Navigating a Governance Process around Enterprise Computing

Welcome to the April 2005 issue of Bridging Technology and Learning! Imagine three businesses: one sells computers, a second builds custom houses and a third provides personal counseling services. Now imagine that in six months, they will share a common hiring process, will use the same set of reports to manage their finances, and can only pay for goods and services one way. Welcome to the world of higher-ed enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects.

How can an institution best set itself up to meet the needs of autonomous business units and still manage them effectively as one entity? In this issue, we will explore how to navigate a governance process, one that meets the needs of a central administrative group, while taking into account the concerns and desires of autonomous business units across a college or university.

Best,

Howard

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In higher-ed institutions, enterprise computing projects are caught between a rock and a hard place. While departments perceive the need to conduct business in unique ways, there is an ever demanding need to standardize business practices across the entire institution. Although there are huge technical challenges in bringing consolidated financial, HR or student systems to this business environment, an even greater challenge is taking into account the perceived needs and concerns of semi-autonomous administrative and academic departments.

At the heart of successful enterprise efforts (not just turning on the switch) is the creation of a thoughtful governance process, one that facilitates central, campus and project team dialogue.

Definition

Governance can be defined as “The process through which organizations make strategic decisions, determine whom they involve and demonstrate accountability for the results of their actions.” Ideally, the governance process achieves agreement between differing interests to reach a broad consensus on what is in the best interest of the enterprise.

Although executives, faculty, and administrative staff each have a unique role to play, they ultimately desire the same thing: to be able to focus on their primary jobs with as little bureaucratic disruption as possible. Among these groups, self interest boils down to: faculty wants to focus on teaching and research, administrative staff want to keep the offices running as smoothly as possible and management wants to keep the peace between the two. Anything that impinges on these primary roles cause personal frustration.

The Challenge

And therein lies the challenge. Faculty did not sign up for managing their own expense accounts or filling out online requisitions. Administrative staff already know how to keep their offices organized and don’t need new business processes.

And management didn’t sign up for the chaos of helping everyone through the discomfort of change. Integrating enterprise computing forces these disparate groups to take a holistic approach on getting work done, one that benefits the institutions health but not necessarily individual needs. So where do you begin?

Let’s assume a good mix of faculty, executives and managers are identified as key stakeholders and through careful planning, a governance structure with this group is established. This is the easy part. It’s navigating these groups in the planning and design stage of a project that poses the most challenge.

The Goal of Governance

What are the critical elements to pay attention to in navigating a governance process? It comes down to artfully managing expectations. The goal of a governance process is to keep those most affected by the change in the loop so they can influence the change to their liking and most importantly, feel that they have been heard.

What often happens instead is a need for change gets communicated (outdated systems, lack of reporting), promises get made about what the new system will do (management cannot afford to not have stakeholders onboard immediately), and periodic meetings are scheduled to update the governance team along the way.

On the surface, establishing this case for change, promising needed benefits and scheduling governance meetings are all critical. However, the breakdown of a governance process comes from a failure to artfully communicate the following three elements:

1. Communication with the governance team will be straightforward, honest and precise.
2. Improvements will come in stages (whole benefit will not happen at once)
3. The changes will meet some of your needs, not all.

Point 1: The Straight Scoop

In working with a governance team, it’s critical to build and maintain trust. When communicating plans and scope changes, feedback should be characterized in one of three ways.

• A decision about a process or system design has already been made and the project thinks it’s important you know about it.
• The project team has a plan but to best meet your needs, they request your input to make sure it works for you.
• The project does not know what’s best for you and is gathering information to make an informed decision.

Too often the request for feedback is left open to the listener’s interpretation, and invariably leads some to perceive a commitment to something that was never spoken. This is where the trust can break down. It may be difficult to tell a group that they don’t have a choice (“this is the way it is”) but it’s better than waiting for them to discover it themselves. Pay me now or pay me later. It consistently costs more to pay later.

Point 2: Improvements Take Time

The reality of enterprise computing is not only that changes come in stages, but scope changes are more fluid than communicated. At every level on a project, the most difficult yet powerful statement that can be made is “We don’t have an answer to that right now” or “We don’t know.” The more stakeholders understand how fluid the scope changes are in the design phase, along with confidence that it is being managed effectively, the more flexible they’ll be in negotiating their individual needs.

Point 3: The Judge Wapner Rule

What happens when Judge Wapner renders his best decisions? Both parties recognize the fairness of the outcome and most importantly-neither side gets everything they wanted. In enterprise projects, stakeholders who appear to want the world often just want to be heard and do not expect everything. The mistake is not listening to them for fear of having to act on every request. Willingness to listen and communicate back what was heard will go a long way to appeasing groups that seem to want it all now.

In conclusion, governance structures in large institution are an invaluable mechanism to move technology projects forward. Don’t underestimate the value of being straight about what will and won’t be done, communicating the fluid nature of the project scope in the context of the timeline, and balancing everyone’s needs while not promising the farm. Believe it or not, people can handle the truth.

Presentation Tip of the Month

When watching a movie, you have a sense when the end is coming. In many presentations I’ve observed, the end of the presentation sneaks up with people shuffling papers and quietly moving toward the exit. Because your final words will be most remembered, inform your audience what’s about to happen. “Before we end today, we’re going to take a few final questions, then synopsize the key points.”

This does two things. One, it let’s people know to organize their thinking to articulate any final questions and two, it increases the chance you’ll be able to end with a cohesive group. Those ready to jump out of their seats will give you a few extra minutes to wrap it up.

Speaking Engagement

If you are interested in a copy of the presentation given to the Boston Product Management Association, send me an email and I’ll forward it to you. The title of the presentation was “Minimizing Pain From Cross-Functional Communications.” Email me at hteibel@teibelinc.com.

When Good Projects Go Bad

Symptoms of this all too familiar problem include: a lack of business context to the problem being solved, communication breakdowns across functional groups and finally, the project plan execution not reflecting the current preparedness of the team. Typical attempts to fix these problems involve team retreats, the ceremonial sponsor motivation speech, and most widely attempted-altering how meetings are run. All of these strategies can help, but they do not address a fundamental issue of how teams become effective units.

What if the missing ingredient is how teams learn? What would it mean to be part of a self-characterized "learning team"?

One way to define a learning teams is "a group that continuously tests and updates the experience of those around them, then transforms that experience into improved work processes and knowledge that is accessible to the entire team and relevant to its core purpose."

Put in English, maybe the missing piece is not a well defined project plan, but how comfortable the team members are in telling the truth about their roles, tasks and dependencies on each other. This focus requires dialogue and reflection, with an emphasis on eliminating "group think" that prevents people from exploring alternative approaches and creative thinking.

The Key Ingredient

At the heart of an effective learning team is leadership that actively manages the learning process of the group. In many organizational initiatives, project managers have come up through the ranks starting as technical experts, then moving into managerial roles. Their ability to understand and debug technical problems may be strong, but getting the team to operate on all cylinders is a different matter.

Technologists turned project managers need to strip away assumptions of what members "should be able to do" to accept a greater emphasis needs to be placed on the "process of learning". For example, functional leads may understand the ins-and-outs of a particular program, but place little emphasis on communicating their progress to others who are dependent on them. Additionally, they may keep technical problems that are difficult to solve to themselves for fear that others will negatively judge their appropriateness on the team.

Great team leaders understand that groups learn by trial and error, just as individuals do. Without a leader who is able to extract open dialogue across the team, people will quickly form sub-groups that can inadvertently sabotage each others' progress. When you start to hear things like "That's not my responsibility" or "At least my piece is done-it's no longer my issue", the problem has taken root.

It's the equivalent of musical chairs, or hot potato, with everyone focused on not being left holding the bag.

Framing the Challenge

How do great leaders approach teams in the learning process? The first step on a complex project is to frame it as an organizational initiative versus technology initiative.

Because leaders of complex projects often bring strong technical skills, it makes sense they would be managing it as a "technology project". It becomes much easier to immerse the team in deliverables and deadlines based on the technology and not on how it impacts the organization.

Framing the initiative as an organizational versus technical challenge shifts how the team approaches learning on two levels. One, learning becomes more about how the team needs to address organizational issues versus merely acquiring individual technical skills.

Two, the emphasis on organizational impact requires the team to better communicate across functional groups on the impact of each others' work. This reframing will help break down the silos that form across groups.

How Perfect Do I Need To Appear?

For the group to value and work in a learning environment, project leadership needs to make it safe for people to make mistakes. Nothing slows down individual or group progress faster than reluctance to make mistakes. "Trial and error" is at the heart of skill building, and when it's not explicitly encouraged, people won't risk making mistakes, especially in public. On project teams, making a mistake and revealing it is tantamount to inviting people to accuse you of being the wrong person for the job.

For the group to value and work in a learning environment, project leadership needs to make it safe for people to make mistakes. Nothing slows down individual or group progress faster than reluctance to make mistakes. "Trial and error" is at the heart of skill building, and when it's not explicitly encouraged, people won't risk making mistakes, especially in public. On project teams, making a mistake and revealing it is tantamount to inviting people to accuse you of being the wrong person for the job.

What Are We Working Toward Anyways?

It cannot be stated enough that articulating and clarifying the core purpose of the initiative is critical to leverage internal learning. There may be effective collaboration, with the focus on organizational versus technology impact. There may even be real-time reflection that makes people feel comfortable acknowledging mistakes in the learning process. But without a clear group understanding of the intended outcomes, there will be great teamwork leading to poor results.

Ask every member of your team to describe the core purpose of the project. The greater the difference in response, the more work there is to be done in clarifying project purpose. Leaders need to chart a course to a commonly understood destination, with little ambiguity among the group.

The best laid plans with a talented team will fall flat if project managers do not look honestly at the team. With active leadership that frames the challenge in organizational terms, along with explicit permission for people to acknowledge mistakes, teams will set aside the "what should be" with "what is", helping them become a true learning unit.

Presentation Tip

Handouts either serve the live presentation or are good takeaways — not both. Too often presentation materials are designed to be used by participants after the presentation. This becomes the "takeaway" documentation that people so desperately want.

The problem with takeaway documentation is it is often written like a novel, which makes for poor presentation aids. The speaker then does the unthinkable: he reads the slides to the group!

