November 2012 - Chief Learning Officer - CLO Media https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/ Chief Learning Officer is a multimedia publication focused on the importance, benefits and advancements of a properly trained workforce. Wed, 14 Aug 2019 19:20:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/cropped-CLO-icon-Redone-32x32.png November 2012 - Chief Learning Officer - CLO Media https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/ 32 32 Graphic Novels as Learning Tools https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/30/graphic-novels-as-learning-tools/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/30/graphic-novels-as-learning-tools/#comments Fri, 30 Nov 2012 17:00:00 +0000 http://dev-clomedia.pantheonsite.io/2012/11/30/graphic-novels-as-learning-tools/ Like many organizations, Girl Scouts of the USA is challenged when integrating multiple generations into cohesive, effective teams. Perhaps the most challenging to reach are the millennials, who want hands-on learning participation.

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Girl Scouting operates through a network of 850,000 adult volunteers who are supported by approximately 8,000 staff members distributed throughout 112 councils and a national headquarters. Together, this network covers every ZIP code in the United States and includes adults from ages 19 to 90. While technology has helped to bridge distances, it has changed work and learning expectations for each generation in different ways.

Girl Scouts of the USA knew it needed to bring about higher levels of teamwork across the generations in light of conditions facing not only the Girl Scouts but many organizations, including a geographically dispersed audience, a highly diverse adult population and limited funds.

Earlier this year, the company built a facilitator-led classroom program titled Harnessing the Power of Your Multi-Generational Workforce and offered it to its members in-person through Girl Scouts University (GSU). The program targeted the Girl Scouts workforce as a whole, instilling in its staff the idea that each generation has its own take on issues such as how and when to use technology. This three-hour program focused on the advantages and challenges of a multigenerational workforce. Participants discussed generational approaches to topics such as communication, social media, conflict, flexibility and leadership hierarchies. Participants included adult staff and volunteers across the organization.

Participants rated this facilitator-led session a 4.9 on a five-point scale, but, while successful, the program needed to be revamped and put in an electronic format to reach geographically dispersed audiences, which include more than 270 administrative sites and approximately 430 program sites, plus overseas offices.

As the learning group within Girl Scouts assessed how to engage different generations of adult learners in issues such as communication, rewards and recognition, social media and workplace flexibility, it knew that reaching the millennial generation would be a particular challenge.

Girl Scouts’ Instructional Design Quest
Before stumbling across the use of graphic novels, the Girls Scouts experimented with a variety of learning methodologies. Videos, social media tools, lectures, case studies and other typical instructional design methodologies were used, but feedback from trainers and staff told the organization they were not engaging enough. The dilemma of engaging millennials, the future leaders of the movement, was of particular urgency. A 2011 membership survey of Girl Scouts’ volunteer population indicated that more than 50 percent of the volunteers are millennials or Gen Xers, and that number is expected to grow.

The answer came in an unusual way, but that is not unexpected for this learning group. “We think of ourselves as a center of excellence and a little innovation engine,” said Diane Oettinger-Myracle, chief learning officer for Girl Scouts of the USA. “We take pride in bringing new things to our movement and have learned to be comfortable with the risks, rewards and occasional arrows that come our way.

“The graphic novel is an example of looking at something old and applying it in a new way. In this case, it is to help facilitate communications and knowledge exchange between generations.”

GSU members decided to proactively explore a variety of nontraditional instructional design methods. After attending a 2010 lecture hosted by Hy Eisman, the illustrator and writer for “Popeye” comics, and visiting comic book convention Comic-Con, it became clear that comics and graphic novels might be the answer.

“Graphic novels are the fastest-growing segment in the digital publishing industry,” Eisman said.

Despite this, the graphic novel format has been largely untapped as an organizational learning tool, especially for companies with modest budgets, because creating them can be expensive. Figuring out if the medium would work for the Girl Scout audience required research.

Christian Zabriskie, assistant coordinator for young adult services for Queens Library, tracked the popularity of graphic novels. He found that they were far more popular than even the Harry Potter and Twilight series. “The graphic novel/comic area has the most reader traffic of anywhere in the library,” he said. “When I grew up in 1970, comics were boys stuff. Now you’ll find 30 to 40 percent of readers are female. The market is finally catching up with them, and more novels and comics are targeting female readers.”

The learning group decided to use the content of its face-to-face multi-gen course as a basic shell for a Web-based graphic novel that would embed articles, blogs, videos and other techniques to help energize the material.

Drawing on Graphic Novels
Once the Girl Scouts knew the multi-gen graphic novel would target all of its staff and volunteers, with emphasis on millennials, and consist of vignettes about multi-gen workplace issues, writing and illustrating were the next steps.

