LearningMatters from ReadytoManage

Interview Tips for Hiring Managers

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Thu, 19 May 2011 10:26:36 PDT

Everyone knows that hiring managers need help becoming better interviewers but training can be expensive and time-consuming. There is an alternative, however, GIVE THEM GOOD TOOLS! Structured interview guides that are customized to the unique demands of the job, based on core competencies, contain behavioral interview questions and target behaviors as well as rating criteria and scales and detailed instructions helps them stay focused and on-target. Structured interview guides help interviewers stay on track and doing what they should do best – listening! Here's a short video by author and Selection Expert, Anne Sandberg on using Interview Guides.

For example, consider our new interview guide for Paralegal/Legal Assistant. The job description was analyzed and core competencies determined for this job:

Ability to take Initiative/Responsibility
Analytical Skills
Attention to Detail
Communication Skills
Critical Thinking Ability
Organization/Planning Ability
Resourcefulness
Time Management Ability
Written Communication Skills

Then, two to three behavioral questions and a key target behavior for each is supplied with a place for notes. Here are questions/target behaviors for the competency: Analytical Skills

Interview Question 1: Give me an example of a legal problem you encountered. How did you take it apart, evaluate your options, and begin working on a solution, or argument?

Target Behavior 1: Formulates logical solutions to problems; constructs logical arguments in support of specific positions; evaluates solutions and arguments

Interview Question 2: Give me an example of a legal problem you encountered. How did you take it apart, evaluate your options, and begin working on a solution, or argument?

Target Behavior 2: Formulates logical solutions to problems; constructs logical arguments in support of specific positions; evaluates solutions and arguments

This method allows interviewers to have all they need to stay focused, on track and ready to go in the interview itself. And there is a place for notes so the guide can be edited and serves as documentation. A rating sheet contains the list of competencies to be rated and overall strengths and weaknesses reported. All in all, a complete package!

Check out our catalog of pre-packaged Interview Guides at http://store.readytomanage.com/store/c/4-Interview-Guides.aspx If what you are looking for isn't there, let us know. Email us at info@readytomanage.com with your job description and we'll prepare a custom guide for you.

Case Study: Delivering a Generational Styles Workshop (Using a ReadytoManage Assessment Facilitator Guide!)

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 08:10:59 PDT

The Problem

A major energy utility in California had a problem … a long-tenured workforce, primarily Baby Boomers, that was increasingly being managed and lead by up-and-coming younger managers and leaders (Gen X and Y). Communication and style clashes were becoming more and more common, but what to do? Senior managers decided that education was key – misunderstandings could be better managed if employees became aware of and were able to talk about the issues at work, including:

Preferences of younger vs. older workers regarding technology
Sharing of common organizational goals
Importance of knowledge sharing and learning transfer as living legacy for older workers
Key motivators and reward/incentive preferences of the different generations
How to air differences and make one’s self heard in a constructive manner
How to have fun, be inclusive and mix better socially across age gaps

Solution: Customized Workshop

A consultant was called in to create a customized workshop that could cover these areas for various small department groups. That consultant turned to ReadyToManage for materials and resources, specifically the Generational Leadership booklet (free on the site) and Generational Style Assessment Facilitator Guide ($49.95) to design a three-hour that could be replicated across the company.

Using an Assessment Facilitator Guide to Structure a Workshop

The company was given the option of including an online assessment prior to the workshop, but decided not to include this step. Even though the Generational Style Assessment Facilitator Guide (FG) was designed to support the online Generational Style Assessment, it could easily be used without the assessment and contains lots of interesting and relevant material the consultant used to structure the majority of the content (with some customized examples inserted).

In fact, the consultant used some of the scenarios from the assessment with the group in the workshop to spark discussion and dialog regarding the various generational styles and communication patterns. It was possible to use the material without necessarily administering the online assessment.

Results

The company was able to educate the workforce in a dynamic and proactive way. The consultant utilized best-in-class resources to create a complete, replicable workshop for less than $50 in resources. Thanks, ReadyToManage! http://www.readytomanage.com/

KeyCompetencies for Coaching Effectiveness

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 11:20:57 PDT

This week, we continue our focus on the HOT TOPICS 2011 from our reader survey earlier this year. This week’s topic is Coaching.

What is Coaching and what competencies are involved?
Coaching other people is an increasingly critical skill and one that can make the major difference in an individual’s ability to empower people successfully. Coaching effectiveness generally relates to coaching ability in the seven competencies listed below:

Empathizing ability
Listening skills
Capacity to confront and challenge
Problem solving ability
Feedback giving skills
Capacity to empower
Mentoring skills

Coaching Effectiveness Profile
One way to assess your coaching skills and abilities is to undertake a competency assessment like the ReadytoManage Coaching Effectiveness Profile. The Coaching Effectiveness Profile provides a comprehensive process for assessing an individual’s capacity to coach others by measuring the respondent’s coaching ability in the seven competencies above.

How Does it Work?

By rating various behaviors that underlie coaching competence (1-5 scale), individuals can quickly determine their relative strength in each competency. The participant receives a personalized report of his or her results including a histogram that quickly shows where efforts to improve should be concentrated in the future. Detailed interpretative notes are included for each competency, including improvement actions for low scorers.

What Behaviors are Measured per Competency?
There are 12 behaviors evaluated in each of the seven competencies (or 6 if the short version is selected; same price). Individuals appreciate the use of behaviors in better understanding how competency is built, rather than being rated poor, or low in a particular performance area. Instead, he or she simply has demonstrated or not demonstrated (with gradations in-between) a particular behavior.

Here is an example of some of the behaviors from each of the seven competencies:

Empathesizing Ability

Makes themselves fully available and accessible for people to talk with them
Can be fully trusted to keep a secret

Listening Skills
Listens to understand rather than to reply
Creates a positive climate for people to be candid with them

Capacity to Confront and Challenge
Challenges people to take on difficult or challenging tasks
Encourages people to solicit feedback on themselves from their peers

Problem Solving Ability
Points out that there are inevitably new and different ways to tackle problems
Helps people to understand the facts and data before finding a solution

Feedback Giving Skills
Provides concrete and specific examples to help people understand
Offers people new insights or ideas into old problems or issues

Capacity to Empower
Encourages people to look for new learning opportunities
Avoids specifying exactly HOW something should be tackled or done

Mentoring Skills
Encourages people to set improvement targets and assists individuals to reach them
Looks for ways to match individuals to people who can mentor, help and support them

Coaching is a key skills whether you are a manager, or not! Certainly we in Human Resources and Training & Development need to be excellent coaches and role models to our clients and the workforce we support. Get in better touch with your coaching skills today!

Available Formats

This competency-based assessment is available in a self-report format, a 180 degree format (self + manager) or a 360 degree format (self, manager + up to 10 other raters), allowing the individual to deeply explore where he or she may already be strong as a coach and where more work needs to be done to increase effectiveness.

