Critical Strategies for Protecting Your People and Your Organization from the Risks of Sexual Harassment with Kia Roberts

 

Every Training Unleashed Podcast delivers leading-edge strategies that will transform your organization. One recent podcast, however, takes it up one level higher, because it presents information that is not only important, but absolutely essential for the safety and wellbeing of your people and your organization.

 You will want to watch this important podcast today. In it, Evan Hackel spoke with Kia Roberts J.D., Founder of Triangle Investigations. Kia is a powerhouse, recognized as one of today’s leading authorities on sexual harassment in the workplace.

About Kia Roberts and Triangle Investigations

Triangle Investigations is a group of lawyers and expert investigators conducting misconduct investigations within workplaces, schools, and other organizations. Triangle Investigations developed and created Telli™, an exclusive, easy-to-use and first-of-its kind app that works as a reporting mechanism for persons lodging allegations of misconduct, both in the workplace and in other organizational settings. Triangle Investigations also conducts dynamic, customizable, and engaging employee/organization member training sessions, and offers policy and procedural writing services for organizations.

Prior to founding Triangle Investigations, Kia was the NFL’s first-ever Director of Investigations, a position in which she handled investigations into allegations of violations of the NFL’s Personal Conduct Policy (the NFL’s Code of Conduct), for all NFL players and employees, both nationally and internationally.

Within this position, Kia managed a wide range of investigations, including but not limited to: sexual harassment investigations, workplace violence investigations, bullying investigations, and investigations involving both criminal and non-criminal conduct, both in and outside of the workplace.

Kia conducted numerous high-profile, highly-complex investigations within this role, while supervising a global network of security contractors. Before joining the NFL, Kia spent nearly a decade as a Senior Assistant District Attorney in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, New York. In her last years at the District Attorney’s Office, Kia was appointed by the elected District Attorney to the Office’s prestigious and highly selective Homicide Bureau, which was composed of the top 12 trial attorneys in the Office.

Kia obtained her law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, Tennessee. While at Vanderbilt, she participated in numerous organizations, and worked as a writer for Obiter Dictum, a law school publication, and also served on the Student-Faculty Relations Committee. Kia obtained her undergraduate degree from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. While at Duke, Kia was on the Dean’s List, was a writer for The Chronicle, Duke’s award-winning daily student publication, and served on the President’s Council on Black Affairs, an advisory group to the President of Duke University.

What Companies Must Do to Protect their Employees and Themselves from Sexual Harassment

Kia explained to Evan Hackel . . .

“The first step is that companies really need to examine what their reporting processes are. Especially in the midst of the pandemic, a lot of organizations realized that they really didn’t have consistent and comprehensive reporting mechanisms for people to report sexual harassment, discrimination, or retaliation.

“The first step is for the company to think about how people are reporting what’s going on. Are they encouraged to go to their manager? Are they encouraged to go to human resources? Does the organization have a hotline for employees to use . . . how is management learning about allegations?”

Sexual Harassment Can Occur in Any Kind of Organization

“Triangle’s client base is anywhere sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation can occur. That’s everywhere, from that small organization to a Fortune 500 company. Nonprofits too  . . . you need to make sure that you have those reporting processes in place. And once you learn of a concern or specific report about misconduct, you need to really be in a position where you respond to that complaint robustly and as quickly as possible. Delays in responding to allegations of misconduct can be huge in terms of legal liability and really open up a company to some very specific dangers if concerns aren’t responded to in a rapid manner.”

 

Where Should Employees File Harassment Complaints?

“One thing that we really impress upon the organizations that we work with is that they have to have a mandatory reporting requirement with respect to the person who receives the complaint.

“With a number of investigations that we get, unfortunately, things have blown up and are already in the press. You’re in the New York Times? You know, a group of employees has taken to Glassdoor.com or social media to talk about their experience within the organization and how poor it was. And what we see in a lot of those instances is that an employee has reported something to their manager, but for whatever reason, the manager didn’t take it where it needed to go.

“The manager either said, `I’m sorry to hear that’ or, `I’m trying to avoid getting involved because of office politics,’ etc. And then things fester to the point that they explode.

“When a manager receives a complaint about misconduct from an employee, they have to report that up to a designated person within the human resources or employee relations space to make sure that it’s appropriately addressed.”

Make time to listen and watch this podcast today.

An Amazing, Not-to-Be-Missed Offer from Kia Roberts to the Training Unleashed Audience

 If you contact Kia and her team by visiting www.triangleinvestigations.com, you can request a code of conduct, tailored specifically to your organization, at a special discounted rate. Now that is an incredible offer!

We hope you will watch this essential podcast [insert link] and begin applying Kia Roberts’s advice today to protect your people – and your company – from the dangers of mishandling sexual harassment complaints.

