Learning Inventories

Learning Inventories

This week, our Curriculum Designer, Caroline Slee-Poulos, continues our series on Lifelong Learning with her post on learning inventories.

When we speak of learning styles, most often we are referring to three primary categories: visual, auditory, kinesthetic. If you are a visual learner, you are thought to learn most effectively through images (or, you know, visual aids). For auditory learners – who, by the way, are technically aural or auditory-musical learners – it is thought that hearing information is the most beneficial delivery system. For kinesthetic learners, we consider the “learn by doing” method to be most effective, although incorporating movement in any way can be helpful.

Most of us don’t necessarily pay attention to learning and education in a “meta-” way: we don’t study how we learn.

The difficulty we face with learning styles is two-fold.

First of all, those three categories above aren’t actually all of the categories. The full list is seven learning styles: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, social, solitary, verbal, and logical. Considering there are seven of them, it’s pretty strange that many learning inventories cover only those first three.

Second, these learning styles have been thrown out the window as an effective way of teaching. Although the “know thyself” wisdom of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi is always valuable – for the learners – an educator should not be seeking to sort students into neat little compartments. Or houses. This isn’t Hogwarts, after all…

With asynchronous education, we have to reach multiple styles and multiple forms. I think we can all agree that online learning isn’t necessarily geared towards movement, even though a standing desk (or, better yet, a treadmill desk!) can change that. Despite that, our classes do hit the visual, auditory, verbal, logical, and solitary notes.

Then again, since you have the flexibility to take a class at home, you may very well be surrounded by family. This wouldn’t be solitary at all.

The question is: do you know yourself? What would you say your own learning style is? This week, I would like to ask each of you to take a simple learning inventory quiz. Once you have your result, give it some thought. What surprises you in your results? What did you already know about how you learn? How can this information help you in your continuing education? Let us know in the comments!

The learning inventory can be found here.

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Friday Filosophy v.10.28.2022

Friday Filosophy v.10.28.2022

In Friday Filosophy v.10.28.2022, our Founder Ron Slee shares quotes and words of wisdom from the economist Edmund Burke.

Edmund Burke; 12 January 1729 – 9 July 1797 was an Irish–British statesman, economist, and philosopher. Born in Dublin, Burke served as a member of Parliament (MP) between 1766 and 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party.

Burke was a proponent of underpinning virtues with manners in society and of the importance of religious institutions for the moral stability and good of the state. These views were expressed in his A Vindication of Natural Society. He criticized the actions of the British government towards the American colonies, including its taxation policies. Burke also supported the rights of the colonists to resist metropolitan authority, although he opposed the attempt to achieve independence. He is remembered for his support for Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, and his staunch opposition to the French Revolution.

In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke asserted that the revolution was destroying the fabric of good society and traditional institutions of state and society and condemned the persecution of the Catholic Church that resulted from it. This led to his becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig Party which he dubbed the Old Whigs as opposed to the pro–French Revolution New Whigs led by Charles James Fox. 

In the 19th century, Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals. Subsequently, in the 20th century, he became widely regarded, especially in the United States, as the philosophical founder of conservatism.  

In 1744, Burke started at Trinity College Dublin, a Protestant establishment which up until 1793 did not permit Catholics to take degrees. In 1747, he set up a debating society Edmund Burke’s Club which in 1770 merged with TCD’s Historical Club to form the College Historical Society, the oldest undergraduate society in the world. The minutes of the meetings of Burke’s Club remain in the collection of the Historical Society. Burke graduated from Trinity in 1748. Burke’s father wanted him to read Law and with this in mind he went to London in 1750, where he entered the Middle Temple, before soon giving up legal study to travel in Continental Europe. After eschewing the Law, he pursued a livelihood through writing. 

In 1757, Burke published a treatise on aesthetics titled A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful that attracted the attention of prominent Continental thinkers such as Denis Diderot and Immanuel Kant. It was his only purely philosophical work and when asked by Sir Joshua Reynolds and French Laurence to expand it thirty years later, Burke replied that he was no longer fit for abstract speculation (Burke had written it before he was nineteen years of age). 

