Tricia Ransom

I collect unemployment benefits which means that every two weeks I have to “certify” I’m still unemployed and that I’m still looking for work. This certification takes the form of answering a series of questions either online or over the telephone.

One of the questions I must answer is along the lines of “Did you attend school or training during this period?” Since I’m taking 3 graduate-level courses, 2 weeks ago I answered Yes. And that’s where the problems began.

After back and forth and all types of hassle, what I learned is this – “since you’re taking online courses, you aren’t attending a real school”. What the unemployment department meant is that I wasn’t in a brick and mortar building.

Since I’m taking online courses, I’m not attending a real school. And in a larger sense, that’s the problem, isn’t it?

As learning and development professionals, we spend time and effort to design and create good e-learning.  We spend money on the latest e-learning software and then even more time learning to use that software. We network with other e-learning professionals, and we invoke adult learning theories, and e-learning theories and best practices. All of that, and the perception is still “online courses aren’t real school”.

And for those of us in the corporate world, how many times have we heard, “well, let’s just create some e-learning until they can come to the training session/induction/new-hire orientation and ‘really’ learn it”. Once again, the message is that online courses aren’t real school.

How do we change this perception? I have no idea.

What I do know is that we, learning and development professionals, are partly to blame. Every time we’re asked to create that e-learning to tide people over until they can come to an ILT and “really” learn it, we’re perpetuating this belief. Every time we create bad e-learning, we’re helping this thought grow deeper into the psyche of people. “Online courses aren’t real school.”

Every single one of us has made that compromise between what we know is best for our learners and the time-frame or resources allotted to us to do the training. Why do we make that compromise? It benefits no one. Bad e-learning is a waste of time and resources for everyone. When asked to create bad e-learning, say that. Tell people its a waste of money. Be honest. Otherwise you’re just feeding into the “online courses aren’t real school” myth.

Oh, you know they’ll fight back. You’ll hear things like:

• “But at least they’ll be familiar with the concepts when they come to training or class.” Or
• “Something is better than nothing.” Or my favorite,
• “But it’ll be a good reference resource for everyone.”

You know these statements are false – you know it in your gut, and you can pull out mountains of research to prove it. In the words of Nancy Reagan, Just Say No.

Be honest – you know learners won’t be familiar with the concepts because you know bad e-learning doesn’t result in a transfer of knowledge. Say so and pull out research to prove it!

Be honest. You know that using your time and effort  to create something that won’t be remembered 5 minutes after completion is much much worse than having nothing. What the organization has lost is your time – how many hours did you spend creating this bad e learning, and what is your hourly rate? That money is gone forever from the organization. The organization has also lost all the work-hours of each person sitting through the horrific course. And if they can’t remember a thing about it in a week, then the company might as well just have paid them to sit and stare at a wall. Say so and pull out research to prove it!

Be honest because you know people don’t access bad e-learning as a reference. If you’ve just put a powerpoint up on your intranet and called it e-learning, how can the learners quickly and easily find the nugget of information they need? How can they easily print it or share it with others? How do they even know where to look for the information? Bad e-learning, by it’s very definition, is un-organized, un-searchable, and un-sharable. It cannot and will not be used for reference, and you must show that! Just ask the person you’re talking to the last time they used an e-learning course as reference material.

All I’m asking is that you fight the good fight when someone asks you to create bad e-learning.

The consequences to your organization can be measured in lost productivity and dollars.

The consequences to our profession are felt each time we hear “online courses aren’t real school”.

My mom used to tell me, “Do every job you have to the best of your ability, even if you’re just a toilet cleaner. You never know when the CEO will walk into the bathroom and notice your efforts and reward you”. My toilets are sparkling and it’s paying off. I’ve been approached about job potential opportunities, and I’ve found some on my own. It’s in the evaluation of those opportunities that I’ve learned how important it is to be able to say No.

No is not a bad word. It’s all in how you say it and the reasons behind it. Don’t get me wrong, saying no to a job is never easy. It’s even more difficult in the middle of a recession when you work in a field that’s been decimated by layoffs. But I think it’s a perfectly reasonable response to a job offer. What’s important is that you know why you’re saying no, and that you communicate those reasons clearly, concisely, and professionally.

