Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Help protect Children on the internet and in other environments

The Children’s Safety Education Foundation

The team at RapidBI support a number of charities, however we are aware that one we support has lost sponsors and is looking for new ones (no matter how little you can give), we do not usually promote this type of activity on our site, however feel that using our market presence can only help this cause.

Please look and support them if you can.

Each year 1000’s of children are given computers, iPhones and other devices for Christmas and birthdays that allow them to connect on the web, but are they safe? This is one of the dangers that the CSEF seek to address as part of their community education programmes.

The Children’s Safety Education Foundation reduce the number of child victims caused by needless accidents by providing vital preventative safety education on issues like Road, Rail & Water Safety, Drugs, Bullying and much more. Take a quick look at their website at csef.net

Their appeal this Christmas is to increase and replace the donors they have lost during the recession by encouraging their existing donors (like me me) to contact people in business (like you), that I feel would consider supporting the great work they do with children.

I thought you might be able to help them out this Christmas, like I do. You never know, we could win the opportunity to have lunch at The House of Lords.

All you have to do initially is e-mail the Regional Fund-raising Manager, Danny Hall, at danny.hall@csef.net briefly explaining that I've (RapidBI) put you in touch. He’ll then call you and send out a donor pack. It's that simple really.

If not you can still give a little through JustGiving.com and quote DA3014102

Please act BEFORE Christmas this year.

If you cannot donate – not a problem, please pass the details of this page to readers of your blog or newsletters, marketing is almost as important as cash (well nearly!)

"We Are CSEF“

…….Always there, from Credit Crunch to Christmas Crunch and still 1.5 Million Children Reached"

We receive no direct government funding, and approximately 80% of the Foundation's income comes

from people like you, from the business community.

The Children’s Safety Education Foundation is a registered charity in England and Wales (1103344) and in Scotland (SC037714)

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© RapidBI.com This article has been written by Mike Morrison or one of the RapidBI team. We welcome your comments. If you wish to use any text you are free to do so, however please credit us and link to our site.
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Saturday, October 10, 2009

Don't let SEO burst your budget

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is specialist, expensive and you need to know what you are doing.. don’t you?

SEO-image-small Right?… wrong!

The commercial and financial climate that we are operating in is causing most of us to tighten our belts and think twice about spending. This especially true for Training, HR and other small consultancies and entrepreneurs.

The challenges for new startup firms and those that are trading but need a change of strategy to keep the work coming is:

“How are we going to get seen on the web in order to market ourselves effectively?”

Who can do this for us – it’s hard to get seen on the web isn’t it?

Your web designer will say that they can offer SEO and indeed a search on the web will give you 1000s of people and firms promising to get you on page one of Google. And all for £500-£1000 per month… ouch!

In good trading times this may be hard to justify – but in tough times?

The reality is that it is easy to get seen on page one of Google or other search engines – the ‘con’ a lot of providers will do is to help you find a “key word phrase” that is almost unique to you, and get that on page one of Google – easy.

Take a look at the phrase “squarespace template design” if I search for the term without quotes I get:

(See the current results yourself here – http://bit.ly/ASXKQ )

And with the quotes we get:

(See the current results yourself here – http://bit.ly/B4dRS )

This is a great ‘trick’ with the first search term Google only shows 6,730 results, getting to the top of only 6000 pages is not that difficult. On the second example where the search is for the exact phrase, there are only 4 results. Now after this blog is published the results will be very different. So using some simple techniques (that I will share with you) watch the results change over time. (this article is being written on 10/10/09).

The real test of SEO is getting to the first page for a popular search term- one with 10,000s or millions of results.

I say this is a ‘con’ as who would look for a product name? very few in the business world – our customers are looking for solutions to their problems. They wont be looking for “ABC Inc” – they will be looking for “train the trainer provider” or “train the trainer provider in London”. You need to think like your clients and find key words and phrases that they will be looking for.

So what are the secrets to doing SEO for yourself?

1) Research your customers and find out what they are looking for – you need to discover key words and phrases. (if it is things like “leadership development” “management development” or “train the trainer” then good luck for there are millions of sites with these words and while it is possible, it is very tough and time consuming. One way of making the achievable is to have a specialism i.e.:

Management development in the care sector
Train the trainer in Berkshire
Leadership development for women

The more specialist you can be the more likely your success at getting seen on the web .

2) Get your web developer to add your keywords to your site – in the title, in the description and in the other meta-tag areas of your pages – have different key words and phrases for each page

3) Write copy for those pages which make use of your keywords – repeat the phrase 3-5 times (each page MUST be very different)

4) Write a blog(off your site and free Wordpress or blogger), ensure that the content is supportive of your key words and include these in some of your articles – then have these articles link to your site (relevant pages) – yes put the links in the article, not just links on the blog itself

5) Promote your blog – on forums, on other blogs and on twitter. The ‘trick’ or secret is content and links. One powerful and low cost strategy is:

Where you use tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning and forums to promote content that you have written on your blog. These are articles that are of interest to your audience. Your goal is to build a ‘name’ in your potential clients heads that you:

a) can be trusted

b) that you know what you are taking about

c) that you can solve their problems

d) you are confident enough that you ‘give away’ valuable material

As Robin Elliot said “Enthusiasm is contagious. When you are absolutely convinced, sold, passionate, enthusiastic and confident about what you're offering, it's hard NOT to sell.”

Have compelling reasons in your blog for readers to explore your site.

6) Encourage others to promote your blog, use Linkedin and other vehicles - with great content people will link to your blog – I recently (yesterday!) had a major US training provider send a link to a blog post to over 14000 of their clients – wonderful

7) Have good value material on your site, answer the questions purchasers want to ask, make sure your contact details are easily found – keep the site up to date. the site does not need to be large – but it must be kept fresh.

In SEO content is king.

The more you specialise the easier it is to write unique content, the more niche the content the greater the opportunity you have of attracting visitors, the more visitors the greater conversions you will have. SEO is no longer about the technical “stuff” that developers do – its is all about content and people valuing your content

The ultimate goal is to have people buy you and your service not you having to pitch and sell.

Purchasing SEO

Before you pay anyone for SEO work on your site check out their site. If they advocate using a blog – what is their blog look like? If they claim to be able to get you on page 1 of Google for your search terms – look and see if they have done it for themselves (use view source in your browser and Google the text they are using under “keywords”) – make sure they walk their talk – if they don’t – walk away!

Summary

Wow this is a lot of content for you to get your head around.

In follow-up articles I will share:

Step by step HOW to do each of the above (not the meta-tag – best left to the programmers)

I’ve already told you all you need to know – i.e. the WHAT

Then WHERE and WHEN will also feature.

SEO is best done by yourself, or in the very least as a partnership – don’t outsource this core part of your business – your Internet reputation.

PS if you want to check out these techniques for yourself, I have a ’secret’ project running. For 3 weeks I have been trying to get “train the trainer” with and without the quotes ranked in Google. This is a difficult one to break, I tried once before using old techniques and failed.

I am now hovering between pages 1 & 2 with over 3m results! Watch my progress http://bit.ly/sXDXE (staying on page 1 is my goal – not being at the top)

You do not need to do ALL the things I have talked about, but do link your strategies… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/10/dont-let-seo-burst-your-budget/
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Friday, October 09, 2009

Why Organisational Development often fails to deliver

organisation pieces Organisational Development (OD) is the name or label given to many HR and training related strategies, but it is more than that.

Bennis in his early work “Organizational Development: nature, origins & prospects” defines OD as:

“a response to change, a complex educational strategy intended to change the beliefs, attitudes, values and structure of organizations so that they can better adapt to new technologies, markets and challenges”

This is just as true today as it was in 1969!

Research carried out within the Business Link organisation in the late 1990s and Warwick university looked at SME (Small and Medium sized Enterprises) (50-500 employees as an autonomous business unit or legal entity) with the view of identifying why management development strategies did not work. In summary the conclusions were:

Activity not linked to organisational objectives
No overall strategy for corporate development
Corporate culture not taken into account
Purchasers not clear about what they are buying
Suppliers finding solutions to problems they can solve
Lack of evaluation
Time pressures on managers
Change process not managed

These factors were found to be true for: training, organisational development, change and business support and improvement activity.

Starting out on the right foot

Some time ago I undertook a survey called “Developing the Developers” and one of the significant findings of this was the fact that the missing element in the majority of interventions was that of appropriate diagnosis. This is also true in organisational development at a holistic level. For any OD strategy to be effective we need to have a base of understanding of “where are we now”, we need to undertake a review of our business that can act as a benchmark measure. This will also enable evaluation of policy and strategy to be more effective. In other words before undertaking any OD activity we need to undertake some form of quantitative diagnostic process. This will then act as a reference point for all future development interventions and aid the evaluation of success (ROI etc).

Get the diagnostic process right and you have a great chance of success, miss it out or get it wrong and the chances of success are little to none. As the saying goes “fail to plan… plan to fail” planning in an OD context is diagnosis AND prioritisation.

The Business Improvement Review was designed to provide a holistic overview of an organisation with the view of undertaking OD or business improvement… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/01/why-organisational-development-fails-to-deliver/
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Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Innovation, the first step - dare, change, take a risk

Innovation is about the first step

Innovation is the buzzword of the late naughties, but what does it mean?

“Innovation is the act of introducing something new“

Often we focus on the act of creating, indeed many training and development programmes look to developing creativity in order to create innovative cultures. Is this right?

Innovation can mean two very different things, I suspect that often we confuse the two. many organizations take innovation to be something to do with product and R&D or technology. This is indeed a very specialist area, however it is not for the technology people to hijack a valuable culture and change methodology and approach. In the service sector, in public sector and the NHS we need to look at the culture (how we do things) and the behaviours to deliver added value. This piece looks at innovation as a strategy everyone in an organisation can use to increase productivity, morale and the business as a whole.

You only need to look around. Look at - peoples houses, their gardens, their cars, their sense of fashion – creativity is everywhere. Unfortunately the culture of many work places encourages people to leave their creative brains at the door when they come to work every day. We need to focus not of the act of creation, but the ability to allow people to be creative. To do something with the ideas. This is about culture.

In western society we seem to treat risk as bad. Indeed even the dictionary defines it as:

The possibility of suffering harm or loss; danger

A factor, thing, element, or course involving uncertain danger; a hazard

source: answers.com

Without a ‘risk of loss’ there is no opportunity of gain. Lets look at how we may feel if we change the definition:

The possibility of winning or being successful

A factor, thing, element, or course involving uncertain success or achievement

source: rapidbi.com

The ability to “take a risk” is essential if we want to change the status quo. We need to embrace change. Indeed I would go as far as to say:

Innovation is achieved through creativity AND change preparedness

What are the barriers for you taking a chance, daring do take the first step. I love this video – what does it mean for you in the context of innovation and change?

In the Innovation Equation by Byrd & Brown Innovation is defined as:

Innovation = Risk Taking * Innovation

If Risk taking (act of doing something) is the same as change preparedness – then this is indeed a valuable approach to changing the culture in our organizations.

What will you dare to do… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/10/innovation-the-first-step-dare-change-take-a-risk/
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Monday, October 05, 2009

Action Learning & Action Learning Sets - Reg Revans

Action Learning & Action Learning Sets

Introduction to Action learning

So what is Action Learning?

A definition of Action Learning

Action Learning Set Who is in it?

