Section 2.2 in the CPTD Certification program for ATD is Instructional Design. The first bullet reads, ”Skill in selecting and aligning delivery options and media for training and/or learning events to the desired learning or behavioral outcomes.”
In this article, I will describe the process I have developed that has worked well for me over the past 20 years.
Step 1 Meet with the team and the leaders
I set up a few meetings to understand what they want to accomplish by an intervention. In these meetings I am like a sponge just soaking up the various bits of input. Usually the issue of trust is one factor in why they want some training, so I often recommend a trust survey to add to the data base.
Step 2 Administer a Trust Survey
I have developed my own version, but there are also commercial trust surveys that can be employed. My version identifies the general trust level and measures it in the specific organizational layers. For example: it is common for the higher levels in an organization to believe trust is at a pretty high level. When you get to the lower levels, the data spreads out and many people feel trust is pretty low.
My survey also has 30 areas where there could be an issue causing lower trust. For example, accountability and/or transparency often surface as an issue within an organization.
I feed back the information to the team and watch their reactions to it. It is generally a positive reaction, like I am on the right track.
Step 3 Look at extant data
The organization will likely have internal surveys for quality of work life or turnover data. They might have investigations of employee complaints. I gather all of the information they are willing to share with me.
Step 4 Identify most urgent training needs
This is done with another quick survey in which I identify over 80 different potential training topics and ask each participant to identify, for each one, what is his or her opinion of the urgency for training on the following scale:
0= no need at this time 1= routine – may be a little helpful 2= Important now – this topic would be very helpful 3= Urgent – we really need this right now
The 80 different topics cover a wide range of potential topics, such as, Communication skills, Emotional Intelligence, Understanding Body Language, Leading Successful Change Programs, Customer Service, etc.
Step 5 Winnow down the field
I now go into an analysis phase where I take all the data I have gathered (usually in just a few days) and compare it to a set of modules that I have built that cover about 100 different training topics.
Based on the data, I run a “comb” through the 100 potential topic areas and out pops a subset (normally 10-20 topics). This is the core elements of a custom program for that organization.
I put the topics in a logical order, so there will be a logical flow and schedule a meeting with the leaders. This meeting is usually less than a week from the first moment I walked into the organization.
Step 6 Gain Commitment
At the meeting I summarize the data that has been collected and then show an outline of the development program that was custom designed to meet their needs.
At this point, I almost always get a positive reaction to the proposal, because the data came from them. I recall one CEO looking at the proposal and writing BINGO next to the 7 action items I listed.
By this point I have not charged the client anything for my effort. I can give a pretty accurate estimate of the number of sessions that will be required and also the fee I would charge. My batting average for approvals is close to 90%.
Step 7 Customize the training for their particular industry
This is where I design the program to fit the specific company and industry. A program for a manufacturing plant will be quite different from a hospital or a financial planning office. I also customize the role-playing exercises, body sculptures, photographs on my slides to be for that specific industry.
I will use the company logo and any pictures of the actual people I can get in the program.
Step 8 Spice it up
In every training event, I include several stories to illustrate my points in an entertaining way. I also use magic illusions that relate directly to the concepts I am training. The illusions keep people on their toes but also each one is related to the topic I am teaching at the moment. I have hundreds of illusions to draw from.
By breaking up the training with experiential things that involve the participants in physical activities, I can keep the groups fresh and having fun while they learn the vital skills.
I have found this eight-step process allows me to efficiently handle a variety of clients in totally different industries but remain effective with my instructional design.
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations.
Every day when people go to work in organizations, or work from home, they give effort to further the cause of the group. That is about as much as we can say for the general population.
The amount of effort as a percentage of what is available varies greatly from one person to another and from one organization to another. The effort for one particular person also varies significantly from one point in time to another.
Each of us has a vast storehouse of “discretionary” effort that we either give or withhold on a daily basis. Let’s examine the factors that govern why some people freely choose to give a lot more of their discretionary effort to their organization while others, equally qualified, habitually hold back most of their potential.
Of course, it has to do with motivation. On any given day, some of us are motivated to go above and beyond the requirements and others are turned off.
Can you imagine the power if there was a way to have most people in the organization fully engaged in the work and motivated most of the time? The result would be a huge productivity improvement for any organization.
The interesting thing to me is that the formula for giving maximum discretionary effort is different for each of us. No two people are completely alike, although there are many things that universally turn people off, the formula for turning an individual on is personal.
What follows is a method to discover your key to maximum discretionary effort.
First, visualize a time in your life when you performed at a peak level for an extended period of time of your own free will. Remember the circumstances by which you compelled yourself to put forth incredible effort, often with little rest or breaks.
Try to identify what it was in that set of circumstances that enabled you to perform at that level. Here are some examples of what people have thought of for this exercise:
• I had to do it because it needed to be done, and I was the only one that could do it. • It was a huge challenge; I was told it was impossible. • I felt empowered; finally I was cut loose to do it my way. • It was just important for me to get this done. • I was aspiring to prove something to myself. • I had to show them what I was made of. • It was do or die, so I did. • My team believed in me, so I had to do it. • I understood the goal and it was important to me.
