This image appeared in the July 1973 Training and Development Journal under the article headline "The In-Basket Exercise: For Secretarial Training." Secretaries spend too much time in skills training and not enough time learning about office management, decision making, human relations, and supervision. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation tried the in-basket exercise--ask participants to assign priority to an organizational problem, ask them where they would go for the solution, and ask them to provide background information that may help their boss find a solution--with its secretaries and it was well received.

What training do you provide for your administration assistants? What initiatives or programs do you use to deliver the training?

For more information about T+D, visit www.astd.org/td.