More Brain Research

We will be sending out a series of emails; they will highlight some of the current thinking on learning and human development and let you know what you can expect if you attend IAL's international conference in Houston from January 14th - 17th 2010 in Houston. The first in the series begins with a look at some of the current research on the brain and learning.We hope you will enjoy the mini-articles coming your way. Feel free to pass these on. We'd love to welcome you in Houston for an engaging and inspiring conference. Visit www.ialearn.org to find out more about our great program!

According to the work of a number of neuroscientists like Dr. Fritz Mengert, Dr. Janet Zadina and other researchers like Dr. Boyzatis and Dr. Zull at Case Western, Dr. Tobin Hart at West Georgia, or those like Dr Renate Caine and others who have worked to translate science to classroom practice, there are a number of things we now know about the brain and learning that can help us make a difference in the work we do.

Some of the highlights of the research suggest that:

• Emotion and Cognition are linked in the brain and learning is state dependent. Music is an important tool to create an optimal state for learning. The arts, discovery process, and an engaging environment help us create meaningful learning experiences that not only accelerate and deepen the learning process, but help shift limiting beliefs and tap into potential.
• “Cells that fire together wire together” – the more natural repetition that is build into learning and the more senses engaged in the learning, the more the learning is embedded and accessible.
• A feeling of progress motivates learners to persist in tasks that could seem daunting or even tedious. Success breeds success. By designing learning (using for example the AL cycle) learners continuously success, make progress and see the relevance of the learning to their lives.
• Novelty in a stress free environment arouses and engages attention. It is important to create a environment free of high stress, and one that offers novel experiences – ones that arouses attention. The methods, the environment itself, the changes embedded into the learning design all support novelty and attention.
• Self-efficacy or being in control of one’s own learning and actions facilitates learning because it sets the right emotional tone and motivates. When we enable learners to co-create the learning, they learn more and deeper.
• The brain-mind is social. We learn more together in collaboration than alone. When we talk about the content, we learn at a deeper level as well.
• Patterning is a key element of learning and emotional connection improves the ability to pattern.
• When we write down things and put a time and place to when we are going to do them, it increases intention in the brain. Reflection activities, action plans, and ways to end a learning module, day or program helps learners take the learning back and apply it.
• The leader/facilitator’s mood, attitude, emotions and ability to empathize and connect with learners impacts learners ability to learn, their emotional state and how they see themselves and the learning. As facilitators of learning our own self-awareness, self-regulation and ability to empathize and manage our own state supports others in their learning. “We teach what we are!”

At the IAL conference, there are a number of workshops to help you translate the current research into your teaching practice. In our Inner Teacher track, you will experience ways to develop yourself, your presence, your ability to empathize, engage with others and use everything as a “teachable moment”. You will also have an opportunity to see how you can add contemplative knowing to what you are already doing with reflective activities, mind-calming, focusing and other ways to help learners get rid of self talk, distracting thoughts and engage in significant learning.

Several concurrent sessions demonstrate ways of using the arts in learning – music, activities from the world of entertainment, the visual arts, and storytelling. Many sessions are designed to help you discover how to apply the science to the art of teaching. And, because we practice what we preach, the conference will engage you in multiple ways to promote your own learning! Visit www.ialearn.org to see our complete program, and register before October 31 st for our best rate!

Gail Heidenhain, IAL Board Chair

Find more at our website

WWW.russellmartin.com

10 Obscure Reasons to Be Thankful

10 Obscure Reasons to be Thankful

Lou Russell, Russell Martin & Associates

It’s Thanksgiving, when we like to take a moment to think about how lucky we are before we eat like crazy. I am extremely thankful for my family, my business and my friends, and today I started thinking about the additional millions of little blessings, although obscure, that happen to me every day. Here are 10 that jump to mind:

#1 The web

Google, e-bay, Expedia, online banking, Weight Watchers.com, Radio365, to name a few. If you make a reservation through the Marriott website, they now ask you what you’d like in your room when you arrive including cookies!

#2 Accountable People

Don’t you love people at work who do what they say they will do? There’s nothing better than working with a solid project manager with a good process but lots of accountability. It’s also great to work for a leader that knows his or her job is to be a leader. Along the same lines – I love students in my leadership and project management class who really want to learn.

# 3 Sports for Adults

I’m heading to 50 next year, and I have more options for exercise than I did right after I got out of school. I can play soccer, volleyball, basketball, rugby, rock climb, spin, take a bench class, walk the nature trail, horseback riding and all within five miles of my house. Nobody really cares how old I am.