A ‘Set’ Meeting

Action Learning Projects

Participating in an Action Learning Set

Structuring your time

Introduction to Action learning

When devising a management development programme, it is important to ensure that participants are not only ‘taught’ or trained, but that they have an opportunity to put learning into action. Experience has shown us that unless we practice new skills and ideas soon after a programme we tend to forget the lessons learnt.

Action Learning is one of the methods effective programmes use to help participants apply learning. Other formal approaches will include your Line manager and your mentor.

Action Learning works best when a ‘Set’ of individuals are put together as a support group for the duration of the learning activity.

Action learning is a form of experiential learning, where “

Experiential Learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience”

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So what is Action Learning?

Action learning is based upon the concept of learning by reflection (or reviewing) on an experience. It is underpinned by the cycle of experiential learning as shown below, where the stages of reviewing and concluding are worked through with the Set.

In practice many of us tend to short circuit this cycle and often ship the reviewing phase as it is often difficult to do out of context.

Action learning will help ‘close the loop’ and ensure our learning is as effective as possible (more about learning cycles in module one). Action Learning Sets are primarily focused on the individual’s learning.

An Action Learning programme involves the following key elements:

The Set: a group of 6 – 8 people who meet regularly.
The Projects: each participant works on a project or task over the life of the set

The Set Adviser: a facilitator who helps the group to work and learn together.

Although Action Learning is flexible, it is not unstructured and focuses on the individual and their need NOT on the programme.

Participants on Action Learning Programmes have quoted many benefits which they have gained from action learning:

learning a more ‘disciplined’ way of working
learning to network
learning to relate to, and communicate with, others more effectively
gaining increased self-confidence
gaining increased awareness
gaining increased readiness to take responsibility and initiative.

In summary, the values which underpin action learning are:

membership of a set is voluntary
commitment must be demonstrated in making the process work
a positive, constructive approach to life
reflection as the key to learning
the presenter is focused (on her/his own issue)

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A definition of Action Learning

“Action Learning is an approach to the development of people in organisations which takes the task as the vehicle for learning. It is based on the premise that there is no learning without action and no sober and deliberate action without learning.

The method has three main components: people who accept responsibility for taking action on a particular issue; problems, or the task that people set themselves; and a set of six or so colleagues who support and challenge each other to make progress on problems. Action Learning implies both self-development and organisation development.” Mike Pedler (1991)

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Action Learning Set Who is in it?

An Action Learning Set is a group of 6-8 people who meet regularly to help each other to learn from their experiences. A Set Adviser is appointed to help manage the process. The set is not a team since its focus is on the actions of the individuals within it rather than on a shared set of work objectives.

Experience has shown that sets often work better when participants come with a similar level of experience. The Set Adviser is part of the set in one sense but has a particular responsibility to create a learning environment by encouraging, challenging and focusing on learning. Some Action Learning Sets are self-facilitated.

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A ‘Set’ Meeting

The Set will decide on its own way of working but usually a ‘meeting’ involves a series of individual time slots where participants take turns in presenting their project/ challenge/ issue to the set. This will normally involve:

an update of progress on actions from the last meeting
a presentation of current issues/problems
an agreement on actions for the future.

Throughout this, other participants will work with the presenter (by listening and questioning) to help them to decide what actions to take.

Time is always a limited resource in a set meeting and the Set Adviser must ensure that set participants get their full allocation (it is not a free discussion).

Some Sets develop a fixed agenda to speed up the start of the meeting but in any case, all participants should come fully prepared for the meeting.

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Action Learning Projects

The project is the piece of work around which the participant learns. It does not need to be linked to specific outcomes such as setting up a safety audit carrying out a particular task but could also be about acquiring skills or knowledge. For the purposes of this programme, however, the project must have a learning focus.

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Participating in an Action Learning Set

Preparing for a Set meeting:

Before the meeting it will help to get the best out of the session if participants can think through what to focus on with their set. The set may be somewhere that participants can ‘experiment’ with different behaviours such as consciously asking more questions than usual or being more reflective if they are usually very talkative. Presenters should:

prepare for meetings
structure their time
be clear about what they want – or want the set to – focus on
learn to ask for what they want
listen
generate action points for them self.

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Structuring your time:

Usually, the presenter will use their time to report on action taken as a result of the previous set meeting. It is useful to think about:

what I did
what happened
what was different from what I expected
what I did not do – why – what I did instead
what can I/have I learned from this?

This can form the basis for reporting back to the set who will then ask questions. The presenter can continue with:

what is the issue now
what actions could I take now
what action points can I identify

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Alternative Approaches
A presenter may wish to concentrate on a particular aspect of their project that s/he thinks the set can really help with. This gives a depth of focus which may be a more appropriate use of time than an overview.

Alternatively, the presenter may wish to ask the set to talk about a particular problem and s/he will listen and only ask for clarification at the end of an agreed time. This is helpful if the presenter is stuck for ideas to take the work forward.

The reverse of this is where the audience remains silent and the presenter talks through the project. A listening, attentive audience may help the presenter to clarify thinks for her/himself.

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Reviewing your time
At the end of each participant’s time slot it is useful for the presenter to review with the set the process by which the action points have been identified. S/he might ask for feedback on how s/he presented the project or might give the set feedback on what was helpful or unhelpful about the set’s interventions.

This can also be done by the whole set near to the end of the meeting. It helps the set to develop a supportive learning climate to work in.

A typical meeting might follow this format:

Introduction – a warm-up activity and confirmation of programme for the meeting
In agreed order each person in the Set:
- 10 Minute presentation of current ’state of play’/ position
- 10 minute of exploratory questions from the Set to help the presenter think through the issue
- 5 minute presentation to the Set on the action plan.
Closing session – time taken for the whole group to finish the meeting rather than drift off at the end. Would include an element of evaluation – what will we do differently next time.

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For more information on Action Learning & Action Learning Sets contact Mike
Morrison @ tracking

How to receive feedback from your manager

As my good friend @Quicklearn said on twitter a few days ago:

“So much written on how to give feedback. What help is out there for those destined to receive it?”

It promoted me to think.. in this light hearted reply (well it is the August silly season) lets look at the feedback methods and what they actually mean for you the recipient:

The feedback sandwich:

Praise (Bread)
‘Feedback’ (Meat)
Praise (Bread)

This approach is not to help us the recipient feel good – it is to soften the message for the giver. We all learn very quickly that when ‘good’ stuff is mentioned we know that “here come the message” – we hear the criticism and are so busy focused on the negative that we do not hear the follow on good stuff. This is not helped as the ‘good stuff’ is usually so fluffy that it is meaningless.

Managers – do not use this.

McGill provide these useful suggestions about giving effective feedback, here with comments for the recipients as to what is attempting to be achieved:

Clarity — Be clear about what you want to say. - as recipients we understand the purpose
Emphasise the positive — This isn't being collusive in the person’s dilemma – we are not all bad just this one mistake
Be specific — Avoid general comments and clarify pronouns such as "it," "that," etc. – we need to know exactly what we did wrong/ incorrectly
Focus on behaviour rather than the person – we are human and our intension was positive although our action may not have been appropriate
Refer to behaviour that can be changed – the manager is trying to help us here
Be descriptive rather than evaluative – they are giving use the facts as they see it without bias
Own the feedback – Use 'I' statements – the feedback is from them as a person
Generalisations – Notice "all," "never," "always," etc., and ask to get more specificity — often these words are arbitrary limits on behaviour - the more general the manager makes the feedback the more defencive we get as it feels like we are being attacked.
Be very careful with advice – People rarely struggle with an issue because of the lack of some specific piece of information; often, the best help is helping the person to come to a better understanding of their issue, how it developed, and how they can identify actions to address the issue more effectively.- we will only listen to ‘advice’ if we trust the person and have respect for their views

Ref Action learning: A practitioner's guide”, London: Kogan Page, 1994, p. 159-163

What good and bad experiences have you… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/08/how-to-receive-feedback-from-your-manager/
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Friday, October 02, 2009

25 great tips on employee engagement - morale boosters

25 great tips on employee engagement – morale boosters

In difficult and tough economic times we still need to engage with our employees. While the big budgets may not be available any more there are lots of things that we can do which are effective.

The strategy for boosting employee morale – fast, is based on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of five basic human needs. He arranged these needs in the shape of a pyramid with each level forming the foundation for the next level.

Maslow hierarchy of needs

Self-Actualization needs – realising personal potential, self-fulfilment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
Esteem needs – self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
Belongingness and Love needs – work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.
Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

Below are ten ideas to start your thinking. many of these are obvious, but they are good to have in your employee engagement and morale-building tool-kit:

Praise people – look to “Catch People Doing it Right”, rather than trying to catch people out
Welcome Ideas – employee morale improves when people feel they are valued. Share and implement their innovations and ideas
Say thank-you. Even when there’s no money that changes hands, it can be extremely rewarding for an employee to know that his/her boss appreciate the work he/she is doing. Use the SMART approach – be specific about what you are thanking people for
Write a letter or email of appreciation. This doesn’t have to be expensive or even on a greeting card that is bought from a shop
Award a certificate of appreciation. The real value to the employee is in the realisation that their contribution is recognised and appreciated
Take the employee to lunch or out for a cup of coffee. Simply spending time together with the opportunity to say thanks and to exchange ideas is valuable
Buy a scratch-card or a lottery ticket (assuming doing so is compatible with everyone’s values) and give it along with a short note or card. Lottery tickets are fairly inexpensive, but can be fun and (in some instances) financially rewarding
Bring in donuts (or a selection of fruit if you’re health-conscious) for your people
Have a pot-luck breakfast or lunch. This is something that everyone can participate in and enjoy. The cost is manageable and it provides an opportunity for some enjoyable interaction
Hold a silly contest. In an office context, for example, you could award a prize for the most cheerful office or around holiday time in December for the most brightly decorated office or office-space
Give a new, interesting assignment. The key here is to make sure it’s something interesting to the employee. Sometimes all that’s needed to boost morale is a little bit of variety and a change of pace
Do a short employee survey to find out what employees like and don’t like about their jobs – and take action (where possible and sensible) to minimise the dislikes
Ensure that all senior managers spend a day on the ’shop-floor’ or customer-facing once a month
Have senior managers have lunch/ breaks with staff on a regular basis
On hot days arrange for ice-creams or iced drinks to be provided
Have senior people say ’sorry’ publicly when something has gone wrong (I am sorry – not we are sorry – needs to be personal)
Make time for fun. Incorporating some fun into your workday is a terrific morale booster
Encourage peer recognition. “People like to be recognised personally by their peers”
Encourage people to ‘decorate’ or personalise their working space – people perform better in comfortable surroundings
If deadlines or targets have been met then let people go home early on a Friday (not every week – its supposed to be a reward not an expectation)
Offer stress relief activities. Hire a local massage school to offer free 10-minute chair massages
Help people feel valuable. Talk with employees about the types of projects, training, or experiences they would like to have. Times may be diffivult and tough for people to get jobs, but your best people are also the most marketable
Celebrate peoples birthdays. Empower managers to ‘do something different’ for each person, help them feel special
Measure It, keeping a watch on the levels of morale in your business/ organization/ firm by regularly measuring employee satisfaction
Fire Staff. Sometimes the root cause of low employee morale can be an employee whose negativity brings down the team. Even a top performer can bring down staff behind your back (didn’t see this one coming… or did you?)

