Last Wednesday, we had our TTA Learning Conference, and I was blown away by the great ideas that were shared and the many generous people that I met. If you’ve been following TTA on social media, you already know that we had ambitious plans. I’m happy to report that our lofty plans came to fruition, and it was even better than we’d hoped. And so, partly for my own benefit and hopefully for yours, I thought I’d sum up a little of what we learned. If you were with us, it will give you a chance to reflect and maybe set some goals. If you weren’t with us, you’ll have a curated list of ideas for further study.

Here are some insights from each of our presenters:

Ken Taylor, President at Training Industry, Inc.

Trends in the Learning and Development Market

Ken summarized current learning trends and presented a snapshot of the industry. He noted six learning trends in particular—all of which are worth some additional thinking:

1. Addressing the soft skills gap
2. Blending experiences vs. blended learning
3. Learner confidence increases competence
4. Training to prevent crisis
5. Market opportunity for pre-boarding
6. Upskilling the training function

Some of the research that he presented was sponsored by TTA and is available here: https://thetrainingassociates.com/modern-learner-preferences/

Kisha Dixon, TTA Learning Consultant

Building Relationships and Strengthening Emotional Intelligence

Kisha showed us all how to improve our relationships through a combination of storytelling, recipe-sharing, and modeling of simple techniques. Only Kisha could pull off such an unusual combination of ingredients and leave us wanting more. She had four main points:

1. Develop an open and authentic mindset
2. Use empathy to better listen and discover differences
3. Follow up and follow through to build trust
4. Always offer a little “something extra” to the relationship and to each interaction

Having spent some time in Louisiana myself, I loved Kisha’s analogy of lagniappe as that extra bit of service or generosity offered to our customers or stakeholders.

Ann Roesener, Sr. Partner Success Executive, Intrepid by VitalSource

Sanjay Advani, Vice President, Marketing and Alliances, Intrepid by VitalSource

Quality, Scale, & Cost—All 3 in 1

Ann and Sanjay talked about the often-competing demands of quality, scale, and cost, inviting all of us to self-evaluate our learning programs in light of these demands. They then shared a case study in which they used an LX (learner experience) platform to achieve all three objectives without making sacrifices.

However, midway through their presentation, we all got a surprise. The power went out and stayed out for the reminder of their session. By the light of a few mobile phones, Ann and Sanjay took questions, discussed outcomes and results, etc. Here are a few insights from that discussion:

• They explained the concept of an invisible LMS that will serve up learning experiences in the moment of need and in the flow of work.
• They broke down the various technologies that might comprise a learning tech ecosystem and the role of each of those technologies within that system.
• They measured outcomes in the case study by looking at sales metrics (revenue growth and account planning). Other variables were self-reported confidence and readiness indicators.

Anthony Williams, Global Talent Acquisition and Diversity, Akamai Technologies

Fred Budd, Sr. Manager of Talent Development, Unifirst Corporation

Collaborative Learning

This panel discussion featured two TTA clients talking about how they use collaborative learning. Fred’s program is an immersive, cohort-based approach to leadership development. Anthony’s program prepares those with the aptitude but not the credentials to take on roles in IT. His program is a cohort-based bootcamp that develops talent specifically for Akamai. Here are a few of their ideas:

• Carefully consider how you’ll fund the program. Both programs had to come up with creative strategies to pay for these immersive programs.
• Both programs have had to tackle challenges of geography and how to replicate the same positive conditions in different locations.
• Anthony found that the experiences in the bootcamp created comparable expertise to those with more traditional computer science credentials.
• Fred reported accelerated development and increased comprehension of the full context of the business.
• Both panelists agreed that culture fit for program applicants is as critical as other assessments and interviews.

Shawn Moon, Sr. Consultant, FranklinCovey

Leading Loyalty

Shawn shared key points from his WSJ-bestselling book Leading Loyalty. We started with a few poignant videos and examples that highlight three key enablers of loyalty:

• Empathy
• Responsibility
• Generosity

We talked about the types of customer service experiences that build loyalty and those that don’t. According to FranklinCovey research, more than 70% of what makes a customer experience great is based on the behavior of frontline employees. Shawn then led us through the practices that will help leaders to change the behavior of frontline employees. He introduced the concept of loyalty huddles and outlined the types of topics and questions that could be discussed in that forum.

You can learn more about Shawn’s book here: https://www.success.com/leading-loyalty/

Jess Melfa, Founder, Yoga for Good

Jess provided us with a much-needed breather and guided us through a meditation that was energizing and refreshing. We also learned about the work that her organization is doing to help children learn better at school.

Bruce Tulgan, CEO, Rainmaker Thinking, Inc.

It’s Okay to Be the Boss: Learn the Proven Best Practices of Highly-Engaged Management

We concluded the day with some practical advice on how to be a better manager. According to Bruce, it isn’t micro-management that’s the problem—it’s actually under-management. He broke down 7 myths that get in our way:

1. Empowerment
2. Fairness
3. Jerk Boss
4. Difficult Confrontation
5. Natural Leader
6. HR Police
7. Time

Bruce held up a mirror to some of our worst habits. At our office, I know that we’re already rethinking our 1:1s and our relationships with our reports. You can learn more about his book here: https://rainmakerthinking.com/book/its-okay-to-be-the-boss-2/

It was an honor to represent TTA and to share this day with our associates, partners, and clients. We started many excellent conversations that we’re eager to continue. Too often, we connect online without ever having the chance to sit down together. During the conference, we talked about the value of creating blended, hybrid experiences—I think this concept certainly extends beyond learning. Thanks again to all of those who contributed and to the awesome team members who made this happen.

Finally, inspired by Kisha’s (the second session of the day) analogy of lagniappe (the idea of offering something a little extra), here are the presenter decks from the day.

The post Insights and Takeaways from the TTA Learning Conference appeared first on TTA (The Training Associates).

Staying current in the ever-changing learning and development industry is a challenge for most of us. Because TTA is hosting a learning conference next week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the choices that we make for our own development. Why go to a local event over a national event? What type of networking is going to be most helpful or enjoyable to me as a professional? Of the many books that come out in our field, in which should I invest my time?

