Chapter Connections

Every organization needs to adapt to change if it is to succeed in today’s economy.  It is a known fact that change is inevitable and the only constant is change itself.  The problem is that most people don’t like change and many have a difficult time accepting and making the change.  It takes an average of 12 years for an organization to change. 

Excellent people skills are critical for the Project Manager (PM)/Change Agent (CA).  Combining the right people skills learned from project management methodologies and change management best practices will help increase cooperation and communication between departments and functions.   This will help expedite changing an organization more quickly and effectively. 

For example, the PM/CA should ensure that they have full support from Executive Management.  Next, the customers (internal and external) should be made aware of the planned change, be informed why it is important and necessary, and told how it will affect them.  Also, informing the customers of what’s in it for them will help gain everyone’s buy-in, or at least, consensus and openness to the change itself. Regular communications and necessary training throughout the change process will help assure continued buy-in throughout the organization. 

People skills are essential to effectively motivate and communicate with the project team, and ultimately with the rest of the organization.  Using these methodologies, along with other project management and change management best practice methodologies (not contained in this blog) will help ensure that the organization has a higher percentage rate of achieving the desired change effectively and efficiently in the shortest time possible.

Note:  Linda Huey, MBA, is ASTD-OC Chapter Secretary for 2012.  She has a Certificate in Organizational Development Best Practices and is currently working on obtaining certificates in Project Management Professional and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.  

We love our ASTD community and its breadth of expertise, so please feel free to share yours or your organization's best practices for program evaluation in the comments section below.

Why should you recommend joining ASTD-OC to your colleagues and friends?

Well, here are some of the benefits our members enjoy:

Numerous opportunities for professional development, informative Monthly Learning Events, SIGS for Organizational Development, Technical Training, and Career Management.  How about our special annual programs - Total Trainer and Powerful Presentation Skills?  Not to mention incredible workshops like the upcoming Tom Kuhlmann event! All of these are opportunities to network and make new friends!  And don't forget, we have plenty of ways you can voluteer and make a positive difference!

Oh, almost forgot..........

How about opportunities to win prizes like our ASTD Certificate workshops?  Congratulations to Edna Davoudi, our March 1st winner who selected a design certificate program valued at $1,795!

We typically associate "distance learning" with the web these days - sitting in front of a computer while some facilitator shares what he or she knows about a subject and perhaps pausing for a moment or two to seek questions.  In fact, distance learning has been around since 1728, with the introduction of correspondence courses, and has long been an appealing method of getting practicable information to an audience unable to travel to the instructor.
Your Total Trainer Distance Learning facilitator, Paul Venderley is the Manager of Learning Technology for Corinthian Colleges' OD Department, and a Past President of ASTD-Orange County. He designs both synchronous and asynchronous training interventions using WebEx, Captivate, Articulate, and Sharepoint.

This is your community, please feel free to comment below on what you are looking forward to most in the Total Trainer Workshop. If you are Total Trainer Alumni, we want to hear from your success stories and takeaways too.

ASTD-OC has kicked-off the new year and we’ve been busy creating and putting plans in place. We have an energetic and dedicated leadership team strategizing and implementing chapter plans.  You can check out the leadership team org chart under the About Us tab. The leadership team continues to work on the six strategic imperatives defined in 2011 to guide our action and goals. Our imperatives:

1. Enhance Operational Infrastructure
2. Plan and Execute Leadership Succession
3. Plan for Financial Sustainability
4. Plan for Leveraging Technology
5. Plan for Membership Benefits
6. Plan, Retain & Increase Membership

We started the year with a big bang – a successful monthly learning event that saw an overflowing room of more than sixty-five people learn the “The Top Ten Neuro-Keys to Unlocking Learning Agility and Making Training Stick” with Aparna Suresh.  A big part of successful monthly events is in the planning.  The chapter is supporting learning agility with numerous offerings getting ready to launch.  Two of the most popular coming this spring:  Total Trainer, kicking-off in April and Tom Kuhlman has agreed to present the latest in e-learning for a May workshop. Monthly learning and SIG events are planned for the quarter with sights on Q2 topics and presenters.

Plans also include opportunities for members to participate in a variety of learning events, including SIG events, chapter and national workshops, webinars, and social media. Right now, members have an opportunity to attend a complimentary ASTD Certificate Program in April – look for information on our website.  Various mediums provide members with access to board meeting minutes, follow-up chapter learning event/speaker information, LinkedIn discussion boards, OrangeSpiehl Online, Timely Information, SIGnificant News, blogs (like this), and daily Tweets and Facebook messages. 

Yes, planning is a big part of any new year and we have a number of plans in the works. We are always open to hearing from the chapter and I invite you to let us know how we’re doing.  Please share your ideas on learning event topic suggestions, how we can support you and the training and development community, and how we communicate with you – how you like to get information, what you’d like to change.  We’d love to hear from you!  Contact me at president@astdoc.org.

 

Rhonda Askeland

ASTD-OC, 2012 Chapter President

Come for the content. Stay for the community.

 

As we approach the new year with fresh eyes and a resolve to make changes here or there, perhaps it's an opportune moment to shake up our network a little bit. Who did we add to our network in 2011 that we have not connected with as we had planned?  Who do we want to add to our network today? 