If you want your audience to not stick pins in a voodoo doll that looks surprisingly like you, create succinct bullet points, not sentences. If you need your audience to have a fuller explanation of your slides on paper, give out a separate document at the end of your talk.

Getting your people to embrace change

When you change anything, life becomes unfamiliar. Picture your last office or home move. How long did it take before you knew where everything was and felt like life was back to normal? Change is disruptive, and in the workplace, the norm. When it comes to technology projects, sponsors use a range of styles to manage the transition from old to new. On one side of the scale, they can decree an initiative — and on the other, they can build a broad consensus. Somewhere in the middle is the right balance of pushing an initiative to completion while making sure the inheritors of the change go along with you. There are pros and cons to either approach. The more you encourage consensus, the better buy-in you'll get, but expect the project to take longer. The more you decree a change, the greater the likelihood of bringing the project in on time, but resistance will rear its ugly head when you least expect it (and in the worst case, employees might sabotage the effort).

The ideal outcome is a balanced approach, bringing leadership and direction to the project while allowing inheritors of the change to participate in targeted and appropriate ways. Let's be clear about one thing: embracing change does not mean your people are going to like it. It means that your people demonstrate behavior, attitudes and skills appropriate to the new tools and processes. An unrealistic expectation going into a change project is that people will like what's being rolled out. In the end, they may. But initially, there's no getting around it being a significant disruption.

With this in mind, here are three approaches to help your people wrestle with and embrace change.

1. Set a context for what's coming (why it's happening), and tailor this communication to each unique audience group.
2. Show them what the change looks like.
3. Create environments or experiences where people can wrestle with the expected change.

The first approach gives meaning to the change, the second bridges the gaps in people's understanding of what they have now versus what's coming, and the final approach attempts to uncover behavior gaps that people need to understand in themselves to make the transition work for them. Let's discuss each in more detail.

1. Set A Context For The Change And Tailor It To Each Audience Group

Up and down the organization, the question will get asked "Why are we doing this?" There needs to be an answer for each level in the organization. Senior management wants to know how the change will improve the bottom line; managers need to know how it will give them better information to manage day-to- day operations; administrative staff desperately wants to be reassured that the change will cause them as little pain and anxiety as possible.

To help you articulate a context for each group, answer the following questions:

a. Who is the audience you're setting the context for and what do they care most about?
b. How will the change benefit this group?
c. In what ways will the change challenge them, and what will be done to minimize this difficulty?

The context articulated around the change becomes the foundation and leads directly to the second approach.

2. Show Them What The Change Looks Like

People need a visual roadmap for what's coming. It's not sufficient to just send out a communication describing what's coming. There needs to be an attempt to capture and share what the new systems or processes will look like when they're in place. The benefit of a demonstration to "show 'em what's coming" is that it makes the change real, and forces management to consider decisions that need to be made in preparation for the change. For example, a new financial system might require developing a new set of roles across the organization. This will reveal itself when management observes what the system looks like and what will be required of its staff. Until they see a preview of the system, it's difficult to make management decisions about resources and structural changes to the organization.

Other demonstration techniques include simulations, web casts, or any other forum to help people get a birds-eye view of what's coming. It could also be a "visual flow" of the new process compared to the existing process. By providing a side-by- side comparison, people can begin to bridge the gap in their understanding of how they'll get from point A to B. Only when people can visualize for themselves how life will be different can they begin to understand what they need to be successful in the new world. Give them a taste of what a typical day will look like around managing new and different kinds of information. Once they have this understanding, the final and most impactful approach is to immerse people in what's coming.

3. Create Environments Or Live Experiences Where People Can Wrestle With The Expected Change

This takes the "show phase" one step further and helps people uncover what behaviors in themselves need to change to make this new way of doing business successful. It's only after personally engaging with new behavior that people uncover where they need additional practice, skills, or conceptual understanding.

Without a doubt, it's challenging to create a learning environment in the design phase of a project that immerses people in the "to-be" system or processes. This experience usually doesn't happen until the system is in place. Unfortunately, waiting for people to have their first direct experience with the system only after it's been rolled out will cause even more disruption.

How can you create an experience of the coming change? One common practice used to bridge this gap in large technical implementations is called a CRM or Conference Room Pilot. The intent of a CRM is as best as possible, immerse people in a new system, both to uncover what additional functionality needs to be built, but also to alleviate stress associated with a new system. CRM's can be successful but often don't go beyond a simple show and tell experience. When people expect an experiential session but it only informs people what's coming, CRM's don't get to the underlying behaviors that people need to wrestle with to make effective changes.

A better technique to create an experiential session is to develop case studies and have staff (both senior and administrative) role-play working in a new environment — uncovering behaviors, attitudes and skills that need to be developed. This type of experience needs to be combined with effective facilitation, helping people to reflect where the behavior gaps lie. For example, a case study might give managers the task of reallocating resources based on the functions and complexity of a new Human Resource tool. How will they make these decisions? What conversations and with whom do they need to have to effectively reassign resources? The goal in an experiential session combined with case studies is to have people engage in a dialogue as if they are currently dealing with the problem.

While debriefing, discuss what was learned and how will they take this understanding back and prepare for when the real thing comes. By personalizing a group session through the use of case studies, experiential exercises and reflection, you can help people learn what new behaviors, attitudes and skills in themselves need to be developed in preparation for the coming change.

Decree-Consensus Chart

On project initiatives, where is your organization on the scale of decree to consensus? Print the chart at www.teibelinc.com/pdf/DecreeConsensusGrid.pdf and self-assess where you believe your project falls. Plotting your project directly in the center of the matrix assumes a balanced approach. Ask yourself if your leadership style on projects fall more on the side of tighter controls or the need for consensus building.

What needs to happen to move the project more toward the center, where participation and strong leadership are both valued? Use this chart as a framework for a discussion among your project team, executive committee, or colleagues.

Presentation Tip

The number one concern I hear from people around presentations is "I get nervous when I have to speak in front of a group." Being nervous is actually an indication that you are taking your presentation seriously. People who don't get nervous either have nothing at stake or have just been doing that particular presentation too long.

When you focus your attention on something other than getting over nervousness, the mental and physical symptoms will diminish on its own. If you just acknowledge your nerves (versus trying to do something about it) over time, they will just be something you recognize as a natural part of being in front of a group.

Stop Neglecting Your Most Important Customer!

WHO ARE THE CUSTOMERS ON TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS?

Webster's defines a customer as "one that purchases a commodity or service". In project work that involves technology change, end users of the to-be designed system are typically thought of as the customer. This group is most affected by the change on a day-to-day basis and has the steepest learning curve to go through. Communication plans are designed to first introduce this group to the coming change, followed by setting proper expectations around benefits and timing, and finally, ensuring end-user participation and skill development.

THE OVERLOOKED CUSTOMER

When a project begins, the world gets divided into those leading the change and those waiting for the change to happen to them. Focusing on the end-user is important, but overlooks those employees who participate in the design of the new system. There is an assumption by management that employees on the project already buy in to the change and have the prerequisite knowledge/skills to contribute to the work. Unfortunately, project are often compromised by unexamined assumptions made about this group.

QUESTION THESE ASSUMPTIONS!

It's relatively straightforward (not easy!) to assemble a team of technical and business users to begin design on a new system. What's often overlooked are three assumptions made about employees who become members of project teams:

1. They see participating on the project as an opportunity.
2. They are eager to learn new skills to supplement their knowledge of the business.
3. They're prepared for project style work.

Let's examine each one.

DO THEY PERCEIVE THE PROJECT AS AN OPPORTUNITY?

Employees with subject matter knowledge are a critical balance to external technical consultants who have successfully implemented elsewhere. In the best case, the project is seen by the employee as an opportunity to grow into a more productive role in the organization. However, the criteria used to evaluate their participation often focus exclusively on knowledge, while ignoring their motivation for participating. Regardless of his or her business knowledge, an employee who has not articulated a desire to grow professionally can find him or herself in a difficult place on a project team. Project work can easily become a burden to someone who sees it merely as more work. Ask candidates to articulate goals for themselves as a result of being on the team. They will either come up with how participating will benefit them and the organization, or will reveal that it's not the right fit. The bottom line is, pick project team members carefully and evaluate their participation based on attitude as well as knowledge. Remember, skills can be taught while attitudes are much harder to change.

DO THEY KNOW WHAT THEY DON'T KNOW?

No one comes into a project with everything he or she needs to be successful. Most people, regardless of their skills, know enough to get their work done and avoid developing skills beyond what's necessary. Project work requires a broad range of professional skills that demands recognizing personal strengths and weaknesses.

It may be technical, accounting, business, relationship, organizational, or conceptual thinking. Whatever the area, project work requires everyone to broaden what he or she can and cannot do well. It's not just incumbent on the individual to uncover their strengths and weaknesses. Management needs to make it clear that the project's success is dependent on individuals recognizing and articulating skills they don't possess to be a more effective contributor to the effort. Some of these skills can be taught, but the first step is acknowledging what they are.

RESULTS VS. TIME PUT IN

Project work is organized chaos, something that most people find uncomfortable. Ask people about their first project and you'll hear how unprepared they were for the long periods of inactivity and confusion, quickly transitioning to deadlines that required unexpected evening and weekend work. It's a marathon that can be exhilarating as well as emotionally and physically challenging. Employees who are accustomed to being managed closely may find it a rude awakening a month into the project when no one has yet given them marching orders. Project work requires a fine balance of self-direction and teamwork, skills that employees often do not need to perform in their regular jobs. Minimally, employees should understand the stages that project members goes through, starting with unstructured teams while the plan is being designed to overnight, being expected to work independently while working toward unreasonable milestones that keep changing. Some thrive on this way of working. For others, this is the last thing they ever wanted. Before signing them up, your employees should be aware of what to expect around the nature of project style work.

PERMISSION TO OPT OUT

The best way to prepare your employees for transition onto a project is to inform them of the elements described above, then provide a genuine opportunity to opt out. You can help the employee determine this choice by administering a self- assessment that uncovers their strength and weaknesses around project work.

From this assessment, you may be able to identify skills that can be developed through other training programs, books, etc. The key is identifying the areas for improvement and letting them be part of the choice. Project work requires individuals to take responsibility for their participation. This is not an easy task, especially when the project builds momentum in the later stages. The choice to remain positive in attitude and effective in action cannot be forced on someone. With knowledge of the challenges ahead, along with permission to not participate, employees have a much better shot of rising to the occasion and discover the opportunity associated with being an effective project team member.