For me, a partial solution for staying current is in establishing certain habits. I try to be conscious of the cadence of my own learning and the ways that I incorporate learning into my everyday work. Some of us are so passionate about the learning field that we willingly pursue it as a hobby on our own time. Dare I admit that my personal time is consumed with other interests? Also, my goal is always to see how much leverage I can get out of the same effort. Can I do something that I want to do while also checking off something I must do from my list?

And so, for the busy professionals among us, I offer a few tips to staying current in the learning and development profession:

1. Look for innovation opportunities on your own projects. This is the first and easiest to implement. You may not work in a culture amenable to design thinking. You may have no choice but rapid development. Regardless, you can define just one thing about that project that can be new or different, one thing around which you can shape a narrative that showcases your own value. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. It can be one small innovation each time that you take on a project.

2. Use your work friends as a community of practice. You probably make friends at work. Many of them work in your same area of expertise. Most of them will make choices that take them to other organizations. You probably want to maintain these friendships, right? You can create your own community of practice by maintaining these relationships. Try scheduling a quarterly group lunch. Set the expectation that you want to compare notes on a different topic at each of these lunches. You can then maintain real-world friendships and learn stuff at the same time. (You can also eat lunch which you want to do anyway.)

3. Follow several thought leaders on LinkedIn and Twitter (and refresh them up once a year). I’m saying to follow them, but I’m not saying to necessarily read every posting or comment that appears in your feed. You’ll only skim these as you look to see what your friends are doing (see above). In your peripheral vision, you might notice some recurring themes or patterns. (These may give you ideas for the first hack above.) Usually, if I see an interesting coinage or phrase a few times, it will nudge me to learn more, not a lot more, just enough to not embarrass myself. But the habit here is for routine perusal and occasional contribution on LinkedIn and Twitter. You can learn as you build your personal brand—two or more birds, one stone.

4. Use local events to increase your readiness. It’s hard to anticipate future needs and your general readiness is strengthened by more context. Local events provide all kinds of valuable context—they can help to benchmark, network, find consultants, etc. You may also like to learn stuff, but the need for readiness alone should drive you to do the networking. If you’re a learning leader (or aspire to be one), it’s going to be more efficient for you to attend these events than it will be to skip them. It’s hard to be resourceful if you don’t have resources. Passing by these opportunities means more time working in the dark. And working in the dark is not a good idea. I think the cadence should be defined by the quality of the local event and the range of jobs you might accomplish there.

5. Attend one national conference a year but make sure it does double duty (rotate through the biggies). I think attending the big conferences is a chore. It’s much easier if I have several jobs to do there. Are there specific individuals I need to meet? Are there technologies I need to review? Is there business to be done there? Going for the sake of learning, while admirable, may make it difficult in terms of getting budget approval and may prove disappointing depending the sessions you attend. I think setting up multiple objectives increases the likelihood of achieving one of them. 

6. Create a bigger “bookshelf” than you will read or use (reference and don’t read). For me, this includes books, articles, and blogs. In the physical realm, I have done this by creating a team library with as many books as we can buy or borrow. The goal is to have them within easy reach. In the virtual realm, I do this by bookmarking in my browser. The shortcut is to know as much about these resources as possible without reading them. Are people that I respect reading them? If so, then I can cheat and go to the index, borrow an awesome idea, and put it to use.

7. Locate the industry curators and bookmark them on your browser. There are a few invaluable sites where industry analysts have aggregated and curated a bunch of information. Take the Training Industry site for example. Maybe I need to talk intelligently about the key players in some niche aspect of our industry? There is probably a top 20 list ready and waiting for me.

8. Push yourself to share & volunteer when the opportunities arise. This one may be easier in my own context as an external provider than it would be internally. Regardless, there will be opportunities to share your work, showcase a project, and collaborate with others. We can pass these by because we think of it as extra work, or we can get creative and figure out how it can help with a report we have to do. We need to get in the habit of saying yes when these opportunities come along. If you’re a leader, set the cadence for your team with annual portfolio reviews, monthly/quarterly showcases, lunch-and-learns, etc. I think the secret is to keep it very simple and then repeat. I still remember my first ever (and only) annual innovation day. It was such an awesome and unsustainable idea.

What are your ideas for sharpening the saw without disrupting the flow of work? I’m looking for other shortcuts to stay relevant and informed amid considerable noise and an ever-growing backlog of important work. And, if you’re looking for a super-efficient, curated day of learning and leadership, you should check out our TTA Learning Conference.

The post 8 Shortcuts to Stay Relevant in Learning and Development appeared first on TTA (The Training Associates).

Fellow learning leaders, what is the biggest challenge that you’re facing today? If you’re like many of your peers, you’re most likely facing two key issues:

1. Increased demand for learning from the business
2. Increased complexity in terms of solution design, development, and delivery

You’ve worked hard to build your team—you’re invested in their success and you think that they are talented. Unfortunately, you also realize that it isn’t enough. Not only do you not have enough people to do the work, you fear that you don’t have the right expertise. As experts in performance, we sometimes don’t consider our own strategies for talent leadership. We fall back into people management—assigning resources, approving hours, and making do with the best that we can. What we should be doing is looking at our overall expertise portfolio. Are we leading toward a future state where the talent “stack” looks quite different because we’ve assessed and analyzed our upcoming needs? If you consider the brand or reputation of your learning group, are you recognized for your resourcefulness in the face of constraints or for the innovation of an optimal solution?

So, yes, we’re tired of making do, but the reality is that we have a lot more options than we did previously. TTA has compiled a list of eight of the current directions in talent leadership. Although some of these trends are true across the enterprise, we think they are especially relevant for learning leaders with limited headcounts and a hungry group of business stakeholders.

1. Agile Workforce

An agile workforce is one in which talent is available on demand to fill in gaps or expand capacity beyond what is possible with your full-time team. Industry researchers report that 66% of leaders believe that developing an agile workforce is the most important factor to their organization.^[i] Why is it the most important? It helps us meet both of our initial challenges. We may have surge or extension needs for learning talent, but we likely require additional expertise to round out the full talent profile of what we think we’ll need. We might need learning strategists, experts in serious gaming, or a developer for a specific learner experience platform. Sure, your in-house team may be able to get up to speed, but what is the opportunity cost? Also, it can often be easier to secure temporary budget instead of committing to another full-time hire.

