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Lisa R. Delman, The Dialog Diva, innately inspires individuals and organizations to unleash their magic of communication to the next level of productivity and be their best. As a communication specialist, she is masterful and insightful at facilitating dialogue that restores passion, meaning, and purpose to conversations and that creates powerful results to the bottom line. Presenting and sharing ideas in an engaging and passionate manner to more than 10,000 people, Delman has created great success for herself and others personally and professionally. Dialog Diva provides proven, reliable, customizable training materials that serve as the core to interpersonal communication programs; DialogDiva.com; LisaDelman@DialogDiva.com.

Lisa Delman

ATD Links Archive - ATD Links

Assessments can provide valuable information, but the key is to take that to the next level of productivity with effective dialogue.

Personality Assessments: A Powerful Tool for Dialogue

Michael Kroth, an associate professor at University of Utah, wrote a wonderfully irreverent chapter on management in The ASTD Management Handbook entitled, “Irreverence as a Managerial Tool: What Managers Can Learn From Tina Fey, Martin Luther, and Bob Dylan.” Lisa Haneberg,  the editor of the handbook,  has suggested that managers cultivate productive irreverence. Kroth offers a framwork for us to do just that—even if we don’t really learn directly from Tina Fey, Martin Luther, or Bob Dylan.Kroth encourages managers to develop their beliefs and frameworks into a richer understanding of managing by also challenging those very beliefs. His first and only rule of irreverence: If something is supposedly off limits, challenge it.Challenging with irreverence is more than a mental exercise. Kroth writes: “Challenging includes questioning and also trying. We might challenge authority or a dominant way of doing things, but we might also challenge our own way of thinking. We might challenge current practice by proposing or doing something different. Challenging is more active than (but does include) questioning, because irreverent managers often go beyond asking and actually do something.”We are on the path to wisdom when we follow the iterative process of belief blended with challenge. On a micro level this reminds me of the two-step writing process advocated by Peter Elbow in Writing with Power. According to Elbow, when we create or generate our writing, we need an attitude of belief, and when we evaluate our writing, we need an attitude of doubt. Our approach to management also can be “written” with this fusion of belief and challenge. Kroth advocates this as our pathway to becoming a wise and engaging manager.Kroth offers eleven guidelines to keep the reverence-irreverence cycle going. Here are three guidelines to get you started infusing irreverence into your management:Practice taking the opposite position of what you believe to be true. Honestly try it out with other people.Generate three alternative approaches to what you are doing right now.Hang out with different kinds of people than you normally do, including artists, theologians, ranchers, car wash attendants, and whomever. Looks for powerful management lessons embedded in the way others outside our normal sphere of connections see work and the world.Dialogue is at the heart of engaged management. Here are three questions to trigger engaging dialogue with a cadre of other managers or employees who report to you: What would it take for us to satirize ourselves? How would The Onion write about our workplace?When was the last time you were irreverent in your actions at work? What did you do and what was the result?Do you believe it is wise for mangers to act irreverently?Lisa Haneberg, in the preface to the piece suggests that irreverence is the mojo fuel all managers need to make a difference. Go out this week and find your management mojo by creating purposeful irreverence.If you want to move from irreverence management to mobile management, Kroth is your guy. We recorded a dialogue about engagement and the mobile workplace in the summer of 2011. The impetus for the dialogue was his book, Managing the Mobile Workforce: Leading, Building, and Sustaining Virtual Teams. With one billion mobile workers both engagement and management have become much more mobile. To access this free webinar on demand, go to https://vimeo.com/26628785.In my next post, I will discuss five universal themes in management.