On 12 March 1757, Burke married Jane Mary Nugent (1734–1812), daughter of Dr. Christopher Nugent, a Catholic physician who had provided him with medical treatment at Bath. Their son Richard was born on 9 February 1758 while an elder son, Christopher, died in infancy. Burke also helped raise a ward, Edmund Nagle (later Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle), the son of a maternal cousin orphaned in 1763. 

At about this same time, Burke was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton (known as “Single-speech Hamilton”). When Hamilton was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, Burke accompanied him to Dublin as his private secretary, a position he held for three years. In 1765, Burke became private secretary to the liberal Whig politician Charles, Marquess of Rockingham, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, who remained Burke’s close friend and associate until his untimely death in 1782.

  • Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
  • The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
  • When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
  • The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
  • All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
  • The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
  • Beauty is the promise of happiness.
  • To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
  • Good order is the foundation of all things.
  • People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.
  • To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
  • No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
  • The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
  • Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
  • He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
  • We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
  • But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
  • Whatever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.
  • When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.
  • Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
  • It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
  • Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.
  • Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

The Time is Now.

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Coaches Corner v.10.27.2022

Coaches Corner v.10.27.2022

Guest writer Floyd Jerkins brings us our third installment in our Coaches Corner, v.10.27.2022.

A Leadership Rule: What You Do is So Loud I Can’t Hear What You’re Saying

How Effective Are Your Leaders?

You want employees to feel good to be working as part of a team that is working together – and everyone is improving. Many managers would be surprised to learn how little their employees believe management is walking the talk.

You can quickly scan the internet and find thousands of articles on leadership. Hundreds of thousands of terabytes of data on the subject are available. Why then are we still seeing fundamental leadership issues?

Leaders have to be the change they want to see.

Whether Bruce Lee or Gandi said it first, it’s a powerful metaphor for leaders. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a cliche statement, but a modeled behavior makes this a reality. You can’t fake it with lots of words or bravado. You have to walk the talk.

I helped a group establish a renewed mission and vision for their company. First, we had to talk through how they created their first set of statements, how they outlined the behaviors they expected staff to have, and then how they communicated this to their entire organization.

Previously, they discussed their competition many times but tended to over-analyze how they compare to the other companies. They were trying to be just like the other companies their customers touch instead of understanding how they made the customers feel and replicating the same feelings from their organization. Once everyone recognized this, it started a whole new discussion. You just can’t put words on paper and expect everyone to automatically adopt them into day-to-day behaviors.

Every time a customer comes in contact with your company, you have the opportunity to create value by managing these touch points. These “touch points” of interactions form the impressions of your business. Every front-line employee has to walk the talk because hundreds and even thousands of these touch points happen daily. Nearly all of them are manageable by leaders and create coachable moments.

Specific customer service behaviors should be in your mission statement and your employee’s job descriptions. When you include these into training sessions, you begin integrating them into the hearts and minds of your employees. When it is trained in employees and in their job descriptions, they remember it and work towards it. These ideals aren’t just going to happen by chance; they must be planned for.

There is a lesson on the importance of having things detailed, organized, fast service, doing what we tell the customer, etc. If we take care of our customers, they will take care of us. That is such a simple statement, but it has far-reaching consequences in the business.

Remove Pass the Buck Bill

Nothing upsets a customer more than having an employee tell them to see someone else in the business that created the problem. Putting a customer on hold only to wait and wait for the next person in line to start the conversation all over again doesn’t make those enduring experiences customers expect today. I call those employees, Pass the Buck Bill. 

Passing on the responsibility to another employee or department is a common occurrence, yet; it drives customers away and makes your company just like all the other average ones out there.

Can These Touch Points Be Managed? 

Yes, They Can!

Each employee is a manager of customer relations. Even the janitor, because they come in contact with a customer, so they create an impression of good or bad service. Everyone needs to focus on the customer’s needs even if they don’t deal with or come in contact with the customer. Even a ticked-off customer is everyone’s responsibility. The more you can include your employees in this leadership role, they are more likely will become committed to doing an excellent job.

