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Learning Objectives and Why They Matter

Learning Objectives and Why They Matter

In tonight’s guest blog, Caroline Slee-Poulos talks to readers (and students) about learning objectives and why they matter.

Learning Objectives

If you remember more recent school days, you might be able to recall your teachers sharing your objective before each lesson. Depending upon where you are in the world, there might have been additional information provided to you: content standards, a learning map, a group recitation of the objective (this has a bit more from elementary school lessons than later years, of course).

Did any of you understand what you were doing with those objectives?

It really is a standard of best teaching practices to share the objective/s with students before a class begins. A learning objective is meant to tell a student what they should be able to DO or what they will KNOW at the end of the class. In other words, those learning objectives point you towards concrete actions and specific knowledge that will come from what you are studying. As a student, you should always know where you are going. The simple act of sharing those learning objectives can help you to focus on the subject at hand, and measure the course against those objectives.

How do you know you have mastered the content if you don’t know what mastery in the subject area actually is? As in so many aspects of life, communication is key.

Learning objectives should always be clear, specific, and focus the teaching and learning that will take place during the class.

Look back on your own education. Did you know what you were supposed to know and be able to do at the end of every class? Did your teachers share your learning objectives at the outset of every lesson? Importantly, did the class help you to achieve those objectives?

Learning should be intentional, and the way you are taught should be equally intentional. Whether you are in an online course or a face-to-face program, it is a joint effort taking place between the teacher and the student.

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Job Shock, Part One

Job Shock, Part One

This week, we are proud to introduce a new guest blogger, Edward E. Gordon. In Job Shock, Part One, Gordon is beginning a three-week series of thoughts for your consideration. The founder and president of Imperial Consulting Corporation in Chicago, Gordon has consulted with leaders in business, education, government, and non-profits for over 50 years. As a writer, researcher, speaker, and consultant he has helped shape policy and programs that advance talent development and regional economic growth. Gordon is the author or co-author of 20 books. His book, Future Jobs: Solving the Employment and Skills Crisis, is the culmination of his work as a visionary who applies a multi-disciplinary approach to today’s complex workforce needs and economic development issues. It won a 2015 Independent Publishers Award. An updated paperback edition was published in 2018.

Job Shock Part One: Solving the Pandemic & 2030 Employment Meltdown

Introducing a New White Paper.

Part I: Introduction: Why Read This?

Welcome to the Fourth Industrial Revolution in a COVID-19 challenged world economy. Their combined impact on the U.S. job market will stretch to 2030 and beyond. Say hello to “Job Shock!”

“Job Shock: Solving the Pandemic and 2030 Employment Meltdown” will be released as monthly topical Gordon Reports. This will give readers a greater opportunity to consider their outlook on the future of employment. “Job Shock” will present our most up-to-date research on the future of the U.S. labor market over the coming decade. We will review both long-term and short-term problems and solutions to them that are now underway across the United States. “Job Shock’s” premise is that America’s students and workers are as much in need of knowledge injections as they are of vaccine injections against COVID-19.

Defining the Realities of Job Shock

Technologies that have transformed American workplaces now require higher skills. The United States is not creating more high-pay, low-skilled jobs; it is creating more high-pay, higher-skilled jobs.  Unless we confront the reality of this talent mismatch, we face a decade in which there will be too many unskilled people without jobs who run a high risk for lives in poverty and too many skilled jobs without people. This potentially threatens to undermine the broader economy and increase the social disruption that has already begun.

In today’s job market at least 50 percent of today’s “good jobs” (those with higher pay and benefits) do not require four-year college degrees. These jobs need students who graduate from high school with a good general educational foundation, i.e., strong reading/math comprehension, good written and verbal communication abilities, problem-solving and teamwork skills. Students then need to obtain a career certificate, apprenticeship, or a two-year degree from a technical or community college. We are not preparing enough students for the talent realities of the current U.S. job market.