Buy the self-report format now for half price ($9.95) and take it whenever you like.
One of the four assessments on sale this month (March 2011) in the RTM store is the Coaching Effectiveness Profile (self only is $9.95 instead of $19.95) using coupon code: FebFeature.

Click here for a free sample report. Then you can see exactly what you will get for the $9.95 investment!

Leadership Competencies and Diagnostics

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 19:30:55 PST

Leadership and Management as continuing Hot Topics for 2011
The ReadyToManage webstore survey conducted in January 2011 reported that the most sought-after training content area was in the Management and Leadership Skills areas. This finding underscores the continuing need of organizations for strong leadership skills.

What is Leadership?

But what is leadership, really? It is just a higher-level of management ability, or is it something else altogether? Certainly leadership sits on a bedrock of sound management principles and practices – how can someone become a great leader if he or she has not mastered the art of managing people and projects? While generally true, this assumption is not absolute in the sense that research shows that leadership is generally quite a different set of core competencies. A great manager can become a great leader, but not necessarily … some great leaders were only mediocre managers but for some reason, were able to climb far enough fast enough to find their true calling as organizational leaders.

Leadership Diagnostic Tools
One leadership assessment tool, the Leadership Effectiveness Profile (LEP), was developed by Dr. Jon Warner and is based on extensive research conducted in the UK, US and Australia. The LEP is an “out-of-the box” online assessment that measures behaviors in eight core competencies:

Emotional Intelligence
Directional Clarity
Change Orchestration
Reciprocal Communication
Contextual Thinking
Creative Assimilation
People Enablement
Driving Persistence

Each of these competencies is carefully defined in the LEP.

Example
Here’s an example of how one competency is defined and measured in the LEP.

Definition: Directional Clarity looks at the ability to identify a credible destination and indicate how to get there in a straightforward and simple way. This category asks the question, “How clearly, credibly and unequivocally do you point the way for people to want to travel with you and to stay on track?”

Each competency is supported by concrete behaviors that are rated by the person him or herself (and that person’s manager and up to 10 others peers or direct reports, if the 180° or 360° feedback version is selected).

Behaviors for Directional Clarity:

Believes that people’s energy needs a clear direction in which to flow;
Generates a clear personal vision of what the future could be;
Can explain a mission or purpose in the most basic or simple terms;
Believes that every goal needs a measure system …
And so on (there are 12 underpinning behaviors for each competency).

Insights Gained
By participating in the LEP (self-rating, 180° or 360° versions) individuals gain clear insight into how they stack up against the 8 competencies and each of the behaviors associated with a given competency and they know where improvement is needed. Detailed interpretative text is provided in the color report. These assessments are great for development planning or as a pre-training activity to get participants thinking about their skills and skill gaps.

RTM Sale
Through March 2011 you can try out the Leadership Effectiveness Profile yourself (self-assessment only) for half-price at $9.95! (use coupon code Febfeature at checkout). Why not take it for a test-drive and discover the richness and complexity of leadership behavior!!!

Hot Topics for 2011: Survey Results In!

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 08:01:56 PST

What are the hottest T&D topics for 2011? We surveyed our readers last month. If you participated, THANK YOU, and we hope you used your $5.00 coupon in the Webstore! Here’s what you and your colleagues had to say:

Top Training Needs for 2011 (pick top 3)

#1 (76%) Management and/or Leadership Development
#2 (49%) Coaching and Mentoring
#3 (48%) Performance Management
#4 (38%) Change Management
#5 (37%) Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision-Making

(Other training topic areas included Generational Differences, Diversity, Communication Skills, Teams and Teamwork, Time Management, Delegation, Stress Management, Spanish-language training)

What’s Going on with eLearning? Are you using it?

49.3% YES, we do use it now
32.4% No, and not sure we will any time soon
18.3% No, we don’t currently, but we plan to

Do you Use Social Networking? (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

69.4% Yes, I do!
30.6% No, I do not

SO WHAT DO THESE RESULTS MEAN?

Management, Leadership and Coaching continue to lead as a hot topic in today’s business world. HR and training managers are focusing on building great managers, leaders and coaches as Boomers retire and younger workers take over in this challenging economic environment.

Performance Management, likewise is a bulwark of successful organizations. The process of setting performance goals, managing to them, providing feedback, and managing poor or substandard performance is a complex set of activities. Performance management is hardly a new topic but continues to seen as critical to business success.

Change Management also was rated in the top 5. This seems to us to be a reflection of the environment surrounding us. It’s one of rapid change from technological, social and economic perspectives. Managers are struggling to adapt and to manage that change better within their organizations. This topic had great resonance with most people.

Rounding out the Top 5 topics were the areas of Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making, a set of interrelated topics focused on the analytical dimensions of work. In newspapers and blogs we read, we see a lot of talk about the inability of schools to teach some of these important reading and critical thinking skills – and so it makes sense to us that employers are now turning their attention to the development of these skills in the working world.

We also noticed the number of folks who are engaing in Social Networking is up to almost 70%. We think those numbers will rise. While many joined these networks to reengage with old friends and keep up with family, the opportunities for greater engagement with colleagues and providers afforded in networks like LinkedIn should not be missed. We suggest you consider your current social networking strategy and add a LinkedIn Profile if you don't already have one, and "friend" some of your colleagues and favorite businesses in Facebook. It's a great way to see innovations, ideas, promotions, white papers and more on topics of interest to you. Don't forget to friend ReadytoManage on Facebook while you are at it!

And dont' forget check out the webstore for some great ways to jumpstart your training initiatives this year on hot topics such as these. http://www.readytomanage.com/

What Personal and Professional Goals Are You Setting for Next Year?

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 08:33:28 PST

Don’t enter 2011 without a clear view of where you would like to see yourself at the end of the year. All individuals can benefit from setting clear and effective goals and objectives, whether formally within the organization or at a personal level. Determining goals is part of the general process of planning for the future. It translates general intent into tangible steps and tasks.

To reach your goals in 2011, follow our simple and effective tips:

1. Plan ahead. Chart your ultimate direction and imagine your possible future.

2. Develop your goals and remember that a written goal should be clear to anyone else reading it, whether they are familiar with the subject or not.

3. Make sure your targets are just out of reach but not out of sight.

4.. Know yourself, your competencies and capabilities.

5. Asses resources and goal implementation issues.

6. Write out your final goals.

7. Develop measures for every individual goal that you set out to achieve.

8. Draw your targets on charts or graphs that will be used to measure your performance and ask yourself, “What can I do today to get one step closer to achieving my goal(s)?”.

9. Believe in yourself. If you doubt your self-worth you will find it difficult to achieve goals, and may lack motivation.

10. Maintain self-discipline and decide that you will always finish what you start, no matter how small the task. Develop perseverance.

