Don’t assume training is the solution to your business problem.

Sales are down! We need training.

Turnover is high! We need training.

Compliance is low! We need training.

We Learning and Development specialists love to be needed. But our first question is always, “Is training the solution?”

When organizations simply default to training, they sometimes overlook the real issue. Here are some things to consider.

First, investigate the need you think you have. Is it really about skills, knowledge, or behaviors? Or is it motivation? Could it be a broken process or a clunky system, rather than the people?

Even if you don’t use that decision tool, a good learning methodology should answer the question: Is training the right solution?

The first step in Emerson’s learning methodology looks at the big picture. We examine the need – what prompted a request for training? What is the pain point? If it’s a business metric that’s underperforming, or a new target the organization needs to hit, or dissatisfaction because things aren’t working as they should, we ask to what extent people’s performance drives that pain.

A good learning methodology should answer the question: Is training the right solution?

Often, we find that there is some people-driven imperative. Maybe poor employee performance is impacting business results. Maybe there’s a new compliance requirement. Often, it’s a defined change, like an acquisition, influx of new employees, new technology or processes, or some other strategic imperative.

In every case, before we get training design rolling, we want to be sure that new skills, knowledge, and behaviors will get us there.

How to engineer a magical experience for your team and your client.

Everything at Walt Disney World is intentional.

The trees are groomed in such a way that the bees had access to their nectar. Thorns are removed from the cacti within patron reach. The pavement around low fountains changes to a worn, uneven brick pattern that commands subtle attention, reducing the risk of texters and scrollers falling in.

On the safari, you feel like you are so close to the animals. But, invisible to the untrained eye, are ditches, specifically planted foliage, and other ways to ensure patrons are safe. Is it magic or science? Maybe a little of both. It’s clear that Disney studied animal and human behaviors, and that information was used to ensure an immersive but safe experience. But the effect is certainly magical.

Throughout the park, the mechanics are also designed to be invisible. You hear music but don’t see speakers, see projected images but never see projectors, hear and see fireworks but never see barges, boats, or pyrotechnic staff. You never see a groundskeeper, yet the place is immaculate.

During my recent visit, I marveled at the choreography of the rides. It seemed like no seat was left empty for more than 30 seconds before the next rider was seated. Moving floors went at the same speed as the cars, so the line kept moving as customers eased on and off the rides without getting hurt. The effect was almost elegant, like a waltz.

The cast members are specially chosen and perfectly trained. Everyone stays in-character, no matter what; you’re always interacting with Cinderella or Peter Pan – never, ever the actor. The driver of your vehicle doesn’t feel like a Lyft or Uber, but a new friend taking you to one of their favorite places.

The effect was almost elegant, like a waltz.

The overall experience is that you are the center of this wonderful universe. Everything was created, designed, and implemented with you in mind. A visit to Walt Disney World leaves you feeling embraced and cared for.

As I enjoyed my visit, I thought about the Walt Disney World organization needed to create that magical experience. It requires leadership, strategy, science, innovation, and tight management, thousands of skilled employees – the same things that serve any high-performing organization. After my trip to Walt Disney World, I’m trying to put a touch of Disney into my work with clients.

So how can you manage a magical project?

The Magic of Information

• Learn as much about the client and the subject matter as you can. Information is power; it will help you to deliver the best for your client. You might uncover business needs that weren’t part of the original scope. You might find synergies with other initiatives. Doing your research and constantly learning will help you be more agile, making smart decisions and delivering beyond your original scope.
• Science is your friend. There’s a wealth of information out there that can inform your solution. Ground your work in behavioral science, technical knowledge, and lessons learned by organizations who have done similar projects.

The Magic of Invisible Design

• Think about the outcome your client wants, and design everything toward that end. The organization doesn’t need to see what you did to deliver the results; they need the results.
• Take the employee’s point of view. What will they see, hear, read, and experience? How do you want them to feel, think, and act as a result of the program you’re building? That’s what matters. Start by thinking of that end-user experience and their work lives after you have implemented your program. Focus on creating that future state for them.

Think about the outcome your client wants, and design everything toward that end.

