Training Advice

What Type of Learning do we Need? You’ve identified something that people need to do better or differently. You already analyzed the performance gap and its causes. You’ve determined that it really is a knowledge or skill deficiency. (You have done that, right? You’re not just throwing training at a non-training issue… right? Training can […]

I was working with the site training managers for a mining company not long ago, and I realized that none of them knew what their jobs were really about. As in many companies, they were focused on compliance, scheduling classes, tracking completions and hours, and just generally doing what the boss wanted them to do. […]

  I have a secret to share with talent and training consultants: You can provide more to your HR clients. (Yes, this is the flip side of the first part in this series where I wrote about how HR leaders could better understand consultants. This will seem familiar because I am just flipping the perspective!) […]

  I have a secret to share with HR leaders: You can get more from your consultants. Consultants may sometimes seem like they are from Mars, while you are from Venus, but there are ways for both of these planets to prosper. You both want to succeed. Knowing what people from “that other planet” want […]

Sometimes, it’s obvious. Other times, you have to make a choice. Simulations can be designed and run as solo activities, or as group exercises. In a group—or between groups—simulations can be done in a cooperative way or as competitive events. Different things push your choice as a learning professional in one direction or another. Solo […]

This simulation example was an online course in career coaching for 3,500 managers of a global manufacturing company. The course was offered in 7 languages to all management-level employees of this company around the world. The simulations followed two brief setup sections that explained what career coaching is and how to do it well. Learners […]

When I was the Director of L&D at The Schwan Food Company, I kept track of the kinds of learning and development projects that my teams worked on. They fell into some pretty consistent buckets of time, effort, and cost. Across different companies and clients, those buckets have remained pretty consistent. It has given me […]

“There was this one time,” the tale begins, and that draws the learners into the world of story. Shakespeare took it even farther, writing, “the play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” Getting people into the “play” and engaging them with story is incredibly effective as a way to learn. Remember […]

Know your audience. Do the right thing. Those are two of the guiding principles I use in my training and HR work. Beyond my passionate focus on learning for performance, I strive to promote inclusion and diversity in the stories, scenarios, and cases I write. Inclusion for me is the sense of “make this welcoming […]

There are a lot of good uses for custom business cases. They can expose people to new ideas or situations, or document important decisions made by the organization. A good business case tells an exciting story right up to the point of the critical decision—readers are hooked, they are into the story, they understand what’s […]

I sometimes explain what I do as “business fiction writing.” This always gets a surprised look and a questioning, “What?” reaction. So I explain: “I go into a client’s business and find out what’s challenging or difficult about the topic they want to train on. And I talk with some learners to understand what their […]

You’ve heard loud and clear what the execs want. You’ve gathered some data about what the learners need to do differently on the job. You’ve verified that training will help build the knowledge and skills that the business needs. You’ve managed to get some agreement from the sponsors to do training. The next step is […]