I love blogspot! It has served me well for many years.
Now it's time for me to integrate my two blogs into my new website. All my old posts from this blog and my other main blog have been moved over.
Please visit me there - http://www.clarefeeney.com/blog/.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Joining the dots between occupational health & safety and environmental management
Some of my friends and colleagues have been telling me that my success framework - the seven elements that support effective environmental training programs - could apply to all sorts of different professions. I didn't really get it, though I encouraged them to pick it up and apply it to whatever area they wished.
But yesterday evening I caught up with Graham Philps of Quality Constructive Solutions. Graham is a quality, health and safety expert with considerable experience in environmental management. He bears the unique distinction of being the first person I didn't previously know to congratulate me on my new environmental training website. Lots of my wonderful friends, family and colleagues have been very enthusiastic - but as I said to Graham, it's usually only your mother and best friend who take the trouble to tell you so!
Graham and I share many of the same views about training - he said "I can't believe how much training is done without checking people's understanding afterwards!" I told him that many professional trainers confess to the same shortcoming: it's an area of vigorous discussion in training circles.
But one of the things I realised in the course of our conversation is that my success framework is ideally suited to health and safety at work.
Like environment, health and safely is a highly regulated field and depends for its success on clear guidelines and procedures, good training, good resourcing and thorough monitoring, evaluation and reporting. Crucially, it also depends on strong and positive relationships with external parties, including regulators, and with many different parties within an organisation.
For the first time, I got it! My success framework will be as effective for occupational health and safety as it is for environmental management.
And of course, many projects I've worked on in the past have shown that many environmental initiatives also deliver health benefits, the change in the printing sector from solvent-based to plant-based inks being just one example. There are many more.
Given that the risk identification and management processes are so similar for health, safety and environment, let's start talking and sharing to streamline our internal procedures and cut through the bureaucratic paperwork to make life easier for our much-battened upon supervisors and middle managers!
More information:
You can find out more about Graham's company, Q-Sol Quality Constructive Solutions, here.
And you can go to my new training website from here.
But yesterday evening I caught up with Graham Philps of Quality Constructive Solutions. Graham is a quality, health and safety expert with considerable experience in environmental management. He bears the unique distinction of being the first person I didn't previously know to congratulate me on my new environmental training website. Lots of my wonderful friends, family and colleagues have been very enthusiastic - but as I said to Graham, it's usually only your mother and best friend who take the trouble to tell you so!
Graham and I share many of the same views about training - he said "I can't believe how much training is done without checking people's understanding afterwards!" I told him that many professional trainers confess to the same shortcoming: it's an area of vigorous discussion in training circles.
But one of the things I realised in the course of our conversation is that my success framework is ideally suited to health and safety at work.
Like environment, health and safely is a highly regulated field and depends for its success on clear guidelines and procedures, good training, good resourcing and thorough monitoring, evaluation and reporting. Crucially, it also depends on strong and positive relationships with external parties, including regulators, and with many different parties within an organisation.
For the first time, I got it! My success framework will be as effective for occupational health and safety as it is for environmental management.
And of course, many projects I've worked on in the past have shown that many environmental initiatives also deliver health benefits, the change in the printing sector from solvent-based to plant-based inks being just one example. There are many more.
Given that the risk identification and management processes are so similar for health, safety and environment, let's start talking and sharing to streamline our internal procedures and cut through the bureaucratic paperwork to make life easier for our much-battened upon supervisors and middle managers!
More information:
You can find out more about Graham's company, Q-Sol Quality Constructive Solutions, here.
And you can go to my new training website from here.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Practice leads to Proficiency - but does our training allow enough time for this?
This question of allowing enough time in workshops for what is most important has challenged me throughout my training career. It zoomed to top of mind a couple of weeks ago at Beryl Oldham's seminar on training needs assessment for the New Zealand Association of Training and Development.
Taking a good look at what Beryl called "what IS" there (rather than what level of staff performance we "think" might or should be) is essential at the assessment phase.
But it was when she asked if we know "how well does training transfer from the artificial training environment to the actual workplace" that I really sat up. This has also been difficult for me as a mostly external trainer with no influence over the workplaces my trainees go back into.
It was here that Beryl emphasised the need for repeated practice in order for trainees to acquire proficiency. She asked:
"If criticality is involved, they need practice, practice, practice," she said. So, we need to include more training time to rehearse critical procedural skills. "If people have to do important things frequently, then they need to have regular routine practice sessions," she said.
I can really see the application to environmental procedures, where non-compliance can have serious consequences for the environment - and the business.
We also need to train people's supervisors or managers before they send their staff on the training. Campbell Sturrock works in the civil construction sector as Team Leader, Business Improvement - which I think is a great name for an environmental team! Campbell told me recently that the need for supervisor/manager training was a key learning for him. He said that in his view, supervisors are an essential part of supporting trainees' new skills and making sure critical skills are regularly practised at work, especially just after the training so trainees develop capability and confidence. He said this also emphasises that the company really, truly, deeply believes this is important - a powerful signal to staff to take environmental procedures seriously.
As Beryl said, "The biggest reason that training fails is that we don't follow up on the job."
If we want to maximise the return on investment (ROI) of the time and money that bosses invest in training and the goodwill trainees invest in it, then we need invest properly in our training needs assessment and our assessment of the criticality of key skills - and program in that all-important time to "practise, practise, practise."
Beryl Oldham is a Certified ROI Professional and a New Zealand Associate of Drs Jack and Patti Phillips' ROI Institute. Find out more about her work here.
Find out more about Drs Jack and Patti Phillips' ROI Institute here - and about their book "The Green Scorecard: Measuring the Return on Investment in Sustainability Initiatives" here.
Check out the New Zealand Association of Training and Development here. Look for similar associations in your own country - they offer wonderful opportunities for professional learning and development. Every environmental subject matter expert delivering any form of training should belong!
Taking a good look at what Beryl called "what IS" there (rather than what level of staff performance we "think" might or should be) is essential at the assessment phase.
But it was when she asked if we know "how well does training transfer from the artificial training environment to the actual workplace" that I really sat up. This has also been difficult for me as a mostly external trainer with no influence over the workplaces my trainees go back into.
It was here that Beryl emphasised the need for repeated practice in order for trainees to acquire proficiency. She asked:
- do we allow enough time in the training for people to practice skills?
- do we assess the criticality of various necessary skills?
- do we allow more time for trainees to practice more critical skills - during and after training?
"If criticality is involved, they need practice, practice, practice," she said. So, we need to include more training time to rehearse critical procedural skills. "If people have to do important things frequently, then they need to have regular routine practice sessions," she said.
I can really see the application to environmental procedures, where non-compliance can have serious consequences for the environment - and the business.
We also need to train people's supervisors or managers before they send their staff on the training. Campbell Sturrock works in the civil construction sector as Team Leader, Business Improvement - which I think is a great name for an environmental team! Campbell told me recently that the need for supervisor/manager training was a key learning for him. He said that in his view, supervisors are an essential part of supporting trainees' new skills and making sure critical skills are regularly practised at work, especially just after the training so trainees develop capability and confidence. He said this also emphasises that the company really, truly, deeply believes this is important - a powerful signal to staff to take environmental procedures seriously.
As Beryl said, "The biggest reason that training fails is that we don't follow up on the job."
If we want to maximise the return on investment (ROI) of the time and money that bosses invest in training and the goodwill trainees invest in it, then we need invest properly in our training needs assessment and our assessment of the criticality of key skills - and program in that all-important time to "practise, practise, practise."
Beryl Oldham is a Certified ROI Professional and a New Zealand Associate of Drs Jack and Patti Phillips' ROI Institute. Find out more about her work here.
Find out more about Drs Jack and Patti Phillips' ROI Institute here - and about their book "The Green Scorecard: Measuring the Return on Investment in Sustainability Initiatives" here.
Check out the New Zealand Association of Training and Development here. Look for similar associations in your own country - they offer wonderful opportunities for professional learning and development. Every environmental subject matter expert delivering any form of training should belong!
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Training - the temerity!
It's always amazed me how training works. You take a bunch of fully autonomous adults in a room together - and there is an automatic consensus about the conventions we operate under. Yes, we socialise, crack jokes, make conversation, have fun. But it's not a social situation in the normal sense, apart from in the breaks.
The conventions around how we operate in a training context form an unwritten social contract. Most of us are unaware of it, and just naturally enter into it. Someone tells the others what to do - and they do it!
It was trainer extraordinaire Rich Allen who first made me conscious of just how extraordinary the training context is. He pointed out that as trainers, once we've built rapport with our trainees, we can say things like, "Now go back into your groups for this activity," or "Pick up your materials and move to your new places." He said we use a "special trainer voice" for this - it's friendly - but it's also clear and commanding. And he made us all burst out laughing when he said that you'd never use that tone of voice at a dinner party - imagine saying, "Pass the salt" in "trainer voice"! It's a very specialised tool to be used only in a specialised context.
