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Dear List,

This is in response to Clint Young's question: "What advice might
you have to help this type of learner appreciate (rather quickly)
the use of newly learned management skills? What type of
measurement process could help them and us to gauge the worth of
implementation of these skills?"

Clint,

We use ROI for soft skills outlined by Dr. Jack Phillips. He has
a book out that illustrates this easy to understand and implement
process, titled: "Return On Investment in training and performance
improvement programs"

In a nutshell, he illustrates that all training must have an
expected outcome and should impact the bottom line. If it is say,
Interpersonal Communication Skills (a soft skill)...you must have
had your reasons for deciding on the need for this type of
training, i.e. meetings are too long and end in hostile
disagreement. If you have an expected outcome, you should be able
to determine the impact of the training by checking a change in
the outcome. He illustrates how to do this.

More if there is any interest, or feel free to contact me for more
information.

Thanks,
Rick Corcoran
Continuous Improvement and Employee Empowerment
Mark I of Excel Industries
INTERNET:"corcoranre@excelinc.com"

On 13 Oct 97 at 14:13, RICHARD CORCORAN wrote:


> In a nutshell, he illustrates that all training must have an
> expected outcome and should impact the bottom line. If it is say,
> Interpersonal Communication Skills (a soft skill)...you must have
> had your reasons for deciding on the need for this type of
> training, i.e. meetings are too long and end in hostile
> disagreement. If you have an expected outcome, you should be able
> to determine the impact of the training by checking a change in
> the outcome. He illustrates how to do this.

Good example! The problem with asking people whether someone's
behaviour has changed (as someone suggested a day or two ago) is that
a) it isn't directly linked to the bottom line problem and b) it
isn't measuring behaviour anyway...only perceptions of behaviour.

Canvassing opinions is only useful if your "bottom-line" is to change
opinions for their own sake (which might be useful, for example, in
marketing/customer issues.

Robert Bacal, Inst.For Cooperative Communication, rbacal@escape.ca
Visit our Resource Centre for articles on mgmt.,training,communication, and defusing hostility
at http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal (204) 888-9290
*Site Last Updated On Sept.11, 1997*

Robert Bacal,

I am not sure what you are saying. You wrote:"The problem with
asking people whether someone's behaviour has changes is that it
isn't directly linked to the bottom line problem and it isn't
measuring behaviour anyway...only perception of behaviour.."

I don't understand what you are saying. I think you are saying
that soft skills training doesn't impact the bottom line. Is that
correct? If you are saying that, I disagree.

As I said in another thread...I think relationships cement
processes. Relationships are 'Communication'.

Using the same example of 'interpersonal communication skills
training' I am eating into the bottom line if I am conducting
meetings on company time that are not productive. If 20 minute
meetings are taking 4 hours because of poor communication then
that impacts the bottom line. IF...for ONE example, I reduce my
meeting times after training...I have saved the company
money...TIME=MONEY. This of course would not be the only
measurable that I would use...I would also look at # of Actions
generated from the meeting after training....follow
through...success of implementation..turnover...etc.

I think that poor communication is one of the largest costs a
company can face. I also think that 'soft skills' training or
'relationship' type of training is usually the appropriately
applied training...and I do think that these are very measurable.
I think the term 'soft skills' itself, make it SOUND like it
cannot be measured...but even communicating is a process.
Processes can be trained. Processes yeild results. I think that
there are clear differences in the way that successful teams
interact and communicate compared to those teams that are not
successful.

We use meeting measures at the end of all of our business meetings
or team meetings. We rate ten items:

1.Was the reason for the meeting clear or unclear?
2.Was participation open to all or dominated by a few?
3.Was decision making based on concensus?
4.Was participation highly interactive and open or guarded and
fearful?
5.Were people listened to or ignored?
6.Was the focus on processes and failures or people and errors?
7.Was conflict accepted, explored and resolved, or hidded or
squelched?
8. Was information and data readily available and used or based on
one or two people's opinion?
9.Was there an agenda and was it accomplished?
10.Was this meeting valuable or a waste of everyone's time?

