You’ve met with your client to discuss the need for leadership and manager training. In gathering preliminary information, you realize that this client’s managers come in all shapes, sizes, and experience levels. For example:

• Managers who have been newly promoted from star individual contributor positions
• Managers who have been moved from one department to another to “shape up this place”
• Managers hired because of their reputation for results in another company
• Managers with MBA in hand who have vast book knowledge but little real-life experience
• Managers who have been managing for years who learned on the job “by the seat of their pants”
• Managers who serve as mentors/advisors to executives and less experienced employees as well

The good news for you as a training consultant: All managers, no matter what stage in their development, need a set skills to be successful. Among these skills:

• Technical knowledge – product, company, process, service
• Self-Management – Using time effectively to get more done in less time with fewer resources.
• Communication – Not just “do as I say” or, as one manager said, “I tell them, but they don’t stay ‘told’”.
• Influence – how to exert an opinion or point of view in a team or group setting
• Managing Performance – setting expectations, making agreements, following up, dealing with conflict among peers or direct reports.

PPS, International, home of Lockwood Leadership and SkillTeach, offers a portfolio of programs which can be customized for managers at each stage of development. This training is practical, hands-on, and interactive by design. With these skills, managers will be poised to increase efficiency and effectiveness on the job.

Please call (864) 962-6789 or visit us on our website at ppsinternational.net.

HR and training professionals in industry, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations invest heavily in creating and maintaining performance management systems. While we set up and are the keepers of these systems, we aren’t the main beneficiary or user of the system—managers and their employees are. Knowing this, how can we support and ensure the quality and usability of performance management in our organizations? Here is what we see the best do to make it happen:

1. Include performance-management-supportive competencies in your organization’s competency model for leaders. It is unusual for organizations to be without some definition of what is expected of a leader. For many organizations, this is a manager or leader-specific competency model. Ensure that you have included competencies such as “provides frequent feedback on performance” and “intervenes when employee performance doesn’t match expectations” as part of your existing model.
2. Don’t have a leadership competency model? Build one. Even a “less-than-perfect” model that is communicated and used to align development activities will go a long way towards creating the consistency that drives home the expectation to manage performance in an active way.
3. Design, develop and distribute skill cards and toolkits to managers that explains and outlines the performance management process including objective-setting, monitoring and interim feedback, documentation of performance, and formal appraisal feedback. These can include copies of standardized forms, links to online systems, and examples of conversation starters. Skill cards and toolkits can be housed on organizational Intranets or learning portals. For organizations without shared technology, tools can be emailed directly to clients or even provided in hard copy. Provide complementary skill cards and toolkits for employees.
4. Create manager-specific skill-based training program on the roles in the performance management process and the core skills necessary in order to administer the system. For managers, a solid program should include goal-setting and agreement-setting skills, observation and documentation guidelines, skills critical in delivering feedback and responding to defensiveness without damaging relationships.
5. Create an employee-specific training program on how to get the most from your performance management process. This program should complement the manager-version of the program by explaining roles, but also explaining how employees can use your existing performance management system in order to get feedback and coaching on their performance from their managers.
6. If you have a self-study library in place, add resources on goal-setting, feedback, coaching, and dealing with challenging behaviors and publish an announcement that these resources are available—with “just-in-time” reminders in your performance management cycle (i.e., the month all appraisals are taking place, for instance).
7. Measure managers on the quantity and quality of their performance management actions. Measurement can be a tricky thing to implement. It seems complicated, and, sometimes it is. You can include a component on your performance appraisal form that covers giving feedback, providing development opportunities, actions taken to address employee performance. You can also implement multi-rater feedback (a.k.a., 360-degree feedback) that specifically addresses the elements that support performance management. Still another measurement form is the employee opinion survey.
8. Link your performance management software to the “live” actions of managers. If your organization utilizes performance support software (such as PeopleSoft), customize the help screen—or provide standalone software training—that demonstrates the connection between how managers will use the software for tracking and documenting performance management actions. Many managers believe that entering data into a system is performance management. Through training, you create a linkage for managers between the planning and conversations they are expected to have with employees and how they must enter the results of those conversations into the software. If your organization doesn’t utilize such software, chances are that you use some standardized forms for planning and appraisals. Be sure that these forms use the same language and follow the same process as the discussion-cadence in your actual performance management system.
9. Post reminders of key performance management activities in your organizational communication for managers and employees. Out of sight can mean out of mind, especially with the volume of work most professionals manage on a day-to-day basis. If your organization has an online or other news format, be sure to post reminders about target-setting, goal setting, interim or touch-base feedback and end-of-review-period actions that managers should be taking and in which employees are expected to participate. Some organizations have the ability to add calendar events or push reminder emails to segments of their population. If you do, push notice of an event to managers such as, “hold mid-term target-setting review with employees” or “complete appraisal discussions by…”
10. Hire managers who have demonstrated that they actively manage employee performance. Your recruiting profile and interview questions for applicants to a formal leadership role should not overlook that candidate’s disposition on coaching and giving feedback. Questions such as, “Give me an example of a time when you ensured an employee knew what was expected of him or her. What did you do about this? How did your employee react? What was the outcome this year?” Leaders should be able to readily provide examples of their role in performance management. And, if you have candidates without formal leadership experience, you can inquire about their behaviors in this area by asking questions such as, “Tell me how you get information about your own performance. What do you do? How has that worked?” or “Everyone has to work with others in order to accomplish results. Share with me an example of when you needed someone else to change his or her behavior so that you could meet your commitments. Who was the person? What did you do? How did the other person react?”

