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John A. Sample

Are You at Risk

“Acquiring and keeping good people is a leader’s most important task.”—John Maxwell Many organizations hire and promote using the wrong criteria. The results can be disastrous: egomaniacs, poor team players, or ethical corner-cutters who cause embarrassment and financial loss to the organization.When hiring, many organizations focus on “head” characteristics, such as knowledge, expertise, intelligence, education, experience, and skills. Of course, those factors are important. Ron Sugar, former CEO and chairman of Northrop-Grumman, told us, “A lot of our work is literally rocket science, so we have 45,000 outstanding scientists and engineers.”“Heart,” on the other hand, includes such intangibles as character, will, passion, courage, and persistence. Parker Palmer, a distinguished author and teacher, captured this sentiment well: “I’m using the word ‘heart’ as they did in ancient times. It meant that center in the human self where everything comes together—where will and intellect and values and feeling and intuition and vision all converge. It meant the source of one’s integrity. It takes courage to lead from the heart.”As Lynn Easterling, vice president and deputy general counsel at Cisco Systems, told us, “I can teach the hard skills, but I can’t teach good character or good relational skills.”CharacterThe search for heart in people begins with ascertaining their personal character. People with character do the right thing even when it is costly or hard. Character involves trustworthiness, humility, courage, willingness to serve, and the realization that there is something bigger than the self. We cannot expect perfection, but we can probe for what people learned when they made mistakes.We need to look for character flaws in new recruits and colleagues, including excessive ambition, controlling behaviors, hyper-competitiveness, bullying, narcissism, arrogance, and greed. Perhaps the biggest red flag is ego. Our friend Chuck Wachendorfer quips, “My ego is not my amigo.”Emotional intelligenceAnother important component of heart is emotional intelligence. Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, told us she no longer interviews to determine task skills, relying on others to screen such head matters. Instead, she probes for character, humility, empathy, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, authenticity, and fearlessness.According to psychologist Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence entails “managing feelings so that they are expressed appropriately and effectively, enabling people to work together smoothly toward their common goals.” It also includes the ability to work well with others despite differences and challenges.Phil Soucy, co-president and CEO of Modern Technology Solutions, told us, “They may be very knowledgeable in their discipline, but if they lack emotional intelligence, it just does not work.”Cultural fitThe next component of heart is cultural fit. Burns focuses on “fit and fitness” for the Xerox culture when interviewing executives. She explained to us. “I want them to fit with our values and culture.”Alan Lewis, owner and chairman of Grand Circle Corporation, says, “Alignment with my company’s culture and values counts far more than do skills or experience. In most cases, if an associate shares our values, we can teach the job skills.”Be selectiveWe need to be very selective about whom we hire and promote. We recommend panels of multiple interviewers to get different perspectives on candidates. Start reading resumes “upside down,” the way Google does, to find the hidden gems at the bottom under “activities and interests.”Remember to be patient. Resist pressure to fill a vacancy rapidly—because someone weak in heart will be a painful mistake. Take the time to get it right.Some sample questions we have uncovered for interviewing for heart can be viewed on our website at http://triplecrownleadership.com/assets/Interviewing-for-Heart.pdf.Core concept: Recruit and promote for both head and heart. Head involves the knowledge, skills, and experience necessary. Heart involves integrity, emotional intelligence, and fit with the desired culture.“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”—Nelson MandelaPractical Applications for Leaders    Do people in your organization have good head and heart qualities?  How have leaders in your organization shown heart?  What else could you do to assess a candidate’s heart qualities?  Do you recognize and reward people for both head and heart?  What more could you do to build both head and heart in your organization?