The United States has millions of well-educated, talented workers.  But the unrelenting demands of Job Shock tell us that we will need to double their numbers over this decade to run our high-tech economy.

Job Shock from COVID-19

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this skills gap and sped up employment meltdowns. It caused the sharpest increase in the official U.S. unemployment rate ever recorded, rising from 3.5 percent in February 2020 to a peak of 14.7 percent in April. At the close of 2020, 12 million of the 22 million jobs lost at the start of the pandemic had been regained. The December unemployment rate of 6.7 percent reflects the number of workers permanently laid off because of the pandemic. The labor force participation rate also remains low.

But the effect of COVID upon different industries and jobs has been very uneven. The leisure and hospitality sector has been particularly hard hit with its low-wage workers experiencing the greatest job loss. Payrolls for couriers and messengers have increased by over 20 percent.

While many businesses lay off workers, others are struggling to fill job vacancies. Overall U.S. businesses continue to cut job training programs, further widening the skills gap. Businesses are increasing investments in automation and technologies that facilitate remote work. The continuing Fourth Industrial Revolution will further raise demands for workers with the skills needed to invent, use, maintain, or repair advanced technologies.

The COVID-19 pandemic is illustrating that skill shortages can have lethal results.   COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers have hundreds of vacant jobs in such areas as engineering and quality control. There are acute shortages of critical-care doctors and nurses as well as lab technicians to process COVID tests.  How many of the over 400,000 dead (greater than the death toll of the U.S. armed forces in World War II) could have been saved if we had fewer shortages of medical personnel in COVID hot spots?

Also, the skilled people we take for granted to meet our daily needs are in short supply. As computer systems have become more and more central to our daily lives, breakdowns and threats to the security of our private information proliferate. Finding a qualified plumber, carpenter, electrician or medical technologist has become more difficult in many communities. If more effective talent development efforts are not initiated, there is a real danger that the world will not end in a big bang, but that it will come to a slow grinding halt due to a lack of workers with the skills needed to maintain advanced technologies. Welcome to Job Shock!

Job Shock Objectives

The goal of the “Job Shock White Paper” is to raise awareness of the broad scope of the changes needed to equip students with the education and skills needed for 21st-century jobs and careers. And we must retrain workers with the specific skills needed by employers. There are solutions already underway in communities across the United States that can help your local area. But these solutions are not easily available to all.

We see the most promising responses to Job Shock coming from regional cross-sector partnerships composed of business owners and managers, educators, parents, government officials, union leaders, non-profit associations, and others. These partnerships have begun regionalized initiatives to rebuild their outdated education-to-employment systems.

“Job Shock” is a call to action. We need to work together in initiating the systemic changes needed to prepare more people for better-paying jobs and thus create a more equitable and prosperous economy over this decade.

Part II of “Job Shock” will provide an overview of how technology has dramatically transformed workplaces and occupational requirements over the last 50 years. Unfortunately, other parts of American society have failed to adapt to these labor market changes thus contributing to the social unrest the United States is now experiencing.  We invite to submit your questions or comments by email or by calling us in Chicago at 312.664.5196.

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Imagination Can Provoke Performance

Imagination CAN Provoke Performance.

Tonight, our founder and managing executive Ron Slee describes for readers the different ways that our imagination can provoke performance.

As we continue to develop products within our Learning Without Scars employee development platform, I am constantly pushing to find the tools and the means to provoke individual performance from the people who enroll in our classes and assessments. Typically, that starts with me. I am trying to provoke myself to accomplish more. It seems as if I have been on some type of mission my whole life. I am driven to help people achieve their potential. Talk about tilting at windmills.

But that is me. That is who I am. I am constantly looking around the next corner, asking questions, wondering how to do things in a better way. It seems that has been my approach since I was a little boy. I am impatient. I am curious. I am driven. I once asked a man, that I had worked with in three businesses, how easy I had been to work with. He started laughing. He said I was never easy to work with at all. At first, I felt insulted but I eventually understood what he meant. I didn’t like to fail at anything I did. Sometimes it just took a little longer than I wanted.