2021-11-11T13:36:55-05:00November 11, 2021|

How to unlock your leadership by Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina is an American icon – a businesswoman and politician best known for her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, where she was the first woman to lead a Fortune Top-20 company. She led HP from 1999 through 2005. During that time, she presided over the greatest tech-sector merger in history when HP acquired Compaq. That acquisition made HP the world’s largest seller of personal computers.

Ms. Fiorina was also a top contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, and a forceful presence in the Republican presidential debates. In 2018, she founded Carly Fiorina Enterprises, a professional training and coaching firm headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.

We are proud that this leading American executive and inspiring woman was featured on a recent episode of Training Unleashed where she shared her insights on leadership, management, training, company culture and more with host Evan Hackel.

We know you will want to spend time watching this remarkable episode of Training Unleashed and we are excited to share the following excerpts of her comments with you here.

Carly Fiorina on the Importance of People – A Company’s Most Important Asset

“The truth is that most companies will say platitudes like, `People Are Our Most Important Asset.’ But they don’t really act that way! The truth is people are the business. Companies think that a business is its products, its profits, its manufacturing. Yes . . . and people do all those things.

“So I think the people in a business, whether it’s a giant business or a tiny business, are literally what makes it go. And so if people are the business, then you must invest in those people. And the way you invest in people is, you develop them. You train them. You empower them. You encourage them. You challenge them. You hold them accountable. You give them real responsibilities. That’s how people perform at their best. And so if you believe people are the business, and they are, then you have to invest and that starts with training.”

Carly Fiorina on the Critical Importance of Company Culture

“Culture is one of those words in business that gets downplayed a little bit. You’ll hear people say, `Well, yeah, culture, it’s important, but it’s the soft stuff.’

“In my experience, `soft stuff’ is a dismissive term. Culture is the hardest stuff of all! It is the most difficult stuff to change. It is also the software of a company. It’s the software of any team. And so just like a piece of technology, if the software doesn’t work, the machinery isn’t going to work! And that’s true for teams and organizations as well.

“Companies need to start by honestly figuring out what their culture is, and it isn’t the platitudes on the wall. It’s not the code of conduct. It’s not the statement of ethics. It’s not the aspirational mission statement. I mean, maybe it is all those things, but actually culture is reflected in how people answer a really basic question:

What’s it like to work around here?

“That’s the culture of the team. It’s the water the fish swim in, the air we breathe. Often, a culture is counterproductive to what people are trying to accomplish, or sometimes culture can accelerate what people are trying to accomplish. It can encourage collaboration. It can encourage empowerment. It can encourage the development of new skills. It can encourage people taking on additional responsibilities. All of those things in a culture can encourage people to say, `I want to go to training! It’s not a waste of my time. It’s not a distraction from my main job. It is my opportunity to invest in myself or the organization’s opportunity to invest in me . . . it  is the most important thing we do around here.’”

Carly Fiorina on the Value that People Bring to Companies

“One of the things that I’ve learned through experience – and I learned this before I came to HP – is that people in an organization know what’s going on. They know what the problems are. They know what the potential is. They actually know what needs to happen. They’re rarely given an opportunity to make it happen or to say what needs to get done.

“When I arrived at HP (if you’ll forgive a bit of a story) everyone was talking about a transformational leader and saying, `we need change.’ And yes, the company was in real trouble in very serious ways. I purposefully came in alone. I brought no one with me. And I did that very deliberately because I said to the organization, you know what we need to do . . . you know what’s wrong . . . you know where we’re falling short.

“And so for me, the issue was not to give them the answer. The issue was to unlock and unleash their potential, their ability to identify problems, to identify solutions and to move the organization forward. And so very specifically on the issue of culture, we started by asking employees, `What’s it like to work around here?’ And we got a lot of answers. And then we asked them, `What do you want it to be like?’

“And guess what? The cultures that people aspire to are usually productive, high performing, collaborative, ethical, empowering organizations. And so the point is, the answers were there all along. As a leader, I was catalyzing people to do what they needed to do. Not telling them from on high, `This is the change we’re going to make.’ And so they owned it, literally.”

 Carly Fiorina on Her Journey to Leadership

“I started out as a secretary and when I finally landed in corporate America, you know, I didn’t know what management or leadership was. But what I figured out was there were people all around me who understood what the problems were but had never been given a chance to solve them, who wanted things to be better, but didn’t think they were empowered to do so. And so a lot of what I have put into my online training and the advice I give to companies and executives . . . is what I’ve learned, not just as a CEO, but from being a secretary all the way to becoming a CEO.”

Carly Fiorina on the Critical Importance of Training

“If there’s one thing I want people to take away from an interaction with me or an experience with our training, it’s that all of us underestimate ourselves! Everyone is filled with more potential than they realize. And each of us actually can change the world. It’s just we talk ourselves out of our ability to do so, or we don’t invest in our ability to do so, or others overlook our ability to do so too.”

