Instructional Designer (posted 6/12/2017)

Baldwin Richardson Foods Co. is looking to contract an instructional designer to translate SOPs into simpler training aides.  This position would be on contract but the work is expected to be FT over several months.   Example:  one line has an SOP of 150 pages – multiply that times 15 or so lines…

If you're interested in learning more, contact details are below:

Benjamin “Ben” Vetter

HR Manager

Baldwin Richardson Foods Co

3268 Blue Heron View

Macedon, NY  14502

t.  315-986-2727 x1422

e.  bvetter@brfoods.com

Our Amazing Brains – Adventures in Lifelong Learning

Presentation by Suzanne Choma, SC Performance Consulting

Suzanne described Astro Teller’s Graph about the Rate of Change in Technology over time and the human adaptability.

The thought is that if we put our collective intelligence together, we can change the adaptability curve, and we can achieve dynamic stability at some point.

Some interesting facts about our brains:

• In utero, 250,000 nerve cells are created every minute.

• An 8 month fetus’ brain weighs 1 pound and has two times the neurons of an adult

• In the final stages of fetal development, about half of the neurons die, leaving only the fittest.

• A 6 year old’s brain is about 90% of the volume of an adult brain – that last 10% is a huge part of learning.

• Childhood and adolescence is a prime time for learning, and forgetting.

• Parts of the brain mature at different rates, starting from the back of the brain to the front.

• The adult brain weighs approximately 3 pounds (try picking up a 3 pound bag of rice and you’ll be amazed!)

• Our brains shrink with age – approximately 5-10% in weight and 15-20% in volume between the ages of 20 and 90.

• The good news is that during this time of shrinking, our brains are forming and reforming new neural connections.

Some scientists’ thoughts about the future brain:

• By the year 2030, nanobots will connect our brain cells to the cloud.

• Humans will be a hybrid of biological and non-biological thinking.

• Neural Darwinism – Neural networks compete with each other. Those that get stimulated grow while others atrophy.

• Learning is how you acquire information about the world, and memory is how you store the information over time. `Erik R. Kandel

• Neuroplasticity is the key to lifelong learning.

• Brain Fitness Across a Lifetime – Keys to aging well.

o Eat well

o Exercise your mind and body regularly

o Sleep 7-8 hours a night and take naps

o Spend time in nature

o Play games

o Socialize and make new connections

o Find purpose

o Embrace technology

o Explore new territory

o Develop a magnificent obsession – one that you learn and share with others

Resources

• Brogard, Beritand Marlow, Kristian. The Superhuman Mind: Free the Genius in Your Brain. New York: Hudson Street Press, 2015

• Goleman, Daniel. Focus. New York: Harper Collins, 2013

• Kurzweil, Ray. How to Create a Mind. New York: Viking, 2012

• Medina, John. Brain Rules. Seattle: Pear Press, 2008

• Oakley, Barbara. A Mind for Numbers. New York: Penguin, 2014.

• Restak, Richard. Optimizing Brain Fitness. The Great Courses, 2011

• Friedman, Thomas. Thank You for Being Late. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016

• Sweeney, Michael S. Brain: The Complete Mind. Washington: National Geographic, 2009

Power Member Michelle Westcott of Gillespie Associates recently completed her CPLP. Congratulations Michelle! 

Highland Hospital is hiring a Learning & Development Specialist. Here is the position summary and a link to the site where those interested are able to get more details and apply online.

Position Summary: Collaborates with Department of Education Director to support overall learning and development (L&D) strategy. Identifies development needs, designs, creates and delivers solutions across the organization at every level, both clinical and non-clinical. Responsible for implementing leadership and organizational development programs that support the performance and strategic objectives for all areas of the organization. Acts as a partner in matters related to onboarding, training, management/ leadership effectiveness, organizational design and development, performance management and leadership coaching. This role will also share responsibility for key programs and projects such as succession planning and developing talent pools for hard to fill positions.  

Click here for more details and to apply online.

Hudson-Mohawk ATD is holding its 2017 Talent Development Summit on Friday, May 12 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Troy, NY (just outside Albany). They have two keynotes and many sessions planned. Check out the Summit page for more details at http://hmatd.org/workshops-events/annual-conference/.  

Download Article

From left to right, Amy, Jon and Cindi joined Carrrie and Bob for our March 21st Learning and Development SIG meeting.