If you find these tips helpful and would like to learn more ways to obtain your goals, visit the ReadyToManage store and check out our goal planning and assessment tools, including:

Stay Sane During The Holidays With Our Stress Management Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:39:50 PST

Holidays combined with end-of-the-year deadlines can create stress for everyone. It is important to learn how to deal with this stress, in order for it not to take over your life. When stress builds to extreme levels we are unable to cope and our physical and mental capacity to enjoy life can be significantly reduced.

Top 5 ReadytoManage Tips to Combat Stress:

1. Don’t Bottle up negative feelings, doing so will only exacerbate internal tension and anxiety and create a vicious cycle that only builds more stress. Instead, simply talk to someone who will listen.

2. Too much urgent activity (ie. looming deadlines and time constraints). People often confuse urgent things with important things. Organize your life so it isn't cluttered with activity that leads to anxiety over things left undone.

3. Take care of your physical well being. This includes maintaining a healthy diet and exercise regime without smoking or drinking.

4. Consider emotional factors in your life. Make sure to get 8 hours of sleep a night and don’t forget to have fun! Make time for your favorite hobbies.

5. PLAN AHEAD! Life always runs a little smoother if you plan ahead. Remind yourself that you always have time and opportunity to prepare, plan, and organize yourself to be in control.

Don’t let stress run your life this holiday season. Click Here to review or purchase The Stress Pocketbook, voted "best of its kind" by Management Today. Reviewed as "a user-friendly guide to stress management. The simple, quick-fire descriptions of common workplace situations are useful. Well worth keeping handy."

The Stress Pocketbook is full of practical advice on ways to manage your own stress, and how to help others, with an emphasis on what to do rather than on theory.

Studies Show Simulations Energize and Reinforce Learning, While Creating Team Building

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 09:32:25 PST

Who says you can’t have fun at work? Why not introduce a new creative way of learning? People work harder and learn better when they are enjoying themselves. Training simulation games are a superb way of providing workers with a fun experience, where they can learn more about themselves and how they interact with their colleagues and environment. Research shows that people learn easily and deeply when they are having fun. A training simulation game provides a safe environment to observe the behavior and actions of others while also participating. Games offer a natural and exciting way to learn, with the power to concentrate real life issues into a compact activity, without distractions of regular work.

Like Stories, games often mean different things to different people. Therefore, the task of the game facilitator is to ensure that all participants understand the core message of the game and apply that message to workplace problems and issues, encouraging people to form their own conclusions. The purpose of each game is to empower participants to see workplace challenges differently, while positively changing their workplace behaviors.

Check out the new training simulation games that ReadyToManage has to offer:

PowerPoint Ice breakers and Team-Builders
Click here for more information and to try a free demo

PowerPoint Quiz Shows, Volume 1, 2, and 3!
Click here for more information and to try a free demo

PowerPoint Sports Games
Click here for more information and to try a free demo

World Games
Click here for more information and to try a free demo

Simulations from Team Publications
Click here for more information and to try a free demo

Traditionalists, Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y Must Learn To Work Together Toward Success

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 10:32:17 PST

Just as technology has changed and developed in the workplace, from typewriters to computers and email, dial-up to wifi, pagers to cell phones to bbm messages, so have the people inside the workplace. Now, more than ever, we see a cross over between generations in the workplace, which can be challenging at times. As both products of chronological age and the time in which we grew up, people from different generations and age groups have rather different attitudes, values, beliefs and motivations from one another. These differences can easily lead to misunderstanding, miscommunication and even outright conflict in the workplace. A person’s outlook on the world has significant implications on how he or she treats, works with, and values other people. Recent research and organizational experience has shown that generational mix can be a potent problem that should be dealt with through education, tolerance and increased understanding of the issues.

Consultant and Speaker, Ira Wolfe recently published an article titled, “Should Employers Care That Gen Y Can't Write?” (http://preview.tinyurl.com/22jhpvj). The article covers generational differences and expectations when it comes to cursive writing versus block letters and handwritten notes versus emails. Wolfe suggests that the clarity and appropriateness of a message is more important than the vehicle of communication.

ReadyToMange realizes the importance of understanding these generational issues and offers great tools in helping employees better understand their generational qualities and ways to work collectively with other generations toward success. Our tools include:

FREE Generational Leadership booklet
This free 12-page booklet on generational differences in the workplace includes an overview of the four generations currently in the workplace including Traditionalists, Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y, and discusses how to manage staff and build relationships across the generational groups.

Generational Style Assessment: $14.95
If you and your organization are ready to take the next step in exploring Generational issues in the workplace, try our Generational Style Assessment which helps determine an individual’s influencing style when relating to people from different age groups or generations in the workplace and helps them to adjust or “flex” their own approach. A brief synopsis of the four age groups used in this assessment is included in the final report. This also shows the four generational influencing styles likely to be most effective in relation to each age group that can be employed by an individual.

The four styles (Steering, Empowering, Building, and Supporting) arise from intersecting two dimensions; the level of clarity and focus required by an individual or group, and the level of energy or engagement that is needed. It aims to:

Raise people’s awareness about the very different behaviors and characteristics of the four age groups that we identify (20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s+).
Alert individuals to their own relating style biases, and show them four discrete influencing behaviors.
Help people to take age differences more seriously in seeking to get the best out of everyone and contribute to getting all groups to work together more harmoniously.

In a review of this Assessment, Wolfe noted that,
For more information on ReadyToManage, please visit our Web site at www.ReadyToManage.com

“The Generational Style Assessment is a guaranteed conversation starter for helping manage a multi-generational workforce and reducing misunderstandings. For several years, Jon Warner and Anne Sandberg created a great questionnaire using real-life scenarios that every employee can relate to. The assessment is easy to complete and the booklet that comes with it includes excellent explanations and an excellent model introducing different styles that will be effective in managing each generation. Their research and materials are so good that they served as the inspiration for a chapter in my new book - Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization.”

New Year’s Resolutions for Development!

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:10:03 PST

Invest In Yourself and Your Company With
ReadyToManage’s Employee Development Sale

ReadyToManage (RTM) is helping you stay on track with your self-development goals for 2011, by offering an exclusive deal of $100 worth of resources for just $80 for the next 30 days. Employee development is more important than ever in weak economic times. Employees need to build their resumes, while organizations need their workers to take responsibility for building their own competence. Classroom training is quickly becoming too expensive and time consuming, making way for online learning, job aids, self-study, games, targeted assessments, storyboards and other employee development methods, which have become popular alternatives for a fraction of the cost of traditional workshops.

Employees target specific skills for development every year as part of appraisal and goal-setting. Why not make an annual budget available to all employees for self development use? RTM offers over 800 different resources to choose from, with development certificates available in increments of $50, $100 and $500.