So why would a roomful of adult professionals, each and very one of whom is an expert at his or her job, submit to "trainer voice" in a workshop?
Well, that's the convention!
All animals learn from each other, and humans seem to spend the longest time doing so, in our childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. But we may be more rare in that, at intervals throughout our life (if we're lucky!) we also enter into formal and informal learning situations, some spontaneous, some institutionalised. And while we know that many people end up on training courses they don't particularly want to attend, most of us (including most of our reluctant trainees) still enter into the convention of the workshop when we get there.
That convention really is a mutual contract that does two main things. It allows the trainer to use "trainer voice" and other modes that focus attention, and it engenders in the trainees a willingness to embrace the process. And those two things are possible because we all know that we are doing it in a learning context.
So the role of the trainer is to be conscious of and respect that context, and the very specialised, highly evolved behaviours that go with it.
And while trainees "submit" to the conventional behaviours that allow the training to proceed in a timely and fully inclusive manner, adult learning also offers the joys of mutual respect and celebration of each others' expertise. Some of my most enjoyable moments in training have been when trainees have raised questions or commented on things in a way that reveals the depth of their knowledge and their interrogation of the training itself. That too is part of the convention: we are all learning together, and some of our best learning comes from challenging what we are told.
Good trainers remain aware of their own and their trainees' dynamics, and operate in the full knowledge that breaching the unwritten workshop contract will result not in revolution or an overt display of bad manners, but most often in suspicion and withdrawal - and, worst of all - a failure to learn effectively or a lack of willingness to apply the training at work.
I should add that there has been a long gap between blogs, as I've travelled to the UK to collect copies of my book and meet some great people there and in Europe. I'm now starting to promote the book and the speaking and training that will accompany it - more on this soon!
Find out more about Rich Allen and subscribe to his training tips at http://www.justrightevents.biz/.
The conventions around how we operate in a training context form an unwritten social contract. Most of us are unaware of it, and just naturally enter into it. Someone tells the others what to do - and they do it!
It was trainer extraordinaire Rich Allen who first made me conscious of just how extraordinary the training context is. He pointed out that as trainers, once we've built rapport with our trainees, we can say things like, "Now go back into your groups for this activity," or "Pick up your materials and move to your new places." He said we use a "special trainer voice" for this - it's friendly - but it's also clear and commanding. And he made us all burst out laughing when he said that you'd never use that tone of voice at a dinner party - imagine saying, "Pass the salt" in "trainer voice"! It's a very specialised tool to be used only in a specialised context.
So why would a roomful of adult professionals, each and very one of whom is an expert at his or her job, submit to "trainer voice" in a workshop?
Well, that's the convention!
All animals learn from each other, and humans seem to spend the longest time doing so, in our childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. But we may be more rare in that, at intervals throughout our life (if we're lucky!) we also enter into formal and informal learning situations, some spontaneous, some institutionalised. And while we know that many people end up on training courses they don't particularly want to attend, most of us (including most of our reluctant trainees) still enter into the convention of the workshop when we get there.
That convention really is a mutual contract that does two main things. It allows the trainer to use "trainer voice" and other modes that focus attention, and it engenders in the trainees a willingness to embrace the process. And those two things are possible because we all know that we are doing it in a learning context.
So the role of the trainer is to be conscious of and respect that context, and the very specialised, highly evolved behaviours that go with it.
And while trainees "submit" to the conventional behaviours that allow the training to proceed in a timely and fully inclusive manner, adult learning also offers the joys of mutual respect and celebration of each others' expertise. Some of my most enjoyable moments in training have been when trainees have raised questions or commented on things in a way that reveals the depth of their knowledge and their interrogation of the training itself. That too is part of the convention: we are all learning together, and some of our best learning comes from challenging what we are told.
Good trainers remain aware of their own and their trainees' dynamics, and operate in the full knowledge that breaching the unwritten workshop contract will result not in revolution or an overt display of bad manners, but most often in suspicion and withdrawal - and, worst of all - a failure to learn effectively or a lack of willingness to apply the training at work.
I should add that there has been a long gap between blogs, as I've travelled to the UK to collect copies of my book and meet some great people there and in Europe. I'm now starting to promote the book and the speaking and training that will accompany it - more on this soon!
Find out more about Rich Allen and subscribe to his training tips at http://www.justrightevents.biz/.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Training that creates communities of excited professionals
The best training creates communities of excited professionals who want to communicate with each other about what they're learning.
Training is becoming both more social and more virtual as technologies enable this. It's also becoming much more collaborative – not only amongst learners, but between learners and trainers, as trainees take responsibility for their own learning and ask correspondingly more of their trainers.
Engineering ethics may not at first blush appear to be a topic that would inspire such excitement and collaboration - yet as long ago as 2009, this is just what it was doing. I attended a workshop on engineering ethics at a conference in Canada in November 2009, facilitated by the lecturer of a US-based university course on the topic.
He realised after some time that his course was a success when he discovered that his students had spontaneously started creating little skits about real ethical issues they had encountered, filming them and uploading them to YouTube.
What might this mean for your training program? Well, your students need to be able to inform each other and the trainer about their upload - this could be via a simple email list, or a listserv, or a Facebook page specific to the training course. You could then set up a wiki or online discussion board in which your students can initiate and take part in discussions and exchange ideas arising from the training and the associated activities. Where to from there? The possibilities are limited only by our imagination!
But that's the easy part.
How could we incorporate this invaluable informal activity into the more formal structure of our training workshops? How can we maximise the value of the contact we have with our trainees by making the best possible use of student-generated material? How can we generate other material that students can engage with before and after our training?
High-school science teacher Chris Clay started giving his teaching sessions on YouTube, which the students would watch before class. This meant they could then use the class time to discuss what they'd seen, clarify misunderstandings and practise the work together. The improvement in learning outcomes was spectacular.
By contrast, MIT professor Anant Agarwal found that at first, students of his circuits and electronics course would watch the videos, but by later on in the course they tackled their assignments first, watching the videos later on when they needed support or confirmation. Again, combining what he called "in-person with online" learning gave the best of both worlds.
It's mouth-watering to see the potential for making our training both more enjoyable and more effective.
You can see the engineering students' skits if you go to YouTube and search for “engineering ethics”. They are great - and I recognised many of the dilemmas they'd already encountered in their still short professional careers.
Click here to find out about Chris Clay's approach to teaching high school science.
Professor Anant Agarwal was interviewed in the 13 July 2013 New Scientist Issue 2925.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
The cutting edge of the knowledge economy - a view from the digger bucket
Now that I've submitted an expanded second edition of my book to my publisher in the UK, Global Professional Publishing (it will be published in September this year), I find I'm having to explain the purpose and content of the book in a different way. It's not easy!
It started when I attended a 2-day VIP workshop for professional speakers and confessed to everyone there that having just submitted the book, I hadn't prepared anything at all to present. I was also struggling to get out of the detail and into my "why", to explain the book when people ask, "So what?" Facilitator Linda McDermott was totally unfazed by this, and the two days were hugely productive.
My learning was tested some weeks later, when someone said the topic of environmental training was very narrow and would only appeal to a very specialised audience. Well! I had to investigate my outrage to realise how useful that statement was for helping me distill my message.
As far as I can see, the only audiences that environmental training wouldn't appeal to are businesses who don't want to lift productivity and profitability; public agencies that don't want a cost-effective solution to just about every environmental problem you can think of; communities who don't want to work together to restore their local environments; and governments that don't want to create jobs.
As far as I can see, the only audiences that environmental training wouldn't appeal to are businesses who don't want to lift productivity and profitability; public agencies that don't want a cost-effective solution to just about every environmental problem you can think of; communities who don't want to work together to restore their local environments; and governments that don't want to create jobs.
There is a huge amount of evidence that environmental training can do all these things, with national and international agencies all round the world working hard to bring them about.
Sometimes it's difficult to understand how this can actually work on the ground, when at the policy level we are talking about the "knowledge economy" and other important but abstract concepts.
Let me tell a story about the time I was on a large civil construction site and asked the Team Leader, Erosion and Sediment Control, how he'd ended up in the job. He said he was a digger operator building the various environmental controls and became quite interested in this aspect of his work - so much so that he was promoted to Team Leader. Over the years he built up considerable skill and seniority - something he would never otherwise have done.
Of course, these people are already experts: I've been lucky enough to have a go on a digger - it was fantastic fun and I was absolutely hopeless! You can rotate the cab, turn one track to rotate the whole machine, drive forwards or backwards at any angle, raise or lower the arm and manipulate the bucket or whatever else is on the end of the arm - all at once! It was a 4-d operation like orienting a starship in the depths of the interstellar space. These guys are so good they can use their digger bucket to pour a cup of tea and add sugar without spilling a drop. If you don't believe me, check out the link below.
Another digger operator developed so much expertise on very technically demanding and environmentally sensitive projects that he would actually be named in contract documents for certain projects where his skills were particularly needed, such as stream bed and bank restoration. So while remaining a digger operator, he became increasingly valuable to his company - and would, of course, find his skills and remuneration increasing accordingly.
