1. I did my part; I can’t help it if other people didn’t do theirs.

2. Nobody gave me a deadline, so I just figured I had all the time in the world to do it.

3. I never really did agree with the decision, but I wasn’t about to say that to my boss.

4. What a mess—someday someone should really clean this up.

5. They never tell us anything! Read the rest of this entry »

Instruct participants to read the case study on the Handout, then to work with a partner for 2-3 minutes to generate ideas related to the questions. After giving them a period of time complete the questions, ask for brief suggestions for a course of action, allowing at least one response to be offered by each partner-pair.

Customize the handout below with the various questions provided, according to your training topic (communication, leadership, teamwork, problem-solving, etc.). Read the rest of this entry »

Both customers and employees need to feel that they can trust an organization’s leadership to make sound decisions, communicate clearly, and respond swiftly and appropriately to challenges and opportunities.  Leadership carries many responsibilities, and the first and foremost of these responsibilities is trustworthiness.  When trust breaks down, customers leave and employees disengage.

It’s commonly thought that once trust has been lost, it cannot be regained.  Fortunately, that’s not true.  These three steps can help increase trust in your organization, no matter where you and your leadership are on the relative scale of trustworthiness. Read the rest of this entry »

Organizations whose cultures forbid failure are organizations that will become stagnant, lacking the resourcefulness and innovation necessary to succeed.

When failure isn’t an option, there’s no incentive to take even the smallest risk in trying something new.  If an employee knows he’ll be punished for failing, he’ll be careful to stay well within the boundaries of accepted practice.  And then it’s not just failure that isn’t an option; it’s any kind of change or improvement.

Obviously you don’t want to encourage wildly impractical risk-taking or invite catastrophic failure.  So how can you encourage employees to take sensible risks, learn from their mistakes, and – as the saying goes – “fail forward” into success? Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone knows that communication is important to various aspects of daily life.  But what some people may not know is how crucial communication is to achieving success in the workplace. Inadequate communication skills can lead to misunderstandings between employee and employer, and also among teammates. When surveyed, the majority of employers cite “good communication skills” as key criteria potential employees must meet. And, if an employer is looking for solid communication skills during the hiring process, you can be sure these skills will remain important when performance is judged on the job. The tips we’ll discuss here will show you some ways to improve your communication skills so that you can become even more valuable to your employer, more easily procure a desired position, or experience a better relationship with current coworkers. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever listened to your own thoughts … while you were listening to someone speak?

Chances are those thoughts were filled with ideas about what you were going to say as soon as they stopped speaking.  Arguments, agreements, stories about your own experience – any number of bright, beautiful thoughts and ideas take shape in your mind as you “listen” to what the other person is saying.

Studies of communication conducted as far back as 1988 show that we spend only about 25% of the time listening to someone talking.  The remaining 75% of the time is mostly filled with, yes, all those bright ideas about what we’re going to say in reply. Read the rest of this entry »

1. When learning or memorizing anything, it helps to break the information down into small, basic units. Our short term memory retains a relatively small amount at a time, so a large amount of information or a lengthy list is best broken down.

For instance, think about the way children learn the alphabet…the letters in the alphabet song are broken down into chunks of no more than one to four letters: (ab-cd) (ef-g) (hi-jk) (lmno-p) (qrs) (tuv) (w-x-y-z).

The same technique could be applied to something you want to memorize at work, such as the organization’s mission statement.

So, if this were your mission statement:
We are dedicated to providing insurance products that offer quality protection with value pricing. We wish to establish a successful partnership with clients, staff members, and insurance companies that respect the interests and goals of each party.

You may want to break it down into these small units:
• dedicated to providing insurance products
• offer quality protection with value pricing
• establish successful partnerships
• clients, staff members and insurance companies
• respect the interests and goals of each party

2. Create some kind of internal organization. It is much easier to remember something that is organized and has meaningful structure than something that is random or abstract. One way to organize is to look for a natural hierarchy in the material to be learned.  Another way to organize would be to make up a story or narrative chain to relate events to one another.

Sample:
If your license plate number is:  2DN1231
• You could assign the word “To” to the number 2
• You could see DN as an abbreviation of the name “Don” (especially if you have a friend or relative named Don)
• And, you could see “1231” as December 31st or New Year’s Eve.

Your narrative could then be:  I’ll Give a Ride To Don on New Year’s Eve

3. Find some kind of external organization. Some relationship must be found between the new information you are trying to retain and information which has already been learned so that one fits the others.

Example:
You are about to do a brief presentation that will encompass:
• An introduction
• A topic overview (e.g. “Lead Generation: Well Worth The Time It Takes ”)
• Three different topic points (for example):
-  Generating Leads through Social Networking
-  Generating Leads through Advertising
-  Generating Leads through Cold Calling
• Closing statements

You could think of the different elements of your presentation as different locations within your house.
• the front door = your introduction or opening remarks
• the entry (from which point you can see a number of rooms) = your overview
• the living room (where crowds gather) = social networking
• the family room (where the TV is located) = advertising
• the office (where you often make business calls) = cold calling
• the back door = your closing statements

Recall is accomplished by visualizing the location and discovering the speech element associated with that location.

Taken in part from the Leader’s Guide for the classic program “Memory” © 1980 CRM Learning, L.P.

Training Resource: Speaking Effectively… to 1 or 1000. Memory plays a big role when delivering a speech or presentation. This entertaining and effective program gives practical advice on how to deliver a compelling message to a group of any size.

You’ve just heard someone say something insensitive. Perhaps it was about an ethnic group, or members of a particular religion, or maybe men versus women.

As far as you can tell, no one else seems to be bothered by what was said, but you’re feeling uncomfortable. Does it really matter?  And if so, is there anything you can do about it?

Difficult moments like these are hard to deal with. We tend not to know what to do.  We don’t want to start a fight; these are people we work with every day.  And we don’t want to be seen as too sensitive, uptight, or politically correct. So what can you do? Read the rest of this entry »

We tend to focus on diversity as an issue of workplace relationships.

It’s much more than that.

When we limit our focus to whether or not people are “playing nicely” together, the idea of diversity can take on a lot of destructive baggage.  We can even begin thinking that it would be easier if we had a less diverse workforce.  After all, if everyone were more alike, we wouldn’t have to deal with these issues – right?

Maybe, and maybe not. Read the rest of this entry »