Remember these are meant to be boosters – so the effects they will have are short term individually – but a culture of going the extra mile and doing the ‘little things’ builds engagement. These techniques work best when they are not done to a formula – this feels impersonal and will defeat the objective.

For information on RapidBI’s cost effective on-line (customisable) employee engagement and satisfaction survey - The EESS.

Feel free to add your top morale booster tips as comments:
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Saturday, September 26, 2009

Twitter as a learning aid - learning beyond university to informal learning

Learning beyond university to informal learning using micro-blogging

formal university learning Twitter can be used as a great aid to learning, but is it a replacement for traditional learning strategies?

Following the publication of a recent post Why Twitter is good for learning we have received a significant amount of supportive feedback. However some academic based sites have criticised the piece without understanding some of the fundamentals of learning and what Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms are capable of offering. Certainly learning appears to be stuck in the confines of “formal learning”, apparently missing the 80% of real learning that most of us do on a day to day basis.

It is interesting, as I sit and write this I am thinking about getting ready to attend the IITT annual training conference, one of only two “formal learning” interventions I will have undertaken for several months. But is this the only learning I do? .. no. I learn far more in an informal way from reading blogs , twitter and networking with like (and unlike) people.

This short piece has been written to provide some clarity on the application of the first article.

Firstly let me clarify my thoughts:

I am not advocating that Twitter can replace e-learning, classrooms or books, nor indeed any formal learning tool or strategy, however I am advocating use of twitter as an adjunct to learning strategies as a blended approach to re-enforce learning and key messages. We know that the most effective learning needs to be ‘just in time’, in a styles (learning or communication) that suits the learner, and that repetition helps.

Having read comments on other sites about this piece it is interesting that some people equate learning to be education, and only effective from university or books. Learning to me is very different from education and knowledge. Indeed our own model:

Knowledge >>> Understanding >>> Action = Learning

shows this – where education often only provides the knowledge.

Our work over the past 10 years with many owner-managers and entrepreneurs (many educated at some of the worlds leading MBA courses, UK, US & EU) clearly demonstrate that people gain knowledge on such courses, however real Understanding comes from making real world mistakes after putting it into action. Not from comprehension at an academic level. Many exiting from MBAs and other such programmes believe they have understanding – however as is often shown using the model – the four steps to learning we don't know what we don't know (unconscious competence), is often the mental state we are in after completing such a course. This is not to say that these programmes are not of value, they are – but not in the way many expect.

Not all learning occurs within the confines of a university or other establishment

Twitter is a tool which appears to have been adopted more by those in the age group 30-45 and little in the group 18-25. This says a lot about the platform and its relevance. Twitter as a learning tool is by its nature adhoc, sporadic, informal and most of all unstructured. Exactly the way we learn when we are not on a fixed programme of study. It is very much about learning what you need to learn at a given point in time.

So twitter and other micro-blogging tools:

great to create a spark – a desire to learn
great to find current thinking – and to start the journey of learning in a given area
excellent for adhoc information and knowledge acquisition
excellent as a refresher to existing learning
excellent for learning from peers and their experiences

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

2-minute Twitter guide for marketing

Twitter is currently one of the fastest growing communication tools available to organizations big and small. While origionally designed as a social networking/ chat tool, it is rapidly finding its way as a marketing and training tool.

Twitter is both a social and marketing tool – don’t abuse either approach. If your tweets are mainly business – tell people in your bio or DM (if you must). If its mainly personal declare it too – sure you many lose some followers in the short term, but gain in the long term.

Some simple rules to help you get the most out of this marketing tool:

* Don't over-promote. Twitter is not just a marketing tool
* Send a key message a couple of times at different times of the day
* Don’t send the same message begging people to support your site 100s of times – let them choose to support or not
* Be helpful. Offer advice and useful links – not just to your site
* Don't stay on Twitter all day. Treat it like a visit to the coffee machine
* ReTweet messages you think your followers will value
* ReTweet reciprocal tweets to blogs from your followers and they will do the same
* Ask questions, get involved in debates
* Be polite
* Be yourself. Never pretend to be someone else
* If you want to send something sensitive, send a direct message
* Never swear
* Never flame
* Have fun – lots of it

See 24/7 tweet on Twitter
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What is happening in the world of L&D (Training)? Is it changing?

Experienced L&D people are bleeding out of organisations and going freelance

training room While talking to a colleague, he confirmed that there appears to be a trend in the training world at the moment. This trend is supported by the change in readership of both my site and blog are getting.

Here is the thought – I’d appreciate your views on this:

Experienced professionals are leaving organisations and going freelance, leaving behind managers and less experienced individuals to carry on delivering.

The evidence:

Times are tough for many organisations and firms are looking to reduce costs. Learning and Development (Training) is seen as a “luxury” so cuts are targeted. People with experience and significant qualifications and competence are seeing the opportunity to take redundancy and “go freelance”.

At networking events there is a distinct increase in the number of “new” coaches and trainers – mainly coaches!

On forums and online networks, there is a trend for a lot of self promotion, and on the whole it looks like people new to the industry, rather than established people “desperate for work”. This activity I have seen on a number of forums and discussion groups I moderate (TrainingZone and LinkedIn)

Types of articles being read. There is certainly (on this site) a trend towards some of the basic articles on “basics of training”, the How to… type of article. The reading numbers for these have gone from 10-12 a day to 30-50, for each article. The numbers here are going through the roof. The extent to which this is L&D professionals looking to information, or people from outside L&D (managers) I do not know – maybe I should add a poll to the site… now there is a thought…

E-Learning

Are those colleagues left behind looking to e-learning as a cost effective way of meeting their organisations needs? certainly, some of our advisers have just undertaken significant contracts providing “Instructional Design” expertise to some of the UKs biggest E-learning providers, as they have a large and growing order book.

Is it that E-learning is more effective? or because it is easier to purchase? E-learning is great for knowledge based acquisition, but not effective (at the low cost end) for behavioural change and improvement. It also requires little skill from the purchaser to have a product, as the role of the “training professional” is to write the basic spec and project manage, not to look at the design itself.

Coaching

Why are so many people leaving industry and setting up as “coaches”? Why are so many people still confused by coaching? Well this latter question is harder to answer – why are new people going freelance and calling themselves “coaches” – simple.. research being published by organisations like the CIPD show that coaching is on the increase, and must be in demand. over the past 2-4 years many people have completed “accredited” and prestigious coaching courses so deem themselves ready for the coaching market.

The CIPD reports says that “90% of organisations now use coaching” which in the context of “Coaching at work” is correct – coaching as a MANAGEMENT STYLE is prolific and has been encouraged. However the growth of the executive or performance coach market (from a purchasers point of view) has not increased at the same rate. Indeed one-to-one coaching seems to be on the cost cutting list. Coaching at work and employing external coaches are not the same thing.

People that call themselves “coaches” but actually deliver “training” are doing themselves and there clients a disservice.

Sustainability

Sustainability needs to be maintained both within the organisation, sustainable standards, skills abilities etc, and in the market place. If too many people pitch for the same work, then often the purchaser will use price as a differentiator. This is not healthy for either side in the long run. A freelance individual must have a sustainable business model, and client organisations must have a sustainable supplier. If you are paying £100 for a current service – what will you do when that provider goes bust – and the going rate is £1000? How long will your budget last?

Outsourcing

One advantage of outsourcing e-learning is that the activity can be done anywhere in the world. India and other parts of the world have high quality software people, but English and grammar is not as good as many of us require it to be. Outsourcing has its own dangers.

Conclusions

When looking to cut costs – be careful what the “price” is of that activity – better to get added value than a “lower cost”.

While an experienced L&D professional my look expensive on the budget sheet, what is the overall saving they are providing your organisation over a year? The purchase of one wrong. ineffective training intervention can easily outweigh the salary and benefits package of a good performer.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Flow - The formula for optimal success (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

Flow is a concept developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his book “FLOW” he describes peoples experience of what makes an experience genuinely satisfying or what it is like to be in the state of flow.

Flow is a state of consciousness which can be achieved on an individual path, providing optimal performance.

Dynamics of flow or optimal experience

In the book Csikszentmihalyi lists a number of fact which accompany an experience of flow:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities).

2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).

3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.

4. Distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered.

5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behaviour can be adjusted as needed).

6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).

7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.

8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.

In the past when looking at top performers, business has looked towards sport, and in particular individual based events like athletics. The concept of “being in the zone” during an athletic performance fits within Csikszentmihalyi’s description of the flow experience.

Flow can happen when you're "really into" what you're doing. It also has positive benefits. When you're in a flow state, you're not normally thinking "I'm happy doing this" or "I love this," because you're too focused on the activity. Afterward, though, you might think something like: "That was fun."

Some points about flow:

“People seem to get more flow from what they do on their jobs than from leisure activities in free time.” It turns out that watching TV is not at all a flowful activity. People generally report higher levels of stress, depression, and tension after watching TV. It seems that TV’s main virtue is that it occupies the mind undemandingly. Flow is hard to achieve without effort. Flow is not “wasting time”.
Some activities lend themselves to flow. Immediate feedback, commensurate challenges and skills, and clear goals are all precursors to flow. Lack of these makes flow difficult to achieve.
Some people are inclined to flow. They set goals even when apparently doing nothing, and are able to focus their attention easily. These sorts of people can experience flow even in difficult situations–prison camps and harsh jobs being two examples Csikszentmihalyi studied.
Flow tends to result in personal growth. By engaging in flow, your skills develop, requiring greater challenges to maintain the balance needed for flow.

Biography – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “ME-high CHICK-sent-me-high-ee”) is a professor in the Department of Psychology ( University of Chicago).

He has devoted his life’s work to the study of what makes people truly happy, satisfied and fulfilled. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Education and National Academy of Leisure Sciences. He has been a Senior Fulbright Fellow and currently sits on several boards, including the Board of Advisor’s for the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Mihaly’s work is sort and respected both inside and outside academia, demonstrated by significant and popular articles in Psychology Today, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, and Newsweek, and his appearances on foreign television networks such as the BBC and RAI (Italian television), and in several hour long segments of “Nova.”

His current interests include the study of creativity, especially in art; socialization; the evolution of social and cultural systems; and the study of intrinsically rewarding behaviour in work and play settings, all being connected by a conceptual approach based on systems theory.

Watch Mihaly talk about the topic:

Books by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, include:
Flow: The Classic Work on How to Achieve Happiness
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning
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Learning Styles Questionnaire - Honey & Mumford style LSQ - TRAP

A ‘lite’ version of a learning styles questionnaire:

This Learning Styles Questionnaire is loosely based on the model developed by Peter Honey and Alan Mumford this ‘lite’ version can help you identify typical strengths in your learning habits.