How you tap into the agile workforce may be as strategic as the talent you leverage. Most organizations are not going to engage individual contractors on a one-off basis each time that a need emerges. To scale and manage quality, organizations are turning to service aggregators with the right processes and tools to maximize the value of the “human cloud,” in which the work is done remotely and on demand by independent workers.^[ii]  

2. Full-Time Placement

Many learning leaders are facing a difficult challenge when it comes to full-time placement. The legacy issue is that we’ve been historically understaffed. Technology has made it easier to scale our efforts, but, typically, the headcount of our respective team is not calibrated to meet the full demand. We are also nearing the end of a boom in hiring, and resources have become relatively scarce.^[iii] Part of the value of developing both an agile workforce strategy and a full-time strategy is that you can seek out talent through both channels. Savvy leaders are looking at both options, and because of the tight market, placing an ad on LinkedIn may get you an abundance of resumes but not an abundance of the precise skills for which you’re looking. More specialized agencies (like TTA) can tap into networks and relationships specific to our industry. Often, they will have first-hand experience working with the talent being recommended.

3. Talent Experience

By this point, we’re accustomed to talking about the full talent lifecycle, and we’re now better prepared to create experiences for our team members that will increase retention and maximize engagement. What you may not be looking at is the experience lifecycle of your independent workers, consultants, and even your vendors. Having a vendor mindset doesn’t work well in terms of agile talent, for example, because it creates a second-class status for contingent workers. Have you considered readiness or onboarding needs for everyone with whom you’re working? Industry experts report that more than a third of organizations have no strategy for readiness or onboarding of independent consultants.^[iv] Additionally, more than 50% of independent workers report they were not given feedback or coaching during their assignment.

4. Customer Enablement

Today, over 40% of an organization’s talent is non-employee.^[v] If you have a working strategy for agile talent in your organization, you might also need to look at how you’re working with your internal stakeholders and business unit leaders. Passing through an independent contractor directly to a business unit leader is a good way to sabotage your agile strategy. That’s why an important component of your talent strategy should be the enablement of your internal customers.  Much of the research on creating a frictionless customer experience has relevance here.^[vi] Is it frictionless to expect your stakeholder to manage an external talent or provide feedback on instructional quality? It’s likely the opposite. Our goal should be to create an easy and positive customer experience powered by a hybrid approach. It’s not about providing a body to do the work; it’s about ensuring on-demand talent that will outperform other options.

5. Digital Staffing

Part of what makes the human cloud feasible is the emergence of new technologies that streamline each step of the staffing process. A new generation of applicant tracking systems (ATS) allows for better searching and screening of candidates. Tools for video interviewing can automate the interview process, and predictive assessments (based on data and not mere models) contribute to smarter ecosystems that support and sustain all your talent. Because of the size of most L&D teams, we have been slower to take advantage of digital staffing solutions. The scale hasn’t justified it. However, if we factor in the complexity of an agile approach, such technology becomes critical.

6. Changing ID Roles

Evidence of the increased complexity in our discipline is manifested in a proliferation of roles and titles. Here are a just a few of the possibilities for instructional designers:

• Content developer—gathers, scripts, and produces instructional content
• Instructional designer—designs activities to meet enabling objectives
• Learning Experience (LX) designer—specializes in the design of LX systems
• Learning strategist—analyses and recommends as a performance consultant or architect

Many learning teams are simply too small to have such differentiation of roles and yet these differences can be very impactful in terms of results.

7. Hiring for Soft Skills

Another direction to consider as you build out your talent strategy is the importance of soft skills. In addition to thinking through the technical skills necessary to achieve your goals, you should also consider the enabling soft skills that will make it possible for the team to be creative. LinkedIn recently identified the top soft skills for 2019.^[vii] They feature creativity, persuasion, collaboration, adaptability, and time management skills. It’s important to realize that your agile strategy can also introduce important soft skills to the team—as these are becoming just as important as the hard skills traditionally used to vet independent consultants.

8. Total Workforce Management

The goal, of course, is to lead, coordinate, and optimize all the talent within your circle of influence. One analyst writes, “as the workforce becomes more ‘blended,’ the concept of ‘total workforce management’ will be a necessary program for . . . the management of both sides of their workforce (non-employee and FTEs) under a single program.”^[viii] Just as you’re strategizing the learning tech stack for your organization, you need to develop a learning talent stack comprised of full-time talent, agile talent, and trusted vendors.

The upside of intentionally and strategically managing your full talent portfolio is that you are also creating new possibilities for learners in your organization. While it is important to make the best of what we can, it’s also vital that we consider every available channel for meeting needs. A primary role of the learning leader is one of curation—finding the right approaches, assembling the right team, and evaluating the talent and competencies that will be required for the future.

For more information on organizational devleopment and growth, visit our Organizational Development section.

If you are interested in learning more about L&D trends, join us on Wednesday, September 25^th at the Crowne Plaza in Natick, MA for a one-day TTA Learning Conference.  Ken Taylor, President and CEO of Training Industry, will explore how resource decisions are changing and share important corporate training trends and opportunities at the event.

Panel Discussion: Trends in the Learning and Development Market

Ken Taylor, President and CEO, Training Industry, Inc.

Ken will be presenting on the trends in the learning development market. Training Industry is known to be the most trusted source of information on the business of learning and is the leading resource for industry best practices, innovative approaches, and training products and services for organizational learning.

The day will also be filled with a variety of other current, compelling, and innovative topics that are impacting the workplace today. The speaker lineup is a remarkable mix of industry experts and authors who are eager to share their personal stories and experiences on developing leaders and teams and creating an engaging learning culture. Its smaller attendance ensures a more personal and meaningful experience, where you can expect to learn and create strategies that help you and your organization.

Check out the full agenda and register today.

[i] https://gocatalant.com/reimagining-work-20-20/
[ii] https://www.ft.com/content/a4b6e13e-675e-11e5-97d0-1456a776a4f5
[iii] https://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/recruiting-hiring-advice/attracting-job-candidates/2019-staffing-trends.aspx
[iv] https://www.tempworks.com/newsitems/top-staffing-trends-and-challenges-in-2019/
[v] https://www.fieldnation.com/insights/evolution-onsite-contingent-workforce
[vi] https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/effortless-experience-explained/
[vii] https://learning.linkedin.com/blog/top-skills/the-skills-companies-need-most-in-2019–and-how-to-learn-them
[viii] https://www.fieldnation.com/insights/evolution-onsite-contingent-workforce

The post Experts’ Table – From People Management to Talent Leadership: 8 Directions for Learning Leaders appeared first on TTA (The Training Associates).