The morning's discussion was based on the downloaded article by the Ken Blanchard companies.  ROCATD participants discussed the topic of coaching, coaching tools and ideas applicable to their work.  

The Four Essential Coaching Skills (meeting notes)

1.    Listen to Learn - there are natural listeners and not so much - style differences, self-confidence is a foundation for good listening, listening training tips included repeating for clarity, the Yes and..., letting team members set agendas for coaching sessions/meetings, team activities to reinforce adapting styles to improve communication

2.    Inquire for Insight - Questioning Skills are critical to coaching success and not many possess them at an expert level, 2-min What? Questioning activity, question with curiosity not preconceived intention or judgment

3.    Tell Your Truth - feedback comes from a place of support and helpfulness, be fully present during coaching conversations, acknowledge feelings and emotions, fine-tune your noticing skills - recognize signs of disengagement/other negative emotions, use "yellow cards" to empower team members to lead up and hold you accountable for poor behavior/actions in order to drive lasting change

4.    Express Confidence - appreciate their work, focus on positives, celebrated successes, acknowledge positive change and goal achievement

The Coaching Process

1.    Connecting - build trust and rapport, be vulnerable

2.    Focusing

3.    Activating

4.    Reviewing

Key takeaways - coaching drives positive attitudes, trust and better results, training can improve the quality of coaching but very few organization invest in coaching skills training for their managers (5%) and 73% say it is a top leadership need.

Our next ROCATD LDC SIG meeting is April 18^th, join us.

Excellus Summer College Internship positions are now posted.  The following information describes the program and includes a link to get more information about each position and how to apply.  Some of their internship positions include:  Learning and Organizational Development, Human Resources, and Compensation.

 

 

13 Fun Tips for Trainers_ATD.pptx

The new RocATD ‘Consultant and Coach SIG’ met at ER-Select offices for the first time. The topic for discussion was 'Articulating Our Value Proposition to Our Clients.'

During this session, participants shared current challenges including:

Lack of advertising budget (non-for-profits)

Solo--preneurs emphasized the challenge and opportunity cost of needing to spend time on sales and marketing, while also getting all the work done that we already sold.

Everyone in attendance feels the pain of ‘feast or famine’ levels of work in combination with the need to plan time for sales efforts.

When articulating our value proposition, we need to live in the world of our client. We need to make our offer compelling to the business by articulating it in terms of impact on the business. We used a ‘business wheel’ diagram to help make connections from our work to business goals.

Of course, putting your value proposition in business terms assumes you know the business problem you’re solving. In other words, you might do the process of strategic planning, but the business problem you’re solving is a lack of alignment around business goals which, if remedied, would lead to greater productivity and, hopefully, to higher revenue.

We need to understand what business problem we’re solving, and who in the business feels the pain of that problem. It’s entirely possible that HR or the C-Suite aren’t the ones feeling this pain. We might need to drill down into the organization to find the impact and pain of that problem, but once we do, we can use it to convince the budget holders that the problem is real and is having very real effects on the business.

Here are some useful questions to consider (and to have short, compelling answers to):

• What do you do?
• What business problem do you solve?
• What is the impact of that problem?
• Who is feeling the pain?
• What is your differentiator among the competition?
• What services are you displacing? (In other words, what’s happening today without you help? What is the current negative impact of the pain your client is facing?)

All in all, it was a very successful first meeting! I’m sure I speak for everyone in attendance when I say that we are excited to have many more SIG meetings as good as this first one.

A special ‘Thank you!’ goes out to ER-Select (host) and Michelle Campanella (SIG leader) for making this SIG meeting so successful.

ROCATD colleagues enjoyed a great morning of networking and discussion of Work Rules (Insights from Inside Google).  We'd recommend picking-up a copy of the book to read over the holidays.  Maybe you will get a couple ideas like we did to implement in 2017.

A couple thoughts from our discussion:

• Founder mindset - taking responsibility for your environment
• Culture eats strategy for breakfast
• Hire smarter than you
• Learning and development - chunk it and practice a lot
• Googler to Googler (GtoG) - internal experts share their knowledge of work-related subject matter as well as non-work related topics = culture of learning.  Your best teachers are already inside your organization.
• Culture of innovation, experimentation and analytics
• Culture defined by mission and voice
• 20% of every team member's time allocated to what they want to learn, teach and work on = creativity and innovation

If you have read or read the book, share your insights and thoughts with a post.  See everyone at our next ROCATD event or SIG meeting.