JANUARY
2014 |
Volume
13, Number 1 |
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CONTACT
HSA |
To contact us, click HERE.
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PUBLICATIONS |
For more information on our best-selling, award-winning books,
click HERE.
Need help with HPT terminology? Click HERE
for The HSA Lexicon.
Click HERE
to read our published articles.
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ASK
HAROLD |
Click HERE
to read the latest Ask Harold question and Harold's response
or ask a question of your own!
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UPCOMING
EVENTS |
February 20-21, 2014
ASTD Telling Ain't Training Event, San Diego, CA
March 26-27, 2014
ASTD Telling Ain't Training Event, Nashville, TN
June 11-12, 2014
ASTD Telling Ain't Training Event, Charlotte, NC
July 28-29, 2014
ASTD Training Ain't Performance Event, San Francisco, CA
September 9-10, 2014
ASTD Telling Ain't Training Event, Seattle, WA
September 16-17, 2014
ASTD Training Ain't Performance Event, Atlanta, GA
October 13-14, 2014
ASTD Training Ain't Performance Event, Chicago, IL
October 23-24, 2014
ASTD Telling Ain't Training Event, Denver, CO
November 4-5, 2014
ASTD Telling Ain't Training Event, Washington, DC
For details about these events, click HERE
To learn more about engaging Harold Stolovitch to speak at
your organization, click HERE
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CPT
DESIGNATION |
Harold Stolovitch and Erica Keeps are Certified Performance
Technologists (CPT). The CPT designation is awarded by the
International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) to
experienced practitioners in the field of organizational performance
improvement, whose work meets both the performance-based Standards
of Performance Technology and application requirements. For
more information, visit www.ispi.org.
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A
Time to Look Forward...and Back
At
the beginning of a new year, we all tend to be focused on the year
ahead: Our plans, aspirations, and dreams. However, it is also a
wonderful time to look back and review one's accomplishments. How
quickly we forget what once was the year or decade ahead of us!
It was during one of these reflective moments that the idea came
to mind that newer isn't necessarily better. A bit of nostalgia
crept in and suddenly we found ourselves revisiting our newsletters
and articles for the past several years. We found a wealth of articles
that chronicled our development as an organization and as professionals.
It then occurred to us that it would be both fun and beneficial
to republish some of our "older and more seasoned" articles
as "oldies but goodies"...kind of a retrospective. So,
beginning with this issue, that is exactly what we will do. We hope
you enjoy the journey with us. By the way, if you are interested
in more oldies, feel free to access any of our newsletter or articles
from our website: www.hsa-lps.com
under Publications. You have our permission to reprint and use them
in your organization provided you credit them appropriately.
Make it a great year!
Erica and Harold
Selecting
Trainers Within Your Organization
Changes
in technology, on-boarding of new hires, preparing workers
to deal with significant organizational changes, introduction
of new processes, products, procedures or markets...all of
these will require new behaviors and accomplishments for your
workforce. To ensure that employees perform in desired ways,
organizations generally turn to training as the major means
for successfully achieving this transformation. Organizations,
faced with the challenges listed above and lacking sufficient
numbers of learning and development or workplace learning
and performance specialists, have little choice but to select
in-house personnel to become the trainers who will make it
all happen. In most companies, the majority of "trainers"
are employees who have demonstrated strong capability in performing
their specialty work, appear to communicate well and who are
available to take on the educational role offered them. Sometimes
they are "volunteered" into the role.
If there is a valid need to build new competencies within
the workforce and training is an appropriate way to do this,
then it becomes imperative that those selected to conduct
the skill-knowledge building sessions be up to the task. Poor
training is an immense waste of time and resources and results
in little to no transfer to the job. It is essential to select
the right people from your organization to become trainers.
Training is as much a trade or profession as whatever the
people's current work specialty is. Important rule (and if
you don't believe us, reflect on all of the teachers and trainers
you had): It is not everyone who is cut out for the job.
What follows is a solid starter list of criteria for selecting
appropriate internal employees to assume the mantle of trainer.
Click HERE
to continue reading.
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An
Oldie but Goodie by Harold Stolovitch
Several years ago, I wrote an article about what I had labeled
as "The Pamela Syndrome." It was triggered by watching
a four-year old deeply engaged in a play activity. It started
me on a course of reflection about our practices as learning
and performance professionals. I enjoyed writing the piece
and later expanded it into a short chapter for a book. I was
pleased when the editor of this newsletter asked me to contribute
something I had previously published that could be characterized
as an "Oldie but Goodie." This qualifies as a somewhat
Oldie. Goodie? You will have to decide.