Engaged Management: Irreverence

When I took my first leadership position at the Ohio Department of Development in 1998, the first thing that struck me as I assessed the organization was that everyone there who had mentored and taught me about economic and community development could retire within the same timeframe. As someone who was far from considering retirement, this came as a shock. In just the immediate office, more than 200 years of history, knowledge, and experience could very well walk out the door. At the time, I did not have a clue about what “workforce planning and development” was. Still, instinctively, I knew that a lack of strategy and planning around talent could lead to the downfall of an effective organization.Strategic workforce planning, the process of aligning an organization’s talent with its long-term goals and objectives, helps to maintain service levels even as demands and circumstances change.The most important reason to undertake workforce planning is to identify and nurture talent, which is crucial for maintaining a capable and motivated workforce. Strategic workforce planning enables better talent management through proactive recruitment, development, and retention strategies. In addition, public sector organizations often operate under tight budget constraints. Strategic workforce planning helps make the best use of limited resources by ensuring that workforce investments are aligned with strategic priorities.Steps for Successful Strategic Workforce PlanningStrategic workforce planning involves forecasting future workforce needs, identifying gaps between the current workforce and future requirements, and developing strategies to bridge those gaps. This planning ensures that the organization has the correct number of people, with the right skills, in the right roles, at the right time. Key Components of Strategic Workforce Planning 1. Environmental scanning: Analyzing external and internal factors that can affect the workforce, such as economic trends, technological advancements, and demographic shifts.2. Demand analysis: Forecasting the number and types of employees needed to achieve future organizational goals.3. Supply analysis: Assessing the current workforce’s skills, capabilities, and demographics to understand what is available.4. Gap analysis: Identifying the differences between the current workforce and future needs.5. Action planning: Developing strategies to address gaps, which may include recruitment, training, succession planning, workforce restructuring, and building in an evaluation loop that signals change that would require adjustment.Identify Critical Roles and Talent PipelinesIdentifying critical roles and talent pipelines within a workforce is crucial for effective strategic workforce planning.Conduct a Job Analysis and Assess Impact on Organizational Performance Analyze all roles within the organization to understand their responsibilities, required skills, and impact on organizational goals. Determine which roles have the highest impact on the organization’s performance and outcomes. Focus on positions that directly affect strategic initiatives, revenue generation, service delivery, and regulatory compliance.Evaluate Future Needs Consider how organizational changes and technological advancements might affect the importance of specific roles in the future.Engage with senior leaders, managers, and other key stakeholders to gain insights into which roles they view as critical. Internally, assess the current workforce’s skills and potential. Identify employees ready for advancement and implement development programs such as leadership training, mentorship, and cross-functional projects. These employees become the succession plan for key positions.Externally, consider which professional organizations and educational institutions your employees engage with. Explore internships, mentoring programs, career exposure, and professional organization sponsorships for emerging talent. Ensure that pipelines are diverse and inclusive, reflecting a range of backgrounds and experiences.Plan With Data-Driven ApproachesData-driven approaches enhance workforce planning by improving accuracy and enabling informed decision making. A skills and competency analysis should include:A regularly updated inventory of employee skillsGap analysis between current and future needsData from applicant tracking systems to identify high-quality recruitment channels and hiring bottlenecks. Ensure that systems do not unintentionally exclude strong candidates. For example, requiring a bachelor’s degree for a role that may not truly need one could limit your talent pool.Monitoring time-to-fill and cost-per-hire to optimize recruitment and reduce costs