“I think leadership is never singular. In a good organization, it’s plural.” – Mike Krzyzewski

Leadership development is becoming a huge priority for many organizations. Attracting, retaining, and growing great leaders is a key ingredient in the recipe of success in any industry. For this reason, many organizations are beginning to turn their focus to investing in their current and future leaders.

TTA recently joined forces with our valued partner, UniFirst on a leadership development initiative. UniFirst is a successful leader in their industry in the areas of service, recruiting, selling sustainability, and diversity. UniFirst services 2 million uniform wearers each day and is a publicly traded company with close to $2 billion in revenue. However, they began to notice flaws within the internal leadership structure of the organization.

To catapult the changes at UniFirst, in May of 2017, tragedy struck with the passing of former CEO and the son of the founder of UniFirst, Ron Croatti. Ron was a true leader and was characterized by the producers of the show ‘Undercover Boss’ as quite the sensational Boss. Earlier in the year of 2017, he was also awarded the Operator Lifetime Achievement Award by the Textile Rental Services Association. It’s important to note that the devastating passing of Ron Croatti was a key turning point for UniFirst as an organization. This created an opportunity for the senior management team to look inside the organization as a whole.

What came from this period of internal exploration was the realization that there were clear gaps in UniFirst’s leadership development strategy.  Throughout the self-reflection process, it became evident that somewhere along the line, the emphasis shifted away from growing and developing UniFirst employees to increasing and maximizing sales. The leadership team at UniFirst discovered that there was no formal strategy for developing the organization’s leaders and it was determined that it was time for a change. There were two primary leaders at the organization who truly led to the success of the shift to Human Resources and Talent Development: Newly selected CEO Steve Sintros and Cindy Croatti.

It was at this point that UniFirst partnered with TTA on the implementation of the LEAP (Leadership, Education And Performance) program. The LEAP program is an 18-month rotational Leadership Development program that focuses on leadership education, operational knowledge, and business skills. The LEAP program utilized a blended approach, incorporating eLearning, Instructor-led training, and on-the-job-training. TTA’s role in the project included providing content development resources, facilitator resources, and talent sourcing support. Due to the capacity of the training and the immense developmental needs, UniFirst turned to TTA to design and develop the eLearning for the LEAP program. Utilizing one of TTA’s highly experienced Instructional Designers, TTA and UniFirst developed over 26 separate eLearning modules. The LEAP program has been an overall success and has greatly impacted the leadership development at UniFirst.

Recently, at the Training Industry Conference and Expo, Fred Budd, Senior Manager of Learning and Development at UniFirst, presented on their collaboration with TTA on their leadership program. He shared UniFirst’s inspirational story on how they came to implement the LEAP program. Fred did a phenomenal job sharing UniFirst’s story and provided insight that is valuable and applicable to many different organizations. Thank you Fred!  UniFirst is a great example of an organization that saw an opportunity for improvement and capitalized on it. UniFirst did not remain stagnant; they were proactive in their approach and this shines through in the success of the organization.

If you are interested in learning more about collaborative learning, join us on Wednesday, September 25^th at the Crowne Plaza in Natick, MA for a one-day TTA Learning Conference.  Fred will be sharing this inspirational employee development story at the event.

Panel Discussion: Collaborative Learning

Fred Budd, Senior Manager of Talent Development, UniFirst Corporation

Anthony Williams, Global Talent Acquisition and Diversity, Akamai Technologies

Learn first-hand from two talent acquisition experts, Fred Budd, Senior Manager of Talent Development at Unifirst Corporation, and Anthony Williams, Global Talent Acquisition and Diversity at Akamai, who each successfully implemented cohort learning programs. They will share their experiences of using collaborative learning to enhance the learner experience and drive results.

Unifirst’s LEAP program is an award-winning 18-month rotational Leadership Development program designed to groom high-potential associates into future managers.

Akamai Technical Academy is a 5-month training program designed to prepare participants for an entry-level role who have an aptitude for technology but may not come from a traditional technical background. Akamai has hired over 100 people through the ATA program, which is designed to empower diverse talent with technical work-ready skills and help them break into the technology industry.

The day will also be filled with a variety of other current, compelling, and innovative topics that are impacting the workplace today. The speaker lineup is a remarkable mix of industry experts and authors who are eager to share their personal stories and experiences on developing leaders and teams and creating an engaging learning culture. Its smaller attendance ensures a more personal and meaningful experience, where you can expect to learn and create strategies that help you and your organization.

Check out the full agenda and register today.

The post UniFirst’s LEAP To The Future appeared first on TTA (The Training Associates).

Emotional Intelligence is one of the top 10 soft skills for 2019 and continues to be a must-have skill in the workplace.^[i]

Emotional Intelligence

Often, when we think of intelligence, we envision an advanced mathematician or a chemist. While these careers do require a high level of intelligence, the value of emotional intelligence in the workplace cannot be overemphasized. Emotional intelligence is defined as the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.  Each day we make emotionally motivated decisions at home, in our personal lives, and at work. Having a high level of emotional intelligence allows you to understand your decisions and the consequences of those decisions.

According to Daniel Goleman’s theory, there are five key components of emotional intelligence: ^[ii]

1. Self-Awareness: The ability to recognize personal emotions, emotional triggers, and limitations
2. Self-Regulation: The ability to manage emotions so they do not have a negative effect
3. Motivation: An inner drive that comes from the personal joy experienced after an accomplishment
4. Empathy: The ability to recognize, understand, and experience the emotions of another person
5. Social Skills: The ability to interact and negotiate with other individuals in order to find the best way to meet the needs of each person

Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

While emotional intelligence is not required for every job, it can certainly give you a competitive edge. Having a high level of emotional intelligence can improve your work relationships, improve your ability to resolve conflicts, help you empathize with others in various situations, and assist in your decision-making process.

