Medwrite Medical Communications, a provider of expert medical content development and education, has selected Dashe & Thomson to design and develop a learning solution that will convert classroom-based training to eLearning. The updated training will provide much greater flexibility in learning by allowing physicians, scientific researchers, and healthcare professionals to access the course online. The learning solution from Dashe & Thomson will include eLearning development, learning portal development, and learning management system integration. Development of the learning solution is currently underway. The post Medwrite Partners With Dashe & Thomson for eLearning Content Development appeared first on Dashe & Thomson.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Al Switzler is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE   Dear Crucial Skills, I have received feedback that my people skills are weak and that I am too direct, and I have been working to improve my performance in this area. I thought I had closed the performance gap, but based on feedback I’ve received, I think the behavior may still be present. Do you have any suggestions on how I might improve my people skills? Too Direct  Dear Too Direct, Given the distance, anonymity, and lack of details of your circumstance, it would be easy to share a few old adages as advice. However, I’d like to be as specific as I can so let me give it a whirl. I’d like to share a few questions you could ask yourself and suggest a few tactics that will hopefully help you and our other readers. First Question: What is the source of the feedback? Often, the feedback we receive comes from a manager. That feedback naturally becomes important, but sometimes you need to clarify that feedback by seeking additional sources. What does a mentor think about the feedback? What does a coworker think about the feedback? What do your direct reports think about the feedback? You are not trying to negate the feedback; you are trying to clarify it, and other perspectives can help. For example, you might have a conversation that goes like this. "Could we talk about a confidential topic? I’ve received feedback that I need to improve my people skills and that I’m too direct." (Notice I didn’t use weak; I think that word is too value loaded.) "I’m wondering what specific behaviors you’ve seen and what advice you would give me." Again, the purpose is to get clarity, not to get evidence to refute your boss. Second Question: Is the feedback specific? In your particular case, I think the feedback is too vague. "People skills are weak and too direct" are both bundles of behaviors or conclusions. Neither will help you improve your behavior and thus your results and relationships. Clearly, the tactics in the first question are related to this issue of clarity. In this second question, the responsibility rests entirely with you to ask enough questions to make sure you know specifically what the feedback means at the behavioral level. What are you actually saying or doing that reflects poorly on your people skills. What behaviors are at the root cause of your manager’s concern? When you receive the feedback, be sure to ask questions for clarity. If you don’t immediately ask questions and need time to reflect on your behavior first, be sure to take the time you need and then return to your manager and uncover specifics behind his or her concerns. Here are a few clarifying questions you might ask: Could you tell me what you mean by "my people skills are weak?" Could you share a specific example of something I did or didn’t do that has caused you to think this about me? Do you have any suggestions for handling similar situations in the future? Similarly, you could ask questions about what was meant by being "too direct." To dive deeper here, ask for specific times when you are too direct. Does your directness show up as anger or sarcasm? When you give feedback, do you roll your eyes? Do you come in with a monologue and seldom ask questions to get another’s perspective? Do you focus on the task at the expense of the relationship? Some managers clearly value accuracy more than harmony—they value getting it right more than they value getting along. The best managers demonstrate that they value both. Do you play "gotcha" but never give praise or encouragement? Are you all business and no play? Do you only "lose it" when there is a deadline or a missed budget, or do you hold everyone accountable for every little thing? I won’t go on and on about the variations of being "too direct," but hopefully you can see what I mean by getting clarity at the behavioral level. At the end of this conversation, you should be more aware of what behaviors you need to change, and you can then make a specific behavioral plan to improve your people skills. Third Question: What can I do to improve? If you have clarity about the issue and that clarity has been enhanced by talking to others, you should be able to make a plan. I turn here to Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success for a couple of key tactics. Begin by asking yourself, "What results do I want?" You might want your boss to give you a 4 or 5 on a performance appraisal instead of a 2 or 3. Or you might simply want him or her to state that you have improved in your next one-on-one meeting. Do you know your crucial moments? In what circumstances and with whom do you become too direct? When are you tempted to become angry and use sarcasm and not ask questions or listen? When you can pinpoint your moments of weakness, you will be more prepared to behave differently if and when these crucial moments arise. What are the vital behaviors you’ll use in these crucial moments? For example, you might identify these vital behaviors: When I see a performance issue, I will remain calm and ask myself, "Why would a reasonable, rational, decent person do that?" I will begin all conversations with an observation and question, not an emotion and conclusion. If I lose my temper or become sarcastic, I’ll call time out and sincerely apologize. There could be many different crucial moments and vital behaviors, but you need to select yours. And you’ll need to marshal enough sources of influence to help yourself stick to your behaviors. Do you vividly understand what will happen if you don’t improve and what the benefits will be if you do? Do you have the skills to enact your behaviors? Do you have the support of friends? Do you have cues to remind you about what you have committed to do? If you get enough sources of influence to encourage and enable you, you can make improvement almost inevitable. You will have created your own plan which will lead to your success. I wish you well,Al Related posts: When It’s Time to Let People Go Holding People Accountable What Happened: Time to Let People Go

A week and a half ago was DevLearn, I’ve been mulling on writing this post ever since. I was not at DevLearn, but did take part heavily in the backchannel. I felt like I followed most of the speakers good enough, although still filtered and not as good as being there. Dangerously Alarmist One of the keynote speakers really stood out to me, though I was very cautious about his message. To me, Eli Pariser’s keynote felt very alarmist and dangerous in the message it spread. It sort of felt like the local nightly news which filtered information specifically for the shock value. Out of curiosity, I did a bit of research on the "filter bubble" and watched Eli’s TED talk from 2011. It’s entertaining, but this is where the non-filtered stops. You can watch the TED talk here: Information is analyzed and presented in a haphazard way, including the 57 signals that Google search uses to filter your search results. Everything Has Always Been Filtered Google A more fair way to look at these signals would be from a positive point of view, such as all signals are helpful and necessary to make sense of your search results. If there is something wrong with a signal, that should then be described further. They are presented as a negative thing. Signals in this list include things such as the location and language of the user. Google must filter results based on your location and language, it’s absolutely necessary to present what’s relevant to you, and in a language that you speak. Facebook As far back as I can remember, Facebook information has been filtered. Every so often filters are changed and privacy is modified, it’s business as usual and to be expected when using a commercial service, and they warn you. Eli brings up a point that his more conservative friends were slowly filtered out of his feed. This happened because he clicked on more of his liberal friends links, and less on conservative friends links. The filtering happened on the human side, but the computer side noticed the pattern and tried to adjust accordingly, this sounds beneficial to me as long as I have the last say. If at any point you decide you don’t like how things are filtering, Facebook makes it very easy to change. Unfilter Yourself Buried in all this information and alarm is a good lesson. Unfilter yourself if you believe it’s necessary. You can’t rely on others to filter information, or unfilter it for that matter. Here are a few good ways to unfilter yourself: Use critical thinking when surfing the Internet. Critical thinking is the number one thing everyone should be taught, and it should be used on the Internet. Follow many people (who add value) and look at what they have to say, or the articles they post. Don’t limit yourself to just your interest, expose yourself to different industries and different points of view. Educate yourself on how Facebook filters and how to use tools like Google properly. It’s all out there in plain English (or whatever your language may be) and most companies aren’t hiding the way they do things. Put the work in when searching for and interpreting information. Don’t expect others to do the work for you, even if filters were not there, it would still take much work to find information outside your bubble, possibly even harder. Even if you do all of this, you’re still going to have a certain level of filtering in the information you get, sorry. Example: If you are looking for some feedback on how easy it is for a user to navigate a learning experience, you may start with finding somebody to test it on Twitter. Just by doing this you are limiting yourself to a tech literate crowd, they already are more Internet savvy than the average user who uses say, Facebook (had to throw that in there). Sorry, the bubble is impossible to escape. Enjoy it, work with it, it’s helpful. Just like the doctor who always tells you to get exercise. Nobody can make you, you’re going to have to do it yourself. You’re going to have to go out there and get some things, it’s not always going to come to you on a non-filtered silver platter, even if the filters didn’t exist. Your Bubble Your bubble can be a great place, and I recommend you take advantage of the Internet being yours, and being what you make of it. Reach outside what you normally do. Read things you wouldn’t normally read. You can’t expect others, or technology, to do the work for you. Relying on machines to make an educated guess isn’t a bad thing, as long as you make the final decision, and trust me, you do. The solution to the filter bubble is to expand your personal learning network and vary the sources of your news and information. Don’t rely solely on yourself because as you can see from Eli’s talk, you’re not a good filter, and neither is anybody else. Positions you disagree with will not be clicked on regardless of Facebook making them visible as long as you decide not to click on them. So, take a risk and click something new. You are the only one that can personalize your bubble properly; everybody else, human or electronic, can only try to help. Thank them for the help, and then make your final decision. Still want to wear your tinfoil hat? Have at it: DuckDuckGo - A search engine which is anonymous and without any "bubble." Don’t Bubble (by DuckDuckGo) - Information about how search engine filtering works. Don’t Track Us (also by DuckDuckGo) - More information on how tracking and filtering works. Sorry, no related posts.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Andrew Maxfield is director of the Influencer Institute. What does poverty have in common with obesity? Both are conditions—states of being—that result from repeated behaviors over time—patterns of doing. If you’ve read Change Anything, you know that we claim both of these conditions can be dramatically and fundamentally altered by changing the habits that produce them. And habits hinge on pivot points called vital behaviors. Influencer Institute, a charitable private operating foundation funded in part by VitalSmarts, has applied a behavior-change approach to helping people escape the clutches of dire poverty in Oaxaca, Mexico through a partnership with an organization called Cause for Hope. Let me relate a few lessons we’ve learned that can perhaps help you in your own personal change efforts as well as in your training and coaching. First, insist on vital behaviors. There are many important and interesting behaviors, but few vital ones. You’ll know a vital behavior when you see it because other behaviors and results naturally follow if you get the vital behavior right. In the case of our experiments in Mexico, participants who lifted themselves out of dire poverty over the course of several months did just a few key things: They made and kept weekly commitments related to growing a small business. They kept daily financial records of income and expenses. They saved an increasing amount of money each week, even if in very small increments. Take Connie, for example. Now a proud owner of a children’s clothing store, she describes how her monthly income grew from less than $200 to over $400 (and still growing) and how she now has accumulated $800 in savings. Further, her husband’s earnings have improved substantially due to her influence. Her children will have opportunities that she never could have provided without focusing on her vital behaviors. Second, find or create a team. You might think that getting yourself out of poverty is your battle alone, that it’s a math problem involving your income and your expenses, period. And in a sense, that’s true—at the end of the day, you must be the one to enact the behaviors that change your condition. However, engaging the help and encouragement of supportive team members is a powerful component in an influence strategy to change your behavior. This has been the case in our work in Mexico, too. Each participant belongs to a "peer-mentoring group," which provides the vehicle for ongoing peer-accountability, motivation, and learning. At weekly group meetings, participants engage in a ritual of making and keeping a commitment relative to growing his or her small business and reporting on the prior week’s commitment. Group members hold each other accountable for making steady progress and also participate in joint problem-solving sessions. These participants are progressing together in ways they couldn’t (and didn’t) alone. Finally, consider a condition in your own life that you’d like to change. It might not be dire poverty, but there is at least one thing that you can learn from this experiment: results ensue when you pursue the vital behaviors. Related posts: Influencer Institute: Introducing the Influencer Institute—And a Call to Action! How can I help participants who are creating their own change plan in Influencer Training create an actual results statement? Vital Behaviors for Entrepreneurs

