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Karen Minchella

December 2014 - TD Magazine

Improving Performance in a Hospital Setting

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Pilot Testing a Survey Instrument

November 2019  - TD Magazine

Hosts Michelle Ockers, Karen Maloney, and Amanda Ashby are showcasing real examples of what’s happening in the L&D world.

Learning Uncut

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

Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving rapidly. The danger? Most of our systems are still running on their default settings with flawed data, pre-programmed values, outdated assumptions, and invisible biases woven into the code.As technology continues to accelerate, learning and development (L&D) leaders need to embrace a different kind of leadership that meets the demands of the future of work. We need leaders who are both tech-savvy and people-first. We need inclusive leaders. Inclusive leadership values diversity, encourages collaboration, and fosters an environment where everyone feels empowered to contribute in unique ways. While AI systems learn from the past and are optimized for speed, inclusive leaders learn from feedback and will gradually shape the future. Inclusive leadership requires three essential components:Time to pause, challenge assumptions, and avoid rolling out biases at scaleUnderstanding of how exclusion shows up in data, tools, and organizational cultureAccountability for when automation misses the mark, create systems of oversight, and fix issues transparently before trust erodesThese aren’t just soft skills; they’re survival skills in the age of intelligent systems. Inclusive leadership isn’t just for those with C-suite titles. It’s for everyone bold enough to question whether the current ways of operating the business are harnessing the full potential of a diverse workforce. This might look like asking:Is this resume screening tool filtering out candidates from nontraditional backgrounds?Did we include perspectives from ERG members in the rollout’s design?What assumptions were made in assessing “high potential” at scale?Leading with purpose doesn’t require authority. Culture starts to shift when people at every level challenge automation, audit biases, and demand better conditions with intention.Inclusive Leadership Means Resetting the DefaultsThe thing about default settings is they’re fast, familiar, and almost always designed by someone else. The tools we rely on were trained on historical data. That means the “default” settings often serve the past, not the future. If the past was exclusionary, how can we ensure that we’re not making the future exclusionary, just at a faster rate? Inclusive leaders notice when defaults are outdated, inequitable, or just plain wrong and have the courage to change them.If your organization’s leadership programs aren’t preparing people to lead through ethical uncertainty, tech disruption, and cultural complexity, they’re not future-ready. Here are five ways to lead the change and develop inclusive leaders in the age of AI at your organization:1. Make inclusive leadership the default, not an add-on. Make it the foundation of your leadership development curriculum, not in a bonus module. Do this by incorporating: Case studies on exclusion in AIExercises that uncover unconscious bias in tools and decisionsScenarios that challenge “default” thinking2. Train leaders to spot what’s missing. Help leaders recognize where exclusion shows up in systems, data, and decisions. Arm them with the right questions, including:Who is benefiting from implementing this and who might it harm?Who is being left out and how can we include them?Do we have the tools and systems in place for oversight?3. Build in accountability. Redefine and model what “good” leadership looks like with the following actions:Own unintended impacts from exclusive practices.Create feedback loops with ERGs and cross-functional teams.Lead transparently when automation stumbles.Adjust or remove tools that do more harm than good.4. Make psychological safety a leadership imperative. Train leaders on how to foster environments where teams feel safe questioning automated decisions and voicing concerns. Creating a “speak-up culture” is the foundation for ethical and effective tech use.5. Partner with DEI, tech teams, and legal not in silos. The future of leadership doesn’t live in a single function. When inclusive leadership and ethical AI implementation are developed together, they stop being a few people’s jobs and start becoming everyone’s responsibility.Lead With IntentionAI is changing how we work, but how we lead will determine for whom we innovate, and with what consequences. The future doesn’t need faster leaders; it needs wiser, courageous, self-aware, and empathetic ones. Let’s develop leaders who pause for people, listen for bias, and build for belonging. That’s how we lead beyond the algorithm: with time, understanding, and healthy doses of accountability. And maybe a little less trust in the “default settings.”

Resetting the Defaults: Developing Inclusive Leaders in the Age of AI

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