#4 Customers and Staff as friends

You can have it all. I have been blessed over the last twenty years to have customers and staff who are also friends.

#5 Forgiveness

The Amish recently inspired me after the horrendous school shooting deaths with their focus on forgiveness. If everyone sought first to forgive, things would be very different. It’s a gift others have given me, and one I want to return often.

#6 Collaboration

This year I have had new and old friends step up and go out of there way to help with some of my business challenges. They asked for nothing in return.

#9 Fresh fruit and vegetables, a small local restaurant and a great glass of wine

I am still amazed at the variety of fresh produce and wonderful wines available at every grocery store all year. Couple that with wonderful, local owned restaurants, and it’s pretty hard to not eat a wonderful meal. My favorite locale – Sangiovese in Clearwater.

#10 Text messages

It is such fun to be able to send secret text messages during meetings. I love the intrigue. I watch my daughters text message their entire social life.

#10 Laughter

There’s still some businesses being silly. Check out “How to Eat Pretzels on a Low Fare Airline”, a mini-training session on Air Tran pretzel bags. Check out the adventures of our mascot goose Irma on our website www.russellmartin.com. Make yourself a Google homepage and get the jokes of the day. The news headlines can often be funny enough.

#10 Free wireless

With available latte and no one there I know.

If you’d like to share your 10 Obscure Reasons to be Thankful, add it to the list at www.itsthepeople.blogspot.com.

Manic Middle

Manic Middle

If you are one of the lucky (!) ones, you have found yourself with not just your job, but many other peoples' jobs as well. Layoffs have created the 'opportunity' for middle managers to do their job while also being an expert on training, leadership and project management. How can you possibly balance all three? Here are the Top 10 tips for each. Add your own in comments!!!

TRAINING:
1. Identify what behavior change you want before your build training.
2. Identify the constraints of your training (time, cost, environment, scope) before picking the delivery method (online, live, blended).
3. Recycle: Check for resources you can beg, borrow, steal - it's probably been done before, at least some of it.
4. Lecture as a last resort.
5. Work with a great simulation and drive learning through debriefs. My favorites come from www.hrdq.com and www.thiagi.com.
6. Teach with a Game Show - Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, etc. Check out www.learningware.com.
7. Remember the three ways people learn: Visually, Auditory, Kinesthetically. Honor all three.
8. Remember the seven ways people process (Gardner's Multiple Intelligences). Interpersonal, Linguistic/Verbal,Spatial Visual, Bodily Kinesthetic, Logical/Mathematical, Intrapersonal, Musical
9. Assign parts of the experience to others to develop and teach. OR... leverage experts in the company to be speakers.
10. Believe that your students are strong and capable or you can't teach them.


Source: The Accelerated Learning Fieldbook and Training Triage, Lou Russell

LEADERSHIP:

1. Spend a few minutes (or use an online assessment) to find out your own strengths and opportunities for improvement.
2. Build a chart of the strengths and opportunities on your team - figure out how to fill in for each other.
3. Be explicit about your delegation: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely (SMART)
4. Know yourself - a great leader knows his or her own strengths and challenges.
5. Surround yourself with people who compliment your strengths.
6. Practice resiliency; know how to see the possibility in the immediate future.
7. Remember that COACHING goes forward, THERAPY goes back. You're not a therapist.
8. Ask yourself "Do I REALLY need to add my two cents to what has just happened or is it good enough? Stop micro-managing.
9. Build good processes - your brain alone is not scalable.

10. Believe that your people are strong and capable.
9.

Source: Leadership Training and IT Leadership Alchemy, Lou Russell
PROJECT MANAGEMENT:

1. Clearly identify the project objective. How will success be measured?
2. Identify and cultivate stakeholders.
3. Prepare to practice Flexible Structure from Day 1.
4. Visually draw a picture of the project scope.
5. Document the business objectives: how will this project increase revenue, avoid cost or improve service?
6. Identify and plan for risk.
7. Clarify the priority of time, cost, quality and scope.
8. Get the fewest of the best resources on your team.
9. Try to get as much multi-tasking (other work) off the plates of your team as possible.
10. Laugh at the insanity.


