Career development appears at the top of many list. Unfortunately, the lists tend to be focused on what employees desperately want but are not getting from their managers. As for managers, most appreciate the value of career development and really which they could do it more frequently and more effectively than they currently do. But let's face it: a manager's day-to-day reality are kaleidoscopic blur of meetings, responsibilities, and shifting priorities. Helping employees develop and grow is one of many activities perpetually pushed out in time to the elusive someday that too rarely comes. How could managers get past this conundrum? How can they make career development happen within the pressure-cooker reality that is business today? The answer is definitely not new systems, checklists, processes, or forms. Those have actually contributed to the problem.

Paper in Brief Discover the limits of "feel good" teambuilding activities, especially when critical business results are on the line Explore a thinking-based system to help teams build trust faster, streamline communications, make better decisions and get the benefit of diverse perspectives Learn how to apply the latest research on thinking and team effectiveness to achieve specific business objectives, whether the team is virtual or co-located, intact or cross functional Get practical tips for overcoming three common team challenges

Today's C-Suite executives have a wide variety of concerns, mostly involved with planning, managing and affecting change throughout the organization.  They are also concerned about multiple constituencies - customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers, competitors, business partners, regulatory agencies and the various governments in which they operate - both domestically and internationally.  C-Suite executives are willing to meet with professional salespeople if they are convinced that the salesperson can deliver true business value to them. This white paper will outline the six steps that will enable you to successfully engage with C-Suite executives - and to maintain and leverage those relationships over the long term. We also invite you to view this complimentary recorded webinar:

When you're leading remotely, with store visits at a minimum due to time and distance, you have to rely on technology to engage, motivate, and leverage the strengths of the entire team. This handy guide outlines the pitfalls to avoid and the pointers for effectively using the most common forms of electronic communications, including email, text messages, telephone, and voicemail.

It’s a new day for corporate training and those who manage learning functions. Today, traditional training programs aren’t enough to meet growing demands for better company performance, consistent compliance, changing employee expectations, and cost control. Companies can take learning to the next level with new tools and approaches that increase employee interest and engagement in learning, and are linked to employee performance, goal setting, and succession planning…all making a direct contribution to business growth. Ready to take learning to the next level? This Guide can help you get there. You’ll read about: Five essentials to transform learning Measuring ROI Tips to improve existing programs Case studies -- real-world examples of companies taking learning to the next level  

According to Accor Services 90% of organizations say employee engagement impacts business success, but 75% of organizations have no engagement plan or strategy. Senior leaders are the visible face of an organization. These leaders are responsible for building and communicating the vision and strategic direction of the company. Employees belief in senior leadership is one of the three critical ingredients of employee engagement. When employees believe in and trust senior leader companies are more likely to have a higher level of organizational engagement. Dale Carnegie Training’s White Paper "Building a Culture of Engagement: The Importance of Senior Leadership" explains how leaders can build a workforce around organizational engagement which gives their company's a competitive advantage.

We struggle with problems that seem unbeatable. Will we ever be able to improve employee engagement, cut costs, grow profit, and improve quality? These organizational problems are really team problems, and team problems are primarily people problems.  

Imagine the difference between looking across the room through a glass of muddy water and a glass of clear water. The muddy water represents how our decision making is impacted by negative emotions. Our minds were designed to keep us safe. Every moment your brain is scanning around you to see what might threaten you. Luckily, most of us are not physically threatened very often, but our brain also picks up threats to our self-esteem. 

Research shows that effective sales coaching can dramatically improve the performance of sales teams - in some cases driving up revenues by 20% or more. But all too often sales organizations find it challenging to develop a sales coaching program that's embedded in a coaching culture.   Read this 5-page white paper and learn best practices and strategies for developing an effective sales coaching program for your sales organization.   In this white paper you will learn how to: Implement a proven sales coaching model Create a coaching culture Use metrics to maximize the ROI on coaching Turn sales managers into great coaches

An Approach - The Reality of Product Management  The illusion of control drives adversarial relationships between customers and the project team. Made up dates/effort in the Project Schedule are treated as truth. Project Managers are judged by their ability to meet these made up dates regardless of what happens during the project. Leaders and customers shy away from defining the measurement of DONE. Lack of clarity about expected measurable outcomes and how this ties to business ROI is often avoided, vague or missing entirely in discussions.

Able, adjusted, all systems go, apt, equipped, fit, in order, organized, planned, prepared, primed, qualified, rehearsed, set. These are all synonyms for the word ready. The question is, can you really be sure that these words apply to your sales team? To help you not only shift the way you think about sales readiness, but actually take steps towards ensuring your own sales organization’s readiness, we have compiled 22 tips to guide you.  

