The Corporate Learning Institute

How Increasing Positive Leadership across Worker Generations Helps Organizations Thrive

By Susan Cain, Ed.D. and Vincent Pelusso, The Corporate Learning Institute, www.corplearning.com

Leaders in any organization set the pace and expectations for followers. In this economy, we see so many issues occurring because leaders feel the “pinch” of financial demands at work and the “crunch” of employee motivation. How can leaders engage followers in developing positive thinking skills?

Peter Cappelli, author and expert on the changing workforce, says that the old management style of leadership will not be effective in the future. He noted that for the first time, there are currently four generations working today. These are the traditionalists (born before 1946, the baby boomers, born after 1946 until 1965, generation X, born after 1965 until 1982, and Generation Y, born after 1982. The baby boomers currently make up the bulk of the workforce, and they are retiring at a slower rate because of the recession. It is interesting to think about the hand-off’s that are occurring at every organization as traditionalists and baby boomers struggle to gain technical abilities and the Generation X and Y’s struggle to gain expertise and knowledge. How can leaders help to meet the needs of these four generations?

One answer lies in helping leaders understand the motivators for each generation. Baby boomers are (still) after results, and work long hours to achieve them. Generation X and Y are after more work/life balance. A smart leader would see that there is a natural fit between helping traditionalists and baby boomers learn technical skills as they teach generation X and Y their expert knowledge. Cappelli thinks this natural fit of needs calls for a new leadership model. The new model would allow younger leaders from generation X and Y to ask for the knowledge and skills that they need coaching baby boomers and traditionalists on technical skills. This consultative model is similar to the Marines model of mentoring. Younger leaders collaborate with older leaders to transfer their knowledge while they coach technical skill development.

This new model calls for a positive approach to leading others. To help facilitate a positive leadership culture, ChartHouse Learning has developed a series of leadership workshops to help leaders focus on how they can be the leader that others choose to follow. The Fish! For Leaders Series is a useful tool to help leaders create a culture or community of possibilities. The series has four themes, which include workbooks and videos. The four themes are “Be There”, “Choose Your Attitude”, “Who Are You Being?”, and “Play”. According to Harry Geist of ChartHouse Learning, the series is useful in helping leaders understand the impact that they make, and how they show up to others. The series offers much to leaders, and can be purchased at www.charthouse.com.

Changing your culture using the Denison Culture Survey

Dr. Susan Cain, and Vincent Peluso, The Corporate Learning Institute

The Denison Culture Survey is a useful tool for organizations to understand their cultural strengths and weaknesses. What is culture? Culture is the “code” that signals the behavior of people in your organization. It is those unseen forces that guide behavior.

In all organizations, there are both problems and opportunities to optimize the organization’s culture. Problems felt by employees include “I don’t feel comfortable speaking up” or “what I do doesn’t matter around here,” or “I get in trouble for doing the right thing.”  Point to a need to fully understand and organization’s culture. But improving culture is difficult if there is no way to assess it.

The Denison Culture Survey was created by Dr. Daniel Denison to help organizations understand the link between culture and performance. Dr. Denison conducts on-going research to help determine the cultural links to organizational performance. Research that he conducted in 2009 on 1,076 organizations found that high performing organizations have similar cultural strengths. These strengths can be separated into four performance quadrants critical to the success of any organizations.

The quadrants include:

• Clarity and ability to execute a mission and purpose.
• Consistency in indentifying values and agreements to action.
• Optimizing employee involvement and development.
• Adaptability to meet customer needs and future organizational learning needs.

In the book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, James C. Collins notes that visionary companies must lead with a vision and be adaptive. The Denison Culture Survey captures tension within an organization as it attempts to meet its vision and yet remain adaptable.  The survey, when taken by employees, allows for difficult conversations to occur between key people about their beliefs and assumptions regarding the organization.  The survey results help key individuals understand what needs to be done about issues that are impacting business performance.

Tim Kuppler, President of Denison Consulting, states “the survey is really critical and is a very simple tool with common language that people seem to get, whether it is top executive, a production line worker, or a volunteer.”

Kuppler was a recent guest on CLI’S blog Talk Radio show, which can be heard at If you would like to listen to the show, click here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/corplearning/2011/09/15/the-denison-culture-survey .