Source: Project Management for Trainers and 10 Steps to Successful Project Management, Lou Russell

Continue to strengthen the hands of the strong,

Lou Russell lou@russellmartin.com
www.russellmartin.com
Check out all my books at

This Month's Contest - Valentine's Day Contest

For more than a century, the makers of NECCO Sweethearts Conversation Hearts have come up with some of the sweetest ways of saying "I love you." Every Valentine's Day the company presents new messages on the tiny colored hearts that have been a holiday tradition since the Civil War. I have been to their amazing outlet in Cambridge MA, not sure if it is still there but used to be right off the green line.

The new sayings for 2008 were weather and nature-inspired sayings that "capture the day-to-day frenzy of forecasting changing weather patterns" and "pay tribute to Americans' ever-evolving affections." They include "Melt My Heart," "In A Fog," "Chill Out," and "Cloud Nine."

What is a word/phrase that has been on a heart since the first manufactured candies came out in 1902?

Send your answers to info@russellmartin.com and win fabulous prizes!!!

The ABCDs of Learning Objectives

Creating learning objectives is critical to success when developing learning interventions. They are really your contract with your learners and everything else is driven by them. In Lou’s book The Accelerated Learning Fieldbook, Lou Russell shares with you how to leverage ABCD to create great learning objectives. Learning objectives are the contract with the learner. They should answer the questions "What can the student DO after the learning event that they could not do before?"

A: Who is the Audience? Be as specific as possible. The more specific, the more retention. [NOUN]
B: What behavior will change? How can this behavioral change be measured? [VERB]
...and the optional...
C: Under what conditions? What will the learner have WITH THEM (for example, a jobaide) when they perform this behavior? Or, what will the learner be WITHOUT when they perform the new behavior (for example, help from their manager)?
D: To what degree? How long will the new behavior take, are their quality measures, or how many times / at what rate (for example, put out a wastebasket fire in 1 minute)?

Exercises are driven by these learning objectives, in fact, everything in the class is driven by these. Remember to Lecture as a Last Resort!

Lou Russell lou@russellmartin.com

Change and People

William Bridges has a wonderful model for understanding change. There are three parts that people go through when transitioning through a change:

1. Endings
2. Neutral Zone
3. New Beginnings

When a change occurs, whether chosen or not, people start with the emotions of ending. This is a confused time, and often people behave as if the change has not occurred and there is some way to 'go back'. You can't leave Endings until you can go conscious with what you have lost. Then the grieving begins, and you move into Neutral Zone.

Neutral Zone is very confusing because you can't go back, but you don't know what the future looks like either, so you can't go there. It's a bit like Jonah in the belly of the whale. It's dangerous and confusing (like Star Trek). Some people never get through it. Interestingly enough, once people become cynical, which can be very exhausting for a leader, they are actually moving out of the Neutral Zone, considering the possibility of a future.

The journey to New Beginnings starts by being able to imagine some good that will come from the new place. As a leader, help your team imagine some benefit after discussion of what has been lost. Until a person can imagine a beginning, they can't leave the neutral zone.

If you'd like help with your team, please let Margie know at mbrown@russellmartin.com or 3174759311. Check out for our workshop and webinars scheduled on this topic. Check out more about this model in the IT Leadership Alchemy book. And continue to strengthen the hands of the strong!

Lou Russell

Give Em' All an A+

I recently received and read the book The Art of Possibility. The authors tell the story of giving top music students an A+ before the class began. This powerful idea can be applied to education, training, leadership and project teams with dramatic results. How would your students behave if their goal was learning, not grades? What would you do differently at work if you didn’t have to worry about politics, or competition against others or measures that don’t make business sense? Put another way, what would your life look like right now if you weren’t stressed and worried? Here's how it works:
* Ask your students at the start of class to imagine it is the end of class and their grade is A+ (or in training, they have just had the best workshop experience of their entire life). Give them blank paper to write you (as the instructor) a quick letter explaining what made the A+ / best workshop happen. What did they learn? What did the student do? What did you do? Use these letters to motivate the students and to adjust to their pertinent learning goals.
* Ask your staff to imagine that this quarter was going to be the best one in the history of the organization. Same deal - have them write their own email to you as their boss imagining the amazing quarter and why it turned out so great.
* Ask your project team to take a deep breath, stop racing, and imagine that the project you share is going to be the most successful project anyone of you have been on. Again, ask everyone on the team to write a note thanking the other members of the team and detailing why the project was successful. Have each team member read their notes.

Did you have fun doing this? What did you learn? I'd love to hear your thoughts about this experience so email me at lou@russellmartin.com or lou@lplusearn.com.