Studies show that “71% of hiring managers said they valued their employees’ emotional intelligence over their IQ.”^[iii] Additionally, “67% of all competencies that are determined as being absolutely essential for high performance in the workplace are related to emotional intelligence.”^[iv]

Regardless of your career path, your level of emotional intelligence will make or break your success within your field.

Improve Your Own Emotional Intelligence

You may feel like you could use some improvement in the area of emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is a lifelong learning process and is a skill you must practice for the rest of your life. Here are some first steps that experts say will help improve your level of emotional intelligence: ^[v]

• Pay attention to your own behavior and take note of the way you act
• Be accountable for your feelings and your actions
• Understand the difference between responding and reacting
• Put yourself in other people’s shoes
• Think positive thoughts
• Observe the behaviors and feelings of those around you
• Think before you act
• Practice being aware of your feelings and the feelings of others

Be mindful of your own emotions and the emotions of those around you. Being an emotionally intelligent person or employee will have a big pay off! For more information, visit our emotional intelligence training page.

If you are interested in learning first-hand how to strengthen your emotional intelligence, join us on Wednesday, September 25^th at the Crowne Plaza in Natick, MA for a one-day TTA Learning Conference.

Building Relationships and Strengthening Emotional Intelligence

Kisha Dixon, TTA Learning Consultant
Kisha is an award-winning TTA learning consultant who has over 20 years of experience designing and facilitating behavior-based sales, coaching, and leadership training. She will share best practices on how to develop long-lasting, trust-based relationships — to influence change in your organization. Kisha is recognized for her contribution in transforming the Girl Scouts’ leadership culture which won the coveted Brandon Hall Group Gold Award for Learning Excellence.

The day will also be filled with a variety of other current, compelling, and innovative topics that are impacting the workplace today. The speaker lineup is a remarkable mix of industry experts and authors who are eager to share their personal stories and experiences on developing leaders and teams and creating an engaging learning culture. Its smaller attendance ensures a more personal and meaningful experience, where you can expect to learn and create strategies that help you and your organization.

Check out the full agenda and register today.

[i] https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2019/02/22/what-are-the-top-10-soft-skills-for-the-future-of-work/#28b5f6f27f1f

[ii] https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/how-emotional-intelligence-can-be-key-to-workplace-success-0104167
[iii] https://www.ciphr.com/features/emotional-intelligence/
[iv] http://blog.readytomanage.com/the-benefits-of-emotional-intelligence-in-the-workplace/
[v] https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/7-practical-ways-improve-your-emotional-intelligence.html

The post The Key to Workplace Success: Emotional Intelligence appeared first on TTA (The Training Associates).

For a company to be always learning (about its changing market, customer, competition, technology, and everything else that is always changing), it needs its employees to always be learning.

There are a number of employee traits that might correlate with company success, including hard work, tenacity, intelligence, and creativity. I’d put ‘always learning’ up there against any trait. The employees who are always hungry for learning are usually the ones I’ve seen be most successful. Really, who’s more likely to innovate within your company than this type of person who is never content in the status quo of their learning?

Organizations that can help ‘feed’ that hunger for learning (in a way that aligns with their business objectives) are more likely to engage those employees and set them (and the company) up for success.

Here are 5 ways to create a culture of always learning:

1. Hire people that are already committed to always learning. During the interview process, make sure that there is evidence of this. Do they follow the relevant trends? Do they read the trades? Do they have relevant certifications or training? What have they learned recently? What proof is there that they have applied something they’ve learned recently to their work?

This is also an important trait in people that are going to be hiring managers. If they aren’t committed to always learning, they won’t be as proactive in hiring around that trait. And they won’t do the things as managers that are necessary to ensure their direct reports are always learning.

2. Make learning a formal part of the job. Employees should spend some percent of time each week learning. Maybe it’s reading relevant white papers, blogs, eBooks, or watching relevant tutorials. Maybe it’s attending a relevant conference or teaching others in the group/company something relevant. Which gets to number three. 

3. Ensure there is ‘system of knowledge transfer’ from one person/group to other relevant people/groups, on relevant topics. I’ve seen a lot of companies fail at this. Maybe there is a session on a particular topic that would definitely be of strong interest to a few different groups, but it’s only offered to one group. (This is the opposite of knowledge transfer). Even worse, maybe there is no knowledge transfer at all. If we don’t share knowledge, we just end up forever reinventing the wheel and never learning from mistakes and successes made.

4. Get management buy-in. If your company has a mission, then something about ‘always learning’ should probably be in there. The CEO and other senior management should live and breath always learning, where they are showing everyone else in the company the importance. Importantly, they need to continually reinforce how vital it is. It’s easy to lose sight and focus on the day-to-day fire drills that we are all fighting. But if that’s all we are ever doing, we’ll never learn what’s causing the fires, how to prevent them, how others are successful treating them, and so on.
5. Make programming relevant to your organization. Every company is different, so it will look different based on your needs. But every company should have some specific programming that fits the mission/objectives/brand/employees of your company. For example, Airbnb has Fireside Chats (that perfectly fits their brand, right?) where industry leaders are brought in to share their expertise on relevant topics.

Or my company, TTA, decided to create its own learning conference that is specifically for learning and development leaders and their teams, to help them be better in their roles. We want L&D leaders to be able to learn from each other, in an intimate and approachable (i.e., just one day) manner. We didn’t see programming out there like that, so we decided to create this event ourselves, so we could all learn from each other.

I believe that if your employees are always learning, they are more likely to stay with you a long time and will be better equipped to help your company with all the challenges coming down the pike.

The post 5 Simple Ways to Help Create a Culture of ‘Always Learning’ appeared first on TTA (The Training Associates).

If you are a learning leader, HR guru, or L&D professional, you won’t want to miss this exciting new one-day learning conference designed especially for you. Mark your calendar for Wednesday, September 25th because it’s going to be a hump day packed full of learning, interacting, and fun!

Together, we’ll unravel the current trends, challenges, and opportunities that we face in corporate learning and development today.

1-Day, 8 World-Class Speakers, for $299* – You Won’t Want to Miss It

Don’t worry, we know you want a conference that interests you and is worth your time and money. So, we put together an affordable one-day event packed with a lineup of world-class speakers. The day is designed to give you insights into different learning experiences – to help you better manage and develop your talent.

