Effective Training: Learning To Shut Up!

One of the hardest things for trainers to learn to do is to SHUT UP! Let's be honest, what draws many of us to a training role is the opportunity to be in the spotlight. Most of us trainers are comfortable (maybe even happy) in front of a group. We might even like the little ego stroke we get from "pontificating" on subjects and being viewed as "experts" within the organization. But sometimes, our own egos can get in the way of learning.

A colleague of mine gave me this advice several years ago in regards to delivering training. I'm not saying I'm the best at following this advice but it's a great counsel all the same. He says if you have a choice between a lecture and an activity, ALWAYS go with the activity. But wait, if I'm using activities all the time I won't be able to share my wit and wisdom with the class! I won't be able to be in the spotlight! My friends response to that would be, after a deadpan expression, "....and your point is?"

Effective Leadership: Are you a "Steve Jobs" or "Bobby Knight" Leader?

David Aaker at the Harvard Business Review has an excellent post, "Steve Jobs and the Bobby Knight School of Leadership". It raises a few interesting questions? Would their management styles be tolerated if they weren't so successful? Would their management styles be effective with Gen Y'ers and Millenials? Could they have been even more successful if they had learned to scale back their negative behaviors?

Corporate Culture: 10 Warning Signs of a Toxic Boss at the Interview

Here's some information on how to determine a bad potential boss:

10 Warning Signs of a Toxic Boss at the Interview

Effective Leadership: The secret to happiness...

I had the opportunity to attend the ASTD national conference in Washington DC this past week. It was a great experience and I'll try to get a few posts up specific to what I learned. One recurring theme reminded me of a comedian I heard a few years back. His bit went something like this: "Hey, you want to know the secret to happiness? Lower your goals!" He may have meant it as a joke, but there's a nugget of truth in his statement; though I would rephrase it a bit. I wouldn't say to lower your goals but to have fewer goals.

One of the conference sessions I attended featured Ken Blanchard, author of "The One-Minute Manager", who applied this take on the Pareto principle: 20 percent of what a person does accounts for 80 percent of their success. Think about that. Most of our success comes down to just a few key behaviors! This concept lines up with the findings in an awesome book called "Influencer" which says the key to changing behavior is to identify the few "vital behaviors" instead of trying to change a laundry list of behaviors.

In managing the performance of our teams we will likely have much more success focusing on a few rather than many behaviors. It's no different on a personal level - we can't beat ourselves up over a litany of behaviors. Instead, we should focus on those vital behaviors that will have the most impact.

More to come....

Effective Leadership: "Sit right back and you'll hear a tale..."

I've always had a great affinity for Gilligan; I grew up watching reruns of Gilligan's Island every day after school; I can sing the theme song (both versions! If you're a true Gilligan afficienado you know what I'm talking about) word for word; I've even been told I have an uncanny resemblance to Gilligan himself - not sure if I should be proud of that or not. Believe it or not, I learned a few good lessons from "little buddy."

Remember the episode where Gilligan makes a set of wings? In one scene he has his wings on and is flapping madly and actually hovering about ten feet off the ground. He says "Skipper! Skipper! Look at me! I'm flying!." Skipper replies, "You can't fly! It's impossible! Get down from there!" So Gilligan dejectedly crashes to the ground. Gilligan was actually flying until Skipper "shot him down" with what he said.

Here's the moral to that little story: People have a tendancy to live up to their expectations. If you set the bar low - guess what - that's exactly what you get. If you set the bar high - that's exactly what you'll get. This is basically the same theme as my last post. We can "condition" people to perform (or not perform) by what we say (or don't say) to them.

Negative conditioning or negative messages have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. As an example, look at our current economic situation. For the past 18 months the media has been bombarding us with how bad the economy was. Even though the vast majority of Americans were still doing ok financially, the media (and some politicians') constant drum beat about the economy forced people to actually change their behavior - in a way that just caused more harm to the economy - they spent less money! Don't get me wrong, there are some major issues going on in our economy right now but if you believed what much of the media and politicos are saying we are on the verge of armageddon. The reality is the economy today is bad, but no where near as bad as it was even during the late 70's and early 80's. It goes to show if you say something often enough and loud enough people will begin to believe it and act the part.

Good leaders inspire. Good leaders play on the positive not the negative. Good leaders bring out the best in people - not the worst.

If the Skipper would've been on his game in that episode he would have encouraged Gilligan in his apparent successful attempts at flying. Who knows, maybe they could have flown off the island years sooner? Anything would've been better than the professor's coconut powered distress beacon!