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Letter from the Editor
I’ve lost my structure!
 My wife, a school teacher, took her vacation week to visit her parents in Mesa, AZ, a trip she does once or twice a year. While I look forward to the change (I can eat Thai food, watch Speed Channel, etc.), she usually only goes for a couple of days; this time she’s gone for a week! And I’ve accomplished exactly ZERO since she’s been gone!
It’s not that she actually DOES anything related to my work, but she provides a structure to my day – a structure that makes me (in all modesty) amazingly productive! My day begins early, usually by 4:00am. At 6:00, Cathy brings me a cup of coffee and we discuss the day. Between 4:00 and 6:00, I get emails answered, modules reviewed, and my business day organized. Once she leaves to teach at 7:00, I have until 4:00pm to get business done. At 4:00 I usually start cooking dinner – an indulgence that allows me to decompress and unwind from the day AND to listen to Cathy’s funny stories from her
kindergarteners. I may do a little light research or reading in the evening.
Without Cathy, I have lost my structure and, with it, my productivity. I’ve eaten poorly since it doesn’t pay to cook for one. I make coffee at 4:00 and forget it’s there. I find my mind wandering rather than focused. And even something as straightforward as writing this newsletter has taken me twice as long as usual.
Creating training is hard work and requires skill AND structure. In this issue of The Key we return to our roots of effective training design and development to focus on the structure of writing. Writing without a planned structure – without agreement on some simple rules – is akin to me working without Cathy: ineffective and inefficient.
(I’m back from putting the laundry in the dryer! Why am I doing laundry at 4:30 in the morning?)
In this issue we’ll examine writing style, why its consideration is important, and tips that you can use to increase the effectiveness of your writing style.
We’ll also wrap up our discussion of the impact that the economic downturn has had on training – and give away some free stuff to those who responded.
Bear with me for a few more days until Cathy comes back. (Hey, I wonder what’s on TV at 5:00am….)
Terry
A New Website and a Renewed Focus
 If it seems that you JUST received a newsletter from Entelechy, you DID!
Entelechy launched Coaching for Talent Development and Employee Engagement at
www.coachyouremployees.com
to focus on the important role managers and supervisors play in the success of their employees and company. Along with the new website, we will be issuing a separate newsletter that focuses only on management and supervision.
Splitting out coaching will allow us to refocus THIS newsletter – The Key – on tips and techniques to designing, developing, and delivering effective training. The Key returns to its roots: performance consulting, training design, development, assessment/evaluation, on-the-job application, content, and other behavior-changing events.
If you’d like to receive BOTH newsletters, you’ll need to go to
www.coachyouremployees.com, click on the Resources tab, and provide your name and email address.
The Coach newsletter – like The Key – is free and filled with useful information, tips, and techniques.
Born Loser
Reprinted with permission from comics.com; April 30, 2009 Chip Sansom
Ed. - I read this in the paper and took it personally!
Training’s Role in These Tough Times: Reader’s Response
 In the previous issue, I asked, “How has the economy affected your organization’s training and development efforts? Is training and development MORE important, LESS important? Have you changed your focus? How?”
The following respondents will receive a free copy of Entelechy’s Approach to
Performance. (If you want your own copy of this valuable guide, it’s available for a nominal fee at
http://unlockit.com/eGuide-HPT-PC-EG.htm.)
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“The economy has forced us to cut way back on travel. We no longer send our employees to seminars for training and are asked to piggy back training onto already existing meetings.”
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“We are actually busier than ever! We’ve avoided layoffs – so far – and are using the slower time to do some cross training. How great is that?”
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“The economy has allowed us to focus on how we do things in L&D. When we’re busy, we don’t have time to take a breath and see how we can make things better. Now we can.”
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“I am the company trainer for a small electronics assembly contract manufacturing plant. I am busy when our production schedule is slow, doing all kinds of annual and special trainings for our associates. When production is busy, I am slow but working on other projects. My boss “farms” me out to other departments.”
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“We’re doing more management and leadership training. Our company executives have announced a shift in our strategy and are looking to training to make it happen. We’re looking to managers to make it happen.”
Thanks to all of you who responded. It’s clear that the economy IS having an impact on training and development. For those of you who’ve been around for a while, you’ve seen the cost-cutting before. Unlike other economically-challenging times, however, it FEELS like we’re handling the downturn better – more strategically and fewer slash and burn tactics than we used before.
Design and Development Efficiency/Effectiveness
 Recently a client approached us and asked if we might be able to help her learning and development organization design and develop more effectively. We had just delivered a train-the-trainer session and even the client’s partners commented on the quality of the training materials. Our client pleaded, “Can you help us do that thing you do?”
Like your training department, Entelechy prides itself on the quality of its performance consultants, instructional designers, developers, quality assurance professionals, and facilitators. Unlike corporate training departments that I’ve led, Entelechy is a profit center (or we try to be
J
). The faster and better we design, develop, and deliver training, the more profit we make.
While that sounds like a greed-centric model, it really forces us to look at what’s important, at what will have maximum impact for minimum effort. In short, we’ve honed our design, development, and delivery processes to a razor-sharp edge. In this and future issues of
The Key, I’ll share with you how we do that thing we do – how we design and develop and make money doing it.
 What’s Your Writing Style?
Training is all about communication, and most of what we communicate in training is written. Sure, for instructor-led training and the voice track of WBT, the final communication is spoken, but most of the time, the speaker uses written text. Therefore, let’s agree up front that the written word in training is important – if not critical.