Start setting your goals for 2011 now! For more information or to view RTM’s other offers and products, please visit http://store.readytomanage.com/

Employee Development Case Study: Development Plan for Mark, the Auditor

Consider Mark, an internal auditor at a government agency, who has targeted the following areas for his individual development over the next 12 month period.

1. Presentation Skills –

Mark is increasingly being asked to present his findings to small groups of leaders/managers in his organization and occasionally externally, which he finds very stressful, and needs to upgrade his skills and confidence as a presenter. He found these resources in the RTM store:

Presentation Skills RSB $12.50

Presentations Pocketbook $12.50

Both are PDF downloads and give him enough information, tips, templates, techniques he to upgrade his presentation skills.

2. Communications Skills – Mark has been told that he gets his message across well some of the time, to some audiences, but that he could improve in clarifying complex information (simplifying trends, data and tables), giving feedback and reading non-verbal cues. He wants to become a senior auditor within the next few years, so Mark is motivated to deepen his communication effectiveness. He found these resources in the RTM store:

Communication Effectiveness Profile $35 for a 180 degree feedback version (Mark + his manager, so he can compare perceptions of his communication effectiveness in the 7 key areas assessed)

Effective Communication eLearning $95 for a 3-4 hour (start and stop OK) with downloaded workbook so he can work through key concepts and not have to attend a workshop or evening course.

Communication Skills Storyboard

$4.95 that he can keep on his desk and refer to throughout the day to practice key actions on a daily basis.

To do all of the above, Mark has invested less than $160 for a full year of self-development in two key competency areas. It so happens that Mark has a budget allowance of $150 per year to spend on self-development so he has actually spent less than $10 of his own money to target his learning in key areas with superior content from ReadyToManage!

Enhance Your Critical Thinking Skills

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:52:44 PDT

Critical thinking is key to success in many professional, management and leaderships jobs. But what do folks mean when they talk about "critical thinking"? How does one acquire this skill?

What is Critical Thinking?
These are great questions. Critical thinking is a complex concept. We believe, in the most simple terms possible, that Critical Thinking is a process for making judgements or decisions which is reflective in nature and involves discernment, analysis, and evaluation, and in which one is "systematically looking for the merit, quality and worth of the information we are trying to perceive."

In other words, critical thinking is about how we perceive and evaluate information to make decisions or judgements.

Stairwary to Critical Thinking
One helpful way to think about this topic is to use the "Stairway to Critical Thinking Model" developed by Dr. Jon Warner which is shown below.

We see in this eight step model that we start with gathering and understanding info to assessing and evaluating it before reaching a decision and reviewing everything else we know in the context of the decision. Dr. Warner suggests that at each level of the stairway, we continue to ask questions about clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, logic and more.

While there are many more models for understanding the concept of Critical Thinking, we think this ones gives you a running start at building your own understanding of the breadth and depth of the topic.

Learning More

Our best introductory resource on this topic is the booklet Critical Thinking by Dr. Jon Warner, from which we excerpted his Stairway to Critical Thinking Model, above. This short, 16-page booklet covers the following:

Critical Thinking Defined: describes the various mental processes supporting critical thinking as a key business skill
Elements of Critical Thinking: categorizes the discreet activities involved with critical thinking, defining terms and establishing a common vocabulary
The Stairway to Critical Thinking: presents a simple, progressive model of critical thinking with developmental stages and skills in eight steps “up the stairway”
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Critical Thinking: describes Benjamin Bloom’s well-known six processes in his Taxonomy of Higher Thinking
Critical Thinking Intellectual Traits: description of the 8 common, observable personal traits that support critical thinking ability
Practical Use of Critical Thinking: discusses how the appropriate traits of mind (in addition to intellectual skills) can be used to avoid various forms of self-deception.
Critical Thinking – Elements of Thought: chart showing links to Jungian personality types and connections to 8 different core competencies.
What is a Good Critical Thinker? Outlines the various skills, knowledge and abilities associated with strong critical thinking.
Asking Insightful Questions: presents a systematic and self-aware modeling of 30 sound business questions that can be asked to obtain key information.
Critical Thinking Competencies: elements of a critical thinker described in behavioral terms – what to look for.
Situational Critical Thinking: applies a new situational model to critical thinking creating a 4-quadrant grid and style response or approach for each.
Stages in Developing Critical Thinking: Presents five levels of progressive critical thinking ability, from “unreflective thinker” up to “master critical thinker.”

To order a PDF downloadable copy of this Critical Thinking Booklet by Dr. Jon Warner, visit our webstore at http://www.readytomanage.com/ or click here to go directly to a description of this resource.

10 Tips for Running Effective 360 Feedback Exercises

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:48:45 PDT

Considering using 360-degree feedback? Getting input from others about one’s work performance can be illuminating but it can also make those participating very nervous, at best! Perhaps more than any other intervention, 360-degree feedback assessment needs to be done right to be effective (rather than destructive!). Here are 10 Tips for Running Effective 360 Degree Feedback Exercises!!

1. Nominations – Be sure to check the raters selected by the participant to make sure that they include key contacts and not just “friends” (i.e. hand-picked friendly contacts) who will not yield real and candid constructive criticism as well as key strengths.

2. Limit the number of raters – Don’t go overboard sampling too many contacts; research shows that 8-10 high-quality raters will give the best results and not “water down” the results.

3. Include development suggestions – Make sure you pick a tool that does not just report results, but also gives the participant ideas for lifting performance in his/her lowest areas so that development planning ensues after the exercise.

4. Debrief in person – Don’t just send or hand someone their report; make sure you have a trained de-briefer go over the results with the person one-on-one to help them absorb and properly understand the data as well as help them process emotional responses.

5. Beware of over-rating fatigue – If you are running a large-scale 360 you may run the risk of asking raters to rate several to many people within a short amount of time. This lcan easily lead to rater fatigue and individual results can suffer!

6. Length and depth of the survey – Sure, you want a comprehensive survey, but be careful not to tire your raters! may be better to choose a shorter survey than a longer one for best results – not more than 15 minutes to complete each one is a general rule-of-thumb to use.

7. Confidentiality – Be absolutely clear about who will have access to the results! Managers may want to see the output reports but if you decide to let them you MUST tell the person being rated this up-front. If you guarantee confidentiality then you must strictly maintain it - no exceptions.

8. Development planning comes later -- Don’t expect the 360 participant to dive into creating a personal development plan right away; let the data sink in for a few days to weeks before attempting the next step – gap filling and improvement efforts.

9. Encourage two-way communication with the person’s manager/leader – One of the key benefits of 360 exercises is the discussion that can take place (at the participant’s invitation, ideally) after the data is received. This discussion should focus on how each party views the job priorities and plans for fine-tuning these over the next 6-12 months, NOT what is wrong with the person.

