Learning Executive Blog

Understanding Someone Else’s Point of View

In a recent HBR blog post, “How to Really Understand Someone Else’s Point of View,” authors Mark Goulston and John Ullmen contend that influential people “strive for genuine buy in and commitment — they don't rely on compliance techniques that only secure short-term persuasion.” Here's some advice on how to influence those around you.

Come On, Get Happy

Today is the First International Day of Happiness. What does this mean for businesses? How can executives help create happier organizations?

Developing Self-Aware Leaders, a Free Webcast by Dan Gallagher

Dan Gallagher, manager of Comcast’s high-potential leadership program and author of the ASTD book, The Self-Aware Leader, will lead a free interactive webinar on how to incorporate instructional design strategies that foster self-awareness in leaders.

This or That? How Decisions Are Really Made

Humans can be overconfident, emotional, and irrational even when making important decisions. This is the premise of two new books on decision making. The first, Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed and How We Can Stick to the Plan, by Harvard professor and psychologist Francesca Gino, explains why we often end up doing the opposite of what we intend when we make decisions. Gino cites insidious social bonds, overly narrow focus, and irrelevant information as some factors that cloud our decisions.

Boo-Hoo at Yahoo: No More Working From Home

Bucking a popular trend as well as evidence that working from home increases employees’ productivity, Yahoo is eliminating its work-from-home option. Citing a need for more interaction and communication among employees, Director of HR, Jackie Reses, said in a statement “Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home.”

Get Rich or Get Smart?

College dropouts who have made millions as entrepreneurs – Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and others – have inspired a growing number of young people to skip college. “Why pay money when I can make money,” is the way kids define the choice to forego school to pursue a business idea. One of them, Dale Stephens, dropped out of Hendrix College in Arkansas and founded UnCollege, a “social movement designed to help you hack your education,” according to the group’s website.

Peer View; Karen May

Attention Management and the Brain: Yogis and Magicians Have Something to Teach Us

Since research in the 1970s by psychologist Ellen Langer, mindfulness, or concentration, has been credited with improving measures of cognitive function. In 2011, researchers from the University of Wisconsin demonstrated that daily meditation could shift frontal brain activity toward states that make us more likely to engage the world. In other words, focused thought changes our feelings at a neural level.

Solutions to the Skills Gap

Thomas Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, has a few things to say about the skills gap – the persistent lack of qualified people to fill some of the three million jobs open in the U.S. “We’re in the midst of a perfect storm: a Great Recession that has caused a sharp increase in unemployment, and a Great Inflection –

Big Data: Should You Trust an Algorithm?

In “Big Data: The Management Revolution” by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson in the Harvard Business Review, the authors argue that big data is far more powerful than the analytics of the past. Executives can measure and therefore manage more precisely than ever before. They can make better predictions and smarter decisions. They can target more effective interventions in areas that so far have been dominated by gut and intuition rather than by data and rigor.

Chinese Bureaucracy Lit a Big Hit

NPR’s Louisa Lim turned to authors of China’s popular “bureaucracy lit” to glean these five lessons for aspiring civil servants in China.

"Appy" New Year

Simplifying is a resolution for many of us going into 2013. Innovation firm futurethink rounded up 10 “simplicity” apps to help you make it a reality. Each one is designed to declutter and free up space in everyday life.

Five Keys to Communicating So the C-Suite Listens

Talking to members of the C-suite and senior management can be stressful, but it can be the difference between a successful career and a go-nowhere job. When face time is limited, how do you make the most of these conversations? A new whitepaper, “Executive Conversations: Five Keys to Communicating So the C-Suite Listens,” from ESI International offers some winning strategies to make those executive conversations a success.

Best Leadership Books

ASTD Staff share their choices for the best leadership books

ASTD Launches Workforce Development Community of Practice

ASTD has launched its tenth community of practice - Workforce Development - for managers who are involved in developing and engaging employees. Accessible on ASTD's website, the community will feature articles, tools, webinars, and other forms of content covering workforce development skills and issues.

