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The More Things Change #MondayBlogs

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News from Learning Without Scars.

We have been busy around here for the past six months or so and you have been able to enjoy a rest from my incessant blabbering on about something or other.

I will bore you with some of the details that have interrupted the nice flow of life.

I suspect the thing of most interest is that Marlene and I have finally moved to Hawaii. We have been planning this for what seems like forever and have finally done it. As of December 29, 2016, we became residents of Hawaii. We didn’t have to move furniture as we purchased a furnished apartment. However, there was a lot of housekeeping with closing businesses in California and opening them in Hawaii. Getting banks set up and post offices and accountants and lawyers. You know the drill. Thankfully Marlene is the professional at these items and I don’t have to worry too much about them at all. But it is a lot of pressure on Marlene.

That is the positive side of things and of course there is a negative side as well. The Yin and Yang of life continues. Our daughter Caroline, her spouse Joanna, and our grandchildren are still in California. Not being able to see them on impulse is not so much fun. We miss them and their growing up and life experiences and their energy. We have to adjust our approaches as a family when we are together and really take advantage of every minute we are able to be together.

Another thing that happened is that I have completely stopped soliciting consulting work. I have clients, to be sure, that continue want to work with me in the businesses. I am blessed with wonderful clients. We started the consulting business in June 1980 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada not too far from where I was born in Mannville, Alberta.

I am not sure but I think winding down the business has been more traumatic for me than starting it was in the first place. One was hard work, while the other is emotional work. You have an identity as a worker that to some degree defines who you are and when you stop doing the work you have the potential to lose who you are. I am sure someone could say that much more eloquently than I, perhaps Caroline.

Then we created Learning Without Scars in 2015. Well it is now a Hawaii Corporation and the California business was closed as of December 2016. While that was going on Caroline was doing the yeoman’s work in converting all of our learning products to an internet based Learning Management System, and getting all this material fresh copyrights and trademarks. Our training business started with Quest Learning Centers. We started with Classroom courses with three levels and four modules per level. These management training programs were created in the early 1990’s. We took that material and compressed it into Webinars starting in the early 2000’s. But as a teacher, I wasn’t happy with the format of a slide show with a voice talking – so we changed things and used a high definition camera and injected me walking into the camera frame and talking to the learners on their computers. Those of you that know me know I like to talk. With the internet option, we had to convert these webinars, of which we had developed over ninety different programs, to the Learning Management Software. This meant a heavy learning curve for Caroline and a lot of work for me. Everything had to be redone. The text content all had to be updated and upgraded. Then we needed to create audio files to go with the text. Then we had to run prototypes so we could have input from actual learners. Those learners wanted to inject me into the program like we had in the webinars so we are working with a Professional, Paul Baumann, from XFINIGEN Media, and creating Vimeo files which we will insert into the learning products.

We have the new website created by Brian Shanahan, who did a wonderful job in presenting us to the world. Brian has upgraded on R.J. Slee site so that the “look and feel” is similar.

And finally, I think, Caroline is working with the IACET, The International Association of Continuous Education Training to have all of our learning programs certified so that they will earn CEU’s, Continuous Education Units credits that would apply to Colleges, Universities and Junior Colleges across the world. That, too, is a big task but one that will bring us, we believe, nice results.

We have been, and continue to be, busy. Life is good.

I don’t know how many of you know that my mother was a teacher, a well-recognized teacher in her day as one of the pioneer teachers of the Pittman reading program, which accelerated the ability of very young children to read. Kindergarten and Grade One specifically were reading newspapers and comprehending. My grandmother was a teacher. She received her Master’s Degree from the University of Manitoba in 1913. Granny, or “Granny the Great” as Caroline called her, taught in a one room school house and I had the pleasure of meeting several of her students when they attended her eightieth birthday party. I suspect she had an impact on them, don’t you?

Well I started as a teacher, first at a country club in the Laurentians, north of Montreal, teaching summer sports. Then moving to an instructor position with McGill University, which morphed in two programs within the Department of Physical Education from Teaching students how to teach swimming and also how to Coach the Swimming discipline. I am quite pleased that several of my students went on to coach at the national level for men and women in the Olympics and Commonwealth games. I had to give up the McGill teaching when I started at the caterpillar dealer in Quebec, Hewitt Equipment. My daughter Caroline is a teacher. She teaches in the California School System. We must have some teaching chops in the genes. I know I get excited when I see the lights go on in peoples’ eyes when they “GET” something.

