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What Subject Specific Classes Can Do For You

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What Subject Specific Classes Can Do For You

Moving from the role of an employee in an equipment dealership to being a consultant was an interesting transition. I started at Hewitt Equipment, the Caterpillar Dealer in Quebec, in March 1969 on a one-year contract. While with Hewitt I was given the opportunity to learn and grow my skills. I never forgot that. In 1978 I moved to Western Canada and worked for Finning Tractor and Equipment. In 1980 I moved back to Alberta where we started our consulting business. Through those twelve years I was given the opportunity to learn. I could never have done the work I did as a consultant without all of the training I received while working for those two Caterpillar dealerships. That opportunity for learning is what our subject specific classes can provide for you.

I don’t think I was very different then than the millennials and younger generation today. I needed to learn. I HAD to learn to progress in my work. I think the younger generations today are in exactly the same frame of mind as I was at their age. If I am not learning and progressing, I am wasting my time and should be looking for something else. I continue to be in awe at the knowledge of these younger generations. They have so much more knowledge than we Baby Boomers had at a similar age. I suppose that is a normal progression in society but it is one that needs to be respected. These younger generations are what we older generations have to rely on in our dotage.

In the consulting business I would be involved in identifying opportunities, negotiating solution options and implementing change. This invariably involved teaching people how to do things the “new” way. Before I started at Hewitt, I taught education at McGill University in Montreal. I absolutely love when I see the lights go on in a students’ eyes when they “Get” it. That really turns my crank. In the early 1990’s most of the OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and business associations (AED Associated Equipment Dealers) stopped doing any management training in the Parts and Service business. I thought I could fill that void.

I spent the summer of 1992 creating three “text” books for management in Parts, Service and Product Support Sales. In other words, I created the foundation from three management training classes. I set up the classes to take place over three days and split the learning into six distinct categories. Selling, Operations, Asset Management, Finance, Leadership, and Standards of Performance. This was the beginning of Quest, Learning Centers. In 2016 we incorporated Learning Without Scars and transitioned to the internet. We now offer the largest selection of internet-based employee development classes in the Industry. We have ninety-four subject specific classes available to the parts, service and selling aspects of Product Support.

Last week the focus of our blogs was on the assessments. This week we are moving to our classes. The foundation question for the assessments, is what is the department that you are interested in reviewing. We start the same way with the classes. You select a department and then we take you to the class options for that department. We will take you to the next step tomorrow.

The time is now.

For more information on our programs and what we can do for you, please visit our website at learningwithoutscars.org

Performance Reviews

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Performance Reviews

I believe that performance reviews are a terrific opportunity to discuss, with the employee, what is necessary for the employee to do to become better at what they do and open up more opportunities for them in the Company. Further I believe, that for most dealerships this a missed opportunity. Most dealerships don’t do annual performance reviews. In my thirteen years working at two dealerships I never had a performance review. One of my bosses, when I asked him for a review, told me he didn’t believe in them. He asked me “did you get a raise, did you get more money,” I said yes, and he said “well that is your performance review.” Now think about that. This was a man in his sixties, and experienced business executive, who didn’t believe in evaluating an employee’s performance. You have to ask yourself what is going on don’t you?

Perhaps we should consider Patrick Lencioni and his book “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.” (if you haven’t read it, you should) The three signs are Anonymity, Irrelevance, and “Immeasureability” – (there is no such word). The key sign in this discussion is immeasureability. The individual employee does not know how to measure their performance. Many of you will conclude, like my boss, that it is not that important. I believe it is crucial. People want to please other people. It is human nature. People want to do a good job. BUT someone has to tell that what doing a good job looks like. And MOST do not tell them.

The Performance Review is a perfect opportunity to deal with everything and anything that the employee and the Company wants to talk about. The LWS job function skills assessment provides an objective review of the employee skills and knowledge. What better platform than to have a discussion about how the employee can improve themselves and make them more valuable as a person and as an employee. In my consulting life, and also in some classrooms, I used to use a device I called “Five Things.” Five things that are the most significant in the following categories; to improve operations, that are a pain to do, to make your job better. I start most of the performance reviews I am involved with those five things subjects. Then we talk about them. Think about that list. It turns out that there were a lot of “things” that were on all three lists. The employee and I agreed with what needed to be done to fix those that were on all three lists. That is really positive. It helps the employee and it helps the company. That is the goal of a performance review.