Carly Fiorina on Her Current Priorities

“One of the things we do through our Unlocking Potential foundation is to provide leadership development to nonprofits. And if you think it’s hard to get training programs through in the corporate for-profit world, it’s very hard to get them through in the nonprofit world because resources are so scarce.

“And so we have developed a set of programs specifically for the nonprofit world. One of those was for an Easter Seals organization, and in that particular case, we brought together the entire organization at one time, from the CEO to CIO to the van driver who brought disabled children and adults to the classroom every day, and everyone in between . . .

”We had everybody together and together, they worked on the goals that they thought were most important. And together, we developed problem-solving skills for each and every one of those people, regardless of the job they were in. Because here’s the thing. The context for the van driver was different than the context for the CEO. The problems the van driver encountered were different from the problems the CEO encountered.

“But problem-solving is always the same. It takes the same fundamental characteristics and qualities, just as leadership is always the same. It doesn’t matter what the context is. And I’ve learned that through experience as well. And so that was a really different kind of experience for them. I have done that subsequently with other groups, and it was an incredibly productive experience for them because on top of learning new skills, they got to know each other better and they got to understand each other’s jobs better, which always brings a team together.”

Carly Fiorina on Human Potential

“You know, Evan, human potential is the only limitless resource we have. Money is limited. Time is limited. Resources of all kinds are limited, except one,  human potential. If it’s unleashed, if it’s unlocked, if it’s leveraged, it can literally do anything . . .  solve any problem, achieve any goal. And so the reason I devote my life to this, the reason I spent so much time as a CEO investing in people is because human potential is the most valuable resource we have, and it is also limitless. But it’s only limitless if we invest in it and hone it and develop it and then leverage it.”

Carly Fiorina on the Difference Between Management and Leadership

“First, there’s nothing wrong with management. Let me quickly say it’s needed, but managers do the best they can with the way things are. A manager may produce really excellent results, but they accept the way things are, they operate within the constraints and conditions and the context in which they find themselves.

“Leaders change the way things are. Leaders change the order of things for the better. And you have to ask yourself, why is it in organizations that problems fester all the time? It’s not because people don’t know what the problems are. It’s because they’re not willing to change things, to challenge the status quo in order to solve those problems. And so it takes leaders and leadership to challenge the way things are.

“Leadership is about changing things for the better. Leadership is about solving problems so anyone can lead.”

A Big Success Tip from Carly Fiorina

“Run to a problem! Don’t run away from it! Don’t avoid it! Run to the problem!”

An Offer to Our Training Unleashed Audience

Carly Fiorina invites you to visit her LinkedIn profile and sign up for a subscription to her weekly newsletter, Leadership Matters.

About Our Guest

Carly Fiorina is an American businesswoman and politician best known for her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 through 2005, where she distinguished herself as the first woman to lead a Fortune Top-20 company. She holds degrees from Stanford University, the University of Maryland and MIT.

During her time at HP, she presided over the greatest tech-sector merger in history when HP acquired Compaq. That acquisition made HP the world’s largest seller of personal computers.

In the political sphere, she ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010 unsuccessfully. Later, she was a top contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, during which time she became the vice-presidential running mate of Senator Ted Cruz until he suspended his campaign.

Since 2018, she has served as Chairman of Carly Fiorina Enterprises, a professional training and coaching firm headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. Her books include Find Your Way: Unleash Your Power and Highest Potential.

2021-11-11T13:37:13-05:00October 26, 2021|

Untap the Power of Mentoring with Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm

In a special Training Unleashed podcast, Evan Hackel interviewed Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm, two highly successful entrepreneurs who believe that the more you mentor others, the more success will come back to you.

In this life-changing podcast with Evan, they explain how their lives were transformed by the ideas of Zig Ziglar, who believed that “you can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want.”

The men explained how their lives had been changed by mentoring others, discussed how that simple principle can bring you ultimate success, and went on to explain that mentoring means training other people. The half hour you spend watching this podcast will supercharge your success in everything you do.

Before you invest that time watching, we would like to share some insights from Kevin and Mark right now.  

Kevin Describes How Mentoring Builds Personal Success

In describing the role that mentoring others can play in building personal success, Kevin said “I think a mentor is a seasoned business executive, entrepreneur, somebody who has experienced all facets of business success and maybe had some exits in their business. That’s the type of mentor that I always liked, someone worldly. You know, I’ve had some great mentors . . . they have been there, done that, made the mistakes, learned from them, and now are positioned to be able to help others with their learning curve.”