Presentation Tip

When using PowerPoint, get rid of slide transitions and sound effects. They become the focus of attention and distract the audience from your message. Even "builds" (lines of text appearing each time you click the mouse) can be distracting. Use simple "builds" only when you're certain that reading ahead will cause your audience more confusion than displaying the entire slide at once.

Three Approaches To Building Project Team Excellence

Last month we discussed why many technology projects fail. We identified a culture of exclusion as a significant force in many failures. In this issue, we will discuss three practical things you and your project managers can do to create a culture of inclusion, building momentum for group effectiveness far beyond what you think is possible.

1. Understand the broad range of customer needs
On a technology project, business requirements that your project team gathers should reflect the concerns of most of your customers. Often the identified needs are too narrow and are colored by the roles of those charged with speculating about the upcoming change.

Take for example, a large-scale internal database conversion. The Information Systems department may be responsible for building the new application. Your project team might look to department heads within the organization to determine business requirements for the software. This seems reasonable, however, department heads are often not aware of the specifics involved in end-user use, manipulation, and reporting on data. As a result, without broader user input, an inadequate product or an unaccommodating design may end up being created.

How can this outcome be avoided? First, have your team solicit input from groups that represent a diverse point of view about the change. Executive, management and administrative staff have unique and complimentary points of view on what's required for a new system or process. Although this broader group will likely generate a laundry list of needs and concerns, your team will be in a better position to more closely meet the needs of the larger audience. When organizing what you learned, group the information in three categories:

1. Ideas that you can implement within the project timeline
2. Ideas that should be implemented at some future date
3. Ideas that will not be implemented

This grouping becomes the basis for communicating back to your constituents. Everyone understands that all features or processes cannot be implemented at once. That's easy to explain. It's the third point (ideas that will not be implemented) that is most challenging to address. Addressing this requires straightforward communication, leadership and a willingness to take a stand for what best serves the organization. (a topic for another newsletter)

2. Reward and encourage team collaboration, not just individual performance.
Another element that helps build project momentum is spreading the learning across the team. Project managers are tempted to rely on selected individuals to do the heavy lifting. Although the performance of motivated individuals is certainly beneficial to your projects, broadening the involvement (and learning) of the larger team will result in much greater long-term benefit, especially as the project moves toward completion. Projects are often left with few burnt out overachievers and many non- performers.

While individual "stars" give you short term results, they don't provide long-term organizational benefits. Think of it this way. Toward the end of a project, internal team members will be looking for their new assignment, often expected to return to a role in a department. Too often projects are left with inadequately trained project members who cannot provide value in this turnover stage. Even worse, your best performers are often external consultants, whose role is to get the work done, and take their knowledge with them.

How do you best transfer knowledge on a project? Start by encouraging your team leaders to establish standards for x-team skill development. Do the following:

• Be explicit that you expect the team (especially external technical resources) to share information and document how to perform tasks. Explain why this is important relative to the turnover stage of the project. A meaningful discussion to open early in the project is "who should be inheriting what tasks when the project is complete?" Although this will be difficult to answer, it's important to start this dialogue early and keep that question on the table.
• Conduct a facilitated session with team leads and identify what it will take to create a "learning culture" across the group. Ask the question: "What behavior will we observe across the team that demonstrates knowledge and skills are being shared?" Examples responses could be "my people don't just do a task for someone, we show them how to do it, then watch them do it themselves" or "We regularly revisit who will be doing what when the project ends?"

Developing a "learning culture" is a work in progress and requires regular reflection. The pull will be for your teams to revert to old behavior of doing things themselves, and not focusing on developing each others skills. It takes leadership to keep this question on the table, reminding people when they are not helping others to be independent. Again, periodically pull people into a room and ask "How well are we sharing information across the team?" You'll be surprised to hear how much room there is for improvement in this area.

3. Establish public standards around cooperation.
Balancing individual needs and the needs of others can be a challenge. Luckily, one of the ways we can learn new behavior is through observation. I discovered this recently at my gym while taking the time to wipe down an exercise machine I just used. Without thinking about it, I walked over to the spray bottle, grabbed some paper towels and wiped down the hand rails. It then occurred to me I had been observing this behavior in others over the last month. A simple sign hangs by the spray bottle that reads "Please wipe down the machines when finished." After only a few visits, I found myself unconsciously following others example. Good will promotes good will. How does this translate to the workplace?

Let's say you're meeting with another team that "owes" your group some information. Surprisingly, they don't have it ready. (I know this never happens!) Instead of canceling the meeting or expressing how much of a burden this is on your team, offer your expertise or assistance to get the information. Consider using your resources to help others fulfill their goals. By taking this cooperative stand (how can we help you?), your team will find what they need from others will come much more easily and others will begin to follow suit (wiping down those handrails). Most importantly, you've created relationship across the team that will pay off dividends at a later time, especially in the event your group falls behind and needs help.

How about putting up a sign that states "Ask first-how can I help?" The goal is to broaden your groups view on how to contribute to "the big picture". Making cooperation standards explicit and leading by example will create unexpected benefits across the team and will go a long way toward creating a culture of inclusion. What goes around comes around.

In conclusion, broad customer feedback, rewarding collaboration over individual performance and establishing public standards around cooperation will have internal as well as external benefits. This philosophical shift requires your leadership to step back from the details of the work and establish a context for HOW work gets done. Creating a culture of inclusion has more to do with the process of how people work, and less to do with the work itself. Ironically, this shift will have direct impact on the quality, performance, and teamwork associated with an end product or solution you're driving towards.

Presentation Tip Of The Month

Always leave them wanting more! People remember a presentation that leaves some questions unanswered. They also remember presentations that went on too long and could have made the point in half the time. Focus on the first outcome.

Why Most Technology Projects Fail

Technology projects fail for many reasons, most of which can be traced to poorly managed communication. What does it mean that a mediocre technology that is managed well has so much more success than a superb technology that is run poorly?

In this article, we will explore ways you can better manage group expectations on change projects so that individual and groups stay focused on positive outcomes throughout the transition.

Failure is an inherent possibility in any complex initiative. As the one ultimately responsible for ensuring success, how can you face the risk of failure intelligently? First, select strong project managers and encourage them to consider the following key points before planning or implementing a change project. Then, support them in their efforts to follow these guidelines. Doing so will minimize negative outcomes on large-scale change efforts.

I. Identify and manage stakeholder fears

As stakeholders consider the implications of a large- scale change in their organization, they initially fit into three main groups. Identifying the members of these groups and addressing their unique needs is a first step to attaining stakeholder buy-in.

The first group includes people for whom failure is an unspoken concern. In this group, which often includes many senior managers, no one voluntarily wants to acknowledge the possibility of failure, lest they be associated with it. Everyone would rather talk about what success would look like, which can easily digress into unrealistic, feel-good objectives that don't address reality. Superstition suggests that to speak about failure only increases its possibility. However, the reverse is actually true and our unwillingness to ask the tough questions causes our worst concerns to become true.

To engage this group, ask individual members what they think failure on this project would look like and what they think could cause that failure. Their answers will reveal more about the true pitfalls than any other question you could ask. Offer the assurance that thoughtfulness at this stage will be useful in anticipating and addressing potential pitfalls before they materialize and will therefore maximize the chance for success.

The second group includes people for whom failure seems inevitable. Front-line staff are likely to populate this group as are people who have previous experience with unsuccessful change projects. The members of this group are likely to be so focused on potential problems that they are unwilling to think about what success could look like.

The key to managing this group effectively is to genuinely acknowledge their expertise and portray confidence in your ability to investigate, prevent, or address the issues that they have identified. It is helpful to carefully facilitate these discussions, giving equal time to identifying problems and identifying possible solutions. Do not let negativity impede the optimistic but realistic goals for the project.

Successful facilitation with the first two groups will bolster membership in a third group. This group is comprised of those that are willing to consider the possibility of pitfalls and are also willing to think about how to be proactive in addressing them without losing sight of realistic outcomes. Members of this group are likely to feel particularly appreciated and engaged in the process and will often act as models for other staff. They will have the ability to address concerns they hear of in an optimistic way. This will be very helpful during the implementation stage of the project.

II. Solicit input widely without striving for consensus

Nothing kills a project faster than the need for decisions to be built around consensus. There is a great difference between consensus building and decision- making but the lines often get blurred. Projects fail or get delayed because leaders do not recognize the difference and are not clear with stakeholders about what the decision making process will look like.

How can you avoid this? Listen to everyone. However, be clear from the very beginning that while each stakeholder's input is important, you will ultimately be responsible for making key decisions. Be clear also that while your decisions will reflect the input you receive, it will not be feasible to satisfy every concern. If you facilitate this well, people will respect your decisions even when they disagree.

Going for agreement, especially on large projects is a black hole and will set the project up to stall in the face of as many opinions as there are people. Unfortunately, some stakeholders already have a set expectation that the typical approach to decision- making--getting everyone to agree and then taking action--should be used in every situation. If you encounter this, acknowledge that this may be a good tactic to employ for some decisions, but that it is not effective for decisions regarding large change projects. Try saying something like "we have different points of view and need to consider them all to make an informed decision, but it is not realistic in this case to achieve consensus."

III. Recognize and address internal politics

There is no getting around the fact that some people will quietly, or not so quietly, hope your project fails. People align themselves with different groups and are either part of the solution or part of the problem. This is the trickiest part of the game, and must be dealt with carefully. In the worst case, people with influence can sabotage a project for their own personal gain.

Before going too far down this path, consider that most people speak poorly about an initiative because they feel excluded from the process. Everyone wants to be associated with successful initiatives, and people pull back because of fear or resentment. Keeping the lines of communication open, asking for people's feedback while telling the truth about how decisions will be made, will decrease the internal politics that sometimes disrupt an otherwise successful initiative. Healthy politics is about dialogue, unhealthy politics is fueled by exclusion. Focus on what you can do to show respect to the other side. You will often be met halfway, which is far more advantageous than eliciting resentment, jealousy, and a desire to cause failure.

