Is HR learning from their external Customer Poll ?

In large organizations Sales, Marketing, Support and R&D people constantly learn from their customers while employees in the shared functions are usually less exposed to outside customers.
In the last years especially in Human Resources it was advocated by the leading HR Gurus such as Dave Ulrich for Human Resources professionals to get more exposure to the external customers of their organizations.
In my one question poll I am asking now if you as a HR professional have ever been invited to visit your external customer.
The link to the poll question.
Thank you very much for your kind support.

Learning to Play the Game of Management

Sport is a fickle mistress – she takes you on a rollercoaster ride filled with extreme highs and deep lows that make your adrenaline levels soar and dip alternately. She makes you a superstar, an icon in the eyes of the world, a hero who induces hysteria in the masses just by stepping on to a playing field. In a grotesque twist of fate, she’s also capable of plunging you down to the depths of despair until you feel like you’re below rock bottom level. The winner emerges euphoric with the thrill of one-upmanship while the loser drags himself off the arena and lives to fight another day. The goal that catapults one man to stardom is the same act that shoves the goalie into the depths of despair.  

Sportsmen are often able to come to terms with and live peacefully with a fickle mistress; but there’s a time when sport turns a cruel mistress – when injury cuts short a promising career that’s just germinating. Like a plane that’s forced to crash land no sooner than it’s taken off, the sportsman becomes a broken shell of what he once was – forced to watch from the sidelines as people less talented than him bask in the limelight that by right ought to be his. It’s not just a passion that comes to an end, but also the money the game generates. Besides the six figure salary, sportsmen lure the lucre through special appearances, endorsements and book deals.  

But there’s a new avenue opening up to ex-jocks who are still passionate about the game – managing sports. The task of managing superstars is probably not as high-profile as being a superstar oneself, but managers like Alex Ferguson and Luiz Felipe Scolari have made themselves household names even while remaining in the background. One area where management and playing coincide is where the money is – both earn stellar amounts.  

Going back to school takes on a whole new meaning when sportsmen learn that they can pursue the subject they love – sports – and earn not just a degree but also a more than decent living. They also get to stay in touch with the game, as an integral part of it rather than as a spectator. A number of universities have woken up to the fact that there’s a huge market for sports management, which is why they’re offering degrees in the specialization – the University of Liverpool offers an MBA in Football Industries, the San Diego State University offers a marketing course aimed at helping executives in the football industry and the Kellog School of Management is offering a course in sports management, to name just a few.  

While experience and percentage of success are key factors in sports management, education can make a big difference in how tactics are used to rout the opponent. Management students tend to have an innate competitive streak that serves them in good stead once they move the sports arena as tacticians who must map winning strategies time after time. They are skilled at analyzing opponents and using data and statistics to beat them at their own game. A new era in the history of management studies has just begun, thanks to sports and the world’s passion for it.  

By-line: 

Sarah Scrafford is an industry critic, as well as a regular contributor on the subject of top online university. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com.

Edublogs.org the largerst education community on the web

I have opened a new blog Continuous Learning & Development at Edublog.org.

Fantastic place for this subject.

For the time being I will stop posting here.

Thank you.

See you in Edublogs.org.

The Key Factors For Successfull Learning – Continued 1

I have already written one post about the key factors for successfull learning. Learning is a process. And to run a process at optimum yield (speed, outcome,etc.) the best is to focus on the leveraging factors that influence the process most.  In the last post I mentioned the recreation factor to be far more influencial than focusing on the action. Sleep is probably the key recreation factor before anything else. I will write about other recreational factors in another post.

Now what is second most important for the Learning Process ? I call this the learning filter. It is most effective to filter out the noise before learning anything useless. The noise is the information you do not need to learn. Also information that you could retrieve on time when needed (Example Wikipedia). Now how do I build a filter ?
To build a filter seems to be difficult task to do especially if it is a new subject you want to learn.
So how would you know this filter is not filtering out the information you need ?