Mark on the Power of Mentoring

And Mark expressed his own belief in mentoring when he said, “I like to say that a mentor has two ears and one mouth. Oftentimes we think of a mentor as someone who is talking to us all the time. That’s a motivational public speaker. But a mentor is someone who’s listening to you, who cares about where you’re going, who understands you’ve got a unique ability in this world, and who is all in to help that unique ability get to the world. A mentor is also someone who is willing to let you fail. There is so much more to learn from failure than there is when you are doing well. I mean, you learn through pain, you learn through struggles.”

Kevin and Mark Discuss the Importance of Training

And when Evan asked Kevin and Mark about the role that training plays in building a company’s success, both men were quick to describe the importance of education.

Kevin observed that when he started his first company, “I had no training at all for any aspect of my business. I was an entrepreneur building, making mistakes like you wouldn’t believe, blood running down my ankles.”

Training, he said, could have kept him from making mistakes.

Mark was quick to add, “And that’s why I love training, because training comes at you in all different formats and all different technologies from all different age groups. And it’s universally available. It’s available on your phone if you want to do it there. So I’m a big believer in training. Get rid of the stereotypes and just learn and then act.”

About Our Guests

Kevin Harrington was one of the original sharks on the hit television show Shark Tank. He is also recognized as the man who invented the infomercial. Mark Timm, who calls himself a “serial entrepreneur,” has built successful companies in more than a dozen countries, from retail to wholesale to manufacturing and real estate.

They believe so strongly in mentoring that they made it the subject of their new book, Mentor to Millions: Secrets of Success in Business, Relationships, and Beyond.

2021-10-26T14:37:35-04:00October 18, 2021|

Pilot Training Lessons That Will Transform Your Employees with Emil and Octavian

Captain Emil Dobrovolschi and international trainer Octavian Pantis share lessons from their new book Dark Cockpit with our host Evan Hackel

We are excited to share excerpts from a recent conversation between our host Evan Hackel and two remarkable men – airline Captain Emil Dobrovolschi and international trainer Octavian Pantis, authors of the new book Dark Cockpit:  How to Communicate, Lead, and Be In Control at All Times Like an Airline Captain (Ignite Press, May 6, 2021).

The motivation behind Dark Cockpit was to revolutionize training by tapping into the treasure of knowledge that has been developed for aviation training, and to explain how it can be applied to leadership, crisis management, and other critical tasks. The authors, Emil and Octavian, have done a remarkable job of taking their knowledge about pilot training and translating it into advice all of us can use – even those of us who will never pilot a plane.

There is nothing theoretical or “soft” about their advice, because the training pilots receive can make the difference between life and death. And these two men, who both hail from Romania, are the “real deal” in providing that training. Captain Emil Dobrovolschi is a pilot with Torom, the national airline of Romania. He has been flying for Torom for 29 years, has been a flight instructor for 20 years, and has been an examiner for the last 18 years. That means that he is part of a team that examines every pilot who takes charge of a plane in Romania, and issues pilot’s licenses.

“It is a great responsibility, Emil told Evan. “At the end of the day if you do not trust a pilot to fly your family . . . my job is to judge how they perform and if they do not perform well, we will not pass them.”

Octavian Pantis, who wrote Dark Cockpit with Captain Emil, brings a similarly high level of experience to his work as an international master trainer. Also headquartered in Bucharest, Octavian manages an international training company that focuses on leadership, training, productivity and international culture.

Let’s hear what Evan, Emil and Octavian talked about in this important podcast.

Evan Sets the Context for Why Training Is Critical

Evan observed, “Pilot training can be the difference between life and death. Many companies don’t see training that way. They don’t see it as a life or death activity for their companies, but it truly is. So your insights are critically important for our viewers to hear.”

Octavian Lays Out an Approach for Training that Can’t Be Allowed to Fail

Octavian, as we noted above, is a professional trainer who specializes in training that focuses on leadership,  productivity and culture.

He explained his belief to Evan and Emil that in order for training to be ultra-effective, it should conform to these three keys:

  • First, everyone must train. “Everyone in an organization should attend the training,” Octavian said. “It is not just for newcomers.”
  • Second, it’s ongoing. “It’s regular, not only for when you have the budget or when you have the time or a subject to teach or when the manager says it’s time to do it,” he explained.
  • Third, it’s not limited in scope. “Training should be on a wide range of topics,” he said. “It’s not only on what’s new.”

Furthermore, expectations should be high for training. Octavian explained, “In air travel, training is not just about getting from Point A to Point B safely, but also comfortably, if possible. To achieve that, many things have to be in place. Without higher expectations, training would not work.”

Why Communication Is a Critically Important Training Topic in Aviation and in Your Organization Too

“Everybody knows that communication is important,” Emil told Evan and Octavian. “And in aviation, communication is critical for avoiding and dealing with mishaps. In aviation, history is written in blood!