Today’s Vital Need for Corporate Experiential Learning

A small team of mixed-aged employees gather around a 13-foot wall at Marriott’s Hickory Ridge Conference Hotel outside Chicago.”I can’t climb this wall alone!” one offers, “I have a bad knee”, another one comments. Finally, a woman steps up after surveying the wall. “I think I see a way to do this!”, she exclaims. The group is from a large, well-known energy company, and are participating on a one-day team building session designed to combine discussion with active experiences on what is called a “ropes course. “As the discussion evolves, the group develops a plan, considers individual roles and forms an approach to hoisting each person over the wall. “This is not different than an actual project at work”, Tim Buividas, partner of the Corporate Learning Institute stated. “What we are doing is allowing time for the group to develop a blueprint before they take action on a project, and then execute on that project”, he commented.

Experiential learning is not new. Its earliest beginnings are rooted in programs like Project Adventure and Outward Bound. Corporations around the world adopted outdoor experiential learning as evidenced by a famous segment in the 1990′s sitcom Murphy Brown. Its use began to diminish, as other popular concepts replaced them, from the emotional intelligence movement to strengths-based leadership. But like the timeless needs that corporations have for personal commitment, team collaboration and innovative risk-taking, experiential learning continues to thrive.

“Let me give you a definition of experiential learning”, Buividas offers. “Experiential learning activities include any active learning experience that offers a chance to learn from failure, success and everything in between. It has to include the possibility of transferring learning back to the workplace. Examples of active learning or experiential learning activities include ropes courses, problem solving games, and many indoor events.  Any indoor active learning session includes a learning cycle. For an experiential session to be effective, participants have to experience, review, discuss, and apply their experiences”, Buividas concluded.

Can experiential activities help your individual contributors, teams and leaders develop collaboration and problem solving skills? According to CLI partner Dr. Susan Cain, that depends. “We use experiential learning as a select tool to help build performance in very specific areas, like increasing trust, what we call risk support, and active collaboration”, she commented. “CLI is in the business of helping clients develop and sustain performance. We enter most client organizations on a long-term basis, and use ropes courses or indoor activities prescriptively to build specific capabilities. So for example, one client may need to create a culture shift, and we will employ assessment tools, classroom discussion with outdoor experiential activities”, Cain noted.

 Readers and listeners can view CLI’s new video on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqhavF5-jSE.

 For more information about how your organization can benefit from experiential activities, contact CLI at scain@corplearning.com.

A Deeper Dive into Understanding the Fish! Philosophy

This week on our blog talk radio we talked with Harry Geist of ChartHouse learning about how the FISH! Philosophy impacts an organizations culture and performance.
The Ranken Jordan Pediatric Specialty Hospital based in St. Louis, Missouri is a prime example of how the FISH! Philosophy has been put to use organization wide. Readers of this blog and listeners of the Blog Talk Radio podcast will recall that the FISH! Philosophy engages employees by offering four principals that motivate; be there, play, make their day, choose your attitude.

Harry Geist of ChartHouse explained that the four FISH! principles involve the following organization applications:

1. Be there – This opportunity involves a challenge for employees to dedicate themselves to critical interfaces with others. This principal asks employees to stop multi-tasking and to be fully present in interactions with others

2.  Play – Play is an attitude. People with a playful attitude are serious about their work but they find ways to have fun doing it. They are enthusiastic and energetic. They provide more genuine customer service. Their curious, “what if we try it this way?” mindset leads them to more creative solutions.

3. Make their day – This offers organizations the challenge of helping employees look out ward so that they can improve their impact with those who they work with as well as their customer base.

 4. Choose your attitude – Choose your attitude is a call to order for employees to reframe their thinking to a positive, mental state. Employees are asked to see the possibilities in work situations that lead to positive results.

Harry further elaborated on these four concepts “when you’re fully present for others you can better see the opportunity to create a playful, memorable experience and make their day. An attitude of presence and an intention to delight people flows from the attitude you choose and it nurtures a natural, helpful attitude.”

According to Harry Geist, “The Ranken Jordan Pediatric Specialty Hospital consistently achieves 98% patient satisfaction and 97% employee retention. It has earned a national reputation for excellent, innovative care, and annual revenues have increased ten-fold over the past decade.”