And think of the value of these two men as mentors to their staff and colleagues - what an asset for human resource development and overall company value they must be!
Of course, these people are already experts: I've been lucky enough to have a go on a digger - it was fantastic fun and I was absolutely hopeless! You can rotate the cab, turn one track to rotate the whole machine, drive forwards or backwards at any angle, raise or lower the arm and manipulate the bucket or whatever else is on the end of the arm - all at once! It was a 4-d operation like orienting a starship in the depths of the interstellar space. These guys are so good they can use their digger bucket to pour a cup of tea and add sugar without spilling a drop. If you don't believe me, check out the link below.
Another digger operator developed so much expertise on very technically demanding and environmentally sensitive projects that he would actually be named in contract documents for certain projects where his skills were particularly needed, such as stream bed and bank restoration. So while remaining a digger operator, he became increasingly valuable to his company - and would, of course, find his skills and remuneration increasing accordingly.
And think of the value of these two men as mentors to their staff and colleagues - what an asset for human resource development and overall company value they must be!
These men are real-life examples of the much-vaunted "knowledge economy" that many governments struggle to translate into practical realities. Of course, other types of training can deliver such benefits - especially literacy and numeracy training: I've seen environmental training become a vehicle for this, too, as people learn how to follow detailed designs, read meters and log their environmental tasks. Building these skills generates tremendous increases in staff loyalty and engagement, productivity and of course, profitability for the companies concerned.
There are also big opportunities in what Storm Cunningham calls the "restoration economy": already large but low-profile, this emerging economic sector involves reviving places damaged by human activities (war, pollution and the like) and natural disasters (earthquakes, flooding and so on). The former will grow as more of us understand the net social and economic harm of such unsustainable activities, and the latter as climate change intensifies and we learn more about the poor land use choices of the past that put people and investments in risky places.
So, better skills, more jobs, better outcomes for people and places - in some cases transforming the faltering economies of entire towns - what's not to like!
Find out more about Global Professional Publishing here.
Go to FunkeyNote to find out more about the wonderful Linda McDermott, speaking coach extraordinaire.
See the photos and hear the interview about the National Excavator Operator Competition on the Radio New Zealand website Spectrum page.
See the photos and hear the interview about the National Excavator Operator Competition on the Radio New Zealand website Spectrum page.
Click here to find out more about Storm Cunningham's work.
Monday, December 3, 2012
How to create an exam that everyone will enjoy
Over a coffee with a colleague earlier today, the conversation turned to assessing learning after a training workshop. Of the many people who've attended my workshops over the years, some have been extremely capable practitioners for whom school most definitely would have been one of the least rewarding times of their life. In fact at one workshop a delightful young man confided to me that he couldn't read, so please could I not ask him to read an excerpt out loud. (It's for this reason that I always call for volunteers to read out loud - and even when someone's workmates are laughing and pointing at one of their team to volunteer, I never accept the offer unless the hand comes out to take the paper. In the case of the nice young man, I was able to reassure him that I was looking for someone to pretend to be a grumpy judge, and that he was far too nice for the job!)
When we deliver training, we really do need some way of assessing the learning outcomes that goes beyond the level 1 "smile sheet", which basically tells you whether or not people liked the food. But sometimes we train people we won't see again, so we can't assess the improvement in their workplace skills. In these cases we need some kind of assessment at the end of the day, whether on site if the numbers are small enough, or in a "classroom" style setting.
Academic people are used to sitting exams and won't be phased by a written or text-based online test at or after the end of a workshop. But for the non-academic people who at best are not used to sitting exams or at worst are still scarred by their school experiences, the terms "test" or "exam" strike fear into their hearts and will set them up to fail.
Some years ago, I did a green building course over a weekend with Johann Bernhardt and Eddie Van Uden. Then they announced there would be a test at the end, and I was absolutely horrified! Sure, I was interested in green building and wanted to build a green home eventually - but I wasn't a builder and was convinced I'd make a complete mess of it.
To my surprise and delight, Johann and Eddie set up the exam for everyone's success. They handed round a sheet of paper with 10 questions on it and space to write the answers (so far, so normal), got us all round a table (bit of a departure from normal there) and then read out the first question and said; "Well, what do you guys think?" (- by now, definitely abnormal in terms of any exam I'd ever sat!) Someone tentatively suggested an answer, someone else asked a question, another offered a story from their experience, and at the end, our trainers asked someone to sum up, then we all wrote the answer down!
We went through all the questions in that way, with different people able to summarise the different questions, and the trainers making sure everyone had good chances to have some input. It was not only a thorough evaluation of the workshop, but also a thoroughly enjoyable way to review and consolidate our learnings.
This approach would be just as effective for people who aren't confident writers and readers, too: to ensure these people can learn comfortably, we'd need to give open reassurances at the very start of the workshop and before the "test" that we will talk through the workshop at the end so the trainers can make sure people are confident about what they've learned, and that you can make notes if you wish. See? Choice not compulsion, participation not reiteration, and co-operation not isolation - much more how it is in a good workplace.
Who among your trainees and which of your workshops could benefit from this approach?
When we deliver training, we really do need some way of assessing the learning outcomes that goes beyond the level 1 "smile sheet", which basically tells you whether or not people liked the food. But sometimes we train people we won't see again, so we can't assess the improvement in their workplace skills. In these cases we need some kind of assessment at the end of the day, whether on site if the numbers are small enough, or in a "classroom" style setting.
Academic people are used to sitting exams and won't be phased by a written or text-based online test at or after the end of a workshop. But for the non-academic people who at best are not used to sitting exams or at worst are still scarred by their school experiences, the terms "test" or "exam" strike fear into their hearts and will set them up to fail.
Some years ago, I did a green building course over a weekend with Johann Bernhardt and Eddie Van Uden. Then they announced there would be a test at the end, and I was absolutely horrified! Sure, I was interested in green building and wanted to build a green home eventually - but I wasn't a builder and was convinced I'd make a complete mess of it.
To my surprise and delight, Johann and Eddie set up the exam for everyone's success. They handed round a sheet of paper with 10 questions on it and space to write the answers (so far, so normal), got us all round a table (bit of a departure from normal there) and then read out the first question and said; "Well, what do you guys think?" (- by now, definitely abnormal in terms of any exam I'd ever sat!) Someone tentatively suggested an answer, someone else asked a question, another offered a story from their experience, and at the end, our trainers asked someone to sum up, then we all wrote the answer down!
We went through all the questions in that way, with different people able to summarise the different questions, and the trainers making sure everyone had good chances to have some input. It was not only a thorough evaluation of the workshop, but also a thoroughly enjoyable way to review and consolidate our learnings.
This approach would be just as effective for people who aren't confident writers and readers, too: to ensure these people can learn comfortably, we'd need to give open reassurances at the very start of the workshop and before the "test" that we will talk through the workshop at the end so the trainers can make sure people are confident about what they've learned, and that you can make notes if you wish. See? Choice not compulsion, participation not reiteration, and co-operation not isolation - much more how it is in a good workplace.
Who among your trainees and which of your workshops could benefit from this approach?
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
My last days at the Frankfurt Book Fair
Next year - I'm already planning it! - I will stay for the whole Fair. It was a difficult decision but with friends in Berlin and Brussels to visit in one week before my week in London, I decided to miss Sunday, the last day of the Fair. Unfortunately, this meant leaving Maggie, Richard and Adrian alone to tidy up our much-loved NZ Society of Authors stand on the Monday, and also missing a more relaxed day.
Saturday was a lovely day - Hall 3 was total madness on the Friday and over the whole weekend, as the public come in to look at the pick of German publishing (many of them in fancy dress - wonderfully entertaining!) - but in Hall 8, the English-speaking Hall, it was much more laid-back. I visited the Princeton University Press stand and had a lovely chat with the two staff there - one of my brothers is a professor in the classics department at Princeton, and I adored the town and the university when I visited them some time ago.
I decided to visit the Harvard University Press stand as well, to find their two staff also in leisurely chat mode, a big change from how busy all the stands had been from Wednesday to Friday. The more relaxed pace meant I was able to pluck up the courage to ask them what it would take to publish an article in the magnificent Harvard Business Review, to which I subscribe. They were very helpful and I came away with a great book on creativity, an area of great interest (see my other blog).
I'd been warned that authors were not really welcome at the Fair as it is a business-to-business trade affair, with publishers, agents and scouts the main players. But all the publishers I visited were extremely helpful and I was very happy to leave materials with them about Niki Harre's book and my own, for their publishing, editorial and rights staff to consider after the Fair.
Two New Zealand authors (Tui Allen and Mervyn Noel Whitley Jnr) and Sylvia, a German author living in Finland whose second name escaped me, also spoke at the seminar. I've now read Tui's book, a remarkable vision, while Mervyn and Sylvia are really pushing the boundaries of what a book can be.