“So for us, communication and training are vital. The way we communicate, the way we pass the message unequivocally, without access to body language, the way we manage to understand each other in a dark environment, is critical . . . for us, it’s a skill we develop over the years, but also something we learn in training. So every pilot, every year, goes twice to the simulator for eight hours.

“One session is for training in a simulator. The next session is a check, where the pilot goes if he passes that simulator training session. If the pilot doesn’t pass the simulator training session, he will not go to the second session, the check. And if a pilot doesn’t pass the check, he will be grounded until the next exam.

“Most of the people who fail this process are beginners. But there is no tolerance for mistakes, no tolerance for indiscipline. . . some pilots after maybe five or 10 years, become complacent. They know the aircraft. They may know how to make decisions, but they become complacent, and they don’t learn any more. And they are just, as I say, just floating.

“But that is not possible in our training, because the minimum mark to pass an exam is 7.5 or 8. For my company, it means achieving 8 out of 10. So if you’re not above that standard, you’re not flying the aircraft, you’re not in the cockpit any more.

“That puts pressure on the instructors first. You need to standardize the training for trainers and examiners, so they reach a good standard . . .  It’s not a punishment, but it’s a pressure on the trainers and then on the professional pilots too.”

Imparting a Sense that Training is Critically Important

In every year they fly, pilots can become a little more complacent and comfortable. And training has to fight that and help assure that pilots remain aware of the dangers they are dealing with.

“Everybody gets a little bit more comfortable,” Emil told Evan and Octavian. “But as a professional pilot, you cannot do that. Not for a minute! If I’m drinking a coffee in my cockpit at 12,000 meters, 39,000 feet, I will maybe feel a little comfortable. I can have a chat with my colleague, but my eyes are always on the instruments. I’m in a nice, comfortable environment. It’s warm or cold the way I want. But outside the window, just two feet away from my shoulder, its minus 70 degrees and the aircraft flies at 450 miles per hour! So at any moment something wrong can happen if you are not prepared for the worst every time.

“Pick every incident or accident in the history of aviation, and I will show you how there was a lack of training in that company or a lack of training of those pilots, in the way they got the license, in the way they trained.

“And if you want to maintain a high level of training, a high level of proficiency in your pilots, you have to train them not just  the technical skills, but you have to train the non-technical skills, their attitude, and the way they communicate, things like that.”

Octavian on How to Keep Trainees Coming Back and Staying Committed to Training

“One key is to keep training regular,” Octavian told Evan and Emil. “For instance, in aviation, even the best pilots in the world know that they’re scheduled for training in September and then in April.

“Yet in many companies where training doesn’t happen for a while, people are apt to think, `What’s wrong? What do you have against me? Did I do something wrong that you sent me to training?’

“But if it’s regular, then it’s like brushing teeth, it’s like having the annual or biannual performance evaluations, then yeah, when is when is the next one, the next one in September? So it’s not like, why do I have to go? You have to go because you have to, because it’s a natural part of what you do.”

A Special Offer

Captain Emil and master trainer Octavian invite all members of the Training Unleashed family to download a free chapter of their new book DarkCockpitBook.com. This book is more than interesting or useful – it is thrilling. You won’t want to pass up this chance to learn how to apply its lessons to creating training that simply cannot be allowed to fail.

Be sure to watch this critically important podcast now, [INSERT LINK] It is an experience that will transform your training and your success!

About Our Guests

Captain Emil Dobrovolschi is a pilot with Torom, the national airline of Romania. He has been flying for Torom for 29 years, has been a flight instructor for 20 years and has been an examiner for the last 18 years. That means that he is part of the team that examines every pilot who takes charge of a plane in Romania, and issues pilot’s licenses.

Octavian Pantis, who wrote Dark Cockpit with Captain Emil, brings a similarly high level of experience to his work as an international master trainer. Also headquartered in Bucharest, he manages an international training company that focuses on leadership, training, productivity and international culture.

2021-10-26T14:30:31-04:00October 12, 2021|

Succeed by Failing with Erin Diehl

 

Over the years, many successful people have been talking about the benefits of “failing forward.” In fact, “failing forward” has become a standard business term. It means that people and the organizations they serve can only succeed by making a series of mistakes, and then learning from each of them.

This concept only makes sense. But then someone like Erin Diehl comes along and elevates the whole idea of failing forward to an entirely new level. She us founder of ImproveIt!, a company that conducts workshops that help people and organizations “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” In a recent Training Unleashed Podcast with host Evan Hackel, the dynamic Erin discussed the profound life lessons she learned about failure by performing improv.

That’s right . . . improv! Be sure to watch this life-transforming podcast. 

Here are some excerpts of the conversation between Evan and Erin.