But one thing I can tell you is that Learning is HARD. I know we have been told how to learn over and over again. It is repetition. Do it over and over again ad nausea. That never really worked for me so that is not how I taught. I wanted to people to understand something so that they would remember it. Not memorize it so they could forget it.

It turns out that the instructions from schools and teachers about highlighting and underlining and sustained reading and rereading notes and texts are not that appropriate. Endel Tulving, a psychologist, at the University of Toronto challenged this traditional model of learning and remembering through a series of investigations starting in the mid-1960’s. Tulving found that the learning curves were statistically indistinguishable between the tried and true learning pattern recommended above and random learning models that were not based on repetition. Well that is how we have designed the internet learning programs. We want you to Learn and to Know, not to memorize.

I am excited about this new venture and we are busy releasing new programs every month. We have the first two years of the management and supervision in the market now. We also have the first program for a specific job function, the first of many, which we released in March. It is for the Telephone and Counter sales personnel in the Parts Business. More on the product side in future blogs.

Well that is it. I hope you understand better now what has been happening and why there has been such a gap in my communicating with you.

The last time I wrote here was when I introduced “Socrates” our mascot. Talk to you soon.

The time is now.

Getting Personal #MondayBlogs

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My daughter wrote on her Friday Philosophy recently about “Outliers” and framed it in a manner that my granddaughter did regarding athletes. It is interesting, as many of us will relate to Malcolm Gladwell’s book entitled “Outliers.” That gave us the famous 10,000 hours as the floor for being an “expert.”

 

So why I am interested in this concept is that I believe in “Options.” Well this is where I come from on many things in life. I believe in the almost unlimited capacity of mankind. As people we have done and do today and will do in all of our tomorrows incredible things. I am certain that I am just like everyone else – an incredibly talented person in some form or fashion, I just haven’t found what it is yet. So that brings me back to “Options.”

 

George Bernard Shaw said “Youth is wasted on the young.” I think he was jealous. My granddaughter and grandson are experiencing lots of options in their lives. They have a loving home, terrific schooling, access to music and athletics and the comfort and security to pursue whatever they want within the boundaries established by their mother. What a gift.

 

So they have “Options” and thus they can find out in what manner they can be “Outliers.” 

 

So I continue to tilt at Windmills.

 

I continue to believe that each of us can learn more, and do more and become more. We are our own limit. To that end I enjoy teaching or training people.

 

I was very blessed myself in the mentors that I have had in my life. My grandmother who received her Master’s Degree from the University of Manitoba in the 1914. Imagine that? To my mother and father and my sister for the opportunity that I had to grow up with schooling and music and athletics. To my complete working life starting at The Lac Marois Country Club where I learned a whole bunch of stuff and learned to teach and lead. To the nondenominational Church which introduced me to Priests, and ministers and Baptists and Rabbis and all manner of differing philosophical belief systems. To the bar where I played piano (I would not get arrested if there was a raid as I was underage) but as an employee I was safe. To the various part time jobs including selling encyclopedias. Then to the teaching work at McGill University establishing programs on instruction for outliers – early infant swimming and older fearful swimming, and then teaching people how to teach and coach in water sports. To the Boy’s Farm and Training School which had my great grandfather as one of the founders. This was initially a “Home for Wayward Youth” which morphed into a cog in the prison system in Quebec where I was taught to do personality profiling, amongst other things. (I nearly had a breakdown with that one, as part of my job was to reside on site and act as a warden.) To finally arriving at Hewitt Equipment, the Caterpillar dealer in the Province of Quebec in 1969. This was a strange happening as my mother got a call from the parent of one of my students at McGill who asked “Didn’t he take Mathematics and Physics at University? Which led to him asking her to have me give him a call. (He was the VP Finance at Hewitt, his name was John Swift.) This led to my being engaged on a “one-year contract” to find and fix a problem with the computer system that was driving parts inventory control. Then the real mentoring opportunities came into being.