3 Reasons to Attend the TTA Learning Conference

Here are three reasons to join your peers for a day of thought-provoking discussions (and yoga…oh yeah!):

Reason 1 – Get a Powerful Day of Learning from 8 World-Class Experts

The speaker lineup is amazing, and the day will be filled with interactive and facilitated discussions. We took the most relevant L&D topics and selected a team of industry experts, authors, and L&D practitioners who are excited to share their personal stories and experiences with you.

Check out the expert lineup and what the day offers:

• Trends in the Learning and Development Market
  Ken Taylor, President, Training Industry, Inc.
  Ken will explore how resource decisions are changing and share important corporate training trends and opportunities.

• Building Relationships and Strengthening Emotional Intelligence
  Kisha Dixon, TTA Learning Consultant
  Kisha, one of our great consultants, will teach you the ingredients needed to develop long lasting, trust-based relationships (through the lens of New Orleans cuisine).

• Quality, Scale, Cost – All 3 in 1
  Ann Roesner, Sr. Partner Success Executive, Intrepid by Vitalsource
  Sanjay Advani, Vice President, Marketing and Alliances, Intrepid by Vitalsource
  Ann and Sanjay will explore how to successfully send thousands of people through an engaging, meaningful training experience – while keeping within budget.

• Panel Discussion: Collaborative Learning
  Fred Budd, Senior Manager of Talent Development, UniFirst Corporation
  Anthony Williams, Global Talent Acquisition and Diversity, Akamai Technologies
  Fred and Anthony will lead a collaborative discussion and share their experiences of using Cohorts to enhance the learner experience and drive results.

• Leading Loyalty
  Shawn Moon, Senior Consultant and Thought Leader, FranklinCovey
  Shawn will introduce a powerful process to develop a culture of loyalty at all levels of an organization – in a way that doesn’t require pulling people offline for extended periods of time.

• It’s Okay to Be the Boss: Learn the Proven Best Practices of Highly-Engaged Management
  Bruce Tulgan, Founder and CEO, Rainmaker Thinking, Inc.
  We’ll end the day with Bruce teaching a step-by-step approach to strong high-engaged leadership – drawing on 25 years of workplace research and experiences.

Reason 2 – The Intimate Setting Offers a Perfect Place to Learn and Collaborate

You deserve the best possible personalized learning experience. This highly-interactive and collaborative setting gives you the chance to ask more questions, engage with the presenters, network, and share ideas so you can get the most out of the day.

Reason 3 – Make Yourself, Team, and Budget Happy

We’re all so busy and sometimes our professional development plans are not always met. Not to worry, there’s still time to develop skills to help you better manage and develop your talent. With an affordable price of $299*, you’ll get a day intended to spark your professional growth – making it a win-win for you, your team, and budget.

If you need one more reason to join us, there will be great food and a short optional Yoga session. I like to think of it as a total mind and body experience. It’s going to be fun day of learning, networking, and sharing of ideas!

We hope to see you on Wednesday, September 25^th at the Crowne Plaza in Natick, MA.

Check out the full agenda and register today.

*Our early-bird price is $299 through September 1st, where after that it’s $399.

The post 3 Reasons to Attend the One-Day TTA Learning Conference appeared first on TTA (The Training Associates).

Breaking Through While Making Do –

If you’ve achieved a sort of equilibrium, then you’re doing better than most. Maybe you’ve cobbled together a plucky team of professionals. You may have even had some relative success—possibly with the day-to-day needs of compliance, safety, or onboarding. It’s unlikely, however, that you have quite enough headcount, and it’s also unlikely that that team is fully up-to-date on the latest solutions.

You’re making do, and admirable as that may be when you first achieve minimal, operational competence, the thrill fades quickly over the longer term. You go to conferences and look with envy at the virtual reality solutions that it seems everyone is doing. You long for cohorts and learner experience platforms, but you’re stuck with presentation slides and participant guides. You have started avoiding podcasts and blogs because they make you feel left behind. And, although you long to break through and introduce something new into the mix, the same pressures that created the status quo persist with enough momentum that the new ideas keep getting postponed.

Unfortunately, making do just isn’t enough. A McKinsey study showed that 70% of leaders view innovation as a top driver of growth in their organizations.^[i] If we’re not innovating within learning and development, we’re out of alignment with the top priorities of our organizations, and we’re not able to flex, change, or grow. The same McKinsey study also showed that 65% of leaders indicated a lack of confidence in their ability to execute on innovation priorities.  So, although we know it should be a priority, we don’t know how to always make it happen.

Game Changers

Ironically, the very challenges that you think may overwhelm you and your team can also provide your biggest opportunities for innovation. These types of game-changing needs come with such high stakes that they are recognized by the entire organization as disruptive. I’m talking about these types of enterprise transformations:

• Large systems rollouts
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Changes in enterprise strategy
• Regulatory changes
• Surge periods of accelerated growth
• Global expansion

What these all have in common is that the disruption is significant enough that it will impact large portions of the business, carry new levels of risk, and catch the attention of those with the power to authorize spending.

What Not to Do

So, what do you do when one of these huge opportunities comes your way? The temptation to stay with the tried and true, though understandable, will likely undercut your credibility and leadership efficacy for the rest of your tenure. The need to do something different will probably be obvious to everyone—in fact, if you opt for the same old thing, you’ll find yourself building a case for why you think the everyday strategy suffices in the context of large-scale change. Being open for new opportunities is a prerequisite for building innovation on your team. Let’s work through some of the most common objections.

• “Now isn’t the time to introduce new risk.” There are a couple points of resistance in this statement that will get in the way of innovation. First off, it masquerades as a reasonable, common-sense response—no one wants additional risk. The other problem is assuming that new or different implies more risk than the legacy solution (which was designed to solve other, smaller scale problems). In such cases, the imperative for big change necessitates other changes. Changing is less risky in this situation and not more so.

• “We don’t have the available resources.” This shortage may have been the case prior to the disruptive change, but it’s likely that situation is or can be different in light of new requests. Typically, the big changes bring access not only to more people but to more budget. And, while you may not have the available resources in place on your team, they do exist. Others will have been through this before and will have experience with the right solutions for transformational change.

• “We aren’t sufficiently involved in the change management strategy.” There is no better time to ask for a seat at the table than when you are so obviously needed. Yes, it’s likely that this change was initiated without you. Target dates were set, etc. But it isn’t too late to ask to be a part of the higher-level strategy as a partner to those responsible for making these changes a reality.