Evan: I see you are sitting in front of a sign that says “Fail Yeah!” Can you tell me about that?

Erin: “Fail Yeah” is the name of a podcast that I host. The words “Fail Yeah” are based in the improvisational comedy world.

There is a rule in improv comedy. There are no mistakes, only gifts! So anything that happens on stage is not a mistake. It becomes a part of the scene. And that is such a metaphor for life, the things that happen to us, the failures that we have along the way, whether they happen in entrepreneurship, in corporate America, in our parenting and day-to-day lives.

Failures are actually supposed to be a part of our scene of life. You have to fail in order to improve . . . if you’re not failing, you’re not trying. And if you’re not trying, you’re not improving.

Evan: I have a saying for myself which is. “I hope my biggest failure is yet to come, because if it’s not, it means I’ve given up trying.”

Erin: That’s it! I love it! I love it!

Evan: I truly believe it. And you know, as training professionals, I think a lot of what we do is cutting edge, leading edge. There’s so much happening in the world of training that there are going to be stumbles. And that’s OK, as long as we learn. Someone famous once said, “We learn more from our failures than we learn from our successes.”

Erin: One hundred percent! And I truly believe in getting used to asking yourself the question, `What did I fail at today?’ And making that a normal thing that you say at the dinner table at the end of the day and making it something you journal about at night.

I love the idea of making failure a part of a company culture internally. My company does failure parties every quarter. We actually have one tomorrow. And instead of making a vision board for the quarter, we make a fail board of the quarter past . . . And it’s so refreshing because it allows our team to feel like we can make mistakes and it allows our team to feel human.

As I said to you before we hit record on this podcast, I’m a recovering perfectionist, turned influencer. I need to remind myself that failure is a part of the process. So it’s a big part of our culture. We’re really proud of it and of leaning into it every day.

Evan: It’s interesting that one of the major underlying root problems in business is people covering themselves. They’re not admitting their failures. They’re avoiding that difficult conversation that doesn’t allow the company to really understand what’s going on. Your failure meeting is a cool idea because it allows people the space to be able to admit they did something wrong.

Erin: That’s it! That is it Evan, and I truly believe in exactly what you said . . . Not allowing our full selves to be shown or almost covering ourselves. I have spent my entire career asking people in corporate America to take their masks off, which was hilarious because in year 2020 we were like, put your healthy mask on, be safe.

But what I feel really happened as a result of the pandemic was even though we were asked to protect ourselves in public, we actually started to see each other as humans because we were peering into each other’s homes and seeing families and pets and the day-to-day and that, I think, really strengthened the bond of a lot of teams and a lot of organizations. And it was a very eye-opening year, which we failed through miserably.

Back to the theme of failure, it felt like we were failing left and right. But we can take a step back and see some of the good that came from it. It’s so interesting to observe and to witness and to transform with, to be honest, so very cool.

Evan: I know you guys use a lot of improv in your work with companies. And maybe you could share why, because I think that’s a good thing to understand.

Erin: This is not an ad, this is an ask for everyone in America. Take an improv class, please! I’ll tell you why it’s such a beautiful, beautiful art form to teach.

Improv is the truest, most natural form of play. I call myself a professional pretender. I have a two-year-old son. He improvises all day long! We are all improvising all day long. But when we hear the word “improv,” it sometimes stifles our creativity and makes us think, oh my gosh, I have to think quickly on the spot. But when we can allow ourselves to truly play and to truly experience training at its finest in soft skill development, which is what we train on, we allow barriers to come down so that the masks that we’re talking about fall. And once that happens, that’s when we’re truly learning because we’re not judging ourselves. We’re not judging others in that moment. We’re in play!

So when we allow those barriers to fall, true learning occurs. That’s when we become our best selves and we grow both personally and professionally. It’s a magical teaching tool.

There’s much more to learn! Listen now. 

A Special Free Offer

Erin invites members of the Training Unleashed family to take the Daily Five Challenge, a life-changing exercise offered by her company ImproveIt! CLICK HERE to enroll at no cost . . . and start transforming your life now.

About Our Guest

Erin Diehl is a graduate of Clemson University and former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater and The Annoyance Theatre. Erin conducts workshops across the country leveraging improvisational techniques to improve employees’ skills in corporate settings.

Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Lowe’s, Accenture, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award. Erin was a speaker for Disrupt HR Chicago, hosted the 2016 RedEye Big Idea Awards and has been a speaker for HRMAC Chicago, SHRM Chicago, Disrupt HR, the Business Marketing Association, and Emerging Leaders of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. She is also a proud member of The Chicago Innovation Awards Women’s Cohort and graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program. 

Among her many accolades, Erin is most proud of successfully coercing over 12,000 professionals to chicken dance.

