Elearning blog: Learning re-imagined

Book Review: Building the Learning Organization: Achieving Strategic Advantage through a Commitment to Learning, Third Edition

By Pam Boiros

It’s no secret that over the past decade economic, social and technological forces have intensified significantly, dramatically altering the traditional work environment. External change and forces demand either organizational adaptation or extinction. 

Now in its third edition, Building the Learning Organization is a recognized classic in the field.  In the years since it has been published, hundreds of organizations worldwide have learned about and applied the learning organizational model and strategies in the book.   

Author Michael J. Marquardt is professor of Human Resource Development and International Affairs as well as Program Director of Overseas Programs at George Washington University.  Dr. Marquardt also serves as President of the World Institute for Action Learning and is the author of 20 books.  In this new edition of Building the Learning Organization, Marquandt makes a bold assertion:

“As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, organizations must learn even faster and adapt more seamlessly to changes in the environment or they simply will not survive...  I predict that within the next ten years, only learning organizations will be left. Companies that do not become learning organizations will soon go the way of the dinosaur; they will die out because they were unable to adjust to the changing environment.”

With case studies from several global corporations, and a review of the key organizational and leadership theories, this book is designed to help learning leaders at all levels understand how to leverage existing resources and build successful learning organizations.  Applied effectively, these techniques can result in an organizational culture of learning, and a highly skilled and competitive workforce that helps your organization grow and achieve success.

Throw Back Thursday: performance reviews

We receive so much valuable content from our customers, partners and internal subject-matter experts. On Thursdays, we thought it would be fun to do a “throw back” and bring back an older post that was valuable to our audience. Today’s throw back is on mobile resources that support performance reviews.

Mobile Learning Support for Performance Reviews

By Ann Gebreselassie, Learning Consultant, Skillsoft

As the end of the year approaches, you may be deep in the performance review process. Skillsoft offers many tools and resources to assist your organization during the performance management cycle, as several of my colleagues have recently written about on this blog. Skillsoft also offers mobile learning solutions to help support managers as they prepare to conduct performance reviews.

As technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, has your life-long-learning strategy kept pace?  Certainly there is still value in face-to-face learning interactions.  Both formal, as in a classroom setting, or informal as in mentoring, traditional methods of learning are not going to disappear.  With the globalization of business, and the advanced technologies that support it, the need for quick and agile learning opportunities has risen as a priority.  In particular, the more senior your role within an organization, the more necessary it becomes for your learning and development to gel with hectic schedules.

Here are some examples of ways that Skillsoft supports continuous learning on-the-go for leaders at every level of an organization, including solutions to help managers prepare for performance reviews:

• Skillsoft® Books24x7® ExecSummaries™: These 8-page summaries provide a synopsis of some of the top business books.  Written by the authors themselves, ExecSummaries are perfect for a quick read on a tablet.  Some of my personal favorites include: The Truth About Leadership, Multipliers, and Win: The Key Principles to Take Your Business from Ordinary to Extraordinary.

Books24x7 Book Review: The Trainer's Handbook of Leadership Development: Tools, Techniques & Activities

By Pam Boiros

The need for effective leaders has never been greater. Evidence suggests we are experiencing a leadership deficit throughout our society— in corporations, governments, and communities. If fact, it’s a topic we discuss frequently on this blog.  It sure seems like more attention is being paid to leadership development, and developing leaders from within organizations, than ever before. 

The book presents a practical, easy-to-use leadership development toolkit that is readily adaptable for both group and individual situations.  The activity-based focus is designed to provide those responsible for training leaders with a variety of tools and techniques for developing leadership competencies and characteristics. In addition to covering core management skills, specific leadership characteristics and traits, such as empathy, agility, authenticity, and resilience are also addressed. 

Books24x7 Book Review: The Global You: Ten Strategies To Operate As An International Business Player

By Pam Boiros

In today’s global marketplace and business environment, professionals at all levels need to possess global business acumen.   Whether your’re a member of a virtual team that crosses time zones or working with customers or partners in other countries, the “flat world” is driving an increased need for multicultural awareness.

The Global You: Ten Strategies To Operate As An International Business Player by Susan Bloch and Philip Whiteley (Publisher: Marshall Cavendish © 2011) is both informative and accessible for anyone whose work involves international exposure. 

The book covers 10 specific strategies, based on extensive research undertaken by the authors of successful global players, designed to help anyone cope with cultural challenges and the practical implications of operating beyond familiar environments.  Topics including “thinking globally” to learning to work in a multicultural context, building your personal network to include international contacts, and updating communications skills are all covered in detail and with practical actionable steps. 

