require you to go through the motions and check the boxes. They are an honor bestowed upon you by someone who believes that you have something to offer. If you do, pass your feedback along generously.  If not, just forget it. What about you? How cavalier are you with your feedback? How do you keep it real and valuable? The post Forgetting Frivolous Feedback appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Over the past few weeks, the technology press has focused on a new wave of investments in online learning.  (It's interesting, those of us in the field moved from using the term online learning to e-learning in 2000; investors have remained with the term online learning.  But that's another discussion.)For example, the Chronicle of HIgher Education has been running a series on new educational technology startups and the New York Times has run a series of similar features. Its series highlights a variety of startups, including one that helps professors manage e-mail from students.  (See Students Endlessly E-Mail Professors for Help. A New Service Hopes to Organize the Answers at http://chronicle.com/article/Students-Endlessly-E-Mail/131390/).Many of the features in the Times focus on services providing online courses, like a feature on a series of online services that provide training on various languages for writing Internet applications (see A Surge in Learning the Language of the Internet at  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/technology/for-an-edge-on-the-internet-computer-code-gains-a-following.html?_r=2&ref=business&pagewanted=all).   In today's edition, the New York Times reports on a large investment in Coursera, a company founded by some professors at Stanford and that provides university-based courses for free online (see Online Education Venture Lures Cash Infusion and Deals With 5 Top Universities at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/technology/coursera-plans-to-announce-university-partners-for-online-classes.html?ref=business).Nestled between the enthusiastic reporting for these new ventures are some troubling details:The founder of the e-mail company has"no plans to generate revenue—the service is free and does not carry advertisements. Ms. Sankar said that she didn't write a business plan for the site, because she doesn't believe in them, and that she believes that once a critical mass of students and professors are signed up, revenue models can emerges" (quote from the article from the Chronicle cited above).  Isn't that how the tech bubble burst the last time?The quality of the free and low-cost courses for writing Internet applications mentioned in the New York Times article sounds pretty poor. An expert acknowledged that most students who complete these courses still cannot write applications.  One company quoted in the article admitted publicly that its courses could be improved.  If one reads the fine print, the free university courses offered by Coursera and its competitors don't fully compete with those from universities. If students want feedback, they only receive it from other students. Sounds like a good plan but the article never explores the participation rates of students in these students-evaluate-students programs. Avoiding teaching assistants reduces costs, but if participation rates of students in evaluating one another are low, then many students might go wanting for feedback. (This is a real concern; the courses are voluntary, after all.)Students also do not receive university credit; they receive certificates of completion.The courses have no measures to protect against cheating.And, most significantly, when the article cites the impact of courses on students, they have no figures to report. They provide qualitative data.  That's fine, because it provides insights into whom and how the courses affect students.  But both of the students mentioned are working professionals, rather than degree-seeking students.Perhaps, then, these services are not really meant to replace universities; they're the beginnings of an online system for continuing professional education.  The only problem is, it doesn't sound like the founders of these companies have figured that out yet and, even if they have, the courses might need extensive rework before they can help workers really develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed on the job.  