It's also probably a good idea to dust off that elevator speech that we've been using for a bit too long. While a new year does not necessarily mean a "new you," it does imply a new business environment -- your elevator speech should adapt to reflect that.

Now, you should have a basic elevator speech that's applicable to anyone you meet. But be prepared to modify it when you have specific information about the person you're talking to. The more relevant you make your speech to the listener, the more you will stick in that person's mind when you touch base with them later.

Here's a quick format for swiftly organizing your thoughts when people ask what you do.

• Give a succinct overview, in plain English. Even if you're talking to someone else within your industry, argot tends to vault what should be a pleasant conversation into a sales pitch.
• Give one example of how your efforts benefit your customers.
• Invite further discussion "What else would you like to know?"

This format keeps the content focused on the listener, and invites collaboration (as opposed to an easily-forgotten exchange of information).

ASTD-OC will have four opportunities for you to practice your elevator speech (and increase your network) this month. Check out our Events Calendar to see which one you'd like to participate in!

2011 has been a great year for our chapter. It has been characterized by high member involvement and volunteerism, dynamic meetings, and significant changes which have helped position us for future success.   

 

Please click here to read about our successes and the people who have made it possible. 

Sincerely,

Denise A. Lamonte
ASTD-Orange County 2011 President

The end of the year often provides time for reflection, and as outgoing Past President I find myself thinking about my tenure on the Board -- what I've accomplished, and what I've learned.

I began my Presidency with a vision -- that ASTD-Orange County should be the destination for training and development professionals of all experience levels to come together to develop skills which they had no opportunity to develop at their day job (or lack thereof). ASTD-Orange County would become a community of practice, and those who participated within that community would add skillsets to their professional abilities and experience to their resume. It was a bold vision, and one that I still believe we can achieve. We didn't get there under my Presidency -- too many things were in the way, too many resources were not at our disposal.

I agree that I'm one of my own harshest critics. That said, I believe that my Presidency had floundered trying to figure out how to accomplish my Vision. Thus, as Denise Lamonte transitioned into the 2011 Presidency, our discussions focused less on where the Chapter could go in the future and more on the gaps within the Chapter's organization.

This is an aspect of Denise's Presidency that I believe I learned the most from -- Organizational Leadership. While Denise and I had both identified several areas within the Chapter that needed to be developed before my Vision could be realized, the Chapter needed to strengthen its community overall.

Denise's skill as an Organizational Leader allowed her to address systemic challenges within the Chapter that I had been unable to.  Denise established clear expectations, action plans, consequences for not meeting those expectations, and follow-up for inaction. She created a structure in which the Chapter Leadership reported to and worked with the "Three Presidents" (myself, Denise, and Rhonda) in order to achieve strategic chapter imperatives.  Establishing expectations, creating accountable management structure, these concepts were not new things to me. But they were things that I had never worked on creating before my turn as President. So in my tenure, attempts at creating such a structure had either failed or backfired. Under Denise's Presidency, I experienced how best to accomplish these vital leader tasks.

In fact, many of the successes that I've seen the Chapter celebrate this year - and I'm going to try not to sound too hubristic here -- have some foundation in ideas that I'd put forward two to three years ago. Structures that had been proposed, yet not adopted until today. Technology that had been but tampered with, now embraced as we reach out to the younger generations of trainers.

To get a sense of what I mean, consider the changes to our website over the past few years. Our website had needed upgrading for some time, but how the site should be upgraded was a matter of discussion that was visited, then revisited, and revisited again. Our new site that had been created by the beginning of 2010 -- the Joomla-based site -- was a result of a Vision of what the Chapter could be - that vibrant Community of Practice, both online and real-world. The current website is reflective of where the Chapter is now, and will be for the near future -- a smaller community in need of a sustainable member resource, both in man-power and expense.

Perhaps one of the biggest ways in which Denise's Organizational Leadership efforts have come to initiate the Community of Practice I had envisioned can be seen with the number of volunteers who have willingly and openly shared their "lessons learned" after completing a project.  Damion Donaldson was was quite public about his "lessons learned." Pamela Coca has shared her lessons learned with Chapter Leadership, in doing so building a strong, emulatable Technology and Training SIG.

I look forward to seeing how Rhonda Askeland shall lead the Chapter in the coming year. Where I see myself as having been a "visionary leader," and Denise as having been an "organizational leader," I see Rhonda serving as an "inspirational leader." She is nothing less than a positive force of nature, one who will inspire the 2012 Chapter Leadership (both Board and Managers) to accept the organizational challenges that we face and the vision of what we seek to achieve, and address them together.

Looking back, I believe this was one of the great strengths of our Board: that the Three Presidents held such diverse skillsets: Visionary, Organizational, and Inspirational. Thus armed, we were able to address the Chapter concerns from a variety of perspectives. Just as the trainer cannot train only for the visual learner without alienating those auditory and kinesthetic learners, so does an organization's leadership suffer from having only Visionaries at the helm, or only Organizers.  Having a Board with strong Vision, Organization, and Inspirational leadership may be the key to its future successes.