We rate all meetings using the above criteria. Meetings are rated
in private by each participant, then compiled and shared with the
group. Ratings go from 1 = poor to 5 = great. Any meeting where
any scores are below 3 are considered 'non-productive' and are
rescheduled using a facilitator. The facilitator works with the
team to identify where and why failures were occurring in their
meeting process and how they could correct these. As a
facilitator, I have had teams identify that personality conflicts
prevented them from having successful meetings. I got data from
them and found appropriate training on how to deal with difficult
people. This is now one of our most productive decision making
teams. Poor process = poor results = high cost/loss to the bottom
line. Good process = improved communication = better results =
less cost.

THanks,
Rick Corcoran

On 13 Oct 97 at 15:49, RICHARD CORCORAN wrote:

> Robert Bacal,
>
> I am not sure what you are saying. You wrote:"The problem with
> asking people whether someone's behaviour has changes is that it
> isn't directly linked to the bottom line problem and it isn't
> measuring behaviour anyway...only perception of behaviour.."
>
> I don't understand what you are saying. I think you are saying
> that soft skills training doesn't impact the bottom line. Is that
> correct? If you are saying that, I disagree.

No, not at all...sorry I wasn't clear. Let's try an example. A
manager is not functioning well in the interpersonal domain...in
short he pi**** people off around him. So, some action is taken (be
it coaching, training, etc). Now, we want to know what?

We want to know if he still pi***** people off? Well, if that's what
is important then we should ask the people around him. That's
reasonable.

However, did we invest in coaching or training to make people less
angry, or under the assumption that the manager's behaviour impacted
on other things at the bottom line (like productivity, output, etc)?
If that is what we are wanting (better productivity), then we need to
measure IT, not people's level of anger. So, just asking people isn't
going to tell us if the coaching/training contributed to our bottom
line.

Level of anger isn't bottom line, although one could argue that it is
an end in itself..but that still isn't a business bottom line.


> Using the same example of 'interpersonal communication skills
> training' I am eating into the bottom line if I am conducting
> meetings on company time that are not productive. If 20 minute
> meetings are taking 4 hours because of poor communication then
> that impacts the bottom line. IF...for ONE example, I reduce my
> meeting times after training...I have saved the company
> money...TIME=MONEY. This of course would not be the only
> measurable that I would use...I would also look at # of Actions
> generated from the meeting after training....follow
> through...success of implementation..turnover...etc.

Absolutely agree! But you see you are looking at something that is
relevant to measure...you aren't JUST measuring whether people are
"happier" with the meetings, which is what Bob was suggesting.


> I think the term 'soft skills' itself, make it SOUND like it
> cannot be measured...but even communicating is a process.
> Processes can be trained.

We agree. I operate mostly in the communication area also, be it
within team development, change management or dealing with hostile
people. It IS measurable...and I don't see the area as any softer
than ANY training. Simply because we are talking about sets of
skills that are cognitive/affective doesn't make those skills less
measurable, or less likely to contribute to hard core bottom line.

Processes yeild results. I think that
> there are clear differences in the way that successful teams
> interact and communicate compared to those teams that are not
> successful.

We might differ on this...but that's another topic. Successful teams
interact in various ways...I don't think there is a template, and I
think it is counter-productive to approach it that way.

>
> We use meeting measures at the end of all of our business meetings
> or team meetings. We rate ten items:
>
> 1.Was the reason for the meeting clear or unclear?
> 2.Was participation open to all or dominated by a few?

Now you have slipped into measuring something different--that is
perceptions. That isn't the bottom line...the bottom line could be
whether the team is now more productive (however you want to define
that). There is nothing wrong with measuring this..but it needs to be
clear that we are not measuring a bottom line, but what we see as an
ENABLING PROCESS to reach the bottom line.

To the extent that our assumptions about the process of meetings are
correct with relation to productivity, they are good measures. If we
are wrong, we could be having better meetings, but lower
productivity. Perhaps we need NO meetings.

My only point is that we be clear about what we are measuring, and
realize the difference between measuring perceptions, process and
bottom line outcomes. Trainers often confuse them.



Robert Bacal, Inst.For Cooperative Communication, rbacal@escape.ca
Visit our Resource Centre for articles on mgmt.,training,communication, and defusing hostility
at http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal (204) 888-9290
*Site Last Updated On Sept.11, 1997*