Every Customer is Heard Through Many Ears.

As a leader, you’ll sometimes get “employee ears” telling you all kinds of negative rhetoric about one department or the other. Someone in one department hears a customer say something about another department, etc. It is difficult to listen to these negative comments and not do something, but at the same time, you have to become aware that there are three sides to every story.

Implementing cross-departmental meetings to discuss customer service starts to create a deeper understanding of individual responsibility.

The idea of having different groups together within the business and discussing “how do we rate today on a scale of one to ten” starts the internal conversations about improving customer service. If one group says they are a seven at greeting customers with a smile, then ask why. This opens the discussion about how to get better tomorrow. Even if you start this out as once a week or once a month, it gives the employees their chance to have their say and make it more personal. This whole process intentionally gives them the power to try to improve.

It would be nice to have this just naturally happen between staff, but that’s not the reality. A leader has to set the tone for customer service. The leader has to walk the talk of leadership and be the change they want to see.

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Thinking About Customers and Customer Satisfaction

Thinking About Customers and Customer Satisfaction

Guest writer Alex Weaver focuses on the annual goals we focus upon in our industry with this blog post on “Thinking about customers and customer satisfaction.”

Many dealers/resellers in the Construction Equipment Industry, set annual goals around Financial Performance, Market Share, Customer Satisfaction, and Employee Satisfaction. 

For now, let’s focus on Customer Satisfaction/Service. Is your customer satisfaction better, the same or less after the Covid/Pandemic shutdowns? In our industry, the balance between the customer interface using technology and humans – real voices, real answers have always favored human interaction. 

Is that still true? Technology has changed and is changing customer expectations. Customers are younger. Using eCommerce for transactions is a growing trend in our industry. Do we understand those changes? 

What is the best method for finding out?

Many companies use an annual Customer Satisfaction Survey. But, can you truly understand the impact of any major change in a survey?

I suggest that the best way of understanding the pressures and needs of customers is to talk to them. Do executive management team members schedule annual ride along with sales staff?  Not just interact with customers at a golf outing or cookout.

Years ago, I had the opportunity to observe a “master” in action. Back in the “horse and buggy” days, there were financial institutions called “Savings and Loans”. “The savings and loan association became a strong force in the early 20th century through assisting people with home ownership, through mortgage lending, and further assisting their members with basic saving and investing outlets, typically through passbook savings accounts and term certificates of deposit.

The savings and loan associations of this era were famously portrayed in the 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life.” 

The personal touch. The gentleman I observed was the primary shareholder and president of the Savings and Loan – He maintained three desks. One in the lobby, one in the loan office, and one “upstairs” out of public view. He was at his lobby desk when the doors opened, used the loan department desk before and after lunch. He used his private desk in the late afternoon. He was raised on a farm without a formal high school education, but he knew and understood customers. What they want/need – how he could help them achieve their goal of Home Ownership.

I spent my college years, in the summers, working as one of the “grunts” on the appraisal team. He always asked the grunts for their observations and recommendations. I rarely agreed with our (his) decision because I did not understand the “people” side of the equation. He met many of his depositors, face to face, from his Lobby Desk. He met many of the loan customers, in the loan department. He personally inspected each home or property loaned on. While staff members did the grunt work, ERL would visit with the homeowner. Notice the condition of the property – cleanliness, indications of personal pride in the home and property. Personal involvement with the customers, both savers and borrowers were his focus. 

Customer Satisfaction.  One of the cornerstones of success in our industry.  We measure it or at least survey it.  How do we stack up? Have the scales tipped more to technology than human touch? What is your score, and how do you know? 

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Where to Start with Data Quality

Where to Start with Data Quality

Guest writer Sara Hanks builds our foundational knowledge with her blog post on data: “Where to Start with Data Quality.”