Years ago, I used to go to bed with a pad and pen on my night table. I would wake up in the middle night and write down some brilliant idea that had occurred to me. You see it couldn’t wait until morning. I might forget it. I stopped doing that when I couldn’t read my writing in the morning. My wife, Marlene, signed me up for acupuncture to address what she called my “busy mind.” The acupuncturist was a wonderful lady named June. After several sessions she called Marlene and told her to stop wasting her money, this wasn’t going to work. I still suffer this way. I am sure that I am far from alone in this regard.

Albert Einstein said that “imagination is more important than knowledge.” Think about that for a moment. Alfred North Whitehead a Harvard professor of Philosophy thought of all education as “the imaginative acquisition of knowledge.”

We are entering into an age of constant learning. Adult education. In a recent Podcast with Ed Gordon, we talked about the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The one we are in at the moment. He put forward two critical points that we have to face about the workforce.

  • Business doesn’t feel they need to train their employees once hired.
  • Employees don’t feel they need to continue to learn once they leave school.

So how is this going to work with the workplace over the next ten or twenty or thirty years? Ed suggests the following outcomes.

  • A third of the workforce will be fine, they are educated and have a purpose.
  • A third of the workforce is undereducated and has no purpose.
  • A third of the workforce has dropped out for whatever reason.

So let us return to the imagination. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that “imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of all men.” In athletics, it is called “Visualization.” You are taught to visualize the result that you want. Our imagination allows us to take flights of fancy. Imagine what it would be like if this happens or if that happens. I am going to hit this golf ball right down the middle of the fairway. I can see the path the ball will follow on the green right into the hole. Use your imagination and think of something you would like to happen.

That is how we can get to the place that we imagine. We turn our imagination into performance. We strive to make real that which we have imagined. If we can only use our imagination and then set goals, or have a sense of purpose, towards accomplishing what our imagination showed us was possible we would all be in a different place.

As I said I am interested in helping each person achieve their potential. The difficulty is understanding what that potential might be. In life, I believe that each person has three attributes that they live with every day.

  • Everyone wants to do well at whatever they do.
  • Everyone can do more than they realize.
  • Everyone is fundamentally lazy.

Think about that. Imagine that is you. Then translate imaginative thought into performance so that you will achieve more than you thought was possible. Then you will start to understand “The Art of the Possible.”

The time is now.

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Universal Design and the Classroom of Everywhere

Universal Design and the Classroom of Everywhere

In tonight’s post, Caroline explains some of the elements that take place behind content creation in Universal Design and the Classroom of Everywhere.

One of the downsides in education is that we love, and I do mean LOVE, our buzzwords. We really do like to assign a catchy name to our processes. Tonight, I want to break down one of those key names and bring home what it can mean for you.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can be simply explained as flexibility. It is flexible in the way that students can engage, in the way materials are presented and made available, and in the way that students demonstrate their knowledge. This is part of what we bring to our students today. There are three main principles in UDL: multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation, and multiple means of expression. In other words, a class is designed with the student in mind. This can be a paradigm shift for professionals: we don’t tend to think of ourselves as students, more as experts in our respective fields.

Continuous improvement comes with lifelong learning. It transforms you from being a professional exclusively, into a student at the same time.

The classroom is whatever you need it to be because this classroom is everywhere.

But when you set your own time aside to commit to your professional development, you want to be intentional about your classroom. Are you at work, immersed in the content you are studying? Are you at home, finding a quiet corner – or trying to – in order to focus on your class? Do you want or need a formal test before you select a course of study? Do you prefer to assess yourself and analyze your own skills?

These elements of your learning are entirely within your own control. When you sign up for one of our classes, we try to bring that element of choice and control to you as you study.

When you learn, when you set goals, you always need to consider, as Ron says “what’s your why?” In the classroom of everywhere, we try to answer the “how” for every student.