IV. Avoid over promising and under delivering

Over promising starts when management attempts to sell an idea to the executive team. It then easily works its way into the development group that is responsible for building a new system or process. Buy-in may initially come from promising the moon, but will quickly bite you in the you-know-what when it's time to deliver. It's a classic silo approach--get the sale then let others deal with how to deliver. We over promise because we believe it's the only way to push people to excel. If we want a 10, we ask for a 12. In that way we'll get a 10. It's a lazy approach and causes resentment among developers, and worse, resignation among customers. Again, good communication and expectation setting is at the heart of avoiding this problem. Articulate what you expect from your team, the executive group, and customers. Be willing to deal with, in a wholistic way, the dilemma of how to create buy-in without setting inaccurate or unrealistic expectations. Like other elements of your project, your promises need to be manageable.

Across the board, properly managing expectations is the key to building trust, confidence and momentum on large projects. Demonstrate these principles and the example you set will cause positive effects to ripple down throughout your organization. As you and your project managers make an effort to apply them, you will find a change of attitude in your team as well as in your customers.

Five Tactical Hurdles that Trip Up Strategic Initiatives

Strategic initiatives are driven by a need for improvement in the business condition-increased revenue, decreased costs and customer satisfaction are often the primary motivators. These initiatives are frequently enabled by technology change, and most certainly, by the introduction of new business processes.

Also, these initiatives are usually complex projects that start with high organization- wide expectations, only to evolve into a series of misunderstandings, loss of trust, or worse, a perception of completely missing the boat!

Rather than blame the technology or business processes being introduced, it is important to look at the intangible elements that cause the most havoc- those that revolve around how people are introduced to the change and guided through it.

Here are five questions to ask when planning or managing a strategic initiative that will help to keep an eye out for the intangible people issues before they cause a downward spiral in organizational perception.

1. Are "People Projects" Becoming "Technology Projects"?
It doesn't take much for a complex strategic initiative to become a "technology project", void of an end-user focus. The shift from "people" to "technology" can be subtle, as the complexity of the design begins to eclipse the project team's ability to keep users at the center of design choices. A typical response to this shift is to call anything that involves people a "training issue", to be addressed by others at a later time.

Instead of taking this responsive position, user impact should remain the centerpiece of design choices — regularly reflected on, especially during the design phase of technical projects. Make sure that someone in your organization keeps user concerns in front of the technical design team so that the question is continually asked, "how will these design decisions impact our people?" This should be a daily ritual, bringing a discipline of "translation" to the early design phase of a project, rather than leaving it to training professionals in the eleventh hour.

2. Do Internal and External Resources Understand Their Complementary Roles?
Internal resources understand how their organization is structured and how work gets done, while external resources are intended to provide guidance on integrating new technologies and business processes. Both groups are critically important to the project outcome, but surprisingly, their interdependent value is not explicitly understood or stated.

One symptom of a lack in mutual understanding is when people start expressing "I assumed x" in team meetings and project dialogue. This is a precursor to covering ones you-know-what, playing the blame game, or most troublesome, a lack of focus on problem solving.

Teamwork, not as an end-result but as a process needs to be treated with serious reflection. Clearly defining and communicating the roles, goals, and responsibilities between internal and external resources will enable teamwork to manifest itself.

To get off on the right foot, pull the larger team together and conduct a facilitated session to uncover the roles and interdependencies between people and groups. To provide the most value, structure this as a learning experience, with the intent of uncovering more questions than answers around "what makes us a strong team?" Once you start this reflection, observe how people are behaving as a team, and insert corrective actions along the way.

3. Are You Communicating the Right Information at the Right Time?
Communication strategy has more to do with understanding the business culture and how groups respond to change rather than applying a set formula to a communication need. Do people expect to be informed well in advance of change? Are they accustomed to being told after decisions have already been made? Will constituents use information to slow down the change process? In the context of achieving a perception of project success, these questions should be reflected on in constructing a communications plan.

A fundamental standard is to set expectations and deliver on what you say. The most important thing to avoid is setting false expectations. If business owners are asked for feedback on design options that affect business processes, the communication to this group should either be "Your feedback is needed to make a decision" or "We're informing you of a decision already made." One or the other.

Don't give the impression that you care what people have to say when all you're doing is informing them of an outcome already decided. Nothing causes a loss of trust and credibility more than disingenuous communication.

4. Does Your Project Plan Address the Human Dynamics of the Actual Work?
A common misconception is that a comprehensive project plan will keep people focused on achieving the intended results. As a means to capture hundreds of day-to-day tasks that roll up to project milestones, project management software is a tremendous tool. However, it's not a panacea, especially for the elements that involve human connections, such as how people normally get things done or what decisions get made at the water cooler.

People often mistake building the electronic plan with doing the work, and can easily find themselves with a completely new project (i.e., managing the software that manages the project plan). Working through a project is much more about how people work together — managing progress through dialogue and reflection, not checking off task lists.

5. Have You Identified the Genuine and Lasting Value for Those Who Are Most Affected by the Initiative?
There are many reasons why a strategic initiative is taken on; compliance, inability to perform management reports, outdated legacy systems. But, better management reports do not translate into value for the majority of staff who will use these new systems. Especially in the early days of the change, people go through frustration, anxiety and a concern that they will be worse off than they were before, expecting the additional work burden to fall on them. Lasting value for this group comes down to being able to impart the simple idea "I understand what I'm doing and why I'm doing it."

Change can result in an opportunity to move people beyond "doing work by rote" to becoming knowledgeable and integral assets to the organization. Tapping into people's desire to feel good about what they're doing will go a long way to building acceptance of a new initiative.

Summary

It's the intangible elements of change that get the least attention and can produce the greatest people impact. On projects that involve technology, pay close attention to people's needs that arise within the team and across the organization. Work to uncover unspoken assumptions made in and outside the project team.

They may be pointing to intangible people issues that, if revealed, will lead to better decision-making and increase the chance of fostering a perception of success across the organization.

Presentation Tip

While in the middle of your presentation, it's easy to lose perspective of your participants needs. One way to get yourself back on track is to ask the question? "If we were to end our session right now, what would you walk away saying you didn't hear or learn?"

This will refocus your presentation on the group, will garner appreciation from your audience, and will increase the likelihood people will walk way getting what they need.

Five Ways to Improve Learning Retention and Recall

How do you influence behavior change that is observable? Here are five ways to improve your learner's ability before, during, and after a learning experience. They are:

1. Chunk Information
2. Delay Reinforcement
3. Make It Relevant
4. Create “At Stake” Scenarios
5. Check-In and Assess the Change

1. Give the information in chunks
‘Chunking’ is the process of organizing information into meaningful groups. The premise behind chunking is that individuals can only absorb a few concepts at a time before going into information overload. The saying "Tell them three things" comes from the widely understood practice that people can best retain new information if it doesn't exceed three things. If you have five or ten points, organize them into no more than three groups. This simple practice will assist in communicating the larger set of information and make it possible for the listener to better recall the big picture. For example, the "Five ways to improve learning retention" can fall under three categories:

• Before Learning: Chunk
• During Learning: Reinforce; Make Relevant
• After Learning: What's At Stake; Assess

Before, During and After Learning are ‘chunkable’ groups that become the context for the five elements and make it simpler for the learner to recall the details that belong in each group.

2. Create delayed reinforcement opportunities to help recall new skills
Another way of saying this is to "make people practice at different intervals." There are two ways to create delayed reinforcement. One is to ask people to rehearse or recall new information soon after a learning experience and the second is to have them perform the same recall tasks with more space between the learning and the recall event (a few days or a week apart).

The best approach is to use a combination of short, medium and long-term spacing to reinforce the new behavior. For example, give your learners an exercise after a break in the program, send them home with something to complete in twenty-four hours, and bring them together in two weeks to practice the skills again. This simple combination of delayed reinforcement will go a long way in people's ability to perform new skills on the job.

3. Use relevant business scenarios in the learning process
Retention is about being able to perform new tasks in real situations over time. By having people learn new skills that relate to an actual business need, you help them bridge the gap between the artificial world of training and their real-world workplace setting.

The environment in which people learn can also play a role when it comes to relevance. This is why web-based training can be a useful method, not just from a cost-effectiveness point of view, but because learners can practice new behaviors in the environment in which they are expected to perform them.

4. For learning to stick, something must be “at stake”
Once people depart the formal confines of the classroom, the gravitational pull back to old ways of doing things will cause new behavior to end up just being a good idea. Learning requires repetition, otherwise known as practice, and there needs to be incentives for people to stay in their learning process.

Management needs to provide these rewards or consequences so that individuals are encouraged to make these new behaviors permanent. Incentives like public recognition, increased responsibility, time off for learning, being taken to lunch, a raise; these are just a few examples of how to say to your employees “we encourage learning”. Start with these positive reinforcements. If they don’t work, you may need consequences that people want to avoid – loss of responsibilities, publicly missing a deadline, or a loss of a raise due to insufficiently satisfying new behavior requirements.

Your employees need to be held accountable, and with proper incentives, will often rise to the occasion.

5. Check-in with people and measure the change
One of the least performed practices in the training process is checking in with learners after their formal learning. The minute participants leave the face-to-face portion of their learning, the opportunity to encourage and reinforce new behavior gets lost. The simple act of reaching out three months later and asking, "What can you do now that you couldn't do three months ago?" can serve to reconnect the learners with where their learning stopped, and can be the spark to reignite the reinforcement of new behaviors. Like a lighter, sometimes you have to flick it three or four times before it stays lit on its own.

Summary

It is critical to take the time to see if there are observable new behaviors as a result of learning efforts. If you can't point to any, you need to ask yourself, “Was the learning experience really worth the cost and time?” I think not. This, in itself, will reveal much about the distance between the means you are taking to train and the results you are trying to produce.

Four Key Ways to Manage Change on Technical Projects

It is rare for internal stakeholders to effectively manage the inherent change in a technical implementation, either because they don’t possess the right skill set, or they are too close to the circumstances that created the change in the first place. By definition, stakeholders have something at stake; and often, they are focusing on their individual piece of a larger puzzle. This is why organizations bring in an external project manager, who is expected to be less attached to any individual outcome and more able to keep the numerous elements of the project moving forward. But, project managers face the same dilemma as individual contributors in that they are responsible to the key stakeholders, namely senior management. With the primary charge of keeping the process under budget and on time, project managers have their hands full just keeping people working toward that goal.