It’s been a while since my last post, and for good reason. I started a new job in early November and then in mid-November I moved into a new house. Big changes with a lot going on to say the least. With all these changes, my ideas haven’t slowed, but they have changed a bit. Being at a different company sparks different types of ideas. Solutions for each company are as unique as the company itself. In order to empower employees at a company, there is no single solution. A social network will do it for some, others need a mobile content network to empower field employees mobile devices. There are many others, but there is one I believe is often overlooked. The most overlooked method of empowering employees in this social age is the wiki. They’ve been around for some time,  even a relic from Web 1.0, therefore may be overlooked as old technology. Pairing a wiki with modern technology can do just the trick to create a vast network of social learning. The modern technology I have in mind is responsive web design, a wiki that can be used on any device, from anywhere. Employees are directly tasked with creating, maintaining, and sharing the knowledge. That’s power. The power a wiki gives employees is immeasurable, it makes the employee a direct contributor, not just a passive consumer. It even gamifies the learning process as co-workers can see who the biggest contributor is, or who had recent updates. Some organizations already take advantage of the strengths of a wiki. I’ve experienced its strengths first hand, and it can truly empower employees, making them feel the power they have to decide where the company goes, and what type of impression they leave on it for years to come. A Learning & Development department that can learn to be enablers of learning, not gatekeepers of learning is a Learning & Development department that will continue to be relevant for a very long time. The department will thrive and be relevant to the companies growth on a larger scale than without the wiki. Formal training is necessary, but it’s impossible to keep up with everything, embrace the knowledge share. Finding ways to manage the information and tap into the raw learning power of an organization is a skill every L & D department must master. It Costs Too Much No, it really doesn’t. You don’t have to make anything fancy or even pay for a wiki. In fact some of the wikis that cost money are more difficult and cumbersome to use than a free wiki. It probably costs more money to keep one person on staff than the entire development of a responsive wiki, it would require working closely with IT though, if you dare. The benefits of a company wiki far outweigh any costs, knowledge would be managed by employees, self-correcting as it is on Wikipedia, and powerful because of the motivation it can give employees. There are free solutions out there, the most well-known would be MediaWiki which many are already familiar with, including yourself if you’ve ever been to Wikipedia. That’s right. Free, open source code runs one of the most successful knowledge websites on the Internet. A bit of development time in designing a responsive framework for your wiki, a place to house It all, and you will have possibly one of the most successful knowledge sharing technologies on earth. Have You Seen The Power of the Wiki? I know there are many cases of a wiki being used at companies to share information. Can you share your success stories or successes you’ve seen? How else can you see a wiki improving the performance of employees? Please share your thoughts on using a company wiki to share knowledge and foster the open culture that every company needs moving forward. You might also enjoy: Mobile Learning in the Enterprise, An Introduction Solutions to Bring Mobile Learning to the Enterprise Challenges and Barriers to Mobile Learning in the Enterprise

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, How do you handle a job promotion when you are promoted from within your peer group? I was recently promoted to a manager position and oversee the team members that were once my peers. What is the most effective way to transition from team member to manager? Promoted  Dear Promoted, When I was ten years old, I was chosen by our elementary school principal to be on the Traffic Squad. As a symbol of my authority, I donned a purple two-cornered hat emblazoned with the name of our school—McKinley. I was feeling pretty full of myself until I discovered that my first assignment involved monitoring hand hygiene in the boys’ restroom. My visions of leading troops into heroic battles were dashed. Instead, I stood by the sinks with a No. 2 pencil and pad of paper recording the names of those who did not properly wash their hands. Tedium turned to terror when my own beloved teacher, Mr. Collins, completed his bodily duties, tucked in his shirt, then stalked past the sinks without so much as a rinse. I was torn. My responsibilities were clear. My authority immense. But could I hold a teacher accountable? And worse, would I rupture our relationship if I brought Mr. Collins to task? It can be tricky to assume a new role in an old social system. It can be as hard for you to see yourself in the new role as it is for others. If you fail to accept yourself in the new role, you’ll either shirk the leadership you have been asked to offer—or indulge your authority in a vain effort to convince yourself of your worthiness for the role. Neither option is good. Likewise, if others have difficulty honoring your new assignment they may either resist or resent your authority. They may also expect special favors—assuming their former peer relationship with you entitles them to some of the benefits accompanying the new office. How can you settle both yourself and others into the relationship? There are two crucial conversations you need to hold. The first is with yourself. You need to decide what it means—and doesn’t mean—to be the boss. When you’re comfortable within yourself, it would be wise to set appropriate expectations with others. Conversation with self: Are you in your own way? If you notice you are reticent to make decisions, hold others accountable, give assignments, or lead change, then you are getting in your own way. Similarly, if you find yourself needing to prove something by exerting your authority—making threats, giving orders, micromanaging—the problem is not others, it’s you. I suggest you spend some time pondering one important question: What does it mean to have power? Does it mean something about you? Does it mean you’re smarter, more deserving, more experienced, or more important than others? Is it about privilege? Or is it about responsibility? And if the latter, what are your responsibilities? I feel much more comfortable with authority when I remember that it is not power over but power to. It is not given to me as an intoxicating privilege, but as a special stewardship. When New York restaurateur Danny Meyer promotes a waiter to manager, he explains that his or her new position is like the gift of fire. "Fire is used in many ways—all analogous to your new duties," he teaches. "Fire can warm. Your duty is to encourage people. Fire is light. Your job is to teach. Fire can cook. Your duty is to strengthen and feed. Fire is a gathering place in many cultures. Your job is to build the team. Fire can also burn. There are rare times when you will need to use your power to give hard feedback. But do so carefully." You will continue to be self-conscious about your newfound power so long as you think it is about you. When you come to understand that it is more responsibility than ornament, you will feel less self-conscious and more conscious of others. You’ll worry less about what others think, and more about what you need to do. Conversation with others: Are they in your way? Once you’ve settled this in yourself, you may find that others are having a hard time accepting you in the new role. Don’t feel intimated by that. Remember, this is not about you. Your responsibility to serve does not change because others don’t think you deserve the job or feel bothered in some way by the need to respond to you differently than they did in the past. If you believe others may have some difficulty with this transition, talk about it. Have an explicit conversation either with key individuals or with the full team to set expectations. Share with them: What you expect of yourself. How you see your duties and what your team should expect in terms of support, guidance, feedback, etc. What are your goals? What are your standards? What will be different from the past? What will be similar? What you expect from them. Describe clearly what behavior and results you expect from the team. If you’ve seen worrying signs of behavior that will impede your team’s ability to perform, describe it. Describe why it is a problem. Be sure to frame the concerns in terms of performance and results, not ego and insult. Describe how decisions will be made. Lay out which decisions will be command (you’ll make them), consult (you’ll make them after involving the team), consensus (the full team must agree before proceeding), or vote (majority rules). Clarifying how decisions will be made will avoid future violated expectations or misunderstandings of your motives. Finally, if you think this transition will be bumpy, schedule in a follow-up conversation to check in with the team on how it’s working and to give them feedback on your views as well. As I watched Mr. Collins leave the bathroom, I pondered my response. Was he flouting my authority? Should I make a statement by writing him up? Would he be angry at me if I invoked my full powers against him? Amidst the turmoil, something in my fifth grade mind quieted enough that I could hear past the din of my ego. I had been given an assignment. The only important question was, would I do it? I calmly added Mr. Collins’ name to the list. The next year Mr. Collins promoted me to Traffic Captain. Best wishes in this exciting new growth opportunity. Joseph Related posts: Chaotic Boss Control Freak Coworker Coworker’s Personal Life