What do you think?  Read this book and let us know.  BusinessPro subscribers can access this book on Books24x7

Books24x7 Book Review: Marketing by the Numbers: How to Measure and Improve the ROI of any Campaign

By Pam Boiros

Marketing budgets at most companies are stretched tight and under more scrutiny than ever before. Marketing leaders need to justify every expenditure and ensure that marketing budgets are spent in ways that get results. Traditional media outlets are in transition, and online and social channels present new and interesting measurement opportunities. Marketing by the Numbers by Leland Harden and Bob Heyman (Publisher: AMACOM © 2011) shows readers how to implement, evaluate, and utilize key analytics to maximize marketing ROI.  Explaining best practices and the most useful dashboards and tools, the book equips readers with proven methods to:

• Predict, monitor, and measure the success of campaigns based in both traditional and Internet media
• Align business and marketing goals
• Concentrate on the right metrics rather than drowning in a sea of data
• Turn data into actionable recommendations

Providing case studies, techniques, and checklists, the authors pay special attention to the new generation of web tools, and reveal how any business can effectively use the data available to them in order to take advantage of every marketing opportunity.

What do you think?  Read this book and let us know.  BusinessPro subscribers can access this book on Books24x7

Books24x7 Book Review: Provoke: Why the Global Culture of Disruption Is the Only Hope for Innovation

By Pam Boiros

In the novel Provoke, entrepreneur and “innovation provocateur” Linda Bernardi takes a frank and straight-forward approach to business and innovation in order to reveal some startling truths: 

• All organizations, no matter how seemingly enlightened, react to the idea of disruption with rage, fear, denial and rejection, and
• Access to big money and the drive to build start-ups for the purpose of being acquired is destroying innovation.

Most importantly, in Provoke Linda asserts that only by creating a collaborative, global “culture of disruption,” in which provocative questions and creative destruction are nurtured and encouraged at all levels of the chain of command, can organizations maintain the innovative fire that ultimately leads to excellence.  In other words, if you want to be successful, get ready to be uncomfortable.

Books24x7 Book Review: Boost Your Memory: 52 Brilliant Ideas You Won't Forget

By Pam Boiros, Vice President of Product Management, Books24x7

Do you struggle to remember items on your “to do” list if they are not written down? Or have a hard time putting names to faces?  From time to time most people experience memory challenges that can be mildly annoying or worse.  Given our busy modern lifestyles – with phone numbers, passwords, PIN codes, social and professional contacts -- everyone needs to remember more information than ever before.  Are there ways to improve this critical skill?

Boost Your Memory: 52 Brilliant Ideas You Won't Forget by Darren Bridger (Publisher: Infinite Ideas) seeks to do just that with dozens of small actions, tips, and hints for improving your memory, including:

• One great way to remember names is the N.A.M.E. device (Notice, Act, Mention, Envisage).
• Nineteenth-century British author Lewis Carroll (of Alice in Wonderland fame) had a unique method of using letters to represent numbers, in order to create memorable words.
• While it’s widely known that smells evoke memories, learn how you can use that to your advantage.
• At the time we learn or remember something, information is also stored about the time, place and emotional state. This additional data can help with memory triggers. 

What do you think?  Read this book and let us know.  BusinessPro subscribers can access this book on Books24x7. 

“Driving” Lessons from Dan Pink

By Julie Ogilvie

Having just read the latest Dan Pink best-seller, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, I’m really looking forward to our upcoming SkillSoft Live Event, “The Science of Motivation and Its Connection to High Performance” featuring Dan Pink.  Drive is one of the most compelling books on management that I have read in some time, and it has me ruminating on management, motherhood and learning: 

On management:  I enjoyed reading a book that scientifically validates the intuitive belief I’ve had for many years that managing creative people is less about setting rules and dictating process and more about allowing them the autonomy to do their best work.  Obviously there are limits on workplace behavior, and deadlines are a fact of life, but giving creative people the space and time to think through problems and work out their own solutions almost always results in a better outcome in the short run, and more satisfied, engaged employees in the long run.  This may not hold true for all kinds of jobs, (as Pink points out), but in the world of marketing, many people do feel deeply motivated by the work itself, whether that’s creating a well-crafted piece of prose, a dynamic Flash movie or a Facebook update.

