by Zoe Training staff

Take a background in engineering and higher education, combine with expertise in ethical decision making, statistical design and analysis, survey design, process management, strategic planning, policy deployment, and business performance excellence, add a touch of humor and irreverence…the result? Steve Ouellette, the Six Sigma Heretic^™, who helps facilitate fundamental change within organizations to help them greatly improve their profitability.

What’s your favorite topic(s) to present on? Why?

Applied research tools (like Six Sigma), because I love to see “unsolvable” problems get solved (and because I love it when people say that they finally “get” statistics). Strategic planning and policy deployment, because it is great to show people a logical way to successfully deploy a plan.

Three words to describe your presentation style:

Vibrant, funny, interactive.

What are your favorite groups of people to work with?

I like working with different groups for different reasons. Upper-level management because they can initiate fundamental improvements in a business, middle-management because they are the ones who support that change, and front-line supervisors and hourly workers, who are the ones who actually make change for the better happen.

What’s the most unusual location (or circumstances) you’ve presented in?

I taught a couple of classes at Eglin Air Force Base to the Energetic Materials Division (energetic materials are explosives). Every day I got to drive onto the base and across the landing strip with F-16s doing touch-and-go landings, which was tons of fun. Though we did have to pause during class as they screamed by on full afterburner…

Are you involved in any community projects/issues?

I am working with local public schools to improve their strategic planning as well as to understand their school performance data and use that to drive improvements.

Do you have any pets? Kids? Unusual hobbies?

We have two girls, a Siamese cat, and a Shiba Inu puppy. After my undergrad engineering degree, I was a Thomas J. Watson Fellow during which I spent a year living in Europe studying, “The Evolution, Fabrication, and Impact of the European Sword.”

by Ashley Andrus

If Starbucks had a Most Valued Customer club I would have it made in the shade.  Those 600 locations they are closing?  Not my fault. Between my 6am get-‘er-done dose, various meetings, and insane afternoons that scream “get me a mocha STAT!” I estimate that I make an average of 2.3 daily visits to some Starbucks somewhere.

This has been my routine for the last 3.5 years. In that period I calculate I’ve consumed somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,259 ounces* of coffee.

That’s 275 gallons of coffee.

1100 quarts.

Heck, if coffee came in beer kegs, I would have consumed almost 18 of them. By myself.

And I did it all one “tall” serving at a time.

The point? The little things add up. In the same way continuous small doses of material goods accumulate, the same goes for people development. Training—effective training, that is—is not a one-time “hit and run” thing.

This isn’t a newsflash, or at least it shouldn’t be.  When you show up for the first day of Little League practice, you aren’t playing at the Major League level.  You probably can’t even stop that slow rolling grounder from getting through your legs.  When you sit down at a piano for the first time, you don’t play like Liberace. You can’t even manage chopsticks. Building skills takes practice. We know this. So why don’t we more often apply it at work?

Effective people development programs aren’t merely about workshops, webinars, and e-learning courses. Those are necessary, but not sufficient.  True continuous skills development requires ongoing opportunities to learn.

There are a wide range of effective ways organizations can offer bite-sized pieces of information to complement formal content delivery:

• As Gina Schreck of Synapse 3Di explains, “when utilized properly, entertaining podcasts, informative videos, internal discussion boards, social media tools, employee business book clubs and relevant and timely articles can give your brain a Triple Venti Espresso of energy with new ideas and action items to implement.”
• Todd Hudson of the Maverick Institute says “Training needs to learn from manufacturing and ‘Go Lean’. Let people pull the information they need exactly when they need it.”  Whether it’s using face-to-face methods like peer mentoring or digital ones like wikis, organizations are retooling to eliminate waste and make every training dollar deliver measurable business results.
• Tara Powers of Powers Developmental Resources describes the efficacy of true blended learning solutions.  “Instead of stand-alone workshops, employees might participate in a pre-program survey, an e-learning module or online assessment and an instructor-led component, followed by facilitated action planning and regular accountability checkpoints to one’s manager.”

I’m sure there are some people out there who disagree. These are the same people who say “taking the stairs at work won’t make you healthier or lose weight. The only way to make a difference is to commit whole hog and start training for a marathon.” Well, marathon training works for some folks. But for a lot of people, that’s an overwhelming goal. And not everyone has either the time or the inclination to run multiple miles per day, week in, week out.

But a sprint isn’t the answer, either. Remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare?  Slow and steady wins the race. You can’t drink 275 gallons of coffee in one sitting.  And you wouldn’t want to even if you could. It’s better to savor the journey—12 ounces at a time.

* 12 oz/visit x 2.3 visits/day x 365 days/year x 3.5 years

Ashley Andrus is President of Zoe Training & Consulting. Besides coffee, her passion is making HR folks and meeting planners look like *rock stars* by providing one-stop access to 90+ speakers, trainers, facilitators, coaches, and consultants.

by Ashley Andrus and Linda Anderson

Think again…you can’t afford NOT to invest in your leaders during this turbulent time.

The very real pressures of an economic downturn and the tightening of learning budgets doesn’t mean professional development needs to go away. Not surprisingly, there is an increased need for leadership development as organizations face uncertain conditions and find they need the essential skills that are vital during reorganization and periods of adjustment.

Because many organizations are facing unavoidable restructuring due to reduced resources, according to a survey recently completed by the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) and the Institute for Corporate Productivity (results overview here), 54% of organizational leaders expect a greater emphasis on leadership development and 37% anticipate an increase in soft skills development. The survey also noted that during prior slow economic periods, over a quarter of organizations—the forward-thinking ones—resisted the urge to reduce their training budgets.

Saying there’s still a need for learning and employee development does not mean there’s no room for change, of course. In the ASTD/ICP survey, for example, 35% expect an increased emphasis on e-learning solutions this year. A recent article by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) outlined tips for prioritizing and “training on a budget” (link here). Brandon Hall’s Top 5 Training Trends for 2009 (article here) reflects both the economic conditions and the continued presence of technology in employee development initiatives: mobile learning, Do-It-Yourself options, flexible curricula, virtual environments, and game-based programming are all hot this year.

These current optimistic developments with emphasis on continued professional growth in the workplace show that companies are working hard to find new creative ways to accomplish current or future learning objectives with limited resources, simply because past results prove the effort is worth the investment. Rather than throw in the towel, shift your priorities towards more effective applied learning solutions. The result will be a strong organization that doesn’t have to waste time “bouncing back” when economic conditions improve.

Ashley Andrus is President of Zoe Training & Consulting. Linda Anderson has served with Zoe Training in various roles over the past 14 years, and is currently webmaster and web content developer.