Strategies for Recruiting and Retaining Talent in the Public Sector

Burnout is pervasive in today’s professional world, particularly among leaders. In fact, DDI’s research reveals that 72 percent of leaders report feeling used up at the end of every day, with rates even higher among women and minorities. It’s no wonder given the relentless demands they face—balancing packed schedules, coaching teams, executing initiatives, and shaping strategy—all on top of personal responsibilities.Given these pressures, HR professionals cannot afford to ignore burnout. Its long-term effects can be damaging for your leaders and organization: retention drops, quality of work declines, and for leaders, physical and mental health can suffer.The good news is that burnout isn’t inevitable. By providing the right environment and tools, HR can play a critical role in supporting leaders and preventing burnout.Ahead, we’ll explore three important ways you can prevent leader burnout: cultivating psychological safety, providing personalized training and support, and developing a strong leader pipeline.Build a Culture of Psychological SafetyTo create a resilient workplace, begin with culture. An organization’s culture profoundly influences how people behave and feel about their work.Protecting leaders from burnout requires cultivating an environment where they (and their teams) feel empowered to give candid feedback, collaborate effectively, and voice dissenting opinions without fear of retaliation. These behaviors thrive in a culture defined by psychological safety, empathy, transparency, and ethical integrity. Between deadlines and high-stakes presentations, occasional stress is unavoidable. However, when organizations lead with empathy, they see higher employee engagement and productivity, and lower rates of burnout.HR should establish and maintain workplace norms that encourage psychological safety and empathetic leadership.Strategies for HR to foster a psychologically safe culture include: Consistently champion and reinforce organizational values.Model vulnerability and transparency from leadership. Implement processes for safe escalation of concerns. Hold all employees accountable for ethical standards. Celebrate actions that reflect the desired culture. Provide Personalized Development for LeadersDeveloping capable leaders is another powerful way to prevent burnout. The key? Start by assessing each leader's strengths and growth areas to focus on development needs.Today’s leaders can’t wait for comprehensive 360-degree assessments that only appear every few years. They need immediate, objective feedback on exactly what to continue doing and where to adjust to support their development. One-size-fits-all training that doesn’t target specific needs only contributes to their time crunch and burnout risk. With real-time assessment results, HR can provide highly relevant, targeted development, giving leaders tools and a safe environment to practice their skills ahead of challenging situations.DDI’s research has identified seven critical skill areas that are associated with lower rates of burnout: Empathy Coaching and Delegation Influence Leading Change Leading Virtual Teams Driving Inclusion Developing Future Talent HR is uniquely positioned to help leaders address skill gaps to not only improve their capabilities but also reduce burnout risk. Finally, consider incorporating peer learning into your development program. While leadership can be isolating, bringing together leaders who face similar challenges helps build empathy, strengthen networks, and encourage mutual learning and coaching for shared growth.Develop the Pipeline of Emerging LeadersA plan to protect leaders from burnout wouldn’t be complete without designing a strategy to cultivate future leaders within the organization.As experienced leaders become overburdened, HR can ease their workload by building a robust pipeline of emerging talent. Nurturing future leaders not only provides growth opportunities that retain top performers but also ensures a steady supply of skilled leaders who can step in and share the responsibilities. Try these strategies to strengthen your leadership pipeline: Leverage a strategic, data-driven approach to identifying high potentials.Identify and develop high-potential talent at all levels.Focus on leadership potential—not just performance—by carefully observing critical skills like interpersonal skills, coaching, and building trust. Roll out development initiatives to nurture emerging leaders, including formal training, stretch assignments, and coaching.ConclusionHR's role in preventing leader burnout extends beyond crisis management. By fostering psychological safety, offering tailored development, and cultivating a strong talent pipeline, HR can proactively build a sustainable, high-performing workplace where leaders truly thrive.For more on preventing leader burnout, visit our blog, Understanding Burnout Culture: 10 Ways Leaders Can Reduce Workplace Stress, and discover how leaders can fight burnout at work.