The Magic of Seamless Efficiency

• Break down barriers for your team. I like to call this Dragon Slaying. Look ahead to see what dragons may be on the path to slow your team down and remove them. Sometimes this means that the magical dragon poofs into thin air and sometimes it’s mitigating the risk in a way that your team must merely step over the dragon’s lifeless body. Either way, identify and minimize them, ideally before they become a hindrance for your team.

The Magic of Elegant Orchestration

• Keep up with schedules and deliverable dates. Use your project plan as a living document; update it daily, identifying risks, challenges, and wins. Keep detailed notes of and track deliverable status.
• Ensure all team members are aware of the project plan, dates, and outcomes. They need the whole picture, including the hand-offs: what comes before and after a task and how their work affects other team members and teams.

Dragon slaying: Look ahead to see what dragons may be on the path to slow your team down and remove them.

• Ensure smooth sign-offs and transitions as project moves from one stage to the next. Have clear methods for sign-off and task completion. Document and share completion criteria for each task.
• Build strong communication channels across functional areas. Ensure teams know who to communicate with, when, about what, and how. Establish stand-up meetings, status documents, collaboration forums, or anything else that ensures great communication.

The Magic of Being In-Character

• Cast wisely. Know your team’s roles and superpowers: what they do, how they do it, their capabilities, and their limitations.
• Give them their script and character. Each person must know their roles and responsibilities and the roles and responsibilities of the other Super Friends.
• Put on a show. Remind them they are a cast of characters, not solo players. Where one person is weak, another might be strong. Encourage them to lift each other up and succeed as a team, in service of the client. Your client’s experience depends on the entire team playing their parts.

Know your team’s roles and superpowers: what they do, how they do it, their capabilities, and their limitations.

The Magic of Caring

• The project experience hangs on the well-being of your teams, client, and stakeholders. It might go without saying but treat them with care. Make sure they walk away from your project feeling good about their work and themselves.
• Is your project NOT the happiest place on earth? Set rules of engagement. Plan to deal with conflict. Handled well, conflict breeds innovation and invention. Set the standard that respect, dignity, and civility are requirements on your project.
• Think again about the experience of each client team member and stakeholder. Do they get that your efforts are centered on them? Will they feel your program was a custom-made experience that made them better? Keep your eye on that goal and adjust your work to make that happen.

Make sure they walk away from your project feeling good about their work and themselves.

Whether we think of Disney as a magical experience or an elite organization, we can learn a lot from them.

Keep employees sharp during tough times.

In times of economic uncertainty, some organizations decide to freeze hiring. This is a great way to save money for better days.

But the work doesn’t stop. Your business needs to keep running smoothly and hitting its targets. Performance issues might go unaddressed and build up. Without the option to hire new perspectives and skill sets, the future can feel daunting.

You might be thinking, “Surely, there’s another way,” and you’re right. Upskill and invest in your people. But how do you start?

Competency Model

First, figure out what “good” looks like for your people and your organization. What knowledge, skills, and attitudes does each role need to succeed? This is the foundation for competency modeling. It’s the destination on your upskilling roadmap.

You have a competency model? Great, here are some questions for you:

• When was the last time you looked at it?
• Is it clearly tied to your organization’s go-to-market strategy?
• Is it role- and level-specific?
• Do you have skills mapped to your competencies?
• Have you defined proficiency levels for each of those skills?
• Have you identified observable, measurable behavior statements that reflect the relevant proficiency level?

If you answered yes to all these questions, congratulations! You have a comprehensive competency model, you’re ready to move to the next step.

First, figure out what “good” looks like for your people and your organization.

Learning Blueprint

With your end goal in mind, you can now start plotting a course: mapping learning moments to your competency model.

Start with what people need to know and do to exhibit proficiency in a skill. And keep in mind, they don’t need to know and do everything, all at once – that’s an easy way to overwhelm your learners. If you teach everything, it’s too hard to distinguish what is most critical that your learners must get right from what is mundane.