Keep working at it until you have identified the true essence of what enabled you to perform at that level. Write it down in one single sentence.
The sentence you wrote will be your personal specification for giving your maximum discretionary effort. Many times in life you can configure work to align with this kind of statement. When you do, you will instinctively be performing with at least twice the productivity of your usual pace.
The beauty of this simple exercise comes when you do it as a group activity. I recall one meeting where I had a corporate Vice President with his whole team, and we did this exercise. It turns out the VP was most energized when he had to parachute into the jungle with a knife between his teeth.
His subordinates were turned on when they were trusted and empowered to get things done in their own way.
The ensuing discussion revealed why there had been so much tension in the organization. Subsequent coaching of the VP led to much higher performance among his direct reports.
You can do this experiment at any level in the organization. Not only will it help you understand yourself better, it will also give you new insight into how to lead your employees.
The preceding information was adapted from the book, The TRUST Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, by Robert Whipple. It is available on http://www.leadergrow.com
What is the biggest waste of time at your place of work? For most professional employees, the answer is, “meetings.”
Each of us has experienced frustration with ineffective meetings. Most of these are face-to-face situations where a bunch of people gather around a conference table with an objective to accomplish something.
Meetings also happen on the phone and online; the venue does not matter. It feels like the “process” is painfully slow, and the progress is difficult to appreciate.
If you have not experienced this, check your pulse; you may be dead.
More productive Meetings
Let me start with a question. What is the most precious commodity in the world? Stop reading and think about this question. I really want you to ponder what is precious. Is it “love,” “money,” faith,” “family,” “freedom,” “health”? Give it some real thought before you read on.
To answer the question, how would you define “precious?” You might equate it with value in terms of intrinsic or extrinsic reward. You might view it in a social or family context.
I believe there are two factors that make something precious: how difficult it is to obtain, and how important it is. It is the old “supply and demand” analysis. If something is in great demand, but is extremely scarce, it will be incredibly precious.
Take diamonds, for example. They are highly prized by human beings (not sure why) and they are extremely difficult to find (because they look like regular rocks in their natural state and there are so few of them.)
For example, there is a story told by Earl Nightingale about a poor farmer in Africa. He was unable to sustain his family because the soil on his farm was too arid. He tried to grow crops for years and tried to irrigate the land, but the soil was too weak.
Finally, he heard of the discovery of diamonds in a mountain region in another area. He sold his farm and moved to the mountains to prospect for diamonds. He never found any and his family perished.
Meanwhile, the person who bought his land for a pittance found an interesting rock that he took home and placed on his mantle. A couple years later, a visiting geologist recognized the kind of rock and asked the farmer if he knew what it was.
To his amazement, it turned out to be the largest diamond ever found in Africa. Further, the property was replete with similar rocks. It turned out to be the richest area for diamonds in the country.
So, the original farmer was literally surrounded by “acres of diamonds,” but did not realize it. He went to seek his fortune elsewhere and perished with his family due to starvation.
Leaders in the workplace are also surrounded by acres of “diamonds,” but we may not realize it. The diamonds are the people in the organization.
If treated right and exposed to the right environment (like polishing) nearly every person will turn into a valuable gem for the organization. The trouble is, most leaders, just like the original farmer, fail to realize the incredible value that surrounds them every day. What a crime.
If you will accept the “supply and demand” argument for what makes things precious, let’s explore what is the one thing in this world that is truly scarce. What is it that we cannot get more of no matter how we try.
Is it love? No, we can get more of that. Is it money? Certainly not. Is it any kind of metal or mineral? No. Is it faith? No, we can increase that by changing our viewpoint. I submit it is time.
Oh sure, we can increase our total time on earth by improving our health risk factors, but I am talking about the time we each have every day. We each get exactly 24 hours every day. Nothing we can do will increase that. No one gets less, and no one gets more.
We all want more time desperately, but none of us can get more of it on a daily basis it. It is fixed. Therefore, by the law of supply and demand, time is the most precious commodity.
What does this have to do with meetings? Well, if you are like most people, one of your top time wasters is meetings. We need to make them more efficient and productive.
If we do this well, we have more time for the other important things in life. In fact, by increasing our effectiveness at meetings, we can actually “manufacture” time for later use. We can “Save time in a bottle,” as Jim Croce put it.
Would that be worth it? Well, that is probably the easiest way to get some more of the most precious commodity for yourself and your team. Let’s examine some of the typical time wasters in meetings and suggest some antidotes. We’ll start with the granddaddy of them all.
Griping
Griping is the most significant time waster in meetings. Think about it. You know the routine. Everyone arrives at the meeting with their head full of issues and problems they are dealing with in their working world.
As the “early birds” are patiently waiting (by the way, having people arrive late is another huge time waster) for the late members, someone says something like, “Can you believe they are increasing our medical deductions again?”
That gets someone else to chime in on how unfair it is, and pretty soon the floodgates are open. Out pours fresh steaming venom onto the table.
