Training Blog...

New year, new goals, new attitudes…….right?  Not always.  Has this ever happened to you?

It’s Monday morning; the sun is bright and you have an extra spring in your step.  You grab your coffee, get into your car and find that traffic is surprisingly lighter then normal.  You plan your day in your head.  You are going to tackle your “To Do” list one item at a time.  Staff meeting, conference call and your department training needs to be done this week.  Then your brain just stops.  The dreaded training.  You ask yourself, “How in the world am I going to get Howard to do the training?  I can’t get Howard to anything without complaining and bringing the whole team down.”

Ok, maybe it hasn’t happened like that exactly or in that order, but many managers struggle with a “Howard” on their team.  It doesn’t matter how you approach them or how exciting you try to make things, they are always going to find something to complain about.  The glass is always half empty.

If you Google the topic of “dealing with difficult people”, you will find many articles, tips, and training programs attached to people and companies that claim to have all the answers.  In the many years that I have been in Customer Service, I can tell you one thing….no one program or one article is going to give you all the answers.  This is an ongoing issue that managers of companies deal with every day.  Here are some small things that I have heard work from some of the people that I talk to throughout the day:

• Be aware of their personality style.  Communication with anyone goes a lot smoother if you are aware of the way the different personalities respond and react.
• Ask for their input or assistance in the areas that they have skills.  This will build trust and respect between both parties.
• Give them victories where you can.
• Involve them in a leadership role when possible.  For example, training, ask them to either lead the session or the discussion on the topic at hand.  This may open the minds of the others in the group as well as engage your “Howard” in the training that they really need.

If you try any or all of these will it always work?  I wish!  My hope would be that if you are aware and stay consistent you may start to see some small successes.  Your “Negative Nellie” may just turn into a “Happy Howard”!

There was once was a man walking along the road when he saw three men laying bricks for the foundation of a new building.

He approached the first and asked, “What are you doing?” Annoyed and irritated by the interruption, the first man responded, “What the heck do you think I’m doing? I’m laying these darn bricks!”

He then walked over to the second bricklayer and asked the same question. The second man responded, “Oh, I’m making a living.”

He approached the third bricklayer with the same question, “What are you doing?”
The third looked up, smiled and said, “I’m building a cathedral.”

The question is which of these men laid the stronger foundation?

There is a point to my story (I promise!). Like the three brick layers, training and learning in any organization must have a foundation. Why are you training? What is the importance it holds in your organization?

This foundation can also be one of the hardest and most important to implement (funny isn’t it, how the hardest part is often at the start of anything new?).

Organizations are faced with a multitude of questions and needs. They want their employees to learn, and to grow. They want the training to be easy to access and manage… but how do they get there? Very often either the trainer can become so focused on each individual “brick” they lose sight of what they are building, or have grandeur big dreams to build… without laying the simple foundation brick by brick to later grow upon.

I recently read an article from Elearning! Magazine. In the article they identified some “bricks” that new users of an LMS (or users who are revisiting their training plan) can use to ensure that they both hold the correct bricks to build, as well as pointers to view the bigger picture and final project.

Create detailed requirements

What are your company needs? Look at real case studies from other organizations to determine what your potential needs. How will training be administered to employees 1 month from now, 6 months, a year? What are your organizations needs for reporting, taking tests, working with individual users?

Research

Do your research. Make sure that you understand the processes and requirements held by the LMS you are using. What can it do? What can it not do? IS the system able to support your unique requirements?

“Go slow to go fast”

One LMS executive states “take time to educate [yourself] about what an LMS is, and what it can and can’t do. Then identify and educate key stakeholder groups and solicit their input to make sure they understand the problem or problems this LMS is meant to address.”

Implementation

Form a tight team with your LMS provider. TTN prides itself on the relationships we get to have with each new client, and these relationships can lead to a firmer foundation for your organizations learning. By creating a consulting relationship with a new LMS, you can ensure your organization gets the most comprehensive perspective.

Returning to the story, the third brick layer knew how to lay a good foundation. We need to see the big picture of what we are building and let that guide our work. It’s also important to understand the pieces and parts that form the foundation and hold the big picture together.

How are you laying a strong foundation for your learning?

Welcome to the very first entry of the TTN Blog! For the past few months we here at TTN have gotten pretty excited about this day. We’ve put in weeks of meetings, research, discussions, and hours upon hours of reading (you guessed it) blogs! All to create and deliver a blog that will be useful, worth while, and interesting for you!

Before we get too much further, I think it’s important that I let you know what this blog is, and what it is not. One of the first “unexpecteds” our blog team ran into during the creation process was how many different definitions and interpretations people have regarding what a blog is, and more importantly what a blog does. Through all those layers, and webs of ideas and opinions here is what the TTN blog is…

Our Blog is a source of information

There are so many moments within our days here at work that we run across great little ideas and tidbits… things we want to share with you! It could be a really great article we read in the NY Times about e-learning (click here to see why) or it could be a fun piece of technology that we are looking at purchasing our germ-a-phobic boss (I had no idea this even existed). It’s our belief that if we are finding this information helpful to our day, you will too.

Our Blog is training oriented

TTN is a training company. We eat, sleep, and breathe learning. In our blog it is our goal to become a source for our readers to help themselves as well as their company. You need facts on the effectiveness of e-learning? Check out the TTN blog. Looking to see what types of courses and learning are popular for customer service? Check out the TTN blog. Looking for a new low fat plum pudding recipe to use during the holidays? Do not check us out… but feel free to send me the recipe.

Our Blog is driven by our customers

The TTN mission statement is to improve our customers’ business performance by providing solution based products and services. Our goal is to extend this belief into the digital world. There are many times a customer will have a unique experience or questions, some of our blog entries may be inspired by them. We will do our best to help you improve, and find solutions.

Since we want this blog to be driven by those needs and ideas, we want to hear your voice. Please comment! Give us your thoughts, and ideas on a certain post. Ask a question that another post may have inspired. Provide us with feedback and we will be able to meet your needs.

Our Blog will NOT…

• Tell you what we had for lunch today
• Talk about our feelings
• Constantly update you on what we are doing every hour on the hour
• Make you feel like you’re reading my diary (in case your wondering I’ve actually never had one)
• Be boring

So that’s what we are looking forward to! We plan on updating weekly and archiving our posts. Please feel free to comment below, and give us your thoughts!