Next year will be fun - Brazil is the 2013 guest of honour - so I will finish another book or two and come again.
And in one of those serendipitous encounters for which the Frankfurt Book Fair is so famous, on Sunday morning on the train to the main station en route to catch my train to Berlin, I met a charming Malaysian publisher - the second I'd met who wanted to know how to go about becoming the guest of honour. Thanks to marvellous expositions from Carole Beu and Maggie Tarver, I am confident that with their help, I can pull together a list of key New Zealand contacts for the Guest of Honour programme, including a list of contacts from the New Zealand publishing supply chain - authors, publishers, printers, booksellers and of course the Book Council. Malaysia as Guest of Honour in 2015 or 2016? A great plan!
Now for the real work - following up on the wonderful contacts made at the Fair and coming up with a plan to fund my writing!
Saturday was a lovely day - Hall 3 was total madness on the Friday and over the whole weekend, as the public come in to look at the pick of German publishing (many of them in fancy dress - wonderfully entertaining!) - but in Hall 8, the English-speaking Hall, it was much more laid-back. I visited the Princeton University Press stand and had a lovely chat with the two staff there - one of my brothers is a professor in the classics department at Princeton, and I adored the town and the university when I visited them some time ago.
I decided to visit the Harvard University Press stand as well, to find their two staff also in leisurely chat mode, a big change from how busy all the stands had been from Wednesday to Friday. The more relaxed pace meant I was able to pluck up the courage to ask them what it would take to publish an article in the magnificent Harvard Business Review, to which I subscribe. They were very helpful and I came away with a great book on creativity, an area of great interest (see my other blog).
I'd been warned that authors were not really welcome at the Fair as it is a business-to-business trade affair, with publishers, agents and scouts the main players. But all the publishers I visited were extremely helpful and I was very happy to leave materials with them about Niki Harre's book and my own, for their publishing, editorial and rights staff to consider after the Fair.
Two New Zealand authors (Tui Allen and Mervyn Noel Whitley Jnr) and Sylvia, a German author living in Finland whose second name escaped me, also spoke at the seminar. I've now read Tui's book, a remarkable vision, while Mervyn and Sylvia are really pushing the boundaries of what a book can be.
Next year will be fun - Brazil is the 2013 guest of honour - so I will finish another book or two and come again.
And in one of those serendipitous encounters for which the Frankfurt Book Fair is so famous, on Sunday morning on the train to the main station en route to catch my train to Berlin, I met a charming Malaysian publisher - the second I'd met who wanted to know how to go about becoming the guest of honour. Thanks to marvellous expositions from Carole Beu and Maggie Tarver, I am confident that with their help, I can pull together a list of key New Zealand contacts for the Guest of Honour programme, including a list of contacts from the New Zealand publishing supply chain - authors, publishers, printers, booksellers and of course the Book Council. Malaysia as Guest of Honour in 2015 or 2016? A great plan!
Now for the real work - following up on the wonderful contacts made at the Fair and coming up with a plan to fund my writing!
Friday, October 12, 2012
More New Zealand authors at the Frankfurt Book Fair
Among the other authors able to attend the Fair are Greg Scowen (The Spanish Helmet), Tui Allen (Ripple), Jenny Mortimer (Knock the bastard off), Anna Gowan (Hollie Chips), Rachel McAlpine (Scarlet Heels, as well as some very good corporate communication books), Ron Riddell (A love beyond) and Owen Scott (Deep beyond the reef). Richard Webster and Adrian Blackburn also have their recent books on display at the New Zealand Society of Authors stand, and Michael Gill (Himalayan hospitals - Sir Edmund Hillary's Everest legacy) put in an appearance yesterday, too.
And writer and performer extraordinaire Gerry Paul (Hank the wrestling shark) has been performing that book to music at 4pm every day to the delight of people at the surrounding stands and passers-by. Yesterday he also performed a joyful song about composting, reminiscent of the old song "Working on the chain gang"; "got no legs, got no arms, spend my days working on the worm farm" - the voice of the hard-working tiger worms!
One of my speaker colleagues, Sylvia Bowden, has two books on the stand (How to stop your kids from going broke; and Get out of my pocket) though she isn't at the Fair. 30-odd other authors are not at the Fair but their books have been attracting steady interest, and all comers are given the very classy catalogue of all the books on the stand.
Well-known gardening writer Kerry Carman has two books on the stand and kindly donated a dozen exquisite flower prints for a daily raffle. We all put the business cards of our publishing contacts in for the draw and each day two lucky publishers get to choose which print they would like - two of my contacts have won so far and were truly delighted. The raffle and Gerry's performances make our wee stand a "Stand-out" stand in the nicest possible way!
We've also been visited by several very happy publishers from the Publishers Association of New Zealand stand just round the corner - this collective stand is doing very well and has been a great venture for them.
And of course the parties have been happening - Tui Allen was invited to the Latvian publishers stand (the population of Latvia is only 2 million!) and feasted on very good cheese and chocolate (not somehow the cuisine I would have expected...).
Yesterday afternoon we gate-crashed the Australian publishers' stand yesterday and expect to welcome them to the Publishers Association party tonight.
Several of us were lucky enough to be interviewed for a UK publisher's journal and we've all been giving readings from or presentations about our books - excellent practice and a privilege to gain an insight into our colleagues' work.
I have more publishers to visit today and hope to have time to revisit the New Zealand Pavilion again tomorrow to see some of our very famous authors in action. And will upload some photos when I can figure out how to do it....
And writer and performer extraordinaire Gerry Paul (Hank the wrestling shark) has been performing that book to music at 4pm every day to the delight of people at the surrounding stands and passers-by. Yesterday he also performed a joyful song about composting, reminiscent of the old song "Working on the chain gang"; "got no legs, got no arms, spend my days working on the worm farm" - the voice of the hard-working tiger worms!
One of my speaker colleagues, Sylvia Bowden, has two books on the stand (How to stop your kids from going broke; and Get out of my pocket) though she isn't at the Fair. 30-odd other authors are not at the Fair but their books have been attracting steady interest, and all comers are given the very classy catalogue of all the books on the stand.
Well-known gardening writer Kerry Carman has two books on the stand and kindly donated a dozen exquisite flower prints for a daily raffle. We all put the business cards of our publishing contacts in for the draw and each day two lucky publishers get to choose which print they would like - two of my contacts have won so far and were truly delighted. The raffle and Gerry's performances make our wee stand a "Stand-out" stand in the nicest possible way!
We've also been visited by several very happy publishers from the Publishers Association of New Zealand stand just round the corner - this collective stand is doing very well and has been a great venture for them.
And of course the parties have been happening - Tui Allen was invited to the Latvian publishers stand (the population of Latvia is only 2 million!) and feasted on very good cheese and chocolate (not somehow the cuisine I would have expected...).
Yesterday afternoon we gate-crashed the Australian publishers' stand yesterday and expect to welcome them to the Publishers Association party tonight.
Several of us were lucky enough to be interviewed for a UK publisher's journal and we've all been giving readings from or presentations about our books - excellent practice and a privilege to gain an insight into our colleagues' work.
I have more publishers to visit today and hope to have time to revisit the New Zealand Pavilion again tomorrow to see some of our very famous authors in action. And will upload some photos when I can figure out how to do it....
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Being at the Frankfurt Fair is fantastic fun!
There is so much to tell already.... the happy coincidences that saw three of the independent authors share the same flights from New Zealand and hooking up with incomparable Carole Beu of the Women's bookshop on the same flights... hearing her story of being able to go as a result of an introduction from a friend in publishing ... That story is worth hearing - Carole's friend said she'd "watched Carole's growing success over more than 20 years, thoroughly enjoyed how Carole had just chaired an author interview at the NZ Writers and Readers Festival, and thought she might like an introduction..." to a young woman who is an arts reporter for one of the major daily Frankfurt papers. Sylvia, this young woman, said she had a spare room in her apartment especially for a New Zealander to stay with her over the time of the Frankfurt Fair. It couldn't have happened to a more deserving person - Carole does so much for books in New Zealand. And at the airport in Frankfurt, Sylvia was duly waiting to pick Carole up and despite our vast quantities of luggage, gave a lift to two more passengers, me and Tui Allen (author of "Ripple"), taking us to the door of our hotel. The delightful and clearly gifted Sylvia is interviewing some of New Zealand's most famous authors in some of the many events at and associated with the Fair.
It was lovely to drive through forests just turning into their autumn colours and past some exquisite old apartment buildings and houses - it made me realise how much I've missed Europe since my last trip many years ago. After a good nights sleep, what fun to explore the local centre and discover a genuine marketplace full of marvellous fruit and vegetables and more.