3 Keys for Preventing Leader Burnout

ATD21 continued on Tuesday with a full day of education and networking sessions. Here's a recap of just a few of the many learning opportunities.The Journey to a Learning CultureThere are different definitions of a learning culture, explained Laurent Balagué, product strategist with Docebo, in his Tuesday session “Learning Culture: The New KPI for L&D.” He then shared ATD’s definition: “Employees continuously seek, share, and apply new knowledge and skills to improve individual and organizational performance.”He pointed out that a strong learning culture influences talent acquisition and development, and L&D—that is, securing young talent, continuously upskilling, and growing and engaging daily. Those are reasons leaders are discussing learning cultures.Balagué then reviewed a learning culture model with four pillars: manager involvement, sharing and learning from others, learning agility, and resources and development opportunities. Taking a deeper dive into manager involvement, he stated that this relates to supervisors’ interest in their direct reports’ training before and after it. It’s also about organizational values: Are managers rewarded for their involvement in their team’s development?He discussed six levels of management involvement.Acceptance: Managers aren’t for or against development. That is the bare minimum of involvement.Support: Managers encourage their direct reports to develop themselves.Role models: Senior managers, for example, may serve as role models to other managers by offering support.Reinforcement: Managers know how their teams want to develop, demonstrate interest, and offer their own perspectives.Enablement: Managers adjust responsibilities to ensure that there are opportunities for their direct reports to grow and implement what they have learned.Active coach: Managers consider their involvement to be a strategic objective. Balagué stressed that managers as active coaches will not happen overnight—it is a journey.Balagué reminded attendees that a learning culture is embedded in the organizational culture. It’s about trust and respect, shared vision, continuous improvement, and an openness to new ideas. This session was recorded, and Balagué’s slides are available via the Resources tab of his session in Pathable, the conference platform.What Are Your Emotions Really Saying?If you think emotions don’t belong in the workplace, Lisa Christen, CEO of Christen Coaching & Consulting, will forthrightly tell you to think again. In her session “Emotional Articulation: How to Supercharge Your Emotional Intelligence,” she says that mastering emotional articulation is a critical precursor to mastering emotional intelligence.She operationalized emotional articulation as “Defining the distinction between two or more related emotions and combining multiple emotion states to discover new insights and wisdom.” Christen advised participants to throw away preconceived thoughts and judgments about emotions. And she challenged them to see their emotions not as good or bad but as data points that can lead them to wisdom.One tenet of emotional articulation is the ability to adequately express or label feelings. When articulating emotions, it’s important to understand the power of the words we use to describe them. Christen said it matters whether you feel irritated or annoyed. Likewise, are you jealous or envious? Developing understanding and meanings for those words can help systematically get to the root cause of your emotions and help you address it.At the workplace, many people are guilty of shutting out the emotions they feel. Christen advised against that because ignoring emotions requires cognitive effort that you could better expend elsewhere. She called out that running from your emotions does not contribute to efficiency. Further, while your mind is busy trying to suppress the emotion, the physiological residue of those emotions is still at work in your body regardless of whether you know it. Ultimately any cognitive effort used to suppress your emotions is a sign that your emotions are controlling you as opposed to the other way around.The real flex of emotional articulation is when you’re able to apply the process to yourself and to others’ feelings. For those in leadership positions, that skill is invaluable. As Christen notes, building a team where it is OK to discuss emotions can foster psychological safety among team members. If you missed this session, catch it on demand and hear Christen explain the complete Five-Step Emotional Articulation process.Playbook for Rethinking L&D TeamsWhile the pandemic has hastened them, three forces of change were already driving the digital age, said Brandon Carson, vice president of learning and leadership at Walmart, during Tuesday’s Super Session, “L&D’s Playbook for the Digital Age.” Those forces are migration and globalization, the technology tsunami, and the rapid transformation of work.He then detailed a playbook for transitioning an L&D team to current work realities and preparing it for the future. Among the steps are assessing the business landscape, evaluating the learning team’s capabilities, conducting an inventory of tools and systems, and creating a balanced scorecard for the team.A learning professional today may serve as a performance consultant, learning engineer, data analyst, or instructional designer. L&D must embrace a multidisciplinary team with expertise in those four domains. The learning engineer, for example, marries science and the art of learning to make decisions at a programmatic level. L&D professionals, continued Carson, need competency in business acumen, technology acumen, and learning acumen—the latter meaning understanding how adults learn.He noted four possible metrics for creating an L&D scorecard: consumption, efficiency, diversity, and impact. Consumption includes such things as number of learning items consumed by modality and by employee. Efficiency means cost per learning hour delivered and estimated revenue generated.No one could have predicted the pandemic. Still, Carson encouraged L&D professionals to conduct scenario planning. To do that, they must be connected enough to the business to know plans for the future, such as forthcoming products or services.Stay Clear of E-Learning Design PitfallsBe warned, if you approach Tim Slade of the eLearning Designer’s Academy and ask for a new training program, he’s not going to ask what your employees need to know. Instead, he will focus on what you need them to do. During his Tuesday afternoon session “Why Most E-Learning Fails and How to Fix It,” Slade posited that first knowing the actions you need employees to take is a good starting point to see whether a training session would even be effective in accomplishing your objectives.Many L&D professionals, Slade noted, are guilty of investing significant time into a training program when implementing a best practice, for example, would be a more effective solution. One reason e-learning fails is because a training course was not the right solution for the performance issue. Other reasons e-learning programs aren’t effective is because they often are not designed for how people learn nor to show them what they need to do.To avoid creating virtual experiences that fall flat, determine the learning outcomes and then link those outcomes to the appropriate learning objects. Learning outcomes can include transfer of knowledge or information, practice of tasks or behaviors, and application of tasks or behaviors. For example, if your goal is to provide just-in-time performance support for a group of employees, this is not the time for role play. More ideal training objects to support that goal could include video tutorials, job aids, and the like.Slade also reminded session participants that there are certain things that a training program cannot fix. Knowledge and skills, for example, are areas where learning can make a difference. However, if the performance issue is centered on motivation or environment, those fall outside the scope of a training course’s influence. At the end of the day, Slade said that having a clear understanding of the performance issue is how you avoid developing learning solutions for nonlearning problems that ultimately waste everyone’s time.