Steps to build your filter:

1. Analyse

2. Determine the main questions

3. Define your learning outcomes.

4. Build an agenda or a table of content.

1. Analyse 
For every subject there is are the so called standard book, website or experts. This is one of the first steps to take.  I will write a post in more detail soon about this step.

2. Determine the main questions
For every main topic in the book or on the website create the main question that this topic is going answering.

3. Define your learning outcomes
Identify based on the main questions what is the outcome you need.
Example: Question: How to I create a pivot table in Excel 2003 ? Your intended outcome is: Create a pivot table in Excel 2003. Now to get to this outcome there are also certain steps to take – which you would identify and list in step 4.

4. Build an agenda or table of contents
This is now actually the filter. Here you list based on your questions and outcomes what resources you need to identify and collect in order to achieve your outcome. In the above example it would mean to read a certain chapter in a book for example. Also to find an example on the internet or to ask a specific question around pivot tables in a usergroup.
But before you start running first build the agenda. Going of to usergroups to ask a question before you have an overview of the subject will only confuse you as these questions are too specific and often recieve different answers depending on the person who answered understood the question.

Tools For Managing Your Learning Online – Part 1

This is only a start of the tools that I use for Learning Online.

1. Learning Journal
Most of the most successfull people have one thing in common and that is writing a diary. A Learning Journal is the diary which you slowly fill with your thoughts, questions and findings and goals you setting yourselve or your vision.
I have listed seven good reason for a Learning Journal Blog in this post.

2. Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking sites is a good place to collect the sources of information you encounter during your continuous learning journey.
Digg is just one example. Others that are popular but require an installation process are: StumbleUpon and Delicious.

Free Collaborative Education

I will be looking at free collaborative Education and collaborative social networks in the coming weeks. There are already some projects around that are interesting to watch. I will also look at some free tools to use for your own webinars and virtual classes. For the learners I will give you an update on free learning management where you can track your learning path.

The Key Factors For Successfull Learning

We are raised to take action. We create action list, task list, strategies, To Do lists, and tons of best practices. Nowadays time and sleep are our enemies.

Learning is a journey without an end. Learning is not like constructing a house. Once finished you move in and live happily ever after. Learning needs to be continuously repeated. It is an ongoing process.

In my life and especially in my work life I have designed and implemented many processes and I worked with many systems. During this time I came to favour six sigma as a wonderful way to optimize a process. Six sigma a scientific method to optimize processes.
I do not want to write too much about Six sigma here, but I have added literature and links in my references that will provide you with more insight into the topic. The reason for me to mention six sigma here is the search for the leveraging or key factors that have the greatest influence on the result of the learning process.

Often key factors are overlooked especially if we completly focus on action and task lists. The focus is still for many on the amount of time spent on learning. The more I spent time the more I learn is the current belief. And one does not think about recreation enough. And the main factor for good recreation is sleep. Getting the right sleep is probably the most influencial factor on learning. So how can I improve sleeping is something that I will write about in another post, because I am going to sleep now….

(Also I will add my references later)

Good night.

Eight Best Practices For Your Employability

Employability is the capability to stay employed or finding a new employement.

Your Experiences, Knowledge, Skills, Behaviours and Attitudes will influence your employability.

What are the Best Practices to maintain your employability as you go through your life ?
1. Employability is a Continuous Excercise
Employability is similar to staying fit. You need to excercise continuously. Too often I see people stopping this excercise as they grow in their career or reach a certain age. Yes it is an effort and it is the same as with excercising. Every time you need to overcome your inner resistance.

2. Experience matters – Overreliance on Titles and Certificates
Continuously look for challenges inside and outside of work, during your time of job search or while you study or even when you are retired.
Experience matters most. It is a powerful statement about yourself if you can say that you did this and such thing and had this and such successful outcome or this and such lessons learned.
Example: Someone would work in R&D and in his or her spare time would start a blog. How powerful would it be if this person could say at one point that by using marketing techniques she or he was able to increase the number of readers. This will show that this person demonstrated capabilities outside of his or her domain of expertise.