Fall is my favorite season for two reasons – beautiful scenery and the National Football League. This year, I joined a fantasy football league for the first time. The league uses the ESPN fantasy football app, which is great because it contains analytics that make it easy for a novice like me. Each week, my team is matched up with another and there is a predicted outcome for each player as well as the team overall. I can use the predictions to decide who to bench or trade. This is possible because there is a ton of high-quality data that feeds the algorithm.

According to Joseph Juran, quality means “fitness for use.” According to Philip Crosby, it means “conformance to requirements.” Data quality encompasses both definitions – it needs to be able to provide insights to make decisions real-time. Here are 10 elements to consider with data quality:

  1. Accuracy – the data needs to be correct
  2. Complete – the data does not have missing values
  3. Consistent – the data needs to be defined the same across all IT systems
  4. Valid – the format of the data needs to match the data structure, such as a date field
  5. Singular – the data should not be duplicated
  6. Seamless – the data needs to move from one system to another without compromise
  7. Repeatable – if two people are recording data, they both record the same thing.
  8. Preserved – the data needs to be retained according to the retention policies
  9. Compliant – the data needs to adhere to privacy laws, and internal policies
  10. Accessible – the data needs to be democratized in a way that people can consume it, according to their skillset.

To achieve a high level of data quality, the data needs to have a clear owner. The owner is most likely responsible for executing the process. For example, the customer information is owned by the sales team, and the supplier data is owned by the purchasing team. The IT team must support the data owners because they can ensure that there are proper controls in place to detect issues with moving and storing the data.

Getting started with a data quality plan can be overwhelming, so it is best for businesses to prioritize the data first. I recommend starting with the fundamental, foundational data for your business. I like to consider this data the cost of doing business and understand that data quality is just as necessary as closing the books at the end of the month. The next area I recommend tackling is all the data used to generate operational KPIs. Finally, focus on the data necessary for transformation efforts.

Once the scope of the data quality plan is set, it is good to create a baseline of the data quality. An audit of the data can help data owners understand the baseline. The audit is a deep dive into a sample of the data to get a representation of the overall data. During the data audit, the data owner will need to get hands on with the data, as well as interview people to understand the accuracy of the data. At the end of the audit, create a metric around how much of the data is considered defective. The audit findings facilitate recommendations and plans to improve the data quality.

At a minimum, the data quality plan must include a process around ensuring new data is created with high quality. The process needs to define who has authority to create the data, and it needs to define the process to update data.  

Improving data quality takes time and resources, so start small and drive incremental improvements over time.

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Becoming Successful

Becoming Successful

In this week’s installment on Lifelong Learning, our Founder shares a blog post on all of the professional steps involved in becoming successful.

Everywhere you look and a large amount of what you read people are talking about attracting, finding, hiring, developing and retaining talented people. It would appear, at least from everything that is out there, that it would be easy to find a rewarding and challenging place to work. It appears that you would be able to show your talents and potential to these desperate employers.   

Good luck with that. 

Like most other things in life if you want to become successful you have to put in the work. That is easy to say, but what do you mean? 

Let’s be systematic and outline some steps. But first, please remember success is not a reflection of your job alone. It is a reflection of who and what you are as a person. 

Phase One 

Here, you have to do some serious self-reflection on what you think you need to do to represent the best person you can be. This is very personal, isn’t it? There is only one of you on the planet. Let’s be systematic; what are your values, your strengths and weaknesses. Are there things that you already know you need to improve on. Write them down. Is there anything that you have wanted to do forever, but never had the time to do? What about your physical being. Do you need to improve your health, your weight, your condition? Be brutally honest here. Never forget that the easiest person to lie to is your reflection in the mirror. 

Next let’s establish some action items and goals. There are many sources that tell us that setting goals is an important aspect of becoming successful. So, make it real, write it down. Make a list of what you want to get done, what you want to achieve. This is where you have to remember that your goals need to be achievable. Don’t be unrealistic. In this area it is extremely important that you are very specific. 

Finally, for this first phase, you have to make a commitment to yourself that these lists are things you are going to work on every day. No slacking off. In leading a team we have to be able to communicate to a group of people what you are trying to do. Then you have to have the discussion, the debate, as to whether or not that is the right thing to do. You MUST have that debate. Once everyone has had their say and you have reached a common understanding then and only then will you and your team be committed to make it happen. This time you are the team. You have to be all in, totally committed to making this happen.         