To write effectively, one must first ask and answer these questions:
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Who is the audience?
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What is their educational background/reading ability? What is their familiarity with the content?
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Why are they reading this?
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Where are they reading this?
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What is your purpose? To inform? To persuade? To inspire? To facilitate?
The answers to these questions will determine your required writing style. (Note: We assume that you have the flexibility to alter your writing style to meet the needs of the audience; if you don’t, you may want to change professions!) Is the required style technical and precise? Or is it more relaxed and flowing? (Note:
Relaxed and flowing doesn’t mean sloppy!)
Whether you’re writing for a technical audience, a group of leaders, or a class of new hires, the style in which you write must be selected with deliberateness.
General Tenets for Effective Writing
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Write for your audience. Put yourself – your opinions, your feelings, etc. –
in the background.
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Make it as simple as you can but no simpler.
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Write in the active voice.
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Before |
After |
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The specific program that this delivery of
Leadership Support is in support of, should be identified
here. |
Identify the specific program that this Leadership Support delivery supports. |
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End-of-Course Assessments are completed in the classroom at the end of a training
class. |
Participants complete End-of-Course Assessments in the classroom at the end of a training class. |
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The Leadership Support program is part of an enterprise-wide training initiative. It is designed to equip you with skills necessary to support your employees to successfully transfer to the job the skills they learned in training. |
The Leadership Support program is part of an enterprise-wide training initiative. You will learn techniques that will help your employees apply their new skills. |
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Avoid unnecessary words and phrases.
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Before |
After |
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The Leadership Support program is part of an enterprise-wide training initiative. It is designed to equip you with skills necessary to support your employees to successfully transfer to the job the skills they learned in
training. |
The Leadership Support program is part of an enterprise-wide training initiative. You will learn techniques that will help your employees apply their new skills. |
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As many of you know, the overriding goal of any training program is to increase sales, revenue, and profitability by providing an exceptional customer
experience. |
The goal of any training program is to increase sales, revenue, and profitability. |
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What are some things that you would like your employees to do after the training that would affect the profitability of ABC
Company? |
What would you like your employees to do after the training that would affect the profitability of ABC Company? |
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Earlier I mentioned that this journal is a tool for you to bring back to use actively to support your staff. Page 6 reviews how you can use this journal after the end of this training. Let’s take a minute to review each idea and to add others as you see
fit. |
Page 6 provides tips to using this journal. Let’s review each tip and add to the list. |
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Also, I would like to encourage you to note any questions you may have about this (these)
module(s). |
Also, I encourage you to note any questions that you may have about this (these)
module(s).
or (more active):
Please write questions that you may have about this (these)
module(s).
or (getting rid of the parenthetic remark and being more directive):
In the margin of your book, please write questions that you have about the training. |
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Write with nouns and verbs. Eliminate superfluous adjectives.
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Before |
After |
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The Leadership Support program is part of an enterprise-wide training initiative. It is designed to equip you with skills necessary to support your employees to successfully transfer to the job the skills they learned in
training. |
The Leadership Support program is part of an enterprise-wide training initiative. You will learn techniques that will help your employees apply their new skills. |
 In the next issue, we’ll cover general tenets 6-10 and I’ll share with you my top writing pet peeves. In future issues, we’ll share Entelechy’s Style Guide – how we’ve agreed as an organization to punctuate bulleted items or write words like email (or e-mail or eMail) and flipchart (or flip chart).
We’ll also remind you of the following tips to effective and efficient writing:
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Know your audience and write to them.
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Write first to capture the essence. Revise to capture the style and tighten up the ideas.
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Make your writing as simple as you can but no simpler.
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Read critically. Critique the cereal box. Analyze the instruction manual for the toys you’re buying your children (or yourself). Read the newspaper for style AND content. Evaluate emails you get from colleagues.
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Know your strengths; identify areas where you need development. Work on those development areas.
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Periodically read (don’t just refer to) the Style Guide and The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. at
http://www.bartleby.com/141/. Get to know the rules!
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Use the dictionary. Get to know the words!
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Once you’ve mastered the rules, break them! (For a GREAT and quick podcast on the rules of business writing, listen to my friend Michael Katz, Chief Penguin at Blue Penguin Development, Inc. at
http://www.audioacrobat.com/note/Cw9QrKgs/
or read his article at http://www.bluepenguindevelopment.com/newsletters/2009_05_01.html.)
And Now, for Something Completely Different
It’s Like Riding a Bike…
When someone says, “It’s like riding a bike,” they weren’t referring to Danny Macaskill and his bike. Check out some inspired bicycle riding at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o
PowerPoint Tip: Cranking out Slides
We often use PowerPoint to create the first draft of a course using the course outline in our design document. At this stage, we’re simply cranking out slides for concept and flow. To crank out slides, try this tip:
To move from title text box to body text box to the title text box on the next page, press Ctrl+Enter. This allows you to type furiously without needing to use your mouse to position your cursor or to create a new slide.
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The Key. If you've received this email in error, please click on
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to be removed immediately from our mailing database with our apologies. (If you have trouble with the optout link, please reply to this email directly and I'll personally remove your name.)
Send this email to your friends and colleagues who may be involved in training and the performance of others and could benefit from FREE performance tips, tools, and techniques.
Entelechy will not sell, rent, or otherwise provide anyone else your membership information for any reason. Period.
Terence Traut, President of Entelechy "unlocking potential"
ttraut@unlockit.com
phone: 603-424-1237
fax: 603-424-6361
http://www.unlockit.com
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