Train to Ingrain An Integrated Learning Solution TRAIN TO INGRAIN is a commonsense training and development methodology. It's a reinforcement-centered integrated approach that engages all the key players to focus programs and learners on closing performance gaps that impact on business results. To be fully effective, the training and development process should have five phases.   Phase 2  Assessment When learners know where they are strong and where they need improvement, they know what to focus on during training. When learners discover that their baseline performance was measured before training and will be measured again and again afterwards to check for improvement, they're keenly motivated to change their workplace habits. The empowering technology here is 20/20 Insight GOLD, an award-winning flexible, state-of-the-art feedback platform. Used along with the Supervision Series, it focuses learning and provides customized feedback so that learners and managers can gauge whether skills are improving. These measurements have the added benefit of facilitating accountability.

Information contained here on the Assessment phase: Level 3 and Level 4 Evaluation of Training Advice for People Who Are About to Receive Feedback Revealing Interchange... How Leaders Learn to Lead A Familiar Tale of Woe...And a Solution Assessing Behavior Four Motivations to Self-Improvement A Process That Achieves Accountability and Long-term Behavioral Change Assessing 360-Degree Assessment New Thoughts about 360-Degree Feedback What is 20/20 Insight GOLD??

Level 3 and Level 4 Evaluation of Training   By now, Donald L. Kirkpatrick's four-level model for evaluating training has become a classic tool for HRD practitioners. Briefly, the model clarifies that four outcomes may be measured: Level 1: Reaction: How satisfied are the trainees with the program? Level 2: Learning: To what extent has learning occurred? Level 3: Behavior: To what extent has on-the-job performance improved? Level 4: Results: To what extent has training had an impact on business results? Level 3 evaluations are significant because they reveal whether learning in the classroom was transferred to action in the workplace. Executives want to hold training programs accountable, because they want their investment to produce desired changes in behavior, improvements in on-the-job performance. So why aren't they used more often?    Click here to read the entire article

Advice for People Who Are About to Receive Feedback As valuable as feedback is, the idea that you’re going to receive some can create a tense, unpleasant feeling in your gut. That’s why people are fond of saying, "Feedback is the breakfast of champions." Not only is feedback essential for you to perform at your best, it takes a certain amount of inner strength to deal with the anxiety of receiving it, so you can digest what you've heard. Feedback is often positive. It's helpful to know that others believe you're on track. It can give you extra confidence to continue pushing hard in these directions. And it’s gratifying to be appreciated! However, some feedback can be difficult to accept, especially if it's negative. So how should you receive feedback?    Click here to read the entire article

Revealing Interchange... I recently had an interesting virtual conversation via email with a human resource professional. It was refreshing to hear these questions again, and I thought it would be revealing to include the entire exchange here: First Inquiry: I have a question regarding the Process vs Results article. Are you suggesting to base performance management review/bonuses on results (outcomes) instead of process (behaviors)?   If employees use their 360 results to develop personal objectives, would it make sense to measure the achievement of these objectives and use it as part of a performance evaluation along with the achievement of other results objectives?  Read the remainder of this thoughtful and provocative article here

How Leaders Learn to Lead   Leadership is one of the most popular words in business literature today. It is cited as the thing most needed, the trait most important to the continuing strength of the global economy. Complicating the issue, however, is that over 100 years of leadership research has led to a remarkable lack of consensus about what it is. Is it a process? Is it power? Is it a position? Is it management? The next question for those in the leadership development field is: what is it we are developing and what is the most effective way to do it?   Click here to read the entire article

