SEPTEMBER 2007 LEARNING FLASH

Russell Martin and Associates Learning Flash September 2007

Happy Almost Fall! Just when you thought you could get organized now that the kids are back in school, well, have you looked at your inbox lately??? The rush is on to finish 2007. To help you labor well, consider growing your effectiveness through our services and products. In this issue:

· Webinar Schedule

· July PM for Trainers

· 10 Steps to Successful Project Management

· August Leadership Academy

Lou is on Facebook
September Contest: A Word Puzzle

· Unlearning Bad Science

The Five-Point Check In: What Great Performers Do
Screening Out Jerks
Traveling to Another Culture
Ireland Help
Recruiting Latin American Students
Subject: Water vs Wine
Survey: Execs See Sports as Training Tool
Memorial

· Feature: Halo Effect: The Myth of Employee Satisfaction

· Writing in the Middle

I wish you a day of ordinary miracles ~
The Psychology of Customer Satisfaction

Webinar Schedule

Admissions Olympics
September 14, 2007 11:00 AM -1:00 PM ET

Teach Less to Learn More

September 20, 2007 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM ET

Attracting and Retaining High School Students
October 17, 2007 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET

Career Services
November 1, 2007 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET

July PM for Trainers

Our premier ASTD Project Management for Trainers certificate program in Virginia was a great success! Thanks to all the students for their creativity and dedication to learning. If you are interested in sending your staff to this certificate program, it is available as an in-house or public workshop. The remaining 2007 public dates are:

September 24-25, Dallas, TX

December 10-11, Chicago, IL

Contact Nancy Olson, nolson@astd.org for more information.

10 Steps to Successful Project Management

Thanks so much to all of you who have let us know how much you are enjoying the new 10 Steps book. Our webinar last week was a big success, and the book continues to sell well. Email Margie (mbrown@russellmartin.com) now to reserve your 1 day workshop for your staff.

Want to help? Go to Amazon and type in a review for the book. If you have time, drop in to your Borders and Barnes and Noble and ask if they carry the book. The more noise, the better. Let us know, and we’ll send you a free 10 Steps Coloring Book with crayons! We’ll also throw in a magnet that you’ll like.

August Leadership Academy

Thanks to Tom Kegley and Steve Weber for sharing their leadership story with the August Leadership Academy class in Indianapolis. Thanks also to the Indianapolis Childrens’ Museum for providing us with a fabulous space with wonderful food. We were invited to tour the Chihuly exhibits, ride the carousel, and go behind the scenes at Dinosphere. If you’ve never been to the museum, get there now whether you have kids or not.

If you’d like more information about the RMA Leadership Academy, please contact Margie Brown (mbrown@russellmartin.com).

Here are some wonderful pictures of a new daughter for one of our leadership alumni. Congratulations, Ryan! http://www.ryanosborne.com/Audrey%20Mae%20Osborne/

Lou is on Facebook

In an attempt to join the present, I have started a Facebook site and loaded some photos from my travels. You might be out there! You can check them out at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=6137&l=f0cd9&id=701471963 Visit often – I carry my camera everywhere. Next step – I am going to venture into Second Life. If you’ve traveled there, let me know what you think at lou@russellmartin.com.

September Contest: A Word Puzzle

See if you can figure out what these words have in common. When you think it’s time to give up, take a deep breath and look at them again.

Banana Dresser Grammar Potato Revive Assess Uneven

Send your answer to cmason@russellmartin.com and win fabulous merchandise!

Unlearning Bad Science

“Filmmakers at a Harvard graduation more than 15 years ago asked new graduates why it's colder in New England in the winter and warmer in the summer. In the 1988 film, "A Private Universe," each young man and woman explains with perfect confidence that the sun is closer to Earth in the summer and farther away in winter.

Of course, the opposite is true. Earth's orbit is elliptical, and New Englanders are actually closer to the sun in winter. Earth is tilted away, however, and it is the tilt of its axis that determines the climate.