We have become accustomed to working with project managers, team leads, functional leads, and subject matter experts on large-scale projects. Each of these individuals and their respective groups owns an element of the project. And, if we have learned nothing else around productivity, it’s that that nothing gets done without someone stepping forward and declaring, “I’ll make it happen.” So, why don’t we treat the issue of change with the same level of importance?

With respect to technical projects, there are four major areas in which a Change Manager can have direct, positive impact on this phenomenon called change:

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Knowledge Transfer
• Project Turnover

Collaboration
As defined by Websters, collaboration means, “To work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort.” Another definition by Jan Gordon, an executive coach, is “It’s when we step outside of ourselves and honor the space we share, more than where we each individually come from. Collaboration is what we create when we come together.” Stepping outside ourselves is no small task, but it’s most important when managing project work.

Left to our own devices, each of us will first manage to the requirements for which we are responsible. This “silo-effect” begins to happen on projects when each group exclusively focuses on their own tasks. Asking a project manager to intervene in this tunnel vision problem, or expecting teams to bring it to light, is akin to expecting employees to tell their boss what’s lacking in their teamwork skills. It’s not going to happen. Self-preservation keeps people from telling the truth about their difficulties with effectively working across groups.

A Change Manager can help the team be successful without having to expose all the details to management where the breakdown exists. A Change Manager can develop safe mechanisms for uncovering and revealing what’s flowing, and more importantly what’s not flowing, across groups. For example, groups often need to understand (at a high level) what the other groups are doing and where they’re going in order to see how their piece fits into the larger schema. A Change Manager has the perspective to create simplified views or pictures of what each group is working on for other groups to digest more easily.

Communication
Once effective collaboration has been established within a team, developing strong communication outside the core group becomes the next area in which a Change Manager can have positive influence. Communicating to a broader audience and articulating basic concepts can be a natural extension if the core team understands where the system is with respect to its overall stage of development. A Change Manager can transform project team collaboration documents into communication pieces, and in the process, identify the basic knowledge that should be understood outside the design group. (See sample process map).

Nothing serves a community more than respecting its members’ needs and desires to feel included in the process. An effective Change Manager – with a unique perspective on the entire project – can know how to tap the community for input and when to release information so that end-users feel part of the process and begin to understand how the project will affect their lives. This effort also serves to provide the project groups with valuable feedback and information to help with the development process and to determine the future needs for Knowledge Transfer.

Knowledge Transfer
Knowledge Transfer (or Training) has its own unique strategies for success. (See article “A Non–traditional Approach to Technical Implementations”). As the day approaches when a system is set to go-live, there inevitably will be a requirement for some form of education (knowledge and skills) so that people can hit the ground running. A Change Manager, who has focused on collaboration and communication efforts throughout the process, will be more able to understand and/or uncover:

Key topics and concepts that will need to be learned
Team members who have an interest and skill in communicating – these members can be tapped to contribute to the knowledge transfer process.

Available project documentation – understanding how to morph existing information from tactical and informational to performance-based tasks. Who knows what and where to go for it. Nothing delays the training process more than the inability to negotiate the many players in a project.

Project Turnover
In the early stages of a project, the last thing both internal teams and external consultants are focused on is how the transfer of knowledge and eventual ownership of the system will happen after the go-live date. And, that fine. But it’s important to minimally ask the question at this point and in the design phase to set the stage for what kinds of knowledge need to be shared and who might become responsible for some of this knowledge.

A Change Manager can facilitate this process and help identify those individuals or groups that will need to own the system responsibilities. Their charge can be to reengage these participants throughout the process, preventing the ownership transfer from occurring at the last minute and becoming an overwhelming task for employees.

A good Change Manager helps project team members who both need to “catch fish” and “teach others how to fish” from becoming full time fishermen.

Summary
Excellence requires wrestling change to the ground and making it familiar. A Change Manager can be a tremendous complement to a team by facilitating the efforts that project management has, but has great difficulty executing because of the various change elements inherent in the process. A good Change Manager can turn training, which is often seen as a necessary evil, into a natural result of information flow from project team to end-users. An effective Change Manager “smoothes out the bumps”, helping the project management team get everything they want, including a smooth turnover after the go-live date.

Don’t Wait Until The Consultant’s Bags Are Packed

Why do clients hire consultants for ERP projects in the first place? Simply put, consultants fill the missing gaps in technical skill or business process knowledge that are critical for a technical project to succeed. While employees come up to speed on what’s possible (i.e. what the new technology can do), consultants learn how this system needs to be designed differently from prior implementations. Each side goes through a learning process, adjusting their expectations about what’s needed to “go-live”.

The challenge is that the focus of both consultants and clients is primarily concentrated on the act of going live. In most cases, there is very little early dialogue about how the transition of ownership will happen, as both parties assume it will be addressed at some later time. Once the consultants complete their piece of the engagement (“The system is live!”), it becomes painfully clear that the employees are not prepared to take on the work alone.

Let’s be clear that this is not about a lack of commitment on the part of consultants or a failing on the client’s side. It is simply the case that in the early stages of a project, turnover is an ambiguous topic; one that the client is often unprepared to address. The perception is that there is so much work and internal learning that needs to happen before the organization can begin to address issues of turnover.

With this in mind, here are some strategies that can help both sides begin to look at this issue so that it doesn’t come crashing down at the eleventh hour.

1. Break the “I’ll do it myself” habit
In the workplace, we must recognize our unconscious habit to “just do it ourselves.” How many times have you been faced with the option of completing a task that probably could have been performed by someone else, but chose not to let him or her fumble through it? Nine times out of ten, people will just do it themselves, even if it’s in their best interest to step back and let others struggle through some learning.

Both consultants and clients need to become more conscious of this tendency so that more opportunities for learning happen while the system is in the design phase. Giving tasks away may appear to slow down a process; but in the long run, it will contribute greatly to uncovering who in the organization is capable of taking on new responsibilities after the switch gets turned on.

2. Prepare a turnover plan early in the game
When consultants operate at their best, they’re equally focused on being topical experts and helping clients develop self-sufficiency. In a large technical project, consultants must place more emphasis on the roles that an organization needs to inherit, and to do this earlier in the process. Although this effort is often met with resistance or appears to fall low on the priority list, both sides must recognize that without a clearly defined turnover plan, the internal groups will be left with an incomplete solution.

Minimally the question should be asked, “if the system were turned over today, who would do what?” If nothing else, this will begin a dialogue and negotiation about what the current assumptions are for turnover and how much work needs to happen to make this real.

3. Create a Transition Team
One way to assist Project Management in a turnover plan is to establish a separate group whose charter is to focus on how the project can successfully get through the period when the consultants roll off the project.

A Transition Team can be comprised of members of the project team, along with employees in the organization. This group can be a critical set of eyes for project management, making increasingly important recommendations around turnover tasks. They can help articulate internal training needs for employees who will inherit the system; knowledge or skills that need to be transferred from person to person, and new internal structures that need to be put in place for the organization to succeed on its own.

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It’s never too early to start a dialogue about how the system will run after the formal project is complete. The alternative is often an extended project timeline and lack of ownership by the clients themselves.

Remember, technical projects require a balance between the needs of the moment with the recognition that success is measured after the consultants leave. Don’t wait until the consultant’s bags are packed to at least begin this conversation.

Training Is Not Learning

I used to think that I was in Training…now realize I’ve always been in the learning business. Training is the act of what you do with students when you bring them together. Learning is what they get out of it. And to make sure they get real value, we need to think beyond the framework of our scheduled course offerings.

Simply put, learning does not begin and end in the classroom. Although most training professionals see themselves as owning that narrow piece of a student’s learning process, we need to broaden our involvement to make sure that learning sticks.

And, it’s not just the deliverer’s mindset that needs to change; we need to change the learner’s perspective as well. It’s ingrained in us all – most needs can be met with delivering/taking a course. But, let’s be honest. Most courses are just an effective introduction to a new topic, no matter how sophisticated the content or presentation.

In a perfect world, learners would take responsibility for their own learning – employees would be hungry for knowledge and soak up information to advance their careers. They would come out of a class and immediately apply new techniques and skills to their work. When that doesn’t happen, we chalk it up to unmotivated students. We fail to take responsibility for the fact that people learn best when they are properly guided through a learning process.

As performance support leaders, we need to broaden our leadership role to engage students from the moment a learning need is identified through the time the skill becomes ingrained – we can’t think that information in and of itself will produce the intended positive results.

Here are some examples of what you can do before, during, and after a learning event to create a higher level of personal student responsibility that will carry student performance beyond the classroom.

1. Before the Learning Event

One thing to begin with is a rather common sense approach that everyone knows about, but few follow through with. Provide a pre-event questionnaire that asks students their expectations about learning a new topic. Most importantly, get their responses prior to the learning event. Don’t just post a course description – that does very little to engage the learner. This approach will make it clear that learning falls squarely on the shoulders of the learner, while the teacher or facilitator’s role is to guide them through the process.

An added benefit to understanding people’s expectations is that you can tailor the experience to their frame of reference. This decreases the chance of being blindsided by someone using their expectations as a weapon to find flaws in your program.

2. During the Learning Event

Focus your delivery on a few learning outcomes and discard most of the other stuff. Too often, too much information is presented that has little effect on the learner. Take the extra stuff that is not critical to your key learning topics and make it available as reference or support material.

Also, use real-world examples wherever and as much as possible. It’s a difficult prospect for your students to learn about a specific approach or concept in a context that’s not related to their day-to-day activities. By providing situational or real-life information, an approach commonly referred to as scenario-based learning, you can make their overall learning ‘stick’ more effectively.

3. After the Learning Event

Develop a process to check in with your learners. Use some kind of feedback mechanism – user group meetings, conference calls, take home exercises, anything that keeps people in the loop and forces them to reengage with the material after they “leave the classroom”.

When the formal element of your program is over, people are at different stages in their own learning. Be sure to find ways to include everyone, so they can continue to jumpstart their new learning needs. Create mini sessions on a specific topic, so that people who need help in one area can get it. Or, as mentioned above, take the “extra stuff” that would have been way too much for the learner to absorb in the initial learning event and introduce after they develop comfort with the basics.

Throughout this entire process, it is most important to make learning interesting and fun. If learners see the acquisition of knowledge as important, useful, interesting and advantageous for their success, the more likely you will be in fostering students who have a thirst for information.