While at Comic-Con, members of the learning group spent some time with Ian Flynn, writer of “Sonic the Hedgehog,” a comic strip based on the Sega video game. Noting that writing a comic strip or graphic novel was similar to writing other learning programs, the learning group modified the existing facilitator-led program to suit the graphic novel online format.

Illustrating the novel was perhaps the most important and challenging piece to figure out. “As an instructional designer, I am used to thinking in words and limited graphics,” said Mary McLean-Hely, a Girl Scouts senior learning consultant. “Designing this graphic novel required a shift in focus. Now mapping out the vision for each of the multi-gen pages was the most important element of the project.”

The cost of the illustrations could have been prohibitive, so the Girl Scouts had to find creative ways to keep costs within its ability to experiment.

Eisman suggested the Girl Scouts contact The Kubert School, an accredited school in cartooning and graphic art. After contacting several students, the learning group found Elisa Feliz, a recent graduate, on the school’s website. By using a recent graduate, the Girl Scouts kept costs down while helping Feliz to establish her graphic art design company.

To achieve the needed scale for the company’s geographically dispersed audience and to virtually eliminate publishing costs, the team decided to publish the novel only online. Further, rather than use a traditional page turner type of e-learning format, the learning group chose to develop the program as a website and integrate the theme of graphic novel pages. After examining a variety of online WordPress templates, the team was inspired by a format that easily corresponded to the multi-gen site design that is segmented by topic and key actions — learn, try and apply.

The program, Your Multi-Gen Workforce, had a soft launch in June and is expected to fully launch in January. The Girl Scouts has begun to assess reactions and usability from the soft launch. “This multi-gen program is designed to appeal to every generation which aligns with our vision for the extended Girl Scouts family. We welcome women in every generation within our staff and volunteer teams,” said Anna Maria Chavez, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA.

Ruth Strawser, director of business operations and customer satisfaction for Girl Scouts Northern Indiana-Michiana, was initially skeptical of the graphic novel format, so she showed it to her senior team. “At the time, we were having misunderstandings about the best way to manage flexible work arrangements,” she said. “One of the graphic novel chapters dealt with workplace flexibility. The formula helped us bridge a discussion about a topic we had been struggling with. It gave us credence for why we were having misunderstandings. Originally we thought our words were wrong, but we came to understand we had different points of view.”

Susan Kushnir is the director of organizational development at Girl Scouts of the USA. She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

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Playmates vs. Professionals: Who Are You Hiring? https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/30/playmates-vs-professionals-who-are-you-hiring__trashed/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/30/playmates-vs-professionals-who-are-you-hiring__trashed/#respond Fri, 30 Nov 2012 01:08:00 +0000 http://live-talentmgt.pantheon.io/2012/11/30/playmates-vs-professionals-who-are-you-hiring/ Just because your hiring manager bonds with a candidate over membership in a college fraternity doesn’t mean he’s the best hire. Diverse candidates offer different and beneficial perspectives.

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Are your hiring managers looking for a Kappa Mu when they should be looking at KPIs? Are they finding a Sigma Chi when they should be figuring out ROI?

As it turns out, cultural similarity often trumps qualifications when it comes to evaluating potential candidates in job interviews.

According to a study conducted by Lauren Rivera, an assistant professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., employers at professional service firms appear to be more focused on finding a candidate who’s the right fit for the firm’s existing employee base in leisure pursuits, background and self-presentation rather than the person best able to do the job.

The study, titled “Hiring as Cultural Matching: the Case of Elite Professional Services Firms” and published in the December issue of the American Sociological Review, showed that more than 70 percent of the evaluators Rivera interviewed at law firms cited fit as the top criterion for assessing a job candidate. At investment banks, it was more than 60 percent and at consulting firms it was closer to 40 percent.

That’s not likely much of a surprise to anyone who has spent time around lawyers, consultants and top-flight bankers. But while cultural fit is important, especially at elite professional firms where candidates spend many nights and weekends together on the job, it comes with a potential downside.

“Some of the hiring process was screening out candidates who could potentially be high performing [and] bring different perspectives to the table but [who] were missing some of social class cues,” Rivera said.

An effective hiring practice should aim to create cohesion among employees and cultural similarity can be a good signal of that potential connection among prospective co-workers. But an ideal hiring process should also bring diversity to the table.

A diverse slate of candidates — both in surface-level aspects such as race and gender as well as deeper-level diversity in culture and styles of thinking — is associated with more creativity, better team decision making and more openness to alternative information and scenarios, Rivera said.