I’ve recently met Iris Grimm, who is a career coach. One of her sayings is “What price are you willing to pay for your prize?” Think about that. If your prize is a job, what sacrifices or prices are you willing to pay for it? It’s such a simple question that involves knowing yourself, your values, your priorities, and your vision. It also encompasses understanding the realities of your world and professional landscape. To know what price you’ll pay, you synthesize disparate groups of information. You evaluate your understanding of self, realities, and the job offer. And, as I’ve learned, it also involves communication.

There are a lot of experts, websites, books, columns, blogs, and what-have-you on how to conduct your job search. But for me, it’s all about boiling it down to the intangibles. Not the resumes and cover letters and networking, but rather self-awareness, professional awareness, evaluation, and communication.

Self Awareness → Career/Field/Professional Awareness → Evaluation → Communication

Once you know who you are and what your non-negiotiables are, then you apply the realities of the world to yourself and the job offer. This is the evaluation. This is also where you determine what price you’re willing to pay for your prize. So far for me, the price has been too high. A 4 hour commute or a 60 hour work-week doesn’t fit into my priorities.  If I accepted a job, even a great paying job, with a 4 hour commute or 12 hour work-days, I can guarantee I’d quit within a year. And for that entire year I’d be miserable because I wouldn’t be in alignment with who I am and what I want. And the company would be miserable because they’d have to start the entire search all over again.

And this is where No comes in. I had to tell the recruiter, “No thank you. I have certain priorities and non-negotiables, and that long of a commute is something that I can’t do. However, I know someone who I think may be a good fit for this position – would it be OK if I sent them your contact information?” And that’s the other thing I’ve learned – if you say No, have an alternative ready!

Filed under: In Transition Tagged: In Transition, job search, linkedin, no

When I started this blog in 2008, I was a corporate trainer and working towards my Master’s Degree in Training and Development. I saw my path, I was on it, and life was good.

But, as we all know, life doesn’t always follow the path we want it to. In December 2009, I was laid off from my company and I joined the millions of Americans who are “In Transition”. This posting reflects back to the moment I learned the news.

In Transition: What it means to me

In Transition – at first I wasn’t sure I liked this – it just seemed to be the phrase of the day. But I kept thinking about the word Transition. It’s an action word – an action initiated by me. If I say I’m laid off from my job, that implies something being done to me and is limited to my professional life. If I say I’m transitioning my life and focus, that’s something that I’m doing and encompasses growth, learning, and all aspects of me. Transit is also in motion – it’s happening. Its moving. I’m proud to say I’m “In Transition”. What’s my destination? I’m not sure, but I know I have one, and it’s going to be great! I’m excited about this new movement in my career and life.

Excitement and Hope

In fact, excitement and hope have been the dominant feelings I’ve experienced since my manager told me the news. She pulled me into her office and calmly explained what was happening and why. While I was sitting there, I kept waiting for the feelings of anger, despair, and sadness. I’ll admit I was sad and would miss my co-workers.  But anger? Didn’t show up. Despair? Couldn’t find it. Anguish? Nothing.

In fact, my biggest feeling was one of hope and excitement for the future!  As she was talking, I was making plans to be a full-time student and graduate in May. I was plotting how to best organize my time so I could clean out the house, work on my photography, finish the scarf I’m knitting, blog more, volunteer, and blog more. I felt free to expand myself and explore all the things I hadn’t had time for while I was working and going to school.

Lessons Learned

Life is about learning and here is what I learned/did while I was still working in the office (I had a 3 week period between being informed and my last date).