 

Books24x7 Book Review: Summer Reading

By Pam Boiros, Vice President of Product Management, Books 24x7

As the weather warms up and we get into the long, hot days of summer, many of us turn our attentions to vacations, cookouts, and beach days.  A favorite vacation and beach activity is catching up on accumulated reading – whether attacking that stack of magazines that has piled up, or digging into the latest novel.  While business titles may not come immediately to mind, the wisdom contained in these types of books may be just the thing to recharge, refresh, and reflect on work and career goals during the summer months.   And if you can speed through a few books in a short period of time, isn’t that all the better?

Our ExecSummaries™ business book summaries do just the trick.  Short, eight-page summaries of the leading business books – both new titles and perennial classics – are a great way to tap into an author’s actionable points while retaining the original book’s style and tone. 

Five of my all-time favorite ExecSummaries include:

1)  Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.  This one is not even considered a business book by some, but more of a psychology or “self-help” title.  Gladwell basically presents that great decision makers aren’t those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who trust their “gut instincts” which are borne out of accumulated experience. 

2)  Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler.  Published in 2002, this book is already approaching the status of a “business classic.”  We all face tricky crucial conversations at various times in our lives and careers; the authors present techniques that help to ensure positive outcomes.

3)  What’s Holding You Back? 10 Bold Steps That Define Gutsy Leaders by Robert J. Herbold.  This new 2011 title offers some fresh insights and practical approaches to leadership.  For example, Principle IX: Value Ideas from Anywhere.  I like the tangible suggestions that can be put into immediate action for each of the ten Principles. 

4) Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently by John Maxwell.  I wrote a blog post earlier this year about this book, and the book summary does not disappoint.  It covers the Five Connecting Principles and the Five Connecting Practices of top-notch achievers.

5) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons for Personal Change by Steven R. Covey.  Originally published in the 1980’s, this work is as relevant today as it was when it was published.  The summary outlines each of the seven habits, and any reader can immediately identify opportunities to apply them. 

Best of all, ExecSummaries are available in a multitude of downloadable formats, so you can read them on your Kindle or iPad, print them out, or load the audio version onto any listening device.  Each summary generally takes about 20 minutes to read or listen to, so after reading one I feel virtuous about sharpening my business knowledge, and still have time to tuck into that juicy fiction selection I have waiting in my beach bag.    

If you’re not a subscriber yet, you can check out Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High here.

What are some of your favorite ExecSummaries?  What else do you have on your summer reading list?  Join the conversation online and let us know.  ExecSummaries subscribers can access these selections (and hundreds more) through Books24x7, our digital books offering.

Happy Summer!

 

Books24x7 Book Review: Unwrap the Future of Learning

By Julie Ogilvie

Nick Van Dam has long been one of the most forward-thinking and enthusiastic proponents of technology-enabled learning. As the CLO for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, he’s had the opportunity to see hundreds if not thousands of corporate learning programs in action, and he’s worked directly with corporate executives to understand exactly what it is they are looking for. 

This vast knowledge of what works comes together with his passion for learning in a fact-filled compendium called Next Learning Unwrapped:  Leading Learning Practices and 37 Case Studies.  As the name suggests, it starts with an analysis of what makes learning effective in a business context, and from there the majority of the book’s 370+ pages are filled with case studies illustrating how a wide variety of organizations are solving today’s most pressing learning problems. 

This book is a fantastic resource for learning professionals at all stages in their careers and it’s the kind of thing that would be great to have on the shelf in your office just to pull down and flip through when you’re stuck for an idea or wondering what to do next.  Simply peruse the table of contents and you’re bound to find an area that you want to know more about: social learning, performance support, wikis and blogs, gaming and simulations are just a few of the topics.

As the list suggests, leading edge learning approaches are the primary focus, and this is not by accident.  Van Dam’s view is that 90 percent of workplace learning is informal, and one of the useful parts of the book is his Next Learning framework that explains how various forms of social and informal learning can be woven together to support corporate objectives.  There’s also an introduction from Elliot Masie to kick things off.

But the real value for most people will be the detailed case studies that describe exactly what the program was, how it was designed, the key business drivers, the outcomes and the lessons learned.  How many times have you wanted to be able to pick up the phone and call someone at another company and ask “how did you do it?”  With Next Learning Unwrapped, you have the next best thing.

All proceeds from the book are being donated to the e-Learning for Kids Foundation, a global non-profit that Van Dam created in 2004 to help provide free online learning for kids anywhere in the world.  This is putting the Internet to work in a truly wonderful way that everyone in the learning industry can take pride in – so be sure to visit www.e-learningforkids.org and support this great work!