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey - Besides the fact that my name is in the acknowledgments (blush, blush), this seminal book legitimized inside-out learning and personal, interpersonal, and team development as necessary elements of effective leadership. Principles and paradigms become the building blocks instead of style and technique. Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader - This almost forgotten, but still incredible, book is about changing the car industry’s and the world’s notion of corporate accountability and the value of human life. Studying the motivations and strategies of this very successful Influencer can help inspire us all to understand how doing our work not only changes minds, but improves and saves lives as well. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge - Peter’s book pushes past simple answers and insufficient techniques to explain five disciplines used to lead and improve organizations. I especially value his explanation of "systems thinking" and "the learning organization" as both foundational concepts and tools.   Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers - I keep thinking we’ve moved past his pioneering work, but his research is an absolute necessity for current leaders and Influencers. Who would have thought that getting innovation adopted and change in general is a social process? Related posts: Off the Author’s Bookshelf: What Joseph’s Reading Off the Author’s Bookshelf: What Ron’s Reading Off the Author’s Bookshelf: What Al’s Reading

It’s been a busy year, with a lot of things happening. New technologies have come, and gone. So have new methodologies. I’ve learned a lot, forgotten even more probably, but I’ve met a lot of great people who have inspired me to do and write a lot of great things. I wanted to take some time to reflect on what I’ve learned this year, and think about where I need to go next year. It’s been the first year that I’ve consistently posted on my blog, and it has given me an excellent forum for reflecting on my learning, documenting it, and then building upon that knowledge with every idea I have and post I make. Twitter Inspiration This has also been the first year I have been consistently highly active on Twitter, and for the past few months have participated in Twitter chats. Twitter chats and posting in my blog have gone hand in hand as they fuel each other with inspiring moments and ideas I can take to the company I work at and hopefully give something back to the community that has given me so much. Every Twitter chat sparks a new idea, and they’re oddly not always related to the topic of the chat. I’ve been consistently participating in #chat2lrn of which I’ve only missed a few in the past seven months. I look at Twitter chats as taking an hour of my time, but giving back to me infinite inspiration. I’d go as far as saying that one hour pays for itself a million times over. A quick (Vizify) run-down of my year on Twitter 2013: Of course I must mention again my golden followers, those I interacted with the most throughout the year. Thanks to @rjacquez who has provided me with endless conversation about everything mobile, plus just a great person to know in general. Thanks @eGeeking for being my go-to #DevLearn inside person, wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much out of the back-channel if it weren’t for you! And last but certainly not least @LearnKotch who I’ve not only learned so much from, but you’re of course my favorite sharer of #LrnToday. #LrnToday While I find Twitter chats to be an excellent source of inspiration, it got me thinking how that inspiration and information share could be carried on outside the chat time. I also saw a lot of people Tweeting about what they learned, or that they try to learn something new each day. I wrote a post about documenting  what you learned using the hashtag #LrnToday. It’s not only a source of documenting what you learned, but also reflecting on it further which would better cement that learning into your brain. What did I learn? Looking back at the things I’ve learned this past year, I’ve really fine tuned a lot of my knowledge. I’ve been learning better every day how to best take advantage of mobile in learning. There are so many ways to do it and every problem requires a different solution. Social learning has also presented a great challenges, solutions I’ve heard work for some organizations have flat-out failed for others. There is no one solution fits all. One specific technology that I learned about without ever having previous knowledge is Adobe After Effects. I took an entire After Effects course on Udemy which was an experience in itself, my first full class online. I also learned all about MOOCs this year first by reading about them. Gamification was my first course and I think it was the perfect way to get my feet wet in the MOOC ocean. While I’m still not too positive on the way MOOCs are formatted, I think they still serve a much needed segment of education. This year was my first big introduction to the backchannel also. I have previously provided Tweets for the backchannel of the Gamification conference in 2012 although very lightly not knowing the value it created for those unable to attend. I heavily attending #DevLearn 2013 only from the backchannel, I was fortunate to know some great people who were live Tweeting. Even the conversation was amazing, without even being there. Next time I’m at a conference, I’ll definitely be providing live Tweets not just for others, but to document my learning. Two Biggest Changes I had to take a moment to mention my two huge changes for 2013 before I wrap up this post. It was fairly business as usual for most of the year but of course in the holiday rush also came another rush. In early November I started a new job as a Senior Instructional Designer, a big step in my career of always seeking to give the best knowledge to as many people as possible. In mid-November I became a home-owner for the first time, no longer an apartment dweller shoveling money into someone else’s pocket. These were some huge changes and in them alone have learned so much (like how much work owning a home really is!) On To 2014 Next year I’m sure will prove to be an even more productive year than this. My ideas for writing in my blog have not rested and I’m already working my way to how I can really affect the learning in an even larger way for even more people. I look forward to another year of blog posts and growing my audience, thoughts, and contributions to the Learning & Development community. You might also enjoy: Share What You’ve Learned Today: #LrnToday Following the Backchannel of #DevLearn Tweet Your Way to Conference Success

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kerry Patterson is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Listen to Kerrying On via MP3 Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes "Captain Newton wants to speak to you," said the voice on the other end of the phone. "The captain?" I thought to myself. I’d only been out of training for a couple of months and already I’d done something wrong! Why else would the boss of the entire base be calling me, a lowly ensign? I was soon to find out. "This is Captain Newton speaking. You know that large dumpster that sits in front of the supply building?" Oh no. Nothing good could come from a dumpster. It stinks. It blocks his view. He hates it. "Yes sir," I responded. "I think it’s a Dempsey version, if I’m not mistaken." "Well," the captain continued, "I’ve noticed the past few days that it’s been filled with scrap wood. If nobody else wants it, I was wondering if it would be okay if I fished out a few pieces for my home fireplace—on my way home. That is, if nobody else wants it." "I’ll check with supply ASAP and see how to make it happen," I eagerly responded, taking pride in the fact that I had employed the military expressions "ASAP" and "make it happen" in the same breath. Next, I dialed the chief warrant officer in charge of supply and explained to him the captain’s request for the scrap wood—taking care to include the captain’s proviso, "if nobody else wants it." The supply officer said he’d take care of it and get back to me. Two hours later, when my phone finally rang it wasn’t the supply officer getting back to me. Instead, it was the captain’s wife. She thanked me profusely for the lovely wood for her fireplace. I graciously accepted her words of appreciation and then headed out to learn why the captain’s wife was so excited about a few pieces of scrap wood. Before I could track down the supply officer, I overheard the following conversation at the water cooler. "You can’t believe the old man. He calls us and demands that we cut up beautiful new boards so he can burn them in his fireplace. We go out to his home, measure the fireplace, cut expensive oak to fit it, band the wood, and deliver it so he can burn it! We’re reusing our typewriter ribbons in order to save money, and he’s burning oak." Soon the entire base was abuzz over "The Captain’s Fireplace." To find out how the original request had become so twisted, I talked to each of the people between me and the seaman apprentice who actually delivered the newly cut wood. It turns out that each person in the chain of command had faithfully passed on the request to the person below him, while making slight changes in the wording. This was much like the "telephone" game we played as kids where you whisper something in someone’s ear, that person whispers the same to the next in line (distorting it ever so slightly), and so on until the original expression, "Mrs. Whipple has a pimple," comes out the other end as, "Whip the purple carburetor." In this version of the "telephone" game, the chief warrant officer explained that he had called the chief petty officer and passed on that the "old man" wanted the wood in the dumpster. Note the term had switched from "captain" to "old man," and from what I thought was a tentative request ("If nobody else wants it"), to a mandate. The next person explained that he had told his direct report that the old man wanted new wood for his fireplace. He figured they’d better not use scraps filled with nails and jagged edges and run afoul of the captain. The next fellow thought to avoid getting in trouble they ought to measure the fireplace so it would fit. It wasn’t long until it was new oak that was being measured, cut, banded, and delivered to the captain’s home. Unlike the "telephone" game where the original expression follows a random path, the captain’s request followed a predictable one. The original request was altered to fit the story people were carrying in their heads about the captain—and all other senior leaders who ever abused their authority. Rumors always follow this route. In order for tales to be shared, first they must be plausible. If you suggest that a person everyone respects did something ghastly, typically the first person hearing the rumor stops it, checks the facts, and otherwise refuses to besmirch the good name of someone they like. The rumor never gets off the ground. In the case of The Captain’s Fireplace, if one person had thought, "The captain wouldn’t want us to cut up expensive lumber. Let me go check . . ." the problem would have been averted. For an unflattering story to be told, and then retold and twisted into something as bad as the wanton abuse of government property, the listener must have it in his or her head that the bizarre actions contained in the story are just the kind of thing the person in question would do. And the next person has to believe the same. It gets worse. In this instance, the story that was passed down the chain of command was not about this particular captain, but about everyone’s notion of a typical captain, and as such was infused with the characteristics of every abusive leader who came before him. Captain Newton suffered from a prejudice just as pernicious as if it had been based on his race or creed. He was "one of them" (a senior leader) and we all know how they behave. They abuse their authority, jerk people around, and get what they want. Tainted by this mental set, Captain Newton’s innocent request was eventually twisted into a ridiculous demand for personal gain. Given this proclivity to please the boss, coupled with the willingness to think the worst of others, leaders need to take care to ensure that their rough ideas or mere suggestions aren’t reframed by overzealous subordinates into rigid and foolish orders. Leaders must track their ideas as they flow through the organization. When a pile of scrap wood turns into a bundle of banded oak, take heed. This is not a feel-good story. This is a bad sign. As crazy requests come our way, we all have a responsibility to get to the root of the matter rather than simply pass on the ludicrous demand with a disgusted eye roll. For example, while I was meeting with a grad student a few years back, he took a call from his boss. The student was on educational leave from a company in The Netherlands, taking a masters course 5,000 miles away from his family, and working nearly every waking hour to finish his degree a full semester early. On top of all this, his boss back at headquarters was now asking him to take on a new task that would consume all of his time for the next month. This, of course, would flunk him out of school and cause him, his family, and the organization innumerable problems. The student explained the situation to his boss who responded, "A VP made the request. Do you understand? A VP wants you to do it and he wants you to do it within the next thirty days!" That was it. "Watch this," the student said. He then picked up the phone, called the VP, politely described his predicament, and ended by explaining that he would do whatever was best. The VP immediately backed off the request and explained that perhaps the young man could take up the task after he returned from his educational leave. They’d talk later. "I knew the VP wouldn’t want to cause me such grief," the student explained. So, he stopped, assumed the best of the person in authority, went back to the source, gathered the facts, shared his view, and together they made the right decision. Rather than piling one more story onto the stack of tales about selfish and thoughtless bosses, he now tells the tale of the thoughtful VP who cared about his family enough to put off a job until it better fit the young man’s circumstances. Granted, people do crazy things, make insane demands, and appear to be operating with less than a full deck far more often than we’d like to admit. And, like it or not, leaders aren’t exempt. Nevertheless, there’s no need to make matters worse by twisting ideas to fit our own worst image of others. Instead, we need to confront senseless ideas and absurd requests as they come our way. Start with your strongest tool. Assume others are rational—most people are most of the time. Search for the facts. Refuse to implement misguided ideas or commands until you’ve tracked down the original request and informed people about the potential consequences. In short, eliminate creating your own version of The Captain’s Fireplace. There are far better ways to warm your toes. Related posts: Kerrying On: Dealing with Deference Kerrying On: When Is Coercion an Acceptable Tactic? Kerrying On: A Christmas Gift

