Bob Pike recently interviewed Ken Blanchard highlighting questions asked by those participating in the teleseminar as well as current projects Ken is involved in. Here are a few highlights from that interview.

When most people think of the word “COACH,” they immediately imagine someone on the sidelines screaming at their players to do a better job. That may be true in certain sports situations, but in business, a coach needs to have a completely different approach in order to help employees improve performance. Let’s have a look at the role of a manager/coach and how that integrates with employee development. Where does traditional training come in? How does training relate to coaching? And what are the differences between training, coaching and counseling?

Training must be a process rather than a stand alone event in order to create long term impact. The Bob Pike Group has taught this for years and it’s a philosophy shared by the Ken Blanchard Companies. At the 2008 BPG Training and Performance Solutions Conference, M.J. Coulson of the Ken Blanchard Companies will present a session on sustaining learning’s impact long after the training is over. “Our process ensures that we secure top management buy in, create strategic integration between training and your business issues, set the context and create relevance for the training to take hold, and spend considerable time on follow up and reinforcement in order to cement new behaviors and skills,” said a Blanchard spokesperson. “We believe that organizations must spend 10 times more energy on follow up than they do on the delivery of training. So we..."

If you are reading this in North America, chances are you’ve been buffeted by some unusually forceful weather in recent weeks and months. Early snows, flooding rains, overflowing rivers, and blizzard-blocked highways – extreme weather seems to have become the norm this winter. It seems too much at times. How much can we be expected to stand, after all? The answer to that question: As much as we are given. Bad weather, after all, is something that happens, something we have to expect. Not only are we unable to prevent it, often we can’t even get out of its way when we see it coming.

Repeated studies over the past 70 years have challenged the impact of training. When tragedy hits, training’s budget is one of the first to go! Yet, knowing that competitive advantage depends on human productivity, innovation and pursuit of excellence, there is a better way. In its 2003 State of the Industry Report, The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) revealed challenges for the performance improvement industry include controlling costs, evaluating training and understanding return on investment (ROI). The integrated model described here addresses this serious need and applies an inductively logical, visible, repeatable process to design training with the business need in mind. Over 85 percent of benchmark organizations surveyed by ASTD in its 2002 State of the Industry Report evaluate training with...

In ancient Greece, Odysseus entrusted his friend Mentor with the education of his son. Since that time, mentoring has become the art of sharing of ourselves and being open to the wisdom of others. As a trainer, it is often our charge to “impart knowledge” or new skills. But as trainers, if we are to be the guide on the side and not the sage on the stage, mentoring can play a key role in how we perceive ourselves. In the book, Mentoring: The Tao of Giving and Receiving Wisdom, Chungliang Al Huang and Jerry Lynch show us how the concept of mentoring is an essential tool in all our relationships. This is an interactive process based on the balanced give and take so that we can both teach and learn from one another. In the participant-centered classroom, this dynamic interaction is fostered and encouraged. In a lecture-based classroom, there is only one way communication. The teacher has little opportunity to learn from the participants.

Getting Manager Buy-In Managers before training have the number one responsibility for making sure training sticks; however, getting manager buy-in can be difficult. What ways have you found to effectively get managers enthusiastic about sending staff to training and becoming involved in making sure training transfers? I always have the key management personnel participate in the original "Performance Analysis." Second, I invite them to an "executive briefing" of 1 to 2 hours. In this briefing

Motivating Employees: Great Managers are Experts on Human Nature What elements in the workplace motivate employees? Jim Harter of the Gallup Organization answered this by looking at the 12 key elements of great managing. However, he said, if you don’t have the first six, the last six are pointless. Here is a crash course on becoming a great manager. The first six elements of great managing are having employees who: 1. Know what’s expected; 2. Have the materials and equipment to do the job; 3. Have the opportunity to do what they do best every day; 4. Receive recognition and praise; 5. Have someone at work that cares about them as a person; 6. Have someone at work who encourages their development. Gallup Organization, although known for its polls, focuses on business consulting. They begin some of that consulting with extensive employee surveys—to date, about ten million employee interviews were used to compile these 12 elements. Information gleaned from that data

Ever tried to help a friend with a problem they were having? Did all attempts to help turn out perfectly? Doubtful! Even when we come with the purest of intentions, many of our helping attempts seem to fail. Why? When someone signals to us she has a problem, we have a tendency to immediately try to “solve the problem.” We ask a few questions, make a diagnosis, and offer a solution. Hey, isn’t that what good friends do? The fallacy in this approach is that we, as third party helpers, may not be the best at solving another person’s problem. Counter-intuitively, the person who “owns the problem” is in the best position to solve the problem. Why? He is closest to the situation.

It seems every 12-18 months, a new term will come along. Sometimes it's something new that we ought to do. Sometimes it's something new that we ought to be. In past years we've heard things like customer service is key. It was shoved over to make room for quality. Then the two were somewhat combined into total quality management. And let's not forget reengineering or just-in-time training. Then we have terms like trainer, internal consultant and performance coach. So the question is who am I? And what should I be? I think the answer is more in the purpose than in the title. Whatever you call me, I believe my purpose is to help the organization get results. I may help the organization get those results through the design and delivery of training that closes performance gaps or provides new skills. I may help the organization through identifying systems or procedures that are inhibiting results and training isn't even an issue. I may provide coaching to someone who is having trouble..