Later that day (Tuesday) we went to the two opening ceremonies; that of the Fair itself and of the New Zealand Pavilion - as this year's country Guest of Honour at the Fair. We hooked up with Jenny Mortimer ("Knock the bastard off") and went off in a convoy of four - we got our tickets through the extreme smarts and generosity of redoubtable Switzerland-based kiwi author, Greg Scowen ("The Spanish Helmet"). On the way in we met Louise Ryder, wife of the New Zealand Ambassador to Berlin, a charming woman, who was accompanying Mary English to the grand opening ceremony. Both women were kind enough to be genuinely interested in our work, with Mary taking photos of us with our cameras!
Bill English gave a very well-received speech which I thought was an excellent one, and Bill Manhire and Joy Cowley also gave two great speeches among those from some of Germany's and Frankfurt's leading literary and government figures.
We were late for the opening of the New Zealand Pavilion, and arrived to find it in pitch darkness with a large and very convincing moon at the entrance - our 2012 theme is "While you were sleeping" - subtext presumably "we have been writing", far away in the antipodes - to a vigorous haka performance followed by some highly imaginative excerpts of New Zealand writing in films and animations. Excellent use was made of the shallow pools of water in the Pavilion to stage some live readings including one taking place under a deluge of water!
Mingling outside, we got chatting to a mother and daughter from Frankfurt; the mother coming to sell her short ebooks to publishers and the daughter in charge of the Book Fair activities at the Frankfurt public library. She said the library has done this for the last 12 years or more, and it is absolutely huge now. Events as part of the Fair are taking place all over the city, and the city of Frankfurt itself has generously come to the party by giving all ticket-holders free transport on the wonderful public transport system.
The Fair proper got under way the following morning and a rather nervous bunch of newbie authors gathered at the New Zealand Society of Authors Stand where we were made most welcome, and taken under the protective wings of NZSA CEO Maggie Tarver, well-known journalist and author Adrian Blackburn and New Zealand writing's best-kept secret, Richard Webster. These three undertook to have someone on the Stand at all times and offered to accompany us to any meetings with publishers. I've attended a couple of workshops with Richard before, so he kindly came with me to my first meeting, with Eric Dobby of Global Professional Publishing. I was quite keyed up but Richard made some gentle opening remark that eased us into conversation, and ended up having a highly animated and enjoyable conversation with Eric and had no qualms about handing over my business card and two flyers and will email him more information after the Fair.
On the way back to the NZSA Stand, I spotted another of my target publishers, HRD (Human Resource Development) Press, and asked Richard if it was okay to bowl up without an appointment. With his blessing and deeply grateful for his support, in I went and had another great conversation with Global Marketing Manager Sam McLeod.
Publishers are very nice people! More on the other New Zealand authors and the vast Halls of the Fair in my next post....
It was lovely to drive through forests just turning into their autumn colours and past some exquisite old apartment buildings and houses - it made me realise how much I've missed Europe since my last trip many years ago. After a good nights sleep, what fun to explore the local centre and discover a genuine marketplace full of marvellous fruit and vegetables and more.
Later that day (Tuesday) we went to the two opening ceremonies; that of the Fair itself and of the New Zealand Pavilion - as this year's country Guest of Honour at the Fair. We hooked up with Jenny Mortimer ("Knock the bastard off") and went off in a convoy of four - we got our tickets through the extreme smarts and generosity of redoubtable Switzerland-based kiwi author, Greg Scowen ("The Spanish Helmet"). On the way in we met Louise Ryder, wife of the New Zealand Ambassador to Berlin, a charming woman, who was accompanying Mary English to the grand opening ceremony. Both women were kind enough to be genuinely interested in our work, with Mary taking photos of us with our cameras!
Bill English gave a very well-received speech which I thought was an excellent one, and Bill Manhire and Joy Cowley also gave two great speeches among those from some of Germany's and Frankfurt's leading literary and government figures.
We were late for the opening of the New Zealand Pavilion, and arrived to find it in pitch darkness with a large and very convincing moon at the entrance - our 2012 theme is "While you were sleeping" - subtext presumably "we have been writing", far away in the antipodes - to a vigorous haka performance followed by some highly imaginative excerpts of New Zealand writing in films and animations. Excellent use was made of the shallow pools of water in the Pavilion to stage some live readings including one taking place under a deluge of water!
Mingling outside, we got chatting to a mother and daughter from Frankfurt; the mother coming to sell her short ebooks to publishers and the daughter in charge of the Book Fair activities at the Frankfurt public library. She said the library has done this for the last 12 years or more, and it is absolutely huge now. Events as part of the Fair are taking place all over the city, and the city of Frankfurt itself has generously come to the party by giving all ticket-holders free transport on the wonderful public transport system.
The Fair proper got under way the following morning and a rather nervous bunch of newbie authors gathered at the New Zealand Society of Authors Stand where we were made most welcome, and taken under the protective wings of NZSA CEO Maggie Tarver, well-known journalist and author Adrian Blackburn and New Zealand writing's best-kept secret, Richard Webster. These three undertook to have someone on the Stand at all times and offered to accompany us to any meetings with publishers. I've attended a couple of workshops with Richard before, so he kindly came with me to my first meeting, with Eric Dobby of Global Professional Publishing. I was quite keyed up but Richard made some gentle opening remark that eased us into conversation, and ended up having a highly animated and enjoyable conversation with Eric and had no qualms about handing over my business card and two flyers and will email him more information after the Fair.
On the way back to the NZSA Stand, I spotted another of my target publishers, HRD (Human Resource Development) Press, and asked Richard if it was okay to bowl up without an appointment. With his blessing and deeply grateful for his support, in I went and had another great conversation with Global Marketing Manager Sam McLeod.
Publishers are very nice people! More on the other New Zealand authors and the vast Halls of the Fair in my next post....
Monday, August 27, 2012
Training providers adjusting to trends in learners' needs
Two meetings last week reminded me of the utmost importance of understanding the needs of trainees, and revealed how recent trends are being reflected in major re-thinks by training providers of how they have traditionally delivered the information their stakeholders need.
My business partner Susie Wood and I met with representatives of two major training providers, both professional membership organizations, to discuss their programs. We had perused their extensive suite of workshops and noted how carefully tailored they were to meet the needs of their very different member groups. We were, however, interested to note that matters relating to environment and sustainability were conspicuous by their absence in both sets of materials. Part of our discussions included canvassing how these organizations identified the strategic and operational issues affecting their members and the extent to which environment and sustainability featured in these.
Our impressions from both meetings were very similar. Firstly, it was a great pleasure to engage with dedicated professionals who so clearly had their members' interests at heart: our meetings were enjoyable, informative and inspiring. Secondly, it was clear that in these unsettled times, the capacity of members to engage in training on their own behalf and to release their staff for training has been somewhat curtailed: people are reluctant to spend two whole days or even more, away from work. In fact, and this aligns with my own experience over the last two or three years, it's hard to get people to attend even a one-day workshop.
As a result, both organizations were reviewing all of their training materials, carefully developed over many years based on members' needs and emerging issues, with the aim of reformatting many of them into half-day or even two-hour sessions. As I've also discovered as a result of some recent projects, this modular format lends itself to identifying a sequential series of learning steps that often build on some basic learnings which are common to several existing workshops on a given theme. On these basic learnings can be developed a modular series of workshops from which trainees and/or organization can select those that best meet their immediate needs. Such incremental steps reinforce and build on prior knowledge without tiresome repetition of important but basic knowledge.
Different ways of engaging with members were emerging, more diverse than simply training, and information and awareness-raising were part of these: that is, people won't attend environment and sustainability training until they understand its direct and applied relevance to their work.
Interestingly, in our discussions it became clear that while legal environmental compliance may be an issue for only some members of these two organizations, the business benefits of wider sustainability issues will, in different ways, affect them all.
The ultimate lesson for us? The critical importance of focusing on trainees and their organization's business needs and making the case for why environment and sustainability meet personal, professional and organizational needs. What fun!
Find out more about the technical work that informs the training Susie and I deliver here.
My business partner Susie Wood and I met with representatives of two major training providers, both professional membership organizations, to discuss their programs. We had perused their extensive suite of workshops and noted how carefully tailored they were to meet the needs of their very different member groups. We were, however, interested to note that matters relating to environment and sustainability were conspicuous by their absence in both sets of materials. Part of our discussions included canvassing how these organizations identified the strategic and operational issues affecting their members and the extent to which environment and sustainability featured in these.
Our impressions from both meetings were very similar. Firstly, it was a great pleasure to engage with dedicated professionals who so clearly had their members' interests at heart: our meetings were enjoyable, informative and inspiring. Secondly, it was clear that in these unsettled times, the capacity of members to engage in training on their own behalf and to release their staff for training has been somewhat curtailed: people are reluctant to spend two whole days or even more, away from work. In fact, and this aligns with my own experience over the last two or three years, it's hard to get people to attend even a one-day workshop.
As a result, both organizations were reviewing all of their training materials, carefully developed over many years based on members' needs and emerging issues, with the aim of reformatting many of them into half-day or even two-hour sessions. As I've also discovered as a result of some recent projects, this modular format lends itself to identifying a sequential series of learning steps that often build on some basic learnings which are common to several existing workshops on a given theme. On these basic learnings can be developed a modular series of workshops from which trainees and/or organization can select those that best meet their immediate needs. Such incremental steps reinforce and build on prior knowledge without tiresome repetition of important but basic knowledge.