How do we make that distinction? Priorities, with an eye on business impact:

• Common: What do your learners do every day? They have to get that right.
• Critical: What must your learners do right to be successful right now?
• Catastrophic: What must your learners do to prevent disaster? There are hundreds of buttons in a cockpit, only two will cause a crash. Teach those two buttons early and often.

Cross-reference these impactful topics with how complex the subject is to learn. Your top-priority topics are where high impact and complexity intersect. Put the most effort there.

These prioritized topics become the foundation for your learning journey. Meeting them requires a curriculum full of learning moments, beyond just formal training.

Start with what people need to know and do to exhibit proficiency in a skill.

Learning Program

A comprehensive, continuous learning model demands a holistic collection of learning moments beyond formal training. Growth toward competence doesn’t happen just by sending people to training sessions, your learners need more. The reasoning here is that training is not the same as learning. Learning involves doing, reflecting, and then doing again; training is simply the preparation for the doing.

With this in mind, your program should embrace these elements:

• Education: Traditional training, whether it’s in the classroom, virtual instructor-led sessions, eLearning, micro video, etc.
• Experience: Application and practice, which might be in a simulation, in a controlled real-world activity, or on the job.
• Exposure: Social learning, whether as part of a cohort of peers learning from each other, working with a coach or mentor who provides context and perspective, or attending fireside chats or expert panels to broaden horizons and learn new applications.
• Environment: Tools, templates, and infrastructure to facilitate learning over time and support at time of need, within the flow of real work.

Interlace these four components into a deliberate sequence to form learning journeys for each role.

Growth toward competence doesn’t happen just by sending people to training sessions, your learners need more.

The Way Forward

If you got this far, then you have a route and now can take inventory:

• What are the strongest existing learning materials that you can slot into your journeys immediately?
• What’s pretty good, and just needs some modification?
• What do you have to build from scratch or curate from another source?
• What do you have that no longer serves the organization or your learners?

With these defined, you’re ready to hit the road and build your upskilling curriculum. But don’t stop at building; you also need to roll out the program. You can have the greatest learning program in the world, but if your learners don’t know about it, don’t care about it, or can’t easily access it, none of this effort will matter.

Wherever you’re at in your journey, know that you’re doing a good thing for your organization — building a learning culture and empowering your people. Know that there will be a return on this investment. (More on this to come!)

Active listening is a behavior we can improve.

You’re telling a colleague about something that happened yesterday. You finally drop the most surprising part of the story, and you’re met with a blank look and “uh-huh.” In that instant, you know they haven’t been listening. Their eyes shift from a point across the room back to your face and they realize they’ve been caught.

It doesn’t feel good, does it? It might feel even worse for your colleague, who realizes they have been outed as insincere, at best.

Next time, you might avoid confiding in that person. They might feel uncomfortable around you. It might not be a big deal, but it certainly didn’t make your relationship stronger.

Humans have a fundamental need to be seen and heard.

Listening is respect; it lays the foundation for trust-based relationships and shared understanding, without which teams can’t succeed.

So how do we become good listeners? Active listening is a behavior we can improve and, like all behaviors, it requires both “being” and “doing.” Think of your being state as your attitude and intention. The doing state is observable behavior.

How to Be

1. Be neutral. This is a variation on mindfulness, or non-judgmental awareness. Being human is messy; the person who is speaking has emotions and thoughts that might not seem logical or sensible to you. And they don’t have to! Don’t feel like you must respond right away. Suspend your judgment. First, just listen and try to understand.
2. Be curious. Imagine the two of you are carrying backpacks into the conversation. The backpacks are full of experiences and habitual emotional responses built up over a lifetime. To listen well, take off your backpack. Forget yourself for a little while and experience what the other person is saying from their point of view.
3. Be regulated. Sometimes we hear things that bring up our own discomfort. Try to regulate your physiology so you don’t react to your own internal responses. That will help you stay present. In other words, “practice the pause.”

