Leadership Inspiration – Footprints in the Sand
“Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.”
Anonymous
“Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.”
Anonymous
Training successfully educates only those who are predisposed to the new material. Others may endeavor to learn during class but may not permanently adopt it. The problem isn’t the value of information or the eagerness of the learner: It’s a problem with both the training model itself and the way learners learn. It’s a systems/change problem.
How We Learn
We all operate out of unique, internal systems comprised of mental models (rules, beliefs, history etc.) that form the foundation of who we are and determine our choices, behaviors and habits. Our behaviors are the vehicles that represent these internal systems – our beliefs in action, if you will. So as a Buddhist I wouldn’t learn to shoot a gun, but if someone were to try to kill my family I’d shift the hierarchy of my beliefs to put ‘family’ above ‘Buddhist’ and ‘shooting a gun’ might be within the realm of possibility.
Because anything new is a threat to our habitual and carefully (unconsciously) organized internal system (part of our limbic brain), we instinctively defend ourselves against anything ‘foreign’ that might seek to enter. For real change (like learning something new) to occur, our system must buy-in to the new or it will be automatically resisted. It similarly effects selling/buying, coaching/clients, doctors/patients, leaders/followers.
A training program potentially generates obstacles, such as when
We are programmed to maintain our status quo and resist anything new unless our beliefs/mental models recognize that the new material will align with our status quo regardless of the efficacy of the required change.
How We Train
The training model assumes that if new material
it will become accepted and habituated. But these assumptions are faulty. At an unconscious level, this model attempts to push something foreign into a closed system (our status quo): it might be adopted briefly, but if it opposes our habituated norm, it will show up as a threat and be resisted. This is the same problem faced when sellers attempt to place a new solution, or doctors attempt to change the habits of ill patients. It has little to do with the new, and everything to do with change management.
Truly experiential learning has a higher probability of being adopted because it uses the experience – like walking on coals, doing trust-falls with team members – to shift the underlying beliefs where the change takes place. Until or unless there is a belief change, and the underlying system is ready, willing, and able to adopt the new material into the accepted status quo, the change will not be permanent.
One of the unfortunate assumptions of the training field is that the teach/experience/practice model is effective and if learning doesn’t take place it’s the fault of the learner (much like sellers think the buyer is the problem, coaches thinks clients are the problem, and Listeners think Speakers are the problem). Effective training must change beliefs first.
Learning Facilitation
To avoid resistance and support adoption, training must enable
before the new material is offered.
I had a problem to resolve when designing my first Buying Facilitation® training program in 1983. Because my content ran counter to an industry norm (sales), I had to help learners overcome a set of standardized beliefs and accepted processes endemic to the field. Learners would have to first recognize that their habitual skills were insufficient and higher success ratios were possible by adding (not necessarily subtracting) new ones. I called my training design Learning Facilitation and have used this model successfully for decades. (See my paper in The 2003 Annual: Volume 1 Training [Jossey-Bass/Pfieffer]: “Designing Curricula for Learning Environments Using a Facilitative Teaching Approach to Empower Learners” pp 263-272).
Briefly: Day 1 helps learners recognize the components of their unconscious status quo while identifying skills necessary for greater excellence: specifically, what they do that works and what they do that doesn’t work, and how their current skills match up with their unique definition of excellence within the course parameters. Day 2 enables learners to identify skills that would supplement their current skills to choose excellence at will, and tests for, and manages, acceptance and resistance. Only then do new behaviors get introduced and practiced.
Course material is designed with ‘learning’ in mind (rather than content sharing/behavior change), and looks quite different from conventional training. For example Day 1 uses no desks, no notes, and no lectures. I teach learners how to enlist their unconscious to facilitate buy-in for new material.
Whether it’s my training model or your own, just ask yourself: Do you want to train? Or have someone learn? They are two different activities.
About the Author
Sharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the NYTimes Business BestsellerSelling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]
One half of all new organizations will close their doors forever after only five years. Those organizations – started with vision, enthusiasm, and hope for the future – will leave employees, clients, and constituents in limbo. Within sixteen years only twenty five percent will still be viable. There are a number of reasons for failure but some result from their own success.
