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Beth Hughes is a learning consultant and instructional designer with more than 15 years of experience partnering with clients to provide learning solutions that meet business needs. She has earned an MEd in instructional systems technology and is a Certified Performance Technologist (CPT).

Beth Hughes

Knowing in advance that issues will likely arise as you progress with your L&D solution can help you approach the challenge with greater aplomb.

Early Thinking Equals Impactful Results

September 2019 - TD Magazine

Learning consultants can work with stakeholders to weigh what’s most important.

For Best Results, Ask Questions to Zero in on Priorities

Focus First on Results

As the L&D function is increasingly asked to prove their worth, they need to think more strategically and work to become strategic partners by working with business owner clients.

Putting On Your Performance Consultant Hat

September 2018 - TD Magazine

Turn L&D content into experiences learners don’t want to step away from.

Binge-Watch on the Job for Improved Performance

Initially, the thought of summarizing the 60 comments that came in reaction to Sam Adkins' Snake Oil post was daunting. But the reality turned out to be a joy. As I worked my way through the 39 pages of comment for the 3rd time over the weekend, I felt some how privileged to be taking the time to listen to such passionate, well reasoned arguments. A comment by Peter Isackson seems, at least at first, to be delighted with the diverse dialogue:Sherlock says you are what you sell. Godfrey says you are what you design. And Dave says you are what you get lost in. I think Godfrey would agree with the even more existential proposition that you are what you learn and that, as a training professional, it's also possible to sell what you learn (once you have learned it).Peter also happened to hit upon four of the major themes ran throughout the comments.WHAT'S WRONG WITH SNAKE OIL?First Sherlock (one of those masked bloggers who give the Blogosphere some of it's character) chimed in with a post in what I'm calling "What's wrong with snake oil" theme. He takes a pragmatic, but somewhat cynical position by saying, "I've long since stopped thinking in terms of learning - these days I see myself as a solution provider. I sell things that appeal to training managers, regardless of whether or not they ACTUALLY work!!!" I almost like his, 'hey I'm just a guy trying to get by" tone. Almost.Frank Hughes too has a cynical read on the situation but takes it much more negative tone that was more inline with Sam's thinking. Frank said," Most trainers/teachers want to be a star, standing in front of a class, no matter how effective it is. Most managers want to "track" their employees learning, and the only way to do that is with formal classroom and elearning courses. Most employees like classroom classes not because they learn, but because they are social occasions that get them away from their desk." Ouch!Then there were a few folks that fell in line with Beth Friedman who said that of course we're selling snake oil. It's early in the game for elearning. It's still new to us.Graeme Dobson summed up yet another group who said:My experience shows the old 80:20 rule applies - that is only 20% of performance problems are fixable or should be addressed by a training solution.So you see it doesn't really matter how good (or bad) a training method is - if you apply it to those 80% of performance problems where training is the wrong solution IT WON"T WORK!DON'T BLAME THE TECHNOLOGY, IT'S THE DESIGNERS!Godfrey Parkin chimed in with, "My point is that "training" is not at fault, but the design and implementation of it is clearly (on aggregate) inadequate." Lisa Galarneau agrees, "Sure a lot of what professes to be training is terrible, but he end result is simply reflective of the approach."Jack Pierce rallies to the defense of the designers by pointing out a program he's involved with that had trained almost 40,000 learners in two years with 95% reporting greater sales, better product understanding. "What's the secret?" he asks. I'd say an understanding of the user, combined with an understanding of the technology, and hard work."Vicky Fisher (processes) and Jennifer Turner (salaries) blame cuts to design budgets as to blame.Howard Davis says that he holds hope for