What to Do

1. Tune in. Eliminate distractions. If you’re face-to-face, start by turning off your devices. If you’re connecting remotely, turn on your camera and minimize other windows. Give yourself and the other person the gift of space they can fill with their message.
2. Take in what is happening in front of you. As you listen, what are you seeing and perceiving? What kind of energy or mood state is this person demonstrating? What’s their rate of speech? How is their breathing? What are their gestures and eyes doing? Once you do that, you can confirm that you are beginning to understand. For example:
3. Check in. Share something like, “I noticed you got quiet when you talked about your performance review” or, “When you talked about that project, you seemed excited.”
4. Use their words. If someone says they’re frustrated, you can simply say, “Frustrated.” If someone says they enjoy project management, you can say, “You enjoy project management.”
5. Sometimes people just want to vent. They’re not looking for a solution, but rather an open and safe space to hear themselves think. Before inserting your ideas or opinion, ask, “Do you want to be heard, or do you want me to offer feedback?” Then make good on their answer. And if you’re at a loss, ask, “How can I help?”

The more you practice, the stronger your active listening muscle will get. As you turn active listening into a daily habit, you’ll promote an inclusive and productive culture and more easily sustain high-performing relationships at work and in life.

You Really Need These Answers Before Day One

Your new system and processes are going live pretty soon. You have solid training and communications in place. So you’re ready, right?

Not necessarily. There are organizational dynamics that can scuttle your smooth transition plans. Ask yourself these questions, and plan to go live with no unpleasant surprises.

1. What message is the boss sending? If he or she does not support the change, the team will not buy in. Ensure executive leadership visibly and vocally supports the change.
2. Is the old way faster? People might revert to doing what they know to get the job done. Think of ways to ensure workers do their work in the new way, with the new tools.
3. What are the consequences for not working the new way? If there are no consequences, expect noncompliance. Prepare to demonstrate the business impact of not doing it the new way.
4. How “real” is the training? Without realistic scenarios and simulations, you can’t expect good performance on the job.
5. Are you training roles or tools? The tool is simply the means for executing job functions. Effective training is role-based and teaches to day-to-day business processes.
6. Will they learn to handle mistakes? If you only teach people what to do when everything works perfectly, that is not realistic. Train people on what to do when things go wrong.
7. Where do people turn when they need help on the job? Do they turn to peers, their boss, procedure manuals, or online help? Create a post-training support system that makes sense for these users.

First, we have to agree on what AI is. Then, we can help employees adopt it.

In March, tech gurus including Steve Wosniak and Elon Musk signed an open letter calling for a pause in AI development, citing “human-competitive intelligence (that might) post profound risks to society and humanity.”

More recently, Geoffrey Hinton, hailed as the godfather of AI, quit Google so he could air his concerns independently. In a 2021 commencement address, Hinton said, “I believe that the rapid progress of AI is going to transform society in ways we do not fully understand and not all of the effects are going to be good.” For Hinton, the downsides seem to outweigh the benefits, like improvements in healthcare. The risks he envisions range from job elimination to lethal autonomous weapons. He also says AI might create a world where we will “not be able to know what is true anymore.”

Speaking of misinformation…these stories made it to the table at The View, where hosts weighed in. They talked about the pros and cons of AI, but couldn’t even agree on what AI is. Notably, Whoopi Goldberg said that she defines AI as something “sentient” that “can think for itself.”

Whoa. I’m not saying a robot boyfriend is not in my future, but sentience is NOT what the scientists are talking about. There’s a big difference between smart or fast or autonomous and self-aware.

The lesson for those of us who help the workforce deal with change is this: AI is scary to some people, and possibly for the wrong reasons.

Let’s say your organization is adopting AI to gain efficiencies, reduce costs, or deliver better customer value. How should you approach employees about it?

1. Mind your language.

Maybe don’t call it “artificial intelligence.” I’m not suggesting lying to people; just the opposite. Explain exactly what the new technology will do.

The term “AI” can be triggering. Moreover, “AI” is too broad a term to be useful when talking to employees. AI is a huge category; labeling a new tool “AI” gives very little information to the people who are desperate to know how it’s going to change their work lives.

Think of it this way — will your AI solution detect and prevent dangers in the workplace? Say that! Call it Safety Software. Is AI going to supply customer service agents with better, faster answers to help customers? Say that! Call it Your Customer Service Assistant.

