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..

Do you have a problem so big at work that you don’t know where to start? One of those broad, messy performance problems that seems to be getting worse over time? I’ll bet you’ve even had numerous meetings to discuss the issue. And in those meetings more issues were brought to the surface, more discussions – but you never seemed to land on a solution. You are not alone! Many Problems are Complex Just as complex machines are made of simple parts, so are complex problems. Our job is to find a way to separate the pieces, analyze each one, and see which ones could be having the biggest impact on the overall problem.

Good Morning. Bob Pike here. In my 35 year's of experience there are five critical things needed to increase the impact of training: 1. Make sure that the performance problem is really a lack of knowledge or skill (otherwise training can't impact it). 2. Examine the five other avenues that can increase performance impovement without doing any training at all (systems, policies, recruitment, placement, and coaching). 3. Make sure that your training is designed using techniques (there are at least 36) that work with how your participants really learn the best (hint: lecture probably isn't one of them!).

What does art have to do with a performance gap in the organization? Well, for a recent banking client of mine in Switzerland, a great deal.

Here are seven techniques that you can use to improve and communicate quality:

Raise your right hand. Now, pat the top of your head with your hand. Now, put your hand on your right ear. Now touch your nose. Now touch your chin. Now put your hand down.