Tag Archives: training

The New Untouchables

Last summer I attended a talk by Michelle Rhee, the dynamic chancellor of public schools in Washington. Just before the session began, a man came up, introduced himself as Todd Martin and whispered to me that what Rhee was about to speak about — our struggling public schools — was actually a critical, but unspoken, reason for the Great Recession.

There’s something to that. While the subprime mortgage mess involved a huge ethical breakdown on Wall Street, it coincided with an education breakdown on Main Street — precisely when technology and open borders were enabling so many more people to compete with Americans for middle-class jobs.

In our subprime era, we thought we could have the American dream — a house and yard — with nothing down. This version of the American dream was delivered not by improving education, productivity and savings, but by Wall Street alchemy and borrowed money from Asia.

A year ago, it all exploded. Now that we are picking up the pieces, we need to understand that it is not only our financial system that needs a reboot and an upgrade, but also our public school system. Otherwise, the jobless recovery won’t be just a passing phase, but our future.

“Our education failure is the largest contributing factor to the decline of the American worker’s global competitiveness, particularly at the middle and bottom ranges,” argued Martin, a former global executive with PepsiCo and Kraft Europe and now an international investor. “This loss of competitiveness has weakened the American worker’s production of wealth, precisely when technology brought global competition much closer to home. So over a decade, American workers have maintained their standard of living by borrowing and overconsuming vis-à-vis their real income. When the Great Recession wiped out all the credit and asset bubbles that made that overconsumption possible, it left too many American workers not only deeper in debt than ever, but out of a job and lacking the skills to compete globally.”

This problem will be reversed only when the decline in worker competitiveness reverses — when we create enough new jobs and educated workers that are worth, say, $40-an-hour compared with the global alternatives. If we don’t, there’s no telling how “jobless” this recovery will be.

A Washington lawyer friend recently told me about layoffs at his firm. I asked him who was getting axed. He said it was interesting: lawyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just isn’t there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services, new opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the new untouchables.

That is the key to understanding our full education challenge today. Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies — will thrive. Therefore, we not only need a higher percentage of our kids graduating from high school and college — more education — but we need more of them with the right education.

As the Harvard University labor expert Lawrence Katz explains it: “If you think about the labor market today, the top half of the college market, those with the high-end analytical and problem-solving skills who can compete on the world market or game the financial system or deal with new government regulations, have done great. But the bottom half of the top, those engineers and programmers working on more routine tasks and not actively engaged in developing new ideas or recombining existing technologies or thinking about what new customers want, have done poorly. They’ve been much more exposed to global competitors that make them easily substitutable.”

Those at the high end of the bottom half — high school grads in construction or manufacturing — have been clobbered by global competition and immigration, added Katz. “But those who have some interpersonal skills — the salesperson who can deal with customers face to face or the home contractor who can help you redesign your kitchen without going to an architect — have done well.”

Just being an average accountant, lawyer, contractor or assembly-line worker is not the ticket it used to be. As Daniel Pink, the author of “A Whole New Mind,” puts it: In a world in which more and more average work can be done by a computer, robot or talented foreigner faster, cheaper “and just as well,” vanilla doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s all about what chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cherry you can put on top. So our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.

Bottom line: We’re not going back to the good old days without fixing our schools as well as our banks.

———————————————————————————————————————————————-

Friedman, Thomas L. “The New Untouchables.” Nytimes.com. New York Times, 20 Oct. 2009.

Web. 17 Nov. 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/opinion/21friedman.html>.

Richard Lyons

Richard Lyons

Richard E. Lyons has served as a professor of management, department chair, instructional dean, corporate trainer, faculty and staff developer, and independent consultant.  His grounding in sound research and quality management practices, as well as deep learning from his varied experiences, has enabled him to exceed expectations of clients systematically.

Richard launched his consulting and presentation practice in 1999, shortly after the publication of his first book, The Adjunct Professor’s Guide to Success. He has since authored three other books – Teaching College in an Age of Accountability, Success Strategies for Adjunct Faculty, and Best Practices for Supporting Adjunct Faculty. His extensive research on these topics and familiarity with best practices that align with that research undergird his consulting. The strategies that he espouses have been well received not only by clients, but also by audiences in dozens of presentations at varied academic conferences.

Richard has presented on the campuses of community and state colleges, universities and proprietary institutions, in three countries.  Besides traditional institutions, these have included historically Black colleges and universities, historically women’s institutions, and those that serve significant populations of Native American, Hispanic and other diverse populations.  He also regularly utilizes webinars to deepen workshop participants’ mastery of critical learning outcomes. His travel experiences in over forty countries enable him to address issues in a global, futuristic context – a factor of increasing importance at many institutions.

Active throughout his career in professional organizations, Richard presently serves on the board of the North American Council for Staff, Program and Organizational Development [NCSPOD].

Richard earned his B.A. in Management and M.S. in Business Education at Western Kentucky University, and his doctorate in college teaching and curriculum at the University of Central Florida.

Hire This Expert >

Specialties:

  • Achieving improved accountability outcomes in instruction
  • Adjunct Faculty Issues
  • Alternative/Authentic Assessment
  • Board training and development
  • Change Management
  • Curriculum development
  • Customer service
  • Decision making
  • Department chair training and development
  • Eight habits of highly effective people
  • Experiential learning
  • Focus group facilitation
  • Interpersonal relations
  • Interviewing for long-term effectiveness
  • Leadership development
  • Learning styles of students
  • Listening for understanding and problem solving
  • Mentoring
  • Mission formulation
  • Presentation skills
  • Quality improvement
  • Strategic planning
  • Teaching styles [alignment with student learning styles]
  • Team building
  • Train the trainer workshops
  • Trust and relationship building

Randal Joy Thompson

Randal ThompsonFor over thiry years, Randal Joy Thompson has expressed her passion for helping people around the world achieve their dreams through a career in international development.  She has advised senior government officials on key policy changes, assisted local non-governmental organizations establish themselves, organized interest group coalitions, and worked in small rural villages and large urban centers on a variety of development challenges in India, Cameroon, Morocco, Nicaragua, Mongolia, Romania, Ukraine, Kenya, Albania, Bulgaria, and Bolivia.