Instructions:

Look at the following statements – if they are usually true for you tick the appropriate white box

Question	A	P	T	R
I find it easy to meet new people and make new friends
I am cautious and thoughtful
I get bored easily
I am a practical, “hands on” kind of person
I like to try things out for myself
My friends consider me to be a good listener
I have clear ideas about the best way to do things
I enjoy being the centre of attention
I am a bit of a daydreamer
I keep a list of things to do
I like to experiment to find the best way to do things
I prefer to think things out logically
I like to concentrate on one thing at a time
People sometimes think of me as shy and quiet
I am a bit of a perfectionist
I am enthusiastic about life
I would rather “get on with the job” than keep talking about it
I often notice things that other people miss
I act first then think about the consequences later
I like to have everything in its “proper place”
I ask lots of questions
I like to think things through before getting involved
I enjoy trying out new things
I like the challenge of having a problem to solve
	Activist style	Pragmatist Style	Theorist style	Reflector style
Total number of 'ticks'

The higher scores on the learning styles format questionnaire suggest this is an area of preference. All of us use all of the styles to a greater or lesser extent, using your profile you can better identify learning methodologies suited to your preferences. For descriptions on the four preferences see our other pages:

learning-styles-honey-mumford

http://rapidbi.com/created/learningstyles.html

http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/06/four-learning-styles/

While this simple (unscientific) instrument can be a useful discussion tool, we would highly recommend using Honey and Mumford's LSQ instrument, this questionnaire contains 80, well researched questions and effective analysis. www.peterhoney.com
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Monday, September 14, 2009

The four steps to learning

Four step learning ladder – a model for learning to learn

Personal learning four steps, conscious competence

The Learning Ladder describes the steps we go through when learning a new skill.

Four levels or steps of learning

Unconscious incompetence – We don’t know what we don’t know

Conscious incompetence – We know what we don’t know

Conscious competence – We know what we know

Unconscious competence – We don’t know what we know

It can be applied to virtually all learning scenarios but the example we will use here is learning a second language. Suppose we think about learning to speak German.

How might we understand this learning model?

I begin as a child, at a level of Unconscious Incompetence. I cannot speak the language but I am not aware of this.

I may not even know Germany or language other than my mother tongue exists. One year we go on holiday to Germany. As my awareness expands I move to a level of Conscious Incompetence - I am aware that the language “German” exists and I am aware that I cannot speak it. I now have the option to do something about it.

I embark on a German course and become a proficient speaker. However, I am not yet fluent, I have to concentrate hard to get it right and am aware of my limitations. I am at a level of Conscious Competence.

Finally, after many years of learning and practise I become fluent in German, start to think in German and even dream in German. Speaking a foreign language becomes second nature to me and I no longer have to concentrate hard on the formation of the language. I have reached the level of Unconscious Competence.

Think of some other learning scenarios and see how these steps apply. Consider how you can use this information to help people learn more effectively.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung

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Four levels of learning - Conscious competence

The personal competence model

Unconscious Incompetence – We don’t know what we don’t know
Conscious Incompetence – We know what we don’t know
Conscious Competence – We know what we know
Unconscious Competence – We don’t know what we know

How to use the Personal competence awareness model:

To communicate with and influence learners it is a prerequisite to prepare them for your ideas and for them to accept the ideas of others (in the group).

Preparing them requires you to understand how and why they react.

An ideal way of understanding an audience is to remember what it was like for you when you first started learning a subject which you subsequently found to be quite difficult.

You may have gone through the four levels of competence or learning chanels.

1 To explain these levels you need only think your own experience when you

first started learning to drive to drive. Before your first lesson, you may have been full of confidence thinking it would be easy. This first stage is described as the level of unconscious incompetence – you don’t know how bad you are yeti You are unaware of your own incompetence.

2 When you started to drive you would have then found out how difficult it

was and you would have been aware of your own inability or incompetence. This stage is the level of conscious incompetence when you know how little you know. It is at this stage that people feel most uncomfortable.

3 After driving for some time you will have gained more confidence and you

then became aware of how well you were doing – this is the level of conscious competence, when you are aware of your own competence.

4 Finally, you passed the test and started driving without even having to think

of the sequence of steps needed to drive a car, you simply did it. This final stage is the level of unconscious competence where being good at something no longer requires a conscious thought process. You are now unconsciously competent. The second stage of the cycle is the one that causes us the most anguish. Human beings as a rule don’t like to know, they don’t know and this is where preparation is of vital importance.

How you prepare an audience will have a great bearing on how much you will communicate with them and how much they will allow you to influence them.

We start by acknowledging possible discomfort. We explain that what may be said may be new but that with sufficient time and explanation things will become clearer and easier. We recognise that there may be certain apprehensions, perhaps even misgivings about the subject. We point out that others, who may have felt the same thing before, benefited and are now using what we are talking about. The preparation is simply to put people at ease about themselves.
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Sunday, September 13, 2009

Developing entrepreneurial skills into business people

HAVE-DO-BE or DO-BE-HAVE?

In business we often hear terms like 'business person' or 'entrepreneur' but what do they mean and can we train these skills.Let's look at what these terms mean before we explore a route to development:Business person "a person engaged in commercial or industrial business (especially an owner or executive)"Entrepreneur "An individual who, rather than working as an employee, runs a small business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as a business leader and innovator of new ideas and business processes".
Definitions taken from www.answers.com

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do." – — Epictetus

If this is true, the key difference in 'common understanding' of the terms ‘business person’ and ‘entrepreneur’ include:

Running or owning the business… and
Assumes all the risk and reward… and
A leader… and
An innovator of ideas, products or processes

This could mean that with having achieved the right experiences and doing the job they become a business person.

Where as an entrepreneur becomes the innovator, does something to get the idea or product to market and as a result has (have) achieved the acquisition of skills and knowledge.

In the book The reality game: a guide to humanistic counselling and psychotherapy by John Rowan published in 1983, the authors say:

"Most of us think that if we have enough worldly goods, then we can do what we want to do, and then we can be happy. The sequence "HAVE-DO-BE". But what we say in humanist psychology is exactly the other way around. If we can be who we really are we will find ourselves doing things which genuinely satisfy us and give us enjoyment, and then we shall have all we really want. The sequence for us is "BE-DO-HAVE""

So how does this translate to business and entrepreneurship?

Over the past 10+ years I have been fortunate enough to work with 1000s of business owners and entrepreneurs. The difference is often striking.

The business person wants evidence, facts, resources. They often wait for you to go to them to initiate the relationship in some form. (Have information, do… be)

The entrepreneur wants ideas, thoughts. The entrepreneur will often seek out like minded people; they do not wait to be approached. (Be inquisitive, do … have)

Is this the missing link? All to often we are asked to develop entrepreneurial thinking, to encourage innovation and to generate empowerment. We often look at skills and culture, but do we really look at the psychology of the individual(s) and explore their current thinking preferences?

Developing the skills

The HAVE-DO-BE approach (which is where most employees are) is there, and this seems to be culturally driven. The shift to an entrepreneurial approach of DO-BE-HAVE seems to be one of attitude, and so can be developed.

A development programme would then take the existing journey HAVE-DO-BE for many things and develop the confidence to DO-BE-HAVE. Reflection on each step as well as coaching and mentoring can support the development process.

One approach may well be to coach individuals to take some risks, to challenge current thinking and to adopt a DO-BE-HAVE approach. We need at the same time to put in mechanisms to support the risk-taking and the increased likelihood of errors and mistakes – i.e. the output from learning taking place!
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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The rising cost of learning… The E-Book - con or hero?

The rising cost of learning…

First there was decimalisation, then the Euro, the litre and now the e-book. Isn't it interesting that to many of us the actual increasing costs of things are not so obvious when there has been a change of culture or context?
With the introduction of decimalisation in the early 70s and latterly the Euro across central Europe many products were rounded up in price. Even more recently the move from selling petrol from gallons to litres allowed the price to jump without many people causing a fuss. I recall when I first passed my test often driving to another garage for ½p price difference on a gallon – but now the price varies by often up to 10p per litre in the same area. People have just accepted it.
What prompted this thought and is it relevant to learning and Development?
Today I was told that I was 'lucky' and had won a prize in a competition. Great I thought, I was provided with a web link and £75 worth of vouchers to spend on downloads of training activities, exercises or icebreakers… hey £75 worth of resources free – not to be sneezed at. Until I realise what they cost – 2*£5 credits per item – itself not outrageous until you look at the printed pack this one activity is derived – 100 items for £249 – or £2.49 each – printed and an electronic copy on disc… now what is the better value… 20 separate purchases or 100 activities? All for the same price. Now I know that we are in a world where we all want it today…now – but is it really that sensible? In the social period that is the credit crunch will people be changing their on-line and resource purchasing habits?
Having looked at this one example I looked at a couple of competitor sites – basically they all do the same thing , but, reading between the lines and looking at the statistics that some of these site show the number of downloads of a single item is not that great. Often in single or low double figures. If you only want one item then £10 is good value – but if you think over time you will need more is it worth paying the price of instant gratification?
The wonderful e-book
This leads neatly on to a conversation I had with a fellow trainer this morning, we were talking about website and selling product and the discussion got round to e-books. Now a good book, with nice pages and well bound costs £6-29 – most around the 'tenner' mark. So why o why do people pay £29, £39 or £49+ for an e-book? Often these publications have poor layout, spelling mistakes and generally not very good in terms of content. What is more we pay to print them on our own printer. Our discussion concluded that people buy e-books because they have learnt to trust the author; after all the web site was written by the author and this builds trust. The language on the ’sales’ page is strong to suggest what you are hetting is great value.
Personally I wonder if it is more simple that that; we believe an e-book is more like software than a book and we know how much software costs (indeed many used to come with huge free books – manuals!).
Books (publications) like the One Minute Manager cost £6.99 or £3.49 on Amazon…. These books have 107 pages of content – few e-books have this many and often cost almost 10 times more.
Is this us as purchasers really buying a quality product – or have we been conned into the currency of the 'download' on the web?
Now I am not saying that people should give all their work away for free – far from it – but as purchasers we need to understand that when comparing one technology with another it is OK to do that and to help the market find the 'right' price for the product on… http://rapidbi.com/management/2009/08/the-rising-cost-of-learning%e2%80%a6-the-e-book-con-or-hero/

Friday, April 03, 2009

HRD09 - the years largest learning event

HRD 2009 is nearing, while this year I will not be able to attend the whole conference I will be attending the exhibition.
What are you going for? what are you hoping to achieve?

Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Monday, December 15, 2008

After only 5000 days of the world wide web

The Web is now just over 5000 days old - yes that is all.. imagine what the nest 5000 days will bring.
Kevin Kelly in this TED presentation highlights some interesting thoughts, Including the fact that the net is the largets and most reliable machine we have ever made.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Twitter

Having spent the week at the World of Learning Conference and blogged on behalf of TrainingZone's Water cooler I discovered that they (TrainingZone) were experimenting with Twitter as a 'soundbite' tool - so I have set up a Twitter account to see how this can add value to the worlds of training, OD and learning.

So lets see what happens - please don't expect my Twitter to describe all my activities - they will all be around learning, development, change and management... also don't expect a post every day!

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Web 2.0 - should all learning programmes use this?

Why do 'self generated' web 2.0 based groups work...? Easy they are owned by the learners themselves - it is in their interest to make it work for them. Their evaluation criteria...

When something is offered by the organisation it is a formal offering and some people feel constrained by that. Hence the very same reason why so many learning Centres, LMSs and intranets fail to fully engage, and communities like TJ Online and TrainingZone work so well. People opt in. Sure we ignore the web (1.1 2.0 & 3.0) at our peril but the biggest thing that we need to change is our attitude to control and doing for our learners.

We should support their use of third party applications and not limit them to using our own. If we think we have a challenge in control - wait for the future - the young people joining the world of work at the moment are years behind the 14-16 year olds - and they have a very different attitude to web 2.0 - they use these tools - as tools not environments to live within (unlike the 18-30s) who seem to exist within the virtual world.

So my view is offer the technology by all means - but only as ONE solution - NOT THE solution. let the learners find and own they own technology adjuncts.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Leadership, Coaching and Management Resources

How often have you struggled to find a quality graphic for your leadership presentations, or for use in your coaching sessions?