“There’s definitely a benefit in having people come from different places to your firm in terms of quality of decision making,” Rivera said. “It’s just harder to create cohesion when you have that.”

Interviews: ‘It’s Not You, It’s Me’
When individual interviewers don’t receive instruction on concrete metrics to gauge intelligence, sociability or motivation, they will fall back on themselves and their own experience as a decision-making guide.

“It’s a really easy tool: Is this person similar to me?” Rivera said.

In making that judgment of cultural similarity, activities outside of work are often what interviewers use as an assessment. In middle class and upper middle class backgrounds, extracurricular activities have become a central part of how people conceive of merit, Rivera said.

“To get admitted to an elite college you not only have to have high achievement in the classroom, you also have to have really outstanding extracurricular activities,” she said. “It’s kind of a taken-for-granted part of societal culture that influences the types of similarities people value.”

In many interviews, the first few minutes are taken up with the sort of chitchat that is filled with rich cultural information about the candidate and the interviewer, such as what they like to do outside of work, where they are from and where they went to school.

“Although those conversations are part of the script in interacting — it would be really awkward if we didn’t have one — those initial interactions can cause someone to check in or out of an interview based on stuff that’s not necessarily related to the job in question,” Rivera said.

When people have a similar narrative that draws in the interviewer and creates affinity, it creates a snowball effect that makes it difficult for interviewers to identify other job-related qualities. The result is an interview process that might not lead to the most skilled candidates.

“It’s unclear if firms are hiring the best talent now because they’re not measuring how people do down the line,” Rivera said. “That strategy could work, but firms also could be missing out on talented candidates who haven’t been groomed from age 14 to have the same cultural basis as the current employee base of the firm.”

What to Do About It
Interviewers can practice to avoid the downsides of cultural matching in interviews, but they also need information to determine if candidates’ subsequent performance matched the initial reviewer’s rating.

“If firms tracked in a systematic way the relationship between individual resume characteristics and/or interview scores and the scores of the people who are doing the evaluating, you’d have a much better sense of whether your hiring criteria work.”

That level of quantification is difficult, though, so Rivera suggested a few simple things organizations can do to avoid having cultural similarity trump a candidate’s potential to do the job:

  1. Implement blind standards so no extracurricular activities are included on resumes. “By taking that line out of the resume, you could at least get more people into the interview pool that might not conform to that path,” she said.
  2. Develop systematic interviews that focus on job-relevant tasks using tests or case studies to measure skills related to the job. Consulting firms offer a good model, Rivera said. They allow a short time for informal chitchat, but the bulk of an interview is built around a business case applicable to the job.?
  3. Shift icebreaking conversation away from an interview’s beginning. “The first things that happen in the interview have disproportionate weight,” she said. “Anchoring those first five minutes in things that are more directly relevant to the job would be a way to do it.”
  4. Employers also could give lesser weight to interviews as an evaluation tool, such as making it 20 percent versus 90 percent of the decision to hire. That weighting could vary based on the importance of interpersonal skills and collaboration to the job at hand.

While Rivera’s study focused on professional service firms, she believes the findings about the role of cultural matching in interviews are applicable to other industries.

“Organizations that want to think critically about how they can better get diversity in the door and make sure they are getting the people who are best qualified and most interested in doing the job might want to find ways so that the bulk of the decision is based on who is the best-qualified applicant,” she said.

Mike Prokopeak is the editorial director of Talent Management magazine. He can be reached at mikep@mediatecpub.com.

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What’s on Your Social Wish List? https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/30/whats-on-your-social-wish-list/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/30/whats-on-your-social-wish-list/#respond Fri, 30 Nov 2012 01:01:00 +0000 http://dev-clomedia.pantheonsite.io/2012/11/30/whats-on-your-social-wish-list/ Use networks to create services and share collective intelligence.

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Imagine a senior executive in your company returns from Thanksgiving weekend having read white papers from IBM that say social business is the next step in the overall evolution of business. Harvard Business Review, Forbes and Fast Company already told him brainpower has become the engine of innovation. He knows it’s inevitable that businesses will construct networks that connect everyone in their ecosystems to co-create and deliver services that delight customers and share collective intelligence.

Social business is the flavor of the day in the C-suites of the Fortune 500. Front-running companies are installing social networks such as Chatter, Jive, Connections, Socialcast, Yammer, Socialtext, SharePoint, Ideo and HootSuite like there’s no tomorrow.

That same executive secured a mandate from the executive committee to experiment with social networking in three areas of the company: international sales, manufacturing resource forecasting and learning and development.

You’re a learning leader. You’ve been doing your own research on Enterprise 2.0 and learning networks. You appreciate that social business — connecting everyone in the organization in networks — makes sense. You’ve also sensed a groundswell in the learning and development community favoring social, self-directed pull learning.