• “There isn’t time to do anything new. We’re already playing catch up.” Sometimes, it is true that there is absolutely no time, but it certainly isn’t true every time that we use this rationale. Also, there are a number of ways to accelerate innovation (see below).

• “What if we fail?” There are many ways to define failure in these types of situations. However, if we approach the change as thoughtful and open leaders, it establishes a model for how the rest of the organization will respond. The failure of the change initiative would and should be much bigger. If it all hinges on training, then we should probably question the overall approach. It isn’t that training can’t shoulder the burden, it’s that training alone is almost never the right answer. If we have integrated our learning strategy, especially a bold, innovative strategy, with the larger transformation, the failure blame-throwing becomes unlikely.

Readiness

Rather than just waiting for the moment of truth to arrive, wisdom tells us to prepare. So, how do you get ready for that which is hard to foresee? First off, try to put yourself in a position where you can see the big changes coming. This means continually building those stakeholder relationships. Secondly, you probably have a good grasp of your team’s weaknesses, and you can anticipate the types of needs that will challenge your team. Having a contingency plan can give you more flexibility in the moment, even if you can’t anticipate all the specifics. The nature of this type of big change often requires agility and innovation in the midst of delivery pressure. This is a lot easier if you have given the hypotheticals enough thought that you have a backup strategy.

To better equip yourself, familiarize yourself with these typical vulnerabilities below and think through any advance considerations that would increase your readiness.

Strategy

• Do you have access to a learning strategist?
• If you don’t have one on your team, is there one in the organization that you could co-opt in an emergency?
• Do you have a relationship with a vendor that can provide a learning strategist on demand?
• What types of strategists will be most helpful in your context?

Creativity

• Where do you have gaps currently?
• Who are your most creative team members in terms of learning design?
• What is the range of what they know compared to what they might be capable of learning quickly?
• How might you pair up your team members with agile talent from outside the organization?

Scale

• What is the capacity of your current team?
• What if you need to double or triple the work? Are there other teams in the organization with a similar skillset?
• What outside resources do you have already available and ready to go?
• What are the limitations of your on-demand providers in terms of scale?
• How will you scale leadership of a larger (or much larger) team?

Reach

• What is your global reach currently and where are there issues (both in L&D and in the organization overall)?
• Which of your providers have the global reach to provide on-demand talent? Do you know in what countries they are strongest?

Technology

• How will your learning tech stack scale?
• How nimble can your team (or IT) be in getting up new tools (such as an LXP, for example)?
• Do you know the technical landscape well enough to match technologies to organizational needs? Do your providers have this range and depth?
• What cloud-based contingency strategies could be employed?

Budget

• Do you know how much it costs you to design, develop, and deliver using your current team members?
• Are you prepared with information on rates and costs for resources outside of your organization?
• Do you know how costs-per-learner scale with the size of your delivery?
• Do you have back-pocket strategies for controlling the budget? How can you maximize impact and minimize effort?

Being prepared allows you to react with an innovative approach and not a survival approach. Under the right circumstances, those big and complex changes in your organization can invigorate your team members and give them opportunities to learn. Some of the most innovative solutions in our industry were created because of the big challenges that inspired them (and probably scared them a little). Recently, Josh Bersin called for HR professionals to become “the new disruptors.”^[ii] To make this happen, we need to embrace the big, moonshot opportunities facing our organizations—leveraging them to demonstrate the strategic value of learning. When this happens, the enterprise breakthroughs become personal breakthroughs for your team and for you as a leader.

[i] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/leadership-and-innovation

[ii] https://techfestconf.com/hr/aus/josh-bersins-big-hr-innovations-shaping-future-work/

The post Experts’ Table — Leading Innovation in Learning: Will You Be Ready? appeared first on TTA (The Training Associates).

Diversity Training, Implicit Bias Training, and Sensitivity Training seem to be hot topics these days. You may have seen in the news that companies like Starbucks, Nordstrom, and Google[i] are addressing these hot topics. Many times, these types of training are instituted after an unfortunate incident has occurred. However, Diversity Training in the workplace goes beyond simply being about public relations and crisis management. There are tremendous benefits to promoting diversity that go beyond simply checking off the box for HR departments. Discover three benefits of promoting diversity in the workplace and the positive effects it can have on any organization.

Better Decision Making

Diversity in the workplace creates better decision making. According to Tufts University research, diverse groups perform better when making decisions. In the study involving mock juries, panels of whites and blacks deliberated longer, raised more facts about the case, and conducted broader deliberations. The study also has significant applications for business, higher education and other institutions that grapple with difficult issues.[ii] For any organization to grow, decisions – whether small or large – must be made. To make the best and most strategic decisions you need a diverse team. Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda, once said, “If you hire only those people you understand, the company will never get people better than you are. Always remember that you often find outstanding people among those you don’t particularly like.”[iii]

Better Employee Retention

Diversity in the workplace impacts employee retention. In fact, employees who perceive bias are more than three times as likely (31% to 10%) to say that they’re planning to leave their current jobs within the year.[iv] Diversity is often thought of as either race or gender, but it represents much more than that. Diversity represents the full spectrum of human demographic differences — race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic status or physical disability. A lot of companies consider lifestyles, personality characteristics, perspectives, opinions, family composition, education level or tenure elements of diversity, too.[v] It is so important that companies recognize all of these facets and encourage building diversity and an inclusive environment. According to Gallup, an inclusive environment makes employees, “feel appreciated for their unique characteristics and therefore comfortable sharing their ideas and other aspects of their true and authentic selves.”[vi]

Better Results

Diversity in the workplace can lead to new viewpoints which can lead to better results.[vii] A study from BYU and Northeastern examined “old-timers” and “newcomers” and tasked them with solving a murder mystery. The groups with more diverse sets of participants were more likely to correctly identify the murderer than those with uniform members.[viii] The study found that, “performance gains were not due to newcomers bringing new ideas to the group discussion. Instead, the results demonstrate that the mere presence of socially distinct newcomers and the social concerns their presence stimulates among old-timers motivates behavior that can convert affective pains into cognitive gains.”[ix] Diversity truly can be the catalyst for significant business results. Janina Kugel, Chief Diversity Officer at Siemens, said, “Diversity strengthens our innovative capacity, unleashes the potential of Siemens’ employees and thereby directly contributes to our business success.”[x]

The human brain is designed to learn and build new neural pathways for changing existing behaviors and decisions. Consequently, an organization does not have to accept a lack of diversity as a way of operating.[xi] Contact TTA today to discover how to improve decision making, employee retention and business results within your organization. For more information on Diversity visit – https://thetrainingassociates.com/diversity-inclusion-training/

[i] McGregor, Jena. “Google Admits It Has a Diversity Problem.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 29 May 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/05/29/google-admits-it-has-a-diversity-problem/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.92f6314748b4.

