Success in the Training Industry

While organizational leaders understand the importance of training, they often wrongly assume that training automatically results in improved performance. The training industry has struggled to demonstrate success in the past because organizations measure the quality of training and not the resulting impact on performance as the indicator of training's effectiveness.

The training industry borrowed its fundamental concepts from higher education. The industry boomed in the 1980s and 1990s as a result of corporations hiring externally to meet their growing training needs.

In response, training companies watered down their models to a "one-size-fits-all" approach. Training models fail when the training does not align with business goals, and misguided measurement processes do not represent return value--the primary benchmark for which training should be measured.

Measurement should focus not on the training itself but on the resulting impact on employee performance. True corporate learning can only occur when employees take ownership for their learning, an internalization that distinguishes learning from training.

In order to reach employees and influence such ownership, corporate trainers must connect with employees through experiential instructional methods, allowing trainers and employees to find a common ground. As a result, employees will feel ownership of their new skills and motivation for continued learning.

Malcolm Knowles, the father of adult learning theory, advocated for learner-centered instruction, where the instructor is a facilitator instead of a lecturer. He believed ownership of the learning process was central to learning, a departure from traditional instructional theories of "leading the learner."

Knowles's theory evolved into the action learning model, resulting in a learning system that begins with a shared experience, engages employees with corporate strategy, and leads to reflection, learning, and new application. The new application, which ends in a new experience for learners to share, completes the action model.

Trainers are called to recognize learning research, realize that adults have different learning styles, and adapt training models to interactively engage and motivate employees. Additionally, they are encouraged to take responsibility for transforming their traditional models of training into learner-centered models to extract a greater ROLI.

This article is based on the book "Corporate Learning Strategies." The book summary is available online at Business Book Summaries.

Animal Spirits and Their Effects

Animal Spirits dissects standard economic theories and demonstrates their failure to account for human emotions, even though emotions have a large impact on the economy. Traditional economic theory operates under the assumption that individuals act rationally and make economic decisions based on purely economic reasons.

These economic theories are widely accepted by professional economists and are utilized in governmental policy-making. Unfortunately, traditional economic theory does not examine how the economy behaves when individuals make rational decisions based on non-economic reasons, irrational decisions based on non-economic reasons, or irrational decisions based on economic reasons.

In the quest to make economics a more scientific and calculable study, economists have largely left out the single largest influence on the economy: the animal spirits of human emotion. All animal spirits fall into one of five different categories: confidence, fairness, corruption, money illusion, and storytelling.

All of these categories have strong effects on the current economy, and their influence must be taken into account when creating government policy and making economic predictions. Ignoring the fact that human emotions affect purchasing and financial decisions only serves to create policy that will not hold up to these constantly-changing animal spirits.

By accepting and understanding these emotions, however, economists and policy makers can create more effective policies and plans. These policies and plans will not be permanent, however, and should change according to the cultural, economic, and emotional climates of the time.

For example, when banks stopped becoming mortgage holders and just became mortgage initiators, policy did not keep up with this change. Traditionally, banks would approve individuals for mortgages and then hold the mortgages themselves.

Because they held the mortgages, it prevented them from writing mortgages that people could not afford because they did not want to end up with the property or losing out on mortgage payments. Then, in the 2000s, banks began to sell the mortgages they had to other financial institutions.

These financial institutions did not know about the fiscal standing of the mortgages they held because the banks had divided individual mortgages into parts and sold the different parts to different institutions. Because of the large signing fees the banks earned when they approved individuals for mortgages, and the fact that they planned on selling the mortgages after they were signed, the banks approved people who could not actually afford them.

Because policy did not take this into account, the real estate bubble grew and eventually crashed once the individuals who received mortgages they could not afford began to have their homes foreclosed upon. This is just one example of the many ways in which animal spirits can affect the economy.

This article is based on the book "Animal Spirits." The book summary is available online at Business Book Summaries.

Clarifying Intent

A very important aspect in the art of convening is defining the desired result or intention of the meeting. This step is necessary because if a leader does not fully consider the intention of a meeting, the intentions can be confusing or conflicting.

The biggest challenge conveners face when trying to define their intent is doubt. Doubt can manifest itself in the form of fear.

It is important for a convener to be fearless when examining their intentions and to consider how those intentions align with who she is by asking the following questions:

• What are my intentions? 
• Are they in line with who I am? 
• How will we relate to one another? 

By clarifying intentions, meeting leaders identify motives or desires that might distract them or others from the primary goal. It takes patience, but conveners should try to look past their immediate conclusions and try to examine their deepest intent.

Armed with the knowledge of their true intentions, conveners will have confidence and energy to pursue the next steps toward authentic engagement. One good way for meeting leaders to do this is to sit down and write for at least 30 minutes.

They should first ask themselves, "Who am I and what am I doing right now?" Then, they should take that self-knowledge into consideration while writing down an intention for their next meeting or gathering.

This article is based on the book "The Art of Convening." The book summary is available online at Business Book Summaries.

The Need for Effective Execution

The failure to execute is a common problem among healthcare organizations. The barriers to effective execution are well understood and include an incredibly complex healthcare system, splintered leadership, strategies that vacillate between financial goals and patient care, and a lack of external pressure strong enough to force change.

However, external pressures that will eventually force change in the system continue to build. Unsustainable cost growth and uneven quality of care cannot continue.

In the face of a rapidly changing business environment, many progressive healthcare delivery organizations are now seeking a path to become "high-performance" health systems. A high-performance health system can be defined as one that helps everyone lead longer, healthier, and more productive lives.

