Experts, scientists and learning specialists agree that experience is one of the better ways to help learners learn. The more experience the learner and worker has, the more they perform on the job.  In typical learning environments, "experience learning" is not encouraged. Consequently, learners try hard to learn the theory and yet forget them as soon as they finish the courses. To prevent this from happening, effective learning incorporates experience-learning before, during and after the learning process - and is continuously encouraged on the job.

Let’s face it. We don’t often think that "performance review" and "engagement" belong in the same sentence. Performance reviews can cause anxiety in the associates being appraised and the manager responsible for conducting them.

You've likely seen this great video about the importance of the First Follower, popularized by Ted Talks.  In the book The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt shares this quote: "...focusing on leadership alone is like trying to understand clapping  by studying only the left hand." He claims that the correct question is not why people want to lead, but why people want to follow.

Lack of emotional intelligence skills is the one of the biggest and overlooked reason for missed revenue goals. Often, salespeople and know what to do; however, in tough selling situations, they let nonproductive emotions take over. They discount too soon, write practice proposals without proper qualification and continue to meet with non-decision makers. Their inability to execute the right selling behaviors during stressful situations lead to poor sales results. When it comes to sales, emotional intelligence skills are every bit important as hard selling skills.

So what's the difference between being a training consultant - and a performance consultant? And why should you care?  When performance is the question - training is your sixth answer.

The shared perspective from learners and designers on e-learning is that much of it is not very good: It's boring, the interactions don't teach, the media are unhelpful, and so on. This is despite the fact that well-meaning instructional designers are following long-established models and doing exactly what most authoring tools have made easy. When pushed, many designers know what they are doing is flawed, but there's little guidance on how to do anything better. Many learners find that e-learning courses are not complex or difficult to achieve — designers need to focus on the essential aspects of learning that have been overlooked in the haste to rely on technology alone.

Managing a sales team is one of the most important positions in a company. Great sales managers have a profound impact on the productivity of their sales teams and produce better results. But, too often training initiatives focus on salespeople and not sales managers.

Got a flag? Got a rubber band? Got a session that could put a group of learners to sleep? Have no fear, Super "Aha"some object lessons are here. Discover how to take dry concepts and create physical metaphors that engage learners. Neuroscientists agree that making learning visual increases participants ability to both learn and retain information over other senses. Object lessons are one way to you can do just that.  

Welcome to a new weekly hands-on webinar series that will empower you to get the most out of TrainingMagNetwork.com Path to Expertise (Path2X) is a suite of unique and powerful learning tools that goes beyond mere content.  Path2X helps you... Have access to thousands of content resources Capture and record your insights, indexed to your profile for future reference Instantly granting you a printable credit for participating Track all your activities, show your learning patterns or "Path to Expertise" and share with your leaders and peers You'll become a power learner and expert in the (Path2X) System.

  Notice:   There was an audio issue when recording the webinar last week and we are currently identifying a date in the next two weeks to re-record the session.   We will be sure to send out notifications when we have settled on a specific date and a time.   Thank you for your patience.

How many people voluntarily paid to attend your last training class?  How many do you want to pay for your next one? In an industry of commission-based independent contractors: 1. Training is an expense to the learner (cost of admission, travel, and time away from commission generating activities) 2. Contractors choose whether or not they will attend based on perceived value

LinkedIn - the No.1 social network for B2B - rolled out major changes in 2015 including:   New Messaging Format New Group Interface and Policies New Mobile Platform

Don't be frightened. Even if you're new to Captivate, come and learn! Most of this will work in prior Captivate versions too! The difference between a novice and an expert Captivate developer primarily falls in knowing the following: When and how to create user variables When to use system variables When to use simple actions When and how to create standard advanced actions When and how  to create conditional advanced actions When and how to create shared actions When and how to use JavaScript in Captivate

There is a growing need for trainers to curate content to support powerful self-learners. Curating allows trainers to help learners find and study valuable content from informal sources like blogs, articles, webinars, videos, white papers, case studies and others. Unfortunately, trainers are accustomed to the "they-must-learn-my-content" mindset and misunderstand their new roles as curators. They miss the opportunities to serve learners with varied and far-reaching knowledge. They need to shift to the "follow-your-own-interest" mindset.

Did you know that introverted leaders often deliver better results than extroverts? That the most spectacularly creative people tend to be introverts? That the most innovative thinking happens alone and not in teams? One of the central challenges of any business is to bring out the best in its employees. Yet when it comes to introverts—who make up a third to a half of the workforce—our leadership strategy mainly consists of asking them to act like extroverts. This is a serious waste of talent and energy.

You’ve completed your performance assessments, now what do you do with the results? How do you pull together all that data into a comprehensive, professional plan for the execs?  Easy - you put some PEP in your step!  

Real learning comes not from experiential activities but from the debriefing discussions that follows the activity. In the hands of a skilled facilitator, the experiential activity is just an excuse for powerful debriefing. 

Agile is more than a project management method. It’s a culture. The good news is that it solves many of the sticking points with the old waterfall-based approaches to projects. It’s a matter of communication, communication, getting results and communication.

Research have shown that 70% of learners are likely to be on-demand-learners. They learn by small bits and pieces following their needs and interests. The problem is that most organizations deliver massive, bulky and long learning which discourages the on-demand-learners. It also undermines the potential gains for learners and workers to improve performance by learning through small bits and pieces.

We’ve all worked with SCORM for years and are comfortable with what it is and how it works.  But now there’s a new way to track learning events called Experience API (xAPI).  It’s been called "The next generation of SCORM," but xAPI is very different in a lot of ways.

As a trainer, do you find that implementation of what you teach is the downfall of a lot of training? According to the ASTD, 90% of what trainees learn is lost by the time they return to the job. How do you help make the learning stick?

The explosion of apps is undeniable.  Is there any use for apps in your training?  There certainly is a good case for it.  And even if with a good case to use  apps in your learning and training delivery, could you even create one yourself?  Sophisticated app production can cost thousands of dollars and take months.  There is an option to build simple apps for free and no coding knowledge required.  

Data is the order of the present day, no question. We have an insatiable appetite for data—everyone wants it—especially sales leaders. But, not all data is created equal.

Our organizations look to us to help solve performance problems, right? The challenge comes in where to start when figuring things out. Learn four key needs assessment tools to get you started making strategic and practical recommendations that work.