[ii] “Racial Diversity Improves Group Decision Making In Unexpected Ways, According To Tufts University Research.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 10 Apr. 2006, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060410162259.htm.

[iii] “15 Great Diversity and Inclusion Quotes for a Better Workplace.” Business Envato Tuts+, business.tutsplus.com/articles/diversity-and-inclusion-quotes-for-a-better-workplace–cms-31221.

[iv] Office, Team True. “The Cost of Unconscious Bias in the Workplace.” True Office Learning, www.trueofficelearning.com/blog/unconscious-bias-in-the-workplace-what-it-costs-your-bottom-line.

[v] Washington, Ella, and Camille Patrick. “3 Requirements for a Diverse and Inclusive Culture.” Gallup.com, Gallup, 26 June 2019, www.gallup.com/workplace/242138/requirements-diverse-inclusive-culture.aspx.

[vi] Washington, Ella, and Camille Patrick. “3 Requirements for a Diverse and Inclusive Culture.” Gallup.com, Gallup, 26 June 2019, www.gallup.com/workplace/242138/requirements-diverse-inclusive-culture.aspx.

[vii] 7 Studies That Prove the Value of Diversity in the Workplace, blog.capterra.com/7-studies-that-prove-the-value-of-diversity-in-the-workplace/.

[viii] 7 Studies That Prove the Value of Diversity in the Workplace, blog.capterra.com/7-studies-that-prove-the-value-of-diversity-in-the-workplace/.

[ix] Phillips, Katherine W., et al. “Is the Pain Worth the Gain? The Advantages and Liabilities of Agreeing With Socially Distinct Newcomers – Katherine W. Phillips, Katie A. Liljenquist, Margaret A. Neale, 2009.” SAGE Journals, journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167208328062.

[x] “15 Great Diversity and Inclusion Quotes for a Better Workplace.” Business Envato Tuts+, business.tutsplus.com/articles/diversity-and-inclusion-quotes-for-a-better-workplace–cms-31221.

[xi] Office, Team True. “The Cost of Unconscious Bias in the Workplace.” True Office Learning, www.trueofficelearning.com/blog/unconscious-bias-in-the-workplace-what-it-costs-your-bottom-line.

The post 3 Benefits of Promoting Diversity in the Workplace appeared first on TTA (The Training Associates).

Large-scale training rollouts are a huge undertaking for any organization. It’s crucial that every detail is accounted for throughout the entire process. This means having a plan for strategy, development, logistics, management, project management, and training delivery. Whether it’s mergers or reorganizations, a new product or service, a change in core business values, or a systematic rollout, large scale training rollouts can seem daunting.

However, with great challenges, there are often great benefits. It’s important to take note of the many benefits of implementing a large-scale training rollout including:

• Timeliness – All employees are training at the same time which allows for a high-level efficiency
• Cost savings – One large training rollout rather than numerous smaller training events
• Content consistency – All learners are trained based on the same information and by instructors that are trained in a uniform way

Large scale rollouts require a large amount of planning and are often a big commitment in terms of time. For this reason, ensuring that your deployment is a success is extremely important. Here are a few tips for ensuring that your organization’s large-scale rollout is a success.

Finalize Your Strategy Before Starting

A new large project and all of the potential benefits it will bring can be exciting. However, it’s important to avoid beginning the implementation prematurely. Ensure that all of the details of the rollout strategy are finalized prior to beginning any of the moving parts. Clearly outlining your plan and ensuring that all members of the implementation team are on the same page will help minimize the risk of problems once the rollout begins.[i]

Have the Right Team in Place

The success of any project, rollout, or training truly boils down to whether or not you have the right team for the job. For a large-scale training rollout, you must ensure that you carefully select the appropriate team to get the job done. The phrase ‘You’re only as strong as your weakest link’, truly comes in to play in a large-scale training rollout. When you craft a strong team, set goals, and create a sense of accountability, where each member of the team feels an obligation to pull their weight. This means that everyone will be on the same page and the rollout will flow more smoothly. It’s also important to set goals for your implementation team to ensure that they are reaching certain milestones throughout the process.[ii]

Monitor, Monitor, Monitor

Monitoring your large-scale rollout is another key to success. You’ll want to track all areas of the project and ensure that it is being implemented effectively both on your end and the users end. Be sure to monitor different processes, ease of use, and effectiveness of each change that it made.[iii]

Choosing the Right Training Method

The final key to success with large scale training rollouts is selecting the appropriate training method for your organization’s unique needs. You’ll need to keep in mind, location of the training, specific learner needs, and budget and then use this information to select the method that best fits the project.  This will help ensure that your material is delivered in the most effective way throughout the rollout.[iv]

Large scale training rollouts feature many different moving parts and ensuring that it is successful is crucial when you are investing your organization’s time, money, and resources. Use these four tips for your next large-scale training program. TTA is extremely well-versed in the area of large-scale training rollouts. That’s why TTA ensures a tailored approach to the needs of your organization, and deliver a clear business advantage. Check out more about how TTA can help with your next large-scale rollout here: https://thetrainingassociates.com/large-scale-training-rollouts/

[i] https://www.onforce.com/buyer-field-services/5-keys-successful-project-rollout/

[ii] https://techbeacon.com/enterprise-it/dos-donts-large-scale-deployments

[iii] https://techbeacon.com/enterprise-it/dos-donts-large-scale-deployments

[iv] http://www.nuwavetech.com/it-project-blog/bid/49974/3-tips-for-training-end-users-before-rollout

The post 4 Tips for Success with Large-Scale Training Rollouts appeared first on TTA (The Training Associates).