Get out your business cards and join Bill Bankhead at Sugar Café in San Francisco on March 6 for a full night of networking and meeting new people.  Always a hit, these events focus solely on networking and offer participants an opportunity to talk to everyone in the room!  Space is limited – don’t delay  – register today!

Hone your change management and influence skills by attending the March 30 “Facilitating Organizational Change – Achieving Success as an Internal Consultant” workshop offered by Bev Scott and Kim Barnes.   Now more than ever, the ability to facilitate change, build relationships and positively influence the organization is vital to success.  Whether you are an internal workplace learning professional, a manager, an individual contributor or an external consultant, this workshop is for you!

During the workshop participants will learn and practice specific influence and negotiation skills to achieve results and build relationships with their clients and colleagues and they will build their competence in facilitating organizational change.   Don’t miss out - register now!

Here’s what you need to do to fully experience this new website:

Login and complete your profile

We’ve created accounts for all Chapter members. You can log in using your email address and the initial password: astdgg.  We’ve even created a little video to show you how to do that.  Click on the video link in the first paragraph on the homepage.

Once you’ve logged in, you can change your password, update your profile, set privacy level, register for events, check out the job postings and network with other members.

A quick glance at the navigation tabs and what’s in each tab:

To register for programs and events:

All chapter events will be promoted on the website.  You will still be sent emails inviting you to future events and now you can register and pay for them through the website.  (Your payments will be automatically routed through our new Paypal portal).  While the chapter much prefers online payments, you will still be able to pay at the door for some events, but we can only take cash and checks, no credit cards, and there is still an additional $5 administrative fee.

We hope you find this how-to guide helpful.  Let us know if you have questions or suggestions, please send your comments to: admin@astdgoldengate.org

See you at our next event!

2011 November, ASTD Golden Gate Chapter monthly meeting. The panel, from left: Dr. Pi Wen Looi, Janet Chahrour, Paul Larsen, Judy Burgio, R.Ph., C.N., Elizabeth Doty.

All the coaches help clients clarify their view of the starting situation, reach new insights about that situation, recognize some influences, make plans and come to new ways of doing things in order to produce results. These coaches offer their clients some uncommon reflection in response to the client’s words and actions. The ROI of coaching in a workplace includes better job performance, increased employee engagement, and decreased attrition rate.

Collective Wisdom of Coaching

Judy Burgio brings compassion to the coaching relationship. She has seen clients beat themselves up if they don’t meet their goals. She helps clients focus on what is working, develop strategies to achieve their goals, and help them learn a new powerful compassionate language to address the situation. Judy shared an example of a manager coaching one of his employees to be on time to meetings. When the manager reinforced in a positive way when the employee was on time, the on-time behavior increased.

Janet Chahrour is a relationship coach. She sees a powerful connection between making changes and showing appreciation. One of the most powerful things she sees is around giving and receiving appreciation. She has found that her clients have the greatest difficulty receiving appreciation from others, and feeling it within themselves. Janet uses a relationship system approach to help clients see patterns they may choose to change and gets people physically moving as they make efforts to move forward in their lives.

Elizabeth Doty notes that whenever there is a change in an organization, at least one person feels they are making a compromise. She works with clients to turn it around. She helps clients to uncover the real choice for them so they can see what they will gain. Using her Compromise Trap coaching model, she helps clients identify five things they can do in a “trap” situation to turn it around. She also incorporates an “after-review” to look at the results, its impact on their environment, and the people around them.

Paul Larsen encourages people to break the cycle of false positive talks in their existing models of current behavior. Through the metaphor of tourist vs. traveler he encourages his corporate and non-profit clients to stop letting someone else figure it out (i.e., just be a tourist). Instead, he coaches his clients to take initiative and ownership for their own results (i.e., be a traveler).

Coaching is about gaining insight, following that insight up with action, reflecting on the results of that action, and making adjustments and continuing as needed. A coach helps to activate a powerful state in the client’s mind that brings up insights, which often leads to personal growth.

And that may lead an employee to leave his/her current job or make drastic changes in his/her personal life. This is the risk of receiving coaching that the coachee and his/her employer need to recognize.

