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Dear !*FIRST_NAME*!

Here is the latest edition of HRD Alert! to which you subscribed.

If you have trouble reading this or prefer to read an online copy, you'll find one here. You can load it into your browser or save and read it off line.

Wow, what a month ... and it's mid-year already. I can't believe our lives are passing so fast. On a really quiet day I'm sure I can hear my grandson growing; sinews stretching, bones growing, muscles toning, hair strengthening and so on. Amid all the excitement, one has to find time for continuing self development, earning a buck, maintaining one's key relationships, and doing the many other chores that befall us. As well as having some fun!

Recently a colleague gave me a small book titled Selfscape: Success through Balance by Sheryle Moon because, 'I know you're into this type of stuff'. I wasn't sure whether he was inferring that I'm a bit eccentric, but I read the book and found it very interesting. And yes, it was about the type of stuff in which I'm interested. It's all about having a vision for your life and planning to make the vision come true rather than let your life 'accidentally' unfold. I've provided details in Worth a Look and recommend you read this book and plan your life. In fact, I've decided to provide a free copy to some lucky person:

The two articles this issue are about the new nomenclature for training and development and how to make your sessions more interesting. If there are any specific topics you'd like me to address, please let me know.

I hope you and yours are well.

Until next edition, yours in HRD

Robin Henry
Principal Adviser/Publisher

The Transition to Human Performance Improvement

We've had training managers, learning managers, learning officers, people development, staff development and a host of other names for the function within organisations that caters for staffs' education, learning or development (or whatever you prefer to call it!). The latest term is Strategic Human Performance Improvement Manager. Read all about it in this issue.

From Boring to Interesting?

How many times have you sat in a room and been 'trained' by someone who shows a fist full of overhead projection slides and talks at you? You spend your time wondering whether it could have been done better. Or you start thinking of something totally unrelated. This short article suggests some things you can do to make your next 'chalk and talk' interesting.

Worth a Look

There are three sites and a book referenced in this issue. A new site run by the Learning Economics Group, a skills report from Australia's National Training Authority and a US Small Business site with articles suitable for anyone.

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With the new, trendy title of Strategic Human Performance Improvement Manager, many people will now be beavering away to do what I thought training was expected to do all along ... help improve individual performance so that organisational performance would improve. A cascading effect.

As a younger fellow I worked on what was then called Organisation and Methods Analysis in the Queensland Police Force. The aim was to analyse organisation and methods and make improvements where necessary. And believe me, there was a lot of 'necessary' if the Force was to make the transition into the 20th Century.

One of the first jobs I had was to write an administrative instruction advising the troops how much forage a horse needed to survive. It had become necessary because the QPD had incurred a hefty bill to keep a 'found' horse in forage until its owner could be located. I didn't have the heart to tell my senior sergeant that I didn't know what the hell 'forage' was (I grew up on mines, not stations), but armed with the certain knowledge that it was obviously something edible that horses loved, I trudged off to the Veterinary Faculty at the Queensland University. Before long I had solved the mystery about nomenclature, learnt why horses need forage (if not only to stay alive), and received expert advice about the daily quantity required to keep such a beast alive. My subsequent administrative edict was proudly distributed to every Police Station in Queensland under the hand of Commissioner Terry Lewis (who was later sentenced to a lengthy stretch in goal for corruption). Not to worry, the Police Department would never again over feed a horse in custody (or is it captivity?).

Jokes aside, performance improvement in organisations - even the QPD - has been on agenda for probably hundreds, if not thousands of years. What I think has been happening slowly, is that we are getting closer and closer to the cutting edge of organisational outcomes. Rather than asking what training someone needs to improve performance and hoping that post-training it will all lead to higher productivity or improved quality outcomes, we are now finding out what is happening at the outcomes end and working back to see how it can be improved. And isn't it about time?

For years now I have envisaged a Performance Enhancement Department that combines human resources and development practitioners, quality professionals, technical writers, and auditors. The auditors and quality people find the problems, the  HRD people design solutions in collaboration with the others and deliver training. The technical writers create procedures and documentation to promulgate the revised or new processes. That way, there is a more synergistic, holistic approach to identifying and rectifying organisational shortcomings.

