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Leadership Matters
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Leadership Matters is a publication from ALD Inc.
designed to explore the workplace issues today's managers and supervisors face.
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August 9, 2007
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It's 60 degrees here this morning and no question that fall is on the way! It's a reminder that it's the time of year when your organization begins thinking about next year's training agenda and we'd like to offer some provocative thoughts on those plans. So this is an especially content-rich newsletter – here’s what’s included:
- Overview of the Train to Ingrain process – an integrated learning solution
- A MOVIE – 3 high impact minutes – that describes how to measure the success of your training programs
- A second MOVIE – five high-payoff minutes! – to overview our very effective Leadership Series training modules
- A Self-Development Tool – 10 Strategies and 10 Tools to Help You Improve Your Performance
- Tips on Reinforcing Your Training messages
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The ultimate goal of training and development has always been to achieve permanent, measurable improvements in performance that have a positive impact on business results.
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Executives and HR professionals have pursued this goal for decades. Regrettably, most organizations haven’t been able to achieve anything close to this expected return on their investment—especially in the improvement of leadership, sales, service and other interpersonal skills. Even though tens of billions of dollars are invested in learning and development every year, the best efforts of trainers have not been able to consistently produce permanent changes in workplace behavior. This failure has come to be known as the “transfer of training problem.”
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Experts say the issue typically isn’t with the training and development programs themselves, but with their context—the activities and practices that happen before, during and afterwards. The central problem is inadequate follow-up reinforcement of the skills introduced in training. Recent discoveries in neuroscience tell us why this is so important: performance improvement involves the growing of new dendrites to reconnect brain cells into new pathways that enable new skills and behavior patterns. This physical connecting-up process depends on a substantial amount of practical application and reinforcement, which almost never happens in the traditional approach to training and development.
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Train-to-Ingrain is a uniquely structured performance improvement process that focuses on eight critical areas to address this problem. It gives organizations a realistic, reinforcement-intensive method for transferring classroom learning to permanent improvements in workplace performance.
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At the heart of Train-to-Ingrain are two imperatives:
- Integrating assessment and training with enough follow-up reinforcement so that newly learned skills and practices are permanently ingrained as improved individual performance
- Involving direct managers as workplace performance coaches of their subordinate team members throughout this ongoing assessment, training and reinforcement process
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The result is a mutually supportive partnership among learners, their direct managers and training staff referred to as the “Learning Triangle.”
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Train-to-Ingrain isn’t a single program, event or intervention. It’s a new contextual framework for conducting such programs. It’s an ongoing process in which efforts to ingrain new skills and improve an individual’s performance become a routine aspect of work:
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PERFORMANCE PROBLEM
- Assessment
- Developmental program
- Coaching
- Ongoing development
- Follow-up feedback and assessment
- Accountability
IMPROVED PERFORMANCE
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Before training, individual performance levels are benchmarked using multi-source feedback assessment, with the expectation that follow-up measurements will be made several months after training. This focuses learner attention, increases motivation and establishes a mechanism for accountability. Training programs incorporate best practices that contribute to retention and learning transfer. With the support of trainers, direct managers play a crucial role during the follow-up reinforcement phase, supporting continued learning, ongoing feedback, coaching and accountability.
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The Train to Ingrain Process
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Train to Ingrain is a carefully thought-out process of learning designed to enhance behavior change in managers/supervisors.
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Cognitive neuroscience tells us that to change a work habit, you have to reconnect brain cells into new pathways that enable new skills and behavior patterns. This physical growth process takes time. A substantial amount of practical application and reinforcement is needed, which almost never happens in the traditional approach to training and development.
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Built upon decades of neuroscience research, Train-to-Ingrain is a new reinforcement-intensive approach to professional development that continuously stimulates appropriate brain cells to make new connections, thus forming new neural networks. If trainers, learners and their direct managers cooperate in this ongoing process, work habits and skills eventually replace old behavior patterns.
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Train to Ingrain, implemented thoroughly, will produce permanent measurable changes in the performance of your managers. Here is the typical approach to developing an integrated learning system:
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Step 1. Prepare learner’s manager to be a coach
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One-on-one consultation with the managers of any class participants to help them understand and commit to their role in the training process.
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Step 2. Conduct a baseline assessment on the learner
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The baseline assessment will measure any behaviors selected as part of the participant’s developmental plan. The assessment can be:
· 360 degrees (participant, his/her manager, peers, direct reports)
· 180 degrees (participant and his/her manager)
· Completed by the participant on his/her own
· Any combination of respondents applicable
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Step 3. Deliver the training
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Learners participate in the specific training programs as well as pre and post training events.
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Step 4. Reinforce the training content
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1. Coaching
2. Ongoing Development
3. Follow-up Feedback & Assessment
4. Accountability
We work with you to develop a variety of techniques to provide reinforcement.
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Step 5. Learners’ managers become coaches
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Managers begin one-on-one coaching and observation of participants while also implementing in-house support groups for these people. We also utilize a Self-Development Toolkit for the learner.
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Step 6. Provide a feedback loop
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Support the manager/supervisor in recognizing the learning that has taken place and to help set any new developmental goals. In this step, the manager gets a summary of the supervisor's feedback to use in the coaching process. Feedback loops can occur every few months to monitor change and success. At a minimum, this is the same baseline assessment administered in Step 2.
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This brings you back to the original skills assessment that was conducted – within a few months it’s time to administer the survey again and measure progress.
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The Bottom Line…
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Assessment + Training + Reinforcement = On the Job Behavior Change
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©2007 ALD, Inc. All rights reserved.
ALD, Inc. values every subscriber and respects your privacy. We do not rent, sell or exchange email addresses. This FREE publication by ALD Inc. is sent only to those who have requested it.
ALD, Inc. | 3021 Lake Forest Drive | Hayden Lake, ID 83835
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