You can deepen your knowledge about coaching with these books:

1. The Compromise Trap: How to Thrive at Work without Selling your Soul, by Elizabeth Doty
2. Co-Active Coaching: New skills for coaching People Toward Success in Work and Life, by Laura Whitworth, Karen Kimsey-House, Henry Kimsey-House, and Philip Sandahl
3. Seven Transformations of Leadership, by Bill Torbert
4. The Neuroscience of Leadership, by David Rock
5. Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work, by David Rock
6. Mastery, by George Leonard
7. Helping People Win at Work: A Business Philosophy Called “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A”, by Ken Blanchard

Written by Wendy Sterndale, edited by Pi Wen Looi, PhD.

ASTD Golden Gate Member Appreciation and Volunteer Recognitioin Gala. Photo credit: Bill Bankhead

May I just say, Best Gala Ever!  Wow — what a great evening.  Great food, great game (thank you TeamROI!), great venue, great prizes, great gifts, great pianist (thank you Jerome!) and most of all our great people – members, volunteers, and this year’s speakers in attendance.  It will be hard to top this one next year, but we will try.  Thank you to everyone who made this event so fabulous -especially our wonderful Board of Directors.

ASTD Golden Gate 2010 Gala, photo by Jessica Levant

There is so much buzz this time of year.  The chapter Board of Directors is buzzing with activity leading up to the December 6  Gala.  We’re buying door prizes and other gifts, finalizing the menu, creating the slideshow, lining up entertainment.  Our annual Gala is all about celebrating our successes, networking, and enjoying an evening in a festive setting. Click here to see photos* of last year’s Gala. 

If your holiday season is not too buzzy, please join us. It’s not too late — you can just come and register at the door. It is sure to be a fabulous time.  We are all abuzz!

*Photo credits: Jessica Levant.

Image by radzfoto via Flickr

In November, we surveyed our members to assess their interests in volunteering to help communities in the Bay Area. The message is clear: COP volunteers are willing and available.

Read more about the survey results and what it means to you.

COP Volunteers are Willing and Available

By Jason Lai, COP Volunteer Manager

As I look at those who come through the doors of the ASTD Golden Gate Chapter, I see all kinds of talented people who bring a vast amount of knowledge and expertise in the fields of Organization Design, Talent Development, Training, Facilitation, and the like. I see professionals who are respected leaders in their industry.

The Community Outreach Program (COP) of ASTD/Golden Gate is fortunate to draw from this pool of talent. COP aims to involve and team up Chapter members so that we may give back to the community. We want to utilize the skills and abilities of our members to make an impact in and for the Bay Area nonprofits. Volunteers play a crucial role in COP. Essentially, without volunteers, ASTD is without COP. Recently, COP has been surveying Chapter members to systematically involve as many people as we can.

Some areas we analyzed were:

• Strengths, skills, and areas of expertise of potential volunteers
• Areas that people would like to develop through COP experience
• Time commitment and involvement availability

Overall, we had a great response. We were aiming to recruit 12 volunteers and ended up receiving 19 solid responses.

That means that COP will be able to continue its work. We have volunteers who can conduct 3-4 Needs Analysis with potential non-profit clients. We have capacity to design, develop, and deliver 2-3 workshops per year. We have volunteers who can facilitate strategic planning meetings. That’s a win-win for the profession and for the community.

We appreciate all of your thoughtful responses. COP will look for ways to get our willing volunteers to work! We are dependent on volunteers like you to keep this program running.

Thank you for your support, dedication, and commitment. And, of course, as new members come to the Chapter, you are always welcome to volunteer for COP.

To volunteer for COP, contact me at volunteer_astdcop@astdgoldengate.org

I have volunteered on the chapter Board since 2002.  It has been one of my most rewarding professional experiences. I have made lasting friendships and have even gotten a couple of jobs through this affiliation.  And, I’ve learned so much.

The reward is intangible in many ways, but because our volunteer corps has been so committed and has made our chapter such a great place to be, we want to say Thank You! Our annual December Gala is one way to thank our amazing volunteers.  They get a special invitation to our Gala and attend at no charge.