You have to ask yourself, what is a more powerful motivator for organizational performance, negative or positive reinforcement?  One size fits all top down management isn’t going to produce the same performance results that a motivating and positive culture can produce. Research supports the ideas that workers of all generations prefer work environments that are supportive and congenial.

At Ranken Jordan Pediatric Specialty Hospital, everybody knows both the value system and expectations that relate to FISH! From organization leaders to facilities staff, employees are encouraged to recognize positive impact that workers make patients lives. For example, one of the facilities managers at Ranken noticed that a young patient enjoyed watching him work. Each week the facilities manager takes this young patient to observe the start up of a generator. Other employees are recognized for their contributions to patient’s lives by simply holding a baby while a mother completed paper work.

In the organizational development world, we call occurrence like the ones above “artifacts” because they are visible signs of an invisible culture. When you see the positive impact that a culture has on recognizable behaviors like there you have to consider how the culture was built to support the behaviors.

Harry Geist let listeners to the podcast know that FISH! “is not just a video that you put in on a Friday afternoon. It’s an invitation to try something new out in your life through the language of FISH! and see the impact it has for you, your relationships, and how you experience work and how others experience you.”

The bottom line is that engaging employees by creating an enriched job environment is a very important but invisible function that organizational leaders must perform to remain competitive. If an organization practiced FISH!’s four goals of engagement, be there, play, make their day, and choose your attitude and organization would be well on its way for developing cultural success.

Keys to a Successful Search Engine Marketing Campaign and the Three Cs of Social Networking

This is a two part blog written by Corporate Learning Institute interns Ronald Skubisz and Vincent Peluso. By the end of the blog you will learn simple tips how to optimize your website by purchasing Google key words and working with SEO companies and successfully create a social media presence

Keys to a Successful Search Engine Marketing Campaign
By Ronald Skubisz

Over the past decade the explosion of the internet and web-enabled mobile devices has dramatically shifted the way we search and communicate with each other.  With nearly 9 out of 10 consumers using the internet to search for local businesses and more than one billion searches each month, the internet has become a battle ground for consumer’s attention.  Companies have been forced to develop new and innovated marketing strategies in order to set themselves apart from the heard.  Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has become a powerful tool for companies to direct potential customers to their websites.  There are main 3 types of Search Engine Marketing strategies.

• Pay Per Click (PPC):  an advertising strategy, where advertisers pay a hosting service to distribute their ads, on a per click basis.  Advertisers normally bid on a set of related keywords or phrases often searched by their target audience.
• Organic SEO:  an advertising strategy which involves no sponsored links or paid campaigns.  This strategy is designed to increase traffic volume, quality of traffic, and increased search engine ranking, by optimizing website content.
• Social Media Optimization (SMO):  an advertising strategy which uses a variety of social media activities, rather than search engines, to connect with their target audience.  The keys to SMO are to have a strong social media presence (Facebook™, Twitter™, YouTube™, and a Blog), build relationships with audience, ability to communicate with audience, and have a consistent message throughout all channels.

There are three Search Engine Optimization keys to insure the success of any Search Engine Marketing campaign: Quality Site Content, Keyword Analysis, and Continue Analytics

1. One of the most important steps a company can take in optimizing their internet presence is by providing quality content on their website.  A company whose website contains quality content will often hold a higher rank among search engines, higher organic link rate, longer audience attention, more conversions, and a greater return on investment (ROI).
2. Contrary to the misconception that all keywords create increased traffic, ineffective keywords can turn any campaign into a lame duck.  When choosing the appropriate keywords or phrases, it is imperative for marketers to identify the words or phrases which are the most effective.  There are several sites which offer free keyword analytics, such as Google Keyword Tool, Wordtracker, and Webmaster Tool Kit.
3. If there was one piece of advice I could pass along to every company it is this, “the successful launch of a SEM campaign is only half the battle.”  One of the main culprits behind any failed campaign is due to the “launch and forget” mentality.  A successful SEM campaign requires continued analysis and adjustment in order to achieve the desired marketing objectives.  If a company is unwilling to invest the necessary time and personnel, their campaign is bound to fall on the wayside.