First post of 2014 and I’m feeling motivated to keep going with every two weeks a new post #ResolutionNow*. I’ve made that my goal for the past seven or eight months and it’s worked out close to that, 22 posts last year I think. Now for the post I’ve had on the list for several months, even had some ideas down but never completed the post. It’s all about the second screen revolution. Second screens have been around for some time now. I, along with a lot of others I’m sure, find it difficult to do one thing at a time. My work and play consist of constantly switching back and forth between two computer screens, a cell phone, TV, etc. Not many people sit and stare at one screen, there are so many things competing for our attention. At conferences people aren’t simply staring at the speaker, there’s the distraction of the big screens and small screens. It’s difficult to really capture a message of a speaker simply listening attentively, it requires another level of activity to really cement the information for later, we’re just discovering that. The second screen is extremely valuable in doing this, we’re instantly digesting the information, interpreting it, and spitting it out to others. Dealing With Distraction The big question is always "how do you deal with the distraction of the second screen?" You can’t simply ban it, it’s often out of our power to even do so. Even if it were in our power, that would be a big mistake. It’s important to find a way to work with that second screen to get your message across; whether you’re presenting at a conference, performing a webinar, or creating an eLearning course where we have no idea what else the user might be doing. The only way to control the distraction of the second screen is to use it, make it an indispensable part of the experience you’re creating for the user. Assume they are going to have that distraction, and work with it and not against it. Who knows, it could also help keep the user from non-technology distractions. In eLearning, the tradition method of delivery is to pushing a message to the user. By thinking that way, you’ve instantly lost their interest. You can make the experience a combination of push and pull, the pull part is extremely important in capturing the attention of that second screen. Can you think of ways to make the user need to use their second screen to get the message? Please Comply Compliance training is one of those things that everybody loves to hate, but we can’t live without it, they’re important whether we like to admit or not. Compliance is often presented in a push format, even to the point we’re forced (pushed) to take it. If you can capture the users attention from the beginning with a shocking scenario, one that evokes emotion, you’ve probably got them interested in the message, until their phone buzzes. Wouldn’t it be great if the message they just received is part of the story and piques their interest even more? If they’re anything like me, I’d be interested in learning more. Make it Easy I know a bit of a challenge is a good thing, but not when you have no interest in the first place. If you know there might be some participants with little or no interest, you need to fight to make it as easy as possible for them. Start with a call to action, make it important to them, make it interesting. If you can tie in the second screen then you are way ahead, there’s less chance they will become distracted. "Because it’s required" is not a good enough reason for someone do something. Gain their attention, tell them why they should be there (earn their time), give them a call to action, present this with minimal effort, and provide more resources if they wish. Your goal should always be to make it worth the users time, they must come away with something. How does this tie into the second screen? If you can’t tie the second screen into it to capture their attention, you need to at least make it worth their time so that second screen doesn’t become a beckoning distraction. Your Feedback Hopefully your second screen didn’t distract you from reading this, I had some distractions while writing it, though not a screen. Can you come up with some ways to capture your audience’s attention using the second screen? Spend some time to think about what distractions your user might experience while learning. Can you help your users stay motivated and away from these distractions? Let me leave you with this: If you don’t use it (2nd screen) then you lose it (learners attention).   * I’ve been under the assumption for several years that New Year’s resolutions are a horrible thing to make. I recently read an article about what you can do instead, this reaffirmed what I was already doing, making small achievable goals throughout the year. After reading the article, I came up with the hashtag #ResolutionNow which simply means create your resolution constantly throughout the year with a shorter timeframe, I do them in day to week increments, but I’m sure month would work okay also. You might also enjoy: Learning Experience As a User Experience Touchscreen Toddler Stop Trying To Predict Mobile Users Needs

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Al Switzler is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE   Dear Crucial Skills, I feel very shy when speaking at a public place, whether in front of family members or colleagues, or in team meetings. Even if I have talking points, I struggle to share my thoughts. This is creating problems in my career as well as in my social life. Can you share some tips for overcoming my fear of public speaking? Overcoming Fear  Dear Overcoming Fear, You are certainly not alone concerning this fear—in fact, it ranks as many people’s number one fear. Perhaps, you’ve heard the joke by Jerry Seinfeld: "I read a thing that actually says that speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. I found that amazing—number two was death! That means to the average person if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy." This bit of humor doesn’t downplay the seriousness of people’s fear to speak in public. As I address this issue with some advice, I take confidence in the conclusion we uncovered when researching our book, Change Anything—people can and do change all the time. I’ll also share some of the principles and tactics from that research as well as my own personal experience. Learn some lessons from snakes. We’ve been fortunate to associate with world-renowned psychologist Dr. Albert Bandura for decades. He has done foundational research on behavior change. One of his early studies dealt with people who had a serious snake phobia. So serious in fact that their fears kept them from work, from outings with their friends and family, and even from going out to dinner or seeing a movie. And most lived with this paralyzing condition for many years despite trying various "cures." Dr. Bandura put a small ad in a paper inviting people with this problem to come to the basement of the psychology department at Stanford. What did he do? Or more importantly, what did he not do? He didn’t lecture. He didn’t rely on verbal persuasion. As you probably know, others speaking to you endlessly about the fact that many people feel shy and scared or that those in the audience want you to succeed isn’t motivating enough to get you over your fear. Lectures don’t produce results. Dr. Bandura didn’t lecture, instead he used vicarious experience. Vicarious experience works by allowing people to safely watch others do the behaviors that lead to the desired outcome. He asked the people with a phobia of snakes to watch the therapist handle a snake in order to see what happened. Small step by small step, the subjects saw someone model a safe way to handle a snake in a way that also appeared doable. And, after three hours of this observation, the subjects sat with a boa in their laps. Their fear dissipated because they had a vicarious experience that taught them that they could deal with snakes safely. The advice: don’t rely on your personal thoughts or the verbal persuasion of others. Rely on your own experience. The next tip deals with how you might do that. Create an opportunity for safe, deliberate practice. I’m suggesting a number of doses of vicarious experience for you. Can you set up a situation where you see others practice some of the small steps of speaking in public? You don’t want to start by giving a talk and getting feedback. That’s what you fear. You want to watch others read short segments and have other people tell the speaker what they liked. Then step by step, you can watch, respond, try, try again, increase the length and difficulty of the speech, and repeat until speaking becomes more natural. Such deliberate practice in a supportive and safe environment will give your brain evidence that you need not fear. One option is Toastmasters. Their model: "A Toastmasters meeting is a learn-by-doing workshop in which participants hone their speaking and leadership skills in a no-pressure atmosphere." They have a process that can at least get you started. And I’m sure there are other groups and online resources that will allow you to start. Nothing that I can advise is more important than encouraging you to find a way to have safe, deliberate practice. First work on your competence and that will build your confidence. This is true for overcoming fear of snakes, fear of public speaking, and all sorts of other fears. And now a word on shyness generally. Over the years, I’ve chatted in depth with a number of people who are sad, lonely, or disappointed in ways that they attribute ultimately to their shyness. Now I’m not saying that introversion is better or worse than extroversion. I’m talking about a group of people who claim to be shy and claim that their shyness is a cause of their misery. To this group, I also advise small, safe steps in a way that helps with deliberate practice. As I’ve observed and coached some of these folks, I’ve noticed that they have a problem with initiating and reciprocating. When someone smiles at them, they don’t smile back. When someone greets them and asks, "How are you doing?" they say "Fine" and don’t greet and inquire in response. Also they don’t initiate smiles, greetings, or inquiries. This pattern is true in other interpersonal encounters. They don’t invite people to lunch. They don’t invite others at the water cooler to have small talk. And they don’t reciprocate when someone invites them. Because of this lack of reaching out to others, sooner or later, it seems, others quit initiating the smiles, greetings, inquiries, and invitations. The consequence is that the "shy" person feels left out, unhappy, or lonely. In your question, you mention that you are very shy and that it is affecting your personal and professional life. I address this larger issue, because you may want to use the same advice to create for yourself opportunities for safe, deliberate practice. Find several friends with whom you can practice smiling, greeting, making eye contact, shaking hands, small talk, and invitations. Then ask the friends to coach you privately when you are trying your new skills in other settings. Too many people justify the less-than-desired results they have by saying, "That’s just the way I am." I believe that by working carefully and safely to increase our skills and competence, we can change for good. I wish you well,Al Related posts: Overcoming Career-Limiting Habits Overcoming Procrastination Change Anything: Overcoming Addiction-Part Two