Tips to Improve Your Marriage

OK, now that I've got your attention, give me a chance to make the connection. And no, I haven't changed careers. I make my living listening, interpreting and acting on what others want me to help them with. Over the course of the last twenty years, I have become acutely aware how easily it is to misinterpret what is being asked of me, or what I ask of others.

Raising the bar around listening means going beyond good listening to effective listening. Good listening focuses on visual cues; eye contact, leaning forward, nodding one's head. This is about what you do, not the result you're trying to produce.

Effectiveness is about results, and effective listening is about taking our visual cues one step further and answering the question:

Was I heard accurately, or did I hear accurately?

Tips To Improve Your Marriage

Communication is at the heart of successful relationships, both personally and professionally. As we've repeatedly heard from the time we're children, being a good listener is at the heart of good communication.

Every day we're reminded how listening comes up short in the workplace; in meetings where people are more interested in making their point than hearing what was said, in requests that we make of others that don't get done, or requests of us that we misunderstand.

We all know good listening when we hear it. Why is this seemingly common sense skill so difficult and rare?

The Appearance of Good Listening

I'm speaking with someone and while talking, they nod their head. What does this mean? It's clearly an attempt to demonstrate understanding, but more often than not, what they're privately thinking is not what you're saying.

The appearance of good listening is insufficient when there is an expectation that the other person will act on what was spoken.

If you're making a request, a head nod by the listener is most certainly a poor measure of understanding the request. But we often treat this physical gesture or responses like "OK" as evidence of being heard accurately.

The Furled Brow

In my early professional days of teaching technology classes, I learned that facial expressions are useful cues to what people are thinking. A furled brow or disinterested look may mean confusion, boredom, anger, and possibly the same symptoms that cause an infant to smile - gas. The problem is we give these visual cues too much weight in our interpersonal interactions.

What's missing in our communication is recognizing those moments when it's important to elevate our standards around listening to be about effectiveness versus appearance, and acting accordingly.

Air Traffic Controllers

Of all the professions that demonstrate the use of effective listening it's Air Traffic Controllers and pilots:

Controller: Delta 557, reduce speed to one, seven, zero Pilot: 170 speed, Delta 557 Controller: Affirmative, Delta 557

The nature of their work demands a higher standard around listening. The Controller communicates a request, the pilot repeats it and the Controller validates. This simple act holds the key to effective listening.

Unless we work in an emergency room or other high risk profession, this style of communication isn't demanded of us. But we can learn from these examples and apply it to those moments when we need to make timely decisions or follow through on what is being asked of us.

Listening in the Workplace

I recently had a conversation with someone who was preparing for a challenging conversation at work. In discussing her upcoming dialogue, she planned to listen first, then share her concerns with the person.

Does giving the other person a chance to speak first before sharing oneself a demonstration of effective listening? Not necessarily.

What will take this exchange from "good to effective listening" is the following simple statement:

After listening to the other person speak, she reply with:

"This is what I heard you say", paraphrasing what was said, then asking:

"Is that accurate?"

This simple act of restating another person's point of view and asking about its accuracy produces true dialogue, validating whether what was heard is in line with what was spoken. It takes the ambiguity out of statements and requests, creating a transparent dialogue.

Two Exchange - Can You Pick Out The Effective Dialogue?

Exchange 1:

1. I make a request.
2. You respond with "I'll take care of it?"
3. I reply with thank you.

Exchange 2:

1. I make a request.
2. You respond with "I'll take care of it?"
3. I reply with "You'll take care of what?"
   Which example demonstrates effective listening? The second. Put aside all the good reasons why you would be reluctant to respond with "you'll take care of what?" The point is exchange #1 is loaded with assumptions while exchange #2 makes those assumptions transparent. (As an aside, from the years of training people in these skills, you would be surprised how many apparently clear requests are misunderstood by the listener but never validated by the speaker.)Asking validating questions is the only way to truly uncover what was heard or not heard. Once you embrace this point of view, the art is to learn how to ask questions in a way that doesn't sound condescending or patronizing.  

   A key think to remember is if where you're coming from in your communication is to produce effective dialogue versus merely trying to control a situation, you'll find the right language to uncover what was heard by others.

   And if you've made it this far in this article, I'll close with the tip to improve ones marriage - don't try this at home.

   On Listening

   "I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

   Robert McCloskey Author and Illustrator - Children's Book 1942 Caldecott Medal winner - Make Way for Ducklings

The Balance of Blended Learning - Four Key Factors

In the not-too-distant past, the worlds of instructor-led and web-based training were very separate. There were those who believed that learning is a hands-on activity, best implemented and managed only by real-life instructors. And, there were others who believed that the technological improvements in the web could replace the human element and make the learning process more efficient and cost-effective.

Well, they were both right…and wrong. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. What has surfaced as a real alternative is the idea of combining both approaches to more effectively meet the needs and situational constraints of a learning environment. This way of thinking is now commonly referred to as Blended Learning.

Blended learning can take myriad shapes and configurations. One example of this is creating an e-learning prerequisite or introductory program, delivered over the web, to decrease the length of a face-to-face training effort. This scenario, for a recent client, decreased their overall training time by 50%.

But, how do you know what will work and what won't when combining these two learning approaches? What are the elements to consider when creating an appropriate blended learning solution? The key is to understand both individual and institutional factors in an organization, then balance those needs and restrictions accordingly.

Here are four factors that should be considered as you develop your blended program:

1. Audience Comfort-Level with Technology

Integrating e-learning solutions into your program means the learner needs to perform tasks that involve technology (CD-ROM, electronic simulations, loading a training module from a web site, etc.). One of the first things to assess about your users is what level of comfort they have in using technology. Imagine a student who is just learning to hold a pencil being asked to write an essay. They first need to establish a comfort level with the mechanics before applying themselves to the content. The same is true with e-learning. The greater their comfort-level with technology, the smoother will be their use of e-learning tools.

So, know your audience. If you have a group with a high comfort-level in using technology, you can integrate more technology into the process. If you have a group that are novices around technology, determine how much assistance they will need to get them comfortable with the basic tools and balance that need against the desire to integrate e-learning into the overall program.

2. Previous Experience with e-Learning Systems

Even if you’ve determined that your users have a high comfort-level with technology, they still may be new at using it for self-directed purposes. Many of us are in the same position in our everyday lives – in the middle of that transition to more self-directed activities – purchasing online, managing our own HR file at work, or researching and purchasing airline tickets through online travel tools. Most of us can remember the first time we went to Expedia or Travelocity? Like me, you started by researching flights, but still booked through the airlines or an agent. After a couple of times, maybe you entered your credit card, but backed out the last minute. Finally, you booked the reservation and clicked ‘Purchase’. Now it’s second nature.

A user progresses through various stages of using e-learning – first as an informational opportunity, then as a way to practice, followed by self-testing, and finally as a way to create personal accountability. Knowing where your users lie along this spectrum and understanding their familiarity and experience with the process is key to determining the balance of e-learning in your overall training solution.

3. Resources (people and classrooms)

Sometimes, resources can drive your decision more than any other factor. For example, if you have one classroom to serve a thousand people, and you need to execute your training initiative in a short span of time, having a high percentage of e-learning is a no-brainer…no matter what the technology comfort-level or e-learning experience your users may have. Conversely, if time- to-completion is not a hot item on your training agenda and you have access to numerous facilities and instructors, you may be able to rely less on e-learning programs, even with large numbers of learners involved.

4. Timing of Content

Like resources, timing sometimes plays a role in the decision about training approaches. If training involves instructing on technology tools, and the tools are still under development, there is a valuable opportunity to start the training process early by using e-learning during the design process as a simulation tool. This is clearly something that could never be accomplished with traditional training. The moment you would complete your delivery of the hands-on class, the system would have changed – it’s a moving target. Use e-learning simulations to give the overall experience of the new system, and as it gets closer to a final design, roll out the face-to- face program.

Getting the Most from Your e-Learning Investment

The future of e-learning has been hotly contested. It is one of the many children of the Internet age whose reality has not lived up to its initial promise. In many ways, e-learning has evolved in much the same way as e-commerce. As e-commerce put all the tools in the hands of the consumer (allowing them to purchase goods and services from the comfort of their homes), so has e-learning removed the physical location where training takes place and given control to the learner directly.

But as with e-commerce, many have underestimated and oversimplified just how much the user experience plays into how people want to learn. At first, the expectation was "if you build it, they will come". But, we soon discovered it was more like, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

Even with that said, e-learning can still be a tremendously powerful tool to reach large numbers of people at a reasonable cost. Many lessons have been learned since the initial e-learning offerings. The underlying technology continues to improve to support its deployment. Many believe that we're just about to turn the corner, as organizations begin to observe their contemporaries successfully implementing e-learning programs and become more comfortable making the leap themselves.

So, if you are considering an e-learning deployment, or have made the decision to introduce e-learning to your organization, how do you get the most from your investment?

Here are five things to remember as you plan your e-learning initiative:

1. Understand That Even e-Learners Need Direction

Traditional training is like going to the doctor when you're sick. You make an appointment, show up, get examined and diagnosed, then take home a prescription. And, if you follow their advice, there's a good chance you'll get better. Most people relate to training in the same way that they relate to seeing a doctor. Someone outside themselves has the answer to their problem.

Asking someone to manage him or herself through an e-learning effort is much like asking them to diagnose their own illness after years of visiting a physician. They still need human contact and structure to help them be successful.

2. Bridge the Gap Between Old and New

Find ways to bridge the gap between traditional training and e-learning. I am a firm believer in providing users with familiar things to help them in the learning process. Develop approaches that will help students connect their learning style in the old model to that of the new one. Try these ideas:

Schedule time for people to observe a demonstration of the new learning tools. People are accustomed to being told a date and time for training.
Invite them to informal labs to ask questions about the process, as well as the content.

Don't forget that it's just as important for someone to successfully understand how to use the e-learning system itself as it is for him or her to learn the subject matter that is being presented. Create a lesson that focuses exclusively on the navigation elements of the e- learning tool. After a period of time, your learners won't need this bridge. But in the transition to e-learning, it will increase the speed with which they adopt the new learning methods.

3. Involve the Business Managers in the Process

Start off by making sure the business managers are involved in what their people will be learning. Have them go through the learning process themselves. By understanding the process and the materials, they gain a better sense of how the information should be presented and a greater ability to support their people. This provides managers with first- hand knowledge of the challenges their people will face with the learning system and the content they are being charged to absorb.