Different ways of engaging with members were emerging, more diverse than simply training, and information and awareness-raising were part of these: that is, people won't attend environment and sustainability training until they understand its direct and applied relevance to their work.
Interestingly, in our discussions it became clear that while legal environmental compliance may be an issue for only some members of these two organizations, the business benefits of wider sustainability issues will, in different ways, affect them all.
The ultimate lesson for us? The critical importance of focusing on trainees and their organization's business needs and making the case for why environment and sustainability meet personal, professional and organizational needs. What fun!
Find out more about the technical work that informs the training Susie and I deliver here.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Re-inspiring myself about training
Recently I had the privilege of attending a professional development session with Karen Boyes from Spectrum Education. What a whirlwind she is! Karen specializes in helping teachers understand how to teach so children learn and helping parents support their children's learning can - and she teaches the children themselves how best to learn what they are taught.
The interesting thing was that before we fully found this out, Karen was using these techniques on us while we were exploring different business models for our professional speaking. It was great to be re-inspired about diversifying how we train.
On a similar note, I attended a presentation by Dr Rich Allen on whether e-training can fully replace face-to-face training - something that could have been presented lecture-style, but in Rich's inimitable style, was extraordinarily interactive - showing the value of inter-personal engagement by doing, you might say.
That said, I've recently being working on blended delivery of environmental training - using a mix of workshop, on-site and electronic training methods. The two key themes emerging from my research were the growing desire of trainees to play an active role in their own professional development - something that dramatically changes the traditional role of the "trainer", and the gathering wave of collaborative learning, which can be so widely enhanced by social media. It's all very exciting!
Click here to find out more about Karen's work and here to find out more about the work of Rich Allen.
The interesting thing was that before we fully found this out, Karen was using these techniques on us while we were exploring different business models for our professional speaking. It was great to be re-inspired about diversifying how we train.
On a similar note, I attended a presentation by Dr Rich Allen on whether e-training can fully replace face-to-face training - something that could have been presented lecture-style, but in Rich's inimitable style, was extraordinarily interactive - showing the value of inter-personal engagement by doing, you might say.
That said, I've recently being working on blended delivery of environmental training - using a mix of workshop, on-site and electronic training methods. The two key themes emerging from my research were the growing desire of trainees to play an active role in their own professional development - something that dramatically changes the traditional role of the "trainer", and the gathering wave of collaborative learning, which can be so widely enhanced by social media. It's all very exciting!
Click here to find out more about Karen's work and here to find out more about the work of Rich Allen.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
My book selected to go to the Frankfurt Book Fair - the world's largest!
I am still recovering from the shock of having my book selected to go on the New Zealand stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The New Zealand Society of Authors, to which I belong, is showcasing 40 New Zealand books at Frankfurt, the world's largest book fair. Supported by generous sponsorship from Copyright Licensing Limited, the stand takes advantage of New Zealand's status of Guest of Honor at the 2012 Fair.
This is a great thrill and the Society is already giving the 40 authors excellent advice about promoting our books to the publishers from all over the world who will be attending - I'm reliably informed the headcount of publishing firms is 20,000!
Preparing information about my book is helping me focus more and more on who needs to use it, why they need to and how it will benefit them. Very helpful. The book itself is for environmental experts in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors who find themselves involved with training.
Trainers call these invaluable people "subject matter experts" or SMEs - not to be confused with Small-Medium Enterprises, another common meaning for "SME"... Many environmental subject matter experts have specialized knowledge gained from their experience, rather than from a formal qualification. Their skill and enthusiasm means they can make very good trainers, and the advice in my book, based on my 20 years of experience with environmental training programs, helps them access and apply new knowledge from the world of professional training. It's a winning combination that can really lift the environmental performance of a wide range of business activities.
As well as marketing my "7 Steps" book to real live publishers, I aim to have a near-complete manuscript of a further book and a list of other books I'm keen to write about different aspects of the business benefits of good environmental performance. I'm most definitely more than a one-hit wonder - though turning my first book into that first hit is my immediate goal!
Click on these key words to find out more the Frankfurt Book Fair, New Zealand as the 2012 Guest of Honour, the New Zealand Society of Authors, Copyright Licensing Limited - and, of course - my book, "Seven Steps to successful environmental training programs".
This is a great thrill and the Society is already giving the 40 authors excellent advice about promoting our books to the publishers from all over the world who will be attending - I'm reliably informed the headcount of publishing firms is 20,000!
Preparing information about my book is helping me focus more and more on who needs to use it, why they need to and how it will benefit them. Very helpful. The book itself is for environmental experts in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors who find themselves involved with training.
Trainers call these invaluable people "subject matter experts" or SMEs - not to be confused with Small-Medium Enterprises, another common meaning for "SME"... Many environmental subject matter experts have specialized knowledge gained from their experience, rather than from a formal qualification. Their skill and enthusiasm means they can make very good trainers, and the advice in my book, based on my 20 years of experience with environmental training programs, helps them access and apply new knowledge from the world of professional training. It's a winning combination that can really lift the environmental performance of a wide range of business activities.
As well as marketing my "7 Steps" book to real live publishers, I aim to have a near-complete manuscript of a further book and a list of other books I'm keen to write about different aspects of the business benefits of good environmental performance. I'm most definitely more than a one-hit wonder - though turning my first book into that first hit is my immediate goal!
Click on these key words to find out more the Frankfurt Book Fair, New Zealand as the 2012 Guest of Honour, the New Zealand Society of Authors, Copyright Licensing Limited - and, of course - my book, "Seven Steps to successful environmental training programs".
Saturday, May 5, 2012
E-training for contractors
Some years ago, a major New Zealand water utility company wanted its contractors to prepare environmental management plans.
The company was conscious that how it installed, operated and maintained its city’s water, stormwater and wastewater services had the potential to affect the natural environment during the regular upgrades, maintenance and repairs that all such large networks need. It decided to actively seek environmentally sound solutions that complied with law and regulations, and to go beyond ‘compliance as a minimum’ by aiming for best environmental practice. This meant working closely with the contractors who carried out the work on its behalf.
Given that its contractors build, operate and maintain lifeline water services that support healthy communities, the company believed that its contractors needed formal systems to avoid or minimize environmental damage every bit as much as they needed financial, health and safety, quality and traffic management systems.
Accordingly, it decided to require all its contractors to prepare environmental management plans, or EMPs. These plans would help them manage their activities and associated environmental risks, staff responsibilities and communication so as to avoid or minimize potential impacts of their activities and to help maintain and improve the environment. It also provided a framework for both the contractors and the utility itself to monitor their environmental performance.
To be eligible to bid for work with the utility, every contractor was required to prepare a company environmental management plan every year. Some large or very environmentally risky projects also needed a specific project environmental management plan.
However, many of the contractors were very small firms, some of them ‘one-man bands’, such as concrete cutters who carry out their work from a tradesman’s van. It would have placed a big burden on these suppliers make them write an EMP without giving them any help. Other contractors were big companies who either had existing plans or were well able to prepare their own plans, but the utility didn’t want them all taking different approaches, because it would be too difficult to assess the resulting variety of plans. The company also wanted to create a ‘level playing’ field, providing equal opportunities for all its contractors, regardless of their size or capabilities.
To ensure a consistently high standard of environmental management plan, the company provided a budget and support package to outline a minimum acceptable standard of environmental protection measures and control procedures. The aim was to help contractors reduce the environmental risks of all their day-to-day operations, thereby reducing the potential for environmental non-compliance from works being completed by contractors on the utility’s behalf.
The support package provided a Guide to preparing an environmental management plan and a corresponding Template into which the contractors could start writing their plan. The Guide set out a straightforward project planning process to identify environmental risks and the management strategies to reduce them. This process helped the contractors to:
- prepare detailed plans for using best environmental management practices
- comply with the conditions of project approvals
- comply with general environmental legislation and regulations
- minimize environmental risk
- avoid and minimize adverse environmental effects of works
- monitor activities and effects
- take action to mitigate or remedy any adverse environmental effects; and, if necessary, to change the way they do things to prevent any recurrence
- continually improve their environmental performance.
Also in the support package was an interactive toolbox containing:
- a leaflet summarizing the package
- a background document explaining the environmental management plan framework and the reasons for setting it up, as well as the objectives and scope of a plan
- an electronic plan template with all the headings set out and some helpful information already provided
- printed workbooks containing background information and examples to help contractors fill out the template for their organization
- a set of environmental control procedures (also known as environmental management procedures or standard work practices or operating procedures) and other resources prepared for the contractors to use and adapt for their plans and their site management and monitoring processes
- a self-paced interactive online learning program, supported by classroom-based training
- ongoing support from staff of the utility.
The first plans were uniformly excellent – a result that could not have been achieved cost-effectively in any other way.