You probably read a compelling argument recently that people in knowledge organizations learn three to four times as much from experience as from interaction with bosses, coaches and mentors. And they learn about twice as much from those conversations with others in classrooms and formal learning programs. You could deliver a much bigger bang for your training buck by greasing the skids to make experiential learning more systematic, coached and attractive.

The senior exec called you to his office and explained: “We’re going to experiment to find out how in-house social networks might strengthen learning and development and a few other areas in the company. Several social network suite vendors have offered us incredibly deep discounts if we make up our minds in the next two days. I need you to give me a one-page wish list of the capabilities you require from social software to make the most of social learning and carry out your vision of what we need to do.”

What features would you need and why? For example, you might need mobole access. Half of America’s workforce sometimes works away from the office. Smartphones have surpassed PCs for connecting to networks. More people tweet from their phones than from their computers. Without mobile capabilities, you could lose more than half of your audience.

Check your wish list against the eight features on ours.

Profiles: To locate and contact people with the right skills and background. The profile should contain a photo, position, location, email address and expertise — tagged so it’s searchable. IBM’s Blue Pages profiles include how to reach you — noting whether you’re online now — reporting chain such as the boss and boss’ boss, links to your blog and bookmarks, people in your network, links to documents you frequently share and members of your network.

Activity stream: To monitor the organizational pulse in real time, sharing what you’re doing, being referred to useful information, asking for help, accelerating the flow of news and information, and keeping up with change.

Wikis: To write collaboratively, eliminating multiple versions of documents and email, keeping information out in the open, eliminating unnecessary email, and sharing responsibility for updates and error correction.

Virtual meetings: To make it easy to meet online. The minimum feature set includes a shared screen, shared white board, text chat, video of participants and ability to record. Bonus features: persistent meeting room — your office online — and avatars.

Blogs: To narrate work, maintain your digital reputation, record accomplishments, document expert knowledge and show people what you’re up to so they can help.

Bookmarks: To facilitate searching for links to information, discovering what sources other people are following and tracking down experts.

Social network: For online conversation, connecting with people and all of the above functions.

Search: For locating needles in haystacks.

Jay Cross is CEO of Internet Time Group and a thought leader in informal learning and organizational performance. He can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

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The Week That Was https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/29/the-week-that-was-72__trashed/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/29/the-week-that-was-72__trashed/#respond Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:15:27 +0000 http://live-talentmgt.pantheon.io/2012/11/29/the-week-that-was-72/ Continue the post-Thanksgiving recovery with these top five stories from Talentmgt.com for the week of Nov. 26. 1. Dunkin' Runs on Great Talent: CHRO Ginger Gregory sweetens the role of HR at the iconic brand by ensuring the best team is in place ...

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Continue the post-Thanksgiving recovery with these top five stories from Talentmgt.com for the week of Nov. 26.

1. Dunkin’ Runs on Great Talent: CHRO Ginger Gregory sweetens the role of HR at the iconic brand by ensuring the best team is in place and ready to meet business needs. Talent Management editor Deanna Hartley has more.

2. How to Move Talent in an Unstable Environment: Cutting the excess does not mean cutting talent anymore if talent managers shift their focus to the complete lifecycle of an organization’s strategic agenda, writes Amy J. Friedman, founder, chairman and CEO of Partners in Human Resources International, an organizational and talent consulting firm.

3. Turn Gossip Into a Productivity Booster: Managers should find ways to discourage time-wasting chatter and instead focus on turning productive gossip to the company’s advantage. Talent Management editor Frank Kalman has more.

4. Buyers Become Aware: Aimed at giving investors a snapshot of the health of a company’s talent, SHRM’s proposed HR metrics touched off a round of criticism within the HR community. The head of the working group that created them makes the case for their use as both an internal and external tool. Talent Management editor Mike Prokopeak has more in this issue’s Insight.

5. Go Ahead and Ban or Limit Social Media: Just know that you’re missing an opportunity to promote collaboration, connect with customers and improve employee performance, writes Talent Management editor Frank Kalman.

In Other News …

We’ve spent a lot of time here at Talent Management discussing the importance of communication in the workplace, including when it comes to communicating with co-workers, customers and, of course, the communication between a leader and his or her team of direct reports.

Forbes earlier this week called out a number of things bosses should never, ever, say to their employees. My personal favorite: “You’re stupid, the worst (expletive) worker ever.”

Hopefully bosses are smart enough to know not to say that! Click here to read the full story.