We’d like to create an e-book on how to best communicate online. The first step requires getting your input. For example, how often do you turn to social networking sites to handle crucial conversations? Do you primarily witness social media communication masters or disasters? Help us find out by taking this 3-minute survey. Those who complete the survey will receive the e-book once we’re done compiling the data as well as a free MP3 download from our Crucial Conversations Audio Companion. Listen as author Joseph Grenny shares how adding input to the pool of shared meaning increases our capacity to take unified action. Thank you for your help! Related posts: How to Change Social Norms at the Office Facing a Crucial Conversation? How do you hold a crucial conversation via e-mail?

What are some of the things that make you a successful learner? Reflecting on what you learn should be on that list of what makes you successful. One that might not be on your list is working out loud. Working out loud is showing others (whether in your organization or the public) what you’re working on, getting feedback, and not hiding your process, transparency is the goal. One of the easiest ways to work out loud is to share what you’re doing to the community, or in this case, the Twitter community. Conferences are one event where people go to learn new things, to hear what’s been going on in their industry. If you rely on your memory at a conference, you’re more than likely going to capture only 10% or less of what’s actually going on making the conference experience near useless. You’re doing yourself a disservice by not recording and reflecting on your experiences as you go. Share Your Experience, Record Your Learning Here’s how to be more successful at a conference and take home more knowledge from the conference and instantly share it with everyone you know. Tweet your experience. Not only will you document everything you’ve learned for later, you’ll instantly be digesting the information and interpreting it with your own personal spin. For those of you who’ve been sent to the conference by a company, you’ll also be sharing your experience with coworkers so they can instantly benefit from the conference. Coworkers will no longer have to wait until the following week (sometimes longer) for you to synthesize your experience. What they get after that process is such a brief overview, it’s almost useless. In the time since you took notes, interpreted them, and shared back to coworkers, your knowledge has become watered down and muddied, sometimes not even understood by yourself. Double Time If there are two of you attending a conference, cover twice the ground with Twitter and immediately share back to others. Haven’t Used Twitter? There’s never been a better time to learn than a few weeks before the conference. There are plenty of resources out there to learn how to best prepare yourself for Tweeting a conference. One of those resources is from David Kelly who gives some great pointers on getting signed up, figuring it all out, and learning how to best use it for a conference. It was written specifically for #DevLearn but can be used for any conference: How to Participate in the #DevLearn Conference Backchannel. Required Sharing The benefits of using Twitter to document and share your experience are so great, I’ll go as far as saying any employee sent to a conference should be required to live Tweet the event for coworkers. Not only will coworkers benefit, but the world will benefit and the company will gain instant ROI for sending that employee to the conference. The ROI will even span an entire department or company. Doesn’t It Distract You? Some people argue that Tweeting during the conference is distracting. They aren’t benefiting from the speaker because they’re staring at their mobile device. I would agree only in one circumstance; if you are Tweeting between sessions and not fully engaging in the networking conferences provide. Taking notes is not a distraction, it’s important. Tweeting takes note-taking one step further, you immediately interpret and document in your own words the speakers message. Notes often end up looking a bit kooky, difficult to interpret at a later date even by the author. I’ve experienced it, notes I’ve taken are often impossible to interpret at a later date. Tweets immediately go out to others, therefore you make a conscious effort to make them as legible as possible, immediately interpreting the information and making sense out of it for yourself. Don’t Converse If you get into back and forth with others on Twitter during a conference, you’re doing it wrong. This is a big distraction. No matter how tempted you may be, don’t get into back and forth, your attention will get pulled away from the speaker and you will miss important messages. Make sure your attention stays on the speaker, use Twitter to process and write what you interpret from the speaker. It’s always possible to go back later and have those conversations with others, they’ll be waiting for you. Join the Backchannel! Hopefully you’re convinced that joining the backchannel is important not only to you, it’s important to your coworkers and those relying on the backchannel for conference material. Some simple rules you should follow when you do Tweet a conference: Always use the conference or session hashtag (if you switch to a session hashtag, make it known with at least one Tweet using both hashtags). Share with your coworkers your Twitter handle and the hashtags you used. Have fun being a valuable resource to others, people are relying on you. You might also enjoy: Following the Backchannel of #DevLearn Reflecting on the National eXtension Conference (#nexconf) Reflecting On The Year - 2013

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Nelson is a VitalSmarts Master Trainer. READ MORE How do I handle participants who are quiet or who don’t participate? Healthy class participation can be a function of the students, the facilitator, or sometimes both! Since we can’t control the students (no matter how badly we’d love to), the solution starts with you. Examine Your MotivesMaking sure our motives are "right" is one of the first things we should do when dealing with a quiet class. Ask yourself: What is your desired outcome for the participants in the class? Do you want the class to participate for your own self-aggrandizement, to keep the class interesting, or because you believe it enhances learning? Do you want them to think you’re a great facilitator, tell others about the course, or simply enjoy their class experience? Examine Your MethodsHere are a couple of specific mechanics you can use to invite healthier participation: Point & assign: Point to a quieter table/group before asking the question, "I’d like to ask this table what they think about . . ." Break it into small parts: If the class doesn’t seem to talk a lot as a large group, ask them to discuss the answer in their table group or with a neighbor. Often, if they are a quiet class, they are more likely to participate one-on-one rather than in a large group. Work the crowd: Establishing a better relationship with participants during breaks and during group work can drastically change participation. Improving your individual relationship with class members can collective increase safety and change their perspective of you. Related posts: How do I respond to participants’ concerns about participating in training? What are some ways I can further participants’ learning after the training? How can I help participants who are creating their own change plan in Influencer Training create an actual results statement?

ABOUT THE EXPERT Steve Willis is a Master Trainer and Vice President of Professional Services at VitalSmarts. READ MORE My sons hate practice—piano, soccer, math—you name it. If it’s the least bit related to practice, they hate it on principle. They even started hating other words that sound like or rhyme with practice. For example, last year we hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. In preparation for the four-day trek, we decided to do a number of practice hikes. Now, my boys enjoy hiking—until I inserted the word "practice" in front of it. "We know how to hike. Why do we need to practice something we already know?!?!??" After many years, I’ve now come to expect this from teenage boys. Fast forward to a recent executive development session I conducted. The mere mention of practice stirred the group into a frenzy: "We understand the concept—why do we need to practice?!??!" In that moment I caught a glimpse of my whiny boys’ future. And while I expect it from my teenagers, I was surprised to hear this from execs. It was like they forgot that development was the key component in executive development. So why do we practice? To torture teenagers and executives? To experience the higher pitches of their vocal ranges? No. Why, then? Ethna Reid, a master educator from the Exemplary Center for Reading Improvement, provides a definitive answer to this question, "If you want to know if you’re changing behavior you have to see it immediately." Our goal is to change behavior, and for that to happen, practice is required. So here are a few tips to make practice more effective. Allot enough time to practice. So many trainers, when running short on time, skip and/or drastically cut practice time. If you can’t practice it, don’t train it. Practice until they get it correct. Participants who attempt a new skill and fall short should be praised for their effort. And they should also be coached and allowed the chance to do it correctly before moving on. Make it observable. If you can’t observe their practice, you have no idea the degree to which their behavior is changing, if at all. Have participants write it out, say it out loud, or otherwise demonstrate the skill so you can evaluate their progress and give feedback (both positive and negative). This doesn’t mean a person has to stand up and share in front of the whole class—practice is often best done in smaller groups. So when you are working in smaller groups, be careful to float from group to group so you can observe the participant group progress as a whole. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it sure helps. Related posts: From the Road: Just What the Doctor Ordered From the Road: "Bueller . . . Bueller . . ." From the Road: Do You Know Where Your Participants Are?