Matthew Ferrari posted a blog postTales from the Disaster Recovery FrontIn a previous post I wrote about the importance of a) being able to test your disaster recovery (DR) plan and b) actually performing the test on a regular basis. But that discussion presumes there is already a DR plan in place. That may not be the case.Take the healthcare industry. A recent survey of health IT executives showed that the majority (70%) did not have a data centers DR plan in place. If something happened, their "strategy" was to sit tight and wait until the problem that took the data center down was fixed. That’s a huge gamble to take, especially with how much of all business today relies on the IT infrastructure.Perhaps the best way to illustrate the importance of having a DR plan in place (and tested) is to look at two real-world examples of what can happen - one a costly failure and the other a textbook example of a good DR plan in action.Let’s start with the failure, which involves the flooding in New York City in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy. An entire data center that served clients in the financial services industry went dark when the backup generators in the building’s basement were submerged in water. With no other recourse, the data center provider had to scramble to find space in other data centers that hadn’t been affected by the flooding. When it did, the provider had to physically pull the servers out of its racks and drive them to a data center it didn’t own in another city to restore functionality for its most important customers. Those customers went without their data for 4.5 days, while others were down for a week and a half before main power could be restored.Ask yourself - could your organization survive without access to data for more than four days? Especially given that 24 percent of organizations that suffer an outage of 24 hours or more close within two years? Or that 68 percent of organizations down for a week or more close within one year?Now let’s look at the benefits of preparing properly for disasters. A hospital in the Utah mountains built its DR plan to include replication of data to the cloud over a dedicated MPLS connection and quarterly tests to ensure performance. When a huge snowstorm threatened to shut down the power to their local data center, the hospital proactively failed over production to the cloud environment with a recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) of less than an hour - with no loss of performance or security. The replication process meant the data was available immediately after the failover - no need to go through a lengthy restore process from tape or disk, no need to ship SQL logs. Most importantly, the hospital was able to operate as though the data was still being held locally. In fact, it was so successful the hospital is now considering permanently moving all of its production to the cloud.The reality is today’s enterprises (as well as small to medium-size businesses) are heavily reliant on data and technology. This makes them far more vulnerable than they realize. Even something as simple as pulling the wrong cable can create potentially devastating disruptions.A well-designed, well-tested DR plan is no longer a "nice to have." It is a must for every organization.Matt Ferrari is CTO of ClearDATA.See More

Check out, The Three Approaches to Professionalization in Technical Communication, one of the articles in the special issues on professionalization in the journal, Technical Communication.    The article explores internal divisions within the profession by exploring a spectrum of attitudes towards professionalization.  At one of the spectrum is professionalization, which seeks to formalize the practice and preparation for the profession. At the other end of the spectrum is contra-professionalization, which actively resists efforts to professionalize.  Here is the abstract of the article:Purpose:  Explores internal divisions within our profession by exploring one particular type of tension that exists: that technical communicators do not have a unified view of professionalization for the field. Methods:  Proposes that prevailing approaches to professionalization are rooted in theories of occupations, the exclusive right to perform a job. True occupations have such rights legally; aspiring occupations like ours are professions.  Common components of an infrastructure for occupations includes professional organizations, bodies of knowledge, education, professional activities, and certification.Results:   Professions often establish these in anticipation of becoming an occupation, but some practicing professionals interpret and use them differently, resulting in a spectrum of approaches to professionalization.At one end of the spectrum is formal professionalism, which views professionalization as a stepping stone to full occupational status. It is rooted in a worldview that values expertise and sees the infrastructure of an occupation supporting the development of expertise and controlling access to the profession. In the center of the spectrum is quasi-professionalization, in which individuals participate in the activities of the occupational infrastructure but without the expectation of exclusive rights to perform the work. Quasi- professionalization is rooted in professional identity. At the other end of the spectrum is contra-professionalization, which refers to initiatives that offer or promote professional services outside of parts or all of the infrastructure, sometimes circumventing it completely. This world view is rooted in market theory and characterized by  concepts like Do-It-Yourself (DIY), user-generated and Subject Matter Expert (SME)-provided documentation.Conclusions:  The differing views suggest tensions regarding support for specific efforts to professionalize technical communication, including formal branding of the profession, establishment of certification, and support for professional organizations.To see the complete article, visit http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc.  (Note: Only free to members of the Society for Techincal Communication and to those entering through university libraries with a subscription to IngentaConnect.)