Over the last 4 years the team at RapidBI have been developing and producing their own and the management models part of the site has experienced increasing traffic. Following requests the team have now made over 120 PowerPoint Slides available for use in your own PowerPoint presentations.

For more information visit the leadership, coaching and management models download page.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Generation Y - changing the face and pace of work

Times they say are 'a changing' and this is clearly demonstrated by the expectation and aspirations of young people entering the world of work.

The video below is an excellent intro to some of the challenges facing us. But how do we really show managers and decision makers of today, the realities of the challenges and expectations of the future workforce?

I have thought long about this and come up with the following as a way of demonstrating the sheer changes facing our business future:

Have a room - a big room 36m3 (or bigger) and in that room have 6 42in screens - one showing each of the following:

MTV - loud volume

BBC news

Reality TV show

back to back cartoons (Road Runner, Tom and Jerry, etc)

The sixth is connected to 3 PC's positioned at a desk - the screen is showing all 3 pc's at the same time. Then put a manager in the room and give them a task... on one of the pc's is a continuous stream of instant messaging requests....

and that ignores the mobile phone... and other people in the room...

This is what it is like for the average teen - and they cope with the amount of data - AND they study (ok work to us) with increasingly improved grades. They work hard - I know I watch my teenagers. The work rate is relentless.

This is their reality, they have to do huge amounts of work in very little time slots, their attention span has been (self) educated out.. we need to recognise this and work with it if we are to start to engage. they collaborate like no other group before. Corporate competition is at risk with the newer generations - they have learnt to swap ideas and work for the benefit of each other - it is an exchange world. This opens up fantastic possibilities for those willing to take the step - equally it is a massive risk for those that don't

If we think the 20 somethings are a challenging part of 'generation Y' we have not seen anything yet - those just 5 years behind undertake almost 50% more activity.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Lessons from Web 2.0 in the boardroom – more than just technology?

Having just returned from Harrogate I recall a significant amount of web 2.0 was being talked about. This included a session on 2.0 and HR, several of the exhibitors were using 2.0 technologies, not to mention both Personnel Today and my own blog (www.cipd2008.blogspot.com ) both using and promoting web 2.0 technologies.

There is a view that many organisations have yet to embrace this technology fully for:

internal knowledge management
networking (internal and external)
recruitment of generation Y and beyond

Seth Godwin the marketing guru and author in his blog claims that the very best people do not need CV’s. and that the best people will be found and approached (Headhunted) and web 2.0 certainly provides the tools to do that. And this week in the works press the story of Jonathan Chase (from South Wales) being found on the web by NASA and commissioned to write and perform an education piece is an example of this activity. Fortune favours the brave as the old saying goes.

Gorillas in our mist
Earlier in the week I came across a concept called “Gorilla Leadership”. Gorilla Leadership is a sort of reverse ‘back to the floor’, where knowledgeable front line staff are taken away from their normal place of work and get involved in senior management and strategy meetings. Their role is to short circuit team leaders and middle management, to share knowledge and inform senior management of any potential opportunities based:

what they know about customer needs and feelings
what works and does not work in the structure and culture of the organisation
to predict the future impact on customers and staff of proposed product and organisational changes.

Is this another tool in the OD (organisational development) tool kit for employee engagement? This approach of building close relationships between front line staff and senior managers appears to be a real and innovative approach to 360 degree communication in a diverse organisation. A human world version of what Web 2.0 aims to achieve. A model many entrepreneurs use in their firms – not least because of their size.

So perhaps Web 2.0 is starting to educate us to take the communication concepts of transparency and true two way communication back from technology into the way we manage and run our organisations.

If gorilla leadership is the minority (few people can get fully engaged) what is the mass market equivalent? In the 1960s the concept of Team Briefing was developed by the Industrial Society. The team briefing booklets that the organisation published were used by many organisations in the 1980s, but in the last 10-15 years we seem to have thrown the baby out with the bath water as we strive to increase communications with employees – as almost every staff survey says we need to do more and improved communication with our people.

The Team Briefing Concept
Team Briefing is a powerful method for cascading information from the very top (business plan and performance against it) down through the organisation and back up again. Questions that were asked and answered (and not answered that required a reply from another part of the structure) are communicated up for feedback and replies communicated where necessary.

The Team Briefing system works because the approach involves a face to face meeting (often less that half an hour) as well as an opportunity for providing feedback. Typically meeting once a month, the information required will fit on a double sided A4 sheet. If it does not then it suggests that too much is trying to be conveyed.

Team Briefings traditionally give management an opportunity to brief down and listen up. They are excellent at focusing direction, creating a culture of clear communication etc. Typically they are organised around Business plan and departmental goals. As the process cascades though the organisation the core brief is augmented by local team leaders. It’s easy to measure the result and track the impact on culture and communications over time.

Full Circle
And so we go full circle, I hope that this web 2.0 approach to management processes is remembered and implemented fully and widely. In difficult and challenging times often the best thing to do is go back to basics – albeit with a modern twist…

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Guerrilla leaders in the board room

While on my regular morning 'recon' research trip I came across the concept of Guerrilla Leaders in the boardroom and the idea fascinated me. I first picked this up at the leadership hub. In essence the concept is much like 'back to the floor'... but in reverse. Directors take shop floor people up to the board room as 'advisers'.

In my days in London Underground some 15 years ago, every six months we offered a graduate trainee the opportunity of becoming the Engineering Directors PA. This was a fantastic success, and those that took this role accelerated there career faster than peers, both inside and outside the organisation.

As Colin Scowen commented on the leadership Hub:

"... the assumption here is that said guerrilla leaders have been selected precisely because they are willing to speak their mind,not willing to be cowed by the rank of those around them etc.

1) Although it would take longer, the pulse would make itself felt in mahogany row. This would become almost a regular sanity check on any new initiatives. If you can't explain it to the guerrilla leaders, then how can you expect the shop floor to accept it.

2) There would be some seriously effective 360 feedback loops forming, which I am sure would make the levels of management between mahogany row and the shop floor up their game a bit.

3) Some of the thinking behind the company strategy would make it's way back down to the shop floor without having passed through the middle management filters. This will help to give a better, balanced view to the shop floor of exactly why they are doing what they are doing."

Web 2.0 in the boardroom
As change agents this is a strategy not to be ignored in organisations - especially those with a large customer facing team. Directors getting back to the floor is only part of the picture, having people move from the floor to the boardroom can provide a reality check on changes to processes and policy that will impact the relationship with customers. This sort of change management activity is the web 2.0 concept for managers. The way many organisations run their organisations is still in web 0.9... we may ask for comments and feedback, but we we manage comments only to a limited extent - and we certainly do not publish all comments received my managers... We are still using the "Team Briefing" methodology first promoted by the Industrial Society... badly, for even this system required written feedback up and down, but many implementations ignore this element.

Time for business to learn from the web technologies - or generation Y will hit us harder and faster than we are already expecting...
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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Employee engagement and satisfaction surveys

Times are getting harder for many of us, and it is not just individuals being affected.

As the economy bites harder organizations of all sizes are having to tighten their belts, yet at the same time engaging with employees and retention of key people have never been more important. Over the past few months the RapidBI development team have been preparing this new and exciting solution.

At the NFEA (National Federation of Enterprise Agencies) annual conference RapidBI showcased its new EESS - Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Survey.

The EESS is a unique combination of four key factors:

An employee engagement survey
A staff satisfaction survey
A ready to run 'out of the box survey'
An easy to integrate custom question module (included)

Online management
The whole process can be managed on-line and requires no specialist training or accreditation. Users have the option of 'pay as you go' or for freelance consultants or providers becoming a 'listed' user and having instant access to the family of diagnostic tools available.

Customising the EESS
To keep the process as quick and cost effective as possible the EESS allows users to have up to 10 of their own unique questions in addition to the standard question set.

Using the product
Once a user has purchased the survey for their organisation (or client) they are taken through some simple steps to configure the survey and add their questions. When they are ready to go they communicate their customised user-names and passwords, and when the 'closing date' of the survey has passed the administrator logs in to their control panel and downloads their reports - easy!

Comparing results

The EESS automatically produces graphics and analysis of results and runs a comparison of your organisations results against those held on the database. This is a powerful way to benchmark the performance of your organization against those of others.

In addition when you re-run the survey you have the ability of seeing any change against previous results.

Easy, ready to run and low cost - a welcome in the challenging economic climate we find ourselves in.

To find out more visit www.rapidbi.com/staffsurvey/

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Thursday, September 11, 2008

A minute to win it - networking opportunity

Do you really have a minute to win it?..... or a minute to lose it?

On Wednesday morning at the NFEA annual conference exhibitors were given the chance to deliver a 'minute to win it' or elevator pitch to the conference participants.

As a one off pitch this style and being prepared for an 'instant' presentation works very well, however with six or more individuals delivering one of these 'one hit wonders' one after another how do you get noticed, do they all appear similar or are they memorable. Has the concept of the 'Minute to win it' presentations reached the point where everyone rehearses and times the pitch to perfection and the only way to get noticed among a number of presentations is to have a gimmick, have you got to be an incredible presenter to make these work?

So what did I do to get the attention? Well for me it is about confidence - a very short message and to be aware of the audience and their needs "at that moment in time" and not to 'take' your audiences time but to give it back - the key after all is to get remembered - not to sell! (sales Can come later - build rapport first)... Did it work? Well only people that were there can answer that one.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Technology on the move - PocketSurfer2 reviewed

As a professional often on the move, I am always on the look out for new technology or gadgets that will help me communicate more easily. Courtesy of Training Journal I have been given a Pocketsurfer2 to review. I will be using the device for the next couple of weeks. in fact this post has been started on the PocketSurfer2. (but had to stop here...)

Overview

The PocketSurfer2 is a pocket diary size device with 'instant' mobile phone technology connection to the web. It uses a Motorola RAZR style keyboard. So anywhere you can use a mobile, this device will allow you to do most things you can do in a browser on a desk top (except flash and video).

Claims

The manufactures DataWind claim that you get a 'full' web experience, rather than the limited experience on most mobile phones. The manufactures also claim that the surfing experience is fast - broadband fast over a GPRS phone network.

First experiences

The device arrives in a box 250 x 173 x 69mm, inside the box is a well protected (but using plastic and foam) carrier for the PocketSurfer2 and its accessories. In the box is the PocketSurfer2, mains charger (mini USB), a quick guide, a soft protective 'sock' and manual on CD.

Powering up

The device arrives with enough power to start the device and to go through a simple registration process. Through the registration you are shown how to navigate the various controls - the 'mouse', tab functions etc. the buttons on the keyboard are large enough to use your thumb. Once registered the device needs 4 hours of charging. Try to shortcut this and when you attempt to connect to the net the device tells you that your 'registration' is still pending and to allow up to 4 hours...

Charging
The good news is that the device can be charged via a mini USB and a charger is supplied, unfortunately access to the USB socket is so slim that a standard mini USB charger will not fit! - so there goes using my car based USB charger (although some units do ship with this lead). It is a real shame that this is not a standard connection - forget your special lead and you cannot borrow a lead to charge your device!