Important Reference Sites

• What is Google Adwords?: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6084Google Analytics:

http://www.google.com/analytics/

• Things to Avoid When Running an SEO Campaign

http://top-seo.rajakam.com/2011/07/ten-things-to-avoid-when-running-an-seo-campaign/

• Top 4 Keyword Research Tools

http://weblogs.about.com/od/searchengineoptimization/tp/KeywordResearchTools.htm

On the topic of bringing traffic to websites, the three Cs of social networking give simple ways to improve traffic into your social networking sites.

The Three Cs of Social Networking
By Vincent Peluso

Social networking sites are great to keep in touch with friends, meet new people, and even promote an organization. With social networking sites being free to sign up, it is a cost effective way to push business and continue getting your name out to the public. But there are a couple things that should be noted before signing onto one of these sites.

While potential clients may have one social networking site, it does not necessarily mean they have them all. A Twitter™-only user would not be inclined to switch over to Facebook™ just so they can receive updates about your organization. It is simply out of the question, so getting out there on every single format is necessary.

How to Get Started with Social Networking Sites:

1. Facebook
If you are looking to join Facebook go straight to facebook.com. You will be asked to sign up by giving a name and valid email. Once started make sure to find the people you know and add valid information so that friends and peers can identify you.

Once you are signed in and started on http://www.facebook.com/, go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?ref_type=sitefooter to create a page. Give the exact name of your company, upload a photo of your business, find fans, and give basic information about your company so anyone interested can find it.

2. Twitter
By going to http://twitter.com/ you can start up your twitter page by giving a full name, valid email address, and a password. Once you are signed in find people who will follow your organization. Simply post updates by typing under “What’s Happening?” on the main page.

3. Blog Talk Radio
Blog Talk Radio is a free way to promote your organization through podcasts. To sign up for Blog Talk Radio, go to https://secure.blogtalkradio.com/register.aspx. This is where you give a username and a password to sign up. On this step you also give the name of the show and choose what the subject matter will be to attract fans.

Once you have set up your profile you can schedule your shows. In scheduling a show you choose the length, time, and date of your show. When it comes close to show time, call the number that is given as the host number and enter your host ID. All that is needed for Blog Talk Radio is a phone number (preferably NOT a cell phone as they are prone to cut in and out at times). Callers will be given a separate call-in number. Make sure if you have a guest to give them the call in number before the show starts so there is no confusion while being live on the air.

Blog Talk Radio can also be promoted through Facebook and Twitter by going to http://my.blogtalkradio.com/user/settings.aspx and adding them as other sites of your organization.  In “Studio,” which is the second option in the main drop box, when the show is live you can instantly promote shows by clicking “Post to your Network.”

Now that you have set up your company’s vast list of social networks, what do you do?

1.  Concise
One misstep that is easy to make while managing multiple social networking sites is inconsistency. A plethora of randomized quotes and information may give the impression that there is a lack of organization. Less is truly more in the occasion of updating your sites. Your followers are not interested in reading multiple postings daily. This may result in being blocked from newsfeeds or even deletion which would take away the ability to communicate with your audience. Make sure that what you are putting on these sites is clear and concise.

2. Coordination
Themes are extremely vital to coordinating what message your organization wants to get out. One general issue should be focused on in an appropriate time frame. The written blog is the best place to start when developing a topic because when complete, it gives an outline that can be followed for the week to come. This may call for approximately four to five postings on a topic to have it fully explained. Some of these posts may even be cross promotion. (See chart below).

3. Cross-Promotion
By cross promoting your sites, no one is left out of the loop. Every week CLI’s podcasts are recorded on the free site Blog Talk Radio™ and then posted to Facebook (as seen in chart above) so that people who do not visit Blog Talk Radio at all or on a regular basis can listen into the show. Promotions through Twitter and LinkedIn™ let followers know what time the show will be and where to find it.

As you sign into these sites in hopes to speak directly to your target market make sure to consider the three Cs of social networking:

• Be concise
• Focus on coordination
• Cross promote all of your sites to get the word out

Following the three Cs will ensure a more organized and easy to follow social networking base that will bring more people to your networking sites to promote what you have to offer.

An Interview Fish! Founder John Christensen: How ChartHouse Created an Innovative Training Empire

By Dr. Susan Cain

Today’s blog focuses on the innovative approach to training that ChartHouse Learning has brought to the training field. ChartHouse CEO, John Christensen, is a pioneer in the field of bringing innovative ideas to the training world. John, a filmmaker by trade, was busy working in Seattle one year near the Pike’s Place Fish Market. He noticed some commotion and shouting going on at the other end of the open air market and went to investigate. What John found were fish mongers engaged in having fun at work engaging customers and enjoying each other. Upon further investigation, John found that the customers who benefitted from this high level of engagement were delighted and energized.

