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When I wrote my new book Ingaging Leadership, I didn’t plan it to be a manual about employee retention. But then a reader emailed me to say that he thought my ideas had the potential to dramatically improve employee retention in his organization. It’s always wonderful when someone makes an observation like that. In…
Are your trainees really using the new skills they learned in training? Here are seven strategies that can help assure that they are: During training, explain what you will be measuring later on. This sounds basic, but it can be effective. For example, if one of your goals is to have your salespeople follow…
How are training and coaching different? Training is all about teaching needed skills, knowledge and attitudes to groups of people. Coaching is delivered by one coach or mentor to one employee at a time. Its goal is to help individual employees grow, perform better, and succeed. When used alongside training, coaching can develop top…
Data security has come a long way since December 2005, right? That was the month when somebody popped open a car trunk and stole a laptop that contained the records of 230,000 Ameriprise Financial customers. Suddenly, data security became a big concern, executives heard the word “firewall” for the first time, and companies scrambled…
You’ve booked a room for your training session. You’ve ordered coffee, tea, water, and a table of snacks. Of course, you’ve made sure that the projector and sound system will work. So all the bases are covered, right? Maybe yes, maybe no. Because the fact is, there are a lot of “moving parts” in any…
It’s tempting to think that employees will like your training because it gives them a chance to kick back and get away from their desks. But the fact is, training could be causing conflicts like these for your trainees: “I get 100 emails before lunch every day, some of them critically important . . ….
“Managers are often ill-prepared for success in a leadership role. Many of them aren’t trained at all in how to engage, coach, or develop their teams. And if they are trained, it’s through programs that aren’t aligned with company strategy, lack the support of senior leadership, and are delivered as ‘once and done.’” –…
What is the ideal length for a training session? “Short!” one sales trainer told us. And he’s right, because trainees shut down and stop learning when sessions run too long. “Just the right length,” another trainer said. When we asked him what that meant, he explained, “It depends on the information you are presenting,…
If you want to hear people groan when a day of training is ending, say “Here’s your homework for tomorrow.” Maybe that’s because the word “homework” brings back so many unpleasant memories from school. Yet the right kind of homework can be motivating, not discouraging. A Motivational Way to Use Homework in Training “The Kind…
In the Breakthrough Ideas webinar that Anthony Amos gave for us at Tortal Training last summer, he observed that using training to teach too many company “rules” can harm training. Anthony is a top former Australian rugby player, a successful entrepreneur, and now a sought-after trainer. And we think he has a point, because…