Phase Two

Find someone or something to be your lighthouse, you beacon, your spiritual guide. Don’t laugh at this. It is important. Find someone with whom you can talk. You will get discouraged and they can perk you up. Make no mistake, you are the one that has to get this done, but there will be times that you will need help and encouragement. I used to find a piece of music that motivated me. Those of you that have listened to any of our Podcasts know that the song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is one of those inspirations for me. Another thing that has helped me often is to have a pad handy or talk to your phone. When something strikes you record it. It is much too easy to forget those brilliant ideas you had in the middle of the night. A long time ago, I was a Data Processing Manager at a dealership. We were open 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I used to go to bed with a pad and a pen on the nightstand so that when I woke up with that brilliant idea, in the middle of the night, I could write it down I wouldn’t lose it. Isn’t that strange? Of course, I am sure you guessed it, I couldn’t read my writing in the morning, so I stopped doing it. Oh well.

Remember your goals from Phase One. Now might be a good time to go back and review those goals and break them down into more manageable chunks. Allow yourself the opportunity to succeed at those goals. Make them shorter and more easily achieved. As you begin to have more success at achieving those goals you can make them bigger. Remember Collins and Porras in their book Good to Great. They wanted us to create BHAGS. Big Hairy Audacious Goals. 

 Similarly remember those aspects from Phase One that had to do with your appearance. Dress for success. Exercise regularly. Eat the right food. And don’t be surprised if you have to make some changes. Sometimes you will have external influences over which you have little if any control. Focus on those things in your plan, in your activities, over which you have control. The things that you can influence.

Phase Three

Things are building you can feel a difference. You feel more in control of your life. This is a good time and it is a good place where you have your mind. However, you will have setbacks, you will fail at some things. Don’t get discouraged. Failures and failing are part of life. Edison famously said “I have not failed I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” 

One of the things that has worked well for me is even though I knew I had failed I never took it personally. Remember that the mission you have is important. It is not necessarily going to be easy. Not everyone can be all they want to be. This where you might need that support figure. You don’t need to do this alone. Finally, trust your instincts, trust you gut. Intuition and contemplation are best when they work together. 

NEVER STOP.

Achieving your potential is a lifelong process. Your skills and abilities are dynamic, they’re constantly changing. That is true because you are constantly learning. Samuel Beckett wrote “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” If you follow his advice and continue on the path to lifelong learning you will achieve your potential and you will have become successful.

The time is now. 

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Friday Filosophy v.10.21.2022

Friday Filosophy v.10.21.2022

In Friday Filosophy v.10.21.2022, Founder Ron Slee shares quotes and words of wisdom from the economist Ken Galbraith.

John Kenneth Galbraith OC (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s. As an economist, he leaned toward post-Keynesian economics from an institutionalist perspective. 

Galbraith was a long-time Harvard faculty member and stayed with Harvard University for half a century as a professor of economics. He was a prolific author and wrote four dozen books, including several novels, and published more than a thousand articles and essays on various subjects. Among his works was a trilogy on economics, American Capitalism (1952), The Affluent Society (1958), and The New Industrial State (1967). Some of his work has been criticized by economists Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, Robert Solow, and Thomas Sowell.

Galbraith was active in Democratic Party politics, serving in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. He served as United States Ambassador to India under the Kennedy administration. His political activism, literary output and outspokenness brought him wide fame during his lifetime. Galbraith was one of the few to receive both the World War II Medal of Freedom (1946) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000) for his public service and contributions to science. The government of France made him a Commandeur de la Légion d’honneur.

