PATHWAYS — Volume 9, Number 1 – February 1997

When was the last time you were asked to put together a training or planning session with little lead-time? For some, who make their living conducting such sessions, that doesn’t pose a problem. But, for the rest of us it means researching the topic, perhaps going to a bookstore or library, then struggling to quickly create the materials needed to support the session.

Now a source of help is available. ASTD and McGraw-Hill have published a series of resource books designed to help you respond to such quick-response situations. The ASTD Trainer’s Sourcebook series addresses topics such as:

The series provides the contemporary, up-to-date ideas and content required to deliver such sessions, designed and packaged in a standard format. This frees the presenter to concentrate on preparation and presentation tasks. Each sourcebook delivers fully reproducible and customizable session materials. Each includes presenter notes for sessions of varying lengths, plus overheads, participant handouts, suggested participant activities, assessment tools, and even detailed guidelines for setting up the sessions.

In this issue of Pathways, Dr. Judy Kayhani, an FLI affiliate, takes a look at three books in the series: two that were developed by FLI affiliates, and one that I developed. I hope this information will help you quickly prepare and conduct a future session.

If you are responsible for presenting or developing sessions in one of the topics listed in the" Focus" section, this series of sourcebooks can save you significant time and effort. They contain all the materials you need to present one-hour, half-day, and one-day sessions. You can reproduce the materials and prepare yourself to present them in a fraction of the time and cost required to develop your own programs.

Each of the sourcebooks is organized in a similar fashion. Once you have gone through one, you will know how to navigate through all the others in the series.

In this issue of Pathways, we review three of the sourcebooks: Sales, Leadership, and Strategic Planning.

When asked what qualified him to write the Sales Sourcebook, Herb replied that he guessed it was his more than twenty years of experience developing successful sales training programs for companies around the world. The sales approach and sales/communication skills presented in the Sales Sourcebook evolved from his experience developing successful programs for companies like Eastman Kodak, GTE Phone Mart, IBM, Olivetti, and Xerox.

Plans for sessions of three different lengths are provided:

• One-Hour Sales Seminar: overviews "effective selling" phases, plus required communications and sales skills.
• Half-Day Communications Workshop: addresses communication skills important to effective selling.
• One-Day Sales Workshop: addresses sales skills and provides practice in applying sales and communications skills through all phases of the "effective selling" sales process.

Herb noted that novelty is not the key benefit of this sourcebook; rather it is the wealth of field-tested material. As in every sales program he has designed, this sourcebook is based on a logical sales process. The process is presented and supported by discussions, activities, role plays, and assessments.

Here are some of Herb’s ideas and suggestions:

• To get a feel for what each session covers, look first at the participant handouts.
• While some may think that the detailed checklists on how to get ready for the workshop are "over the edge," his purpose was to provide as much administrative support as possible, allowing the presenter to focus on preparing for and conducting the workshop.
• Cut and paste! Use those portions of the sales cycle in which your audience really needs training.
• Use one or more of the assessment tools as a pre-workshop activity with managers. Following the workshop, have another discussion of the assessment with sale managers, focusing on "what’s next" in the professional development of their sales staff.

Although Anne’s topic is somewhat more abstract than the others, it follows the same basic structure.

• One-Day Leadership Workshop: introduces the topic of leadership, including the characteristics of a leader, developing and communicating a vision, and motivating and setting a role model.
• Half-Day Leadership Workshop: provides an in-depth visioning experience.
• One-Hour Leadership Workshop: focuses on one key leadership skill--giving credit (positive feedback).

Because Anne’s topic differs from most others in the series, she added a chapter on "Background." In this chapter Anne has synthesized the key contemporary leadership theories and constructs put forth by various authors. For a quick overview, Anne suggests the chart on page 13, which compares the distinctive leadership characteristics observed by the experts.

Anne believes that one design element used in the Leadership Sourcebook is unique in the series. She refers you to the Subject/Matrix chart on pages 5 and 6. If you are planning on customizing portions of this workshop, this chart will be useful even if you are not completely familiar with the entire sourcebook.

Anne offers these additional comments:

• Gain familiarity with some of her primary sources, listed in the reference section.
• Consider using only portions of the sourcebook, particularly the activities and assessments sections.

Anne has produced many leadership programs. She project-managed development of the Partnering for Performance series, which won the Best New Product Award in 1992 from Human Resources Development magazine. The module she designed in that series was entitled, "Achieving Results through Leadership." In 1994 she developed the Emerging Leaders program for the Daniels School of Business at the University of Denver. In 1996 Anne was ghostwriter for coach John Robinson’s book, Coach to Coach, published by Jossey Basf. It is part of Warren Bennis’ Leadership Series.

Again, plans for three sessions are presented:

• One-Hour Strategic Planning Meeting: overviews strategic planning (no practice).
• Half-Day Strategic Planning Briefing: introduces and provides some practice in significant strategic planning concepts and activities.
• One-Day Strategic Planning Workshop: directs a planning team to create a strategic plan for their organization.

John points out one thing that makes this sourcebook unique. The workshop is really a planning session (focusing on the future needs of the organization), not a training session. This requires the workshop leader to behave as a facilitator, not a trainer.

Here are some of John’s suggestions for getting the most out of Strategic Planning:

• If you don’t know much about this topic, read the introduction for a quick overview of what strategic planning is.
• Look at the visioning exercise. John’s design leads participants through an examination of the roles we play as creative thinkers (a la Van Oech). Then, a brief group visioning exercise provides practice. A final activity helps the group develop a future vision for their own organization.
• The Strategic Planning Activities section gives you the basic worksheets and forms you should complete to carry out your own planning sessions.
• The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis can be used whenever you want to help a group create a "snapshot" of their organization at a given time.

John’s qualifications for authoring this sourcebook are detailed in the back of the book. As president and CEO of FLI, Incorporated, he has helped large and small organizations all over the world develop and implement strategic plans. He is currently the Strategic Planning Committee chairperson for the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI).