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Chauncey Bell

February 2011 - TD Magazine

The Silent Killers of Productivity and Profit

Jennie Ruby has more than 15 years of experience as a trainer and courseware developer. She is experienced in the delivery of online training and has authored multiple training books as well as numerous writing and editing courses. She has worked with IconLogic to create effective training materials and books and has delivered courses on writing training documents, e-learning scripts and voiceovers.Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is also a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing, and desktop publishing.

Jennie Ruby

In our last Being a Can-Do Leader blog post, “Too Much on Your Plate? Try Multi-Impacting,” we made the case for using the strategy, “purposeful multi-impacting,” as a way to get more done in less time. The essence of this strategy is for leaders to make decisions and pursue a course of action in ways that will simultaneously achieve more than one desired objective.But, of course, when you are in a leadership position, your goal isn’t just to get more done in less time. More importantly, you want to make sure that you do the right things as a leader. This means that  you need to purposefully focus on fulfilling your leadership responsibilities whenever possible.Thinking TPL                                 So, how might you keep a purposeful focus on your leadership agenda? Chances are you’ve already had a quick look at The Answer. The answer, that is, in the form of the Can-Do Leadership Zone below. Now, let’s take a closer look at this ball-in-the-box graphic.Can-Do Leadership Zone  This three-dimensional graph is an easy-to-remember representation of the fundamental people management responsibilities that all leaders inherit when they take on a management position.The three axes are tagged “Task,” “People,” and “Learning.” They are meant to remind us that, if you are going to be the sort of leader who excels at building teams that can get the right things done with a high level of know-how and commitment, these areas will require your continual attention as a leader. For shorthand, we call giving appropriate attention to the relevant Task, People, and Learning issues as “Thinking TPL.”Getting on the ball as a leaderNow, as for that ball in the box that we call the Can-Do Leader Zone, it is there to remind us that in order to get the right things done with enthusiasm and skill, leaders must continually give appropriate consideration to addressing the relevant task, people, and learning issues whenever they can. Give some consideration, that is, not just to one of these leadership dimensions, but to all three. Reminding yourself to Think TPL can help you remember to do what needs to be done to lead your team into the Can-Do Zone.Thinking TPL in real time Nice theory you might say, but how might this actually work in practice?  Here’s how Kim, a recently promoted manager in a Big Four accounting firm, put the Think TPL mantra to good use as she led her first big audit project.Her boss told her right up front that, although he wanted her to continue to use her considerable auditing expertise to do some pieces of this project herself, now that she was in a leadership position she would ultimately be evaluated not only on how well her team performed, but also on her ability to develop the skills and capabiities of her team.Mindful of the importance of getting her team into the Can-Do Zone, Kim realized right from the get go that continuing to remind herself to Think TPL would help her recognize opportunities to fulfill her leadership responsibilities.   Thinking T reminded Kim that whatever else happened, her job (first and foremost) was to get the audit done correctly and on time. At a minimum, Kim had the continuing responsibility to make sure that her team members were clear about tasks they needed to perform to achieve the desired results. Also, she would need to see to it that at critical junctures along the way the proper things were getting done. Thinking P reminded Kim that several of her former peers who now reported to her have been  frustrated and unhappy with their past project experiences at this firm. She would  need to continue to find ways to help these particular team members get fully motivated to drive for high levels of performance. She did so by discussing with them what their main concerns had been, and seeking their advice on what would help them be more engaged and productive, given the realities of this project.Thinking L reminded Kim to continue to make a conscious effort to find multiple opportunities to develop the current and future capabilities of her team. When she was doing work alongside her team members as a player/manager, she tried to teach as well as do (achieving T & L). More important, when Kim was considering who should do what (T & P), whenever possible she gave skill-building stretch assignments (L)—rather than always delegating assignments to her most skilled team members (achieving T, P & L).  By making Thinking TPL a habit—before swinging into action—you will keep focused on fulfilling your leadership responsibilities in a purposeful, systematic way in a wide range of situations.  Do this, and you’ll always be on the ball as a leader!Coming up next: Want an easy-to-remember acronym that will keep you properly focused when thinking about the people axis of our leadership model? Our next Can-Do Leader Blog, will show you how checking your team members’ VITALS will enable you to unleash an engaging Can-Do spirit.

Being a Can-Do Leader: Want to Be on the Ball as a Leader? Think TPL!

What is microlearning? Well, it depends on who you ask.Most people agree microlearning involves learning in short bursts. Some say four minutes or less. Others say up to an hour. Sharon Boller suggests bite-sized content only works for short-term training and reinforcement, but Will Thalheimer believes you can successfully teach course-like material in five-minute chunks.Still others think microlearning isn’t even about short content—that it’s about cramming lots of learning into a short amount of time. And plenty have condemned it as a shiny buzzword, an unserious approach, some kind of flimflam.More than a fuzzy label or iron-clad model, microlearning is a philosophy—one that says thinking small is the best chance we have for overcoming the huge challenges facing both L&D leaders and the greater 21st century workforce. A Better Way to Think About MicrolearningThe broadest and most useful definition of microlearning is "learning, and applying what one has learned, in small, focused steps.” Ideally, each of these microlearning steps is:self-contained, with its own learning objectivea small win on the way to a larger goal (for example, learning to make eye contact is a step toward becoming a competent presenter)as short as possible, but as extensive as necessary.These self-contained steps can take many forms, from short videos explaining a concept, to a quiz helping to recall it, to a short practice task in which you apply it, to an email that reinforces it. Again, this is not a hard and fast prescription. But it’s a way of thinking that focuses on what people really need to do their jobs, and helps build learning around those application points in a way that’s easily personalized.Right now, learners are bogged down with bloated content and one-size-fits-all lectures that provide too much inert information—all at once, and out of context. We must eliminate the cruft that has accumulated around learning, and a micro approach might be the best way to do it.Microlearning Is More Than MomentsIt’s easy to get hung up on the time factor of microlearning, as in: “anything over a few minutes isn’t microlearning.” It’s true, units of microlearning tend to be short—a step along a particular learning path might take the form of a single image. But, more importantly, the micro perspective isn’t just about small content; it’s about taking a small-scale approach to many factors that influence learning.Cognitive load. Learners are routinely overburdened by unfocused, information-heavy content. Microlearning aims to reduce cognitive load, making it easier for learners to process and put to use.Space. Since smaller content takes up less digital space, you can avoid bandwidth problems that come with storing and managing large media files—especially on mobile devices.Scope. Micro content is more focused in scope, making it easier for a learner to tie what they learn directly to specific on-the-job actions.Cost. Short content is cheaper and faster to produce and update, so you can continually test and experiment, even on the tightest budgets.Perspective. Microlearning forces us to consider the small learning moments and opportunities that happen continuously throughout an employee’s day.Like microeconomics, which is concerned less with small transactions than it is with small segments of the entire economy, microlearning is less concerned with small content than it is with small segments of the much broader organizational learning picture.The Big Picture of MicrolearningThe tiny pins in the above image are arranged to form a picture of a face. But they could very easily be rearranged to take the shape of an apple or a hand. Likewise, the tiny pieces of a microlearning program afford flexibility that traditional learning systems do not.Here’s an example of what I mean: We know from research that spacing and repetition are powerful best practices for successful learning. We also know that increasing variation, interleaving assessments, and staggering practice are also tremendously effective ways to help people learn.But these things—repetition, spacing, variation, interleaving—are very hard to do at scale unless the units you’re dealing with are small. (Just imagine trying to repeatedly space a one-hour lecture.) Plus, today’s organizations need to be able to quickly update content, swap media in and out, and cater to increasingly personalized needs. To do this for hundreds or thousands of employees in dozens of constantly changing areas of concern, while being asked to show ROI, is nearly impossible without the kind of nimbleness a microlearning approach provides.Small Step for Learning, Giant Leap For L&DThere’s no easy solution to the many problems we’re facing around 21st century learning and development. Widening skills gaps…sprawling logistical challenges brought on by increasing decentralization…perennially unstable budgets…the list goes on. Microlearning can’t solve these challenges overnight. But by addressing inefficiencies at the small level, we can set ourselves up to tackle problems at the macro level that would be insurmountable otherwise. Whether you’re a fierce advocate of microlearning, a staunch dissenter, or you haven’t yet made up your mind, one thing remains clear: companies need to start thinking small when it comes to organizational learning. And that philosophy of thinking small, more than any other debate around labels, models, or semantics is really what microlearning is all about.Please keep the conversation going and share your thoughts on microlearning in the Comments.

Will the Real Microlearning Please Stand Up?

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ATD Demo Day: Assessments

Every year, companies spend billions on transformation initiatives—digital rollouts, new systems, reorganizations, mergers. Yet the sobering reality remains: 70–85 percent of these efforts fail to meet their intended goals. The reasons vary from poor communication and unrealistic timelines to underfunded training, but underneath nearly every failure lies the same root cause: lack of stakeholder readiness.Leaders meticulously track budgets, milestones, and performance metrics. They rarely measure the human side, the one factor that determines whether a transformation succeeds or stalls. Employees’ willingness, confidence, and capacity to adopt change have often been treated as intangible, immeasurable, or “soft.” But in today’s competitive landscape, where speed and adoption determine ROI, readiness can no longer be left to chance. Stakeholder Readiness: The Critical Missing Metric Think about it, would you launch a product without customer research? Or enter a new market without data on demand? Of course not. Yet organizations frequently roll out transformations without understanding whether their employees are ready to embrace, resist, or reject the change.Readiness is not simply a measure of training completed or emails sent. It’s a multidimensional view of:Attitude – Do employees see value in the change? Commitment – Are leaders at all levels visibly championing it? Engagement – Are people involved and responding favorably? Bias – Are past experiences, roles, or other factors shaping perceptions? These are not abstract ideas. They directly determine whether employees log into the new system, follow new processes, and ultimately deliver on the promise of transformation. Why Measuring Readiness Matters1. Predicting Adoption Success. Without readiness data, leaders operate in the dark. Measuring readiness provides a leading indicator of adoption outcomes, allowing organizations to predict risks before they derail projects.2. Reducing Costs and Delays. Every stalled rollout, missed deadline, or low-utilization scenario translates into wasted investment. By uncovering pockets of resistance early, organizations can target interventions where they are needed most, saving millions in rework and lost productivity.3. Accelerating Change. When leaders understand how ready people are, they can tailor communications, training, and support strategies. This targeted approach shortens adoption timelines by weeks or even months, accelerating the return on investment.4. Building Resilient Cultures. Readiness measurement sends a powerful message: your voice matters. When employees see that their perceptions are acknowledged and addressed, they are more likely to engage positively, strengthening resilience for future transformations. From Intuition to Intelligence Historically, organizations have relied on intuition, surveys, focus groups, or anecdotal feedback to gauge readiness. These methods are often slow, biased, and fragmented. The good news is that advances in AI and behavioral science now allow leaders to measure readiness with the same rigor as financials or customer satisfaction.By capturing and analyzing employee input, leaders can now track real-time commitment, motivation, and engagement patterns. This data can be distilled into a Net Readiness Score™, a single KPI that benchmarks readiness across the enterprise. With one metric, leaders gain visibility into where adoption is thriving, where it’s lagging, and what actions will make the most significant impact.In an era where change is constant, organizations can no longer afford to treat readiness as optional. The companies that will thrive are those that make stakeholder readiness measurable, actionable, and central to strategy. And when you can measure readiness, you can accelerate adoption, reduce resistance, and unlock the true ROI. 

Why Measuring Readiness Is the Missing Link in Organizational Transformation

As a sales trainer or enablement professional, you’ve likely faced this scenario: You’ve designed what you believe is an excellent sales training program, but when it comes time to justify the investment or secure budget for expansion, you’re met with skeptical questions about ROI. How do you prove your training actually moves the needle on business results?The challenge isn’t just about having good training content—it’s about designing programs with measurement in mind from day one and connecting your efforts to tangible business outcomes that leadership cares about.Aligning Sales Leadership and L&DHere’s a truth that might surprise you: Sales leaders and learning professionals actually want the exact same thing. Both groups are focused on developing more productive sales professionals who can drive revenue, shorten sales cycles, and improve win rates.The disconnect often happens in how each side approaches these goals. Sales leaders tend to focus on lagging indicators—the results they can see in their dashboards at the end of each quarter. Learning professionals often focus on training activities, completion rates, and feedback.The key to success lies in bridging this gap through a strategic, measurement-focused approach that supports both objectives.A Strategic Framework for Measurable TrainingThe most successful training programs follow a six-step strategic approach that begins with the end in mind:1. Understand Sales Goals. Start with the business outcomes your organization needs to achieve. This might be a specific revenue target, market expansion goals, or customer retention objectives. These goals become the foundation for everything else you’ll design.2. Assess Skill Gaps Objectively. This is where many training programs fail: They rely on subjective feedback or assumptions about what the team needs. Instead, use objective assessments to understand your team’s current capabilities. Look for tools that can measure both inherent traits (like motivational drivers) and learnable skills (like questioning techniques or objection handling).3. Align With Strategic Priorities. Understand not just what your organization wants to achieve, but how it wants to get there. Is leadership focused on winning new accounts, expanding existing relationships, or improving margins? Each priority requires different skill sets and training approaches.4. Design and Deploy Targeted Training. With clear data on gaps and priorities, you can create training that targets specific deficiencies rather than training that takes a one-size-fits-all approach. This precision dramatically improves your chances of measurable impact.5. Measure Multiple Levels of Outcomes. Track both leading indicators (behavior changes) and lagging indicators (business results). This gives you real-time insights into what’s working while also building the case for long-term ROI.6. Learn and Refine. Use your measurement data to continuously improve your approach and inform future training initiatives.Building Your Measurement StrategyThe key to gaining support from senior leadership is understanding what their priorities are and designing your training to address those specific issues. There are several ways to present objective results rather than subjective opinions about team needs.Pre- and Post-Training Assessments: Use the same assessment tool before and after training to demonstrate skill improvement with objective data.Performance Dashboards: Leverage CRM data to track before-and-after performance on key business metrics. Compare trained groups with untrained groups when possible.Application Surveys: Gather feedback on how often participants use new skills and which concepts have the biggest perceived impact on their performance.Attribution Analysis: Ask participants to estimate what percentage of their improved results they attribute to the training. This helps qualify the connection between training and outcomes.A Measurement-Focused Approach to Sales TrainingThe most successful sales training programs aren’t just about great content—they’re about creating measurable behavior change that drives business results. Remember: What gets measured gets managed. When you can show clear connections between your training investments and improved business performance, you’ll find that budget conversations become much easier—and your programs become much more effective.Ready to transform your approach to sales training measurement? Start by identifying the top three business outcomes your organization needs to achieve this year, then work backward to determine what skills and behaviors need to change to make those outcomes possible.

Sales Training ROI: How to Prove Your Program’s Value With Data-Driven Results

Labor hours are the most valuable resource in frontline training.Operations only schedule the hours needed to get the job done. Labor budgets are often tied to metrics like sales, foot traffic, and production volume. If business slows, hours get cut. When demand spikes, managers scramble to cover shifts. Every hour must be justified. Only activities that help the team hit its numbers make the cut.This is why L&D is often told, “We don’t have time for learning.” Training is one of the first things to get cut.Managers understand the importance of a capable, confident workforce. They just don’t have time to spare for your learning solution. There’s also a good chance they’ve spent hours on past training that didn’t produce results.L&D can’t afford to waste time. Every minute spent in training is a minute not spent serving customers and completing tasks. If it doesn’t drive results, it doesn’t belong. Time is currency on the frontline and L&D must spend it responsibly.Here’s how you can train faster, reduce labor costs, and ensure every frontline worker is properly supported.Make info easy to findThe first thing every frontline employee should learn is how to use the knowledge base. This way, they can solve problems on their own. Curate helpful job info in a place that’s easy to access on the devices people use on the job. Then focus training on the hard stuff—safely operating equipment, resolving customer issues, and making good decisions on the floor.Don’t waste time on information people won’t remember. Leverage technology to provide them with quick, reliable answers in the flow of work.Skip what they already knowFrontline workers waste a lot of time on training they don’t need. Many come to the job with experience but are still required to complete every module. By using pre-assessments, you can skip what people already know and fast-track them through lengthy onboarding, training, and compliance programs.Adapt training to each employee so they only spend time on what they need to learn. Reinforce critical knowledge to ensure the right information sticks long term.Cut the fluffFrontline training is often packed with unnecessary details—lengthy intros, wordy slides, and lots of “what ifs.” This isn’t just a waste of time. It’s overwhelming for employees who already work in hectic, distraction-filled environments.Apply a microlearning approach. Focus only on what employees need to do the job. Get straight to the point in every video, module, session, and activity. Keep content short, clear, and useful so people stay engaged and get up to speed faster.Provide training guidesHands-on activities are essential in frontline training. Without structure, it’s easy to waste time on ineffective methods and unnecessary topics. This is especially important when you rely on managers and peers to lead training across locations. Clear structure keeps the process on track and drives consistent outcomes.Provide both trainers and trainees with guides outlining the process. Prioritize skills that matter most to day-to-day performance. Include a comprehensive assessment to verify readiness before someone goes solo. Hold trainers accountable for performance results as well as time spent in training.Earn time by proving valueThe frontline runs on a tight schedule. L&D must apply the right mix of tactics to keep up. Our goal isn’t just to cut labor costs. We must find ways to get people contributing faster to meet the needs of the operation.When we adapt to labor constraints, we earn the trust, buy-in, and time needed to make a real impact. This provides us with the opportunity to accelerate readiness, reduce disruption, and provide employees with right-fit support.Every minute saved through smarter training gets someone closer to delivering value for customers. That’s time well spent.