2021-10-26T14:31:21-04:00October 6, 2021|

How to Use Podcasts to Market and Promote Powerfully with Tom Schwab

In a recent Training Unleashed podcast, Evan Hackel interviewed Tom Schwab, podcasting guru and Founder/CEO of Interview Valet, the category king of Podcast Interview Marketing.

If you are eager to promote and market your company or yourself using podcasts – which Tom believes is one of the most effective ways possible – you will want to spend a productive half hour watching this episode and playing close heed to what Tom has to tell you.

Here is a summary of the great advice that Tom delivered:

What Is the Biggest Impediment to Promotion and Getting the Word Out about You and Your Company?

“Our view at Interview Valet is that obscurity is your biggest problem, right now! There are thousands, millions of people you could help. There’s only one problem. They don’t know you exist!

“They’d gladly hire you if they just knew your story. And so that’s what we focus on, getting those stories out. There are millions of inspiring thought leaders and millions of people they could serve – a lot of nonfiction authors, high-level coaches, consultants, brands, companies that really need to get their message out there by appearing on podcasts.

“Early on, we had a client that said, `I love working with you because you let me be the guest and you take care of all the rest.”

What Is your Most Compelling Content?

“Your clients are your best copywriters,” Tom told Evan. “And really, that became our tagline. So we’ve got a team of 27. They all don’t work in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with me. We’ve got people in Europe, Canada, the United States and even Mexico as we launch interview Valet Espanol. And so we’re collaborating with clients to figure out what they are, who they want to talk to, what they want them to do, finding those right podcasts for them, and making sure they’re confident and prepared for every interview they go into. So they show up 10 or 15 minutes before the interview to be prepped and then go on for a great discussion.

“Our clients want the maximum return on investment of their time and their money, and that’s why they work with Interview Valet.”

Tom’s Most Powerful Tip

Evan, as he does at the end of every Training Unleashed podcast, asked Tom to give listeners his most powerful success tip.

“My tip is that you are one conversation away . . . “ Tom told Evan.

He then went on to explain, “I believe that all great things start with conversations. There are a lot of different technologies that we can use to have them. But my questions to you are, what conversation do you need to have? And how can you have that conversation to scale, and how can you have it with the right people?

“For me . . . I’ve written a lot of blogs in my life and every one felt like a homework assignment to me. But it’s easier for me to talk. So I’ll have that conversation like this one, in a podcast. I’ll then repurpose it. I’ll share it with different people.

“So I would just share with that you’re just one conversation away from ______. [Your goal goes into that blank space.] What do you want that conversation to be, and how do you need to have it?”

Tom suggests you have that conversation in a podcast.

A Final Observation from Evan

In this podcast, Evan Hackel observed that he learns better by listening than he does by reading. And he can listen and learn from podcasts even when he is driving – anytime!

An Offer to the Training Unleashed Audience from Tom Schwab

Tom would like to offer a complimentary copy of his book Podcast Guest Profits: How to Grow Your Business with a Targeted Interview Strategy. You are invited to download your complimentary copy today.

About Our Guest

Tom Schwab is Founder/CEO of Interview Valet, the category king of Podcast Interview Marketing. He is one of today’s leading experts on podcasting.

Tom knows how to build an online business. He has done it successfully several times, and now helps others find online success with podcast interview marketing. Tom helps thought leaders (coaches, authors, speakers, consultants, emerging brands) get featured on the leading podcasts their ideal prospects are already listening to. He is also a thought leader on helping companies craft and present podcasts of their own.

Tom is author of books that include Podcast Guest Profits: Grow Your Business with a Targeted Interview Strategy.

 

2021-09-29T17:08:34-04:00September 29, 2021|

Power Tactics that Make Training Exciting with Nancy Giere

Every training designer wants to banish boredom from the courses they create. But boredom can creep in. How and why does that happen? According to top training designer Nancy Giere, it happens when training designers are so concerned with including every idea and concept that they overload their courses. “They put in too much content,” she told Even Hackel in this Training Unleashed Podcast. 

How does that happen, and how can you prevent it from affecting your training? Here are some highlights of what Nancy told Evan in her terrific Training Unleashed Podcast, which you will not want to miss. 

Remember What Slides Are For

 “I think slides with pictures and graphics can be very powerful tools,” Nancy told Evan. “But the purpose of slides is not to help presenters organize their thoughts. They should support the audience, not help the presenter remember what to say next!”

On Different Kinds of Training

“There are different types of training,” Nancy explained. “There’s the `check the box training’ that everybody has to do – things like sexual harassment training, safety compliance training, and other topics that are required. And you can easily lose people in those courses because it’s like everybody has to do them.

“So what I’m finding is people are trying to take some of these topics and lighten them to keep people engaged. There are other types of programs, where you’re trying to improve people’s knowledge and skill level. To keep training interesting there, you have to make it clear how the training is going to affect each trainee’s job.