More importantly, they bought fish! John quickly saw that this dynamic environment could become the basis for training videos focusing on customer service. What he didn’t see was the worldwide impact that the concepts would make on organizations beyond customer service training. Organizations throughout the world have embraced Fish! to engage employees, improve their cultures, institute the concepts of fun and innovation at work, and currently, the health developed leaders. ChartHouse is continuing to help organizations by developing a series of leadership training tools.

The four concepts of Fish! easily apply to leaders and their functional roles; be there, make their day, play, and choose your attitude. What is next on the radar for ChartHouse? ChartHouse is continuing to develop full scale organizational development initiatives using the Fish! Philosophy. These initiatives keep up with ChartHouse’s corporate values, mission, and vision and continue to fuel their innovative training empire.

Today we spoke with John Christensen on Corporate Learning Institute’s BlogTalk Radio. To listen to the podcast visit (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/corplearning/2011/07/19/charthouse).

Row Your Boat like a Team: The Increased Need for Teambuilding in a Recovering Economy and What to Do About It: A Two Part Series

By Dr. Susan Cain and Vincent Peluso

Organizations today are faced with more complexity than ever before.
What does this mean for a team approach, as we look at the performance needs of organizations in a recovering economy?
This blog explores the need for increased teamwork in a recovering economy and how to build teams expediently using CLI’s virtual teambuilding tool kit, which is available for the first time for interested listeners at www.corplearning.com.

In the first of a part-part series, we will define the different “impact potentials” that individuals, groups and teams have on accomplishing more work with fewer people. We will think about how each contributes to the needs of your organization. In the first show, aired June 28, 2011, we will also interview Tim Buividas of The Corporate Learning Institute, about his current research in team building and how CLI works to provide short-term high yield experiential training to help build team performance.

In the second show, we will provide a short review and give our listeners information about how to build team building knowledge and skills even without a consulting or training organization. We will post the Corporate Learning Institute Team Building Toolkit on our website, ww.corplearning.com for easy retrieval.

Both teams and working groups in organizations can accomplish more, with greater efficiency, than any single individual contributor can. Think of a boat. A single rower can pull the boat forward at a certain rate of speed. Now add more rowers. If they have the same direction in mind, they can row at a greater speed, covering more water. Now add a process for rowing more efficiently. Add trust. Add open communication to allow ease in problem solving. Now this group is operating as a team, with maximum efficiency.

Here is a good working definition of a team: A team is a small group of people committed to a common goal, with defined processes that enable their work to proceed efficiently. A working group is a larger number of people who perform collaboratively but are not as “in sink” as a real team. Maybe they have different goals; fewer defined work processes or lost opportunities to align. On an efficiency scale, think of it this way: individual contributors can only affect what they can do individually; groups can accomplish more if they collaborate toward achieving their goals, but a real team that shares a common goal, defined roles, and a common vision/direction are the most powerful human contribution possible in the work world.

Today we are going to talk about the teamwork competencies needed to achieve an effective team performance. Tim Buividas, partner at the Corporate Learning institute, (www.corplearning.com) is completing his doctoral dissertation focusing on how experiential training can improve the development of teamwork competencies. Experiential learning, or learning by doing, helps develop teamwork competencies. An activities-based approach to learning allows team members to apply and try-out teamwork competencies and skills that they otherwise would not have an opportunity to do.

According to Buividas, “some components of effective teamwork include organizational support, mission and goal focus, accountability and ownership, commitment, team composition and structure, team identity, group norms, communication and interpersonal skill, conflict resolution, trust, learning, growth and continuous improvement, motivation, satisfaction and well being, problem solving and decision making, and group cohesion.” This seems like a lot. However, hidden in the above compilation is one single truth: a team intent on opening up trust as an operating standard will develop “symptoms” of open communication, problem solving, cohesion, and every item listed above. A decision to operate with trust allows this remarkable flow of abilities that allow for high performance. Back to the boat analogy: so the team is encountering waves, and resistant winds. Instead of using blame, they pause to find out how to change their rowing approach to accommodate the new conditions. Maybe one team member is tired. With open communication, the team supports this vulnerability by taking over for this person until they regain strength. This builds team resilience and motivation to persist, even in recovering economies like ours.