There is a definite cycle in the life of organizations. It is not chronological but a functional cycle. A simplified pattern might include five phases; Initial Structuring, Formal Organization, Maximum Efficiency, Institutionalization, and Disintegration.
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About the Author
William F. Johnson is an award winning author writing primarily in the field of leadership and personal development. His background includes starting and leading three different business entities and he is currently CEO of a non-profit organization. Bill can be reached at www.wfjohn.blogspot.com.
Bill’s book, Disorganize or Bust (Aslan Press), provides an understanding of organizational development, traces some real life organizations through their life cycle, and is provided as a tool for leaders and entrepreneurs to avoid or slow down the institutionalization process. It will be uncomfortable for some whose main desire is a smooth operation, but growth is not smooth.
Millennials and younger generations don’t respond to control and a non-stop focus on productivity. To get the best out of them you need to be a benevolent leader. What is different about being a benevolent leader? You are always in the question of what you are creating and how it can contribute to everyone, not just your bottom line. Benevolent leadership is innovation on steroids. By its very nature, innovation goes beyond control.
If innovation is a core strategy for your business, you need to lead from the space of asking questions that create new possibilities and new choices. You can’t control the outcomes. You can control the questions you ask. Traditional management schools teach you to ask the questions you know the answers to. Benevolent leaders know this won’t create innovation and expansion. To be continually thriving rather than just surviving you have to ask the questions that don’t have an obvious ‘right’ answer!
What do these questions look like? Let’s start with what they don’t look like! If you are hearing things like this come out of your mouth or your meetings, you are limiting what you can create in your business:
Let’s consider some different possibilities.
Instead of asking how you can make people work harder, ask, “What can our people contribute that we have not yet considered?” and then ask them what they would like to contribute. Have you ever noticed how much more people will do when it is their choice?
Instead of asking how to control your projects better, ask, “What possibilities are available here that we have not yet considered?” Most projects are created in a linear and logical way. What if there is a faster, easier, more joyful way? Would you be willing to have that instead? If you ask your team, “What strategies can create the greatest results for the least effort?” you invite the elegance of creation, rather than the insanity of complicated solutions and non-stop stress. Deadlines can be met in half the time if you ask the questions that will create new possibilities!
Instead of asking why something isn’t working, ask, “What else can we create or generate that would out-create this situation?” Out-creation invites new possibilities and choices. Fixing problems invites more problems. This is the question to ask if you find you have a new problem to solve every time you turn around. What if your value as a benevolent leader is in what you create, rather than what you fix or control?
Are you willing to be the leader that people turn to, not because you have the right answers, but because the questions you ask always create greater possibilities?
What if you could be rewarded for your awareness of possibilities, rather than your ability to limit what is possible? That is the choice that you make as a benevolent leader. Are you willing to invite more possibilities than other people and businesses do? You have the choice. Ask the questions that take you out of the limitations of control and into the non-stop creation of innovation. That is how you create a sustainable future – for you, your organization and the world.
About the Author
Business innovator, investor, author, antique storeowner and breeder of Costa Rican horses, Gary Douglas lives life to the fullest. He is the founder of Access Consciousness®, a personal development modality that has helped thousands worldwide by giving them tools to create change in all aspects of life – from addiction, recovery, weight loss, business, money, health, relationships and creativity. The Access tools are now offered in 173 countries. In 2010 his book The Place became a Barnes and Nobles #1 Bestseller. Gary is regularly featured in the international media as a thought leader in business. Find Gary at GaryMDouglas.com and Access Consciousness at AccessConsciousness.com.
… while providing the highest level of parts availability.
While every company’s circumstances are unique, StrategyDriven Advisors observe significant avoidable expenses incurred because of work management – supply chain program misalignments, including:
As a complimentary supplement to this video, StrategyDriven’s Maintenance Inventory Optimization, Work Management – Supply Chain Interface Barriers whitepaper presents the sixteen most commonly occurring work management – supply chain program barriers our advisors have identified when helping clients optimize their inventories. We believe these barriers represent an excellent starting point to evaluate the sufficiency of your company’s spare parts inventories.
About the Author
Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.