I invite you to explore our classes, our assessments and spend some time reflecting on your professional goals.

The time really is now.

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Information and a Call to Action

Information and a Call to Action.

 

Recently we did a Podcast with Mets Kramer where we talked about the “Digital Dealership.” Then we had a Candid Conversation with Ryszard Chciuk on his work experiences in Poland over the past forty years. Then I caught up with Ed Gordon and we talked about “Job Shock” which is his passion. All of this takes me to Data and Information.

Over my lifetime we have gone from “Data” Processing to “Information” Technology. We have changed the name but I am afraid to say we have changed little else. I remember mounds of paper with all manner of data on them. No Information. Today I still see mounds of Data and perhaps a bit more Information. However, I don’t see, from either the Data or the Information, any call to action.

I recently reread a book by George Friedman and his team called “The Intelligence Edge” with a subtitle of “How to Profit in the Information Age.” It was written in 1997. Sadly, I don’t see much in the way of success in the Industries in which I work to have learned enough about this subject. We have made incredible strides in how we have transformed data into information. I myself can attest to that truth. However, what knowledge have we gained from all of this information?

Looking back, I suspect that we have become over-sensitized from the pains of the early 1980s when inflation ran away and then tandem of Ronald Reagan and Paul Volker finally got us out of the inflation bubble by inflicting high interest rates on us. That transformed most of the Capital Goods world by a rather shortsighted solution of reducing headcount. I know it was necessary for us to be able to survive with such punitive interest rates, however, in many ways, we are still suffering the consequences of that action. We don’t have enough people. I have seen altogether too many dealerships that focus on headcount. I am coming to believe that the result of this action is like cutting off your leg and telling your mother how successful you have been at losing weight. Yes, it is true that you weigh less than you did but you now have to function with only one leg. Hardly as effective as functioning with two legs.

I see the same thing in how we operate today with information. First of all, most of the information we get is Financial Information. While I agree that the financials are important. Yet they tell us about things that have happened but much about where we are today nor where we are going. Yet where is the Management Information that we need? Where do I find Market Share from the Parts Business or the Service Business? Where do I find the replacement schedules of equipment working in the field? I don’t see that Information anywhere in the dealerships.

Which people on the payroll are doing that research? Who is working with that information to deliver it to the leadership of the departments and the dealerships? Does the leadership get early warnings of things to come or the necessary action to take? I don’t see these employees in any of the dealers that I have been around. Sure, there are Marketing Departments. But I don’t see them providing this information. I see them maintaining websites and perhaps newsletters. Important work I agree but there is more to marketing than advertising and trade shows. I am talking about what the book calls “Intelligence.” Yes, like the CIA. Information gathering, creating processes and systems to collect and collate and consolidate information. Then to produce this information as a form of intelligence that can be acted upon.

“The Mortal Enemy of Intelligence is Time and Wishful Thinking.” This is a famous Friedman quote. He goes further in the book. “The ability to see the consequences of actions clearly, even when the perception run counter to conventional wisdom, requires courage and a willingness to be alone.” This is the struggle of the “Pioneer” isn’t it? The people who go out front. Blaze a new trail to somewhere. It takes courage to go off into the unknown. “Sometimes it requires courage to be wrong.” That might mean in the sense of the Pioneers, their death. Without them, however, where would we all be today?

Let me bring this thought process to an end this way from the book. “The will to believe that what the facts reveal, and the courage to act on those facts, is the foundation of success in all endeavors.”

I believe it is time we set up Intelligence thinking in every department and every dealership. Find the data and transform it into information. Then use that information in combination with intelligence to take action and strive to succeed.

The time is now.

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Distance Learning Victories

Distance Learning Victories

In tonight’s post, Caroline shares the news of victories in the area of distance learning. As early adopters of the virtual classroom, we know a few things about that here at LWS.

As we all know, it’s been more than a year since the world as we knew it closed down, including our schools. I still remember very clearly the last face-to-face day I spent with my younger students in 2020. Distance learning wasn’t something new in the world of adult education, but suddenly K12 education was thrust into the same platform and style of learning. Now, face-to-face means someone turned their camera on during an online course.