As 2013 draws to a close, it’s seductive to make declarations about how things (including ourselves) will be different in the coming year. Daily exercise Kind words to the crotchety co-worker No sugar The list goes on. The problem is that too frequently we jump to these resolutions prematurely. They end up operating in a vacuum and without context… more like challenges than congruent, integrated intentions. They capture our intention for a few weeks; but they fail to capture our imaginations and hearts sufficiently to carry them further. And it’s all because we skip an important step: we look forward before looking backward. The new year inspires new energy… but that energy can be more constructively and productively focused if we spend even a few minutes reflecting on the past twelve months: What activities generated the greatest sense of accomplishment? (Note: This is different from ‘what did you accomplish?’ This is about the activities that got you there.) When did you feel most alive? Who inspired you and why? What were you doing when you were happiest? What came easily to you? What were the greatest struggles? What did you learn… about yourself… about others… about life? Your answers to these questions are fodder for resolutions that will mean something… that will stick with you beyond the first few weeks of January…. that will direct your attention and action in ways that are meaningful and fulfilling. Allowing resolutions to emerge from this reflection yields an emotional pull toward what matters versus a punitive push toward a bunch of ‘shoulds’ that might not. So, before toasting the New Year and looking forward to 2014, take a few pre-solution moments to look backward then set some genuine intentions and resolutions that will stick with you and propel you forward into the life you envision. The post Pre-solution: The Forgotten Step Before Resolutions Can Take Hold appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Per Buer posted a blog postThe State of Entrepreneurship in the NordicsAt the end of January, the analyst James Governor invited me to present at his Monki Gras developer’s conference in London. This year’s theme was "Nordic Craft Culture and Tech" and my company, Varnish Software, is based in Norway.As James put it, "the web runs on Nordic inventions" and most web inventions are built on open source. Varnish Software began life as an open source project and the Nordic region is rich with open source inventions like Linux, MySQL and PHP.James wanted to explore further "what makes Nordic Culture so productive" during the conference. To outsiders there are many factors that would appear to be working against Nordic entrepreneurs, for example the high taxes - of which I am all too familiar! Other things like difficulty in raising capital and less sophisticated VCs also work against us.So here’s something that will probably come as a surprise. In 2013 when we won a Red Herring award, I made a quick count of how the various Nordic countries were represented. I found that the Nordics were massively over-represented per capita, when compared to other countries in Europe. I suspected lots of different reasons for this - let me share a few..Tech startups have flat organizations. The boss doesn’t have as much authority as in other companies. Startups hire bright people and they are expected to provide guidance on various parts of the business even though it might be slightly outside their job description. This makes perfect sense as the boss doesn’t have all the answers. This attitude is pretty common in the Nordics. As other speakers explained , the cultural concepts of Dugnad (Norway) or Talkoot (Finland), both of which refer to voluntary community work, or Lagom (Sweden) which describes the gravity towards the average as positive, are strong cultural values that favor such a flat organization. Countries with more hierarchical cultures are less naturally included towards these flat, collaborative structures.Another factor that probably comes into play is the region’s strong social security net, mitigating risks for entrepreneurs. Trusted governments and low levels of corruption also make a startup more likely to succeed. There are probably other aspects as well, such as individuals’ need for self-realization. The relatively high median income in the Nordics make self-realization a stronger motivational force compared to countries with lower incomes.Earlier this year I looked at the last 500 Red Herring awards given in Europe and how the various countries were doing.The Y axis shows the number of people in each country per Red Herring winner. Norway is doing pretty bad compared to Denmark and Sweden. This didn’t really surprise me much. Sweden has done a spectacular job of turning its tech startups like MySQL, Spotify, iZettle and Mojang into global successes.Denmark, which is pretty close behind, also has a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Having spent quite a few vacations in Denmark I know that it is hard to drive more than a couple of hundred meters without running into a tiny business trying to sell you something. If a Dane has a few unused square meters in his backyard he likely to use the area to grow some vegetables or set up a tiny ceramics shop, selling his wares to whomever drives past. This entrepreneurial reflex is unique and leads to a vast number of small startups. Companies such as Zendesk and Endomondo are good examples of successful start-ups. These companies aren’t growing as quickly as the their Swedish counterparts but the sheer amount of them is pretty staggering.Norway has fewer start-ups and the reasons behind this are pretty complex. It seems pretty hard to compete with the offshore endeavours that dominate Norwegian business. The offshore oil business is hugely profitable and dominant. These companies get government subsidies and invest heavily in R&D and attract some of Norway’s best developers. This makes it impossible for start-ups to recruit on a level playing field. ForgeRock is notable exceptions, that has managed to overcome this and made a fantastic success in the enterprise world. And overall Norway isn’t doing too bad compared to the rest of Europe.All in all Scandinavia averages around 0.83 Red Herring award winners per one million population. The UK averages around 0.19, Germany 0.10, France 0.20 Spain 0.08 and Italy 0.04. But wait, what about Finland? The results are pretty surprising. Finland has on average 1.8 Red Herring awards per million people. While Finland is part of the Nordics, its culture is quite different, both in terms of language and culture.The Finnish entrepreneurs presenting at Monki Gras put a lot of emphasis on Sisu, the ability to persevere suffering. The best examples of massive amounts of Sisu can be found in history books describing the Finnish resistance to Soviet aggression. The idea of Sisu goes directly against ideas such as "fail fast" and "pivot quickly". As one speaker said, any Finnish entrepreneur would keep banging their head against the wall long after any sensible person would have given up. And sometimes, all a startup needs to succeed is another six months and just a few more head bangs!Per Buer is founder of Varnish Software.See More

Because of low enrolment, the Integrative Literature Workshop that was scheduled to begin this Thursday has been canceled. I hope to offer a section at a later time.  