Going On-Line

Once charged and registered it could not be easier - push the 'Go' button, type in the address you want and hit enter. The quick as a flash the page loads - brilliant. The graphics are very washed out but for a basic surfing need the device is more than functional. getting used to the 'mouse' is taking some time. For the technical readers - this device appears to use a thin client to a secure server running IE, hence the speed and lack of clarity on the graphics. It also explains how you get 'the full web experience'. Thin client basically means you are using the PocketSurfer2 to access a more powerful computer doing most of the work for you - all the device in your hand does is give keyboard commands and show the screen.

Most of the pages I have initially visited performed well, although the tab function does not appear reliable in moving between fields. When I started posting this blog the input to reading on screen was very slow - correcting typing mistakes was very difficult and highlighting text to insert a hyperlink was impossible. Typing is a slow and unreliable process - as the tools for simple navigation around a text field are missing - i.e. basic arrow keys. The lack of a spell check also makes for slow blog posting.

Email
The devise has the ability to access POP3 and most other forms of email services - this provides an easier access to your emails than many phone based products.

Instant Messaging
For many this will be a welcome feature - especially those of us that want to keep in touch with our teenagers while we are away. Easy to set up but the slow nature of the keyboard makes fluent conversations difficult.

Calenders and organizers
While the device does not provide any diary type system you can access Yahoo Calendar as an Organizer.

Added functions
As well as basic surfing the device provides access to online secure document storage and basic applications, word processing, spreadsheets and presentation from a site zoho.com. The downside is that this device cannot connect to a printer - nor can it download data to a local memory device (i.e. USB or SD card)

Use your home PC and software from anywhere
You know the situation - you are away from home and need THAT file... how can you do it? The PocketSurfer2 is compatible with Logmein. Logmein is a piece of software that runs on your home PC which allows you access to your programs and document files at any time from any internet connection. I have been a user of Logmein for 4 years and it has saved my bacon on many occasions. With military level security encryption this service is fantastic and the PocketSurfer implementation is unfortunately of limited usability due to the screen resolution, this is a real shame as few if any mobile phones can do satisfactorily.

GPS

The unit come with a built in GPS unit which links neatly to Google maps, always a useful function - but as the device does not have a 'contacts list' you will need to bookmark the address previously - or have the address in another device. The GPS system is quick and will aid those on foot finding a venue at street level, however remember the system does not have any sound capability so do not expect turn by turn voice directions - This device is not suitable for use in a vehicle.

Charges
The PocketSurfer2 is supplied with 12 months connection to the Internet with an allowance of 20 hours per month, this should be more than enough for most people. The subscription for the second years is just under £40. For an additional £5.99 per months unlimited Internet access is available.

Needed on PocketSurfer3
This device is usable as a tool for those that are 'on the move' and in many ways is better than 99% of the available mobile devices. features that need to be included to make this a truly powerful mobile device:

Touch screen to operate the mouse/ or improved mouse navigation
Reliable 'tabbing' between fields on web pages
SD or USB local storage
Ability to have 'active history' to save entering whole addresses in the browser
Standard mini USB connector for universal charging
Remove the PocketSurfer 'top bar' this uses up valuable screen space for no real functionality
Ability to navigate through text with basic arrow buttons

To make the device a truly 'must have'...

WIFIi/ Bluetooth or cable for 'monitor out'
Ability to 'run' PowerPoint slide shows

This device is not a PDA, and nor should it be - but as low cost laptops get cheaper it needs to provide a little 'extra value' than just a surfing experience.

Overall
More of a gimmick than a serious tool for the mobile professional. For its cost and Internet access it is good value for money - but is it a must have for the mobile professional? No not yet. Great as a 'get out of jail' device when you cannot connect to the net by any other means.

The device in use on the road

Use of the Pocket Surfer 'in the field' rather than in the office on trial are different things. I had occasional difficulty connecting (something I would not usually expect in west London) and my use would be for managing my website or blogging - neither of which it did very well. I actually found it easier to use my PDA phone and stylus than the keyboard, and many modern phones, while they do not have a screen size of the PocketSurfer2, do have better navigation control - right click and click and drag were difficult.

Ideal applications

One of the 'best' applications for the pocket surfer I can imagine is in the use of mobile survey completion - providing most of the survey is multiple choice and optimised for a 640 wide screen. Using the device for basic surfing and finding information was great - but as for actually using web based application... no not yet.

What happens when the device is lost?

Well this happened - on the last day of the CIPD Annual Conference in Harrogate I took my jacket off and it must have fallen out of my inside pocket...

I did not realise until the following day but then it was the weekend. On Monday morning I called the UK helpline and after a wait was through to a very helpful lady who after taking my serial number and confirming my details stopped the device. She was able to tell me that the device had been used over the weekend, but could not/ would not tell me what sites or where in the UK the device was.

Well the next time the person tries to use the device it just will not connect!

Having been given this one for review will I buy a replacement? Interesting question.. There are some things this device is particularly good at - and not so good at others. Had I lost the device 2 years ago my answer would have been a swift yes... now..... er... no I will not be buying one for myself.

Images © Datawind and taken from their site.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Friday, August 29, 2008

CIPD Annual Conference 2008

RapidBI have been invited to attend the CIPD Annual Conference 2008 and we will be blogging here visit and comment.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Thursday, July 31, 2008

What is your NetRep? get seen on the web - appropriately

Do you know what your NetRep is?

A NetRep or interNET REPutation is the image people get from you as they surf the world wide web.

Every time you post on a social networking site, you contribute to a professional forum, you leave behind a footprint. the words, the tone you use says something about you. Even what other people post and say about you will impact job opportunities, contracts etc.

While you may not be able to control what others say about you, you can control what you put on the internet, to some extent you can also control what other people SEE of you. For example if there is an article which criticises your views, you can add more content to the net which pushes more negative articles lower down the search result listings. most people do not look beyond the second or third page of results. So you can manage your NetRep.

In association with Lookup-pages, Mike has designed a simple DIY workshop to help you manager your netrep, or guide others as to the approach you should and could take. To find out more about getting seen in the web, follow the links below.

For more details visit http://www.rapidbi.com/getseenontheweb/index.html or http://www.getseenontheweb.co.uk/

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Deep Dive - innovation tool

Deep Dive is becoming increasingly popular, but is this because this is a 'new technique' or is it just a new piece of jargon?

The technique was developed in IDEO a design firm and was subsequently published in a book (The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm. Kelley, Tom. Doubleday, 2001. ) and a well know TV show (ABC Nightline - The Deep Dive ) focused on this innovative approach.

It seems from reading a range of online case studies that implementations are mixed, with many using the name (deep dive) and attaching it to a conventional brainstorming process rather than using the whole process. This is a shame as deep dive is a clever left and right brain full process approach to product development and problem solving.

To find out more read the book "The Art of Innovation" or visit Deep Dive thinking

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Monday, June 30, 2008

Transfer of learning to the workplace

With the Credit Crunch starting to hit many organizations, the ability to spend money on training , learning and development activities is getting harder.

This post explores some of the research and methods to provide you with the best opportunity of maximising your return on investment.

While reading a post on TrainingZone I was reminded of the unfortunate state of the profession in which I (and many like me work). It is one where many people new to the industry read one article and believe it as 'truth' or 'fact'. There are a lot of miss-truths in the training world including the miss-representation of Albert Mehrabian's work (7% 38% 55%) , the 1960 research on written goals from Harvard (or was it Yale) - both fictitious, and now the:

You remember 10% of what you read You remember 20% of what you hear You remember 30% of what you see You remember 90% of what you do - reportedly from Edgar Dale's "cone of experience"

From Fiction to Fact
So what is real? How can we maximise our learning and transfer? Below is a reprint of a summary from Tom Lambert, who was involved in research into learning Transfer at Xerox.

Transfer of Learning
Summary of Research Findings – by Tom Lambert

1. Bruce Joyce - University of Columbia New York 1984 and ongoing (at 1996).

Joyce found that the transfer of training to the workplace varied with the training methodology used. With the best available methods it remained, however, abysmally poor.

Models of Teaching

Skill Acquisition

Transfer to the Workplace

Theory and Rationale "Chalk and Talk"

5-10%

<5%

Demonstration (Modelling of the skill)

10-13%

Practice with Feedback (Threat-free training room practice with structured feedback)

80-90%

10-13%

Post-training, on the job coaching, by trainers/ consultants raised on the job transfer following practice and feedback to close to 80% in the short-term, but improvements were far from permanent.

2. Xerox Corporation 1986
Xerox research showed that, regardless of the training methodology 87% of what is learned and transferred is lost within the first three months.

3. Seward and Gers - Maryland Institute of Education

- longitudinal study 1984 -1996
This study has shown that insistence on training objectives which are expressed in the form of specific, observable behaviours and training in peer coaching raises the sustained transfer of knowledge to the workplace to between 90% - 96%. Random testing has been carried out over a period of twelve years.

4. Industrial Society 1991
The Industrial Society surveyed management in the UK in 1991. Their findings were that management was seeking ways of increasing the return on the training investment, but that there was little if any improvement in post training performance in a range of UK businesses.

5. Trainees were not pre-positioned to understand expectations of them after training. Often opportunities to apply what has been learned are denied;

6. Neither management nor colleagues are able to help when difficulties arise;

7. New skills require greater effort to apply, particularly at first;

8. New skills make the individual feel awkward – normal activities go less smoothly at first. The more important the area of work, the greater the discomfort as new skills displace valued behaviours;

9. There is a psychological and emotional gulf between "training" and the "real world".

Source © Tom Lambert workshop notes circ 1996

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006 - 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Maximized Productivity From Your Consultancy or Training Investment

When 70+% of the workforce is employed by service industries, the traditional approaches to purchasing tangible items are no longer appropriate - and do not work effectively.

The purchasing of training and services requires a different approach, at least if you expect to negotiate the best contract, reduce and control costs, maximize and insure the quality of purchased services, and manage supplier performance.

With the credit crunch starting to impact organisations, salaries, energy costs, capital equipment, hardware and software are the costly items in budget, unfortunately, increased productivity doesn't automatically flow from making these investments.

Only skilled and competent users of these tools and resources can maximize your return. Training and development is the small investment that can make your big investment pay off, if managed effectively. Since not all training providers are the same, the challenge is... How to purchase training wisely?

Find out how to intelligently purchase training and OD consultancy in one of RapidBI's latest articles

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Sunday, June 15, 2008

What is Business Transformation - fad to tool?

The term Business Transformation is being used increasingly in the worlds of project management, change and organizational development. But what does it mean?

Is it change re-branded?
is it outsourcing?
is it a way for IT companies to sell additional services?

In this unique piece Mike explores Business Transformation and looks at how this approach can be used in your company. He gets behind the hype and looks at what can be done at a practical level to manage transformational change.Read the full article on What is Business Transformation?

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Getting seen and found on the web - SEO for trainers

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO:

Is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via search results for targeted keywords.

Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site.

Evidence suggests that:

SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Get seen on the web
With the web being used more and more for purchasers to find training and consulting providers, appropriate use of the internet is becoming critical to many training providers and consulting organisations.

Over the past few years I have been developing and using web SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques to get my business seen on the net. SEO is a technical way of saying I have used approaches which search engines like and as a result get listed higher than other sites for the same 'search criteria'.

Earlier this year I was asked to present a session at the TrainerBase conference on this topic. his was a well received session and as a result several people have asked if I would put together a more comprehensive (yet simple) course covering practicle ways that trainers and consultants can improve their web profile.

With this in mind I have developed a process called getting seen on the web - a one day programme with practical activities to raise you profile and tap into the work available. No computer programming is required - only the ability to surf the net and use programs like Microsoft Word.