Here at LWS, we began to shift into a virtual classroom several years ago. The software we reviewed and selected was on the newer side, most live meetings were conducted with GoToMeeting, and this “webinar-style” delivery was an exciting thing to help create. Fast forward to the pandemic, and the software options seem endless and Zoom is a household name!

I think it is safe to say that we have all heard the horror stories surrounding distance learning. Tonight, I would like to bring us back to focus on learning success stories.

One of the aspects of what we do here at LWS is student choice: we engage with adults who want to improve their marketable skills within their field. Since 2014, we have fine-tuned that process into what feels like a new “school” on this side of the screen. As each student progresses through a class, they now have the option of listening to the audio or just reading content or doing both together. When we first started our online classes, feedback from learner surveys indicated that Ron’s voice could run to the soothing side – so we made a shift. We have also started to switch narrators, as I myself have begun recording audio tracks as well. My voice is not as soothing as my Dad’s: my high school students swear it isn’t.

We have brought full, professional translations of assessment and classes into French and Spanish. For the student who prefers to skip a formal assessment, we offer the self-assessment: you choose your training path, and you select your skill level. We have even developed coursework based upon student requests.

Where we once offered only traditional, multiple-choice tests, we now offer short response, multiple-choice, and reflection responses. If a student doesn’t want to write that response, they can upload an audio file and simply give the response verbally.

Even though I tend to be the more silent of the two of us (don’t tell Dad I said that, he says I speak in “pages, not paragraphs”), I can tell you this: when students have choices about not only what they learn, but how they demonstrate that learning, success is the outcome. I invite you to join us and start building your success story today.

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Understanding How to View Success

Understanding How to View Success

When we work on setting goals, understanding how to view success is a key component in the process. Please read tonight’s blog from Ron to learn more about this critical process, and all of the viewpoints that go into it.

Most of you are by now aware of our goal of helping each employee identify their potential and then put them on a path to achieving it. The keyword there is “goal.” Each person needs to establish goals in their lives. It starts from a young age in how we are treated by our parents and grandparents. They teach us right from wrong and good from bad. In this manner, we start on a developmental path of understanding what we should do. It is our first experience with goals. Be a good person. As Colin Powell is known to say “don’t do anything that will embarrass your parents.” Then we have a transition from family life as a very young person to our school phase.

We go to school and we are taught to read and write and perform arithmetic calculations. That puts us on a path of learning that is aiming at helping us develop our intellect. That is the goal. We also start to experience socialization with a peer group, first our classmates and then our friends, another series of goals in getting along with others. In some cases, we get involved in music or sports and then learn how to get along with others in different backgrounds, again more goals. We have the family, the school, the peer groups, the sports teams and clubs, music and other groups all helping us grow into a complete person. All goals.

And then we have to make a choice at the end of High School or in some cases before, about what we are going to do next. This is, for many, the beginning of making our own decisions and establishing our own goals. This is the next transition from basic learning to specialized learning. To become able to provide ourselves with sufficient knowledge or expertise to be able to look after our own needs. Another transition. A more serious one.

We then go on to Junior College, or a Trade or Vocational School, or a University. We choose the classes we are going to take with a goal in mind. Sometimes that goal is a particular job. Sometimes it is simply getting more knowledge and then deciding what to do with that knowledge. But we are establishing our own goals.

Then comes the next step, another major transition. Getting a job. Finding a career. Becoming independent financially. This is a more difficult transition. Most people do not know what they want to do for a living. Some are very fortunate. They know they want to be a doctor or a teacher or a mechanic. But most people don’t have a clue.

How are we supposed to get the right answers if we don’t know what we are trying to do? We need to establish goals. We need to do a sort of audit on what we like and what we don’t like. What we are good at and what we struggle with. What kind of people we like to be around and which people cause us to want to be somewhere else?