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Message to the Workplace: ‘Shut Up and Listen!’ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/29/message-to-the-workplace-shut-up-and-listen__trashed/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/29/message-to-the-workplace-shut-up-and-listen__trashed/#respond Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:13:13 +0000 http://live-talentmgt.pantheon.io/2012/11/29/message-to-the-workplace-shut-up-and-listen/ Have you ever been talking to your boss, your spouse or anyone for that matter and you can tell they’re really not listening? When the listener isn’t the one who signs our paycheck, we are usually quick to say, “Are you listening to me?” Of course, p...

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Have you ever been talking to your boss, your spouse or anyone for that matter and you can tell they’re really not listening? When the listener isn’t the one who signs our paycheck, we are usually quick to say, “Are you listening to me?” Of course, people can’t retort to their manager, supervisor or leader, so they often walk away in frustration, knowing that they haven’t been heard and it’s likely their audience would proceed with his or her own plan or decision.

We often label this experience as a waste of our time, but the unskilled listener has also wasted his or her time as well. The problem is that typically people in leadership positions have learned some of the outward behaviors that indicate they are listening, but in actuality they are not. They assume that as long as they perform certain behaviors — eye contact, an occasional uh huh and a thank you for sharing — they’ve come through the encounter appropriately. Yet, they are the biggest losers in the situation because they’ve lost the opportunity to learn. Listening truly is learning, but active listening doesn’t mean acting like you’re listening.

One of the first things I learned as a budding psychotherapist was to listen. The reason is captured in the saying, “Talking is learning; listening is teaching.” While that is the opposite from what most people think, those who understand behavior change know that while talking is a relative high-rate behavior, the listener can actively respond (apply consequences) to what the person is saying, thereby changing the talker’s verbal behavior. Many studies in psychotherapy show that talk that results in the therapist nodding in agreement, saying “uh huh; how did that make you feel; or tell me more” resulted in more of that talk. If the patient talked about blaming others for his or her problems or made complaints about parental behavior and the psychotherapist looked at the clock, in another direction or showed other signs of disinterest, these behaviors eventually stopped.

Ram Charan, author and business adviser to CEOs and corporate boards, states in his article, “The Discipline of Listening,” that the ability to “empathetically” listen is a “central competence for success.” The problem with that advice is that it is very difficult to pinpoint precisely what behaviors constitute empathy. While empathy is generally thought of as the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes, if you are unable to do that, trying is the wrong thing to do, as you can’t fake it. You are better off just being a good listener. Good listeners are hard to find. As a therapist, I often described my job as a “paid listener.” Most people would rather talk about themselves or their interests. A good listener is a good positive reinforcer, and that is the power of listening. Since managers and supervisors usually see their jobs as telling, directing, communicating, etc., they have to work against the reinforcers in the job to become a good listener.

Since active listening is central to changing behavior at work, below are some techniques that may help you become a good one:

  • Ask open-ended questions for more information (How do you suggest we improve the process?) or close-ended questions to confirm your understanding of key points (So you are saying that we can eliminate that step entirely?).
  • Paraphrase key points by summarizing and verifying. (“So your point is that if we delete step 2, it won’t adversely affect the quality of the product. Is that correct?”)
  • Acknowledge expressed feelings. (“I can tell that you are excited/upset/concerned about this.”)

People can also enhance their active listening acumen by doing the following:

  • Remove outside distractions. (Attending to constant interruptions, looking out the window, checking your smartphone, sending emails. Not only are these activities insulting to the speaker, they distract the listener from gaining any insight from the discussion.)
  • Allow enough time. (Please don’t look at your watch and announce, “You’ve got five minutes.” That’s a power play, not a listening gesture. If you don’t have the time at that moment, then set up a meeting for later, showing that you value that person’s time and input as well as your own.)
  • Listen before evaluating. (Avoid making early judgments and composing responses in your head while another person is speaking to you.)

This last piece of advice may be the most common hindrance to good listening skills, because it requires the empathy of thought mentioned by Charan. Even if by all outward appearances you are listening, if you have previously decided to reject an idea, emotion or opinion held by someone else, then you are probably forming your response/defense/retort or rehearsing it and missing the entirety of the speaker’s input. Avoiding this barrier to active listening requires self-discipline, which is also a learned behavior.

The word “discipline” may have many differing connotations, but a behavioral definition offered by Webster is “orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior.” This applies to the visible behaviors of active listening as well as to the invisible focus we require of ourselves which can be aided by eye contact, writing down points made and verifying them with the speaker, and becoming a source of positive reinforcement with words of encouragement and understanding. Long periods with no responses can be unnerving to a speaker (in my doctoral dissertation I discovered that most people cannot tolerate 20 seconds of silence), so verbal acknowledgement of points made is fine, but when compelled to put in “your two cents worth,” remember that silence is golden. It is best to let the other person break a silence.

