Quest for Excellence: KC See’s Blog

I picked up a copy of Newsweek (Sept 17th issue) at the airport and as usual spend the time on the plane from Singapore to Malaysia reading …..and up pops this LOVELY article written by Mike Douglas. Yes Mike Douglas a.k.a Mr. Gordon Gecko from “Wall Street”
I think every father should read this.

Go to http://www.newsweek.com/id/40725

In this article, he talks about his challenges in balancing work and family in his early years. How in his first marriage, his work is his priority and hence missed out on the growing up of his children. His second marriage to Catherine Zeta Jones,25 years his junior gave him a second chance. At 65 he has two young kids ; a 4-year old daugther and a 7-year old son!
THe BIG change for him now is as he said ” My life is centered around my family’s schedule.”
WOW……that’s coming from a million dollar celebrity.
What is most interesting is the advise that his father, the equally well known Kirk Douglas gave him. Mike Douglas wrote; “He pointed toward Catherine and said, “When it’s all over, all you really have is your wife. You can dote on your kids all you want, but they’re going to grow up and leave you someday. Then it will be just the two of you.”

Food for thoughts.

Beijing in October is a lovely place in so far as the weather is concerned.Not the traffic.Not the pollution.
CPT* grad Kevin from Singapore dropped by at the hotel and took me and our Country manager Joelynne out for dinner. We had hotpot ….the thing to do in the nice cold weather. The joke is Kevin could not find time to buy me dinner in Singapore or in Malaysia and we both have to be out of our respective countries in order to make it happen.
I was sharing with him about our program with a French Company which a big operation in China. We were running a ROI on Training program here with 20 training managers and execs. from this company. One of the topics that was discussed at the session was on how to build a learning culture in a typical Multi-national Company with Asian employees.
My observation which is confirmed by a recent survey done by a wellknown HR consulting company; is that employees in China more than any other countries value learning opportunities as a priority in choosing their place of employment.
However I hasten to point out that does not mean that it is easier to inculcate a learning culture in China. I believe this desire for learning is more self serving rather than directed towards organizational improvements.
I made five suggestions to the training faculty of this company on what they need to do to get a learning culture going;

1) Teach managers how to get business results from training
2) Get HR and training people to understand the business more and speak their language,thereby directing training to be more results oriented rather than activity oriented.
3) Align individual learning to organizational learning
4) Set systems to transfer learning in the classroom to actual practice in the work place.
5) Get every manager and supervisors to be coaches or mentors.

If any organization can get this done ; the journey towards organizational excellence would be a lot smoother.

And as I have always qouted Aries De Geus, Former Planning Co-ordinator, Royal Dutch Shell;
“The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage”

* CPT- Certified Professional Trainer

Companies are spending money on training, but on haphazard and poorly planned training activities with little results to show in terms of enhancing the quality of the workforce and their performance. However, management cannot be totally blamed for this.

We attributes this gap to the people who understands training, people such as training managers, trainers and training consultants, for failing to sufficiently and professionally communicate, advice, guide, sell or inform the management.

Management generally wants to get clear and straightforward answers to one question before they agree to invest in training – “How do we get business results from training?”

The emphasis is on business results, and not on just having done “20 programmes this year,” as one training manager responded to a question on his achievements for the year. Results – not activities.

Business results occur when skills taught during a training activity are applied on the job, thereby improving job performance. Here are some tips from KC to ensure that the organization gets business results form its training investment:

1. Training activities must be linked to business needs and not just to the latest and hottest seminar in town.

Training must originate from business needs – for instance, a bank’s need to increase revenue by getting the tellers to cross-sell more-and not from simply responding to intermittent training requests without sufficient analysis to determine the reason for that request.

For example, a request like “Can you send the telephone operator for a telephone techniques course?” is not a need but suggested solution. The real business need could be to reduce customer complaints about having to wait a long time for calls to be picked up. If that operator has to answer 2,500 calls a day, the problem is not necessary a lack of telephone techniques – it could be a situation of work overload and training alone might not help.

2. Training must be performance based. Once business needs are identified, then next step is to identify what specific performance needs to be improved in order to either overcome a business problem – for instance, too many rejects form customers; or fulfill a business opportunity – for instance, staff to be able to sell a new line of products.

Proper training identification (TNI) must be carried out in order to provide valuable inputs to ensure that the training programme is designed to improve performance.

3. Work environment and the learning experience must support each other. Too often, training carried out results in the trainee going back to a working environment that does not support the learning experiences she has just gone through. A typical example is the employee who went for a seminar on motivation, got “excited” and returns back to working environment that regularly demotivates her. In six months, she’s back to her original self.

