CHAPTER SERVICES ADDRESS
CIASTD Chapter Services
9840 Westpoint Drive, Suite 260
Indianapolis, IN 46256
(317) 841-1395
Fax (317) 841-8206

[Top]

[Top]

By Erin Bonwell

The May meeting topic “Discovery Based Learning” was presented by Donna Burnette, co-founder and CEO of Solutions House Inc. and founder of Tango Learning. Donna offered the following points in her presentation and in the article she shared with participants “Complex Organizational Change Through Discovery-based Learning”.

Discovery-based learning incorporates the key characteristics adult learners share apart from the world of childhood learning. Some of those characteristics include:

Programs should include personal stories emulates real situations utilizing a range of media and formats such as board games, role plays and computer technology. Visuals are critical to create stimulation. “The program should use humor, some surprise, gaming techniques, and varied media to attract and engage the learner.”
Examples such as a card game with questions and discussion topics and board games were shared with meeting participants to demonstrate the success of implementing these techniques for groups of all backgrounds and responsibilities.

[Top]

By Lou Russell, CEO, Russell Martin & Associates

It’s Spring again, and the plants and trees are popping up nearly overnight. Once again, I am motivated to commit to an exciting gardening project. Unfortunately, history proves that my gardening dreams are always much grander than what I really succeed in implementing. Your business strategy for 2008 may feel the same way now that we are in the second quarter – big dreams but little progress. What can we learn from gardening to help us get better results before the end of the year?

This time of year, it is fun to look at landscaping at a new home, the latest Better Homes and Gardens, and all the local advertisements. It’s easy to underestimate the difficulty and scope of these projects. Plants look and grow so much better at the store or home show. The fact that I have clay for soil and almost no sun never occurs to me before I commit to one of these beautiful new designs.

The same things happen with our business strategies. We’re influenced by the newest business best seller or a particular business success story. We attend a conference and become enamored by someone else’s success. We like new ideas better than the old ones that are hard and don’t seem to work. We ignore what our business is about, what differentiates us and the difficult steps necessary to get there.

After being influenced by elaborate designs, I head straight to the store on a sunny Saturday morning to buy a dozen plants, different types of mulch and maybe even some beautiful (but un-built) furniture. I drive home with excitement and a full, dirty car. Lurking in the background is the grim fact that I have no plans, tools or skills for what I am about to (not) do.

Our business strategies probably contain improving things that we have either never done or never done well. Chances are our companies do not have the plans, tools or skills to do these either. Just saying ‘we will do this’ doesn’t make it true. Does your strategy include the tactical tasks to make that transition? Have you included training, hiring, process improvement and other necessary building blocks?

Tools seem to walk away in frustration from our garage, so inevitably, I am left to attack my design with a snow shovel, old trowel and a rake with the handle broken off. This makes the work, if not impossible, much more time consuming than it should be. By evening, I am exhausted and a lot less enthusiastic as I look at the ten plants and mulch that haven’t moved.

To implement a business strategy requires project management. The entire staff needs to be clear what the business goals are, the product / service mix strategy to get to the revenue goals based on market analysis, the tasks and people who will do them, and how success will be measured (by time, by budget and/or by outcomes). Without this, no strategic plan will succeed (check out “10 Steps to Successful Project Management” my newest book available at Amazon).

By Sunday morning, the undone landscaping has become an irritating task to check off rather than a fulfilling work of art. In frustration, I scream (not call) in the troops. The children are recruited to help with the dirty work - work they did not choose. Reluctant, they are very little help, and the whining is tedious.

If you are like most CEOs, your solution to a stopped strategic implementation is to push. You will set dates, you will grill people for what happened, and you will continue to hear perfectly good ideas for why the strategy can not be done. You hit brick wall after brick wall. Months fly by. Quarters fly by. You have not delegated; you have negated. You haven’t thought about what it will take to get the strategic projects done, and your staff has no idea what you were thinking in the first place. This conflict becomes a highly charged and ineffective requirements gathering exercise with poor results.

Finally, most of the stuff from the store is in the ground except for some extra mulch and a couple of plants murdered by overly vigorous planting. Lack luster watering occurs on most plants and everyone thankfully returns to their every day life. The sun comes out, the squirrels visit, and half the effort dies.

In business, you may remember to think about the strategic plans when you put your head up to build the plan for 2009. Once again, you’ll be extremely frustrated over the lack of progress. Once again, you’ll make up new goals with new strategies, assuming that it was the strategy at fault and not the implementation. There will still be no repeatable project management process to control and accelerate implementation.

One of these days, I need to till up all the dirt in the back and mix in some good soil to build a garden that can grow. This will require pulling up the whole thing and starting all over. That’s no fun, and I don’t have a tiller. Instead, I’ll continue to plant gardens that always look the same - bad.

Your competitor with the greatest market share somehow learned to implement strategy. What would happen if you did? What will happen if you don’t?

Lou Russell is president and CEO of Russell Martin & Associates, a consulting and training company focused on improving business results www.russellmartin.com. Lou and her staff deliver learning experiences that are fun, flexible, fast and measurable. She focuses on project management, leadership and organizational learning problems. She is the author of six books on these subjects.

[Top]

[Top]