Start with the employee completing the assessment that matches their job. Sit down and talk about it. How did they do? Was that what they expected? Review the classes that we recommend for that skill level. Then conduct a Five Things review. Both you and the employee will feel a lot better about each other, about the performance of the employee and your caring as the leader in the department for that employee. Is there anything wrong with any of that? I didn’t think so.

The choice is yours.

The time is now.

For more information on how our assessments can build Performance Reviews, please visit our website at learningwithoutscars.org

Skill and Knowledge Levels

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Skill and Knowledge Levels

We have been using assessments in all of our training and learning products for over thirty-five years. The primary purpose of our assessments was to help us to adapt and adjust our teaching in order that our students learn. We first had a “Pretest” to measure what the students know when they start our class. Then we had a “Final Assessment” to determine what the difference was in knowledge before and after. This allows us to change how we teach.

We also used these assessments to challenge our approach to teaching. If the same question was received with the same wrong answer, obviously how we were teaching it was the issue not the learning potential of the student.

Let’s turn to our Job Function Assessments at Learning Without Scars (LWS). By now I hope you have looked at our job function comprehensive skill assessments. We believe we have broken new ground with these assessments for the Industries we serve. There are no other common job function assessments out there. With that position of leadership, we have been cautious on how we have approached this. We have had over 3,500 of our class assessments completed in the past two years. This has allowed us to established a hierarchy based on actual employee skills and their results on the assessments.

Upon completion of a specific Job Function Skills Assessment the student will receive their score (0-100). This score will rank their skills based on the results we have seen from the thousands of assessments taken. We have established these skill categories based on our experiences with our class assessments and the skill levels of the people taking these classes. For Learning Without Scars these skill categories are Basic (0-30), Intermediate (31-50), Advanced (51-70) and Expert (71-100). This category level will identify the specific class progressions to allow them to improve their skill level. These category levels have allowed us to design individualized class structures for the student to follow to improve their individual skill level. More on this next week.

We want each individual to be able to achieve their potential. Potential is a wonderful word. It is one that I was introduced to by an Elder in our Church when I was a little boy. He spent a lot of time mentoring a young boy. He passed several messages to me to consider.

  • Always assume the other person is twice as smart as you are and work twice as hard to prove that they are not.
  • Be Happy in your Work or Work and be Happy. You have no choice you have to Work.

If someone tells you that you have a lot of potential and you are sixteen years old that is a very good thing. If someone tells you that you have a lot of potential and you are sixty-six what have you been doing for the last fifty years.

The time is now.

For more information on our assessments and classes, please visit our website at learningwithoutscars.org

How to Use Assessments

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How to Use Assessments

Yesterday we addressed the Foundation of Learning. Today I want to talk about how we envisioned businesses using our Job Function Skills Assessment. Let’s quickly review what we say on the Landing Page for Assessments.

We point out four areas in which to use our Skill Assessments

  1. Recruiting: The assessments can be used in recruiting employees. In conjunction with background checks and interviews, the assessment gives you much more information on the applicants before they are hired. Hiring the “right” someone is extremely difficult to do. The assessment provides the Company hiring the individual an objective view of the skills of the prospective employee.

 

  1. Performance Reviews: The assessments should also be used in the annual performance review with each employee. Other than the reviews I give myself I have never received a formal performance review as an employee. I believe that performance reviews are a terrific opportunity to discuss with the employee what is necessary for the employee to do to become better at what they do and open up more opportunities for them in the Company.

 

  1. Wages and Salaries: The assessments can even be used as an objective foundation related to the establishment of the wages and salaries paid to the employees. We have had several thousand people take our assessments since the beginning of 2017 and we have a high degree of confidence that our skill levels are in line with the actual performance of the employees. This provides a foundation for the proper wage and salary scales and progressions through the scales to be objectively managed.

 

  1. Employee Development: The assessments have been developed to be used to create individualized employee development programs for each employee in the parts and service business teams. A career path for each employee in the Parts, Service, Selling or Marketing groups allows talented people to be motivated to achieve their potential. With the Skill Levels from the assessments and the Learning Paths tied to them this becomes a real possibility within these teams of people.

 

Attracting, Hiring, Developing and Retaining talented, motivated employees is the MOST critical of all aspects of your business. With the right people you will prevail. Without them you will FAIL.

 

The choice is yours.

 

The time is now.