• Attitude is everything! Of course I didn’t like hearing I was being laid off, who does? But what would I gain by showing anger to my manager, co-workers, or anyone else? I’d still be out of a job. My manager (Sr. VP of Human Resources) said that I had the best attitude of any person she’d ever had to release in the past 20 years. If there is an opportunity to work with her again, how is she going to remember me?
• Truly understand the business reason for the situation. I had to separate myself from the business. It was nothing personal.
• Show up for work every day and work! I was still receiving a paycheck, so therefore I needed to provide value. There were projects I was involved in, and as long as I was on the payroll, I still had responsibilities to my projects and my co-workers.
• Never bad-mouth anyone, nor display anger or disappointment. Ever. Not at work, not on Facebook, not in email, not on Twitter. Save those conversations for family.
• Make plans for the future. Plan to keep yourself busy, and start acting on the IMMEDIATELY! This set my mind for action — the idea of transit is about action.
• Transition your work to the best of your ability. My rationale was that I could conceivably work with these people again, and I wanted them to remember me in the most positive manner possible.
• Say goodbye to everyone, personally if possible. I walked around and thanked every person and provided my contact information. I let them know I was looking for work, and if they heard of anything, to contact me. I also sent out an email with my contact information and yet another thank-you for providing such a wonderful working experience for the past 3 years. I was surprised by how many people wrote back to thank me and tell me how much they appreciated the good-bye.

In my next posting I’ll blog about the actual steps I followed after leaving the office – things like unemployment, COBRA, and beginning my job search.

“No single act accurately defines a person, but an adherence to a strong set of values does. ” — Jim Watkins

Everyone lives their professional and private lives according to a set of values. You might not have  articulated yours, but we all have them. So I ask you – what are you values when it comes to training? What are your core non-negotiables?

Here are mine when I facilitate a learning session:

• Provide real and applicable value to my learners
• Show my learners where to go to get help
• Promise my learners that although they probably won’t be experts when they leave my training, they will know how to find and answer any questions they may have
• Don’t teach what they already know
• If we’re done, we’re gone; don’t use up every minute in a session just because it’s scheduled
• Treat all questions with respect, and move off-line when needed
• Listen to each learner, even if they aren’t speaking
• Adapt to suit the needs of my learner, even if it means we deviate from the stated objectives
• Give all of my enthusiasm and excitement for learning to each session, regardless of how many times I’ve taught it
• Speak in a varied voice and not display nervous tics

Basically, I am flexible to give my learners what they need, not what I want.

There are times when I might veer off of one of my values, but that doesn’t define who I am as a trainer and facilitator. My adherence to each of these, session after session, class after class, year after year defines who I am.

So I ask you again, what are your values when it comes to Training?

There are times, days, moments even, when you realize that life is good, and everything is as it should be. Then there are times when you’re in the midst of an upheaval so catastrophic you can barely remember to breathe.

Remember those good times, days, and moments. Sear them into your brain and soul. Remember how you felt, the smells around you, what you saw through your eyes. Remember and remember so when you’re in the midst of an upheaval you can retrieve those good times and calm your soul.

Once you’ve calmed, you can then see what needs to be done, and how you’re going to do it.

I’ve never achieved perfect serenity, but I have achieved calmness in the midst of chaos. And to me, that is a pretty good accomplishment.

II’m rather fixated on learning. Actually, I don’t think I’m fixated; rather, I think that learning is just an inherent part of me. An inherent part that is inherited. Here is the beginning of my history, and you’ll soon see why learning is so important to me.

The writing is choppy, and sometimes disjointed. I wanted to get the feelings and words down, and to convey the emotion that I feel. If I were speaking aloud about Mama, Grandma, and Mom, I wouldn’t be polished and flowing. And I won’t be here either.

This is my story of Mama, my great-grandmother. I wish I could have met her.

MAMA

My great-grandparents -- Mama and Papa

This is my great-grandmother. I never met her, but I know Mama from stories my mom and grandma told me about her. She was 16 when my grandmother was born – I don’t think she ever graduated high-school. She didn’t know what it meant to give birth; when she was in labor she was told to go out to the cabbage patch to find her baby. Since she had three children, I guess she learned!