Estimated reading time:  less than 4 minutes What have you done lately to simplify someone’s life? Everyone’s life is complex. Everyone’s busy in their own way. If you can simplify it, then you’re providing a good return on investment. What Learning & Development is all about is simplifying the lives of others by giving them better tools to deal with the world. We call that tool we improve knowledge. Whether we deliver that knowledge through formal or informal paths is irrelevant, as long as the end result is a better equipped person. I’ve been thinking about how to simplify someone’s life, one solution I come back to often is mobile performance support. Help when the user needs it, without requiring them to go out of their way to receive it. Even extra time entering a username and password can be enough of a barrier and non-simplification to make somebody second guess using a resource. I’ve been there. I’ve seen a login screen and immediately stopped going that route, writing it off as a failure, too much hassle. What’s the least resistance you’ve seen in performance support? There are a lot of different types of mobile performance support out there. From mobile friendly job aids to Googling something on a mobile, it’s all mobile performance support. Have you ever opened a new app you just downloaded and it presented you with one of those annoying transparent overlays telling you what to do? I only say annoying because I enjoy fumbling my way through an app so I immediately close them. For most though, those overlays may be what they were looking for to help them use the app. The best example of immediate and barrier free mobile performance support. Transparent overlays is an example of the best executed performance support on a mobile device I’ve seen. Not all are bullet-proof though. I’ve seen them executed poorly, a solution thought of at the last moment, thrown into an app and not thought through. These sorts of performance support solutions I believe are just the types of things Learning & Development should be looking at in the mobile era. Quick bites of information at the users fingertips without requiring a second thought or tap. What Should We Do? Here are some of the things I think we can do to achieve better performance support on mobile devices: Minimize Resistance - Make it easy, without thought. The user shouldn’t have to try for mobile performance support, it needs to be right there at a tap. If a user has to pinch and zoom then they’re forced to work harder than they need to, this immediately takes away from the support aspect of what you’re trying to do. If you’ve ever heard the term cognitive load theory, you’re overburdening a users cognitive abilities if they have to think too hard about how to find support. If you haven’t heard of cognitive load theory, my friend Matthew Guyan wrote a quick overview of it here, you should start there. Remove Categories - Categories just don’t belong in mobile performance support. For one they introduce a whole branch of taps and confusion that could end up taking 5+ taps and too many minutes. You should be able to access mobile performance support by one simple, prominent, easy to tap search box that is effective and accurate. Search drives the world today, if you want to find something to learn almost everybody’s beginning point is Google. Take a look at their home page, it’s one huge prominent search box. Simplify Life - Where I started this post, simplify. In everything you do make sure it simplifies someone’s life. Take that question and ask it every time you make even the smallest decision. Is this simplifying someone’s life? If it’s not, then you need to reroute your project until you can answer yes to that question. Don’t make the user work, they already have enough of that in their life. Don’t add to it, make their life easier with performance support that’s where they need it, without them thinking about it. Simplified Hopefully I made the simplification of simple things even simpler for you to put in place. In the end this is what it’s all about. Make the simple things in life just that, simple, so people can put their thought and energy into more important things that benefit everybody. Mobile is based off of simplicity and having things available at the tip of your finger. Learning & Development should be in a constant battle with IT and other departments to stop with the features and work on making the current features "tip of the finger simple." You might also enjoy: Stop Trying To Predict Mobile Users Needs Challenges and Barriers to Mobile Learning in the Enterprise Solutions to Bring Mobile Learning to the Enterprise

According to our recent poll, slacking coworkers cause a quarter of their hard-working colleagues to put in four to six more hours of work each week. Goodwill isn’t the only victim in this situation—productivity, satisfaction, and quality also suffer. In fact, four out of five say the quality of their work declines when they have to pick up their coworkers’ slack—a huge potential blow to the bottom line when you consider that 93 percent have a coworker who doesn’t do his or her fair share. With such a great toll on resources, what do the majority of employees do when faced with slacking coworkers? Unfortunately, not much. The study shows that only 10 percent speak up and hold their underperforming colleagues accountable to their bad behavior. The top five reasons employees list for biting their tongues: 1. They don’t believe what they say will make a difference 2. They don’t want to undermine the working relationship 3. It’s not their place 4. They fear retaliation 5. They don’t know how to approach the conversation Here are five tips for candidly and respectfully holding coworkers accountable for bad behavior: 1. Suspend judgments and get curious. Perhaps your coworker is unaware of the effects of his or her actions. Enter the conversation as a curious friend rather than an angry coworker. 2. Make it safe. Don’t start by diving into the issue. Establish safety by letting your coworker know you respect him or her and reminding him or her of the mutual goals you share. 3. Share facts and describe the gap. Start with the facts of the issue and strip out accusatory, judgmental, and inflammatory language. Then describe the gap between what was expected and what was delivered. 4. Tentatively share concerns. Having laid out the facts, tell your coworker why you’re concerned. Help your coworker see the natural consequences of his or her actions. 5. Invite dialogue. Next, ask if he or she sees the problem differently. If you are open to hearing others’ points of view, they’ll be more open to yours. To view an entertaining video about slacking coworkers and access an online game to test your accountability skills, visit vitalsmarts.com/unaccountables. Related posts: Crucial Applications: How to Talk Politics with Friends—and Still Have Some Left Crucial Applications: Office Haunting—How to Have Scary Conversations at Work Crucial Applications: Overcoming the "Nasty versus Nice" Debate

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, My father is nearing retirement age, and we have strong reason to believe he is in some serious financial trouble. He receives all of his credit card bills electronically (which means my mother doesn’t see them) and he refuses to tell her what the balance is on these cards. We are also aware of two risky "investment" ventures he put on the credit cards that did not pan out. My mom’s debit card was recently rejected for insufficient funds when she tried to purchase groceries, even though their joint salaries are more than enough for them to live comfortably. I am very worried that my father is in a deep financial hole but is too proud to ask for help—or even admit that he needs help. How do I talk to my extremely defensive father about his finances and get him the help he needs? Worried Daughter  Dear Worried Daughter, One of the key principles of Crucial Conversations is to ensure you’re having the right conversation. That means not just that you’re talking about the right thing, but that you’re also talking with the right person. The first conversation you need to have is with your mother. If you are an adult child—unless you are an executor of your parents’ estate—you are not responsible for dealing with your father’s financial mistakes or misbehavior. Your mother is. If he is in financial trouble, she is the one he is affecting, and, therefore, is the one responsible to speak up, set boundaries, and hold him accountable for transparency. In many families, the children get into a pattern of creating what psychologist Martin Seligman calls learned helplessness. They cultivate a family member’s inability to solve their own problems by rescuing them from uncomfortable challenges—like crucial conversations. Let’s face it, none of us relishes crucial conversations of the sort you’re describing. Imagine how ashamed your father might feel when confronted with evidence of his bad judgment or withholding information from your mother. Who would want to have that conversation? What motivates any of us to step up in spite of our discomfort is experiencing the consequences of not having the conversation. When you step between others and their crucial conversations, you separate them from the consequences that would motivate them to develop the strength of character and competence required to build healthy relationships. In other words, we help them learn to be helpless. Your goal should not just be to solve this important problem, but to let it happen in a way that allows your parents to develop a healthier and more honest relationship. If you don’t, you could be part of the problem. I urge you not to talk with your father, but with your mother and your siblings. Refuse to talk with her about problems behind your father’s back. Express your confidence in her ability to address her own problems. Offer to coach her or even practice with her, but avoid having any conversation with her where the intent seems to be to arouse your pity, convince you of her helplessness, or frame the problem as exclusively your father’s. If things are truly bad, they have become so as much through your mother’s passivity as your father’s stubbornness. I know this is a much harder road to take than simply gearing up to talk to your dad. Trust me, I know this from very personal experience. But it’s my honest view of the right road to take. Best wishes,Joseph Related posts: Crucial Applications: Tax Refund Tips to Jump-start Financial Savings Habits Helping a Grieving Brother Helping a Friend Get Help