10. Expect some grumbling – Anyone who participates in a 360 is likely to experience some negativity; no one likes to be judged or hear that they are less-than-perfect! Acknowledge this up-front, stress the benefits for goal-setting, and know that 360 data is a “slice of life” – a moment in time that is unique and not the entire story.

ReadytoManage offers many of its assessments and profiles in 360 format. Our two most popular and broadbased 360 degree instruments are our online Leadership Effectiveness Profile and online Management Effectiveness Profile. Check them out at the ReadytoManage Webstore at http://www.readytomanage.com/ You can see sample output reports on the "samples" tab of the product descriptions.

Or, try one of our other online profiles in a 360 degree format and practice the skills above: Change Management Effectiveness; Coaching Effectiveness Profile; Communication Effectiveness Profile; Creativity and Innovation Profile; Goal and Objective Setting Profile; Listening Effectivness Profile; Networking and Relationship Building Profile; People Development Profile; Problem Solving Effectiveness Profile; Quality Effectiveness Profile; Safety Effectivness Profile; Service Effectiveness Profile; Stress and Wellness Profile; Team Building Effectiveness; Time Management Effectiveness; Workplace Ergonomics Profile.

We also offer the "Situational" instruments in 360 degree format including Situational Communication, Situational Leadership, Situational Problem Solving, Situational Interviewing and Situational Presentations. All can be found in the "assessments" section of our Webstore at http://www.readytomanage.com/

Giving Feedback on Poor Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:41:37 PDT

This month’s focus is on Managing Poor Performance. Everyone has employees who are not meeting expectations. Unfortunately, many managers and supervisors avoid dealing directly with poor performers out of a reluctance to confront others, or a lack of confidence that it will help the situation, not hurt it.

Confronting poor performers and giving constructive feedback are essential management skills. Poor performers do not improve magically through wishful thinking!! And in today’s economy, businesses cannot afford to keep workers who are not performing. Therefore, developing skills in giving constructive feedback is critical to management success.
Constructive Feedback

To be constructive, feedback needs to be given in a calm, measured and clear way, so that the individual is left in no doubt about exactly what needs to improve. Focus on the work and specific behaviors (not personalities) and definitely provide examples of what is expected. Here are seven key actions to take in a performance conference with your poor performer.

1. Point out the difference between present performance and agreed upon expectations

2. Describe specifically the negative impact of the individual’s performance

3. Ask the person for their view of the situation

4. Ask for ideas on how the employee can correct the situation, and then add your own

5. Explain any steps you plan to take and why

6. Agree on an action plan and a date for follow-up

7. Express confidence that the individual can correct the situation.

Don’t underestimate any of these steps. You’d be surprised how many workers are unaware they are not meeting expectations simply because they didn’t understand the assignment or the expected performance levels. Always ask the individual for their input both on the situation and on how to improve. Then LISTEN to what they have to say. You will almost always learn something in that exchange. You also clearly signal that the employee has personal responsibility for his/her actions and improvement. FORMALIZE an action plan. Don’t forget to set a date to reevaluate with the employee and KEEP that appointment. Periodic progress checks can be as important as the original conference.

The bottom line is that Performance Management is a key management responsibility all year long, not just during annual performance appraisals. And learning to provide constructive feedback to both your superstars and your poor performers will boost the overall productivity of your entire organization. For more information on this topic, visit our Performance Management Forum. Also think about trying our “Handling Poor Performance Style Mini-Profile” - one of our line of world class assessments. This mini-profile helps you understand your own personal style in dealing with poor performers and can get you started in thinking about how to develop better skills in this area.

Explore Your Coaching Style

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Mon, 24 May 2010 10:11:01 PDT

Thinking About Your Coaching Style

All of us have a natural, or preferred coaching style. We need to understand what it is and when it is appropriate so that as coaches we can learn to adapt our style to the needs of the situation and the person we are trying to coach. To develop a good understanding of our style it’s helpful to consider the extremes.

At one end of the coaching continuum there is the “Teaching” Coach. This type of coach does a lot of “telling”. They have the expertise and they are trying to pass it on to help the other person achieve something concrete. In using this style, the coach is typically drawing on his or her experience to pass on the skills and knowledge the other person needs to achieve an outcome or to do their job. This sort of coaching is appropriate when tasks are to be performed in the “right” way over and over. It’s often (but not always) particularly helpful to people who are in front-line jobs where they have to achieve a consistent and predictable outcome in providing a product or a service.

At the other end of the scale is the “Learning to learn” Coach. This type of coach is more interested in asking questions and listening than telling. Rather than hands-on technical experience the “Learning to learn” Coach often has a broader ‘people empowerment’ expertise which they use. They typically recognise the potential in people and have a commitment to giving them challenges and opportunities to stretch themselves and learn how to learn (especially when the individual may have projects to undertake as part of their learning journey). This sort of coaching is appropriate when there are many paths to a good result and there is not just one “right” approach. It’s particularly helpful when people are developing as managers/leaders or working on projects which are breaking new ground for them.

As a coach, one of the most important things you need to be able to do is ADAPT your style to match the situation. To read more about effective coaching, we recommend our short booklet "Effective Leadership Coaching" as an introduction to the topic. To explore your coaching skills, consider taking our "Coaching Effectiveness Profile" to see how you rate on seven key coaching skill. Or to explore all our Coaching Resources, visit our Coaching and Mentoring Topic Page.

Key Skills for Coaches and Mentors

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:34:19 PDT

Coaching is an essential skill set for managers, leaders and even individual contributors in today’s fast-paced and rapidly changing organizations. But what makes a great coach? We all have some exposure to great coaching through little league, gymnastics, soccer, high school sports, and the like. But what is it that made some of those coaches great and some so terrible?

Many of us would say that our best coach both encouraged and challenged us. And certainly, these are among the most basic of coaching skills and a great place to start. We think, when you take a closer look, there are seven key skills you have to master to be an effective coach at work and in life. These are:

Empathy

Listening

Confronting and Challenging

Problem-Solving

Feedback Giving

Empowering Others

Mentoring

Our best coaches certainly challenged us, but they also confronted us. They had a way of giving us feedback that made us better, because it was focused on how to improve, not how to fail. They guided us to learn to solve our own problems; to identify issues with our jump shot or our swing, and to self-correct. They guided us, not directed us, and they empowered us to take what we had learned and go out to play the game.
It's not so very different in a work setting. Good coaching is helping someone develop themself. It is giving them constructive feedback, problem-solving techniques, an empathetic ear, and the power to succeed or fail on their own. After all, we learn as much from failure as we do success; maybe more.

Those who aspire to be great leaders and managers must learn the art of coaching. There are great resources out there to help you on your journey. We think a great place to start is with our Coaching Effectiveness Profile. It measures the seven coaching skills we identified above, and provides you with feedback on how you measure on them. It can be a great way to identify target areas for more reading, exploration, and skill development. To explore more Coaching Resources, you can also check out our Coaching and Mentoring Forum.