 

There was the Senior partner from Urwick Currie, Mr. Steele, in Ottawa who had sold the system to Hewitt who spent one day a week with me for months helping me learn the system and general business application software. (I had a minor in computer science which in those days was programming and the like.) There was Larry Noe, at Caterpillar Tractor who was one of the early employees in Dealer Data Processing (DDPD), which was the batch system offering from CAT to their dealers in the late sixties and early seventies. There was Bob Kirk who smoked his pipe while regaling you with stories about parts inventory management. Then Ian Sharp of I P Sharp Associates who introduced me to the programming language APL and the Internet in the early 1970’s. The list goes on and on. I was very fortunate to have so many people take an interest in my career. All of this prepared me for my consulting career and allowed me to develop a training business and financial modelling business. From 1969 until now, I have been working in this Industry now for forty-seven years. As another of my mentors, Burton Grenrock, said “Whodathought.”        

 

So now it is my turn to transfer some of my experiences and knowledge to the people that are following me in this Industry.

 

We started Quest, Learning Centers in 1994 and closed it in 2014. We opened Learning, Without Scars, in 2015 and it continues to go forward. It will become a Hawaii Corporation in 2017 when we move from California to Hawaii.

 

And this is where it gets interesting. For me that is, if for no one else.

 

With the driving force of my daughter, Caroline, we have created quite the learning platform for adults in the capital goods industries. Learning Without Scars is supposed to indicate that the “students, the learners” do not need to experience the scars that I have received over my career. They can learn from me and avoid those scars. I have many clients who disagree most vigorously on this Company Name. They tell me there is no such thing as learning with me Without Scars – rather they say there are lots of SCARS. But that is an opinion, right? And everyone has opinions.

 

Learning Without Scars has created products to fit into the learning environment of the 21st Century.

 

  • We offer Learning On Demand (LOD) products. This replaces “webinars.” Each program represents two hours of subject specific learning. We offer sixty such LOD programs.
  • We offer Planned Learning Programs (PLP) products. These product offerings allow management and supervision to be exposed to all aspects of their departmental business. We have programs for Parts Businesses and Service Businesses. Each program spans three years and provides sixty hours of learning.
  • We offer Planned Special Programs (PSP) products. These product offerings are for specific job functions in the Parts Businesses and Service Businesses. The will cover such job functions and telephone and counter sales, or warranty administrators, etc.

 

As I said it is exciting for me to be involved in these leading edge learning programs.  

 

Now let me introduce you to Socrates. Our logo is the symbol of “wise” with a mortar board of accomplishment. And the Socratic method of teaching is still alive and well even today. This logo is the product of my Daughter in Law, Joanna who is an extremely creative woman.

This is Socrates:     

 lws-owl-logo

So I started from Caroline’s Friday Philosophy of “Outliers,” which to me are those special people who have made the tough choices in their lives to strive to reach their potential. Which leads me to the various “Options” that have been available to you over your life and career.

 

And that takes me to the end of this rather long Blog entry. Which will be the switch point for me from the career of “Doing” through Consulting Work and “Teaching” through the Classroom work to the career of developing Learning Products for the Internet Age. Please wish me well if you would.

 It wasn’t very long ago that Caroline dragged me, under protest, onto Twitter and social media.  Now, the modern technology is opening still more options.  It’s an exciting time.

The time is now.

Memorable Moments – #MondayBlogs

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In my Industry, I’m thought of as a consultant.  I see myself as a teacher, still.  Many of you have asked about my Company Name – Learning Without Scars, LLC. In fact, several have told me learning with me is full of scars and the name is incorrect it should be Learning With Scars, LLC. Notwithstanding the naysayers we are trying to present a series of learning products that will allow the students to AVOID the slings and arrows and in fact the scars that I have endured.

My daughter, who is far more creative than I, has suggested we write an occasional epistle to expose some of those more memorable moments when I received scars during my passage in life in this Industry. So here goes. These are our Memorable Moments: scars I received while learning, that I can hopefully save you from receiving as well.

Most of you who know me have heard a lot of the stories of my upbringing and schooling and early work experiences before starting in this Industry. I started at Hewitt Equipment, the Caterpillar for Quebec and Labrador March 3rd, 1969. And it was a very strange happening.