Every Minute Counts: How to Train Frontline Workers Faster

Most new managers dread the idea of having to give feedback…and so they don’t. When it comes to giving feedback, it doesn’t matter how skilled you are or how polished your words are if there is one thing missing: trust. If your employee doesn’t trust your intent, believing you have their interests at heart, they won’t listen—period. This is the essence of psychological safety. To provide feedback that improves results, you will need to do so in a way that invites them to willingly reveal how they’ve missed the mark and sincerely reflect on ways that lead to improvement. Without safety, they’re more likely to distort and defend than reveal and reflect. But there’s a problem you’ll need to address: The brain doesn’t need a stark display of hostility to feel threatened. In moments of vulnerability, it only needs subtle, seemingly neutral cues—the slight raising of an eyebrow, a simple crinkle of your nose, or a break in eye contact can send a strong signal to the brain that it’s unsafe. Your job when delivering feedback is to generate evidence to the other person that they are safe. And you don’t accomplish that by beating around the bush or watering down the truth. Safety and truth are two independent variables. Don’t try to accomplish one by shorting the other. While your truth—the feedback you want to give—might still cause hurt, the pain from that feedback can become growth when others feel safe with you. People rarely get defensive about what you’re saying. People get defensive because of why they think you’re saying it. It’s their perception of your intent that provokes defensiveness, not the sensitivity of the content. If they believe your intent is to embarrass, critique, or shame, they will feel—and act—unsafe. They’re unlikely to reveal all relevant information and reflect sincerely on what they need to do to improve. If, on the other hand, they think that your intent is to find the truth, improve results, and even strengthen a relationship, then there’s a reasonable chance you can lay out the truth as you see it and be fully heard. Once you’ve done the hard yet worthy work of creating a trusting and safe relationship, here are some practical skills that will help you deliver feedback effectively. Share Your Good Intent Expressing good intent does not mean flattering or trying to appease the other person with irrelevant compliments. Expressing good intent means making it clear to the other person that you care about them and their interests. Sharing your good intent sounds like this: “First, I want you to know that I think you are doing a nice job in your role. I also want you to see you grow in this agency and have the success you want to have. I want to share some ideas I think will help you do that.” Share the Facts When it’s time to give the specifics of the feedback, start with facts. Share what you have observed before you share your interpretation of what you’ve observed. You want to stay external by describing what’s happening outside your head (“You cut the person off mid-sentence”) as opposed to what’s happening inside your head (“You’re rude”). Facts are less controversial than opinions and feelings. Facts are more persuasive. Be Brief and Direct Be careful not to let your desire for improvement become a desire to lecture. Even if you use the first two skills, you can destroy safety by turning a simple statement into a drawn-out diatribe. We often use ten words when three would do, deliver long meandering openings, and share random and disconnected compliments. If you’ve created safety, be clear, succinct, and direct. In the end, don’t isolate feedback to rare occasions that have some formal tradition surrounding them. Instead give short, honest, and helpful feedback on a regular basis. If you combine this feedback with consistent praise of excellent performance, you’ll not only help people improve, but you’ll quickly become one of the best bosses people have ever had in their career. 

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