Estimated reading time:  less than 4 minutes It’s time to banish the myth that you can predict what a user will need on a mobile device. You can’t do it. The closest you can get to predicting the needs of a mobile user is to give them context aware information. Even then you won’t be close most of the time. They need to be able to find what they want on their mobile device, no matter what it is. If it is necessary, it needs to be mobile. If it is not necessary, get rid of it. When developing or designing anything mobile, our assumption needs to be that our audience expects everything, everywhere, anytime. Cut the Fat We don’t throw everything from the desktop onto a mobile device, that isn’t necessary. It means we need to start with mobile. Plan for necessities to go into the mobile version and leave out the rest, from all versions including the desktop version. If it’s not necessary then it doesn’t belong there, or anywhere, get rid of it. The Olden Days When mobile was new, expectations weren’t high, if you could check your flight time from your phone, that was pretty cool. That day is gone, expectations for what can be done on your mobile device are growing every day. The number of people who use their mobile phone as their primary device to access the internet is growing every day. My wife has access to a computer anytime. Her preference, and now primary device, is her mobile phone. It’s becoming my primary device also. I’m sitting at a computer now to write this, but it’s been a while. I get cranky when I have to withhold performing an action for when I’m at a computer, I want to do it wherever I am. Satisfy Your Customer Make your customer’s life easier. Think for a second who your customer is. Do you want them to have to tailor their behavior to your product? Your answer should be no, you want to cater to their needs. Apps are a good solution for things that a user will need on a regular basis, but why make them download an app if they’re performing a once a month activity. A mobile web site is required. Not everybody wants 187 apps like me. They just won’t think to go download an app, and don’t want to even if you throw it in their face. Think of the mobile browser as your primary window to your customer. My wife will visit a web site to look for information. If it’s not mobile friendly, she will suffer the agony, but why make a potential customer suffer? Make it as easy as possible and always look at your user’s experience from a path of least resistance. Don’t make them work for it, and don’t limit their options depending on their device. Making it as easy as possible means never ever, ever, ever trying to predict what your user may need on a mobile device and delivering only that to them. Chances are you’re going to irritate somebody. Deliver the World I no longer expect a different version with watered down features when I’m browsing a web site on my phone. I expect it all and I expect it formatted just for my device, no matter what device I happen to be on. That means when we’re planning a mobile strategy for learning, don’t try to predict what the user will want or need. That doesn’t mean we should throw everything at them. It means we need to plan from the beginning mobile requirements, you might know this as mobile first. In other words, humans first. You are designing something to be accessed by a human, one that’s already overwhelmed and has little time as it is. Don’t add to the stress, deliver the world. By that I mean what’s required, and leave out the rest from ALL devices. If a user might need information, have it available somewhere by search, and always make it work on any device they choose. Sounds Simple Sounds simple enough, but I know better. I keep it in mind every minute and it’s still no easier than when I was first introduced to the concept. We live in an age where we can no longer give the most basic functions to mobile users and full functionality to the desktop. One may never experience the desktop version. Mobile should do everything necessary and that which is not necessary should be cut. Give me this: I want to have the option to do anything from my mobile device, not just the most used stuff. I want to change my preferences, my password, everything via mobile. If I can’t do everything, chances are I’m going to leave disappointed. Don’t leave disappointed customers. You might also enjoy: Challenges and Barriers to Mobile Learning in the Enterprise Solutions to Bring Mobile Learning to the Enterprise Mobile Learning in the Enterprise, An Introduction

To help more of our readers with their crucial conversations, confrontations, and behavior change challenges, we recently introduced the Community Q&A column! Please share your answers to this reader’s question in the comments below. Dear Crucial Skills, My husband spends an average of five hours a day playing video games and surfing the internet. I have attempted to confront him about the amount of time he spends on the internet and the effect it is having on our marriage, our children, and on himself. His response to my comments is, "I know I have a problem, but it’s a problem I’m not ready to deal with yet." How can I best address this issue without resorting to divorce or separation? I am tired of trying to "deal with it" until he is ready. A Gamer’s Wife Related posts: Community Q&A: Encouraging Others to Cut Back Community Q&A: Overcoming Cultural Differences with Crucial Conversations Community Q&A: Talking Respectfully to Your Toddler

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, I lost my job due to a reduction in force and haven’t been able to find another job due to my age. Everyone seems eager to hire me until I show up for the interview and they discover that I am sixty-one years old. How can I prove to potential employers that I have a lot to offer, despite my age? Signed,Overlooked  Dear Overlooked, I have a dear friend who has been going through the same ordeal. It’s not a great time for anyone to be looking for a job. And I know that the repeated feeling of disappointment that comes when one after another hope falls through can lead to awful self-doubt at a time when you need motivation to continue to represent yourself boldly. Before I offer some unconventional advice, let me suggest that you need to know your rights. If you have been overtly discriminated against because you are over forty, there are legal avenues you can pursue. I will not comment on those but suggest you find out what is available to you. The challenge in your situation is not just helping employers know what you have to offer, it’s ensuring you retain a firm view of the value you have to offer as well. If you start doubting yourself, you’ll be more reluctant to stay in the search as well as telegraph your lack of confidence in interviews. First, let’s reframe the problem of a job search. The employer’s central question when searching for a new hire is, "Can I trust you to solve important problems for me?" That’s it. It’s all about trust. Since the only way an employer can truly know if they can trust you to solve their problems is to give you the job, they have to rely on proxies for trust in the hiring process. Giving you and 1,000 candidates the actual job would be too inefficient, so they use proxies—like education, previous job titles, salary levels, and letters of recommendation. They’ll even look for gaps in employment as a way of discerning if you have some hidden issues that made others want to avoid you. As we all know, these are incredibly imperfect proxies. Resumes offer facts and figures that hiring managers hope will reveal truth—but they obscure as much as they reveal. In addition, they aren’t particularly persuasive. Reading that someone worked at Acme, Inc. as a superintendent from 1978-1987 tells me nothing about the kinds of problems I can trust you to solve. So, if you can’t give the employer a direct experience with your ability to solve problems (i.e., by taking the job for a couple of weeks), and the facts and figures approach to building trust is ineffective and fraught with weakness, what can you do? Also, is there anything you can do to retain trust in your own ability to solve important problems so you’ll stay motivated and project confidence during the search? Yes. In fact, I have one suggestion that I believe can help with both. It’s the advice I offered my friend and it seems to be helping—no job yet, but the market is responding much differently. The principle is to stop giving facts and start telling stories. Give potential employers a vicarious experience with you. Throw away the resume or keep it in reserve for when the box-checkers demand that you check their boxes for them. But ensure the experience potential employers have with you engages them in interesting stories about the problems you are uniquely suited to solve. Think about it. If you want to sell a hamburger, you don’t list its ingredients. You show a picture of it. It’s juicy. It’s got a crispy piece of lettuce on it and a dollop of the exact mustard you love. Then you show someone taking a bite of it with eyes drooping in ecstasy. Why do you do this? Because it helps people trust that this hamburger might help them feel the way they want to feel. It’s a vicarious experience—and we trust stories more than we trust facts and figures. We like direct experiences best, but stories are a strong second. My friend (I’ll call him Greg) threw away his resume. He started over by answering the question, "What am I world class at?" He thought about his personal brand. What problems do I want people to feel I can solve for them? He is a world-class HR strategist. He has a way of elevating every conversation he is part of. He brings humor and happiness to a team. And he’s a brilliant teacher and communicator. After clarifying the three or four problems he solves better than most anyone in the world, he designed a document that read like a "movie trailer" rather than a "resume." He created a document that included stories told by others about him that made these points. It includes graphics of logos of companies he solved problems for—sure, as an employee—but the point is not that he worked there—it’s that he solved problems there. He added his own commentary to let them know what he liked about the experiences others told. When you finish this 1,500-word document, you desperately want to meet Greg. Oh, and I didn’t mention, but Greg is sixty-one years old and legally blind. He worries that he gets shrugged off for one or both of these reasons. As he reframed his life story in terms of problems he is brilliant at solving, he found that his age and his disability were natural parts of the unique strengths he ended up describing. He was able to frame his visual impairment, for example, in a story about a complex negotiation and he was able to describe how listening to nuances that led to a breakthrough was a direct result of limited visual distraction. You’ll find that when you prepare your pitch as a story (movie trailer) rather than a eulogy, you’ll rediscover your own special value. You’ll bolster your confidence that you’re representing a product that deserves good representation. You’ll stop letting yourself be a prisoner to HR boxes that make you worry your age is a deficit and make it clear to both yourself and others that this is part of the reason they can trust you to contribute. Good luck telling your story. I hope you find the perfect place to serve and contribute. Warmly,Joseph More from Joseph Grenny on Forbes: Read Joseph’s latest article, "There’s Nothing Like a Financial Crisis to Bring Out The Best In People," to learn about the importance of vulnerability, sacrifice, and integrity during a financial crisis. Related posts: Seeking Accountability Shady Past Seeking a White-Collar Job Seeking an Honest Relationship

Estimated reading time:  less than 2 minutes Search is at the center of learning. What’s the first thing you do when you need to learn something new? Are any of these one of your answer? Look through a list of courses offered on your company LMS. Ask a coworker how to do it. Figure it out on your own. These are a few I thought of, but they’re just the beginning when thinking about how users begin the learning process. One place where the learning process often starts is that big box that runs the way we find most of our information these days. I begin with a quick search to kick off the learning or research process. It’s not always successful in finding information, but I at least figure out where I might need to go next. It’s not only where learning starts, but is useful through the entire learning process. It feels like search is one of the most valuable assets an organization has when it comes to providing routes for employees to learn. If it’s difficult to find what you need because of a lacking search function, you are doing your employees a huge disservice. You have provided them a huge road-block in their journey to providing your enterprise value. A device agnostic approach is vital to give your employees with the power of search from wherever they need to use it. If the information they need to find isn’t turning up in results or is difficult to find, they’re not going to dig therefore you lost them. Nobody is going to go hunting through an LMS for a specific course unless somebody told them about it. Also, nobody wants to search through a dozen different systems. One search should cover all information an employee could want to find. Whether it’s a course, a job aid, a web page, or any other resource, it should be found using one search and be available on any device desired. If it’s not possible to deliver something on any device desired, that should be immediately know before the user wastes time trying to view it. Regardless of the device, a seamless experience from mobile to desktop is what your user deserves. What are some ways you can think of to make your user’s experience even more painless? You might also enjoy: Challenges and Barriers to Mobile Learning in the Enterprise Learning Experience As a User Experience Solutions to Bring Mobile Learning to the Enterprise