For more information see www.getseenontheweb.co.uk
This one day programmes is suitable for Trainers, Consultants and other freelancers

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

How to Find a Trainer or Training Provider

Do you have to find a trainer to deliver a training solution?

As more and more organisations and companies reduce their training delivery capability and outsource their training, they need to identify and find competent trainers in a wide range of topics.

In the UK there is no single place to find trainers, TrainerBase is quickly becoming THE place to start, and find competent trainers. It is estimated that 60% of training purchasers that are using the Internet as a source of finding new providers.

There are many purchasers out there looking for new trainers; if you are visible and easily seen on the web you are more likely to be in the running for new potential work.

Using 'Find a trainer' web sites like TrainerBase.co.uk that are search engine optimised (that is your profile can be seen publicly) can be an important part of your overall marketing strategy.

Unfortunately many 'find a trainer' sites are 'closed' and the details of individual trainers are held back. If the site is effective and attracts a lot of traffic and users then this is not a problem, however the reality is this is a very diluted market space and unless you profile is publicly accessible - why bother? Having other sites point to yours is a valuable marketing strategy on its own, not just the hope that a purchaser uses a given site.

TrainerBase is unique in that is it is not sector specific, and yet is a one stop shop with trainers from a diverse range of backgrounds, offering a very wide range of training subjects.

Do you need to find a trainer or training provider? Then this is the place to look first.

You can also see which trainers have passed the tough quality standard the Certified Learning Practitioner standard

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Innovation Inventory

How to Develop Leadership and Innovation ...

The Creatrix Certification Programme - a one day workshop

Thought Leadership, Creativity and Innovation are the buzz words of today, yet many in management positions admit that they don't know where to start to develop these capabilities. Unfortunately, many re-badge what they have been using for the past 10 years and pass it off as ‘new’.

It doesn't have to be this way.

In the Innovation Equation:

Innovation = Creativity X Risk Taking

This is a proven way to look at culture and approaches to innovation in organisations.

The need for innovation is everywhere. We all know this in the work we do with organisations. But, how do you go about it? How do you talk about it? How do you generate innovative ideas? How do you foster and nurture it in organisations?

Creatrix™ is a process that includes the remarkable Creatrix Assessment. Part of the Creatrix Process is the use of the Creatrix innovation inventory

Creatrix Corporate Users include: Cargill, Country Inns & Suites, DuPont, John Deere, 3M, Laing O’Rourke, Yum Foods (Pizza Hut, KFC) and many other entrepreneurial, government and not for profit organisations.

Creatrix can help you work with individuals, teams and organisations to:

Create a language of innovation for an entire team/ organisation
Provide a framework for developing the culture & behaviours required for an organisation to become more innovative
Understand the most valuable team profiles for innovation and implementation
Increase the capacity of individuals, teams and organisations to generate and implement Innovative Ideas

Useful Links
www.rapidbi.com/creatrix/ - UK site
www.creatrix.com - US site
www.rapidbi.com/creatrix/creatrixcertification.html
www.rapidbi.com/training_dates.html

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Induction Training and Evaluation

From time to time organisations look at the induction and orientation processes they offer and look to review them. Increasingly this task is being set as a first project to people new to HR. To support their needs and to provide a starting block RapidBI has added a page to its series of articles to help 'kick start' the process.

Induction Evaluation survey and questionnaire

Other recent pages include:
A Guide to employee engagement and satisfaction surveys
A Business Glossary

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Safe Manual Handling Training

Health and Safety at work
The need to provide staff with manual handling training for a number of years, however the injuries caused by poor manual handling technique and risk assessment of handling operations are on the increase. To meet this need RapidBI have decided to take the training that we to in the voluntary sector and make it available to the corporate market. For more information visit Manual Handling Training page.

If you are involved in patient handling or people handling then consider our Patient Handling Training page, Our trainers have worked in the pre-hospital environment where safe patient handling is critical for the safety of the crew and the patient.

HSE Guidance

Is there a maximum weight a person can lift during their work?

The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended) set no specific requirements such as weight limits.

The ergonomic approach shows clearly that such requirements are based on too simple a view of the problem and may lead to incorrect conclusions. Instead, an ergonomic assessment based on a range of relevant factors is used to determine the risk of injury and point the way to remedial action.

The Regulations establish the following clear hierarchy of control measures:

Avoid hazardous manual handling operations so far as is reasonably practicable, for example by redesigning the task to avoid moving the load or by automating or mechanising the process.
Make a suitable and sufficient assessment of any hazardous manual handling operations that cannot be avoided.
Reduce the risk of injury from those operations so far as is reasonably practicable. Where possible, you should provide mechanical assistance, for example a sack trolley or hoist. Where this is not reasonably practicable, look at ways of changing the task, the load and working environment.

Modern medical and scientific opinion accepts the scale of the problem and stresses the importance of an ergonomic approach to remove or reduce the risk of manual handling injury. Ergonomics is sometimes described as 'fitting the job to the person, rather than the person to the job'. The ergonomic approach looks at manual handling as a whole. It takes into account a range of relevant factors, including the nature of the task, the load, the working environment and individual capability and requires worker participation.

When a more detailed assessment is necessary it should follow the broad structure set out in Schedule 1 to the Regulations. The Schedule from the HSE lists a number of questions in five categories:

TILEE

the Task to be undertaken
the Individual that is doing the task
the Load to be moved
the working Environment
the Equipment available

Each of these categories may influence the others and none of them can be considered on their own. However, to carry out an assessment in a structured way it is often helpful to begin by breaking the operations down into separate, more manageable items.

The steps to follow

The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended) establish a clear hierarchy of measures for dealing with risks from manual handling.

These are:

avoid hazardous manual handling operations so far as reasonably practicable;
assess any hazardous manual handling operations that cannot be avoided; and
reduce the risk of injury so far as reasonably practicable.

What should a Manual Handling training course contain?

’HSE does not publish prescriptive guidance on what a 'good' manual handling training course should include or how long it should last. However, in general, courses should be suitable for the individual, tasks and environment involved, use of relevant examples and of a duration long enough to cover all the relevant information, Such information is likely to include advice on:

Manual Handling risk factors and how injuries can occur;
How to carry out safe manual handling, including good handling technique;
Appropriate systems of work for the individual's task and environment;
Use of mechanical aids; and
Practical work to allow the trainer to identify and put right anything the trainee is not doing safely.

All RapidBI sessions cover these topics to an appropriate level for the participants.

To find a manual handling or a moving on trainer visit find a trainer at TrainerBase
If you want help to find a trainer visit our find a trainer advice page

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Friday, April 11, 2008

HRD - CIPD Exhibition and Conference 2008

Watch this space as we will be posting live from the event all week... 15-17 April 2008

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Management Resources

The Team at RapidBI have been busy developing new free content covering strategic and tactical business tools, thechiques and methods appropriate for people involved in the development of organizations or themselves. below are some of the newer pages - enjoy.

Main Pages:
Holistic Diagnostic Tools - Find out what using a holistic approach can offer you and your organization
Scanning the Business Environment - Why do this - is it just a waste of time or the critical factor?
Management Models - 100+ Management Models - a page full of graphical management models, covering organizational growth, leadership, coaching, change management etc.
Porters five forces - Michael Porter's five forces is a model used to explore the environment in which a product or company operates.
The PESTLE Analysis - The PESTLE analysis - a powerful tool for exploring the external environment of an organzation
Force Field Analysis - The Force Field analysis is a valuable tool in any decisionmaking process
SWOT analysis - The SWOT analysis - a powerful tool for exploring the strengths of an organzation
Personal Development Plans or PDPs - Need to develop a Personal Development Plan - all you need is here
PRIMO-F_- Business_Growth_Model - The PRIMO-F business growth model, a holistic approach
Continuing Professional Development or CPD - CPD has been around for some years, now the need for personal responsibility is ever increasing.
Write SMART objectives - Description on how to write SMART and SMARTER objectives for individual and business performance
Learning Logs - We have had requests for material to complement our PDP and CPD pages... here it is
Critical Success Factors - What are Critical Success Factors and how to use them
Corporate Social Responsibility CSR -
How does Corporate Social Responsibility impact smaller businesses
Learning Styles - Want to be a more effective learner? hers is a summary of the main learning style theories and application
Write a Mission Statement -
How to write a mission statement for your business.
more coming soon...
Psychometric_Personality_Testing -
What psychometric testing is and how to use it
Career Anchors - A powerful tool to help individuals understand their career strengths
Business Values -how to use values to create an effective organization
Change Management - Understanding the impact of psychology on change
Management Development and Train the Trainer short courses - the RapidBI home page listting the shourt courses available for delivery inhouse

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Second bite of the cherry...

Yesterday when I visited the exhibition I was invited to attend a meeting today, needless to say that went well - so look out for some new and interesting announcements in the world for training and development later in the year!

So I was back again and decided to have another look around. Yesterdays visit prompted some thoughts about marketing and advertising. The one thing I noticed yesterday is that 99% of the stands were 'vanilla' - one stand much like another. Poorly worded background graphics full of buzz phrases - which failed to say what the company did, a laptop or two and a data projector.

One stand had a big inflatable 'catch the winning ticket' competition, which sparked some interest, and another had a small dance floor with some young (too young??) dancers. Another (Echelon) had what appeared to be a 32" blackberry! at least it was different and caught peoples eye.

But on the whole the show was oh so bland, bland, bland.

As communication and training organizations, the advertisers need to learn some lessons about engaging with potential purchasers. I took a number of photos of effective and ineffective stand messages - one of the better ones is below.

- Ed on the stand.

Watchout for another entry showing the Good, bad and ugly of stand displays!

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organizational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com/

© This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Learning Technologies 2008 Olympia UK

This usually thriving and lively exhibition seemed quieter than usual,
although only having one lift available to get in did not help!

While there appeared to be as many exhibitors as usual, the range of stands
did not seem as diverse as in recent years.

To many of those exhibiting, design meant web interface and images - not
learning design and learning style.

Networking
As well as meeting people that was pre-arranged, it was great to see some
old and new faces. The biggest surprise for me was to see my face on the
home page on one of the exhibitors stands as a featured contributor.

Stand quality
Many of the stands look like they were designed over the weekend, rather
than professionally conceived. Many did not even clearly say what their
offer was - let alone have a call to action. Does the world of training and
IT need to learn sales and marketing?

Free seminars
While I did not go to the main conference, I did watch some of the free
seminars. Great PowerPoint - if you like 10 lines of bullets and small
screen shots... But the general quality of presenters was well below average
- strange as these people are trying to influence professionals! May be I
should contact the organisers and offer presentation skill sessions and
coaching for presenters next year.

Misleading title?
It is a shame that while the show is called learning technologies - that
exhibitors seemed to focus on PC and mobile solutions and ignored many
other learning technologies all together.

Overall a few hours well spent - I now look forward to lots of emails and brochures by post.

Did you go to this event - what was your experience - Hot or Not?

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organisational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com © This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Freelance - How much to charge?

Reading a post on the ASTD forum (community.astd.org) today made me think. Often people in the consulting and freelance world under value their services.

Some years ago I was asked to present to a local CIPD group about 'going freelance' and in the course of that preparation it highlighted some important facts that all freelances should be aware of:

When setting your daily rate, you need to look at the wider picture rather than just a recovery of your 'old salary'

Lets do some simple maths...
There are 52 weeks a year - you will want 3-4 weeks leave - that leaves 48 working weeks.