2. Get real.

Approaching any change, what do employees want to know? They want to know how it will affect them – their job responsibilities, their daily tasks, their compensation, their team performance, and their job security.

Get ahead of the resistance by answering questions honestly and thoroughly. Yes, even the bad news. If your new AI… sorry, Customer Service Assistant…will eliminate jobs, be up-front about it.

Most important: document and communicate the day-to-day work that will be different after implementation.

If you don’t tell people the story, they will fill the gap with their own.

3. Reframe AI.

Is the anxiety warranted? Maybe some of it. But AI can also benefit workers — sometimes in big ways. In fact, some employees have already adopted the positive mindset you’re hoping for. A Pew Research study shows 37% of workers are “purely excited” about AI.

And there’s plenty of evidence to back their enthusiasm. AI solutions, like tech before it, can take mundane, focus-intensive tasks off employees’ plates, freeing them up for more analytical and creative work.

One real-world study showed that AI offered big benefits for inexperienced or less-skilled workers by raising the quality of their work and productivity to be on par with their best-performing colleagues.

Armed with facts, examples, and those 37% already excited about it (your “early adopters”), you can – with authenticity — frame your AI adoption as a win-win.

When we need to worry about killer robots, we’ll worry about killer robots. In the present day, lead the change by taking these three steps. You can definitely make AI work for both your bottom line and your human workforce.

How to manage your own transition to your new job

There are plenty of articles, including our own, on how organizations can improve employee onboarding. But how can you create a great transition for yourself?

Prepare

You’re ready to start that new job in a new organization. How can you set yourself up for success?

Reflect on the behaviors and habits in your old role.

What served you well? What mistakes did you make? In other words, what advice would you give yourself about starting a new job?

Find your info gaps.

Consider that you don’t know what you don’t know. Where might you have knowledge gaps?

Identify your early support network.

As you onboard, you’ll see org charts and meet people. Who are the people you hope to rely on? Choose people based on their role (new resources) or your initial connection (new friends or mentors).

Envision your best transition.

If, six months from now, you tell a friend, “I love my new job. I’m exactly where I need to be and I’m crushing it.” What does that look like? Who do you need to be to create that? What do you need to keep/stop/start doing? Which people, information, or resources do you need to get there?

Ask

During onboarding and your first days on the job, ask these questions. You might find answers baked into your onboarding experience. If not, ask!

How do I fit in?

You’ve just jumped aboard a moving train, metaphorically. So it’s important to understand where it’s going and why you’re on board. What is the goal of your department or team? How does success depend on the person in your role? What is your boss trying to achieve and how can you help? How do your efforts fit into the big picture of the organization’s vision?

What do others need from me?

The answer will depend on who the “other” is. If you’re onboarding as a group. Your peers are transitioning too. How can you help each other succeed? Those early connections can become important relationships you’ll rely on for a long time to come.

If you’re onboarding solo, what does your new team need from you? Are they behind, because your position was unfilled? Do they hope you’ll deliver a certain skill or function to help them succeed? Again, don’t just wonder or rely on observation. Ask!

What are the unwritten rules I need to know?

Organizational culture is the set of unspoken norms that guide behavior. They are the ways people make decisions in the absence of direction. The sooner you figure those out, the easier your life will be. You’ll figure out some of it instinctively; you’ll pick up on the energy, language, and little behaviors of people around you.

But it never hurts to ask. As you make friends and mentors, get them to share the likes and dislikes of the culture. How do people like to communicate? What really pisses people off? Is it better to be right or to be supportive? Decisive or thoughtful? Do people “fail fast” or work meticulously to the right product? Do you work and succeed as a team or as individuals? How do successful people in the organization balance work and life?

The more you learn and observe, the better you’ll understand how to smooth the way forward.

Learn

You might feel overwhelmed, but think of it as growing, because it is.

Let go of the past.

Transitions – even good ones – are hard. Acknowledge that and give yourself a little grace. At the same time, develop a new vision for yourself based on what’s around you.

Ask for feedback.

Seek input from peers, supervisors, and anyone else you trust. The faster you correct course, the happier you’ll be. And remember, no one expects the new person to be perfect! If you ask for input, you’ll scramble up the learning curve as quickly as possible and look good doing it.