Get Better at Business Writing

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:41:15 PST

With texting, IM, Facebook, LinkedIn and use of other social media on the rise, more folks are entering the workplace without good business writing skills. Their idea of a closing salutation is "C U" ("see you" for the non-texters in the audience!).

We think it's important to provide new employees with some guidance on what your expectations are with regard to business writing. Our list would start here:

What formats are appropriate for communicating in the company and with whom? Written memorada? Email? Formal Letters? Reports? the company's Social Network Site?
Who is your audience and what do they need to know? Any communicaton should keep in mind the audience in terms of what to say and how to say it!!!
What tone does the company expect business correspondence to take? Is it an informal organization, or a formal one? Do you use a different tone with customers and suppliers, or not?
Are there standards for whom to copy on communication, or where people should be referred for additional information? Are there templates or other job aids?

Setting out expectations for workers helps them get it right the first time!! But even when you do, you will find that many workers just don't know how to - well - WRITE. How to organize a letter, create paragraphs, flow a document from one topic to another, can be intimidating for workers who have nightmares about school essays and reports. Providing samples can be helpful here so keep a file of good examples handy.

We also recommend our free booklet on Effective Business Writing. It is a great resource for employees who are uncomfortable or unskilled in business writing. We have many more communication resources in our ReadytoManage Webstore. Find the store at www.readytomanage.com or click here to browse our communication resources .

Successful 360 Degree Feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:25:28 PDT

What's all the fuss about 360 Degree Feedback?

360-degree feedback is controversial, no doubt about it. Why? Because it’s often done improperly, or poorly; it’s all in the execution. In some cases, data is misused, participants are debriefed improperly, the wrong people are sampled, the instrument used is too long or confusing, confidentiality is breached, or development planning fails to result in lasting behavior change.

On the other hand, 360-degree feedback data is hard to beat if you want to get a manager’s attention to jumpstart needed behavior change. Hearing exactly what you need to change from the people closest to you is great data. In fact, if implemented properly, who wouldn’t want specific, candid and honest feedback to be able to leverage personal strengths and identify and prioritize development needs?

So, what is 360 Degree Feedback?

360 Degree feedback is performance-appraisal data collected from 'all around' an employee: his or her peers, subordinates, supervisors, and sometimes, from internal and external customers. Its main objective usually is to assess training and development needs and to provide competence-related information for succession planning, not promotion or pay increase.

How do I make sure we get the most out of 360 Degree Feedback?

Select a survey or tool that fits your organization and the roles you plan to include. For example, we have a couple of flagship products, the Leadership Effectiveness Profile and the Management Effectiveness Profile, that many clients use to solicit 360 Degree Feedback. But we also have some assessment tools for specific competencies like our Communication Effectiveness Profile or Team Building Effectiveness Profile which might be a much better fit in certain situations. Be sure to ask vendors for a sample output report so you can see what dimensions are assessed and how.
Be careful when allowing participants to select their own raters; make sure someone “in the know” reviews the rater list so that it includes key contacts – not just the participant’s “buddies” who will give him or her good ratings;
Don’t under or over-sample; as a general rule-of-thumb, include between 6 – 10 raters to get the best data.

Learning More
If you want to learn more on this topic, we've got a few suggestions. We've just finished a new Guide to Effective 360 Degree Feedback that can be downloaded from our webstore for free. Click here to check it out.
You can also browse through our catalog of online assessments at http://store.readytomanage.com/store/c/11-Online-Assessments.aspx many of which are available for administration as 360 Degree instruments. A sampling of our topics available as 360 Degree Assessments is listed below.
Change Management
Coaching Effectiveness
Communication Effectiveness
Creativity & Innovation
Ergonomics Focus
Ethical Behavior Profile
Financial Acumen
Generational Style Assessment
Goal / Objective Setting Interviewing style
Listening Effectiveness
Management Style
Meeting Effectiveness
Networking Effectiveness
People Development
Personal Effectiveness
Presentation style
Problem Solving and Decision-Making Effectiveness
Project Management
Quality Effectiveness
Sales Effectiveness
Service Effectiveness
Situational Communication
Situational Leadership
Situational Presentation
Situational Problem-Solving
Stress Management Teambuilding Effectiveness
Time Management

New Project Management Online Assessment

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Valenzuela-Smith) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:26:54 PDT

We are excited to announce the launch of our newest online assessment, the Project Management Effectiveness Profile!!!!

To celebrate this launch, we're sharing some tips on how to be successful in managing projects big and small. So read on, we're sure you'll find something useful for the next time you are asked to take on a project!

What is a “project” and how does it differ from “business as usual”?Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. A project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end (usually constrained by date, but can be by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet particular goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services.

In practice, the management of projects vs. operations is found to be quite different, and therefore both require the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management.

Challenge of Successful Project ManagementThe primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives within the project constraints. Typical constraints are scope, time, and budget. The secondary—and more ambitious—challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs (people, time, budget) necessary to meet the stated objectives.

Evaluating Project Management Skills?
Skill at managing projects is like conducting a symphony while a typhoon rages around you. It is complex and like any complex skill set, you need to break it down. In our Project Management Effectiveness assessment, we break the skills down into 8 core competencies. To be effective, a great Project Manager needs skills and abilities in these 8 areas:

Setting goals and standards

Results orientation

Communicating clearly

Planning and scheduling work

Change handling

Making decisions and weighing risk

Managing under pressure

Organization and delegation

But it doesn’t end there….

Each competency is composed of twelve behaviors. Let’s take the first competency above as an example -- Setting Goals and Standards. Here are 12 behaviors that underlie that particular competency:

Sets personal project goals and standards at the outset

Demonstrates that project outcomes need a clear path to achieve them

Converts loose intentions into hard and tangible goals

Looks for innovative ways to generate enthusiasm in others about project targets

Sets standards and targets that are specific, action-oriented and realistic

Does not accept generalized project goals for which results are not specific

Sets a closer or easier project target if the team seems to be “drifting”

Clearly defines how to get from A to B for each major project task

Keeps checking to make sure that everyone is on the right track

Matches broad directional goals with steps that can be taken immediately

Stays focused and does not let people get side-tracked or thrown off course

Can quickly get people to decide on a single direction out of competing alternatives

So, one of the secrets to great Project Management skills is to understand and assess the skill level of an individual in each of the 8 competency areas to determine where to target continuing development as a Project Manager and get that project off to a great start!!!

To learn more about Project Management tools and resources, and to check out our online Project Management Effectiveness Profile assessment, visit our Project Management forum at http://store.readytomanage.com/ProjectManagementForum.aspx

Problem Solving and the Nobel Prize for Economics

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:51:19 PDT

So how did we possibly tie these two topics together? Well, if you read the newspaper last week, you may have seen that two US economists won the Nobel Prize for Economics last week for there work on problem solving and decision making strategies in real world situations.