When everyone has finally arrived and the group is immersed in self-pity and derogatory remarks about the cost of medical insurance. If gone unchecked, this can go on for most of the meeting, completely usurping the original agenda.
The antidote to this waste of time rests with the leader. He/she is responsible for keeping the agenda and not letting the meeting lapse into a gripe session. An easy technique is to acknowledge a need for the group to do some venting, but put a “stop loss” on it.
The leader might say, “It looks like there is a lot of energy around the medical deductions. How much time do we want to spend on this subject before we launch into the positive things that must be accomplished in this meeting?”
The group might agree to spend 5 more minutes venting. It is now up to the leader to stop the discussion after the 5 minutes and say, “OK, we all agreed to move on after 5 minutes. Any more gripes about the benefits will be done outside this meeting. Let’s move on to the agenda and make some positive steps toward our vision.”
If people persist in venting, it is up to the leader to shut this down.
Have an agenda
An agenda is very important for any meeting. If it is worth getting everyone together, it is worth a few minutes to set the topics and objectives for the meeting. This can prevent wasting time when the team wants to wander off topic. Again, it is up to the leader to keep the group on task.
Summarize frequently
An often-ignored technique in meetings is the periodic summary of decisions. This can be a real time-saver. After 10 minutes of discussion on the new safety policy, the leader might say, “Let me summarize this discussion. We seem to be agreeing that we will set a new goal of zero lost time accidents for the next quarter. Is everyone on board with this decision?”
If the entire group agrees, then move on to the next topic. Have the notes indicate a decision was made by the group. If this step is omitted, there is no firm commitment to the decision.
People will talk around and about a topic and everyone will have their own opinion of the outcome. You can leave a meeting with wide variations in people’s minds about what actually happened. Summarizing each point as it is made, prevents this problem.
Summarizing also puts a cap on each topic, so the group moves through the agenda efficiently. The role of the leader is to facilitate the process. Done well, this will maximize the benefit of the time spent together.
Handling opposing views
Disagreements can create an incredible waste of time. A point is made, then someone offers a counterpoint. This lapses into a discussion back and forth about the issue. It can, and often does, become acrimonious.
As people “dig in their heels” to defend their position, the argument becomes more intense. Often it gets personal with statements like, “you are always trying to harpoon everything we are trying to do in this team.”
The crime is that, many times the individuals are not that far apart. They are just not listening to each other. I have been in meetings where two individuals spend a lot of time in “violent agreement” with each other, but neither of them realizes it.
Reverse roles
There are two antidotes for this problem. First, get the opposing parties to express the position of the other person in their own words. That will uncover if the argument is a “tempest in a teapot.” It also ensures that each party really understands the opposing viewpoint.
Agree to Disagree
The other technique is the “Rule of Three.” If the point- counterpoint goes on for three iterations, it is unlikely either party is going to “win” the argument. This is the time for the leader to say, “I think you two should agree to disagree on this point. It is evident that neither of you are going to sway the other, so let’s table this discussion or take it outside so we can get back to the agenda.”
Using the Rule of Three can save huge amounts of time in meetings.
Be Punctual
The leader is responsible for starting and ending each meeting on schedule. It is impolite to arrive late for meetings. As a leader, you can stop this behavior simply by not waiting for the lagers.
Make sure there are some important decisions at the start of the meeting. If someone comes in late, do not go back and review what was already done; let the inconsiderate person catch up after the meeting.
I use a technique in my on-ground classes where I go over the hints for the next week’s assignments at the start of the class. Once I had a tardy student turn in the wrong assignment. She came to me and complained that I did not explain the rules well. I told her that the rules were explained at the start of the previous class, but she was not in attendance at that time. She quickly got the message.
The same rules apply in the online environment. If you make a commitment for the start of a meeting at 8 pm, be there at 8 pm. Recognize that there are family or personal emergencies that can make that impossible in rare instances.
The problem is that some people have a tendency to excuse themselves from their obligations on a regular basis. This behavior needs to be extinguished by the team. We need to be sensitive to real emergencies, but intolerant of those who habitually make excuses for holding up others.
These are only a few of the rules to make better use of time in meetings. Most of these are common sense ideas, but they are often forgotten in the normal work environment. The best way to make sure you are not wasting time is to remember how incredibly valuable it is, and act that way.
The preceding information was adapted from the book The TRUST Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, by Robert Whipple. It is available on http://www.leadergrow.com.
Robert Whipple is also the author of Leading with Trust is like Sailing Downwind and, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online. Bob consults and speaks on these and other leadership topics. He is CEO of Leadergrow Inc. a company dedicated to growing leaders.
Section 2.2 in the CPTD Certification program for ATD is Instructional Design. The first bullet reads, ”Skill in selecting and aligning delivery options and media for training and/or learning events to the desired learning or behavioral outcomes.”
Posted by trustambassador 
Every day when people go to work in organizations, or work from home, they give effort to further the cause of the group. That is about as much as we can say for the general population.
What is the biggest waste of time at your place of work? For most professional employees, the answer is, “meetings.”