4. Use e-Learning as a Piloting Opportunity and Feedback Tool

Too often, training is not started until very late in the implementation process. Typically, it is rolled-out at the last possible minute when someone says the system is finished and it's ready for training. As we discussed in last month's issue of this newsletter, starting the training process early on can be of tremendous benefit. This is especially true with e- learning.

Think of early e-learning efforts as simulation training, where you can initiate the education of end-users while the system is still in design mode. It should be made clear to the users that these initial "simulations" are in a fluid state - that things will still change. But with a well-balanced approach, you can initiate training 85% into the design process; and by 95% completion, you have established prerequisite knowledge for many of the more complex tasks.

There may be some who say that involving end-users at this phase is not appropriate or constructive. I disagree. A huge benefit can be gained from soliciting their feedback to the project team, allowing corrections for missing or faulty information and increasing their sense of involvement and ownership in the overall process.

So, plan your first e-learning rollout early on in the process and think of it as your "pilot program" - which by definition is intended to extract feedback from your core group of users.

5. Tie Learning Outcomes to The Business Need

In any training effort, the focus of the content and delivery should be on the top three things that people need to do differently than they did before. These top three should have direct impact on the business strategy - not learning for learning sake. e-learning is no different. Make it relevant and as simple as possible. Make the exercises meaningful to their work and employ real scenarios, allowing people to better tie the pieces together.

When done correctly, and with a focus on learning outcomes, e-learning can provide opportunities for true just-in-time training as well as demonstrate huge cost savings.

A Non-Traditional Approach to Technical Implementations

One of the more challenging aspects of large-scale technical implementations is making sure the technical design sufficiently meets the needs and expectations of those who will be using the new system. Although training is typically thought of as the mechanism that bridges a system’s development to wide-scale deployment, an additional opportunity exists to have training contribute during the early phases of a project where system requirements are being established.

At the start of an implementation, balancing technical and end-user needs is less difficult. The focus is on creating momentum as the team’s members begin to settle into their respective roles. It's a fast learning curve, with each person trying to get their hands around how to take the original concepts and turn them into meaningful tasks. There's a general sense of progress, mostly because there is so much to do.

At some point, the project takes a turn. People peek out from behind their work plans and realize months have gone by. They can point to hours upon hours of work, and hundreds of folders, files, and emails moving this effort forward, but the "go-live" date that originally looked so far off is now just around the corner.

Inevitably, everyone's work is segmented across mini-teams – groups that are responsible for different elements of the larger project. What results is often a “silo-effect”, where each of these small groups begins working on their part of the project as if it were a stand-alone effort – rarely communicating to the other groups who are also acting in the same way. Project-wide meetings get replaced with mini- team meetings, further isolating the groups from each other.

One of the concerns across all the different groups is when and how to communicate the upcoming changes to the user community. On the one hand, project managers are concerned about bringing end-users into the process too early, possibly leading these users to declare that the anticipated change won't meet their needs. On the other hand, communicating the changes too late in the project runs the risk of not getting organizational "buy-in".

All the while, "training" is considered premature. And here's the fallacy; the belief that training's primary roll begins when the system is ready to roll out. When utilized properly, training can be a catalyst to bridge early design concerns and user needs. Schedule a pilot training during the design phase of the project and watch what happens. The discussions shift from mini-team progress objectives to what needs to happen across teams for the system to be ready for end-users.

What does this tell us? Project sub-groups alone cannot keep a unified user experience at the forefront; that training and communication can play a critical role in keeping the technical design squarely focused on the user environment – a holistic view which can help avoid costly design mistakes, omissions or mismatched functionality.

Here are some examples of how a training group (or “Training”) can help bridge the gap between early technical design and end-user needs.

1. In the early design phase of the project, use the training group to assist the team in communicating technical design requirements.
Technical people can use help in communicating their work across teams. By assisting project team members with the communication element of their design, Training can provide a valuable service at a time when everyone can use simple ways to learn from each other. It also enables the training group to get up to speed on the scope of the system changes and puts them in a collaborative relationship with people who can help with training needs later on.

2. Make sure the training group attends as many technical meetings as they can. In most cases, inviting Training to design meetings will never cross the technical team’s mind. The reality is that these meetings provide more information than any individual interviews that may be done. Even if they only listen and take notes, Training will learn very quickly who knows what, and who is in a position to help down the road.

3. If training is provided by an external resource, integrate a core team of employees to share in the delivery of the program.
Bringing together individuals from various areas of the user community to collaborate on the project will have a very positive affect on how the larger community views and accepts the change. Get this group involved in the process as early as possible.

4. Utilize visuals and graphics of the change being worked on.
When project work is represented in diagrams versus narrative format, people working on the system are better able to have a dialogue and collaborate with each other. Training is in an ideal objective position to help with this task. In addition, this becomes important material for the training programs that will be designed.

5. Have Training ask functional people for input on presentation material.
Developing a solid communication link establishes a rapport between the functional and training group. It also allows for the extraction of critical presentation material content and demonstrates to technical people how to think from an end-user perspective.

6. Schedule a communication/training pilot.
The key for this component is to get it scheduled. With just a date in place, the technical group will be more receptive to user issues, because they know their work will be shared with key stakeholders. Besides the practice opportunity, the planning for a pilot and event itself can be used to uncover outstanding technical issues that need to be resolved.

7. Open the lines of communication between the technical and training team.
While Training needs to show respect for the technical team’s available time, technical people want to contribute to the creative process of training. Encourage this dialogue.

8. Have Training facilitate technical meetings.
This will accelerate Training’s ability to synthesize information across groups and offers a mechanism to keep the lines of communication open.

Integrating a training strategy early on is an underutilized catalyst that can bring teams together in pursuit of a common goal. Although training is often perceived as the final step in an implementation process, it can be used to facilitate better communication among the team. Of even greater value is its ability to drive and focus change that gets buried under mountains of tasks.

A Framework for Training Intervention

Much has been written on the benefits and challenges of eLearning. On one side, hundreds or thousands can be trained at a very low cost per-student ratio. On the other hand, trainees are often unprepared to self-direct their own learning.

In this issue we will explore appropriate human intervention in the non face-to-face portion of your training programs. If you’re about to embark on a new training endeavor or are looking to make adjustments to an existing venture, let me know what you think about this issue. If you’re interested in a free intervention grid that is the basis for this article, click on the Download section of this newsletter.

It wasn’t long ago that the only training alternative was the classroom. Nowadays, you can start your training in a traditional classroom, continue it with eLearning back at your office and finish the program up six weeks later at home.

On the surface, this alternative has tremendous appeal. Flexibility, decreased costs, students progressing at their own pace, the list goes on. If you dig a little deeper, you’ll find we’re in a similar dilemma as with other technology improvements. Less than twenty years ago you had one option to reach someone at work; you called their office. Today you can page, fax, email, cell-phone or do an instant message. With all this incredible technology, can we really say we’re better communicators?

Move beyond the classroom and you have a similar dilemma; scenario and simulation technology, audio conferencing, M-Learning, videoconferencing and other web-based tools. Millions of dollars are spent each year trying to integrate these tools into the training landscape. And what happens? The moment your students complete the face-to-face portion of their training and transition into cyberspace, you lose them to all the distractions that made classroom training so necessary in the first place.

Human intervention during the nonface-to-face portion of training is the key to maintaining student progress and accountability. Let’s look at three training methods (traditional, blended and eLearning) and a framework to approach appropriate intervention:

Traditional Training

Definition:

• The Training Experience has a defined timeline
• Face-to-face teacher/student time is high

Impact without Intervention:

• Training objectives are determined and managed by the facilitator
• Students leave the training experience with a sense of completion

Intervention Need - Low

1. Little or no need for managerial involvement

Blended Training

Definition:

• The Training Experience spans classroom and eLearning time
• Face-to-face teacher/student time is limited

Impact without Intervention:

• Training objectives are communicated by the facilitator, then managed by the student
• Students begin their training effectively but lose focus as it moves to eLearning

Intervention Need - Medium

1. Managerial participation
2. Periodic meetings among trainees
3. Partner trainees to help them troubleshoot their eLearning portion of the training

E-Learning

Definition:

• The Training Experience is online and is completely self-directed by the student
• Student has little or no teacher/student connection

Impact without Intervention:

• Without teacher/student contact, students must interpret and manage their own training experience
• Students can lose focus immediately upon engaging with material

Intervention Need - High

1. Manager must tie the Training Experience to on-the- job performance objectives
2. Regular meetings among trainees
3. Partnering becomes a critical structure for some students to begin, manage and complete their training experience

In conclusion, as you move from traditional to blended and finally to eLearning, there is an increased need to create accountability through human intervention. This can be accomplished through peer or managerial involvement, but the key is to sustain some type of face-to-face contact with the learner. Paying attention to this dilemma will produce more bang for the buck than any flashy elearning tool.

Moving Beyond The Blank Stares

How often do we as trainers complain that students do not come prepared to learn? As students, how often do we blame less than spectacular performance by instructors for our lack of skills? In both situations, we fail to realize that learning is collaborative, and is only as good as the commitment brought by teacher and student.

In this newsletter we will explore three principles that can help trainers, presenters and students be more effective in the learning process. Enjoy the newsletter and feel free to pass it on to others.

The other day I got a rude awakening while taking my first lesson in Quickbooks. Having used a homegrown accounting system for the last fifteen years, I though I was faced with the simple task of consolidating my Excel spreadsheets, Word docs and Quicken files into one application. Quickbooks, I was told, would be my savior. I think I'm fairly savvy with technology and plunged head first into my one-on-one session. At one point, I must have blacked out. When I came to, my accountant's lips were moving but I couldn't understand a word she was saying. I had reached my learning plateau and could no longer absorb any new information.

How can we improve our ability to absorb and retain new information? Here are three principles that contribute to effective learning and retention.

Principle 1: We learn by referencing new information against existing knowledge
Learners compare what they're familiar with against what they're trying to understand. When I mentally related a Quickbooks task to my familiar homegrown system, the new skills did not seem so daunting.

Whether teaching or self-managing your own learning, maintaining this frame of reference is key to the learning process. Once that bridge is established, you can begin to focus on the new skills independent from the old behavior. Until that point, keep setting the "context" for the new behavior by referencing the old.