To achieve such a system, four core goals must be met:

• Access to care for all 
• Safe, high-quality care 
• Efficient, high-value care 
• Continuous innovation and improvement 

To achieve this status, many healthcare organizations will have to change dramatically to become true "health systems," instead of facilities that focus on curing the sick. Finding more efficient ways to reduce purchasing and operating costs will be required.

Meeting marketplace and regulatory demands will also be factors in transforming the organizations. Healthcare organizations that can develop and effectively execute their plans will thrive, while those that cannot will struggle and eventually be absorbed by more effective competitors.

The systems that support the effective execution of strategy are well known and practiced by many of America's more successful corporations spanning various industries and sectors. These systems can be used to successfully manage healthcare delivery organizations as well.

Four key components lead to effective execution:

• Developing a focused strategic plan. 
• Applying contemporary business methods of execution. 
• Leading individuals and the organization for effective change. 
• Achieving an integrated system for execution.

This article is based on the book 'Make It Happen.' The book summary is available online at Business Book Summaries.

Exclusive Offer from Business Book Summaries! 20% Off on Your Subscription.

At Business Book Summaries, we believe people become better professionals through learning. We believe that business books contain some of the best and most current business thought. 

We believe that summaries of the best business books help people to learn more efficiently and more effectively. We believe that a summary can provide the basic overview of the book, and give you insights into the author's ideas. 

Nothing substitutes for reading the book, but we believe our summaries will help you to get a solid grasp of the lessons in the book, so you can decide which books to read and when to read them.

This Labor Day weekend, you have a chance to take advantage of a discounted annual subscription of the BEST summaries of the BEST business books today. 

Remember this discount code (case sensitive):

BizLaborDay2011

This code will give customers a 20% discount on a 1-year subscription. The regular price is $225, so you will be saving a total of $45! 

The promotional period starts when clock strikes midnight on September 3rd and ends on September 5th. Subscribe on these days to receive the special rate!

Would like to know more about Business Book Summaries? 

Click here to know more!

The Power of Search Engines, Contextual Advertising, and Online Communities

Given the advent of the Internet, transforming customer relationships into an online community is more important than ever before. Digital tools are enabling businesses and individuals to develop powerful brands.

When a person uses an online search engine, the results are a mélange of corporate content, blog postings, and customer reviews. All the results appear to have equal weight and importance, creating a level playing field for content creators.

In this environment, traditional mass media advertising and communications become ineffective. This is fundamentally changing business, how people communicate, and how people buy.

By using digital tools, companies can build awareness and beat the competition. One of the goals is to help businesses produce valuable online content and become their own media channels.

One way to begin is through contextual advertising: an organization buys a targeted keyword from an Internet search engine and when a user searches with that keyword, the company's ad appears in the results.

The power of contextual advertising is twofold:
1) it appears when a prospect is in search mode and
2) the company only pays for the advertisement if the user clicks on it.

Most companies do not have a strong enough presence in search engines, leaving opportunities behind for competitors. Every business and entrepreneur should have their own unique digital footprint, defined by the first page of search results that appear in a search engine.

This article is based on the book "Six Pixels of Separation." The book summary is available online at Business Book Summaries.

A Company to Admire

By the end of 2007, Toyota was the dominant automobile company in the world. Far more profitable than its major American competitors, Toyota had been continuously profitable for almost 50 years, a record that rivaled that of any global 1000 firm and was unheard of in manufacturing industries.

Toyota's record for building quality products and achieving high levels of customer satisfaction drove its growth and profitability. Its customer loyalty was the best in the industry.

Toyota has changed the way a large portion of the world thinks about quality and how to continuously improve any process. Toyota set new standards for operational excellence by revolutionizing manufacturing, process engineering, and quality.

These standards have become the goal for companies in many industries, although few companies implement these concepts to the extent that Toyota has. Companies from various business sectors spend billions of dollars to understand, learn from, and replicate the Toyota model.

To fully understand what happened at Toyota from 2008-2010, it is critical to first study Toyota's history. Toyota was originally a Japanese manufacturer of looms, which started in the 1800s.

In the early 1930s, the company expanded into other sectors of manufacturing. By 1937, Toyota's automobile manufacturing division had already become the center of Toyota's business.

During the start-up of the automobile manufacturing business, company leaders laid out an operating philosophy and introduced new concepts about quality and inventory management, including processes to eliminate mistakes and implement just-in-time inventory. The company realized that, to maintain a commitment to catching and fixing problems and operating inventory with a just-in-time approach, it required a systematic process to solving problems throughout the company.

Through the years this problem-solving process evolved to today's version, called the Toyota Business Practices, which entails the following steps:

Plan
* The process begins with a statement of the problem, including the gap between the actual and ideal conditions.
* This gap is then broken down into the most important problems that can be acted upon.
* These specific sub-problems are then analyzed by asking "why?" until the root cause is found.
* Alternative solutions and countermeasures are then identified and evaluated.
* The best solution is chosen, based on what is currently known.

Do
* The chosen solution is implemented on a trial basis.

Check
* The results and impact of the trial implementation are monitored.

Act
* Adjustments are made based on the results, the new processes are standardized and disseminated throughout the organization with further adjustments being made until the gap is eliminated and the next challenge identified.


The Toyota Business Practices (TBP) broadly applies the problem-solving philosophy to the entire enterprise. Toyota believes that this problem-solving process is essential to leadership and requires all of its leaders to become masters of the process.

As demonstrated by its remarkably consistent growth and profitability, Toyota has built a culture that constantly renews its commitment to excellence and to its core principles, instilling those principles and passion into each new generation of employees and leaders. The combination of production processes, TBP, and its culture (collectively known as The Toyota Way) became the competitive advantage that allowed Toyota to become a successful manufacturer in Asia and eventually in the U.S.

This article is based on the book "Toyota Under Fire." The book summary is available online at Business Book Summaries.