Reporter's Notebook: Highlights from Tuesday's ATD21 Education Summaries

Today's fast-paced work environments demand that we as talent development professionals are well equipped to deal with rapid change, and are able to effectively adapt to uncertainty and support our leaders to do the same. This session is for those working with leaders at all levels, regardless of industry, looking to develop them as coaches in service of not only the leaders' growth and development in agility and change management, but also of the development of their people. Learn how to leverage coaching as a tool for organizational change, leadership development, and greater innovation while leaving the session with concrete actions you can take with tools to implement. No prerequisite required, although some baseline knowledge of coaching will be helpful.

Developing Agile Leaders: Coaching for Rapid Change

Congratulations, Judy Harmon and Doris Barnett! You’re the winners of the Leaders as Teachers Action Guide book giveaway! Many of today's leading companies have active leaders-as-teachers (LAT) programs. If you plan to initiate or expand a LAT approach, start by forming your LAT team.An effective LAT team includes learning professionals, leaders, and support staff. Here is a list of the roles that are often needed.You. First and foremost, you are part of the LAT team. Consider what role you will fill, which roles you will delegate, and those roles for which you will recruit others. Be realistic about the size of the role you can perform well.LAT champion. This person manages overall program responsibilities such as staffing, budgeting, and continuous improvement. A best practice is to have a senior leader in this role.Learning professional for active design. With so much new knowledge about how the brain works and with so many new media options, it is best to bring in a learning specialist to partner with leader-teachers. This person can activate your leader-teachers' sessions.Logistics planner. Successful LAT cultures make it easy for leader-teachers to participate. This role handles all of the logistics, version control, registration, and scheduling practice sessions, and manages all materials and assets for both leader-teachers and learners.Leader-teachers. These are the senior people who do the actual teaching or delivery. As you begin your recruiting efforts, we suggest a “go to the light” approach. By this we mean identify people who have strong personal interests in teaching, coaching, and facilitation, and seek out strong business growth opportunities or problems that need to be solved and for which teaching and learning is part of the solution. As your organization has more success with the LAT approach, recruiting more leader-teachers becomes easier.Topic experts. Often leader-teachers are recruited for a LAT session based on their personal expertise on the session topic. It is equally common for leader-teachers to be paired with an external expert. The expert delivers the content, and the leader-teacher puts it in context and validates the concepts.These are the basic roles for a LAT team. For small programs, it is possible for just two people to cover these roles: one learning professional and one senior leader. Larger programs typically involve more people.As your LAT successes begin to pile up and the many benefits of the LAT approach are realized, organizations experience a shift in demand for LAT programs. With that shift, there may be interest to include more leaders.There are many roles for leaders in a LAT culture, not all of which entail teaching directly. These roles include:Topic or program leaderNeeds assessment analystPost-session mentor or coachCoach for online asynchronous learningDean of a “college” or cluster of programsRegional or global dean or program presidentActive blogger in support of online learningAdvisor of customizing programs by region or departmentAdvisor of customizing off-the-shelf programs for in-house useWhat other roles can leaders fill in a LAT culture?For a chance to win a copy of Leaders as Teachers Action Guide, answer the above question in the comments section below. Your comment must be received by 5 p.m. EDT on Friday, June 20. If you prefer to email your response, please send it to LMDOwens@gmail.com. After reviewing the comments and emails received, we will select two winners and announce them in this post by Wednesday, June 25.Learn more from Leaders as Teachers Action Guide: Proven Approaches for Unlocking Success in Your Organization, available now.