3. Use the Power of Developmental Assignments – stop looking for the easy way
A lot of research has been done on development assignments. These assignments are key when increasing your employability. By planning these activities well you can broaden your experience base across functions and businesses and demonstrate capabilities that are currently not fully utilized in your current development path.
I recommend you to read the book:
McCauly, Cynthia D.: Developmental Assignments – Creating Learning Expriences without Changing Jobs, Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro, North Carolina

4. Web2.0 – don’t miss it
Get yourself an insight in Web2.0 and what it can do for your area of expertise. Example: I myself as I am in Human Resources Development monitor regularly what Web2.0 could potentially change in the domain of Employee Development.

5. Networking face to face
The older you get the more you should put away time for networking. Toastmasters is for example an ideal place for networking and you improve your leadership and presentations skills at the same time

6. Social Networking via Web
Create yourself a compelling presence in Linkedin, Xing or Facebook. Additionally use your blog to list your experiences and successes and participate in relevant user forums and discussion groups.

7. Improve Your Communication Skills
Never give up on improving your communication skills. Besides Presentation Skills (toastmasters for example) take a negotiation skills training, join a debate club or particpate in politics. Read up on Listening Skills, writing skills or anything else you find on communication skills in the web. Communication is the same as learning a language. You need to practice continuously. If you do not practice your skill level same like with languages will eventually decrease over time.

8. Business Skills 
Any organisation profit or non-profit is a complex system with many processes in place.
The more you have an overview of an organisation the more your learn about organisations the more easier you can navigate your development path.
I recommend you to read the book to get you a good up to date overview:
Navarro, Peter: What the Best MBAs Know, McGraw-Hill, 2005 or visit
www.peternavarro.com

Seven Great Benefits To Start Your Learning Journal Blog

1. Effective Tool For Self-Reflection
Your Learnign Journal is an effective to tool to support your self-reflection as you go through your learning process. Writing down your thoughts, ideas and open questions about your study topic is an effective way of self-reflection.

2. Good way to explore new aquired knowledge
By formalizing your learning experience you encourage yourself to explore the new aquired knowledge.

3. Powerful Engagement
Your learning journal is an opportunity to engage others in your learning process.
Your teacher, mentor, coach or peers can engage in your learning and find out about your level of understanding of the topic.

4. Contionuous Feedback
Readers of your journal can give you feedback at anytime from anywhere. Readers can point you to new sources, ideas or thoughts. They could also challenge your self-reflection

5. Collaboration
Sharing your learning experience can help you to connect to others on the same learning journey. Collaboration with others can be also a powerful motivational tool to stay focused on your learning path.

6. Building Selfesteem
Self-reflection is a good way to build your self-esteem. Receiving feedback and accepting it is most vital for any team or community you are going to work in or with. Also by giving feedback to other learning journals in a way that will be appreciated by the receiver you build necessary skills to motiviate, influence and guide others.

7. Construct your knowledge by organizing your collected content
With Your Learning Journal you can collect and structure your learning as you go.
It is a good place to store helpful resources and structure them according to your need. Everything about your learning topic is in one place and organized for you in the way you would categorize this topic. This way you continuously construct your knowledge and fill the blank areas as you go.

Reference:
Cole, Jason: Using Moodle,O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2005

Continuous Learning & Development

 I am continuing this blog at edublogs with many new interesting posts since my move !

How often have you heard the two words continuous learning in the last years ?

These two words are becoming louder and louder every day for a simple reason:
The way we live and work is changing rapidly. Is it good or is it bad ? This is a question each of us has to answer oneself.

But what I will list here are tips, tricks, tools, techniques and processes that will enhance your continous learning capabilities.

I have spent most of my professional life around continous learning and development.
The last 20 years I have looked at it from different angles. Now it is time to start filling this blog with my research, experiences and lessons learned.

More will follow soon.