Regular site inspections then made sure the contractors were supported in following and, if necessary, reviewing their plans.
An interesting finding from the process was that having such plans was invaluable when these contractors were bidding for other work, especially council or government projects: it gave them good non-price attributes and a great track record.
There were other benefits of contractors developing and implementing their environmental management plans.
For both the utility company and the contractors, these included a clear understanding of how the utility and the contractors would act as one team to comply with legal requirements, avoid environmental impacts and achieve best practice in environmental performance, and an accepted agreement on environmental best practice before works start.
Other benefits for the contractors were a reduced risk of budget overruns due to unanticipated environmental problems and a head start in terms of non-price attributes when competing for other contracts.
Other benefits for the utility company were confidence that its contractors had planned and identified how to complete works in an environmentally responsible manner and the development of a tool to more accurately measure the time and effort taken to address environmental issues and practices.
And of course, other stakeholders and the wider community could have confidence that the utility’s works were not only timely and cost-effective, but planned and carried out in accordance with sound environmental practice.
All in all, the environmental management plan program resulted in a step-change in industry capacity and capability. It provided contractors large and small with new and enhanced skills that offer both business and environmental benefits that will continue to grow over time.
Michael Lindgreen was the project sponsor. Now with Andrew.Stewart Limited, he says that ‘to achieve the corporate goal of a consistent level of environmental best practice we recognised that we needed to do things differently. We wanted to challenge the industry norm of simply prescribing our environmental requirements and standards and then expecting contractors to meet them. Instead, we opted to go down the path of engagement and partnership to build industry capacity and change behaviors over time.’
He is convinced it was this ‘one-team’ approach that produced their industry-leading environmental management support package – a toolkit developed specifically for contractors to understand environmental risk, risk management strategies and how to develop and implement effective documented management systems.
Support was crucial, says Michael. ‘Following the implementation of the system and the requirement for all contractors to develop environmental management plans, we further supported our contractors through tool-box talks, industry presentations, a ‘help-line’ email address and free staff advice when required. The final, and perhaps the most important step, of “bringing the plans to life” through effective implementation was further supported through on the ground monitoring, advice and education.’
With a concerted effort and, importantly, buy-in from all levels – from senior management to the digger driver – Michael says the organization saw ‘the quantifiable number of environmental incidents drop significantly, while the intangibles of improved industry reputation, contractor buy-in, client – contractor relationships and demonstrated industry best practice increased dramatically.’
Monday, February 20, 2012
E- and m-training: glimpsing the future in what we're doing now
Roadside swales are notoriously difficult to build for long term operation and trouble-free maintenance. Fifth time lucky, she got what she wanted – a swale that was properly shaped, compacted, topsoiled and planted – and that didn’t come apart in the rain!
I suggested to her that next time the now-expert team built a swale, she could stand nearby, with a colleague filming everything on video while she explained exactly what they were doing, how they were doing it and why it had to be done that way (noisy machinery may necessitate doing a voice-over later on). Even better to get the operators and other people actually doing the job to explain how they do their work. Then I suggested this video go on the company’s intranet as part of their training and quality procedures so that this knowledge can be easily passed on to others.
This reminded me of the operations manager of a major utility company who decided that with the imminent retirement of a whole tranche of baby-boomers, he needed to film them talking about their routine procedures so they could pass on their skills to the very junior people succeeding them. He got them talking about anything and everything they could think of about the network and the different jobs they did to keep it in good shape. I loved the example he gave of one man describing the exact sound and vibration a valve makes as it's being properly bled - priceless value!
E-learning and m-learning – electronic and mobile learning – are the way of the future. One e-training project I worked on was really quite astonishingly successful. No matter how interactive they are, such methods will never totally replace face-to-face training or, especially for practical work like environmental management, on-site practical learning. But they will increasingly be used to demonstrate on-the-job skills as part of gaining a qualification.
Consider this scenario, which I’ve adapted from a story recounted in 2005 at a meeting of the NZ Association of Training and Development by Elizabeth Valentine (now working with a major Industry Training Organisation):
A worker on a big construction site is doing his round of routine inspections of the erosion and sediment controls. He has a map-based checklist that he can tick off and comment on so he can document and report on what he finds. He also has a smartphone with a camera and the ability to access the as-built diagrams for every measure. He sees something wrong with a large control measure and dials up the as-built to check what it should look like. He takes a photo of the fault and uploads the image to an online register that records the measure’s name and location and the time and date of the photo. The upload alerts the environmental team that a repair is needed. The next device is smaller but also has a minor fault. This time, he photographs and uploads an image of the fault, then fixes it and uploads the image of the repaired and now fully functioning device. He also uploads the last two photos to his e-learning portfolio as part of gaining his work-related qualification.
How cool is that!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
The quality of our projects depends on the quality of our relationships
'"The quality of our projects depends on the quality of our relationships" - I learned this from Tangata Whenua,' said Green MP Catherine Delahunty yesterday at the New Zealand Association for Environmental Education (NZAEE) conference which I'm currently attending. (Tangata Whenua means the people of the land, the Maori people so strongly and positively associated with place in New Zealand.)
What better way to sum up the theme of my book, Seven Steps to Successful Environmental Training Programs: partnership is, I firmly believe, at the heart of this success.
The topic of my book touched a chord with lots of people, including some of the many overseas delegates attending this wonderful conference. One man told me how he works closely with a wide range of stakeholders when preparing and delivering his plant and animal pest control training programs - he'd never thought of how he worked as being "partnership" - but it undoubtedly is - and all the better for being how he naturally goes about his work. And having a conscious awareness that this is what he is doing could strengthen those relationships still more.
Wait for a case study on his work soon....!
Several people from local and overseas universities and polytechnics were present, and it is thrilling to see an emerging focus on adult vocational training as a positive force for environmental change as part of a new knowledge-based restoration economy.
This year's NZAEE conference theme is "Changing course for a sustainable world" with the image of a mighty waka (canoe). The Association does wonderful work in early childhood, school and tertiary education, with strong input from local government, and I see training as being another powerful paddle for the sustainability waka.
Over the next few weeks, I'll update this blog along a new series theme and we'll see where that journey takes us.
There is a new short e-book on training available on my website (Environmental Training – how to change the world, one workshop at a time), and printed copies of the long book (Seven Steps to Successful Environmental Training Programs) in colour are now also for sale - click here to find out more.
Click here to find out more about the NZAEE and here to find out about this year's conference - there are similar associations in many other countries - here's the Australian one, for a start.
What better way to sum up the theme of my book, Seven Steps to Successful Environmental Training Programs: partnership is, I firmly believe, at the heart of this success.
The topic of my book touched a chord with lots of people, including some of the many overseas delegates attending this wonderful conference. One man told me how he works closely with a wide range of stakeholders when preparing and delivering his plant and animal pest control training programs - he'd never thought of how he worked as being "partnership" - but it undoubtedly is - and all the better for being how he naturally goes about his work. And having a conscious awareness that this is what he is doing could strengthen those relationships still more.
Wait for a case study on his work soon....!
Several people from local and overseas universities and polytechnics were present, and it is thrilling to see an emerging focus on adult vocational training as a positive force for environmental change as part of a new knowledge-based restoration economy.
This year's NZAEE conference theme is "Changing course for a sustainable world" with the image of a mighty waka (canoe). The Association does wonderful work in early childhood, school and tertiary education, with strong input from local government, and I see training as being another powerful paddle for the sustainability waka.
Over the next few weeks, I'll update this blog along a new series theme and we'll see where that journey takes us.
There is a new short e-book on training available on my website (Environmental Training – how to change the world, one workshop at a time), and printed copies of the long book (Seven Steps to Successful Environmental Training Programs) in colour are now also for sale - click here to find out more.
Click here to find out more about the NZAEE and here to find out about this year's conference - there are similar associations in many other countries - here's the Australian one, for a start.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
A huge thank-you to the Sustainability Society for launching my book!
Last night the Sustainability Society launched two books about sustainability - my "Seven Steps to Successful Environmental Training Programs", and Niki Harre's "Psychology for a better world: Strategies to Inspire Sustainability". Niki is a social psychologist in the University of Auckland's Department of Psychology.
We had 5 minutes each to overview our books - and this was a real challenge: both of us are used to 50-minute speaking slots, and though I've had coaching on the "elevator speech" and 8-minute speaking slots, I must confess to being less than stellar with my five minutes! But as I'm a member of the Society, I knew many of the people there and they were very complimentary, bless them. The one thing I forgot to say at the end was how environmental training creates new professions, thereby building what Storm Cunningham calls the "restoration economy" from inside our faltering macro-economies. You can find out more about this in an earlier blog.
I love Niki's focus on the importance of positive mental states for sustainable behaviour change. This is something I've always firmly believed in, and based as she is at the University, Niki has been able to back up all her thinking with impressive amounts of research.