While most of us will never win a Nobel Prize for our work, nor will we fully comprehend the work of these two amazing economists, we appreciate how complex solving problems and making decisions can be within in our organizations and even within our households.

Despite the fact that we have endless meetings about solving problems in our office, or that we prepare voluminous reports and “decision packages” for policy makers, board members, and executives, most people find that they spend very little time thinking about or learning about decision making and problem-solving strategies, skills and tools. We think that last week’s announcement of the Nobel Prize winners and their focus on problem solving and decision-making in real world situations gives managers, facilitators, coaches and trainers an opportunity for a “teachable moment” to begin a discussion with their team or staff about problem solving tools and decision making strategies.

November would be a great month to begin a team development initiative around the topics of Problem Solving and Decision Making. Whether you use a simple “lunch and learn” format, take time in your weekly staff meetings, or launch a formal learning initiative, spending time on these critical skills will pay off for you and your team in the long run!! Here are some ideas.

Read the Wall Street Journal Article on the Nobel Prize and talk with your team about the importance of thinking creatively when solving problems to get the discussion going. You don’t have to be a Nobel Prize winner to challenge the conventional thinking of your company or department and come up with a new idea!!! Here’s a link to the article. http://tinyurl.com/ygyqm6g
Have the team read and discuss a short skill building booklet on critical thinking, problem solving or decision making. Pick a recent problem or decision your team has made and discuss how you might approach it differently given what you’ve learned. Try this critical thinking booklet or this skill builder on problem solving for the activity.
Have the team explore their decision making style with a free mini-profile on the topic. Follow up with a longer more comprehensive Problem Solving and Decision Making Profile covering skills such as Critical thinking, Data gathering and processing, Tool selection methods, Alternative weighing ability, Lateral conceptualization, Perception and judgment, and Risk assessment skills. Look for common areas to pursue further training.
Use our Problem-Solving and Decision Making ToolKit to experiment with different problem solving techniques and tools. It’s quick and practical guides to all kinds of analytical techniques for problem-solving are fabulous for teams.

There are a myriad of other ideas for getting started on a learning initiative on this topic. Try eLearning, try a team game, use Storyboards as posters and learning aids. The opportunities are boundless. Check out our Problem Solving and Decision Making Forum for a complete list of products and tools to help you get started.

Using Assessments for Training and Coaching

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 10:07:03 PST

We've had a lot of questions this last few weeks about the assessments we have been featuring in our Webstore, and in this blog. Questions like:

"Is an assessment a test of mastery?"
"What can I tell from an assessment?"
"How would I use an assessment in my coaching practice?"
"Is an assessment the same as a profile?"

Here are some quick facts about assessments in the training and coaching world.
Assessments - Instruments - Profiles
When we see the word "assessment" we think of the kind of test we took in school to determine mastery of certain content. While these kinds of "tests" are certainly available commercially, most often in the training and HR space, you will see the terms "assessments, instruments and profiles" used interchangably to refer to a collection of tools that are designed to help an individuals gain insight into either competence or style on a particular dimension or skill area.
When used in a training or coaching practice, a Competency-Based Instrument (assessment or profile) focuses on a specific dimension such as Coaching Effectiveness and enables you to break the dimension down to the behavioral level. Respondents answer a series of questions and based on those responses, the instrument guides that individual to examine individual behaviors that can be mastered to boost that competency and increase effectiveness.
A Style-based Instrument (assessment or profile) breaks down a topic area into a four-quadrant grid so that an individual can better understand his or her own, dominant style in an area like Emotional Intelligence. Often, trainers or OD specialists use style assessments in advance of a workshop or other learning event to determine participants’ dominant style and least-used style and then plan the learning around “style-flexing.”
A third major category of assessment is of course, the Personality Type Instrument which are psychologically-based, like the Psychological Type Indicator (or PTI), which is a traditional Jungian 16-type assessment. Lots of coaching practices, leadership academies, etc. utilize these kinds of instruments in their practices. There is an entire community of professionals dedicated to the use of these Jungian instruments.
Using Instruments
Most often, we find instruments used prior to, or in conjunction with a training initiative or workshop, or a coaching engagement. There are some instruments which assess multiple dimensions, such as a Leadership Effectiveness Profile, or Management Effectiveness Profile, which can give an individual feedback on a range of dimension such as communication, setting goals, etc., as well as more focused assessments on topics such as Listening Skills. Matching the assessments with the goals of your client is an important part of the skills you bring as a coach or trainer.
As you look for the right assessments, keep in mind that many assessments can be taken online, and will then give the participant an individualized report of results with suggestions for next steps in their development. Many of our clients love this option, as they can have their participants take the assessment online prior to the training event or coaching meeting, then bring their results with them. These results can boost participant engagement and retention as participants focus on gaining insight into their specific style or compentency issues.
Improving your Skills in Using Instruments
Finally, training professionals and coaches need to be continuous learners as well!! Most instruments have Facilitator Guides available, which we recommend for anyone planning to use an assessment for the first time. You can also find useful webinars and intepretive material on most of the dimensions covered. In our ReadytoManage webstore, we have facilitator guides and detailed coaching guides for almost all of our assessments. Click here to see a sample of a few pages from our facilitator guide on the Management Effectiveness Profile Facilitators Guide.

WorldGames Training Games

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:29:28 PDT

Games Continue to Teach Us - Even After We Think We've Outgrown Them

This spring, we came across a great author of training games and were blown away by the range of games and simulations offered. We thought they'd make a great addition to our practice, and to our ReadytoManage.Com webstore. So, after a long conversation with the author, John Radyclyffe, we agreed to add an array of WorldGAMES products to our webstore and begin using them with our clients.

"One fun 15 minute game just blew me away" wrote founder John Radclyffe about his first experience with 'experiential learning' in a training program. "It showed me clearly why I was in my mess, and what I needed to do to change it. Just 15 minutes to solve a problem I had stuggled with for 2 years."

Training games, more generally known as 'experiential learning' are a terrific way to open the eyes of your workshop participants to learn lessons about themselves they might never get in a traditional educational setting. In addition, research has shown experiential learning activities such as games and simulations boost retention markedly.

The hard part -- is finding the right games, simulations and activities related to the business, leadership and management topics you are dealing with. WorldGAMEs has dedicated itself to constructing and distributing a wide range of exercises and games appropriate for all kinds of settings and topics. We've found their resources top notch, and are pleased to recommend them to our clients and customers. We also recommend the game collections of the UK based firm, Management Pocketbooks, and offer a few of these as well.

At the ReadytoManage.com webstore, you can find a selection of games and simulations from WorldGAMES along with suggestions for appropriate uses. We even have a free downloadable game - the Aeroplane Challenge - from WorldGAMES so you can see for yourself how a simple paper airplane game can teach us a lot about innovation, competiveness and more. Click on the "free resources" tab in our store at http://www.readytomanage.com/ and give it a try; we think you'll see how simple games can continue to teach us lessons, long past childhood.

