Training & development learning well May blog post round up
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Training & development
This is the first Rock.Paper.Scissors’ monthly training & development round up. You’ll find all the blog posts for the month of May below.
Learn well in the training & development learning well.
Dive deep into the learning well or take a small sip. Shower yourself in training & development or just get your big toe wet.
Refresh & refreshing.
As you wish.
Tags: learning well, roundup, training & development
Learning Perspective – Paper vrs Rock
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Creativity & innovation, Training & development
Learning perspective.
In my dictionary that’s what we’re all about as training and development specialists.
In my dictionary that means creating a culture in both our training and development content and delivery that supports:
…taking a second look
…finding a new outlook
…re-examining perspectives, even (especially) those perspectives we’ve held for a lifetime.
‘nuf said.
Love this picture.
Tags: learning perspective, perspective, training & development
How do you see success? A view from a clown & the Life Lenses™
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Business & organizational development
Cartoon © Randy Glasbergen, used with permission from www.glasbergen.com
I had my chuckle of the day when a client, from the organization called S.U.C.C.E.S.S no less, sent me the above cartoon.
What’s your idea of success?
It’s a perspective clearing question. Your aim is true and clear if you know what you value success-wise. Here are some lenses on success.
Success from a Carrot Life Lens™ perspective: with a detailed, grounded, focused view, Carrots see success through a thorough, well-planned, systematic approach (systems being their 7-letter love fest).
Success from a Mountain Life Lens™ perspective: with a broad, sweeping view from above, Mountains view success in terms of trends and the BIG picture.
Success from a Stop Life Lens™ perspective: with a reflective, thoughtful view, Stops see success as something to be carefully considered and researched, not something to be rushed into.
Success from a Go Life Lens™ perspective: with a ‘let’s try it, jump in’ approach, Gos view success in terms of a smorgasbord of opportunities – sampling things along the way and turning on a dime, changing plans at a drop if need be.
Success from a Journey Life Lens™ perspective: with a ‘let’s stop and smell the roses’ approach, Journeys’ take on success is organic and iterative. The point isn’t to ‘get’ somewhere but rather to enjoy the path along the way.
Success from a Destination Life Lens™ perspective: always having a goal in mind, Destinations are sure-footed when it comes to beating a path to success. They are focused and determined in reaching their goals.
Success from a Heart Life Lens™ perspective: with a well-developed intuition Hearts go with their gut and intuitively know their path to success. Their success will be subjective.
Success from a Head Life Lens™ perspective: with a view towards the tangible, Heads focus on checks and balances, facts and figures. Their success will be objective. Period.
And you? What combination are you? How do your Life Lenses™, the lenses that affect your worldview and your perspective, also affect your take on success?
*** To support Randy’s cartoons please visit his website where you’ll find his cartoons on posters, mugs, t-shirts and other fun gift items.
Tags: carrot lens, destination lens, go lens, head lens, heart lens, journey lens, life lenses, mountain lens, randy glasbergen, stop lens, success
Storytelling as a culture builder – 3 funny resources to help you get storytelling
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Business & organizational development, Human resources
Storytelling is an underused strategic tool for building and maintaining great organizations. In my last two posts I covered 9 tips to help you get storytelling and three resources to help you get going.
Now for three funny resources to tickle your storytelling funny bone:
1. Listen to how this feisty grandma, a former nurse, tells of meeting her husband while he was in for hemorrhoid surgery (4:18 min)! The technique draws you in as the audio is set to a cartoon.
2. If you can breath between laughing take note of comedian Jeanne Robertson’s storytelling technique in the video below as she talks about how you shouldn’t send a man to the grocery store. The whole video is 7:53 min but you can start at 1:55 if time is tight – the gist is she’s sent her husband to the store with a list of ingredients to buy for making cakes.
3. Check this out for none other than a periodic table of storytelling!
Want to know more? Check out the storytelling article with 9 tips & more resources listed here in Rock.Paper.Scissors Inc.’s latest e-newsletter.
Tags: corporate storytelling, jeanne robertson, periodic table of storytelling, storytelling
Storytelling as a culture builder – 3 resources to help you get storytelling
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Business & organizational development, Human resources
Storytelling is a strategic tool for building organizational culture, managing change, teambuilding and more. In my last post I covered 9 tips to help you get storytelling.
Here are three resources to assist you in your storytelling journey:
- Check out Springboard, the classic book by Stephen Denning, considered the grand-daddy of using storytelling as an engagement tool.
- Daniel Pink’s book Whole New Mind has a fantastic section on storytelling.
- The Heath Brother’s book Made to Stick also has a great section on storytelling I highly recommend.
Want to know more? Check out the storytelling article with 9 tips & more resources listed here in Rock.Paper.Scissors Inc.’s latest e-newsletter.