Unfortunately, everywhere I have worked the audit, training, and quality people have worked separately. Most have never had technical writers, they've used what I unkindly call 'gifted amateurs'. This often leads to mediocre procedures that are poorly written and often difficult for users to understand - which leads to errors, shortcutting and general inefficiency.

The new Strategic HPI approach takes HRD a step further. An HPI consultant works with managers to analyse a business and its goals, determine the relationship between goals and human performance, analyses performance and the causes of underperformance (if any), and then devises interventions to address causes. Results are evaluated and hopefully, the underperformance disappears forever.

Whatever we call it, the role of training has always been to improve individuals' skills so that they could do better work for their employers. I can't see that changing any time real soon.

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Being a good trainer requires experience and skill. Experience comes from practice and skill from learning the theories, applying them, getting feedback and consciously improving.

Some things that will help you improve are:

• Know your target audience - what's in it for them? What do they expect? Why are they attending your training?
• Sometimes go back to basics - it's a good chance to reevaluate your performance
• Find ways to generate interaction and get your participants doing something
• Provide as much variety as practicable
• Demonstrate where possible - it will save many words
• Use humour wherever possible. If associated with analogies, this can help participants recall specifics
• Consider your training as a marketing exercise

When you prepare your session (you DO prepare don't you?) think of it in terms of you having to make a sale. I know this sounds odd, but when you think about it, you are trying to 'sell' someone the ideas you are putting across. So there's much we can learn from the art of salesmanship or marketing.

Think along the lines of the acronym A - I - D - A which stands for Attention - Interest - Desire - Action. Get attention by making a statement that is bold or give an example of what could happen if they don't do what it is you are about to suggest. For example, if you were about to deliver a road safety talk, you could start off by saying something like, '560 people died on Queensland Roads last year ... what's going to keep you from adding to that statistic?' You may then give them some 'Interesting' statistics about how many of those people were drivers who committed traffic offences. Desire is aroused when we want something - in this case, the solution to NOT becoming a statistic. Then, the Action part might relate to a commitment from them to put into effect what you have taught them.

The best scenario I have found is to present a problem or predicament, state how the problem can be solved or the predicament can be avoided, present a preferred option and then ask for the action (buying, adopting etc depending on circumstances).

When planning your session, think about how you can weave AIDA into: Explain, Demonstrate, Question, Practise, Review. It won't be appropriate to every session, but if it can be used, it's a sound option. And remember, if you have a large volume of content, you may need to break it (it's called chunking) into separate chunks each of which has an E-D-Q-P-R. Questioning is two-way. You need to question your participants to find out if they understand what you have delivered; they need an opportunity to clear up any doubts they have by questioning you. Your review can be a summary (which also includes Q) or it can be a review at the commencement of a later presentation about a continuing topic.

When next you are about to prepare a 'chalk and talk' session or perhaps a 'show and tell', think about how you could make it a little more interesting and interactive by using AIDA and EDQPR strategies. You'll be pleasantly surprised at what good ideas you come up with. And it will show in your session evaluation.

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Learning Economics Group
The Learning Economics Group (LEG) has a developing site that promises to be the source of excellent information for those interested in the strategic value of learning - how learning adds value to organisations. The advisory council for the LEG has an impressive group with at least five PhDs. More ...

ANTA'S Second National Industry Skills Report
This report puts a "skilling lens" across the issues that Australia faces in the future. The report was released in April 2004 at the second national industry skills forum in Sydney where leaders from business and employment met with vocational education and training (VET) decision-makers to discuss the workforce skills base required for internationally competitive companies and enterprises. This will be of more interest to Australian readers, but will also be of interest to overseas readers since trends tend to be international.

You can download a copy of the report free, but are first required to give your email address and type of industry. More ...

United States Small Business Administration
At this site you'll find a huge list of self-paced courses or workshops you can access that will help your training business. I clicked on the Identify Your Target Market option and after completing a diversity questionnaire (so they could get to know me better), I was redirected to the Bank of America. There I found an audio-visual, computer-based-training screen where I worked through the topic. While not every topic will be relevant to everyone, there are more than sufficient to choose from and many of the topics are universal, not US-centric.. More ...

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