The Six Disciplines of slide:ology

Wow... it's a busy time.

I've got three major programs going on at work.

I'm just finishing the 10th class in my Masters program (out of 13).

I'm proofreading a buddy's book.

I'm co-writing a series on Mentoring with another buddy.

And I'm finishing my first book proposal.

I'd consider saying no to one or two of these projects, except that every thing I'm working on informs every other thing I'm working on. Does that make sense?

An example:

I've been working on a project to introduce slide:ology into our company. I want (no... need...) to change our corporate culture around presentation skills.

So, we've worked with the amazing team at Duarte Design to build a slide:ology program that completely kicks butt.

I've also been working with my colleagues on strengthening the learning process in our company. We want to see learners practice and reinforce the skills they acquire in our classrooms. A few months ago, we brought in Cal Wick from Fort Hill to lead us through the Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning. It was a great day, and coincidentally occurred one week before the first slide:ology workshop.

I put the 6D's into action. We had slide:ology attendees send us 5 slides as pre-work for the workshop. I then graded the slides on the slide:ology criteria.

We used those slides as the content for the workshop and guided the attendees through exercises to improve their slide design.

Then, we opened up a 6-week window to support and reinforce the learning. Each attendee could send me 5 new slides. We coached them through this entire process.

The result? How about an 1800% improvement against the criteria? How about raves from executive review? Pretty cool, huh?

Slide:ology is awesome. The 6D's are amazing.

Mixed? Two great tastes that taste great together!

Like Long Island Iced Tea and and Filet Mignon...

Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning

Last week, we brought Cal Wick, co-author of "The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning" into KLA-Tencor for a full day workshop based on the book.

I'd seen two of Cal's co-authors - Andy Jefferson and Roy Pollock - present before, and felt like we could learn a lot from the research that their company, Fort Hill, has done.

I was right. This is not a workshop for the feint of heart. The 6Ds will challenge even the most robust learning strategy. But if you want to create a repeatable learning process, you can't be afraid to shine light into the darkest corners of your plan.

We're proud of what we do as a learning organization at KLA-Tencor, but during the workshop, we found some weak points where we can push ourselves to the next level.

The 6Ds are:

1. Define the Business Outcomes
2. Design the Complete Experience
3. Deliver for Application
4. Drive Follow-Through
5. Deploy Active Support
6. Document Results

I feel like there's a lot more I can do with my programs to Drive Follow-Through. Fortunately, I generated a number of new approaches to do just that, with the toolkit that we received in the workshop. I have to give a shout-out to Michael Papay, who pulled this all together and was super responsive in getting a quick turn-around for us.

You can learn more about 6Ds at the Fort Hill website.

I would also recommend taking the 6Ds challenge, if you think you're up to it!

Drinking from the Well - Redefining Leadership Development

Hanging Out with Barry Posner (front right) and the Gang

Today, I attended the "Redefining Leadership Development" Forum at Santa Clara University.

The event was organized by my friends at Sonoma Learning Systems, and they did a great job. Kudos to Daren Blonski (who has a new twitter blog listed below) and Jeni Nichols!
I enjoyed seeing a number of old friends and making a few new ones.

The morning opened with Barry Posner (co-author of The Leadership Challenge and Dean of the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University) speaking about Sustainable Leadership.
I've been aware of The Leadership Challenge for about 10 years, first from reading the book, second from attending the class, and then by getting certified as a facilitator of the workshop. 

Despite my familiarity with the material (or maybe because of?) watching Barry was like drinking water straight from the source - fresh and energizing.

I'll share three notes I took from Barry's talk:

1. Commenting on the research that shows that our role models come from those who are closest to us - "The Question is not 'Do I matter?', but 'How do I matter?'."
2. "Leaders are always present, even when they're not... because they're always in the followers mind..."
3. Barry drew a correlation between personal values and scuba diving - "When a scuba diver gets disoriented, the advice is to release some oxygen and follow the bubbles. The bubbles provide direction to overcome the disorientation. Our personal values do the same thing. They provide direction during times of disorientation."
   I love that analogy.

Next up was Andrew Jefferson (President of Fort Hill company and co-author of The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning). Andrew spoke about the road map for optimizing the impact of leadership training.

Here are three notes I took from Andrew's talk (I recommend getting his book, listed below):

1. "Learning program objectives should be expressed in business outcomes."
2. Quoting research from Ninth House, "The true impact of a Learning program is best predicted by the climate the participant returns to..."
3. "When the manager is actively involved, we see significant improvement in the learner. When the manager is not involved, we see no or minimal improvement."

After the session, Barry Posner offered us a tour of Lucas Hall, the beautiful new (opened Sept 14th) home of the Leavey School of Business. In the short time that we were with Barry, he modeled the Five Practices of The Leadership Challenge

1. Model The Way - Prima donna author? No way... 
   I caught Barry cleaning coffee cups and bagel plates from all the tables during a break and made a joke about it. He humbly deferred and changed the subject.
   Seen many CEO's engage like that lately?
   Didn't think so...
2. Inspire a Shared Vision - As Barry walked us through the rooms, he painted a picture of Hall in full use. He described paintings and full classrooms. He was clearly jazzed about this place. His enthusiasm was contagious.
3. Challenge The Process - One member of our group commented on the color scheme - another topic close to Barry's heart.
   He stated that the common color of Santa Clara is 'drab brown' and how he pushed for bursts of color to be splashed through the hall.
   "Not everyone likes it, but I thought it was important", he said.
4. Enable Others to Act - Barry used first names at every opportunity, gave credit to others, thanked sponsors, and pointed out how the lobby was designed to promote the Jesuit value of 'service to others'.
5. Encourage The Heart - He showed us the 'Kouzes and Posner Terrace', where every Thursday at Three, the staff goes to the Terrace for Thirty minutes of communing in the (usually) spectacular California weather.
   It's an event that builds relationships, shows appreciation and energizes the team.
   *the photo above is from this terrace*

These behaviors shouldn't be a surprise from a co-author of The Leadership Challenge, but... 

it's nice to see someone practice what they preach!

Links of Interest

• Santa Clara University
• Leadership Challenge.com
• The Leadership Challenge (book)
• Leadership 10 (Twitter)
• Sonoma Learning Systems
• Fort Hill Company
• The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning
• Ninth House, Inc