I didn’t have a clue of what I wanted to do. Like most of us, I had been working in part-time jobs. I taught swimming and tennis at a country club. I sold things, encyclopedias. I did telemarketing, selling newspaper subscriptions. I played piano in a bar and organ in churches. I taught education at a University. I wanted to work in data processing but in those years, it was nearly impossible to find work in that field. So, I struggled. I am sure that I was not and am not alone in that fact. I think that most of us struggle to try to find our place in the world, in society.

Let me start by saying that I believe that we all want to be a success. But that is the challenge. What does that mean? Who teaches us or guides us on that path? Is success wealth? Or Status? Or Fame? I submit to you it is none of those things. I would like to say that it is simply being able to lead a healthy and productive and happy life. But what is that and who helps us to understand how to obtain it?

Education has changed today. The choices that a person has in classes are mind-boggling. Ed Gordon, a respected voice in education in America, in a recent newsletter stated “Many parents also believe that their local school is providing a good education to their children. Regretfully this is often not the case. Education levels have not kept pace with skill demands in workplaces.”

We, at Learning Without Scars, are strong advocates of the use of an annual performance review with each employee. This is an opportunity for each team leader to have a productive discussion with each employee and help them understand what they can do to become better as an employee. What they can focus on to be capable of another opportunity in the Company. How the team leader is there to help them. Goals can be established and then the path to success becomes clearer. Wouldn’t we all want that, for ourselves? Someone to help us establish the goals that would help us have a successful life. Don’t you think that would be helpful?

The Time is Now.

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Empowering the Technician

Empowering The Technician

In his guest post for this week, Ross Atkinson brings us into the loop of empowering the technician in your business.

Your technicians are valuable, skilled workers and many of them use highly sophisticated equipment beyond the traditional toolbox wrenches. Many manufacturers have mandated diagnostic monitoring systems plugged directly into the engine from a laptop to check the machine for issues. There is no doubt that the technical requirements of the service technician have changed dramatically in the last 20 years! Yes, they still need to take the machine apart and put it back together, however, considering the sophistication of today’s equipment, any assistance diagnosing the problems is welcomed – most certainly a process improvement!

Now let’s talk about another opportunity to save your technician time – business system integration. This multifaceted topic begins with how your technicians record the time they work on equipment. Are they still using punch cards, writing the time manually, or even barcode scanning at a central scanning station? Or do they have access to the business system through a computer to clock in/out of repair orders? It should be obvious that having the technician clock directly into the business system saves time. No need to have a service writer spending hours the next morning keypunching every technician’s time into the respective repair orders.

Beyond the improvement in recording technician time, have you ever taken a moment to analyze your technicians’ footsteps in a day? Everyone knows how important it is to keep the technician in the work bay, otherwise, the time away negatively affects the technician’s efficiency and reduces the amount of throughput you can handle in your shop.

This analysis can help you identify why they left their bay and shed some light on where gains could possibly be recognized by eliminating the footsteps and replacing them with some form of system integration. You can do a similar analysis of the post-repair tasks and determine if it can be done by the technician at the time of repair using the same system integration being offered. Let’s look at some ideas:

  1. Clocking time at their bay eliminates the need to walk to a central punch clock system.
  2. Access to machine history eliminates the need to stand at the shop foreman’s door to ask questions about the service or rental history of the machine.
  3. Visibility to the dealership parts inventory to know whether parts are in stock or need to be ordered eliminates the need to walk to the requisition counter.
  4. Seeing the machine’s configuration including serial numbers with a direct tie into manufacturer systems to check for outstanding product improvements/recalls and parts availability.  Again, eliminates the need to go and ask someone else to do the research.
  5. Allow the technician to update the machine hours immediately so that it doesn’t get forgotten about. As we know from my previous blog on Service Agreements, hours are such a critical component so why chance having someone else do it many days later.
  6. Ability to upload before and after images directly to the repair order for historical and warranty purposes. The payback on this could be huge if the customer questions the repair or you get into a warranty audit.
  7. Visibility to job code hours so the technician knows what the expectation is for job completion and the repair time remaining. An updated benchmark helps the technician stay focused so that the job gets done on time.
  8. Having a tracking system for technician breaks whether the company or the customer is paying for it. Keeping your technician honest and eliminating the “water cooler effect” is important in time management.
  9. Ability to key technician stories and comments for the customer or for historical purposes and eliminate the need for another dealership employee to decipher and rekey what has been written by hand.
  10. The ability to electronically request parts from the parts department eliminates the need to walk to the requisition counter.  The parts can be delivered directly to the bay.