However you recharge your batteries off work, do that, especially now.

Transitions are draining, and you need all the mental, emotional, and physical strength you can get.

And take care of yourself at work, too.

That means setting boundaries and maintaining the habits that make you happy. Is there an 8:00 am meeting you dread? Build in time to grab your favorite drink beforehand. Do all your new extraverted teammates love group lunches? If you need that alone time at lunch, keep it. Join the group once or twice a week. Do you hate the interruption of calls or instant messages? Reply on email. That will teach people to contact you in the way you prefer.

At the end of each day, think for a few minutes.

What worked well? What didn’t go well? What can you do to make tomorrow better? If you’re a journal person, level up by keeping a log of your lessons learned.

There’s no one way to onboard perfectly, but there is a right way for you. Figure out how to prepare, what to ask, and how to learn and you might love your new work home.

Should you use it to create your content?

ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can revolutionize the way you approach content creation. In this article, we’ll explore some of the ways ChatGPT can transform your content creation process and help you produce high-quality, engaging content faster and more efficiently.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI. It uses machine learning algorithms to analyze and understand natural language, allowing it to generate responses that are similar to those of a human. This technology has a wide range of applications, from chatbots to language translation and even content creation.

How can ChatGPT transform your content creation process?

Generate new content ideas.

One of the biggest challenges of content creation is coming up with new and engaging ideas. ChatGPT can help you overcome this obstacle by generating a list of potential topics based on your input. For example, you could provide ChatGPT with a general topic or keyword, and it would generate a list of potential angles or subtopics to explore.

Improve your writing skills.

ChatGPT can also help you improve your writing skills by analyzing your content and providing feedback on areas that could be improved. It can identify issues such as sentence structure, tone, and grammar, and provide suggestions for improvement. This feedback can help you refine your writing style and produce content that is more engaging and effective.

Save time.

Creating high-quality content takes time and effort, but ChatGPT can help you save time by automating certain aspects of the process. For example, you can use ChatGPT to generate outlines or rough drafts of articles or blog posts. This can help you get a head start on the writing process and save time on research and planning.

Increase efficiency.

ChatGPT can also increase your efficiency by providing answers to common questions or inquiries. For example, you could use ChatGPT to generate a list of FAQs related to your product or service. This can save you time by answering common questions and reducing the need for manual responses.

Personalize your content.

ChatGPT can also help you personalize your content for your audience. By analyzing your target audience and their preferences, ChatGPT can suggest topics or angles that are more likely to resonate with them. This can help you create content that is more engaging and effective, leading to higher engagement and conversions.

To Recap

ChatGPT is not just a powerful tool that can transform your content creation process—it’s a stunning example of artificial intelligence at its finest.

In fact, you might be surprised to learn that ChatGPT was the one who wrote this entire blog post. That’s right, using its advanced natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, ChatGPT was able to generate high-quality, engaging content from scratch, without any human input. It’s a testament to the incredible capabilities of modern AI technology, and a glimpse into a future where machines and humans work together to create amazing things.

A global retailer once hired me to help install PeopleSoft—it was their 3rd attempt. Their pain is not uncommon. Enterprise resource planning, or ERP, is a vital management tool, but its implementation can often be a nightmare.

For example, the average cost of an ERP implementation is $4.5 million or 6% of revenue. The average time to implement is 1-3 years. (!) With these painful stats in mind, it makes sense the Wall Street Journal once described SAP implementation as a “corporate root canal.”

Here are five questions you need to ask and answer before implementing an ERP.

1. Who is on the team? The most common mistake is to assign responsibility to IT and whichever department will use the system the most. Those two silos typically don’t appreciate the implications of their decisions on the groups who will input, maintain or receive outputs from the system. This can scuttle your ERP. Instead, get a cross-section of expertise on your team. Every group interacting with the system should be there.
   

   Your ERP team should be made of your best employees—their decisions will impact how this system (and your business) will run for years.