The Foundation of Learning

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The Foundation of Learning

Too often in the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, work and family and friends, we have our head down and we are trying to get through the day without being killed. Everything is such a rush. For most of 2020, a year which we hope to get through, we have been stuck. Too much to worry about, we don’t know what is going on, we are getting bombarded by conflicting messages on all the media, social media fan the fire further with well-meaning (for the most part) people sharing their opinions. We no longer feel as if we are in control of our lives, if ever we were.

The school age people are in flux as well. Virtual learning has become commonplace without having education re-imagined and redesigned. Most teaching is in front of a computer screen talking as if the teacher were in the classroom with the students. The students are sitting in front of their computer screen, which many students had never had before, over inconsistent networks bored to tears. We are social animals we need to interact with people in real time live.

Some learning platforms were ahead of their time. The Khan Academy, founded in 2008 has 100 million registered users. Sal Khan, the founder, states that virtual learning cannot replace classroom learning. In the “virtual class the students are missing out on the social and emotional benefits from in person classes.”

But the Khan Academy provides significant guidance on their learning platform in how to learn.

  • Students practice at their own pace, first filling in gaps in their understanding and then accelerating their learning.
  • Teachers can identify gaps in their students’ understanding, tailor instruction, and meet the needs of every student.

I believe that is the very foundation of learning.

Teachers and students able to identify “gaps” in the students understanding of a specific subject and then tailoring the instruction to meet the needs of each individual student.

At Learning Without Scars the foundation of our employee development platform is what we call “Job Function Skills Assessments.” We call these our Comprehensive Skills Assessments.

We offer a range of assessments for the Parts business, the Service Business and the Selling and Marketing aspects of the Parts and Service businesses.

You select your Department by scrolling down on that landing page. Then, all that is required is that you select your current job function and you will land on a brief write-up telling you what the assessment is about.

Each assessment, other than our technician assessments, consists of 90 multiple choice questions. These questions have been selected from the internet based subject specific classes that we offer. The student is given a time limit of an hour to complete the assessment. The time restriction is another indicator of the knowledge and level of skills that the student has on their specific job function. Upon completion of the assessment the “student” is given a score.

From that score, and the thousands of skills assessments already completed by our clients, we are able to identify the “Gaps” in the “students’” knowledge and create a specific “Learning Path” for each “student.” (more on that in the days to come)

Our Learning Platform follows the same logic as is employed by the Khan Academy. We determine the gaps in the individual employee’s skills and then create a customized learning path for each of them.

This is how we have established “Our Foundation of Learning.”

We have 32 of these job function assessments and the results we have seen to date are extremely exciting.

Next blog we will talk about the specific ways that a business can use our Skill Assessments. The choice you make on “Individual Employee Skills Development” is of critical importance to your business, your customers and most importantly to your employees.

The time is now.

Why Do We Need to Change?

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Why Do We Need to Change?

Robert Quinn says “One key to successful leadership is continuous personal change. Personal change is a reflection of our inner growth and empowerment.”

It’s important to evolve and to adjust as we grow deeper in the knowledge of ourselves and those around us too.

But why are people afraid to change? Why is change so difficult when we all know it’s inevitable?

James Belasco and Ralph Stayer, authors of the book “The Flight of the Buffalo,” couldn’t have said it any better “Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.”

This week let’s think about the changes we’re afraid of making in our own lives. Are we overestimating the value of the very things we hold near and dear to us? Are we underestimating what the future may hold? Something to think about. Let’s be more aware of the need for change.

Today we finished an upgrade to our Learning Without Scars website.

We would like to invite everyone to come take a look at our new layout here.

Brian Shanahan, of Shanahan Strategy, with whom we have been working on our websites for ten plus years, has done a terrific job for us.

This change allows our clients to utilize e-commerce to purchase any of our Learning Without Scars products. It also shows a different focus on learning by utilizing our Skill Assessment Tools. From the scores achieved on the Job Function Skills Assessment we now offer a “Learning Path” recommendation of classes to take in order to improve their Skills Level. Those classes have been reorganized and the layout of their presentation has also been re-imagined here.

With the change to the website we have focused on getting in place many of the things that our clients have requested of us so far:

  1. Simplicity
  2. Ease of Navigation
  3. The ability to complete transactions online
  4. Excitement on the site

You will ultimately be the judge. But we are pleased. You will be hearing a lot more about this each day. We hope you take some time and look at the new site and give us any feedback you wish. We would welcome your help in keeping us as the most comprehensive and current employee development platform in the Industry.

The time is now.

All offerings are available at learningwithoutscars.org. Contact ron@learningwithoutscars.org if you would like to plan for a custom program.