Principle 2: Package information in small chunks
Chunking is the process of organizing information into meaningful groups, similar to how we use a table of contents. Imagine teaching someone how to play solitaire. First you introduce the purpose of the game, then how the game is played and finally any rules that are associated with it. This allows the learner to understand a "chunk" of information before moving on to another task.

Also, limit each chunk to no more than three learning points. It's been proven that people grasp and can retain three distinct ideas at one time. If you introduce four or five unique concepts in a learning situation, you increase the chance that you or your students will begin to tune out.

Principle 3: Accept confusion as part of learning
Is it possible that confusion is the opening we need to grasp new information? When I found myself lost in Quickbooks, I had this desire to go back to my old ways. Instead, I stopped the lesson, pinpointed where I was lost and then was able to move on. As students, we need to take responsibility for these momentary losses of clarity and know that we can get beyond it. As hard as this sounds, we need to welcome confusion versus avoid it.

I think I'm getting the hang of this Quickbooks tool. Recognizing confusion as a part of learning has helped. Like being thrown in the deep-end of a pool, learning requires taking risks, including accepting that it won't all make sense. You'll swim, it just won't be comfortable the first time.

Experts Who Teach - Now There's A Concept!

A manager from a high-tech company called me and described the following: "After five years of employment, we're losing our best project manager. She gave us two weeks notice and we've discovered that none of her subject matter knowledge is written down. Nobody knows how and what she does. Can you help us put a system in place so we're not in this situation again?"

In most organizations there is a resigned acceptance that with the departure of a key person, you lose important organizational knowledge. In small companies, it's not uncommon that just two or three people hold most of the businesses knowledge in their heads. How can you leverage the critical business skills of an employee and create better transitions when they leave?

The obvious solution is "get what they know down on paper". We all pay lip service to this idea, but people will not document what they do. The justifications range from "I just don't have the time." to the more honest "I'm not as valuable an employee if people know what I do."

The main reason your employees don't document is that there's more reward in being an expert than a team player. Managers and coworkers marvel at the experts skill and in the end, expect them to save the day. Bernard Shaw's observation that "Those who can— do, those who can't— teach." tells us much about what we expect from our top performers.

This quote, however sells the experts short. It's the business culture that keeps experts convinced that they must be lone rangers and heroes. It's time we encourage a new breed of experts, ones who see knowledge sharing as adding value. This is more than a training program, but a philosophical change in how we think about our individual contributions.

Imagine being asked when joining an organization "How comfortable are you sharing what you know with others? Can you teach? What do you value more, collaboration or expertise?" Perhaps these are the questions we should ask new employees.

Individual performance should continue to be rewarded because it can motivate others to rise to a new level. But if you only give incentives to individuals, prepare for 10% of your workforce holding in their heads 90% of the organization's knowledge. This disparity will show up every time your top performers get sick, take vacation or quit.

If you recognize this problem in your organization, consider these ideas to get experts thinking more collaboratively:

• Demand that people share expertise. Establish regular meetings where people can relate something not known by others.
• Create group incentives. Make it worthwhile for the team to be effective, rather than waiting for their instructions.
• Cross-train people in various roles. Have sales people review marketing proposals; technical folks critique sales documents; department managers share their budget with other departments.
• Teach your experts how to teach. The four steps in a nutshell are: show someone how to do something, take the time to watch them do it, give feedback, then watch them do it again. If you can get your best people to do steps 2–4, you're moving in the right direction.

Consider that your experts want to be better collaborators. They'll step up to the plate when you demonstrate that information sharing allows them to continue producing effective results. In organizations like these, unlike the call I received, the loss of a key employee becomes an opportunity, rather than a nightmare.

If You Don't Like Change, Leave it Here

There are only three options to deal with technology change. Embrace it, fight it, or do something else. We all know people who have chosen each of these options. Some roll with the punches and easily learn new ways to perform a task; others fight tooth and nail every time something is slightly different; and the last group includes those who admit it's time to move on and do something else.

Let's face it. Change is difficult to embrace. Our first reaction is to tighten up and reluctantly be dragged through the process. It's the difference between riding a roller coaster with your hands in the air or tightly clenching the bar, teeth gritted, just waiting for it to end.

There are only two good options to deal with change; enjoy the ride or get off as soon as you can. Embrace it or do something else. Easier said than done, I realize. But over the years I have spoken with too many people who have stayed in that middle ground of resisting change, in the end only having the two options anyway.

What if you fall in this middle ground of resisting change? Can you consciously move yourself to one or the other side? Or are you stuck spending months or years fighting change that is inevitable? Consider the following steps to purposefully move yourself in a deliberate way to choose one way or the other.

STEP 1: Is what you are doing in your professional life consistent with where you want to go?

If it is, facing the change head on is probably in your best interest. On the other hand, if there is little connection between where you are now and where you want to be, it should be no surprise that the technology change is so unappealing.

Answering this question might help you determine if it's worth facing what you have to go through to get comfortable with the change.

STEP 2: Once you've decided to deal with the change, identify what element is most difficult for you.

For example, you may feel you're losing control because the new computer system is going to automate a task you currently perform. You may be concerned about losing your status as the expert or the keeper of key information. Or you may feel pressured to produce more. Being able to articulate what challenge you are facing is an important step to begin addressing the change. If the new system replaces a task you already perform, can you contribute in a more meaningful way to the organization? It's up to you to uncover these opportunities, to find new and creative ways to take advantage of the change.

STEP 3: Is your attitude contributing to or taking away from embracing change?

Having taught thousands of people over the years, the biggest determinant for dealing with change is a positive attitude, not your current skills or what you put on a resume. You learn more effectively when you bring a positive attitude to the table. Don't underestimate how a poor attitude can undermine your ability to deal with change. Example of a positive attitudes include: a desire to learn new things, knowing that you don't know everything, sharing information with others, and being someone whom others like being around.

STEP 4: Be an independent thinker.

Gone are the days when your manager will tell you everything you need to know to get your job done. Great managers look for people who know how to follow direction but also think for themselves. There is a fine line between following instructions and being creative in getting things done. Finding that balance is a critical skill to being able to deal with change. Waiting for someone to always tell you what to do is a sure way to fall victim to change.

STEP 5: Remember that learning is a process, not an end result.

From elementary school through college, we're fed the notion that correct answers measure learning. When you enter the workforce, you find that there are often many acceptable answers to a problem, but few actually make the impact you're looking for. People who embrace change treat learning as a process and continually ask good questions. When you take this attitude, learning a new technology can facilitate asking better questions and in turn, makes you a more effective contributor to your organization.

If your goal is to have a satisfying work life, accepting and eventually embracing change is a necessity. Remember as a kid asking your doctor if the shot was going to hurt and his answer was "Yes". Wasn't the anticipation of the pain much worse than the pain itself? It's the same with adjusting to technology change. It may hurt a little but fighting it won't make it any easier. Like our roller coaster example, it comes down to getting on the ride or not. And if you're already in the middle of it, you either put your hands in the air and enjoy the ride or get off at the next opportunity.

If you don't like change, leave it here. By the way, does anyone know who coined this phrase? Let me know.

Creating a Comfortable Experience in Large Groups

Whether it's the added pressure to be funny or entertaining, or the number of eyes focused on you, presenting to large audiences can be a depersonalizing experience.

Although you may prefer leading small groups, there are times when speaking to larger audiences is necessary. I've seen presenters who can speak brilliantly to small group lose their entire personality in a large gathering. The collective experience looks like a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The problem begins when you mistakenly think your audience will initiate a welcome, or at least be pleasant. Prepare for blank stares and crossed arms, whatever behavior makes you want to crawl under a table. It's your job to set the tone and in the end, you get what you give. Act formal and your group will follow that lead. Smile, and that's what will come back to you. Who's gonna make the first move? I can tell you it won't be the group.

Let's dispel a myth that gets in the way of realizing this outcome. It has taken me years to realize this. There is no "right" way to be in front of a room. Believe it or not, your audience does not want you to put aside your personality. They will never tell you this. They're waiting to see if you have the guts to do the unthinkable — be yourself.

With this in mind, here are some practical ways to keep from having the life sucked out of you and your group.

• Start with an icebreaker: Your audience is just as uncomfortable as you are. Most participants are terrified about being singled out. Ease into participation by having audience members pick a partner and introduce themselves. By giving them a minute to check in like this, you'll create a positive mood in the room that you can build on.
• Get those hands up: Take informal surveys of the group by asking, "Show of hands, how many of you (fill in the blank)" This allows people to participate without singling anyone out. There's something about hand raising that is just comfortable enough for even the shyest person. Again, the focus is on bringing them out of their shell.
• Ask questions but answer them yourself: For example, you end one of your points with "Now why is this important?" Pause. Let them think about it. After a few seconds, give them your thoughts. With a thoughtful answer to your own question, you'll get the golden egg in presentations -- the participant "head-nod". There's nothing better than the head nod. It's the participant's way of saying "I couldn't have said it better myself." If you can produce repetitive head-nods throughout your presentation, you've got the group in the palm of your hand. It's an unconscious act and best of all, the behaviors contagious.
• Ask people to write down their thoughts before answering a question: Let's say you ask, "What are the top five reasons people hate public speaking?" For the first few seconds people will be processing the question. Before any hands raise (which will be few) ask the group to write down three ideas. Let them write for 30 seconds, then open it up to responses. From those few moments of self reflection and writing, you will get such thoughtful responses that you'll have to cut off the dialogue.
• Read out loud to your group while they follow along with a handout: Contrary to popular belief, people love to be read to. The key is to couple it with thoughtful interjection. Read, pause, and provide commentary. There's nothing inherently wrong with reading to a group. It's when you add no extra value that it comes off as patronizing and unsatisfying.
• Get out from behind a podium and move around: Focus your nervous energy into something productive. When you move around, you're satisfying a physical need that otherwise might show up as twitching your fingers or playing with your hair. You want to avoid people fixating on something like this.

The good news is if you apply these techniques, your presentation quality and group satisfaction will improve dramatically. The bad news is with every new presentation, you need to make the first move and help people get the attention off themselves. You do this by getting the attention off you, which in turn rubs off on the group.

What techniques do you use to make you and your audience more comfortable? Send an email to hteibel@teibel.com and we may quote you in a future newsletter!