A Familiar Tale of Woe...And a Solution   We agreed that our managers knew the business, but most of them weren't very effective with their people. We noticed friction and a lack of cooperation. Disagreements and arguments festered. You could sense the tension out there. Morale was low in many areas. It wasn't the positive, high-energy culture we wanted. We lost several of our best people.   We concluded that our managers needed to be better leaders, and we decided to bring in a top-flight leadership effectiveness program. The trainers were fantastic and our managers raved about it. We were satisfied that it was money well spent. In the months afterward, we saw an improvement in several managers, but we noticed that most of them weren’t using the new skills. To be honest, these were the same folks doing the same things.   A year later, I look around and can’t say there’s been much change at all. It’s hard to believe that a program of such high quality didn’t get better results in the long run. It’s been a huge disappointment.   This is a fair summary of numerous stories we've heard in recent years. The executives expected and deserved a far better return on their investment. The employees desperately needed better leadership. The programs were excellent. They should have been a big success story for the trainers. But what about the learners????    Click here to read the entire article

Assessing Behavior   Many organizations realize the need for assessments. They use surveys, focus groups, focused interviews training pre-tests and post-tests. These surveys promote the long-term health of organizations and the development of people. On this topic, it’s important to distinguish between pre-/post-course knowledge tests and pre-/post-course behavior assessments. Assessing up-front knowledge helps people learn important concepts, because it provides a baseline for what people know.   However, to determine a baseline for what people do on the job, we need a different tool. This means getting feedback from direct reports, peers, bosses and the participants themselves about how they are currently using the specific skills to be addressed in training. And not just numerical ratings—narrative comments give depth to the feedback. Click here to read the entire article

Four Motivations to Self-Improvement   For over a decade now, I’ve discouraged organizations from linking 360-degree feedback results to any form of personnel action. I’ve stressed repeatedly that a 360 diagnostic should be linked to follow-up developmental programs only.   Sometimes this provokes an interesting question: "If 360 isn’t linked to compensation or personnel action, what would motivate a person towards self-improvement?"   I reply that there are four good reasons... Click here to read the entire article

A Process That Achieves Accountability and Long-term Behavioral Change   Participants of training typically give their programs high marks, even though long-term, measurable behavioral changes rarely occur. Understandably, senior leaders would like to make sure long-term changes actually occur and people are held accountable.    With the help of two award-winning programs, we’ve been able to develop an implementation process that consistently produces highly motivated learners and measurable behavioral changes in the long term. The Vital Learning leadership series is a behavior-based, skill-acquisition learning program. 20/20 Insight Gold is the platform that automates initial and ongoing feedback. The combination of these two systems with our process supports a long-term program of reinforcement learning, coaching, feedback and ultimately—accountability. And several months after the initial training sessions, executives have evidence that the new skills have been acquired and are being used.   Click here to read the entire article

Assessing 360-Degree Assessment You should be able to verify that a tool is useful. However, it's impossible to establish how a single factor, such as using 360-degree assessment, increases performance or productivity in an organization. For one thing, the impact of 360-degree feedback on bottom line results depends not only on whether the technology is used, but on how an organization uses it. For example, were targeted developmental programs conducted after assessment? Were the behaviors introduced in these programs reinforced for a period of months until new skills were actually ingrained? Neither assessment nor training by itself can ingrain new skills. Training must follow assessment, and reinforcement must follow training; reinforcement contributes more than 50% to permanent changes in behavior. And another issue: did the organization make the error of linking 360-degree feedback results to personnel action? More to the point, there are many other powerful influences on performance and productivity... Click here to read the entire article

New Thoughts about 360-Degree Feedback   You can contain your training costs if you use 360-degree feedback to identify the strong and weak areas, and if you use this information to make sure that training is focused only where it’s needed. You can even limit the training to those who need it most. Also, you can limit executive coaches to the top management team. Or you can just focus your programs on middle and first-line levels of management, in which case ongoing feedback from 360-degree feedback respondents can take the place of executive coaches.   In fact, 360-degree feedback can do other things to make your follow-up reinforcement program both inexpensive and successful...    Click here to read the entire article

What is 20/20 Insight GOLD?   20/20 Insight GOLD, published Performance Support Systems, is an awarded-winning software program that lets you create and use practically any kind of multi-source feedback survey you can imagine—including 360-degree feedback projects, pre- and post-training competency surveys, ongoing individual feedback, team and organization climate surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, and many more! Click here to read the entire article