As we adapt to a new working norm, organizations are struggling to keep their workforce productive, engaged and delivering on corporate objectives. In this eBook you’ll get 5 modern learning strategies that support higher employee engagement and retention, as well as help build a more agile and higher performing organization. You'll gain insights into: The top three reasons to revamp your learning strategy Five modern learning strategies to guide your way Tips and resources for creating a more people-centric approach to learning and talent development

Organizations are finally realizing that people learn more of what they need to be effective at their job through informal channels, on-the-job experiences and coaching than they do through more formal means. When it comes to developing and executing the learning strategy, however, companies continue to look at things completely upside-down. The vast majority of the learning delivered within organizations is through formal classrooms and e-learning courses, which only accounts for about 10% of the learning that occurs. Even within that 10%, retention rates for single, formal learning events are abysmal, with most learners forgetting close to 90% of what they learned over time. What opportunities are companies missing to help people retain more of what they are learning and discover new knowledge through other, more informal channels?  

THE 70:20:10 FRAMEWORK More and more businesses are adopting 70:20:10 to help build organizational strength. However, a question often posed is whether the approach is a theory of workplace learning, a way of cutting down on training costs, or a mantra to be followed slavishly. Alternatively, is 70:20:10 simply ‘old wine in new bottles’ given that most Learning and Development (L&D) professionals think they already combine learning and work? Some ask ‘why bother with 70:20:10 at all’? Additionally, ‘what is it with this neat formula - 70, 20, 10’? People are suspicious of nice round numbers. Surely the reality of learning and performing is much too complex to be described in terms of simple ratios? Despite all these criticisms, there’s a worldwide movement of L&D professionals who realize and acknowledge the value of 70:20:10. This is not because it’s a mantra, an ideology or an end in itself, but because it enables them to connect more quickly and effectively to what really matters: learning and performing at the speed of business. Their work isn’t just about providing formal learning solutions. By using 70:20:10 as a reference model, more and more L&D professionals are co-creating solutions with their business colleagues. This ‘movement’ and new way of working with 70:20:10 makes L&D more relevant to their organizations.

You want your managers to deliver results. Not just any results - you’re looking for breakthrough results. In order to get that done, they must be viewed by their teams as smart, likable, hard working, and caring. But there’s another quality that can make or break a manager’s pursuit of success. Managers can only get their teams to execute the strategy successfully if they start with themselves. They must understand the strategy itself and see how internal/external forces and trends impact the business. They must know the customer needs and requirements, as well as be a role model of the culture, behaviors, and values of the organization. This paper will help managers discover, synthesize and internalize these critical qualities. Download Below.  

Content is the backbone of learning. Without the right pieces in place, your learning efforts — no matter how well intentioned — will fall flat. View this Lightpaper and learn how your organization can: personalize the learning experience, efficiently author content, be more agile, and drive performance.  

A Perspective on Competencies by Hale Associates.

Experiential learning presents a highly unique growth opportunity for participants, as well as a tool that planners can use to achieve a specific outcome. Differentiated from more traditional team-building, experiential learning uses a blended approach to learning, integrating activities, exercises, adventure elements, quiet time and ongoing post-event coaching to create powerful programs of leadership development, strategic planning, mentoring and coaching, communication, feedback and observation as well as enhancement of behavior styles.  

Beyond the Sales Process focuses on the frontline of engagement with customers. It is specifically intended for salespeople, account managers, their managers, and sales leaders, as well as others who have responsibilities and pressures associated with developing and winning business, and those who are tasked with extending and expanding their relationships with customers.

"Performance management" sounds wholly positive. After all, who can argue with better performance? And effective performance management (PM) programs can deliver significant, tangible benefits such as: Increase in time spent on strategic priorities Improvement in employee productivity Jump in project completion rates More decrease in turnover

Managers are the connective tissue of your culture, creating a series of invisible, interwoven links between individuals, leaders, the business, and the strategy. When managers are living, promoting, and celebrating your culture, they are bringing it to life every day at the team level. This is critical because that’s where the real employee experience takes place.

In this white paper we examine valuing alternative futures and the use of qualitative probability theory to weigh the consequences of different actions.  We'll show how to use a common platform to engage their clients in the process of identifying assumptions, weighing the risk of those assumptions materializing or not, and valuing choices based on the probability of possible outcomes. Benefits: The benefits are participants will receive a set of tools and decision models that encourage logical thinking, discipline, and consideration of organizational realities that, in turn, will help them:   Save time.   Avoid unnecessary costs.   Increase their confidence.   Be perceived as having business smarts.   

The employment market is fragmented and diverse. Every sector of business requires instructional designers and developers. Many employers prefer Instructional Designers (IDs) with experience in their business sector. This means that subject/content experts with a talent for teaching often move into instructional design using their field-specific knowledge as the key to open the door to course design and development, but with little or no formal preparation for quality instructional design and development. This paper discusses the practice analysis process, including survey results that generated nine primary skill set domains for IDs.  

What are the 3 Steps to Success YOU can take in your first 90 days to facilitate your own success?  We often have the tendency to look around us and see how others are doing things, and then assume, often wrongly, that that is how we must do things. Here are steps that every successful consultant, either knowingly or unknowingly, has followed in achieving success.