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Maxfield is coauthor of two New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, I work as a nurse in the education department of a healthcare institution. I lead unit nurse educators whose role is to maintain the competence and educational skill level of the nursing staff on their units. They sometimes struggle with having a crucial conversation about safety or performance with a colleague who says, "It’s no big deal." How can I teach my nursing staff to hold their "friends" to a high standard without having the friend get defensive or tune them out? Nurse Educator  Dear Educator, Thanks for a great question. The issue you raise is relevant far beyond healthcare. Every organization has groups that are tasked with tracking and supporting best practices. Think of quality and safety departments in manufacturing, or human resources or IT departments in nearly every organization. Here is what happens. Everyone knows that your group owns the issue. In your case, your education department owns competency and skill building. A natural human reaction is to conclude that if you own it, then I don’t. In their minds, you become an enforcer and they act like drivers on the freeway who slow down when they see a cop but then speed again as soon as they’re out of radar range. They don’t take responsibility for their behavior. That’s why you hear them say things like, "It’s no big deal." It has become your issue, not theirs. There is no way that enforcement alone can drive good behavior. Not only does it fail to produce positive change, it makes the enforcers feel ineffective, unwanted, and unappreciated. But there are solutions. I’ll share a few ideas that come from our Influencer approach and have worked with many of our clients. Create an influence plan. Begin by meeting with the unit educators. Describe the problem and get them on board. They can never really succeed as long as they are seen as enforcers. Your team needs to get employees in the units to own the problem. Then they can play a supportive role by coaching, building skills, and getting access to resources. Make sure your team knows how their roles will need to change. Focus on measurable results. Determine a handful of measurable results that you and the units can track. For example, you might focus on infection control, falls, and patient and family experience. Pick the few that will have the greatest impact. If you include too many result areas, units will lose focus. Determine vital behaviors. Vital behaviors are the two to three actions that will drive the results if they are consistently and reliably employed. Some of these behaviors will be unique to the result areas you target. For example, wash in wash out reduces hospital-acquired infections; quick screens reduce falls; and bedside reports improve patient and family experience. Important to your case, a few vital behaviors span nearly every result area. One of these is 200 percent accountability, which means, "I’m 100 percent accountable for my own best practices and I’m also 100 percent accountable for your best practices." Instead of your education team members being the only ones to hold others accountable, everyone on the unit/team will hold everyone else accountable. This is the vital behavior that will fix the problem you describe in your question. But this is a tough behavior to implement. Making it work will require all Six Sources of Influence™. I’ll suggest one idea for each of the Six Sources. Personal Motivation—Create a value frame. Currently, employees in the units/teams are giving you and your nurse educators their compliance, not their commitment. They are focused on the enforcement of the rule, instead of the reasons for the rule. You could even say they are in a moral slumber. They aren’t attending to the very real personal impacts of their actions. For example, let’s say they are taking shortcuts instead of fully gowning up. When one of your staff reminds them, I bet they respond with "no big deal." Your staff needs to make it personal by focusing on the patient, not the rule. For example, "Imagine your daughter was on this unit and you were doing everything possible to keep her safe. Wouldn’t you want people here to gown up to protect her from infections?" Your goal is for employees in the units/teams to see holding each other accountable as watching out for each other. None of them wants to put their patients at risk and yet, we humans are all fallible. Despite our best intentions, we all make slips and errors. Team members need to give permission to (or request) their peers to watch out for them and to speak up when they see them slip. Personal Ability—Use deliberate practice. Team members need to decide how to remind each other. For example, "How would you like to be reminded if I see you forget to wash your hands?" They should compose the phrases they’d like to use to hold each other accountable. For example, "I’ll position the patient while you wash up," or "The dispenser is by the door." Then teams need to practice using these phrases. Talking about holding each other accountable isn’t as powerful as practicing holding each other accountable. A fifteen-minute practice is all it takes to turn good intentions into actual action. Social Motivation—Involve formal and informal leaders. You, as the manager of the education department, will want to meet with the unit managers to get their buy in. They need to understand that making their teams accountable for their own best practices is the best, most efficient way to improve performance. There will be times when someone will object to being held accountable. Maybe it’s a more experienced employee or a high-status professional who doesn’t want to be reminded by a newbie. In these cases, you want to provide easy and immediate support for the newbie. Having the formal leaders (the unit managers) on board is essential, but usually not enough. You’ll also want to reach out to informal leaders (the opinion leaders). Ask the manager, a physician, and a few other opinion leaders to play the champion role. They can explain why the issue (infection control, falls, etc.) is personally important to them. They can also provide that easy and immediate support when it’s needed. Structural Motivation—Reward small gains. This is where it gets fun. Instead of being enforcers, your team members become cheerleaders. Equip them with lots of ways to celebrate the improvements they see as units adopt 200 percent accountability and make progress on their results. You might give them gift certificates to use as recognition or provide funding for a few pizza parties. Structural Ability—Be the bridge to resources. This is another fun part of your new role. Your team members help units identify and bust through obstacles in their environment. For example, a team might complain that they don’t have enough hand-hygiene dispensers or that they aren’t always full and working. Your team takes on these kinds of challenges and gets to bring resources to the units. You are starting in a strong position because you already have nurse educators embedded in the units. The challenge now is to move the enforcement part of their jobs from the nurse educators to the staff members in the unit. Once staff members take responsibility for holding each other accountable, you’ll see rapid improvements in quality of care, safety, patient and family experience, and even staff satisfaction and engagement. David Related posts: How to Influence the Influencers Creating a Culture of Accountability Speaking Up For the Patient

Estimated reading time:  less than 5 minutes I took a much needed mini-vacation this past weekend which somewhat refreshed my mind and body. While I was relaxing, I felt especially receptive to learning and reflecting on information I read. A post I read which resonated with me was a post called alignment requires clarity by Jonathan Kettleborough. I wrote a verbose comment, but still felt I needed to elaborate a bit more, and organize it better. I thought about how I wanted to organize my thoughts a bit better and came up with a story. Not a real story, but one that I visualize in my head for how the direction of an organization is determined. The Fabled Steering Committee Every organization has them in one form or another, how else would a company determine the direction? How would priorities be layer out? A question about the steering committee that continues to eat at me: Is the steering committee effective at disseminating the strategy for the company? Jonathan’s article sparked some thoughts around this. I don’t see the direct work of the steering committee. I’m never completely sure about the direction they determined the organization should go in. Here’s how I see the steering committee: A group of suited up executives head into their closed conference room on the top floor. They work on a different level, separated from everyone else in the organization. Nobody knows what goes on in there, they emerge after several hours with a list of commandments to disseminate. There is now a strategy. The ship has now been steered in the right direction. It’s now time to get the engine room on board to propel the organization forward. The strategy is often disseminated in a top down method. Those that report to the steering committee members get the first hand message. The message then goes down the lines until it reaches the bottom. Here’s what I see happen with the strategy: Rather than the strategy disseminating down through the hierarchy, direct reports make a plan to fulfill the strategy as they see it. A generalized message is shared with everyone else. A message that doesn’t mean much by itself, nor does it have context or meaning to the strategy. In other words, the strategy is kept a secret by vague phrases and a storm of corporate buzzwords. The message is lost at the VP or senior management level, never to be seen by the common employee. Commoners are told what needs to be done to make "it" happen, never mind what the "it" is. I poorly stated in my comment on Jonathan’s post that it’s hard to know exactly what problems to tackle and the direction to point yourself in if the strategy is not available. Unraveling The Hierarchy My story came from an organization that is traditional and hierarchical. Organizations should have, or be moving away from that model. It’s problematic trying to disseminate a message through a hierarchy. The real message always gets lost and often more towards the beginning than the end, so it’s unrecognizable at the end. Jonathan talked about this in his post, "Chinese Whispers" which in my part of the world we call "Telephone." We alter a message slightly as it goes down the line until it’s unrecognizable. I don’t see this as always a problem with those further down the organizational food chain, say in the Learning & Development department. I see it as an organizational problem created by those at the top, the further you go up, the worse it gets. Participation in communicating with regular employees reduces the further up the hierarchy you go. Senior leadership is seen less and less in an enterprise social network as you go higher, but it should be the opposite Working out loud should occur to a greater degree by senior management and those in the C-Suite. Not only would that better disseminate the strategy, it would set an excellent example of how employees should show their work. This practice would rapidly unravel the hierarchy of an organization and put everybody on an even footing. Everyone would be able to move the business forward in a synchronized, agreed upon, effective method. One company working as a web, taking down barriers that stand in its way, meeting all goals set forth by leadership. Learning & Development Needs Alignment Every department needs better alignment to business goals, not just Learning & Development. As with every department, senior leadership must first bring forward better clarity. It’s not a problem with Learning & Development only. It’s an organizational problem for those organizations that subscribe to a hierarchical view. Those at the top are not doing their part in putting themselves on even ground with everyone else. The message is not shared at the start, but rather distributed through a hierarchy of channels that dilutes the original message. How Do You Align? This is an important question to ask yourself for everything you work on. How does it align to the business goals? Sometimes this is a hard question to answer, but it’s important to do your best. It’s most important to align to the business goals first (what good is pushing useless information on  a user if it’s not even important?) It’s also important to align to the user as well.  In fact they are one in the same. If you’re aligning to a user with useless information, you’re wasting everyone’s time. Clarity I urge you to read Jonathan’s post, it’s useful and can put you on a path for better aligning Learning & Development with the business. Business has an important role to disseminate the strategy in a better way to everyone. This will give all employees a better opportunity to align their jobs to the business goal. Employees and leadership have the tools to disseminate information successfully. It’s up to them to use them, from the top of the chain all the way to the bottom, unfiltered and clear. Sorry, no related posts.