Tags: corporate storytelling, Daniel Pink, heath brothers, made to stick, springboard, stephen denning, storytelling
Storytelling as a culture builder – how feather dusters & snow globes can help
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Business & organizational development, Human resources
‘Tell me a story’ are words to make most people’s blood pressure increase. Just as North American corporate audiences don’t tend to sing or draw in public, we don’t tend to tell stories either.
Or do we?
The background story
We all tell stories and we tell them all the time. We just may not call it storytelling. Fact is storytelling is powerful. Storytelling is an agent for: increasing employee engagement, managing change, training and development, interviewing, evaluation, operations, marketing, building corporate culture and more.
Social media rests on our powerful urge to tell and be told stories. The recent popularity of infographics (depicting information, knowledge or data visually) is all about making information more interesting by making it tell a story.
Our brains are wired for storytelling. Stories live in long-term memory, while facts tend to live in short-term memory. Author Daniel Pink, in Whole New Mind, says facts are widely available, it’s putting them into context that makes a connection. Stories increase retention.
Putting stories in the forefront
Curious but unsure how to go about telling or gathering stories? Here’s a nine point storytelling checklist.
1. What’s your muse?
Examples of inspiration for storytelling are all around you. Just take a look. I noticed a client’s receptionist desk was full of snow globes. Curious, I asked about them. Turns out the receptionist was a fan of said snowy pieces and staff would bring her back one from their various travels. What a great jumping off point for a story. Globes could be pictured in the company newsletter with a story of the staff’s travels. Easy? Yes. A tool for employee engagement? Yes.
2. Check your story to make sure it has a beginning, middle and end.
3. Make sure you know the purpose of your story.
Be clear about what are you trying to achieve before you start collecting or creating stories. Are you dealing with a large-scale change? Trying to increase employee engagement? Beef up your corporate culture? Once you know what you’re trying to achieve the stories will flow more easily.
I once worked with a multi-national client where some employees had been active on Facebook telling negative stories about the company. I was called in to help. Essentially I gathered stories that focused on building the corporate culture. The effect was dramatic. Staff felt heard and changes were made.
4. Make sure your story has people + problem (or characters + conflict).
Good stories have a problem or conflict plus a cast of people or characters. The resolution of the conflict is what makes those who are listening curious and engaged. What conflict or problem are you dealing with that could benefit from storytelling?
5. Map your story for ways to leverage curiousity.
‘Ah ha is most powerful when preceded by huh?!’ say the Heath brothers in Made to Stick. Curiousity is gold. Our brains not only love curiosity but more importantly, love to resolve curiosity. Find a story that makes listeners curious and you’ve got gold.
6. Use a feather duster to brush off uninvited guests – a.k.a. check the organizational conditions for storytelling conduciveness.
Stories bypass negativity and judgments. Stories have the power to suspend disbelief BUT organizational conditions have to be conducive for the magic to unfold. Have someone who repeatedly rolls his or her eyes? Does someone else tend towards snippy comments like ‘this will never work’? Or perhaps folks are nervous and you’re hearing things like ‘this is too hard, I can’t do this.’
The solution to these storytelling squashers? Imagine a feather duster brushing off your and/or their shoulder while saying ‘uninvited guest’. Setting the ground rules with an imaginary (or real) feather duster makes a huge difference to people’s receptivity. If the organization isn’t receptive or isn’t prepped properly stories tend to fall flat.
7. Add texture & details.
Good stories transport you and this happens in good part because of adding texture and details. What’s happening to the character’s body while they’re experiencing conflict – for example ‘her throat felt like someone had reached inside and squeezed’ is more transporting than ‘she was nervous.’
8. What’s your message?
What message are you trying to convey? A helpful way to think about your message is to base it on an archetype – for example Nike portrays itself as the brave hero while Virgin is the adventurer. Lego is the creator while M&M’s is the joker.[1] What’s yours?
9. What values does your story portray?
Make sure the values of your story match what values you want to be portraying. I was told a story about a VP who has to approve all company tweets before they get posted. If the company is trying to convey transparency and openness this is not a good story to be making the rounds!
The moral of the story
Storytelling is a powerful medium that can be used in a wide variety of ways to effect positive organizational change. Grab your feather duster and your version of a snow globe and get story gathering and telling.
Want to know more? Check out the storytelling resources listed in Rock.Paper.Scissors Inc.’s latest e-newsletter.
[1] Source: Sam Reynolds, Echo Memoirs
Tags: change management, Daniel Pink, echo memoirs, engagement, infographics, made to stick, organizational culture, sam reynolds, storytelling
Assumptions – those sneaky, sly fellows that wreak havoc
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Communication, Conflict resolution
I’m a huge fan of assumptions, or rather busting those sneaky, sly fellows before they have a chance to loom large.
Making assumptions is the cause of a good deal of conflict, of misperceptions, of stereotyping and of generally mis-seeing our colleagues, companies and collective communities.