These actions vary in degree of complexity and difficulty to implement. Some organizations have the internal resources to implement all of these actions—and more. Still others are one- or two-person departments that must either prioritize what they can pull off, or seek outside support. In general, the more of these supports that are in place, the better enabled are managers—and, the more likely they will be able to fulfill their critical roles as “managers of performance.”

Kelly Fairbairn is President of PPS International Limited (home to Lockwood Leadership International and SkillTeach^®) and CEO of SyNet Americas. PPS International Limited is a global consulting firm specializing in skill-based training and performance improvement. Kelly can be reached at kelly@ppsinternational.net. To learn more, visit www.ppsinternational.net or email info@ppsinternational.net. We love to share best practices with our HR and Training colleagues and counterparts.

Two acrobats stand ten feet apart, eight red lacquered balls flying between them in a blurring arc. For 5 minutes they keep all the balls in motion as they move about the stage—bending, somersaulting, back-to-back and face-to-face.

How can they keep all of them in the air and still smile? One slip and embarrassment or injury is sure.

That image is a vivid metaphor of life at work. How can you help busy managers juggle multiple complex priorities with changing deadlines?

1. Clear communication. Skill in making agreements around project scope, deliverables, outcomes, and documentation/reporting is vital to managers becoming expert jugglers.
2. Clear plan. Tools and practice in breaking projects into components and establishing timelines and milestones can give managers solutions for organizing time and tasks.
3. Clear finish. At times the press of the immediate prevents managers from celebrating the completion of a difficult project. Processes, procedures, and forms to discuss lessons learned can insure replication of successful methods in the completion of ensuing projects.

For more support on becoming an “expert juggler” consider our Self-Management and the Use of Time program. PPS International Ltd. Is your source for design and development of customized training solutions for success in skillful management.

Unlike many programs that try to focus on a participant’s understanding and belief, our programs are skill-based. We teach people new skills that help them behave differently, rather than merely helping them understand things differently.

Skill Acquisition

Our educational design involves four steps to skill acquisition. Each skill is first positioned through involvement activities and application discussions to help participants recognize that the learning will be relevant. Then, we tell how to use the skill that they’ll be asked to use, by describing it during a short lecture component—very literally a “how-to.” We then show the participants how to use the skill, by demonstrating exactly what they’ll be asked to do. We most often show the skills with live demonstrations and activities using specific situations from participants’ work life; this ensures greater credibility for the trainers and has a stronger impact on the learner. Then, the participants practice the skill during role-plays of real-life situations. We then discuss and give constructive feedback on their practice.

Practice, involvement, and feedback produce the greatest return on investment in training. Still, participants require a rationale for “buying in” to the need for improving various interpersonal communication skills. We try our best to make that cognitive connection of value for each skill they learn during each training module.

Participants will not embrace a new skill if they feel that it’s “phony” or compromises their identity. We respect each participant’s entry level of skill, while at the same time encourage the perspective that even the most effective businessperson can afford to add tools to his or her repertoire.