Front-End Analysis, Implementation,
Planning, and Evaluation: Breaking Out of the Pamela Syndrome
Last Saturday, I watched, intrigued, as four year-old Pamela
painstakingly put together a hundred-piece puzzle. The concentration,
the frustration, the energy. The attempts to match color,
shape, and pattern. Finally, the transcendent joy of success
as Pamela triumphantly fit in the last piece. After a long
and arduous struggle, she finally succeeded in achieving her
goal, despite all obstacles and adversity. As Pamela sat gazing
at her completed puzzle, I leaned over and softly asked what
she was going to do with it. She stared at me for a few moments,
blinked, and then, with a patient sigh - due, no doubt, to
my obvious ignorance - informed me in a patronizing manner,
"It'll go back in the box and onto my puzzle shelf."
Marrying action to word, she pulled apart the puzzle she had
been working on for so long and with so much effort, stuffed
chunks of it into the box, placed it on her special puzzle
shelf, drew another one down, and began afresh...
There is something inherently fascinating about putting things
together. In the field of learning and performance, this attraction
manifests itself very obviously in the time, effort, and resources
we expend to create and build interventions. There is the
rush and thrill we experience when we receive the green light
to develop the training, create the performance-support tools,
produce the job aid, or set up the new knowledge management
system. The
work is intense. Drawing together all the disparate elements
is a challenging, frustrating, yet in the end, exhilarating
experience. We analyze, design, redesign, develop, try out,
revise, and finally produce our learning or performance products.
We have succeeded! We have completed the puzzle. Then, like
Pamela, too often we place our latest masterpiece on the shelf,
where, after a short time, it gets forgotten in the excitement
of the next new
challenge.
Interested in reading
the rest of this article? Click HERE
to read "Front-End Analysis, Implementation, Planning,
and Evaluation: Breaking Out of the Pamela Syndrome."
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Looking
for Resources to Train Your Trainers?
HSA
offers a variety of training delivery workshops designed specifically
to provide skill and knowledge development of internal trainers.
Visit our website at www.hsa-lps.com
to learn more about these one, two and three day workshops.
Harold Stolovitch personally delivers our on-site workshops
in organizations all over the world. HSA has no "shelf"
programs. After discussing the characteristics and requirements
of the employee-participants with clients, Harold customizes
the agenda, participant manual and delivery to meet the organization's
needs.
To schedule a workshop
or learn more about HSA's workshops in training delivery,
instructional design or performance consulting, contact Erica
Keeps at ekeeps@hsa-lps.com
or by telephone at 310.286.2722.
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Recent
Press
Guy Wallace, CPT of EPPIC Inc. recently
featured Harold Stolovitch as his first
Friday Favorite Guru on his blog. Click HERE
to read the write-up and view the videos.
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Telling
Ain't Training Participants Say Yay!
"Last year, I attended a presentation you did in Atlanta
about your book Telling Ain't Training. I just want
to thank you for your insightful work. It has been a process
to get from where I was at that point to where I am now, but
your book and presentation have been pivotal in my career.
I am now able to create plans for lessons quickly and effectively
. This was drawn to my attention as I watched a colleague
present a lesson today and then presented mine immediately
after. Following your formulas made my lesson much more cohesive
than his (I know that is a biased opinion). Thank you so much
for the difference you have made in my work."
- J.L. Pope, Instructional Designer for a major
worldwide religion
"I recently attended the Telling
Ain't Training Conference. I work for the Katy Independent
School District as the Technology Training Supervisor. I am
always looking for new and creative ways to make my training
fun and memorable. I find that many times technology falls
into the "training" mode. The participants do not
take anything with them when they leave other that what was
shown in class. True, they may be able to "do" what
was taught in the session, however, I am never satisfied unless
I know that the learning continues into their "real word"
(life back in the cubicle or in the classroom). I am not tooting
my own horn here by any means but I was trying to figure out
why all of my course evaluations tend to be higher than the
other trainers....Well, I have figured out why.
Several reasons:
1. I connect with my participants. I find out who each of
them is as they enter the room or by a group introduction.
2. By connecting with the learner first, it helps me figure
out the direction I need to take the class so that I can give
them examples from their world.
3. I try to tap into each learner's way of seeing the world.
This can be a bit difficult since it is technology, however
I can do it most of the time.
4. I have created activities in all of my sessions that participants
apply and use before they leave the class, no matter how short
or long the session is. In fact, I have made most sessions
a little longer to include activities. (I did not do this
as much before I went to the conference.)
I am sure I do other things as well, however, these four points
came to mind as I was reading your book again. In fact, I
believe in Telling Ain't Training so much that I have ordered
five copies and am going to do a book study with the five
trainers we have in our district.
I am at the TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) conference
this week and I had time today to sit and focus on your book
again. (I called this my Ken Retreat). I am so excited to
get the opportunity to share the information from your book
with my trainers. I feel they will benefit and be brought
up to the next level.
Thanks for your expertise and if you are ever in Katy, Texas
look me up!"
- Kenyon Boswell, Technology
Training Supervisor,
Katy Independent School District
Interested in an upcoming
Telling Ain't Training Event?
Click HERE
to learn more.
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