eLearning and Blended Learning, but not the way they are being used. "The irony of course is that even with our latest tech tools we're still stuck in using ineffective teaching and training models." Marcuss Oslander agrees, "A delivery mechanism is only as good as the material it intends to deliver. We need to lighten up - to stretch the technology - to make learning fun!"Although, I think my Blogmeister's Choice award for best metaphor goes to Keith with this one, "Would you use a Ferrari to go to the store?? Maybe, but would you use the Ferrari to take all the neigbourhood kids to soccer. I guess not. It remains a question of the right tool for the job."WHAT SHOULD WE BE SELLING, THEN?Godfrey Parkin points out that first generation products seldom live up to the expectations set for them. He continues by saying, "The internetworked world gives us an opportunity to rewire the corporate mind, and to change from within the way an organization thinks and behaves. To me, that is the real promise of e-learning. And I think we will all survive the snake-oil phase of our evolution.""Only when the corporate training world gets back to the basics and understands that each student has a unique learning style and that only a training approach that recognizes that fact will succeed, will we, the instructional designers and trainers, also succeed," was the challenge C. Michael Hecht set down for us.Chris Brannigan says there're a cause waiting for a leader and tries to recruit Sam! "Thus we come back to us - what can we, the 'believers' (in some cases) or 'committed citizens' do to break the complacency? Do we want to? I think that a lot (enough) of practitioners would. Articles like yours may herald the start.VENDOR FUNCTIONALITY IS THE PROBLEMRight after the quote from Peter Isackson that I used to open this post he adds,The irony of our business - and the terrible paradox Sam has highlighted -- is that efficiency rather than performance dictates its inexorable law: it's better to invest in designing and selling than in learning about what customers really need. Profitability dictates that we should spend our time and money on marketing what we've already designed (or decided to design) than to discover what we should be designing. So before we can "learn" anything that will go towards meeting the "need" for learning, we find ourselves in the position of "teaching" the buyers to believe in our goods, from which we've learned nothing (apart from how best to market them).Vicky Fisher seemed to like that answer, "I wholeheartedly agree with Peter. There are learning products out there that suck, and there are (some) learning products out there that work."And David Fisher piles on, "The economics and vested interests of classroom training make it difficult for training suppliers to reengineer their offering to really be blended. Adding in non-integrated e-content cannot compensate for this. In this form, it will inevitably fail."The last nail in the coffin comes from Alan Stewart, "Why are we taking the heat for the failure of providers to give our organizations/clients the learning solutions they really need. If you're not sure what the need is then aim for a solution that delivers 'Just-in-Time', 'Just-Enough' and 'Just-for-Me' learning and you won't go far wrong. Like any market, training/e-learning etc. providers are demand-driven so perhaps its time we started to be more demanding.Now don't you feel better? Those big bad vendors can't hurt us any more!DEFINITIONS: Can We Agee about what We're Talking AboutFinally, the last of the most common theme we've chosen to tease out of the original debate is an age old one in argumentation - definitions. Some commenter accuse Sam of having too narrow of a focus when talking about training or elearning. Other terms that were discussed as having been ill defined included: blended learning, training, what should be evaluated, e-content vs. e-learning, mentoring, etc.These five categories composed a great portion of the discussion two years ago so we thought they'd be great topics to renew a discussion around. Tomorrow we will introduce the Learning Circuits Blog's Beyond the Blog Discussion Wiki in which Don Clark, David Grebow, Godfrey Parkin, Mark Oehlert, and myself will moderate discussion around each of these topics for however long you which to discuss them.So check out the new wing of LCB tomorrow!