Hire and Promote for Heart

Dr. John W. Carter retired from the Navy after twenty-two years as a surface warfare officer, serving on several different ship classes as well as a tour with the U.S. Marines, and on the staff of Joint Forces Command. His last tour of duty was teaching political science at the U.S. Naval Academy, which included the introductory American government course, civil-military relations, political philosophy, and a senior seminar on the political thought of the American founding.After retiring from active duty, Dr. Carter continued his work at the Naval Academy as a class of 1968 Senior Military Instructor where he taught applied leadership to the midshipman. In 2009, he earned his PhD in Politics from the Catholic University of America.From 2011 to 2015, Dr. Carter was a lecturer in leadership at Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA. He taught introduction to leadership, leadership through the ages, leadership theory, and values leadership. He has delivered a workshop on emotional intelligence for the Hampton Roads Criminal Justice Training Academy and presentations on democratic leadership through the Tea Party Movement, the formation of new leaders, and the heart of the leader (its impact on leadership style and values).Dr. Carter recently finished a project to complete the design of an online master's degree at Divine Mercy University in Arlington, VA. He led the completion of the last five courses in the program, including two leadership courses where he was the subject matter expert.He is principal and CEO of LearningDesignCo, LLC, a learning architecture consuting firm based in Cincinnatti, OH.Clients include the Xavier Leadership Center, Matrix Animation, and White Oak Consulting.Samples of his work are found at www.learningdesignco.com

John Carter

John Zappa outlines three simple things new managers can do to better equip themselves for success: 1) recognize the identity shift, 2) manage yourself first, and 3) build your support network.

3 Ways New Managers Can Equip Themselves for Success

You’ve got numbers from your training. Now what? If you find that your data are unclear, or don’t seem to guide your next steps, you’re not alone. Let’s take care of that.Preparation CountsFirst, let’s review how to set yourself up for success with metrics. Here are the key steps to prepare for action:Set measurable goals for the course. For example, start from learning objectives and set goals for how much people should learn. (See” Track Success with Metrics.”)Find the features of the course that impact the goals. For example, use A/B testing to measure the effect on the course of including videos, or making videos of a certain type. ( See “Find the Levers with Metrics.”)If you you’ve done these things, you’ll be ready for your next steps. If you didn’t do these things, and you’ve got a pile of numbers to make sense of, you’ve signed up to be a data miner. Now, mining data is an honorable profession, and if you have a background in statistics and a large volume of data (say, thousands of students), you could give it a try.However, with the limited size of datasets that we typically get from training, it’ll be hard to find patterns that are significant. So, you’ll come out ahead if you have a system designed from the start around measurable goals and measurable features.Course Focus vs. Portfolio FocusDesigning a course around measurable learning objectives may already be part of your design process. We are used to thinking about training in this way. And, this is work that can happen in isolation from other courses. For example, the learning objectives for sales training for Widget X probably have no relationship to the learning objectives for engineering training for Widget Y. This compartmentalization makes it relatively simple work to set measurable goals for courses.To act on metrics, however, requires a portfolio view. To find the courses that need work, and to accumulate insights into what levers work best, is a long-term effort that spans many courses.First, to find the courses that need work, we have to know what an underperforming course looks like. While we will have some external criteria for this, such as “X number of people need to get at least 80 percent of the quiz answers correct,” the best way to address this is to look across the portfolio and find the lowest courses. In other words, establish a baseline, then find the low outlier that should be prioritized for improvement.Next, your experiments to find levers of quality (for example, through A/B testing) will be spread out across many courses. You won’t test every feature of every course, though. In fact, you might test only one or two features in each course to make the job manageable and data easier to interpret. As you accumulate a “bag of tricks” through your testing, you can apply things you've learned from one course to the design and troubleshooting of other courses.Put Best Practices to WorkCongratulations—you’ve set yourself up with some well-designed goals and levers. Now, your next steps are relatively easy.Redesign an existing course: If your data show that a course is underperforming, and it can be adjusted by one or more of your levers, consider redesigning and republishing. This assumes that course will continued to be delivered long enough to justify the investment, which you can ensure by checking your data early in the life of the course. In fact, it’s best to plan for iteration with any course: publish, collect data, adjust, and publish again.Approach future courses differently: Keep track of the best practices that you uncover through testing, and apply them in the planning stage for new courses. More importantly, once you’ve established best practices, you’re going to include them in all of your new courses. What if one of these new courses still underperforms? At that stage, you can have a discussion about the level of investment in the course. Because even with knowledge about best practices, you’ll naturally make tradeoffs between what works best and what you can afford.If the course is a priority for the business and it’s not working well, it may be time to add more high-end features, such as virtual instructors. And thanks to your work with metrics, you were able to point out that it wasn’t working, and you know what to suggest to improve it.Share Best PracticesAs your final action, share your findings with others. When you find what works best for your training, there’s a good chance it’ll be a benefit to other designers. Of course, mileage for a particular design choice may vary. Again, what you find works for engineers in your industry may not apply to another industry or to sales, for instance. So, also keep track of the demographics of your audience and include that information with your report.In the long run, you could help lay the groundwork to make training a leading profession in the data-driven workplace of the 21st century.