We can assume that nobody taught those Harvard seniors bad science. Instead, they probably intuited that "fact" when they were young and never unlearned it. Since they were admitted to Harvard, they must have learned enough classroom science to get high grades on tests, but without dislodging or unlearning what they thought they knew from observation. As Lee Shulman, the president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, has noted, "The first influence on learning is not what teachers do pedagogically, but the learning that's already inside the learner."

When high school seniors were asked pretty much the same question on last year's National Assessment of Educational Progress science test, 40 percent got it right. That's not good enough, but it's better than Harvard did.” From Education Week, February 23, 2005, “Unlearning Bad Science” by John Merrow. If you’d like help learning more about how to grow learning, contact Margie Brown (mbrown@russellmartin.com).

The Five-Point Check In: What Great Performers Do

In our daily work life, we often find it easier to practice the five disciplines of organizational learning, as defined by Peter Senge in his bestselling book, The Fifth Discipline, to reflect on what has happened rather than to use them "in action." The "Five-Point Check-in," developed by family therapist Virginia Satir, can be a valuable learning process that reinforces our practice of personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking. The Check-in encompasses five social interactions which Satir observed that great performers engage in regularly:

Appreciations: Affirmations of someone else's good performance
New Information: Something that I know, and you don't, but you should
Questions: Something that puzzles me about you or anyone or anything else around here
Complaint with a Request for Change: Always presented with an openness to dialogue toward a solution
Wishes, Hopes, and Dreams: Expressions of my goals, aspirations, and objectives, with which I need help to accomplish them

The real skill is in practicing the Check-in with sincerity and authenticity. www.pegasuscom.com . If you’d like to learn more about the five disciplines of a learning organization, contact Margie Brown (mbrown@russellmartin.com).

Screening Out Jerks

“The process of writing The No Asshole Rule, and the lessons that I’ve learned since finishing it, suggest that five practices are especially useful for spotting and screening-out jerks:

1. Is the candidate a kiss-up, kick down sort of person? Watch closely to see differences between how the candidate treats people of higher versus lower status. This also means that it is important to check with staff member and subordinates, not superiors, when doing a background check.

2. Does the candidate see co-workers as enemies or friends? Being competitive is great for spurring in performance, but people who take it too far create a climate of fear and undermine cooperation. Peter Drucker liked to say, listen for people who use “I” and “me” too much, and don’t use “us” and “we.”

3. Does the candidate know how to fight over ideas without getting mad? Especially if people are being hired to do creative work, to work in a highly politicized culture, or will be asked to bring about substantial changes, the ability to engage in constructive conflict over ideas without making personal attacks on others is essential.

4. Does the candidate have a history of leading “nasty” teams or organizations? Emotions are extremely contagious. Nasty leaders don’t just damage people, productivity, and profits, they spread the poison.

5. Help jerks screen themselves out. During the interview, make clear that the organization will not tolerate demeaning people not matter how skilled they are in other ways.” Robert Sutton in The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t (Warner, 2007).

Traveling to Another Culture

“It is not always easy to experience another culture and embark on an international travel adventure without stepping out of your comfort zone. Here is what we recommend:

Journey with an open mind and gentle heart
Accept with grace and gratitude the diversity you encounter
Revere and protect the natural environment, which sustains all life
Appreciate all cultures you discover
Respect and thank your hosts for their welcome
Offer your hand in friendship to everyone you meet
Support services that share these views, and act upon them and
By your spirit, words, and actions, encourage others to travel the world in peace

In the words of Michael Josephson, “Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not a matter of circumstances, but of choice.” We hope you choose to travel with a purpose and live a life on the road that matters. Gratefully yours, Sally Brown” www.ambassadorsforchildren.org

Ireland Help

I will be traveling to Ireland for a family wedding, then on to Amsterdam to do a 3 day session. Here are some questions for you experts out there:

1. What would be the best wedding gift to an Irish bride?

2. Tips on driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road

3. What do I do with one free day in Amsterdam?

Send responses to info@russellmartin.com .