The Science of Successful Learning

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The Science of Successful Learning

There are many things that people can do for themselves in order to learn better and remember longer. We have to remember that the responsibility for learning rests with each and every individual. Teachers and coaches, too, can be more effective right now by helping their students understand these principles and by using these principles to design each learning experience.

The book “Make It Stick” discusses the science of successful learning. Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark McDaniel are the authors. Two of them are cognitive scientists who have dedicated their careers to the study of learning and Peter Brown is a storyteller. The book is not about how to change the education system, although there are clearly implications for that as well,  rather the book is written for students and teachers who have a high priority to make learning effective. It also outlines ideas and thoughts for adult learners who want to hone their skills so that they can stay relevant.

This book is obviously one of the elements we used in constructing our learning programs at “Learning Without Scars.” One of the critical lessons that I learned from this book, that we have utilized in our class learning paths, is that simple quizzes after reading a text, or hearing a lecture, produces better learning and remembering than rereading the test or reviewing lecture notes. In other words, it deals with what we should have learned as students from our school and. Periodic practice stops forgetting, strengthens richer retrieval paths, and is essential for hanging onto the law of knowledge that we want to gain. Putting new knowledge into a larger context helps learning. People who learn how to extract key ideas from new material and organize them into their mental model and connect that model to prior knowledge show an advantage in learning complex mastery. This book is the diamond in the learning universe.

I highly recommend that you read it and think seriously about the content. It might initiate ideas that you can use to become a better you. All the best.

The Time is Now.

Building Blocks – the LOD program

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Building Blocks – the LOD program.

Last week we gave you an update on “Where Are We Now” with Learning Without Scars. This week we show you our Learning On Demand product – LOD. This is our learning structure which uses “building blocks.”

Learning On Demand is a subject specific class, there are currently 81 subject specific classes. This class requires the student to make an investment of about two hours, of their time, to continue their path of learning and getting better at what they do professionally.

The film you are about to see will give you an explanation of the LOD. Program. Enjoy.

The Time is Now.

 

 

 

A Reintroduction

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A Reintroduction

We are very pleased to announce the latest news from Learning Without Scars.

Our goal here at Learning Without Scars is to provide cost effective, comprehensive, content-rich dynamic learning products. We have developed these programs from the classroom programs which we used and which evolved from our training assignments worldwide over the past thirty years. These programs have been used in our classroom programs attended by over ten thousand people worldwide. The content has also been derived from our consulting engagements with several thousand dealers across the world.

In the past several years, online learning software has advanced to allow the online based learning experience to become much more effective. It has allowed measurement of the content absorbed by each student, even when their teacher is not in the room with them. We have adapted these learning software programs to our training and learning products. The foundation for all of our learning programs is a subject specific program we call Learning: On Demand (LOD.)

The Learning: On Demand (LOD) products cover specific learning objectives through four stages; preparatory reading, a pre-test, an audio video presentation consisting of a slide show with audio tracks and film clips inserted at strategic positions throughout the programs, as well as a final assessment of the learning absorbed. There are currently more than eighty of these programs. Each program requires an investment of two hours from each adult student. At the conclusion of each program there is a program evaluation.
The Learning: On Demand (LOD) products have been used as a foundation for our job specific programs, called Planned Specific Programs (PSP), as well as our Virtual Classroom programs (VCR). They are also packaged in our management training programs which we call Planned Learning Programs (PLP).

With the Planned Specific Programs (PSP) we are providing training opportunities to specific job functions. Each PSP provides four different programs requiring eight hours of learning. We offer twenty-two of these programs across the parts, service and product support selling and marketing groups. Employee development within the job functions spans three years and cover different levels of learning; fundamentals, advanced and professional.

The Virtual Classroom (VCR) programs which will be introduced in 2019 are for individuals identified as earning a “fast track” of training. This is a four-year program with each year requiring ten hours of learning. It is intended that the VCR programs will be capped with the final year of the Planned Learning Programs (PLP).

There are eight learning products available in the “Planned Learning Program. (PLP)” The intent of the program is to provide a path for individual professional development for the management and supervision of the Parts Business and the Service Business over the course of three years. There are also Learning Products available for Product Support Selling and Parts & Service Marketing groups. The planned program (PLP) provides ten classes each year which requires an investment of twenty hours of personal time from each student.

We at Learning Without Scars are pleased to present to you our latest learning model, tailor made for 21st century employee development, in these extensive and comprehensive Learning Without Scars programs.

The time is now.