Human Capital Management Predicts Stock Prices

For more than ten years, investment advisers Laurie Bassi and Dan McMurrer have created portfolios that outperform the S&P 500. Their secret? Their portfolios consist of organizations that have superior human capital management practices. Laurie and Dan believe - and can demonstrate - that organizations only create value through their people.

Adaptivity is a Must

Serial mastery is replacing the course and the degree, especially when learning about social media.

Leading Through Connections

CEOs seek more openness and connections, IBM study finds, suggesting new skills needed by leaders and employees.

Women's Job Progress

Men’s participation in the U.S. labor force reached an all-time low in September. Women, meanwhile, are gaining in earning power, and dominate 12 out of the 15 fastest-growing professions. Hanna Rosin, author of The End of Men, reveals more about this notable shift in workforce demographics.

Would You Like Some Nutrition Information with That?

As McDonald's adds calorie counts to its menus, it is preparing 750,000 frontline employees to answer customers’ questions. Food & You, an e-learning program for crew members covering nutrition, calories, and the company’s menu, will soon be available to employees in McDonald's 14,000 U.S. restaurants. This is a large-scale example of how learning can support a company's strategic goals.

MOOC Alert

Massive open online courses, or mechanical MOOCs, are predicted to move the needle on online learning in higher education. These free courses that grab content, instant-feedback exercises, quizzes, and more from the open Web, don't use traditional instructors or designers. And they serve thousands of students at once.

If your company is in a muddle about how best to leverage new learning technology, you might want to look for lessons in MOOCs. This is an instance where your head should be in the cloud.

Retention Coaching

According to the Conference Board, an incredible 55 percent of employed Americans in 2012 are dissatisfied with their jobs. In a poor job market, this statistic may not matter as much, but things are about to change.

The labor shortage predicted to hit in 2010 was just delayed, not prevented by the recession. With the Baby Boomers exiting the traditional workforce in droves, organizations need to shift focus rapidly to retain top talent. Retention coaching can help keep high potential talent.

Global Talent 2021

The study, by Oxford Economics, Towers Watson, and others, surveyed 352 human resource executives about how rapid globalization and the transformation of business models in virtually every industry will affect workforce needs in the future. The report spells out the implications for senior business executives and their HR leaders.

Army Rolls Out New Virtual Combat Training

Clueless Part 2: How to Effectively Form and Sustain New Habits

In Clueless Part 1, we introduced the Three E Model (Enlighten, Encourage, and Enable) as a way to facilitate the process of successful behavioral change. Let’s explore some of the challenges and methods for forming new habits, which are specifically highlighted within the Enable section of the model.

Fed Funds to Train Jobless Dwindle: Skills Gap Grows

Cuts in funding to train displaced workers may be adding to the nation's skills gap.

B Schools Turn to Learning by Doing

Launching a business is the latest requirement for B school students and other wanna-be entrepreneurs.

Amazon's Career Choice Gets Mixed Reviews

When a company as prominent as Amazon begins offering tuition assistance to warehouse employees, it makes news but it has also raised questions about Amazon’s motives and proved again that no good deed goes unexamined in the interconnected digital world.

The Social Side of Strategy

A McKinsey report shows that over the past few years a growing number of organizations have been opening up strategic planning to groups that previously had been frozen out of direction setting.

Flexwork: Can Yahoo's New CEO and Executives Like Her Have It All?

Clueless Part 1: Three Necessary Conditions for Initiating and Sustaining Successful Behavior Change

Every day, coaches and trainers are attempting to help talent to leverage their signature strengths and start, stop, and change behaviors that are part of our unconscious competence. A new book, Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get it introduces a powerful new three-step, individual change behavior model along with structured exercises to facilitate successful behavior change.