Act on Metrics

Larry Israelite was born and raised on a small chicken farm in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. Since moving to the big city, he has spent more than 30 years trying to answer one simple question: How can we improve business results through learning? Currently, Larry is a learning evangelist at Pluralsight, the leading provider of online learning for technology and creative professionals. He has held senior learning and talent management positions at several large organizations, including Liberty Mutual Insurance, Pitney Bowes, John Hancock Financial Services, and Oxford Health Plans. He holds a bachelor’s degree in theater from Washington College, as well as a master’s degree in instructional media and a doctorate in educational technology from Arizona State University. He also is editor of the ATD Press book More Lies About Learning.

Larry Israelite

Mack’s passion is to help leaders engage the front line to improve the bottom line.In 1988, Mack began his career in the manufacturing industry on the front lines as an entry-level machine operator. He began attending college in 1995, graduating with highest honors in the Executive BBA program. As his career progressed, Mack grew himself into upper management and found his niche in lean manufacturing.Mack’s amazing and inspirational journey of personal transformation and professional growth allowed him to be promoted 14 times during his 20 year manufacturing career before he started his own Lean Manufacturing and Leadership Development firm in 2008.He discovered his passion for growing and developing people at all levels between 2005-2012 while logging more than 11,000 hours leading hundreds of leaders and their teams through process improvement (kaizen events), leadership development, organizational change, and cultural transformation.Mack co-founded Top Story Leadership with his wife, Ria, to provide motivational speaking, leadership development training, coaching, and consulting. They have published 20 books on personal growth and leadership development and are often featured keynote speakers at conferences and seminars. Regardless of the topic or audience, Mack and Ria most often speak and teach together providing their audiences a much more dynamic, humorous, and engaging experience.Mack and Ria had the privilege of joining John Maxwell in Guatemala as part of the nationwide cultural transformation initiative in 2013 where over 20,000 Guatemalan leaders were trained in just one week. One of the highlights from their speaking career was receiving an invitation from world renowned motivational speaker Les Brown in 2014 to speak at an event he was hosting in Los Angeles, CA.Mack developed and launched his very popular Blue-Collar Leadership℠ brand in 2016. Blue-Collar Leadership℠ is uniquely designed content specifically created to engage and develop the often overlooked, underappreciated, and underdeveloped front line blue-collar workforce, those who lead them, and those who support them. Mack has published three books as part of the Blue-Collar Leadership Series: Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines, Blue-Collar Leadership & Supervision: Unleash Your Team’s Potential, and Blue-Collar Kaizen: Leading Lean & Lean Teams.Mack enjoys unleashing people’s potential by taking the complex and making it simple.

Mack Story

What is Demo Day?

This free, half-day event offers you the opportunity to see live demos from five leading AI-augmented learning tech solutions. Each 30-minute demo allows you to see the solution in action, ask questions, and request additional information. Selecting new technologies for your organization is a tough decision and a big investment. Let ATD Demo Day help you learn about the benefits of a variety of options at once.

Who is it for?
Anyone who is currently searching for innovative solutions using AI, interested in transforming their L&amp;D workflow with generative AI, or scaling and automating enterprise training programs.

Demo Day Agenda: (All times below are Eastern Standard Time)

11:55 a.m.–12 p.m.— ATD Introduction &amp; Welcome
12–12:30 p.m.—Practical AI Solutions for Real Business Impact (Strategy.AI)
12:45–1:15 p.m.—Critical Reskilling: AI Workforce Transformation (Ascendient Learning)
1:30–2 p.m.—Be An AI Ninja – Must Try Tips! (Get Control)
2:15–2:45 p.m. —The Human Side of AI: Building Resilience Through Change (ELB Learning)
3–3:30 p.m.—AI &amp; Learning and Development: Beyond the Button (MadCap Software)


Session Descriptions:

12–12:30 p.m. ET – Strategy.AI Demo

Practical AI Solutions for Real Business Impact


Transform your L&amp;D function with AI! Discover how to identify skills gaps, personalize training, and measure impact to prove your value to business leaders. Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your capabilities!