Summary of Original Snake Oil Comments

Mary Beth Thornton is a talent development professional passionate about helping others achieve their highest potential. She currently works in organization development and enjoys focusing on employee engagement, learning and development, process improvement, employee coaching, change management, project management, and more. She functions as a business consultant, instructional designer, and corporate educator. Mary Beth enjoys content creation and facilitation and has delivered presentations to groups ranging from two to 500 attendees. Her favorite topics include leadership, communication, and emotional intelligence.Mary Beth has a bachelor’s degree in international relations and a master’s in educational leadership. She is an ATD Master Trainer and a certified Associate Professional in Talent Development. She also holds a Consulting certificate from the Association for Talent Development along with a Diversity and Compliance Specialist certification from HR Unlimited.

Mary Beth Thornton

The Association for Talent Development’s Virtual Conference offers 100 hours of on-demand content, and many of these sessions are eligible for certification and recertification points. Here are highlights of some of the sessions. To explore all on-demand content, visit virtualconference.td.org.Knowing What Needs Changing to Change BehaviorTrack: Learning SciencesWhether it’s a shift in our organizational priorities, transformation brought about by restructuring, or changing customer needs, all are behavior challenges that require the right approach to make behavior change happen. In the session “Unveiled: The 10 Best-Kept Secrets in Behavior Change,” Sebastian Bailey, co-founder and president of Mind Gym, presents principles and ways of thinking to help create the impetus for behavior change.Bailey describes the first secret as “to capability and beyond.” To help behavior change happen, a trainer, leader, or manager must understand what needs to change. All too often, we jump to the conclusion that a training course is necessary because employees don’t have the knowledge. But behavior is about much more than knowledge or skill.While it does involve the degree to which individuals have the physical and psychological ability to do something, it also involves the opportunity—that is, the social and physical environment needed to take action. Is this behavior expected in my team?Are individuals motivated? This relates to the rational and emotional internal processes that activate or inhibit behavior, says Bailey, and it involves such things as goals and emotion.It is these facets—capability, opportunity, and motivation or COM-B barriers, as Bailey named them—that can be barriers to change. Determine what barrier is most prevalent and how to eliminate or reduce it. Decide which intervention is appropriate to do so, such as to persuade, educate, model, or incentivize.Secret 2 is that everything works, but not everything works well. For example, feedback and job aids each may work to a certain degree, but depending on the behavior issue, they may not have a great affect.Bailey also speaks about identity being a powerful element of behavior change, with the question being: “Am I the type of person who ….?” If, for example, you don’t see yourself as a nonsmoker, it’s going to be much harder to kick the habit.Making Training CountTrack: Managing the Learning FunctionWhat is an impact map? What are the basics of mapping and their benefits? Those are the questions that Allan Bailey and Lynette Gillis, CEO and executive director, respectively, for the Centre for Learning Impact, address during “Business Impact Mapping: Aligning Learning to Business Outcomes.”All too often, as many of us have heard, training doesn’t get applied to the job—it’s called scrap training, shares Bailey. That is due to the training not being aligned to the business needs.You need to have a concise description of the results you hope to achieve from your training. An impact map covers the capabilities that will lead to changed job performance, which will make a change in organizational results.Gillis, continuing the conversation, outlines the key steps to impact mapping, which begin with the design team creating a draft impact map outlining capabilities, job performance, and organizational results. The reason a team should create a draft, she says, is that often people do better when they have a draft to react to, a map to critique.From there, have a mapping session with three to six key stakeholders. This group is likely to include someone from the L&D team, a champion of the initiative, and a manager.Along the way of conducting an impact map, enablers and barriers to capability and job performance will naturally arise. For example, an enabler may be that training is offered during two different shifts to accommodate learners who work different times. A barrier may be that a regional office lacks well-trained facilitators.The final steps to impact mapping include revising and building consensus on outcomes and alignment, distributing a second draft to a broader group of stakeholders, and updating the map when necessary to keep it current.Tapping Into Introvert PowerTrack: Training Delivery & FacilitationBeing an introvert does not automatically hinder your ability to be an effective trainer. That’s the point Beth Yoder, managing partner for Global Teams, makes in her session “The Introverted Trainer.” She shares ideas to help introverted trainers identify and leverage their strengths and best manage challenges associated with their personality type.Shy, quiet, and studious may be some of the words that come to mind when individuals think of an introvert, and much of that is opinion. Yoder covers those credible and popular definitions of what an introvert is and isn’t and then invites listeners to decide where they fit on the personality spectrum.She points out that there are four categories of characteristics: social, sensory, nervous, and energy. Yoder unpacks each of those categories, discusses examples of how introversion may show up in each area and provides strategies to trainers for ensuring they employ those traits for their best and highest use.“The fact that we don’t like being the center of attention means we don’t need to be the center of attention,” Yoder offers as an example. “We are willing to give it to the participants, we create activities so that they are the center of attention.”Introverts are often good at engaging participants, because it can take the attention off of themselves. Similarly, introverts typically ask questions and are great listeners—all of those traits can make for excellent trainers. In this session, Yoder helps introverted trainers discover their power.Say No to Them, Say Yes to YouTrack: ManagementAt some point in your career, you’re going to have to say no. Being a professional sometimes means disagreeing with group consensus, declining assignments, and drawing boundaries. For those sometimes high-stakes situations, Joseph Grenny, co-author of Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, offers strategies and solutions in his session “How to Say No at Work Without Making Enemies.”Grenny says situations in which our ability to say no is tested are a special type of crucial conversation. That’s because society is hardwired to interpret yes to mean affection, approval, and loyalty. Consequently, when we hear no, we interpret that monosyllabic utterance as rejection, reproof, and betrayal.In his session, Grenny shares videos depicting situations that many may find oddly relatable. He then follows up with golden strategies, such as how to recognize the frame of the conversation and pivot to one that’s more favorable to you.For personal and professional reasons, it’s important to be able to say no. And as Grenny puts it, “You define the contours of your character and the shape of your life by what you say no to.”Next time you’re asked to do the impossible, use Grenny’s strategies to respectfully decline in a professional and powerful way.Share your ATD Virtual Conference experience on social media. #ATDVirtualConference