After all, becoming an active listener is not necessarily purely an act of empathy — although empathy is certainly a trait of an effective listener. Developing such a skill can put you on an upwardly mobile career path. In fact, companies such as General Electric list “listening” as one of the most desirable traits in potential leaders, lending new meaning to the phrase, “Shut up and listen!” Active listening is a rewarding skill in that those with the ability to do so also have almost limitless opportunities to tap into and apply learning gained through the knowledge, experience and viewpoints of others. In so doing, and acting on that learning accordingly, they also become truly trusted, sought-after and successful leaders.

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Should You Use Psychological Testing in the Workplace? https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/29/should-you-use-psychological-testing-in-the-workplace__trashed/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/29/should-you-use-psychological-testing-in-the-workplace__trashed/#respond Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:44:06 +0000 http://live-talentmgt.pantheon.io/2012/11/29/should-you-use-psychological-testing-in-the-workplace/ The current focus of Talent Management magazine is on the use of assessments in talent management. This is what Psychology at Work had to say about this topic in November 2011. When I look back on the mistakes I made running HR for a big comp...

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The current focus of Talent Management magazine is on the use of assessments in talent management. This is what Psychology at Work had to say about this topic in November 2011.

When I look back on the mistakes I made running HR for a big company – and boy, do I have plenty to pick from – one of the biggest was not using more psychological testing in our hiring and performance development processes. I had plenty of company in the HR universe during those ancient days of the early 21st century, as psychological testing suffered from a lack of reliable and affordable measures, and if we are to be honest, a faint whiff of totalitarianism. Also, as author and psychologist Edward Hoffman notes in his recent book, Psychological Testing at Work, many of the surveys were based upon “theories of human development that are as  obsolete as record players and slide rules.” Since that time, however, major strides have been made in psychological testing based upon more modern theories of human performance, and several valid and readily accessible instruments are available for use. Make yourself aware of these and don’t repeat my mistakes.

There are plenty of companies today that use psychological testing to measure employees, both pre-employment and as part of their performance development processes. Hoffman notes that “psychological assessment in the workplace is booming.” The measures vary in size, scope and application, but most have several common flaws:

  • They are based upon proprietary methodology, and as such are costly and offer little peer-reviewed analysis of their efficacy in a corporate setting.
  • They focus primarily upon skills, not upon more subtle and less obvious intrinsic motivators.
  • The research and theories behind them are old and not proven to be useful in the modern corporate world, other than by anecdotal case studies (the highly popular Myers-Briggs indicator, which is based upon early 20th-century theories of Jungian typology, is a good example of this. When was the last time you did some Jungian sorting to build a work team? Please don’t answer; I know many of you love the MBTI).
  • They don’t focus on the simple but critical things that determine much of workplace performance, things such as optimism, zest, resiliencesocial intelligence and character.

After 30 years of work and research, I am convinced that traits such as these are the best predictors of individual excellence, and when spread across a group, organizational excellence in almost all fields. Yes, more important than IQ, technical skills and past experience for all but a handful of highly specialized jobs.

Before I recommend ways to measure for these traits, I will address a question that must be bothering some of you. Is it right to examine people’s inner being when all they are looking for is a job or a promotion? Who is it to say that someone’s personality traits are relevant to whether or not he or she can do a job? Isn’t it unfair?

The truth is, hiring managers have been sizing people up since Mongo the Strong was picking candidates for raiding parties. Think about the last person you interviewed. While he was answering your stock questions, you were thinking “Is he a fit? Can he take it when the heat is on? Will he stab me in the back when he gets a chance? Is he a team player?” not whether he answered in a particular way. YOU WERE DOING PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING. Without calling it that. And without any check and balance on your own unconscious biases and mistaken impressions (see the work of Nobel-winning economist Daniel Kahneman on the latter points, but that is a subject for another day).