Marin Perez's blog post was featuredHow Customer Success Can Supercharge AdvocacyDiving head-deep into the Customer Success space has been an eye-opening experience for me. In particular, the connections between Customer Success and advocacy have been illuminating. I've already covered how Marketing and Customer Success can partner to drive advocacy but I'd love to share some more insights I've learned.In the B2B world, I’ve noticed people tend to refer to relationships between vendors and customers as "partnerships." This isn’t a good thing because it paints all of these different types of relationships with the same brush. In reality, vendor-customer relationships exist on a spectrum. Some relationships are irrelevant while others are made up of honest, fully committed teamwork. The latter is a true partnership, and a true partnership is worth striving for with your customers. Why? Because it means they place a high value on your relationship. It also increases retention rates, broadens awareness of your brand within customers’ organizations, and builds true advocates. True advocates are worth their weight in gold because no matter how much marketing and branding you do, new potential customers are going to trust their peers more. Trust is the best form of advertising.Growing advocates is extremely important for any successful business. Advocates lead to more referrals, they lead to upsells and cross-sells, and if you’re using them correctly, advocates can also result in lead-generation and customer conversions. Venture Capitalist Tomasz Tunguz also points out that Advocacy can lead to a significant lowering of the cost to acquire new customers. That’s why Customer Success exists: we build partnerships by incentivizing customers to engage with our brand. This requires identifying the right people and opportunities. And those, in turn, require a lot of proactive communication and ongoing candor. Let’s do a deep dive into some specific tasks Customer Success orgs can do to help build these partnerships that eventually lead to advocates. Identify Hidden AdvocatesWithout a doubt, some of your current customers can make for great advocates but it’s up to Customer Success to find them. Having a keen understanding of your customers’ usage data is a good way to be able to spot power users who may eventually become advocates.A lot of companies get excited about how advocacy can advance their needs but that’s not how an advocacy partnership should work. After you’ve identified potential advocates, the next steps include identifying co-marketing opportunities and tailoring them for the interest of the customer. Customer Success Managers should make the co-marketing opportunities aligned with the customer’s agenda for the quarter (or year) because this makes participating a seamless experience for the client.Maximize Business ReviewsWe know that quarterly business reviews are great moments to convey how much business value the customer is receiving but business reviews can also be used as a way to build advocates. Because these often have wider audiences than the day-to-day interactions of Customer Success Managers, use this as an opportunity to highlight the successes of your connections at the company.Anything that can boost their reputation in front of their company increases the odds of them becoming an advocate. There’s a difference between building up your customer’s confidence and inflating them for the sake of inflating them, so make sure that you’re utilizing relevant data which places the customer’s achievements in proper context.Keep Advocacy In Line With Actual SuccessIt’s very easy to get carried away with co-marketing and leaning on your advocates but it’s important to have honest depictions of what’s going on with your customers. In other words, make sure your advocacy material is in line with the actual success of your clients.Doing case studies or co-marketing assets simply for the sake of hitting predefined Marketing goals can ultimately undermine your efforts. While it’s important to maintain a strong cadence of advocacy material, if what you’re publishing doesn’t match up with what people in the field are hearing, it’s going to bring down your credibility.When it comes to selling this to skeptical internal teams that may have their own advocacy goals, really break it down into "How does this really benefit your customer?" Tailor the goals to make sense to your customers. Otherwise, you can find yourself going to the same few customers over and over, which can lead to advocacy burnout.One way Customer Success can help in this area is by bubbling up the best existing advocate sources so that Marketing can make the most with what they actually have. This can mean going deeper with existing advocates, as opposed to stretching to include multiple sources where there may be no substance - three in-depth, honest advocacy pieces are going to resonate more than five fluffy pieces. Focus on the People  It’s vital to remember that advocacy has to go both ways, as your organization should also be trumpeting your customers’ successes and the individual actors within it. We discussed how you could tailor the co-marketing efforts to help your customers hit their agendas, but Customer Success can take a variety of actions to ensure advocates are gaining value.Make sure that you’re connecting your advocates with individuals and companies that can be useful for their networking. You really want these partners to feel like being your advocate is advantageous for them … you’re not just trying to send them out there with a sandwich board advertising your brand. Marin Perez is a former tech journalist who's joined a B2B startup on the content side.See More