What a wonderful opportunity this launch was - and it was the real thing: wine (and water and juice), elegant finger-food and an informed and interested audience - the Society really knows how to put on a good do. The networking afterwards was highly informative and I'll be chasing up a few people to gather up more case studies to disseminate via my website (fully acknowledged, of course!) on how different kinds of organizations (government agencies, businesses, utilities, not-for-profits) are delivering environmental training programs.
Several friends and colleagues came along, one of whom changed an international flight to come back a day early so he could attend. Of course friends and professional peers are the most daunting audience for any speaker, but their interest and support was heart-warming. Thank you all.
Wow! I feel I've been blooded as a "real" author! Many thanks to the Sustainability Society!
The Sustainability Society is a Learned Society of the Institution of Professional Engineers, and membership is open to everyone - you don't have to be an engineer to join (I'm not one) and the annual fee is very reasonable, with special student rates. Several times a year the Society runs free workshops on topics of note, as well as a sensational annual conference that draws outstanding speakers and audiences from all over the world. The 5th International Conference is at the University of Auckland from 27-30 November 2012 - check it out here.
Click here to find out about Niki's book. Click here to find out more about mine.
I'll be taking a break from this blog over Christmas-New Year and will resume sometime in January. Wishing you all the very best for your end-of-year break and a very happy and fulfilling year in 2012.
We had 5 minutes each to overview our books - and this was a real challenge: both of us are used to 50-minute speaking slots, and though I've had coaching on the "elevator speech" and 8-minute speaking slots, I must confess to being less than stellar with my five minutes! But as I'm a member of the Society, I knew many of the people there and they were very complimentary, bless them. The one thing I forgot to say at the end was how environmental training creates new professions, thereby building what Storm Cunningham calls the "restoration economy" from inside our faltering macro-economies. You can find out more about this in an earlier blog.
I love Niki's focus on the importance of positive mental states for sustainable behaviour change. This is something I've always firmly believed in, and based as she is at the University, Niki has been able to back up all her thinking with impressive amounts of research.
What a wonderful opportunity this launch was - and it was the real thing: wine (and water and juice), elegant finger-food and an informed and interested audience - the Society really knows how to put on a good do. The networking afterwards was highly informative and I'll be chasing up a few people to gather up more case studies to disseminate via my website (fully acknowledged, of course!) on how different kinds of organizations (government agencies, businesses, utilities, not-for-profits) are delivering environmental training programs.
Several friends and colleagues came along, one of whom changed an international flight to come back a day early so he could attend. Of course friends and professional peers are the most daunting audience for any speaker, but their interest and support was heart-warming. Thank you all.
Wow! I feel I've been blooded as a "real" author! Many thanks to the Sustainability Society!
The Sustainability Society is a Learned Society of the Institution of Professional Engineers, and membership is open to everyone - you don't have to be an engineer to join (I'm not one) and the annual fee is very reasonable, with special student rates. Several times a year the Society runs free workshops on topics of note, as well as a sensational annual conference that draws outstanding speakers and audiences from all over the world. The 5th International Conference is at the University of Auckland from 27-30 November 2012 - check it out here.
Click here to find out about Niki's book. Click here to find out more about mine.
I'll be taking a break from this blog over Christmas-New Year and will resume sometime in January. Wishing you all the very best for your end-of-year break and a very happy and fulfilling year in 2012.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Policy - an extra plank in your training platform
Over the last five weeks, I’ve looked at 5 Ps that will make sure you develop and deliver sensational training:
- Partnership
- Personas
- Performance
- Process
- Proof.
As I start to think about my next professional speaking engagement on the topic, I’ve gone back to the seven steps I describe in the book and pulled out one more 'P' for you: Policy.
Before you invest a lot of time for no return, it pays to ask a few hard questions. If you don't, be sure your manager and financial officer will do so, long before you get to put the proposition to your elected representatives, who will probably ask the toughest question of all!
Two questions need scoping out before you do anything about environmental training:
- is training the solution to the problem?
- why should your organization do it? Can/should/will anyone else do it instead?
To answer the first question; training won’t solve your problem if you can’t define the environmental Performance gap in terms of what actions people need to change or acquire: trainees must have a clear definition of what they need to do.
To answer the second: there are several reasons why public agencies can justify running or supporting environmental training programs. The most common is that the required training is not available elsewhere: issue- or locality-specific performance needs are often not addressed in formal qualifications or by other training providers, so over time public agency staff build up expertise not often found anywhere else.
Of course, the issue must fall broadly within the legal mandate of the environmental agency and there must be a demonstrable cause-and-effect link between the environmental issues observed and outcomes desired and the identifiable performance issues in the relevant sector.
Equally obviously, large organizations and utilities can set up their own in-house training, and such initiatives can be very effective.
Sources of data and evidence for your initial research that can justify setting up a training program (as well as monitoring its ongoing effectiveness) can include things like:
- state of the environment monitoring indicating an emerging or intensifying problem
- monitoring of environmental permits indicating poor compliance with conditions
- high use of enforcement compared with other methods of promoting good performance
- reviews of the effectiveness of plans, policies, regulations and enforcement that indicate different methods need to be used to achieve desired outcomes
- public complaints or concerns about the issue and/or its current management
- introduction of new legislation, policies, strategies or guidelines that change the performance benchmark
- industry requests for assistance
- evidence from other jurisdictions about the cost-effectiveness of training.
The other parts of the policy framework include:
- the creation of a new technical guideline or adaptation of someone else’s to help those in the sector of interest use effective environmental control measures
- regulatory procedures to ensure that they obtain environmental approvals that require the control measures to be used.
In my experience, it is desirable for public agencies delivering environmental training to have some leverage over the relevant sector, whether via legal approvals and/or enforcement or other methods such as financial penalties or incentives and so on, to make a good case for their attending the training.
These 6 Ps will help you build a compelling case for the need for your training program. I wish you all the best with it!
This information comes from various parts of my book ‘Seven Steps to Successful Environmental Training’.
This information comes from various parts of my book ‘Seven Steps to Successful Environmental Training’.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Proof: how will you make sure your trainees are meeting their performance standard?
It’s always important for trainers to know their training is effective, and there is a growing focus on the different levels of evaluation, from the “smile sheets” we give out at the end of a workshop to a full financial return on investment - and beyond!
For environmental trainers, there is often an additional impetus, which is the need for compliance monitoring to ensure that organizations are meeting their legal obligations under environmental laws. Many are required to monitor their own compliance with various operating permits, and environmental regulators often have pollution hotlines or well-publicized phone numbers for the public to report matters of interest from smoky vehicle exhausts to over-use of water. Some also have formal systems for regular inspections of activities of particular concern.
Effective environmental training is only one part of a wider environmental training program and such programs need to be set up so that their outcomes and effectiveness can be evaluated. This needs to be done right from the very beginning of any program. Likewise, the level of compliance with your environmental performance standards or guidelines will be part of your assessment of the effectiveness of your training.
A number of people in the training profession have identified seven levels of evaluation of the effectiveness of training. Levels 1-4 are from Donald Kirkpatrick, Level 5 is from Jack Philips and Levels 6 and 7 are from Alastair Rylatt – the sources are listed below. The seven levels are:
- Level 1 – Reaction: Did they like it?
- Level 2 – Learning: What did they learn from it?
- Level 3 – Performance: What can they do as a result of it?
- Level 4 – Results: Was the training worthwhile?
- Level 5 – ROI: Did it produce a financial return on investment?
- Level 6 – Sustainability: has it become ‘how we do things around here’?
- Level 7 – Sharing the benefit: how is this helping others and the planet?
Regular site inspections will give you good information for both - and in many jurisdictions, the costs of these inspections can be recovered from the organization holding the relevant environmental permits. From an environmental regulator's point of view, this is good news: the funding doesn’t come out of rates!
How does this analysis work if you are a corporate or not-for-profit interested in environmental training? How does it work if you are an environmental regulator?
This blog is the last in my series of Top Five Tips for people starting to think about setting up or expanding an environmental training program. The other four were on Partnership, Personas, Performance and Process.
What’s your hot topic for environmental training? Contact me here or make a comment below and I’d be delighted to respond with some thoughts.
What’s your hot topic for environmental training? Contact me here or make a comment below and I’d be delighted to respond with some thoughts.
The information in this blog is drawn from comes from Chapter 6 and part of Chapter 8.3 of my book ‘Seven Steps to Successful Environmental Training’. Thanks again to the New Zealand Association of Training and Development, from which I’ve learned so much about training evaluation; and as always to Ann Andrews for encouraging me to disseminate this material more widely.
The three sources of the seven levels of evaluation are (1) Kirkpatrick, Donald, 1998, Evaluating Training Programs: the Four Levels. Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc. San Francisco; (2) Philips, Dr Jack, 1997, Return on Investment in Training and Performance Improvement Programs. Butterworth Heinemann; and (3) Rylatt, Alastair, 2003, Beyond ROI – seven levels of evaluation. An article in People and Performance, the magazine of the New Zealand Association of Training and Development, June 2003.
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