Using Style Assessments to Aid Learning Retention and Application

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:30:21 PDT

Training that “Sticks”A common question is how do we make training more “sticky”, or how to help learners internalize and apply course material? One way to do this is through the use of assessments which can help to personalize the learning content and provide important insights for the learner which aid in content retention and application.

How Does This Work?Style assessments are often administered to learners in advance of a workshop or other learning event to set the stage for participants by raising their awareness of their own (and others’) natural tendencies and preferences in a particular area. Perhaps the most widely known style assessment is Situational Leadership® (developed by Ken Blanchard and Dr. Paul Hershey in the 1960’s) in which the participant answers a series of scenario-based questions that result in a preferred, secondary and least-used leadership style.

The conclusions of the assessment in terms of knowing one’s own style (in this case, leadership) is usually less important than the subsequent training intervention in which the topic is explored, analyzed, taken apart and put back together again in a thoughtful and insightful way. Often, the concept of “style flexing” is key to the training as participants learn to “meet the other person where they live” and respond to them in a way that appeals to the other person’s preferences rather than acting out of one’s own preferences (i.e. dominant style).

Style assessments are quite useful in this way when the topic area is narrowed and a particular competency can be picked apart and examined in detail. For example, the Emotional Intelligence Style Profile has four quadrants based on the intersection of two scales. The 4 styles are:
Reflective (facts-focused),
Organized (systems-mindedness),
Conceptual (open-minded) and
Empathetic (feelings-focused).
The two scales that create the styles are level of thinking structure and drive/motivation (outcome or belief-driven).

Participants learn their own preferred Emotional Intelligence (EI) style, the pros and cons associated with each of the four styles, ways to find better balance by developing skills in all four of the EI styles, and helpful advice about how to flex one’s own style to better communicate and relate to team members with different EI styles.

Taking a style assessment in advance of a learning event (workshop or eLearning) raises individual awareness and readies the learner to jump into the content quickly and intelligently. It can also prepare the trainer of the style composition he or she will be meeting in advance of the course.

In the ReadytoManage webstore, we have an array of style assessments, as well as fully-scripted, downloadable half-day Workshop Facilitator Kits that compliment the various assessments. Also, any workshop or learning event can be delivered entirely independently of the assessment. In terms of cost, style assessments run from $8.50 to $15 per person – an inexpensive, but elegant enhancement to formal learning.

Self-Development using ReadytoManage Resources

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:33:08 PDT

More and more organizations are holding employees accountable for their own development, rather than simply sending people to classes. Many employees and individuals are eager to create their own development plans but don't know where to find the right resources or how to start.

Here's how we helped one company start down the self-development path.

We recently worked with a company who was looking to improve skills for some of their supervisors. Improvement of Supervisory and Management skills are some of the most frequent requests we get. The challenge was to create development plans that were targeted to each employee's needs, and could be undertaken on an individual, self-directed basis, while still being affordable. We had a few suggestions for this company to get them started on this path.

Do an assessment of each supervisory's current competencies. Each supervisor took the online Managerial Effectiveness Profile (MEP), which assesses the 12 most critical managerial competencies. Then Supervisors downloaded MEP output report which included detailed coaching tips for low areas and a development plan template to be used for designing a plan for competency development in two areas most in need of development over the next year;
Begin their learning journey with some basic development booklets. We created our library of highly affordable, downloadable Rapid Skill-Builder booklets just for this purpose. Each of these 42 booklets focuses on a key skill or competency, presents "best practice" thinking in just 12 pages, and includes an action template that can be used to apply concepts back on the job, again and again. In this case, each supervisor went to the RTM webstore and downloaded two Rapid Skill-Builder™ booklets to begin learning about the skill areas in which they had the greatest need. (Another great set of self-development booklets available at the ReadytoManage webstore is the Management Pocketbook series. These booklets are highly visual, practical resources on a wide variety of management and supervisory topics.)
Consider offering eLearning as a self-development tool Online learning can be a another excellent means of self-development for individuals. In our Rapid Skill Builder series of eLearning courses, we use an expert facilitator and video vignettes to demonstrate skills and techniques important to gaining mastery of the supervisory skill. eLearning can be made available to individual employees on an as needed basis, and can be undertaken at any time convenient to the employee. Most good courses allow you to start and stop from any point in the course, review previously covered material, and to download relevant resources such as cue cards, workbooks and action templates. The company in our example decided to offer each supervisor the opportunity to take an eLearning course from our online catalog, then followed up with some individual coaching by the manager.

For about $100 per person, this company was able to target specific skills that needed improvement and start employees on a self-development journey they hope will become a lifetime habit. Visit our webstore at http://www.readytomanage.com/ to view some of these self-development resources.

"Doing More With Less" to Provide Relevant and Affordable Employee Training

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Sandberg) — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:03:23 PDT

With the economic outlook continue to be bleak for many companies, we are hearing HR and Training Managers say they have fewer resources and less budget yet, even as organizations are downsizing, demand is growing to ensure each remaining staff member is able to function at the highest possible level. While many in the industry argue that less budget should mean lower expectations, in many companies this is simply not possible.

In this posting we explore how HR, Training and line managers can “do more with less” about employee development by using the eLearning (online courses) products to enhance and boost performance on the job at a fraction of the cost of sending individuals to in-person training programs.

Here’s how one manager used a Rapid Skill-Builder eLearning module, Improving Customer Service and her weekly team meetings to learn, reinforce and apply new skills.

Week 1: Team Leader (or Trainer) uses 15 min. at the weekly team meeting to discuss WHY Improving Customer Service is important to the team’s success, and HOW customer service skills impact individual effectiveness.

Week 2: Team members complete the eLearning module at a time convenient to each (60-90 min. – stop and start OK) and download material (cue cards, booklet, template).

Week 3: Team Leader (or Trainer) conducts de-brief discussion; team members discuss how the module can be applied to work on the team. Team members go away with instructions to use the online course's action template with 1-2 work challenges for next week.

Week 4: Discussion and sharing of template examples to reinforce application of customer service skills on the job (30 min.).

TOTAL COST =- $60 per team member; total time invested by the leader less than 3 hours – BIG impact for SMALL investment!

We think there are many ways for small investments in training to pay off big for companies and individuals if we are focused in what we try to achieve and creative in using our resources. Online learning, reinforced with on-the-job exercises and discussions, is one way to stretch your training budget in lean times.

Try out an eLearning course for yourself. We offer a free trial of the Rapid Skill Builder eLearning Course: Improving Customer Service at our Free Resources Center. Visit http://store.readytomanage.com/store/pg/21-ReadytoManage-Free-Resources.aspx to try out the course today.