I finally got around to reading Before Happiness by Shawn Achor over the holidays. It’s an insightful book that describes how we must learn to see the world through a more positive lens which allows us to summon the motivation, emotion, and intelligence necessary to achieve happiness and success. The reading prompted me to begin considering the precursors of other fundamental success-driving factors… like competence. Competence is essential to workplace (or any-place) success. The ability to perform well and efficiently, proficiency, mastery, and expertise - it all lays a solid foundation for accomplishment and results. But competence doesn’t spontaneously appear; it unfolds in the presence of something even more powerful: confidence. Based upon my field research and 20+ years of experience helping leaders and employees build new skills to improve their effectiveness, confidence is the precursor of competence. Certainly there are times when we’ve all surprised ourselves by being able to do something we never thought possible. But, in the vast majority of cases, that achievement is preceded by a belief, trust, or faith that it could be done. In the vast majority of cases, confidence comes before competence. As a result, building worker confidence may be today’s most under-rated leadership priority. What steps do we take to inspire sufficient faith in one’s ability to perform well? Try any combination of this dynamic dozen of confidence-coaxing strategies. Feedback: Regular, balanced feedback provides a safety net, allowing others to try new things and act more boldly because they know they can count on you to offer constructive observations that will help them calibrate their efforts. Strengths: Tapping into areas of strength naturally activates confidence. So, find ways to encourage others to leverage what they are already good at to discover new abilities. Goals: Confidence is harder to muster if the endgame is unclear. If one’s not sure what success looks like, it’s hard to believe that it’s possible. So make the future less foggy by supporting others in clarifying their goals. Once we paint a picture of success, we can start to paint ourselves into it. Coaching: Engage in facilitative conversations that help others consider their methods, processes, and results. Ask about what’s motivating, challenging, confusing. If you stick to the questions, they must come up with the answers. And the mere act of doing that, builds confidence. Learning: Provide the training or development experiences required to be successful. Rehearsal: And give others a chance to practice and hone new abilities in a safe setting before ‘going live’ under greater performance pressure. Whether it’s working out the kinks of new skills in a workshop or role-playing a challenging interaction, success in these artificial settings builds confidence in one’s ability to excel. Accountability: Conferring responsibility to others communicates your confidence in their ability to perform well while providing the opportunity for them to take their own confidence-building actions. Recognition: Catch others doing things right. Provide on-the-spot acknowledgement of skills and abilities. Express appreciation. And, don’t forget to spotlight effort as well as results… since the road to achievement can sometimes be quite long. This supports persistence, which in turn supports greater confidence. Network: Encourage those around you to connect with others. Build strong bridges among individuals. Engineer collaboration and cooperation. A broader network provides greater perspective and support which make trying new things less risky and more comfortable. Reflection: Be a sounding board and offer opportunities for those around you to give serious thought and consideration to topics important to their success. Insightful, juicy, significant questions about what’s most important, past successes and failures, new lessons, concerns, and stumbling blocks (both internal and external) allow others to become grounded, better understand who they are and what they’re capable of… and tap that inner confidence. New experiences: Offering novel opportunities telegraphs your confidence in the abilities of others while providing a playground in which to apply strengths and skills in new ways… more or less successfully. But either way, simply taking action and trying builds grit and greater comfort stepping into new realms. Mistakes: Allow them. Encourage them. Cherish them. Genuine confidence comes from the deep inner belief that one is capable of dealing with the outcomes of their efforts… good and not so good. So, create the space where people can fail. Help them reframe errors and opportunities to generate new awarenesses. Facilitate conversations that allow others to milk their mistakes for all they’re worth. There’s nothing quite like surviving (and even thriving in the face of) failure to build a very profound and abiding sense of confidence. So, before competence, there’s confidence. But before confidence, there’s frequently a leader who understands the connection between the two and is willing and able to take steps to help others build trust, faith, and belief in their ability to succeed. It all comes down to coaxing confidence then watching competence unfold. Image: istockphoto.com The post Before Competence appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.