One reason could be that the training programme was designed without sufficient pre-analysis that would enable the programme to be customized to relate to actual work situations.

Quest Group conducts “Measuring the R.O.I. of HR Development” workshop and runs the prestigious Certified Professional Trainers Course. Those seeking a career in training or want to know more about the workshop can write to: cpt@masteryasia.com for a free consultation in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai and Beijing.

There is a wonderful example given by Edgar Tham, our Coaching guru during his class on Certificate in Coaching where he got his coachee (yuks!) to do research on what is the normal time length between someone taking up a certain sport competitively and when they become championship material.

The common answer is 8 to 12 years and this very fact got his coachee to be more resilient and more motivated. Well I like to relate that to training and ask; “How long does it really take for us to become “Championship-class” Trainers?

Won’t be very different; I guess.

And then two days later I got this story on the internet that is equally inspiring;

The Bamboo and the Fern

One day I decided to quit … I quit my job, my relationship, my spirituality.
I wanted to quit my life. I went to the woods to have one last talk with God.
“God”, I said. “Can you give me one good reason not to quit?”
His answer surprised me. “Look around,” he said. “Do you see the fern and the bamboo?”
“Yes”, I replied.

“When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them.
I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth.
Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed.
But I did not quit on the bamboo.

In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful.
And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo.
In the third year, there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit.
In the fourth year, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit.

Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth.
Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant.

But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots.
Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive.”

He then said to me, “Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots.
I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you. Don’t compare yourself to others.

The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern, yet, they both make the forest beautiful.
Your time will come and you will rise high!”

Good days give you happiness.
Bad days give you experiences.
Both are essential to life, so keep going.

One way for you to get connections and support for what you are working on is to write to relevant interest groups or online communities. You will realise how exciting it is to write a message and have lots of people respond to you. However you must know how to write it well (I am not talking about grammar or language proficiency).

Here are the rules that would guarantee you better results.

1. Write to give not to get. You get better results if you attract people to what you have, rather to push things to others and try to get what you want.
2. Be open, honest and don’t give the impression that you have something to hide. So give your full name and any other details that would be relevant to the recipient.
3. Write to others with a respect for their intelligence. Some of the message I came across is so blatantly sleazy and treat your readers as if they are not able to see through what you are trying to do. You might as well be honest and you will get more respect.
4. Write to explain and to give people a bigger picture not just to “get down to the business” mentality.

I believe this will help some of you. What is your experience with this?

So what is a professional trainer? I guess any one who call himself a professional trainer implies two things.

One is that he has achieved certain standards. These standards could either be set by industry groups as in professional bodies or by legislation if any. There is no one organisation in the world that sets such standards. In the case of Certified Professional Trainers program offered by the Quest Group; the standards are set by the IPMA (International Professional Managers Association), U.K. There are other organisations and therefore the value of the certification would depends on the reputation and the coverage of the awarding body.

The second implication when you call yourself a professional trainer; it means that you can and will be earning a fee in that profession as oppose to earning a salary. You will be available to be engaged as a trainer by potential clients. If you are earning a salary as a internal trainer in an organisation; you will probably be referred to as an in house trainer rather than a professional trainer.

Why am I talking about this? Well, there are organisations offering programs to train people to be “professional” trainers but are run by trainers who are employed and has questionable success as professional trainers. So what do you think?

I met Jean in Shanghai. He is a French guy attending my Stand up and Speak program, done in house for a large multinational in China. Great responsive participant (although I don’t always understand what he is saying); the type that all trainers look for. He came to me at the end of the seminar to say thank you and told me that he has learnt a lot. Then he went on to say that he is very tired and that is good. I must have looked puzzled because he went on to explain that this is how he knows whether he learnt some thing. He knows it when he feels tired. That is perhaps one of the most interesting way of determining your ROI in training that I ever come across.

How do I know I learnt something? I know it when I could not wait to get back to the real world and put something into action. We all learnt differently and respond in so many different ways. But you really learnt nothing unless something changed. How do you know you learnt something?

I saw this movie by Will Smith and think that every person should see it. The title is “Pursuit of Happiness”. It is real story and Will Smith is brilliant in his performance. It surpases anything he has done in the past. What is the story about? ; Well… see it yourself. I am certain you will love it and do bring a lot of tissues. You might just need it.

It is Chinese New year and I treasure the break I am going to have. For my friends; its time to be appreciative of life and be thankful for whatever we have. Especially to those who love us and they need to know that we love them too. Share the love and the world will be alot better off. Meanwhile have lots of fun.