I grew up in a relatively typical household. My Mother was a teacher and my Father was an engineering Technician. I spent the first three years of my life living with my Grandmother as a result of both parents working. Granny was a very special lady and I was very fortunate to have her guide me through the early years of my life. She got her Master’s Degree from the University of Manitoba in the early 1910’s. Needless to say she was a very talented lady.

I wasn’t much of a student at any point of the school path for whatever reason. I got involved with music early with the piano, clarinet and saxophone being the main instruments and until my voice changed I sang at church.

We lived mostly in duplexes in Montreal and escaped on the weekends to the Laurentians where we had a summer cottage on a lake. That was our escape from work. The city was for working and the country was for play. Some of my best memories are from the lake.

I was blessed to be able to start teaching athletics when I was 15 at a Country Club on the lake. So the country all of a sudden paid me money. Similarly the music got be to playing organ at a few churches on Sundays and at a restaurant/bar Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons. I started in the restaurant bar when I was seventeen I think. As an employee I could be in the bar without risking arrest as I was underage but I was an employee. That was kind of cool. (I am sure my parents didn’t think it was very cool at all. I finished at 4:00 AM both Saturday and Sunday morning)

I went to Sir George Williams University in Montreal and followed a Mathematics and Physics major, with minors in Computer Science and Statistics. Unless you are going for multiple degrees that is much too focused and degree for commercial purposes. Because of my experiences in swimming and Country Club I was hired, during my third year of University at Sir George, to be the director of the water instruction program at McGill University across town. This was an evening program for Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. So I was pretty busy when I was going to college. I also taught skiing on the weekends in the winter.

So school is over and it is time to get on with life and get a job. Well 1968 was a tough market for new graduates. In a way it was much like today. I was overqualified and under experienced for anything I wanted to do that was interesting. So I went back to the country and got a job at an institution called The Boys Farm and Training School.

This was a farm that my grandfather was instrumental in creating for “wayward youth.” I thought I could reconnect with my ancestors and get a job there and find out more about life while giving my bruised psyche a rest.

This was kind of fun. It was a group interview. Imagine if you will a group of people parading into a room with five people up front behind a long table and benches all along the outer walls of a room. I had never been to a group interview before and didn’t know either how they worked or what to do. So I reverted to self.

I was hired as a control figure and was given a house to manage. Our unit housed sixteen boys between the ages of 12 and 18, each of whom was incarcerated for a crime. There were no locks on any of the doors, other than my suite, so they boys could come and go as they pleased and before my first month was up they had all run away. That was the intent of the exercise. We were building an “intake” unit which was going to receive anyone sentenced to the Farm during which time they would be profiled and a treatment program determined for each of them. That was what my new job was to become. I tested and interviewed them all and determined their personality profiles and treatments programs in consultation with Psychologists and Psychiatrists. 

I worked from 7:00 AM until 1:00 PM daily and was on call overnight in the event of trouble. I had one day off every two weeks. It was a serious grind. One that I left after about six months with a very fragile mind. I am sure I came close to having a breakdown.

So I went skiing.

Then one day my Mother called telling me I had a call from a man named John Swift. I had taught two of his children at McGill and he wanted to talk with me.

That was the beginning of the end.

 

The time is now

Management vs. Leadership #MondayBlogs

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Management vs. leadership is a topic that comes up in many of the programs I teach.  It is often easy to miss the difference.  When we are managers, we see ourselves as managers of people.

You manage processes, not people.

You lead people.

It is not enough to manage the process: you must have clearly defined goals and procedures that everyone has agreed upon.  The days of the “invisible” employee should be behind us.

Remember Patrick Lencioni’s 3 signs of a miserable job –

  • anonymity
  • irrelevance
  • immeasurability

None of your employees need to be anonymous in your workplace.  We spend so much time at work, we all know each other quite well.  The same applies to irrelevance – with a leader in place who has sought and received feedback, each staff member has a voice and is entirely relevant to the work at hand and the future success of the department and company.

Immeasurability.

How do your employees know when they are doing a good job?  It’s important to ask this question, as both praise and constructive criticism play a key role.

Just some food for thought for you this evening.

The time is now.