You need to account for admin - tax returns, marketing etc, this will leave you with 2-3 days to work a week - so that is 48*3= 144 working days. Marketing effort should not be underestimated - this included all unpaid time doing proposals, visits etc.

Now - rather than charge 'by the hour' and all of the timekeeping required to prove it - charge by the 1/2 or full day

So if you want an income of:

100k - that is 100,000/144 = 695 a day
50k - 350 a day
25k - that is 175 a day

You get the idea - remember of course that you will now need to pay for any training you need, equipment, internet connections etc - so these can easily mount up - do not undersell your self - set your price and be proud of it!

Useful references include:

http://www.trainerbase.co.uk/documents/TPB1.pdf

http://www.trainerbase.co.uk/documents/TPB2.pdf

http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=159067

http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=157537

http://www.hrzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=174142

http://www.trainerbase.co.uk/ResourcesShop/display_Resource.asp?keyword=solo

http://space.businessballs.com/index.asp?profile=2386&score= (look at going freelance download)

Mike

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Thursday, January 24, 2008

SWOT and PESTLE - why the debate

Yes another thread was started today about SWOT and PESTLE

Why is this such a difficult topic for students doing CIPD, marketing and business courses?

From what I can make out...

Often use of these tools is part of the course syllabus.. So tutors set an assignment on it. Most of the time tutors have not bother to understand HOW the tool can add value, rather than what the letters stand for. This means a short input session is given with an outline of what might be listed, but no more detail. Wores.. a case study may be used where so much information is contained that the poor student cannot make head nor tail of what is infront of them!

These are different tools -

SWOT comes from the world of strategic planning
PEST/ PESTLE comes from the world of marketing

A simple Google for "PESTLE" and a separate for "SWOT" will provide most people with the answers they need.

But to my mind the best resources on the net are PESTLE SWOT ;)

The best way to understand these simple - yet powerful frameworks is to use them.. again... again... and again.

Additionally in the 'real world' when these tools are used they are undertaken by teams. On a course it is done from an individuals perspective and unfortunately this reduces the effectiveness in my view. It is the difference of opinion when looking and exploring data that yields the most powerful answers - not a benign list!

See the latest discussion on this topic:

http://www.cipd.co.uk/community/forums/rss.ashx?&ForumID=47&PostID=72879

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organisational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com © This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Sunday, January 20, 2008

SWOT and PESTLE analysis in Business Improvement Reviews

The use of a SWOT and PESTLE are valuable frameworks as part of any business review/ health check or diagnostic process.

Most business reviews only look at internal factors. While these are of value, the views and perceptions of our suppliers and customers should not be overlooked.

While in the RapidBI process we use an extensive SWOT methodology, we also use the SWOT as a limited framework to gather the views of Suppliers and customers. We do not yet include a structured PESTLE analysis for the simple reason we have not identifies any common factors that could be built into a model more complex than the basic PESTLE framework. This unfortunately requires an experienced human to ask the right questions...

As well as the excellent content pages on the RapidBI site for SWOT and PESTLE, the following RSS pages are worth a visit. These are pages often used by students of the CIPD to post their SWOT and PESTLE questions - and Mike (Director of RapidBI) is a regular contributor. These can be found at:

PESTLE:

http://www.cipd.co.uk/community/forums/rss.ashx?&ForumID=70&PostID=42403

SWOT:

http://www.cipd.co.uk/community/forums/rss.ashx?&ForumID=46&PostID=26158

Worth a regular visit too!

For an effective Business Review - it is important to not only look to multiple views from within the organisation (staff, managers, directors etc) but to check externally with suppliers and customers too!
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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organisational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com © This article is copyright RapidBI 2006, 2008 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Sunday, January 13, 2008

How to do a SWOT analysis

I have been asked by many people how to complete a SWOT analysis.

A SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

A SWOT can be used with individuals, teams, organizations and in business planning sessions.

Rather than duplicate an article here have a look at SWOT analysis - at http://www.rapidbi.com/created/SWOTanalysis.html as this provide a comprehensive history and set of how to guides for a range of situations.

Mike

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Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee

I was sent this today - a re-vamp of an old story - but worth remembering...

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favourite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else---the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.
"Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

        One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled and said, "I'm glad you asked."

        The coffee just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Marketing HRD & OD: From tactical to strategy

Summary
With the need for internal marketing activities increasing, Mike Morrison offers some tips and advice on how to develop your skills in branding and promotion, so as to meet the specific needs of the business.

Introduction
As the business environment changes, so does the potential contribution of HR and organisational development (OD) teams. As the day to day workload increases, often the profile of these functions diminishes.

Increasingly, the challenge of HR and OD is to undertake marketing activities internally. This is a need which is increasing and often requires a skill set not readily available within the function.

Why do it?
Many of us say that as a function we are not strategic enough. To a great extent that is true, since the business does not want us to be strategic most of the time.
What we need to do is to avoid re-branding the whole function, and concentrate on re-branding offers and services. For example, an organisational development function may have the following services:

OD strategy
HR strategy
Recruitment
Compensation and benefits
Employee relations
Development
Talent management
Training
Learning

We need to recognise that all elements have their place, and many, if not most, of these are operational and tactical in nature. Let’s not try to make something operational look strategic – it just does not work.

This is a big jump from the direction many HR-related functions have been making in recent years.

Changing Mindsets
This is a double challenge. Firstly we need to recognise the need to communicate what we do to the wider world. Secondly we need to be prepared to start advertising our services and celebrating our successes. It is about seeing things from the perception of others.

Available resources to help
There are some books and publications to help HR undertake this role; however more has been published under the umbrella of marketing training. The principles and audiences are the same, so we can use these resources as well as ones aimed at promoting professional services in a wider context. That said, we can also use some of the excellent materials available in the general marketing arena.

Making it happen
When I have done this in corporate life, it’s about spending time with your customers. How much of your week do you spend building relationships? If it is less than two days a week then you are not doing enough. The better we understand our clients and their specific needs, the stronger our position is to offer a customised service. For many HR teams now involved in business partnering, leaving behind the (standard) menu driven offers is an increasing fact of life. Don’t get me wrong, our clients want and often demand a menu – what is different is that we will have a menu specifically for them.

Each customer is unique
It’s also not about advertising or promoting all of your services to everyone - identify a given group or audience and promote relevant services to them.

For example,
there is no point promoting talent management services or recruitment strategies to front line staff - they are just not interested. Equally, hard selling career development to managers is not effective - many managers will want to keep their best people and (wrongly) believe that by not encouraging them to develop, they will stay in the team longer. I know this is not best for the business, but if we are trying to raise the profile we need to see things from our customers’ perspective.

From a professional and holistic point of view we want to tell the world about what we do, yet the reality is they (the public, our customers etc) are just not interested. We need to frame our offer for each audience.

As HR or OD professionals, we need to learn from how companies market to their diverse audience. As a function, do you use your internal communication or marketing team to help communicate key messages?

You would not use a training consultant to design your comp and benefits systems would you? So why look at marketing any differently? As the saying goes – different strokes for different folks.

Who is the audience?
Whilst that is for you to work out, the following is a useful guide:

Directors
Senior managers
Middle management
Team leaders/ supervisors
Front line / operational staff
Professionals

While there may be overlap - there is nothing to say that any given person does not receive two or more different messages – it’s a language thing, not a conflicting message. We must ensure that we do not communicate conflicting messages as this can undermine the whole communication strategy.

The step up to strategic interventions
By driving HR and OD services to meet the specific needs of each part of the business, we are in effect taking HR from policy driven methodology to strategy driven, thus enabling the business to achieve its goals effectively.

Summary

Identify your audience
Build relationships
Promote only relevant offers
Get to know your customers
Build brands or labels for each discrete offer
Promote services directly to your clients needs
Did I mention – build relationships and position offers to the client’s needs?

Footnote
This article is not intended to encourage HR departments to re-brand to OD; indeed the challenge is to celebrate what you do and tell people in an appropriate way for them. Any department or function that calls themselves an OD function, I would ask them, “what business diagnostic tools do you use to identify business needs and to position your offer?” OD requires a completely different positioning from inside the organisation, and this positioning needs to be driven from the top; not from within a function.

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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organisational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com.

Monday, January 07, 2008

New updated Blog

Hi and thanks for visiting.

I have established a new Blog at http://rapidbusinessimprovement.blogspot.com please visit and I hope you enjoy the content.

Mike Morrison

useful links:

BIR Diagnostic - Creatrix - Coaching - Mike Morrison - Management Articles - Management Models - The PESTLE Analysis Tool - SWOT analysis - PRIMO-F_- Business_Growth_Model - Write SMART objectives - Critical Success Factors - Corporate Social Responsibility CSR - Write a Mission Statement - Psychometric_Personality_Testing - Career Anchors - Business Values - Change Management - Personal Development Plans - Learning Styles

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Changing the face of organisational development

Have you noticed that as an OD (organizational Development) specialist it is difficult to get ownership of change with your clients - internal or external?
I have found the process Aim, Assess, Activate and Apply to be a wonderful approach. Not as academic as some MBA processes, however the clients love it.

The trick is:
Aim - define your goal, define the problem. If the client is not sure then maybe the Aim is simply to have a strategic or Operational plan to rapidly improve their business.

Assess - use a structured diagnostic tool. If you know what the problem is then you can use a targeted tool - I like the Creatrix for developing the capacity for innovation within individuals and organisations. For a more holistic business review I use our own Business Improvement Review. This is a 180 review of management and staff, with outputs covering Finance, marketing, Operations as well as the usual people and people processes. see www.tools4consultants.com for details.

Activate - .You as an individual (or organization) will have strengths as well as weaknesses. Activate these strengths as a vehicle to ensure success.

Apply - have a plan, manage the plan, keep the Aim in mind, use data collected from any diagnostic tools you may have Ensure that the plan is not only applied but is also reviewed, by all stakeholders.
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Mike Morrison is director of RapidBI, an organisational effectiveness consultancy. He has been involved in HR, OD and strategic development for over 20 years. He can be contacted via www.rapidbi.com © This article is copyright RapidBI 2005 – it may be copied providing the authors are credited, and direct links maintained

Rapid Business Improvement - tools for consultants (consulting)

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

The Children’s Safety Education Foundation

Saturday, October 10, 2009

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is specialist, expensive and you need to know what you are doing.. don’t you?

Friday, October 09, 2009

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Innovation is about the first step

Monday, October 05, 2009

How to receive feedback from your manager

Friday, October 02, 2009

25 great tips on employee engagement – morale boosters

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Learning beyond university to informal learning using micro-blogging

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Experienced L&D people are bleeding out of organisations and going freelance

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

A ‘lite’ version of a learning styles questionnaire:

Monday, September 14, 2009

Four step learning ladder – a model for learning to learn

The personal competence model

Sunday, September 13, 2009

HAVE-DO-BE or DO-BE-HAVE?

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The rising cost of learning…

Friday, April 03, 2009

Monday, December 15, 2008

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Monday, October 20, 2008

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Friday, August 29, 2008

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Monday, June 30, 2008

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Is there a maximum weight a person can lift during their work?

The steps to follow

Friday, April 11, 2008

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Monday, January 07, 2008

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Management, Leadership and Business articles

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World of Learning - Annual Conference & Exhibition

CIPD Annual Conference 2008 Harrogate

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