Mama and Papa never had much money or education by today’s standards — I think Papa graduated from high-school here in Chicago (Wendell Phillips High School which later became DuSable High School). In fact,  we believe they were both here in Chicago by no later than 1900. I feel so much closer to them now that I’ve moved here too. There is a street preacher who preaches every day on the corner of State and Washington in downtown Chicago (click here to see what he looks like). I told my mom about him, and that’s when I learned that one of Mama’s or Papa’s relatives did the same thing…100 years ago.

Mama was smart, and curious, and always learning and interested in new things. She had a telephone before anyone else in their neighborhood. She had a radio, and others would come over to listen to boxing, news, the war (WW II) and programs. She also traveled to women’s conventions with speakers such as Eleanor Roosevelt. I think it was with Mama that our phrase, “you’re never to old to learn” came about. Although at first she couldn’t vote, Mama was fervent about politics, and kept learning all she could about her world to better understand the speeches and intent behind them. Towards the end of her life she suffered a stroke and wasn’t as mobile, but passed her love of learning on to her daughter and grand-daughter.

I wish I could have met her. I have to think she would be proud to know how much of her lives on in her grand-daughter and great-granddaughter (and daughter when she was alive).

Miller/Murphy house in Idlewild, Michigan. Built by my great-grandfather and grandfather

My grandfather and great-grandfather moved the family from Chicago to Idelwild, Michigan in the 40s. In order to earn money, the men worked in Grand Rapids during the week (Grandma went with them), and came home on the weekends. By that time, Mama had had her stroke, and had to stay in Idlewild. My mom stayed behind with Mama in a house with no electricity or indoor plumbing. She faced down little to no food and loneliness and learned to eat snake, squirrel or whatever meat Grandpa could bring home. Mom told me that before biting into it, they would have to search for buckshot. I cannot imagine moving from the South Side of Chicago to this small community with no electricity, running water, or even street lights. Yet Mama did, with no complaints, and learned what she needed in order to survive. I’ve thought about it, and don’t know if I would be that strong.

Papa wasn’t always a nice man. He drank – a lot. And apparently he was a mean drunk. Yet Mama stayed with him, and still found ways to thrive. To me, that is the essence of learning. To always grow, even if the constraints around you are bound so tightly it seems impossible to break them. Yet that is what Mama did. She broke the constraints of being a poor black woman with little education to become an inspiration to generations of her family.

Mama believed in God, family, and learning – probably in that order. Based on what my my mom and grandma told me, she is a person I should strive to be worthy of, and to emulate. She is no longer physically here, but her spirit lives in me thanks to mom and grandma. I wish I could have met her.  I have two shirts that belonged to her, and when I was much thinner I wore them. The shirts hang in my closet wherever I move, and provide a physical connection with Mama. I wish I could have met her and told her how much she means to me.

The purpose of this blog is to document my thoughts, ideas, and journeys through learning.

PHOTOGRAPHY
Right now, I’m learning photography, and it’s soooo much harder than I thought it would be. I mean, I have a digital camera, so you just point and click, right? WRONG! I’m learning about composition, rule of thirds, and just the basics. I still have to learn about depth of field, apertures, and a whole host of other things.

Click here to go to my photostream on flikr. Let me know how I’m doing, and if you would have done anything different to make the pictures even better. That’s my phrase…it can always be better! Here is one of my current favorites:

Window

KNITTING
And about knitting…I learned how to cast-on and how to knit, but I have absolutely no idea what to do when the ball of yarn runs out or I come to the end of my scarf. I still have more to learn. If you have any suggestions or ideas, or helpful tips/tricks…I’m all ears!

FEEDBACK
What I’m learning about learning is that you need to get feedback from others, and most importantly, you must open yourself to that feedback. How many times have you been trying to learn something, and you have no idea if you were going down the right path? How did that make you feel? As trainers, we need to remember that feeling. I have no idea if my knitting is right, so I’m happily going down my merry path. What if I’m learning and reinforcing the wrong movements?

Also, lets remember that we are training adults. Praising them for each correct action they make, no matter how small is just as damaging as giving them no feedback. As with most things in life, it’s all about moderation and balance.