How cold is cold??

COLD IS A RELATIVE THING. . . . . . .
65 above zero:Floridians turn on the heat.People in Wisconsin plant gardens.60 above zero:Californians shiver uncontrollably.People in Wisconsin sunbathe.50 above zero:Italian & English cars won't start.People in Wisconsin drive with the windows down.40 above zero:Georgians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats.People in Wisconsin throw on a flannel shirt with their shorts. 35 above zero:New York landlords finally turn up the heat.People in Wisconsin have the last cookout before it gets cold.20 above ZeroPeople in Miami all die.Wisconsinites close the windows , but will take their children trick-or-treating .Zero:Californians fly away to Mexico.People in Wisconsin get out their winter coats but still have Bonfires 10 below zero:Hollywood disintegrates.The Girl Scouts in Wisconsin are selling cookies door to door.20 below zero:Washington DC runs out of hot air.People in Wisconsin let the dogs sleep indoors but will go ice fishing for hours 30 below zero:Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.Wisconsinites get upset because they can't start the Snow-mobile.40 below zero:ALL atomic motion stops.People in Wisconsin start saying...'Cold enough fer ya?'50 below zero:Hell freezes over.Wisconsin public schools will open 2 hours late

How cold is cold??

COLD IS A RELATIVE THING. . . . . . .
65 above zero:Floridians turn on the heat.People in Wisconsin plant gardens.60 above zero:Californians shiver uncontrollably.People in Wisconsin sunbathe.50 above zero:Italian & English cars won't start.People in Wisconsin drive with the windows down.40 above zero:Georgians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats.People in Wisconsin throw on a flannel shirt with their shorts. 35 above zero:New York landlords finally turn up the heat.People in Wisconsin have the last cookout before it gets cold.20 above ZeroPeople in Miami all die.Wisconsinites close the windows , but will take their children trick-or-treating .Zero:Californians fly away to Mexico.People in Wisconsin get out their winter coats but still have Bonfires 10 below zero:Hollywood disintegrates.The Girl Scouts in Wisconsin are selling cookies door to door.20 below zero:Washington DC runs out of hot air.People in Wisconsin let the dogs sleep indoors but will go ice fishing for hours 30 below zero:Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.Wisconsinites get upset because they can't start the Snow-mobile.40 below zero:ALL atomic motion stops.People in Wisconsin start saying...'Cold enough fer ya?'50 below zero:Hell freezes over.Wisconsin public schools will open 2 hours late

Obamify your message as a leader

I love this... notice how you forget about 'the politics' or the economy, how depressed you are, how bad the world says you should feel, and you FOCUS on your customer. Good advice...and it won an election.

You might be asking yourself, "What can I do to engage my staff and encouraging them to do their best work and inspire a positive culture at our firm?" Pete Blackshaw, EVP of Digital Strategic Services, Nielsen Online Author, "Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000" www.tell3000.com , recently wrote a letter regarding marketing to customers in challenging times. While most of you are not responsible for external communication, you can make a difference in the results of your company by improving your organizations response to internal customers. Pete's letter suggested Obomafying your 2009 communication:

"Obamafy Your Marketing Mindset: Forget the politics-just focus on what the Obama campaign did with their website. Every customer counted. Every visitor was given something to do, no matter how small... Oh, and they followed up, consistently, always with relevant and useful information. In tough times, every opportunity is, well...an opportunity."

This is sage advice for CIO's and other IT leaders who lead and serve internal customers in challenging times.

5 Simple Leadership Actions with Huge Potential
1. Set a new positive vision for your team based on today's realities and repeat it often. (Even if you have done this before.)
2. Show each direct report how the vision relates to their objectives.
3. Ask them to do the same, and so on.
4. Ask them to identify positive stories and share them up, down and sideways, repeat them often.
5. Celebrate the victories! With your team and customers.

We'll be having a leadership public in May--- want to come? www.russellmartin.com

Let's set a goal for failure

Is anyone else sick of the gloom and doom of 2009? Does anyone have any GOOD news? Here's a wonderful postcard that marketing genius Raquel Richardson sent to me recently. Expect the best, move with gratitude, or you will paralyze yourself with fear. Leaders, this is especially true for you, and as you go, so goes your team.

Have a good day!

Lou

Learning can be hard or easy, retained or not

Love this quote from a smart old guy...

Aristotle: "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."