In autumn 1972, Galbraith was an adviser and assistant to Nixon’s rival candidate, Senator George McGovern, in the election campaign for the American presidency. During this time (September 1972) he travelled to China in his role as president of the American Economic Association (AEA) at the invitation of Mao Zedong‘s communist government, together with fellow economists Wassily Leontief and James Tobin. In 1973, Galbraith published an account of his experiences in A China Passage, writing that there was “no serious doubt that China is devising a highly effective economic system,” “dissidents are brought firmly into line in China, but, one suspects, with great politeness,” and “Greater Shanghai … has a better medical service than New York,”. He considered it not implausible that Chinese industrial and agricultural output was expanding annually at a rate of 10 to 11%.

In 1972 he served as president of the American Economic Association. The Journal of Post Keynesian Economics benefited from Galbraith’s support and he served as the chairman of its board from its beginning. 

During the shooting of The World at War, a British television documentary series (1973–74), Galbraith described his experiences in the Roosevelt war administration. Among other things, he spoke about the initial confusion during the first meeting of the major departmental leaders about kapok and its use. Galbraith also talked about rationing and especially about trickery during fuel allocation.

In December 1977, he met the Palauan senator Roman Tmetuchl and eventually became an unpaid adviser to the Palau Political Status Commission. He advocated for minimal financial requirement and infrastructure projects. In 1979 he addressed Palau’s legislature and participated in a seminar for the delegates to the Palau Constitutional Convention. He became the first person to earn honorary citizenship of Palau. 

In 1984, he visited the USSR, writing that the Soviet economy had made “great material progress” as, “in contrast to Western industrial economy,” the USSR “makes full use of its manpower.” 

In 1985, the American Humanist Association named him the Humanist of the Year. The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) conferred its 1987 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies. 

In 1997 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2000 he was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. He also was awarded an honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland at the fall convocation of 1999, another contribution to the impressive collection of approximately fifty academic honorary degrees bestowed upon Galbraith. In 2000, he was awarded the Leontief Prize for his outstanding contribution to economic theory by the Global Development and Environment Institute. The library in his hometown of Dutton, Ontario was renamed the John Kenneth Galbraith Reference Library in honor of his attachment to the library and his contributions to the new building.

On April 29, 2006, Galbraith died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of natural causes at the age of 97, after a two-week stay in a hospital. He is interred at Indian Hill Cemetery in Middletown, Connecticut.

  • Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.
  • The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
  • In economics, the majority is always wrong.
  • The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
  • Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
  • All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
  • The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.
  • Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.
  • We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.
  • Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.
  • We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.
  • Meetings are a great trap. Soon you find yourself trying to get agreement and then the people who disagree come to think they have a right to be persuaded. However, they are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.
  • Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.

The Time is Now.

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Coaches Corner v.10.20.2022

Coaches Corner v.10.20.2022

Learning Without Scars is pleased to present the next installment in our series, Coaches Corner. Please feel free to click the link to read the welcome post authored by Floyd Jerkins.

Coaches Corner v.10.20.2022

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What is a Job Architect? And how is it relevant to modern HR practices?

What is a Job Architect? And how is it relevant to modern HR practices?

Guest writer Sonya Law walks readers through organizational structures in “What is a Job Architect? And how is it relevant to modern HR practices?”

“Be an organisation who is leading from the front …find out what a Job Architect is and why it is vital to high performance teams” … 

  • It plays a key role in ‘attracting, retaining and nurturing talent’
  • Gives people a sense of belonging and understands the ‘relational aspects of teams and connection’
  • Provides insights into the ‘employee experience’ and cultural awareness.

Job Architecture has been given more attention, post pandemic.  For the reason that, people are wanting more from their jobs, getting paid is no longer enough.  If a job does not meet their need for purpose and meaningful impact there is another job, just around the corner in this buoyant tight-talent market.

Those experiencing burnout are also opting for the eject button, to return to a role that suits their skill set and need for making a difference.

Job Architecture, acts as strategic backbone 

“Connecting the entire Human Resources ecosystem for a consistent Employee Experience that, ultimately, impacts the customer experience. Job Architecture helps you: Develop and align talent segments, job families, capabilities, and accountabilities across the organisation.” 

Job Architecture is work design

Post pandemic, we want to create workplaces as magnets for people to attract them to return to the office.  We need to re-think and look at new ways that work can be done and job architecture enables us to do this.  As well as think of the relational aspects, of how we collaborate and solve problems as a team.