As big a role as assumption making plays in making business slide sideways, assumptions are decidedly difficult to see let alone break.
Here are three examples ~
1. One the entrepreneurial front:
I recently had the pleasure of speaking at Melody Biringer’s Crave book launch – Craving Success – a startup junkie’s path from passion to profits. The book’s a winner, easy to read, informative and entertaining. What’s more Melody talks about assumption busting. For her successful Crave book series (a series of books that profile women-owned businesses city by city) Melody turned an assumption on its head.
The assumption? That Melodie had to front the cost of publishing the books. The assumption busting? That she now charges profiled women business owners for a guaranteed number copies in advance. Clever? You bet. That’s the power of busting assumptions.
2. On the home front:
I recently wrote a post called Tipsy fridges that tip learning over the top which is about how much I learned from a freezer door that wouldn’t close. The door repeatedly wouldn’t close properly and I tried everything to make it work. The first thing I tried was making sure nothing in the freezer was blocking it from closing. I was sure there wasn’t.
Many strategies (and curse words) later, I came back to my original assumption – that nothing was blocking the door. Turns out the box of frozen veggie burgers were slightly sticking out.
Scoreboard – Assumption – 1 Me – 0
2. On the work front:
A while back I did a training for a client on team building that I will never forget. Oddly it came out that the participants vehemently, passionately, fervently believed that old … men. who wore hats … were really bad drivers.
An assumption? You bet. A stereotype? Of course. What does wearing a hat have to do with how you drive? Nada. But to this group it was Truth.
That’s the power of assumptions to blind you.
The next time you’re faced with a tricky situation see if you can tease out any assumptions you’re making. I promise you it will change the view.
Tags: assumptions, confict resolution, crave, melody biringer, perspective
My stop then go kid & what I learned from buying a spatula
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness, Communication, Creativity & innovation
I have two kids. One is an extremer Stop Life Lens™ and 1 is an extremer Go Life Lens™.
(Go Life Lenses™ being oriented towards action – yes, let’s try it, jump in! and Stop Life Lenses™ being oriented towards reflection, rumination and thinking it over – hang on, wait a minute, let me think!).
My youngest stops, then pauses, pauses some more and then goes. Surprises? Nix ’em. He doesn’t like them. He’s a pro at weighing the pros and cons, reflecting and thinking about things.
He’s a “muser”.
While it can be tough to get him to try something new, once he’s in he’s IN. No waffling. No debating. Count him in.
He’s currently into cooking. Recently we went shopping for some cooking supplies for him. He spent 15 minutes debating the merits of one spatula over another.
- how long would it last?
- how good would it be at picking stuff up?
- specifically would the shape of the ‘pick up edge part’ make any difference (who knew there were so many parts to a spatula)?
- what did the cut out design (on the picker-upper part) on one have over another? (did you know there are different cut out designs? I didn’t.)
- what was the right price to spend?
- how did it feel in his hand?
It was a fascinating tour through the mind of a Stop Life Lens™ and the gifts they bring …. contemplation, reflection and musing.
By the way, he got a spatula that he absolutely loves. That’s it above. Turns out (no pun intended) it’s now my favourite too.
Tags: contemplation, go lens, lessons in learning, musing, reflection, stop lens
He ain’t heavy, he’s my (misinformed) brother – how a little information can go a wrong way
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Human resources, Humor & comedy, Training & development
Warning: this post is a little graphic. I decided to run it because I originally received the joke from my mum-in-law. I figured if she found it funny you may too.
Two young boys walked into a pharmacy one day, picked out a box of tampons and preceded to the checkout counter.
The man at the counter asked the older boy, “Son, how old are you?”
“Eight,” the boy replied.
The man continued, “Do you know what these are used for?”
The boy replied, “Not exactly, but they aren’t for me. They’re for him. He’s my brother. He’s four. We saw on TV that if you use these you would be able to swim and ride a bike. Right now, he can’t do either.”
As training and development specialists we walk a fine line of making learning open, transparent and accessible with opening organizational systems up for possible wreckage. Not being trained properly in safety systems could result in loosing a limb. Not being trained properly in database management could result in loosing your database.
A little information can go a wrong way. Sometimes it’s painful, sometimes it’s funny. Without being paranoid or dwelling on it to the exclusion of all else (as the VP I heard about who has to approve all tweets) it’s best to think about how the content you’re training could be misused.
Tags: organizational development, perspective, safety, training & development
Learning can be stressful – throwing learning to the dogs
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Change management & wellness, Training & development
If stress can cause this kind of physical response in dogs imagine what a nervous learner can be suffering!
Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all. ~ Thomas Szasz, U.S psychiatrist
Here’s to training that soothes ruffled feathers, calms the nerves and is both welcoming and inclusive … so that learning can happen.
Tags: learning, self-esteem, stress, stress response, thomas szasz