Even if you haven’t volunteered (and don’t feel bad about that — not everyone can do it), we want to say Thank You to all of our members.  We need all of you — and our Member Appreciation and Volunteer Recognition December Gala (that’s the official long name) is for you, too (for a small fee).  Please come and celebrate our success, eat, drink, network, and have a fabulous evening in San Francisco, December 6th.  As always, see our website for details.

The Gala is put on by your Amazing Chapter all-Volunteer Board of Directors as a huge Thank You to you, our members and member-volunteers for another fantastic year. We look forward to seeing you there!

On Wednesday, October 12^th, the authors of one of the top five selling books in ASTD press, Consulting on the Inside, A Practical Guide for Internal Consultants, 2nd edition, came to speak with us about “Facilitating Organizational Change.” Their book is used by professionals and is quoted in many books intended for preparation towards the CPLP examination. Bev Scott and Kim Barnes, together bring about 35 years professional experience in Organizational Development, Training and Management.

2011 October ASTD Golden Gate Chapter meeting presenters Kim Barnes and Bev Scott

The presentation began with a description of the internal consultant role. The internal consultant focuses on managing change, fear, and keeping client-requested plans for change on track. When working with clients or client systems there may be resistance. Part of the job of the internal consultant is to help the client move through the process. As an employee of their client company, the internal consultant uses high-level communication skills combined with unique insider’s knowledge to help the client look at root issues that may be part of a larger organizational issue.

Process

Internal consulting is less linear than external consulting. It is like a bowl of spaghetti. The consultant moves between these steps.

1.     Contact – Contact can be wherever you run into people. Internal consultants know the organization and at least some of the people, though not always. Everybody is a potential client. First, lay the foundation; get information about why they are interested in working with you. That should lead to some kind of agreement, the next step.

2.     Agreement – Clarify whether the agreement is for the next step, or is it for a whole project. Internal consultants establish an agreement, rather than a contract, with their clients.

3.     Assessment – The challenge here, is getting to the right people in the client system to gather the right data. The internal consultant must be careful to avoid their own preconceptions, and be adept at recognizing and managing client assumptions. When gathering sensitive data, they must clarify appropriate language with the client. This will help to avoid confusion or animosity. An internal consultant needs to recognize when it is wise to bring someone in, either from outside the immediate system or outside the organization.

4.     Feedback – This is a sensitive step, especially if the data collected from a client system, from a department, or a unit, is information the client doesn’t want to believe, accept, or agree with. For instance, how do you deliver the message that the client is part of the problem? This requires a lot of preparation and a lot of careful communication. Time is a good tool. Ask the client to think about the data overnight.

5.     Alignment – Alignment is not possible unless the client owns the data. If the internal consultant starts to wonder if the client is heading down a different path, it is best to back up to the Agreement step. It may be necessary to gather agreement from secondary clients if the problem impacts more of the organization than originally considered. Questions to ask:

a.     What is it we are really trying to change here?

b.     Who’s involved in this process?

c.     What is our strategy to get from here to this future place?

This is a really important step. This is where communication skills and expertise are very often needed. To gain this alignment, the internal consultant must now demonstrate knowing something about how change happens and how to move an organization forward.

6.     Implementation. After the client clearly owns the data and agrees on a plan, the internal consultant will implement the plan. The outcome could be an off-site retreat or a continual improvement process.

7.     Evaluation. A critical step that the internal consultant doesn’t do often enough is to evaluate success. At the end of the project or at major milestones, the internal consultant should review their agreement with the client, assess their accomplishments and lessons learned, for both the internal consultant and the client.

Success Factors

To ensure success of any organizational change, three factors must be present at the client company or client systems:

1.    People have to be dissatisfied enough with the way things are.

2.    There must be an articulated vision for how it could be different and better.

3.    There has to be trust of the support for getting from before to after the change effort.

If any of those is zero, the effort is much more likely to fail. A successful change effort requires that the leadership align to the vision and the strategy. The internal consultant must align to the organizational leader who supports the change. There also has to be a compelling business case. Leaders and employees impacted by the change have to see that there is dissatisfaction that creates the business case for major change.