So why not take it to the next level and use more formal surveys? Surely this is a better – and fairer – way to capture data to aid in employment decisions. Here are a few I like, which have been shown to predict performance in modern organizations:

  • Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) or more simply, optimistic versus pessimistic outlook on life. As we have discussed ad nauseum on these pages, optimism is an incredibly strong predictor of human performance in all venues, particularly any field involving sales.
  • Grit Scale – or the ability to focus on goals over time. Persistence is another word for grit, and it was the focus of a “Psychology at Work” blog on Nov. 4.
  • Character Strengths and Virtues (VIA) – I imagine you are familiar with the Gallup work on becoming aware of one’s strengths and using them at work (StrengthsFinder, etc.).  This survey springs from some of the same theoretical roots but in my opinion is more comprehensive and better vetted by independent researchers. It measures the presence in an individual of basic human virtues such as courage, diligence, respect for others and self-discipline, virtues that have been considered of the greatest importance in societal settings since the time of Aristotle.
  • Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) – This is the gold standard of measurement for life satisfaction, used by the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others, to survey the psychological health of the country. Although the idea of measuring life satisfaction as part of the employment equation is controversial to some (I was accused – by wags on my own team – of building my HR strategy on the basis of hiring Happy People), it is beyond serious argument that people who enjoy high levels of life satisfaction tend to report higher levels of engagement at work.
  • Social Intelligence – others might call this emotional intelligence. The VIA, referenced above, contains an excellent measure of this trait in a non-proprietary format, unlike most of the EI surveys based upon Daniel Coleman’s work that are out there.

All of the surveys I have listed here are free. You can access them on the website of the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, a research unit focused on finding the psychological roots of humanity at its best. Just scroll around and find them under the heading Resources for Researchers, and try them out yourself.  I think you will see their utility in your workplace for a number of things.

A final note. One of the giants in the field of psychological testing is Chris Peterson of the University of Michigan. He cautions against using any psychological survey to make final employment decisions, including some of these I have listed that he created. They are just more data points, and imperfect ones at that. But they are better than what has been used heretofore before by most of us. Including Mongo the Strong.

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PDI Ninth House Introduces Assessment-Driven Leadership Development Model https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/29/pdi-ninth-house-introduces-assessment-driven-leadership-development-model/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/29/pdi-ninth-house-introduces-assessment-driven-leadership-development-model/#respond Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:00:00 +0000 http://dev-clomedia.pantheonsite.io/2012/11/29/pdi-ninth-house-introduces-assessment-driven-leadership-development-model/ The service aims to blend PDI Ninth House's simulation-based assessments with live and online elements.

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London — Nov. 29

Global leadership services provider PDI Ninth House has announced the launch of its GreatLeaderGPS, a service that blends PDI Ninth House’s simulation-based assessments with live and online elements.

This combination aims to make GreatLeaderGPS accessible and affordable for companies seeking a way to accelerate the readiness and development of mid-level leaders.

GreatLeaderGPS is scalable and remotely accessible, so current and potential mid-level leaders can participate from their own desks, alleviating the cost and hassle of travel. This research-backed “whole person” approach combines self-paced online leadership challenges and inventories with live leadership simulations via webcam, plus coaching with PDI Ninth House leadership consultants.

In GreatLeaderGPS’s approach, participants’ experiences, competencies, personality traits, motivators and possible “derailers” are assessed to address leadership gaps and determine readiness.

Immediately following the assessment PDI Ninth House will offer live online coaching and deliver a development plan to participants. The service also offers additional integrated components, such as an action report for bosses and a leadership talent analytics report for human resources to help organizations align individual development with strategy.

Source: PDI Ninth House

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Academic Partnerships, Instructure Partner for Online Learning Initiative https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/28/academic-partnerships-instructure-partner-for-online-learning-initiative/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/28/academic-partnerships-instructure-partner-for-online-learning-initiative/#respond Wed, 28 Nov 2012 09:00:00 +0000 http://dev-clomedia.pantheonsite.io/2012/11/28/academic-partnerships-instructure-partner-for-online-learning-initiative/ Through the partnership, all of Academic Partnerships' current and future university partners will be able to utilize Canvas, Instructure’s flagship platform.

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Dallas — Nov. 28

Academic Partnerships, which offers support to universities in the development of their online courses and degree programs, announced a partnership with Instructure, a learning management system (LMS) provider.

Through the partnership, all of Academic Partnerships’ current and future university partners will be able to utilize Canvas, Instructure’s flagship platform, free of charge in all of Canvas’ available languages to help streamline the online delivery of high quality educational content.

The alliance means that the growing number of students seeking online education will have access to Canvas’ learning platform. Canvas is focused on enabling the individual student and teacher to transform the education experience by providing a learning platform with intuitive design, flexible pedagogy, integrated multimedia and deep social network integration.

The announcement comes amid a change in higher education. Enrollment in online courses and degree programs are outstripping the growth of traditional on-campus instruction 10 to 1, according to Sloan Consortium. Further, demand for online courses and degrees accessible via an advanced and flexible learning platform is growing at a rapid pace.

Through its partnerships with some 40 leading public institutions, Academic Partnership aims to bring degrees such as nursing, education and business online.