2. What one behavior drives the business case? If your team is serious about the business case, they must articulate what they need people to do in clear, tactical terms. Then focus, focus, focus; focus relentlessly on that. An IT firm spent millions on enterprise resource planning to help them make money on license renewals. The one activity they needed most from their sales team was to call clients the month before their contracts expired. Because they didn’t make that specific request, sales people didn’t do it consistently. The firm could not hit the business case; it was wholly based on “license renewals”—a lovely concept that no one acted upon.
3. How are we managing first impressions of the system? Shteingart, Neiman & Lowenstein’s 2013 research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, shows that “first experience has a disproportionately large effect on subsequent actions,” something they labeled “outcome primacy.” In other words, first impressions matter. So the first employees who touch the system—starting with requirements definition—had better be wowed. Only someone in marketing should be giving the project a name. And if user acceptance testing sucks, stop implementation. As Kahneman and Tversky found, we feel the pain of loss more acutely than the pleasure of gain. We compulsively avoid anything that smacks of failure. Manage the employee experience as rigorously as you manage the project itself.
4. Who will be our first users? In the 1960s, Everett Rogers published a book called the Diffusion of Innovations, which analyzed why certain ideas and products capture the public’s imagination. He mapped those who adopt the idea against a bell curve, showing that 3.5% of the target group are eager early adopters, and 13.5% are positively predisposed to change. You can use this to create momentum. If you want your ERP to look like a winner, find the early adopters. Enlist the 3.5% for system test, and the 13.5% for UAT. Pilot with these employees intentionally. They’ll make the system seem safe and successful to everyone else.
5. How are we ensuring the system is employee-centric? Employees don’t think about the system. They think about their jobs. Training must be about how to use the system in the context of their jobs. What will they do, day to day? Where will new tasks and handoffs take place? Where are the data and tools they relied upon—which will stay and which will be replaced?

Generic ERP training is a waste of time and money. Train people to do their jobs, not use a system.

Enterprise resource planning is one of the most invasive and expensive undertakings your company will ever face – even if it’s “cloud-based” and “intuitive.” If you get these five things right, you’re ahead of the game and on your way to a return on your investment.

What moving to a new house can teach us about enterprise learning

Sometimes the last bit of something is great. You know how those yellow ice cream cones have a little grid in the bottom that gets filled with ice cream? That last part is magic — the perfect balance of ice cream and cone. Also great: the last part of a story, giving us the satisfying closure we need.

And then there is packing to move, where the last ten percent can feel like 110 percent. You think you’re nearly done, but the last few tasks keep dragging on.

It. Just. Won’t. End.

At the end of August, I moved to a new place; it was, in fact, that last ten percent that challenged me the most.

I drive a Honda Accord, which can only hold so much. It had to carry me, a large dog, snacks for me and the large dog, many plants, and a few other necessities. Then I realized it had to hold things that didn’t make it into the moving truck. I tried shipping a couple boxes; I made use of every spare nook in the car. Then I came to terms with the fact that some things just weren’t meant to go.

It occurs to me that this also happens when organizations are planning a learning experience for their teams. So often it is a big event— rare, much anticipated, and needs to fit “everything” in. Or so we think.

Do we really need to train on everything?

At Emerson we rely on 3 Cs to help us make those tricky calls. Is it: Common, Critical, or Catastrophic?

What does this mean?

• Common: Is it something that is fundamental to daily work? Is it something a lot of folks need to know or do?
• Critical: If nothing else happens, what must get covered? What is absolutely necessary?
• Catastrophic: Is the risk high? If someone doesn’t do this correctly could there be a significant negative effect on the function, business, or our customers?

It is important to recognize that everything can’t—and shouldn’t—be crammed into a learning event. When we find ourselves making use of every last bit of the time set aside for learning, it’s a sign to pause and ask, “What really needs to fit in?”  There has to be breathing room. There has to be room for dialogue, application, and actually digesting the experience.

I’m pledging to adopt Common, Critical, and Catastrophic for any future moves. Is it common—do I rely on it for my day-to-day life? (My dishes) Is it critical—a must have or something worth the cost to move? (My big couch) Is it catastrophic—fragile, perishable, or irreplaceable? (My dog!)

If the answer is yes, it is worth keeping.