Know thy audience. When you develop training, you do your best to make it audience sensitive. The same treatment should be afforded the planning of an evaluation or research results presentation. Some of the obvious audience questions to ask and answer are:
• Is the audience all decision makers?
• How do they like results communicated?
• What sorts of presentations have they given “10s” to in the past?
• How do they respond to displays of numbers? Tables? Graphs? Charts? Continue reading
A training task force (TTF) consists of one or more employees who follow an organized plan for drafting training material, usually of a technical nature, that is obviously beyond the capability of in-house program developers. The desired training material is usually ex¬pected to meet a tight target date, be accurate and have credibility.
If managed according to the guidelines set forth in this article, a training task force can accomplish all these objectives. In return, TTF team members receive invaluable exposure to top-level management, thus facilitating their career development. Allstate’s training department frequently uses training task forces be-cause of its large, decentralized structure and because of its high quality standards. Continue reading
In a behavior modeling program, each learner must have an opportunity to practice the new skill. In most cases, it is possible to provide practice opportunities. In certain situations, however, it might not be cost-beneficial to do so. Imagine, for example, that someone advocated that all airline passengers boarding transoceanic flights practice using flotation equipment in water before flying.
The purpose would be to ensure that everyone could float with the flotation device when fully clothed. Those who couldn’t do this would be provided with feedback and coaching on how to use the flotation equipment. Continue reading
Although we might assume that we can readily identify the behaviors to be learned in all skill deficiency situations, many times one set of behaviors is not enough because the skill must be used in a number of significantly different types of situations.
For example, in attempting to train salespeople to build rapport with clients or potential clients, we may find that one set of behaviors is not sufficient because there are many different types of potential clients. Po¬tential clients may, for example, be categorized as: a) reluctant, b) openly hostile, c) needing help in solving a problem, d) friendly, but uncertain of specific needs; each of these requires a different set of behaviors. Continue reading
Since behavior modeling began as an experiment with a few supervisors at General Electric in 1970, it has grown into a learning technology that will be utilized in the training of more than 500,000 supervisors, managers and employees this year. Certainly, the numbers are impressive. But the pragmatist should ask, “How do we know that behavior modeling is the most effective learning experience for every one of those 500,000 learners?” The answer is, “We don’t know and probably never will know.”
Nevertheless, we must ask that question each time a decision is made to use behavior-modeling programs in our organizations. We all have a responsibility to our organizations to use behavior modeling (or any other learning technology) only when it is the most effective and cost-beneficial approach to a given problem. Only through careful deliberation can we determine when and under what circumstances behavior modeling should be used. Continue reading
We recently asked a number of HRD research consultants, evaluation specialists and communication experts to share some words of wisdom on two key show-and-tell questions: “What is the best way to present research results to management?” and “Is there any special knack to presenting bad news outcomes?”
As you would expect of a question containing the phrase, “What is the best way to…,” we received a lot of “it depends” answers. The most frequent “it depends” we heard revolved around the issues of purpose and audience. Continue reading