Job Architecture is an underutilised part of our HR toolkit

Job Design is a HR fundamental but what is different about Job Architecture is that it is smart design that takes in design thinking principles.  Which brings focus to the employee experience and the way work gets done in context of the whole eco-system.

Recently in Melbourne, Australia a Job Summit was held with business leaders such as CEO of Qantas Alan Joyce and Andrew Forest as well as many more, one of the key outcomes was the need to increase productivity.  Job Architecture and work design affects every outcome that matters in a workplace, including performance and productivity.  Full utilisation of our most expensive resource, being human beings is essential to achieving high rates of productivity and a way to do this is through Job Architecture.  

The next points are based on an article written by Chris Sheedy for HRM Magasine and provides key insights into Job Architecture, by Professor Sharon Parker.  

Job Architecture involves creating work for employees that is:

Stimulating

As human beings, we like to do things that are interesting, feel meaningful and have some variety.

Mastery 

Allows for mastery, most people want to do their job well.  So how can we encourage a sense of mastery? What are the things that help people to do their job? Role clarity, regular feedback, tap into their ‘native genius’ a term coined by Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers, how the best leaders make everyone smart. 

Agency

Agency, or autonomy, is based on the fundamental human need to have control over one’s own world. In a work context, this is the degree to which an employee feels they have control or influence over the work that they do and how they do it. Low agency also usually equates to low innovation.  Agency is not anarchy. Its purposeful and goal directed.  It requires a high level of trust throughout the organisation.

Relational

Impactful and relational aspects are considerations in Job Architecture.  Clarity of what our job is and the impact on other jobs is fundamental.  What is vital to high performance teams is the relationships and the connections with each other.  The level of support we receive from within and from each other will give us our sense of belonging, make us feel safe and valued. 

It creates a high level of accountability, responsibility, ownership and also reliability which are all fundamental in building trust and present in high performing teams. A strong relational culture, does not support toxicity and bullying and harassment, it supports high levels of engagement. 

Tolerance

Builds tolerance; in 2022 there needs to be a focus on building tolerance for organisations to thrive.  High work demands and burnout, leads to feelings of overwhelm and can be a key factor for people leaving their jobs and not taking up leadership positions.  Thoughtful consideration needs to be given to how we build tolerance to increased work demands and recognise the early signs of burnout and support people’s mental health in their job i.e., coaching. 

Strategic workforce planning is key:

The starting point, is understanding where your organisation is at, what it values and needs to execute the strategy in terms of the: 

  1. Skills and capability
  2. Digital transformation
  3. Cadence of change 

And assess the levels of fatigue in the organisation which will determine the receptivity to and success of change.

Having a workforce planning strategy in place that is considerate of your current workforce and job design and constraints will improve outcomes.  A tool used to evaluate constraints in achieving the strategy is the PESTLE, which gives consideration to political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors.  This will be the best predictor of the future workforce required to execute your strategy.  Then for Human Resources, the detailed work is in drilling down on job design/job architecture alongside, budgetary and growth expectations, and headcount.

As a senior leadership team, its good practise to complete quarterly: 

  1. Talent Matrix (performance and potential) 
  2. PESTLE is political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors.
  3. Align people strategy (work force planning/Job Architecture) with business strategy. 

How well we do in these areas will define the success in attracting and retaining talent in a tight market now and in the future and achieving our business goals. 

‘Take care of your people and they will take care of business’

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Creating Solutions to Reduce Waste

Creating Solutions to Reduce Waste

Guest writer Sara Hanks takes readers through the process of finding solutions that work for a team in “Creating Solutions to Reduce Waste.”

Although it has been 15 years, I remember the day clearly. It was my first opportunity to participate in a manufacturing Kaizen event, facilitated by a Japanese Sensei consultant. 20+ participants were divided into smaller teams of 4-5 people, with each team focusing on an area of the shop. I was selected as the team captain, as I was the most vocal person. After a couple days of analyzing the waste associated with the current state, we were instructed to identify solutions. I shared my perfect idea for a solution and the team agreed with the recommendation. My competitive side wanted to be the first team to accomplish the task, so I was relieved that the team was onboard. 