For the last two years, she has helped staff at the Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation in Baghdad, Iraq enhance their management skills and understanding of the global economy.  She facilitated an Appreciative Inquiry with ministry staff during which the group drafted a preposterous proposition which expressed their dream for collaborative teamwork and a democratic, flat organizational structure.  The group made serious individual and group commitments to achieving their proposition.  Randal also taught course in cross-cultural communication and protocol for ten ministries in Iraq.  She is now serving as Chief of Party on another project in Baghdad, responsible for monitoring and evaluating the US government project portfolio and conducting sector studies to support their future strategy.

Randal has been a keynote speaker at several conferences, including the first and second International Women’s Conferences held in Romania in 1998 and 1999.  She delights in inspiring her audiences to see their potential to achieve their dreams and work together on common opportunities to change their personal and social worlds.  She combines humor with serious calls to action. She is particularly interested in helping organizations change creatively through the application of appreciative approaches.   She is President and CEO of an organizational development consulting company in Reno, Nevada, “Getting to Excellence.”

Randal works with government, private sector, and non-profit organizations as well a common interest groups.  She especially enjoys working with women’s groups and organizations.   She also delivers training in international development and how to effectively work in a globalized economy and cross-cultural communication.

Randal has her BA in Philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley; her MA in Philosophy and MBA from the University of Chicago; and her MA in Biblical Exposition from Capital Bible Seminary.  She also has a Certificate in Organizational Development Consulting from Georgetown University and a Certificate in French Civilization from the Sorbonne.  She has been certified by Company of Experts as an Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator.

Hire This Expert >

Specialties:

  • Appreciative Inquiry
  • Change Management
  • Collaborative Decision-making
  • Facilitation
  • Keynote Speaker
  • Organizational Assessment and Development
  • Program/Project Development & Management
  • Program/Project Evaluation
  • Strategic Planning
  • Team Building
  • Visioning and Futuring

The Connection between Style, Productivity, & Morale: Why it is Essential to Understand and Respond to Different Styles

 

How often do you get frustrated or upset as a result of how others have delivered their message or treated you? What about the times you’ve tried to communicate your point, but just don’t seem to get through to your audience? What’s the price you’ve paid for these disconnects in communications? How has it affected relationships and collaboration? What would be the benefit if it improved?

Anyone who has ever worked with others knows people approach situations differently. At times, these differences can create fresh perspectives, balance, and innovative solutions. Understanding personal style, and acting on that knowledge, can lead to improved performance, productivity, and morale.

Unfortunately, the converse can also be true. Often the differences in style lead to misunderstanding, mistrust, and frustration. This can then lead to lowered productivity and undesirable outcomes. Consider the following short (true) example:

I was requested by a client to coach an employee who was “having issues” with a team mate. As I sat down with the employee, something immediately became obvious… he was a matter of fact, direct, results driven guy. He acted quickly in an effort to hit his goals. His team mate, on the other hand, was relatively quiet, less direct, and seemed to take the words and actions very personally.

May not seem a big issue, but in this instance, they were required to collaborate on business opportunities. The bottom line… misinterpretations of styles and lack of insight into how to work with one another drove the two apart and cost the organization a deal worth more than $1M.

While this scenario might be extreme, conflicts, difficulty communicating with others, and less than optimal working relationships, are an everyday occurrence.

Your ability to understand your own characteristics/style, as well as those around you, can help you:

1.      Identify personal tendencies

2.      Adapt for improved communications and interpersonal relationships

3.      Effectively meet the needs of yourself and others

4.      Understand and respond to information and interactions more appropriately

5.      Get things accomplished!

For many of us, it’s likely that you’ve been using information about social style on an intuitive level for many years. Formalizing that understanding is a next step to taking actions.

_________________________________________________________________________

Author: Sue Cooney

Check out Sue’s upcoming Webinar – “Foundations of Style: Behavior and the Bottom Line“ – premiering November 19, 2009 at 2PM (EST)

Professional Development in a Technological Age

Has your training budget been red-lined? Most companies, schools and non-profits are looking at their training and travel budgets and wonder what happened.

E-Learning and software available today makes it possible to deliver on-site employee training programs more cost-effective than face2face training. Company of Experts.net has the expertise to deliver, great software and outstanding content to engage employees at a time that works for employees and for organizations.

Whether you have cut back or cut out your professional development programs – you may be left wondering how do I effectively manage now?   Lack of quality professional development training can be a serious and expensive problem. One direct and immediate impact may be the high cost of turnover and the cost of recruiting and retraining new employees now replaces the fund used to train and maintain your current talent.

With curriculum designed for adult learners delivered on-line in real-time or at the employees and the organizations schedule with outstanding facilitators, the learning is timely, effective and cost-efficient.  In this new era we are all required to do more and to be more independent, communicate with people in other parts of the globe and be part of the “team”. Our programs include time management, communication, customer service, motivating employees, appreciating culture.

Can soft skills really save money?  How much time do you spend with the same employees going over the same or similar issues. Perhaps these employees are great “technically” but are their interpersonal relationships slowing down productivity? Smart companies are taking advantage of the new professional development opportunities appealing to their employees desire to increase their knowledge, skills and ability to improve their working relationships.

Company of Experts has a solid set of workshops and webinars online and we can customize your professional development program for you.