Your Leaders-as-Teachers Team

A few years ago a global manufacturing company employed a team of corporate vice presidents whose jobs required traveling from site to site where the company operates to find and transfer best practices across 70 country locations. The practice seemed analogous to honey bees transferring life-giving pollen among the growing segments of the firm’s business.These vice presidents essentially became traveling teachers, and by assigning them this responsibility, the company acknowledged the importance of moving leader-teachers far beyond the classroom.Prepare your leader-teachers to fill four critical new roles outside of the classroom.**Network connectors**"If HP only knew what HP knows.” Remember that statement? Network theorists say that people can’t determine what knowledge might be available only a few nodes away from them in an organization network. We can identify knowledge that exists with our direct contacts and their direct contacts. Beyond that, things get fuzzy.Leader-teachers can help people source the knowledge that resides beyond the network where they operate. The leader-teacher also can serve as that essential node that links one network to help transfer critical information and ideas across different parts of the organization.**Aggregators of collective intelligence**Organization knowledge is continually enhanced in real-time as teams collaborate and problem-solve together. By practicing effective listening and questioning, leader-teachers can aggregate and leverage new knowledge to improve organization agility and teams’ abilities to execute.**Explorers and experimenters**Most of us can barely recognize the kinds of work we did even 10 years ago as waves of change continue to flow faster through all industries and professional disciplines. Leader-teachers can help us continue to rise up and over these waves in two ways.First, they enable us to explore our futures by teaching us how to look for and find the horizons of our businesses, and help us know what to look for beyond those horizons. Second, they must teach us how to take small steps into the future, and lead the analysis of what we learn from each small step so that we are learning as we go. Only then can we avoid running too far down any path that leads to misfortune.**Jazz makers**The world now demands increased variety in the products and services produced to serve unique value propositions for clients. Meeting diverse needs externally requires increasing the diversity of perspectives and insights the organization draws from internally.Leaders teach teams about the essence of the work they need to do. Like a jazz ensemble, they establish a melody (the goal of the project), tempo (timing and priorities), and key (parameters within which the team should operate). As they facilitate dialogue, debate, and work activities as leader-teachers, they encourage and incorporate the diverse thinking that will help the team build on each other’s ideas. This enables an elegant improvisation that creates unique solutions to meet unique needs.You can help leader-teachers take on these new roles by teaching them effective questioning, listening, debriefing, dialoguing and other skills needed to activate these roles. Then, provide forums to help leader-teachers share stories about how they are leveraging their new roles to affect organization performance and results.Learn more from Leaders as Teachers Action Guide: Proven Approaches for Unlocking Success in Your Organization, available now.

Prepare Leader-Teachers to Move Beyond The Classroom

March 2014 - TD Magazine

Five right-brain skills are predicted to be in high demand in the "Conceptual Age."

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