Source: Academic Partnerships

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How to Develop In-Demand Leaders https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/28/how-to-develop-in-demand-leaders/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/28/how-to-develop-in-demand-leaders/#respond Wed, 28 Nov 2012 01:03:00 +0000 http://dev-clomedia.pantheonsite.io/2012/11/28/how-to-develop-in-demand-leaders/ What separates great leaders from good ones? The ability to put the development of others at the forefront.

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In a leadership environment rife with change and opportunity, learning leaders proactively seek better ways to augment the development experience. But how do good leaders become great?

Years ago, leadership experts thought that great leadership derived from having the right combination of traits like intelligence, dominance and confidence. Today, however, the most highly valued leaders are those most adept at engaging with others. Ultimately great leadership comes down to being intentional about learning from experience and finding ways to practice.

An excellent way to start is by creating meaningful goals focused on one or two areas for growth. A leader should first determine whether these goals involve improving at the current job or preparing for the future. Then, the leader should identify performance gaps with ways to address them. Input from the leader’s managers or colleagues can help. Once these goals are in writing, the best strategy is to share these goals with close associates to increase progress.

When goal-setting, focus on the needs and interests of others. Leaders whose goals are primarily “other-centric,” such as focused on helping their team members succeed, will likely have a greater probability of long-term professional success.

Simply put, a leader’s first job is to look out for the good of the organization by watching out for the good of those he or she leads. Such leaders determine the needs and interests of their employees by asking them questions: “What do you need in your job to make it work better?” or “What would help you to better see the importance of your work?”

There are a few reasons why this is important.

First, being focused on others clearly lends itself well to high-pressure situations. When a work team faces difficult or time-consuming assignments, an effective leader might ask: “What can I do to help? What might I tackle myself? Am I treating those who work for me the way I would like to be treated? Am I ensuring they have the resources to get the job done?”

One of the best ways leaders can demonstrate an others-first approach is by becoming a coach. Coaching is all about changing behavior. It requires four elements: a good relationship, a desired goal (challenge), a willing learner and a great environment (support).

In each individual coaching relationship, the leader should aim to assess and work to improve on the four critical elements: The relationship, the goals of the learner (creating the challenge), the mindset of the learner, and the support for the inevitable successes and failures of learning something new. All challenge with no support leads people to be afraid to try. All support with no challenge means the goal is too easy.

Quality feedback is vital for a successful coaching relationship. Effective leaders assume that people want to learn from them. One of the most common complaints at all levels of an organization is “I don’t get enough feedback from my manager.” Great leaders know that regularly providing feedback — both good and bad — shows others that their work matters.

Finally, leaders’ presence and connection to others makes a world of difference to those they lead. In a world of multi-tasking, text messaging and instant information, one of the most valuable things leaders can give is the power of attention — it shows care and commitment in real time.

Sandra Davis is CEO and co-founder of MDA Leadership Consulting and author of Pearls of Leadership Wisdom: Lessons for Everyday Leaders. She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

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Study: Spending on Integrated Talent Management Systems to Reach $4 Billion https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/27/study-spending-on-integrated-talent-management-systems-to-reach-4-billion/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2012/11/27/study-spending-on-integrated-talent-management-systems-to-reach-4-billion/#respond Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:00:00 +0000 http://dev-clomedia.pantheonsite.io/2012/11/27/study-spending-on-integrated-talent-management-systems-to-reach-4-billion/ Should the projection hold, the figure would be almost double the growth rate of 12 percent in 2011-12, according to new research.

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Oakland, Calif. — Nov. 27

Bersin & Associates, a provider of research-based membership programs in human resources, talent and learning, has announced new research that shows the market for integrated talent management technologies is anticipated to grow 22 percent to nearly $4 billion in 2012-13, almost double the growth rate of 12 percent in 2011-12.

Detailed findings are included in Bersin & Associates’ new research report, “Talent Management Systems 2013: Market Analysis, Trends and Provider Profiles.”

The research looks at integrated talent management technologies, which are multidisciplinary services that help HR hire better, manage performance for results, coordinate compensation, develop talent and address succession. The research aims to provide a guide for both buyers and sellers.

Talent Management Systems 2013 outlines key market trends, including:

• Ongoing integration of stand-alone applications into talent management suites to accommodate talent analytics and workflows.
• The move of talent management suites to rival core HR systems — creating talent profiles that can serve as the employee system of record.
• The addition of social media and mobile technologies in some form at almost every stage of talent management.
• Continued acquisition of talent solution-providing companies, either by larger suite providers seeking to augment their existing products or by the major enterprise resource planning vendors as their software-as-a-service systems for talent management.
• A shift in the perceived benefits of talent management systems from cost savings to strategic value for the organization.

Source: Bersin & Associates

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