How can organizations build teams with shorter training cycles and higher impact?
Tim Buividas outlines a short–term high impact experiential team building process capable of helping groups gain the skills to become effective teams.
“The key to team building is clarifying, upfront, both performance and behavior expectations and then designing a well thought out process that reinforces those expectations.”

The second half of this paper focuses on what organizations can do to develop teams on their own. We have provided the CLI team building tool kit available at (http://corplearning.com/resources.html#) for you to download as a tool to help individuals and teams learn how to become effective teams. In the kit, readers will find that there are two important components in the process of learning to be a team. The first component involves building and understanding awareness of team development. Teams go through predictable stages of development. Coming together as a team involves the forming stage and in this stage, the team must decide if there is a compelling reason to be a team. The next stage of development is the storming stage and the requirement of the stage is for a team to clarify their goals, roles, approach, and individual needs. The third stage is the forming stage or what I call, the “business as usual stage”. In this stage, the team refines their operating processes that allow work to proceed smoothly. The final stage in development is called the performing stage. In this stage, the group must remember to air healthy conflict, resolve concerns, and recreate rules to ensure healthy growth and response to changes in their environment.

The toolkit also contains information about how team members can open more communication, can disagree in a healthy way, and develop a short-term plan for ensuring a better performance.

This article has reviewed the importance of considering the right approach needed for increasing work efficiencies in organizations. We have given you two approaches for developing effective teamwork despite the current economic conditions that we all face. Visit us at corplearning.com for more information.

References:
Buividas, Tim. The Impact of a Low Ropes Course Training Program on Team Effectiveness of Corporate Employees. January 2011.

Why Leadership Training is Important in Our Recovering Economy

Check out the June 21 Blog Talk Radio Show,
Why Leadership Training is so Important
at www.blogtalkradio.com/corplearning.

Those of you that are over 40 will remember when time seemed to stand still and corporate life was predictable. We had uniforms and rules, protocol and procedure manuals. Those times are gone. Nowadays, we have a multi-generational work force with baby boomers sometimes clashing with emerging leaders that are considered millennial. We have worker engagement concerns, with employees caught between watching out for their careers versus feeling loyal to their employers. We have frozen pay schedules, frozen bonuses, and increased workloads.

In his book, Workforce Crisis-How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills and Talent, Ken Dychtwald noted that three demographics are present to create a leadership shortage in the coming decades:
1. The baby boom generation-1/3 of all Americans (76 million people), born between 1946-1964 will be retiring or changing careers.

This demographic speaks to the issue of secession planning, and how organizations will the knowledge base created by the baby boomer generation. Can organizations retain the skills, experience, customer relationships, and knowledge left? How?

2. The longevity boom-people are living longer, how will this affect the workforce?

Are workers still learning at age 50? 60? 70? How will emerging leaders interface with baby boomer leaders? So we have a multi-generation workforce. How can your organization create training and development opportunities to maintain leader performance over time?

3. Declining birth rates- we are not replacing the baby boomer generation with the same population How can your organization develop emerging leaders quickly and cost effectively? How can you recruit efficiently?

These demographics can help your organization prepare for the upcoming leadership pipeline shortage?
There are several things your organization can do”

1. Create training that introduces your baby-boomer leaders to new technology, innovative processes, and updated research in your business area.

2. Develop leadership-training programs that meet the needs of multi-generation leadership work force. How can your organization consider the specific needs of your demographic groups?

3. We will have fewer capable leaders entering the job pool in the future. What can your organization do to ensure that leaders are recruited, screened, and prepared efficiently for their new role?

Responding to the Need: Leadership Training at CLI
CLI offers training for leaders through two fully developed programs. Each has distinct design benefits.