We structure our workshops’ design to help each person integrate the skills into his or her own natural, personal style. Our programs are designed to create a developmental learning environment, not a “remedial” one. As a result, participants feel empowered rather than threatened or compromised, leaving them more receptive to growth and change.

To learn a new skill, you must practice it. Watching others, hearing explanations, and reading instructions are not enough in themselves. That’s why swimming teachers get you into the water, and computer classes advertise “hands-on” experience.

For years, this key learning principle was ignored in most training. As a result, much of what was taught never made it out of the classroom.

In all of our courses, the lectures, involvement activities, and demonstrations are all preparatory. The critical learning step is the skill practice that allows a participant to use the behavior being taught. Almost all of these practices are in the form of “real-plays.”

Role-playing provides a means of practicing the complex and subtle skills of communication. A role-play creates an environment that simulates reality to the extent that a skill can be practiced – and, yet, is still safe. The mistakes and clumsiness that may occur will have no negative consequences.

Role-playing is a valuable tool for skill-building, and is used in many of our courses. The main problem that can arise in role-playing, however, is a kind of stage fright; people feel incapable of “acting” out a part. Our seminars use a somewhat less intimidating form of practice, which we call “real-plays.” The practices will all be based on situations that the participants choose, rather than on a pre-created role-play situation. By using this form of practice, participants gain the benefits of role-playing without having to “play a part.” In real-plays, participants will simply be themselves, talking about situations that are real for them, or listening and responding as their partner talks.

Research supports this method of teaching. It has shown that the transfer of training is much more likely if the examples used in the workshop and the content of the role-plays are similar to the work experience of the participants. To help us create the role-plays and gain a better understanding of the situations and language that the group (to be trained) uses, we supply, collect and analyze briefing forms, and conduct telephone interviews. SkillTeach users can access these customization templates by contacting us at info@skillteach.com.

Successfully creating and implementing a multi-layered, blended learning program is a challenge, that when done well, brings about great return on investment. Our experience has shown us that blended, over-time, learning design and implementation is quite different from one-methodology-one-time learning. From our experience, in order to be successful with blended learning, you must actively do three things:

1. Use an iterative learning process that maintains learning momentum and increases participant learning relevance. When we create blended learning, we use an iterative learning process. At each “stop” along the learning path, participants must call upon previous learning—and apply their learning to real-life situations. Participants are held to an increasing performance expectation as the learning process progresses. This builds buy-in, but most importantly, builds a greater chance that learning will transfer to the job.



2. Design learning in such a way that momentum and continuity are “guaranteed” between learning sessions and over time. We align the content, learning methodology, and implementation aspects of a program in order to create consistency and participant-centered motivation for completion.
3. Include a process to keep participants informed and involved throughout the learning, without requiring the learning coordinator to be involved at a fine level of detail. Because we have managed many blended, over-time, learning processes, we know the key points for client involvement, and how to navigate through the process without needing to bombard the participant or the client with multiple requests and demands.

At SkillTeach.com, we are big believers in trying out training—conducting pilot sessions allows us to gain plenty of useful information about how individuals react to the learning and what they gain from the process. When observing a pilot session, we seek to answer a number of questions:

1. Design Flow: Is the flow or structure of the session appropriate? Is the timing efficient and produce a good return on investment of face-time?
2. Materials: Do the program or module materials support learning? This includes those used by the facilitator as well as the participants.
3. Skills & Process: Are we teaching the right skills and content?
4. Facilitation: Do facilitators use effective skills? Do online prompts lead people through the learning process effectively?
5. Installation: Have we handled the implementation of the program into the organization in such a way as to support the learner and to connect to the business?
6. Other: Do other issues or concerns get raised that should be addressed before full rollout?

To download a pilot review tracking and observation sheet, please visit our resources section at SkillTeach.com.

SkillTeach is a product line developed by a group of instructional designers and professional development trainers to offer instructors “out-of-the-box” training programs that have been tested in corporate classrooms and evaluated by experts: the participants!

In addition, SkillTeach products are useful to independent consultants and corporate HR and training professionals who want to deliver high-quality learning and development to internal and external clients.

The purpose of this blog is to share advice on consulting within organizations—whether you are a professional consultant or an internal consult. Just as we work closely with our clients as we develop new products for the SkillTeach product line, we’ll seek to share information with you that builds your competence, credibility, and creativity as you work with your clients. Consider us your “shadow” consulting group!