Recruiting Latin American Students

Give an interested student the contact information of other students of the same nationality currently studying at the institution. A direct testimonial from former or current satisfied students is among the most effective forms of marketing and can give an institution a huge advantage over competitors.
While students from most countries consider the location and course quality to be the top priorities when choosing their place of study, Latin American students, in general, are different. Course prices and living expenses are the primary factors for the majority of Latin American students considering studying abroad. This is evident when looking at the increasing number of Latin American students now studying in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Malta. In these countries, average course prices and cost of living are lower than in countries such as the United States, Canada and England. To compete, institutions from other countries should be flexible with their prices. Most institutions in Australia and New Zealand promote "Specials for Latin American Students." These specials generally are discounts in the range of 15-35%. Institutions that do not show a degree of flexibility with their prices lose out to their competitors.
When talking to students regarding prices, it is important to provide the costs associated with the course in U.S. dollars. Latin American students are able to translate U.S. dollars costs into their own currency immediately. Prices quoted in other foreign currencies are not always so easy to translate and make it more difficult for the student to compare the prices of institutions across countries. Institutions that present their prices in U.S. dollars will be favored by the student over an institution that does not.
It is important to communicate with students in their native language. This is particularly true when a student makes initial contact in their native language. The majority of institutions worldwide have Spanish-speakers on their marketing staff. Similarly, to cope with the increasing number of Brazilian students studying abroad, now many institutions (particularly in Australia and Canada) have appointed Portuguese-speakers to handle the ever-increasing demand from this student market. South American students are, in general, greatly influenced by a personal touch when making decisions. Paragraphs of standard form e-mail texts and auto-responders with links to Web sites and so on are usually not appreciated. Perhaps more so than students from other regions of the world, students from Latin markets have a desire to feel that their enrollment is important to an institution. Often, many of the smaller institutions around the world have higher percentages of South American students than larger institutions as a direct result of a more personalized approach to marketing. When asked, many South American students say that the quality and friendliness of the reply to their very first e-mail was one of the most influential factors in their final decision-making process.
It is important not to pressure a student into enrolling. Instead, it may be preferable simply to inform the student that if they would like to enroll, they need only ask for an enrollment form and that it will then be provided.

Need help with your recruitment processes? Contact Leah Colville (lcolville@lplusearn.com).

Subject: Water vs. Wine

To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine... and those who don't. As Ben Franklin said: In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.

In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. coli) - bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop.

However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor) because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting.

Remember: Water = Poop, Wine = Health. Therefore, it's better to drink wine and talk stupid, than to drink water and be full of … poop. There is no need to thank me for this valuable information: I'm doing it as a public service.

Survey: Execs See Sports as Training Tool

Research finds that executives, especially women, believe sports can teach youngsters valuable lessons about business. Golf is a powerful training tool for teaching young people about business, says a survey by financial services company HSBC. Golf teaches youngsters valuable lessons about self-confidence, decision making and perseverance, according to “Successful Youth Development: The Contribution of Sport,” which polled 600 businesspeople. It’s not just golf but other sports as well that help children gain important skills. Nearly 70 percent argue that companies should be more involved in sponsoring or otherwise supporting local sports organizations as a way of girding young people for the competitive business environment.

Memorial

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry LaPrise, the man that wrote "The Hokey Pokey", died peacefully at the age of 93.

The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started.

Feature: Halo Effect: The Myth of Employee Satisfaction

Too often, observers and executives make assumptions about business performance that are not based in fact. For example, if a company is doing well financially, the assumption is that its leader is a brilliant and gifted individual, the corporate culture is amazing and the people are the best. That, according to author Phil Rosenzweig, is the halo effect. The halo effect has to do with human beings’ general tendency to let an overall impression about something shape particular judgments. For example, if I think that an individual is a high-performing manager, I will probably look at various things they do and have a generally better impression of him/her. This happens because it is very hard for us to separately evaluate many different things about a person or a company. We tend to let these things flow together.