The CLI Leadership Academy

The CLI custom-designed Leadership Academy provides organizations with a tailored approach to offering leadership training. Interestingly, clients can decide how the program is offered, the number and length of time for modules, and the content of the learning material. CLI has just concluded a 12-week leadership program with Argonne National Laboratory for 24 leaders in the health physics department. The training combined classroom and outdoor modules so that leaders could apply their learning. There are three key requirements for developing an effective custom-designed program:

1. Be clear about your needed outcomes

2. Prepare your group before the workshop

3. Develop highly relevant “sticky” training skills that can transfer to the workplace

The Leadership Challenge-a comprehensive training program

Authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have developed a comprehensive training program called The Leadership Challenge.
The program features five key practices:

1. Model the way
2. Inspire a shared vision
3. Challenge the process
4. Enable other to act
5. Encourage to heart

It is important that participants in this program consider completing the Leadership Practice Inventory (LPI) prior to taking the workshop. The LPI allows participants to view their leadership strengths and growth needs. In addition, an action plan allows participants to develop their leadership skills as they work through the program.

Companies today face many challenges, but leadership development is perhaps one of the most important considerations. There are also many options available to prepare leaders, even in a recovering economy.

For more information visit www.corplearning.com.

References
Dychtwald, Ken, Tamara J. Erickson, and Robert Morison. Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills and Talent. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2006.

Kouzes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. The Leadership Challenge (J-B Leadership Challenge: Kouzes/Posner). 4ed. Washington D.C.: Pfeiffer, 2010. Print

Promoting Innovation Literacy in Your Organization

By Susan Cain, Ed.D., Partner, the Corporate Learning Institute, www.corplearning.com

Are your people innovation literate? Are they encouraged to bring new ideas to the table? How about this -are they involved in improving your products, services or processes? If the answer to any of these questions is no, or even maybe, you may be suffering from innovation illiteracy.

Innovation is the process that allows the creation of something new that has never existed before. In an organizational environment, innovation involves the process of opportunity identification, idea generation, prototyping, development, and market sales.

We have developed a tendency in the United States to outsource much of our innovative processes to our offshore manufacturing sites. In many instances, our research and development needs have also been outsourced along with our manufacturing. While this initially makes financial sense, we need to maintain competitive ability through training to improve innovation literacy.

According to the US Council on Competitiveness (2010), innovation will be the single most important factor in determine America’s success in the 21st century. In addition, researchers such as Daniel Pink, in his book, Drive! The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, (2009), noted that the new rules for employee engagement include opportunities for employees to experience autonomy, mastery and purpose. What a great opportunity we have organizationally to encourage two important goals at once-develop employees sense of engagement and add innovative potential to our organizations.

These dual needs fuel the innovation pipelines that can rebuild our competitive future. Understanding the building blocks of innovation literacy begins with thinking about basic steps that you can take to encourage creativity in thinking and innovation in application:

Encouraging Innovation in Your Organization

Innovation literacy skills allow your employees to recognize opportunities that are hard for others to see. Helping employees “see” possibilities starts with what you talk about, and what you encourage, but also what gets people in trouble in your organization. If employees know that creativity and innovation are valued by the organization, they will seek out innovative approaches and share what they have learned. If there is neutral or no emphasis or value for creative thinking or innovative approaches, they will be less likely to step up and offer ideas.

Five Ways to Make your Organization More Innovative

1. Send the message out that you are one organization sharing a common vision, sharing similar challenges and working collaboratively as one together.

2. Become a learning organization. Communicate your organization’s expectation that employees “own” problems and possibilities that they see, even outside of their area. Teach employees to “learn” as an organization by seeing problems through to resolution in collaborative ways, across boundaries.

3. Offer creativity and innovation skills training: this may seem obvious. Teach your people how to solve problems, spot opportunities and test out new ideas that can make a difference to your product or service delivery.

4. Share successes and treat failures as learning opportunities. Do not publicly punish or belittle those who have failed.

5. Show real-world impact of innovative impact by sharing successes.

Below is the CLI model of the innovation process:

These basic innovation skills and steps allow companies to gain a foothold in optimizing a product or services. These are teachable, easy to understand concepts that will allow your employees to learn and apply their learning where it matter most-in your organization.

For more on innovation, contact CLI at (630) 971-5074.

About the Author
Susan Cain, Ed.D. is co-founder and partner of The Corporate Learning Institute and a founding partner of the Black River Center for Management Enhancement. Susan is an expert in the field of corporate training and development. She is a valued consultant and coach to numerous Fortune 500 companies crossing all industry sectors worldwide. She has a proven record of accomplishment of collaborating with teams from top-tier companies to maximize their return on strategic and human capital investments.