Corporate Executive Board Buys Assessment Supplier SHL

The Corporate Executive Board Company (CEB), a leading member-based advisory company,recently announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SHL, a global leader in cloud-based talent measurement and management solutions, from funds managed by HgCapital and Veronis Suhler Stevenson ("VSS") for $660 million in cash, subject to customary pre- and post-closing adjustments.

Things That Change Our Minds, Literally

Speaking more than one language, having dyslexia, and using search engines can all make subtle changes in our brains - some better than others. Some cognitive habits help us learn, remember, and behave differently.

Zen for Stressed-Out Achievers

Achievers, whose very success may be increasing their stress, turn to Zen for help.

The Collective CLO

In a flexible, global, networked organization, when leaders are on call 24/7, doesn't it make sense to have more than one person in the role of CLO?

New Report on Talent Management Systems Market Consolidation

An in-depth Insights Report, from learning and talent analysts Elearnity, analyzes the immediate aftermath of acquisitions in the Talent Systems Market. It explores the underlying trends and drivers behind the acquisitions, the broader effects that consolidation is likely to have on the talent management market, and the impact on corporate customers and their HR systems strategy.

May 2012 LX Briefing is Live

The CLO as Sirdar

The job of the CLO is helping the organization and each person in it to understand where they want to go and how to get there as quickly and safely as possible. That's also the role of a sirdar or head Sherpa on a mountain trek. Find out what these two roles have in common.

The Good Company Assessment

Research shows that several factors help make organizations better and more profitable places to work. Bassi offers tips for learning to navigate the current economic landscape as a Good Company.

Leadership Formulae. Think Again!

Publishers flood the market with books and articles promising leadership success in a few easy steps. Odd numbers of steps sell better, they say, and besides, people don't have time to read and reflect at length. But we know that good leadership just isn't that simple.

Bricks, Mortar, and the Performance System. Think Again!

Success in designing a performance system is all about perspective.

Giving Back to the Profession with LINGOs

Many training professionals seek ways to give back to the field. Eric Berg, a retired software and training company executive, co-founded Learning in Non-Governmental Organizations (LINGOs) to provide learning to the employees of NGOs around the world. Donations by training companies and individuals make it all possible. To find out more, connect with Eric at the ASTD International Conference and Exposition, May 6 to 9 in Denver, CO. Look for him at the ASTD Connection Center.

How to Tap the Wisdom of Your Workforce

The wisdom within your workforce can be a source of competitive advantage if you know how to tap into it. Four steps will get you there.

Debunking Employee Engagement Myths

By focusing – some might say obsessing – on employee engagement, HR professionals (and the CEOs who have bought this perspective hook, line, and sinker) miss the opportunity to truly align people and profits. Three myths about engagement may be steering organizations in the wrong direction.

How to Create Actionable Business Intelligence on the "People Side of Your Business"

A growing body of evidence points to the centrality of human capital management in driving superior business results. And although most CEOs “get it” and regularly repeat the mantra that “people are our most important asset,” many HR departments find themselves unable to play a significant part in translating these words into reality.

The CLO as Experimentor

In this second of four blog posts about the attributes of the CLO of the future, John Cone examines the role of the CLO as an experimentor. This person is always thinking of multiple alternatives and assumes nothing has value until after it has worked.

The CLO as Synthesist

The great CLOs of the future are synthesists. John Cone defines a learning synthesist as someone who can see and act on broad patterns of learning opportunity and learning achievement.

Three Things You Must Get Right to Be a Good Employer

Good employers get the people side of the business just right. Where is the sweet spot between enlightened and profitable management of people?

The Three Good Company Pillars

There is hard evidence that companies that are good to their employees, their customers, and their communities and the environment substantially outperform less worthy competitors. Here's the essence of those three pillars of good companies.

It Pays to be Good

This new era results from a convergence of forces, ranging from the explosion of online information-sharing to the emergence of the ethical consumer and the arrival of civic-minded Millennials. Across the globe, people are choosing the companies in their lives in the same way they choose the guests they invite into their homes. They are demanding that companies be “good company.”