The Sensei, along with the leaders, would spend time visiting each team. When they stopped to check in with our team, I proudly shared our perfect solution. The Sensei was not happy, and I was mortified to be corrected in front of my leaders. He explained the 7 Ways Idea Generation methodology and requested that we return to brainstorming. My team generated 6 more ideas and used criteria such as impact and effort to down select to a single idea. It turned out that my perfect idea was not the final decision of the team.  

Hey, failure is one of the best instructors! While I learned a few things that day, the most important lesson was the power of divergent thinking. Specifically, divergent thinking from a diverse group of individuals will create the best solutions. In my process mapping and continuous improvement action workouts, I use creative thinking exercises, silent brainstorming, and an evaluation process to select the best solutions. 

Leveraging Creative Thinking for Developing Solutions 

“It turns out that creativity isn’t some rare gift to be enjoyed by the lucky few—it’s a natural part of human thinking and behavior. In too many of us it gets blocked. But it can be unblocked. And unblocking that creative spark can have far-reaching implications for yourself, your organization, and your community.”

― Tom Kelley, Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All 

When it comes to solutions, we tend to default to the ideas that have already existed. It’s hard to think outside of the box and be innovative because people tend to stop at the obvious solution. Introducing unrelated, creative exercises into an action workout can unlock creative thinking and help create new ideas. One of my favorite ways to spark creative thinking is to solution the worst possible idea first. Creating the worst idea does two things: 1) removes barriers by allowing the craziest of ideas to exist and 2) loosen up the team and help them feel more comfortable brainstorming ideas. 

There are several exercises available on the internet, so I recommend selecting 1-2 that fit within the context of the solution building. A coloring activity may not work for a meeting that is conducted virtually, for example. Once you’ve warmed up the group using one of these exercises, brainstorm solutions. 

Silent Brainstorming for Idea Generation Equality 

Silent brainstorming is used to generate ideas individually, while everyone is quiet. Participants can think without distractions or influence from other people. Groupthink is avoided and everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute to the solution. If the group is in a conference room or other common area, sticky notes are a good place to record ideas. Limit one idea per sticky note. If the group is located remotely, then ideas can be written down digitally. Remember the intent is to brainstorm without sharing, so make sure the ideas are captured locally vs. a shared platform. I recommend at least 30 minutes of brainstorming to ensure people can think their ideas through. After the silent brainstorming is completed, everyone can share their ideas with the larger group. As the team shares ideas, similar solutions emerge, which can be combined into single solutions. Once the solutions are identified, it is time to down select the idea. 

Selecting the Best Solution 

Selecting the best solution can be done a few different ways. Here are three examples:

  1. Impact – Effort matrix: the ideas are plotted on a grid. The ideas in quadrant 1 are no-brainers and the ideas in quadrant 3 can be discarded. The others are open to discussion.
  2. Voting: with voting, each person receives 7-10 votes. A person can use all their votes on a single idea or spread them across multiple solution ideas. Voting should be silent to prevent groupthink, as with silent brainstorming. The ideas with the most votes are selected for implementation. If the cost to implement the solutions vary, I recommend taking the top ideas and assessing them in an impact – effort matrix. 
  3. Assessing each solution against a set of predefined criteria. The criteria can include impact and effort but are expanded to assess other requirements. Safety, compliance, security, and quality may be included. Typically, the criteria are defined up front in the project charter as critical to quality items, benefits, or both. For each idea, score the idea against the criteria – I prefer a 1, 3 9 scale to differentiate the most applicable items. The total score for each idea is calculated – the highest scored ideas should be implemented.

After the solution(s) are selected for implementation, create a set of action items, owners, and dates for the critical next steps. Schedule follow-up meetings to ensure the actions are closed and identify any unforeseen roadblocks. Most importantly, don’t forget to enjoy implementing the innovative solutions that you and the team created!

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