UPCOMING TOMORROW
I think that tomorrow I will ruminate on what I would do if one of my students learned the wrong thing, and how I would deal with that situation. I really have no idea, but I’ll ponder it tonight!

I’m sitting in our dining room looking out our windows at this great city of Chicago. We’re on the 10th floor, and look south over the Museum of Science and Industry and east over Lake Michigan. On a clear day we can see the smoke stacks from New Buffalo, Michigan and the smoke belching from the steel mills in Gary, Indiana. Occasionally we can see a tanker slowly slicing through the lake on their way to or from Gary to ports unknown.

Just like the city, our view is constant and constantly changing. You can see the weather fronts moving over the south suburbs and Northwest Indiana, and people using the lakefront walking/bike paths.

The traffic along Lake Shore Drive is constantly moving. In the summer you can hear the whine of motorcycles as they race each other with the wind from the lake ripping through their clothes.

Here is a link to some pictures taken from our window courtesy of my husband. Here is what it looks like during a snowstorm — this is looking over the lake  (click the pic to see it larger)

And after the snowstorm looking south over the museum:

As I sit here looking at all of this, I realize that my life is good right now. And that that is all I need.

I live in Chicago in a neighborhood called Hyde Park .

Here is the sidewalk along the park .

We have wonderful bookstores ,

Abandoned churches ,

Modern architecture ,

Hidden spaces ,

And some delis .

There is so much more to this neighborhood including the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Lakefront, restaurants, and the wonderful people. If you get the chance, come visit Hyde Park…hopefully you’ll love it as much as I do. To see a bit more, click here to see my photographs, and here to see my husband’s.

So a classmate of mine just asked if he could interview me for a course. Of course I said yes – who doesn’t feel that oomph in your gut when someone flatters you enough to want to interview you?  So then I got to thinking, why would anyone want to interview me about anything? And you know what? I think I’d interview me! I have years of experience, which means I have years of stories about what not to do!

Seriously, we had a great conversation moving from how to use Twitter and Social Media in training to the state of our industry to recruiters and candidate care to PhD programs. Of course, I had an opinion on all of it!

So let’s talk more about Twitter and Training. He asked how to use Twitter in training, especially in a corporate setting. You know, that’s a hard one. I think that for instances where an organization as a whole is going through a shared experience (for example, in a power company when a storm hits and lines are down),  they can use Twitter to push out links to relevant information to help everyone keep up-to-date and on the same page.

But what about more ordinary corporate learning? The old-fashioned ILT type of learning? Does Twitter have a place there? I’m not sure. I can see it being great to help create and grow Communities of Practice, say for an induction training program. I can also see it used with a geographically disperse group to communicate things such as “look on our wiki, I’ve updated it” or “Who’s responsible for the presentation”. But I haven’t seen or heard of a way that it will replace what we currently have, like PowerPoint. In my humble opinion, it’s an additional tool to use, not the only tool.

Having said that, I do think that Twitter has profoundly changed the way we communicate. I’m not just talking about the 140 character limit. What I mean is the shift in the patterns of communication. We now put stuff out there and wait for others to comment or act on it. Click here to read my detailed thoughts on it. My point is that with Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) we can communicate with others on our terms and our time…we don’t have to have an immediate conversation – it can last seconds or days and can grow or shrink at will.

So, let’s loop this back to delivering learning if at all possible. What does this communication on our terms mean for delivering training? I think that we must use creativity to develop learning which incorporate the changes wrought by Twitter and other Social Media. For example, no more 5-day sessions with a single instructor and a 200 slide PowerPoint.

The questions to ask ourselves are:

How can we use Social Media, or aspects of it in our training?

Can we have shorter chunks?

What about many people facilitating extremely brief segments?

Can we have open conversations rather than presentations?

Can we deliver it electronically rather than face-to-face?

Do we prefer to see each other instead of a computer screen?

Is there technology or a process or a theory that can help guide our efforts?

These are questions I don’t necessarily have answers for, and which will change depending on your client. However, I think they are well worth exploring. In fact, I’m going to try to incorporate some of these ideas with my next training session. I’ll let you know how it goes!