Resources

Every organization I know has silo problems.  Even our small, committed, HSD-intelligent staff has problems with getting information across functional boundaries quickly and clearly. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been watching what we do to break through these troublesome silos, and I’d like to share with you what I’ve seen.

As we engage learners in our certification training, two dimensions have emerged as indicators of the depth of new skill development – confidence and flexibility. We use these dimensions in pre- and post- self-assessments, asking the learners to indicate their perspectives about their own standing, relative to these dimensions.

The statistics are shocking. Even good employees are dissatisfied and disengaged.  Organizations of all sizes and sectors recognize the problem.  The real problem, though, is that they don’t know what to do about it.  Surveys, rewards and recognition programs, gap analysis, and strategic plans uncover the deep discontent, but in most cases they do little to shift the pattern.  What will work?

The other day I received an email about “exciting ways” for trainers to engage their learners. It was brightly colored with pictures of happy faces. As I glanced down the tips that were offered, I didn’t really see anything that was particularly new.