Friday Snapshot: Highlights of Virtual Conference Sessions

(From Forbes)—Today I had the great pleasure of speaking at The Innovation Enterprises’ 2013 Women in Strategy Summit, which brings together 75 high-level women in marketing and strategy, about the leadership secrets of the world’s most powerful women. With women comprising just 4 percent of corporate CEOs, 14 percent of executive officers, and 20 percent of America’s government officials, we’re facing a persistent leadership gap at the highest echelons. To move forward, we must first take stock of what is working. The following eight leadership lessons, synthesized and updated from a keynote I gave last year, come directly from the women who know what it takes to get to the top.Stay DeterminedThe world’s most successful women really want it–and remain determined even in the face of obstacles. They have the skills, and they put the time in. But more importantly, they have the desire to do something great. Beth Brooke, global vice chair of Ernst & Young, was diagnosed with a degenerative hip disease at age 13 and was told by doctors she may never walk again. Before going into surgery she promised herself she would walk—no, she would run—and aspired to become one of the best young athletes the world had seen. Not only did she walk, she went on to play several varsity sports at her high school, earned multiple MVP awards, and later played Division I basketball in college. She made up her mind, and she didn’t quit. She brought that same determination to her career and today ranks among the 100 most powerful women in the world.Be CourageousWomen at the top aren’t fearless. They move toward their fear to continually challenge themselves. That takes courage. In 2011, Beth Mooney, CEO of KeyCorp, became the first woman ever to lead a top-20 bank in the U.S. Mooney began her career as a secretary at a local Texas bank, making just $10,000 a year, but soon realized she wanted something more. In 1979, she knocked on the door of every big bank in Dallas and asked for a spot in their management training programs. At the Republic Bank of Dallas, she refused to leave the manager’s office until he offered her a job. After waiting for three hours, he finally agreed to give her a chance if she earned an MBA by night.That was a turning point in her career, one of many, powered by a courageous call to action—to champion herself and what she knew she was capable of. Later, she had the courage to move into roles she’d never done before, to pick up and move across the country, and to stick with it for three decades. If you’re not a little bit scared every day, you’re not learning. And when you’re not learning, you’re done.Think BiggerIn order to achieve big success, you have to have big impact. When Michelle Gass, who is now leading 33 countries for Starbucks, started at the coffee chain, she was asked to architect a growth strategy for a just-launched drink called the Frappuccino. Her mantra: “Let’s think of how big this can be.” After countless hours testing ideas, she decided to position it as an escapist treat and added ice cream parlor fixings and new flavors. What began as a two-flavor side item is now a $2 billion platform with tens of thousands of possible combinations. Gass repeated her go-big-or-go-home strategy when she took over Seattle’s Best Coffee. She decided to take the sleepy little-sister brand to new heights by partnering with Burger King, Delta, Subway, convenience stores and supermarkets. In one year, the brand exploded from 3,000 distribution points to over 50,000.Take Calculated RisksAs CEO of Kraft Foods and now Mondelez International, Irene Rosenfeld is very familiar with this one. A couple years ago she completed a hostile takeover of British candy company Cadbury. Not long after, she surprised the business community again with a plan to split Kraft into two separate companies, a North American foods company and a global snacks company. To move the needle, you have to make a big bets—but never rash—always based on a careful study of the outcomes. You have to know what you have to gain, and if you can afford to take the hit if it doesn’t go your way.Remain DisciplinedIt takes discipline to achieve and maintain success. You simply can’t do everything, and the world’s most powerful women stay focused on the areas that will have the biggest impact—from both a leadership perspective and a career management perspective. Sheri McCoy, the new CEO of struggling Avon Products, is currently implementing a huge turnaround at the century-old beauty company. Interestingly, when I asked what the biggest challenge would be, she said: “Making sure people stay focused on what’s important and what matters most.” It is very easy to get distracted by new trends, new markets, new projects—but when you extend yourself too far, the quality of your work suffers across the board.Read more.

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