Join this session to:


	Discover how, in just 15 minutes, you can use AI to identify skill gaps and recommend personalized solutions for thousands of employees—scaling L&amp;D impact faster than ever before.
	Uncover how AI fosters cross-department collaboration, transforming siloed teams into knowledge-sharing powerhouses.
	Use AI to transform how learners engage with PowerPoint presentations—what used to be a boring reading exercise can now become a personalized, two-way experience!


Speaker: Andrew Leong-Fern, Founder and CEO, Strategy AI

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12:45–1:15 p.m. ET

Critical Reskilling: AI Workforce Transformation

AI is creating change across the workforce, with the World Economic Forum estimating that 59% of workers will need significant upskilling or reskilling by 2030; however, most organizations lack the training resources or strategies to adapt to these challenges. Ascendient Learning leverages over 60 years of IT training experience to deliver instructor-led training solutions customized to your business needs, ranging from company-wide awareness training to highly technical multi-week bootcamps.

Join this session to:


	Understand the impact that AI will have on the technical workforce.
	Identify key skills needed for AI-enabled job roles.
	Learn how to develop and implement an upskilling strategy that develops in-house talent to fill these growing requirements.


 

Speaker: Brian Carlson, Alliances and Strategic Accounts, Ascendient Learning

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1:30-2:00 p.m.

Be An AI Ninja – Must Try Tips!

Unleash your inner AI Ninja with our action-packed session for L&amp;D professionals! Join bestselling author Mike Song and the Get Control Training team as we countdown the top 10 AI tips for ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and more. Discover hidden features, best practices, and essential tools embedded in MS Teams and Windows, including time-saving tricks like using Collections for prompt templates. Boost efficiency, streamline workflows, and maximize the potential of AI in your organization. Trusted by 20% of the Fortune 500, this session delivers high-impact insights designed to empower you and your team. Don’t miss this game-changing experience!


Join this session to:


	Build More Effective Prompts.
	Discover Hidden ChatGPT &amp; Copilot Features.
	Save 20 minutes a day.


Speaker: Mike Song, Get Control

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2:15-2:45 p.m.

The Human Side of AI: Building Resilience Through Change


ELB Learning can help you empower your team to thrive in an AI-driven world. This session will explore how we can help you raise your team’s AI literacy, craft custom AI solutions, and guide your organization through change with tailored adoption plans. You’ll learn how we can help you create AI roadmaps, deploy cutting-edge tools, and foster a culture of innovation. By understanding the human side of AI adoption, you can seamlessly integrate technology into your workflows and align it with your business goals for lasting success.


Join this session to:


	Discover practical ways to integrate AI tools into daily workflows and upskill teams.
	Learn how to design and deploy AI-enabled solutions to meet your unique business needs.
	Identify effective change management strategies for smooth AI adoption and sustained growth.


Speaker: Josh Penzell, VP of AI Innovations and Solutions, ELB Learning

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3:00-3:30 p.m.

AI &amp; Learning and Development: Beyond the Button

AI is more than a simple tool for generating text—it’s reshaping how organizations manage, control, and deliver their content. As learning and development teams navigate the challenges of content proliferation, consistency, and proprietary control, they must carve out a strategic role in the enterprise AI ecosystem. Join us as we explore a smarter approach to AI—one that goes beyond automation to empower organizations with vetted, reliable, and controlled content. Discover how MadCap’s intentional AI strategy is rethinking learning content's role in an accelerating AI environment.


Join this session to:


	Explore how AI is transforming how organizations manage, control, and deliver content.
	Discover why learning and development teams must take a strategic role in AI adoption to address content challenges.
	Learn why a smarter AI strategy goes beyond automation to ensure vetted, reliable, and controlled content.



Speaker: Chris Kocher, MadCap Software

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