These are just some ideas on where gains could be obtained by empowering your technicians via business system integration. Maybe you already have some or all of these in place or maybe you can add to this list.

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The Difficulties in Achieving Scale

The Difficulties in Achieving Scale

In today’s guest blog post, Bruce Baker continues discussing the difficulties in achieving scale.

So why did this happen to someone like Julia?  There was no cause for alarm because she and her business had the best year ever and had built up an impressive cash cushion. If this was the case, surely this meant that she knew what she was doing?  Also, she had built up the business steadily over the last few years. The problem was the danger and risk associated with a “place of comfort” that Julia had created for herself.

Like many, this reduced her sense of urgency and importance (see my last blog – Chapter 2) regarding her initial need to scale her existing business and establish a solid foundation for ongoing growth.

Julia (like many of us) was caught unaware by an unconscious human bias called the Parkinson’s effect (i.e., usage expands as more availability/supply is provided/made available). In this case, having more cash available provided a long-awaited sense of comfort and release. This created a sense of confidence in utilizing a scarce resource without much thought as to the long-term implications. As soon as the supply (cash) is limited and someone is in crisis, only then (like in Julia’s case) makes an extreme sense of importance and urgency surface.

Human beings (business owners included) typically overestimate their chances of success at the end only to learn that what they fell in love with initially was not the end-result they were expecting. In many cases, we are dazzled by the thought of the end-success that very little if any thought is placed in the actions required to achieve a successful end-result. This sense of over-optimism tends to create blind spots in our ability to plan and execute effectively. Only after failure is imminent or has occurred, we then tend to look for external reasons for our failure(s) versus our tendency to be willfully blind at times.

Of course, Julia and I made up for lost time but to get Julia back on track. I want to share two techniques we used to ensure her success moving forward.

  1. To ensure Julia reduced the chances of being misdirected by the Parkinson’s effect, I introduced and helped Julia implement a Profit First system, which provides a solid way to allocate cash to the right parts of the business system. I said to Julia that if she adopted the system and continued to generate revenue like she had been doing, using this system would guarantee her profitability and eliminate her debt in the company. Julia’s response was priceless, more so because of the look on her face when I said this and her reluctant response saying no one can guarantee to eliminate debt and make a profit. To no surprise, Julia’s cash situation has improved tremendously in the business. She sees a profit, reduces her debt, and pays herself for the first time in six months.

 

  1. The last technique I introduced to Julia was planning every aspect of her business (including the investment in other business ventures) through worst-case scenario planning. Julia’s comment to me was that this did not make sense as she wanted to be positive in her approach to planning her business’s growth. I responded to her by saying that there was nothing wrong with thinking positively and leveraging hers and the company’s strengths in the planning process. The problem is that optimism and excitement tend to blind us by overestimating the positive/successful outcome. I added to this by reminding Julia that her strengths can become weaknesses or even irrelevant as the business grows. Planning for a worst-case scenario puts the business owner and the company’s existing operating template under a stress test. It ensures that any potential weaknesses or shortfalls in the business systems operating routine/template are identified and strengthened. Since using this approach with Julia, the systems, and structures we started working on initially are scrutinized and implemented successfully.

For more information on not just the tools Julia used but the process she went through to make the transition happen, please send an email to info@4workplaces.com, where I would be happy to send you a copy of the tool video tutorial on the process you can follow.