An internal consultant needs to be flexible and continue to develop appropriate skills to manage any surprises that might arise from a change management initiative. As change is the only constant, an internal consultant can count on using various skills to help the client navigate through the change process.

Reported by Wendy Sterndale, edited by Pi Wen Looi

Our website will be hosted on Wild Apricot, a membership and event management platform. Many other chapters have already made the shift to this exciting new system that will let you manage your online relationship with Golden Gate Chapter more easily than ever.

Now, Members Only content such as Job Search, Member Directory, and chapter business documents will be accessible through the same site and login as you use to look for the event calendar and register for programs. Plus, your membership status, renewal date, and all your financial transactions will be available for you to view at any time through your member login ID.

Look for announcements coming from Golden Gate Chapter starting mid-December.  We will be sending you access and setup information you will need to register so the new system recognizes you as a member.  Being registered as a member will be the only way to access the Members Only content and get member rates for events.  Don’t worry — we’ll send lots of announcements, and are even creating a tutorial video to guide you through the setup.  It’s easy, and you’ll have plenty of time, but we don’t want anyone to be left behind during this exciting transition.

The new and improved website will be a one-stop shop for ASTD Golden Gate Chapter.  And, it will be launched on January 1st.

If you are interested in checking out other Chapters that use the same hosting platform, click on any of the following links:

ASTD Atlanta

ASTD Eastern Pennsylvania

ASTD Miami

If you have questions or suggestions on how to make this transition easier for you, send us your feedback!

2011 September ASTD Golden Gate chapter meeting presenter, Roger Chevalier

On Wednesday, September 14^th, Roger Chevalier, Ph.D., CPT, an independent consultant specializing in imbedding training into comprehensive performance improvement solutions talked with our members about improving workplace performance.

Dr. Chevalier shared with us his experience and presented a workplace performance improvement (WPI) process that could help managers and trainers measure the impact of their training programs. Dr. Chevalier’s process is an application of situational leadership that will work in the coaching field, performance development, and sales. He observed that in an unreinforced work environment, the knowledge of training is lost in just one month after the training.

Dr. Chevalier asserts that if you have not assessed the business conditions and work environment for desired results before you begin implementing a training solution, you can only sense possible results; you don’t know for sure.

The WPI Process

Here is the seven-step process that can help trainers, workplace performance professionals, and consultants measure the impact of their training programs. This process is not necessarily linear, it flows with the situation and your conversation with your clients. However, you should attempt to cover all seven steps to ensure success.

Prepare

Research the organization to find out as much as you can about the problem. Identify some ways to measure success and prepare an agenda.

Assess

Build rapport with the client. Ask open-ended questions to confirm everyone’s overall impression of the conditions. Drill down on your client’s responses until you’ve understood their current business environment and desired outcomes for the intervention.

Before moving on from each step, be sure to reinforce what you’ve heard during the assessment conversation. Ensure everyone understands what was said. As a group decide to move forward.

Diagnose

Ask more direct questions to identify the client’s perception of current conditions, their implications and the value of resolving the problem. Look at the front end of the problem and direct questions to identify the causes of the performance gap. What is the difference between the present and the desired level of performance? Here you will select an appropriate style for intervention.

Encourage the client to be clear about their motivation, and then communicate it back to them. Anyone in the training business must demonstrate value to the business outcome or be vulnerable.

Prescribe

Now you’ve identified the situation, the problem, its implications, and the value of improving performance and are ready to make a recommendation. This could be the rewards system, the supervisor’s coaching, the resources given, or something else in the environment. The training controls about 10% of the problem.

Partner

Discuss with your client strategies to approach the problem. Ensure that the client still owns the problem, and therefore has a role in the solution. The environment must reinforce the knowledge acquired.

Reinforce

Reinforce what you’ve heard the client say and confirm that mutual understanding of everything so far. Then make decisions together to move forward. You will have also done this at the end of the Assessment step and at the end of the Diagnose step.

Follow-up

Design and develop the strategy to fulfill the promises made to the client.

You can get more information on tools and models for performance analysis on Dr. Chevalier’s website.

Reported by Wendy Sterndale, edited by Pi Wen Looi