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The Power of Identifying Your Potential

The Power of Your Potential

I like to tell the story of a young person, at the age of sixteen, being told that they have a lot of potential. That person feels proud and is happy with themselves. Then talking to the same person when they are at the age of sixty-six and saying the same thing. What would be the reaction then? Perhaps it would be what have you done for the past fifty years.

Potential is an interesting element, isn’t it? We have used and heard about many tools used to measure or determine someone’s potential. SAT tests to qualify for University, ACT used for the same purpose. Briggs-Myers, and Caliper to name a few. In sports you have seen qualification events, you have seen auditions for the arts. All of these things leave out something I think which is very significant. The individual freedom to choose their own path.

Let’s start with a definition of potential that we can use as a foundation to this discussion. Potential is “the skill and the will to develop and perform at a higher level or better level in the future. Potential then sets some kind of benchmark against which the individual can measure progress toward their goal potential. Many of you know that I swam competitively when I was a teenager. I have often said it was through swimming that I became aware of potential. I was always chasing a clock, not another swimmer. I was constantly pushed to beat my best time. To stretch toward a higher level of performance. I have translated that thinking into my views on potential.

Today we have Intelligence tests (IQ) and Emotional tests (EQ) to determine cognitive skills. We have personality tests to determine behavioral attributes. Then we try to determine the principles and values of an individual. Then we pay attention to the motivation of the individual. We try and determine the decision-making skills of an individual. Then we apply situational case studies or put people into a mockup example. We test the heck out of people. Then we interview them for a particular job. Then we make a hire-no hire decision.

Flash forward with me now and we have hired an individual who passed through all of these tests and you want them to work with you on your team. They are hired. Can you imagine their excitement? They got a job. They got a job that they were looking to get. They wanted to work with you. They wanted to do that particular kind of work. I call that person “An Enthusiastic Beginner.” They are all pumped up.

What happens from that point forward is dependent on the leader. How do you handle onboarding a new employee? Once the onboarding is done how is the employee introduced to their work? How are they trained? How often does the leader communicate with the new employee? I often see examples where the leader has seriously impacted the employee. The employee can become disillusioned with the Company and their job. This can be caused by the leader not being attentive enough to the needs and goals of the new employee. Or the employee can become very cautious about how they do the job. The leader can use bullying tactics. All that the company wants is a self- reliant employee. All the employee wants is an opportunity to make a difference.

As people move from being at home as a youngster and transitioning to school, or from school to the workforce they are presented with obstacles. At some point we are told that everything is possible and you will do great things only to find out that it is not true. Not everything is possible and it is hard to see how you can do great things. At other times we become sensitive to other peoples’ needs and wants for us. We are afraid of hurting their feelings if we decide that this job is not what you want and you choose to leave. Or there is the BIG dog in the room, we are afraid that we will fail in the pursuit of our dreams. Some people are even afraid to succeed. This is tough duty. Finding your place in the world, finding your passion is tough enough. Finding your potential is even more difficult.

In our Learning Without Scars business, we want to help in this process. We have created job function skills assessments, with the sole purpose of providing an object measure of an individuals’ skills and competence in the job. This is not opinions anymore. It is not subjective. We suggest to our clients that they use these assessments in many ways:

 

  • The hiring processes
  • The performance reviews
  • The salary and wage administration
  • The development of career paths

In the education world the students are classified as developing, beginning, intermediate and advanced. We use the same structure and the score obtained in the assessments to allow the employee and the company to design an individualized learning program for each individual. This is the product of the thousands of students we have had in classes and webinars first with Quest, Learning Centers and now with Learning Without Scars. We know which subject specific classes apply to each level of skills for each job function. We provide guidance with eight classes being available to fill in the gaps of skills and knowledge. The employee chooses. They know better than anyone where they need the additional knowledge. This approach allows us to be engaged in the process with our clients of helping each individual identify and strive to achieve their potential.

The time is now.

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