“It’s a matter of including the `What’s in it for me?’ but you want to add, `And why should I care , , , How is this going to improve my situation , , , Am I going to be able to be more effective in my job?` And more importantly, the most important thing is not what happens in the training, but after the training,

“People think, `I learned this great new stuff, and then when I go back to my desk, is it going to be supported? Or is it flavor of the month?’”

How to Use Stories to Create Powerful Training

“The really important element is what happens at the beginning of training” Nancy explained, “which is have a great hook where people go. A lot of people will start by posing a question of the audience. An even more powerful way is to bring them in with a story that’s relatable, where they think, `Oh, yeah, that’s me. . . you get their attention quickly, because they make a decision early on whether or not they’re going to pay attention.

“So that’s the first part. The next is to have a good structure. Give people a roadmap. Tell them, `This is the journey I’m going to take you on today , , , These are the three key ideas that I have for you.’

“The close is also just as important as the opening. And what’s really important is for the audience to be able to say, `I did this. These were the key skills that I had to embody to be able to do this. And you then get to whatever the improvement is, whatever that key idea is, or the place you want to take people.

“You want them to say, `I did it!. Look at me. And so can you!”

What Makes for a Great Story?

She told Evan that first of all, the stories you use have to be real.

“I know people make up stories,” Nancy said, “And when they do, they come off as made up. I think people can tell the story is real or not, but what are the keys?

“I remember watching someone at a Toastmasters competition. She was the test speaker and she told a story about how she was a scuba diver and something happened where her tanks weren’t completely full of air. And she went under and ran out of air and had to get to the surface. And then when she got to the surface, there was a lot of wave action, and she told the story kind of like I am telling it to you now. And then this happened and this happened  . . .  

“It wasn’t her story! I was evaluating it and I realized her story didn’t move me in any way. There was no drama, there was no emotion, she didn’t take me with her, right? I didn’t feel the panic.

“So you want to make sure that the emotions match the words. Also, you want to look at the characters. Can you make the characters come to life for us? Who did you encounter?

“For a lot of people, it’s very daunting to do storytelling and for that matter, to do interactive activities. Because, you know, they haven’t done those things before.

“Now, you might think your life’s boring, but when you really dig in, it isn’t. And if you’re speaking about something you are personally passionate about, there’s got to be a reason why you’re personally passionate about it. And if there’s a reason why there must be a story, yes, and that will speak to other people.”

An Offer for the Training Unleashed Community from Nancy Giere

Nancy invites you to download and use a complimentary copy of her eReport Eight Easy Steps to Create Training that Sells!

About Our Guest

After a lifetime in the corporate training world, Nancy knows how businesses operate and she isn’t afraid to shake things up. Her unique perspective combined with 25+ years of experience has empowered her with fresh insight and the industry’s best-kept secrets that she’s ready to share with you. On a lifelong campaign against boring training, she uses the power of storytelling and light-hearted humor to create an engaging, fun, and interactive environment. Masterfully intertwining comedic humor with life lessons, her stories make learning stick! Nancy has worked with the biggest names in corporate America like Johnson Controls, Harley Davidson, and Northwestern Mutual.

 

2021-09-21T17:56:03-04:00September 21, 2021|

How to become a great listener with Theresa Campbell

 

In a recent Training Unleased podcast, Evan Hackel and his guest Theresa Campbell discussed highly unusual, revolutionary techniques for becoming not just a good listener, but a great listener.

You will hear practical guidance on listening in this podcast – insights that you will not find anywhere else. You will want to spend some quality time watching it. Here are some highlights of their talk.

Theresa Describes How Most of Us Think about Listening

“I like to remind people that being a master of anything happens when the master knows that they’re forever the student,” Theresa told Evan. “So there’s the initial pressure of, `Oh, I’ve got to make sure I remember what he said or what she said.` But no, no, no, you’re a student and you’re just continuing to evolve and deepen your listening and your ability to connect with yourself and others. The thought to have is `I’m a student like everybody else.’ And that helps you relax into it.”

On Using all Five Senses to Listen

“Listening is not just what we hear,” Theresa told Evan. “I like people to remember that listening is a five-senses experience . . .  what are you seeing as this person says something to you? What are you feeling? What do you smell? What does that message taste like?”

Theresa – and this is unusual – believes that great listening also means focusing on your own reactions to what is being said.

“So not just what are you hearing,” she explained, “but what do you feel? What are you sensing? So when I teach people how to listen, if we can segue to that, there’s an acronym that I love that was taught to me by my first listening teacher. It’s SIER.”

Understanding Theresa’s SIER Structure

Here is what that acronym means . . .

  • S stands for sense, meaning what are you sensing, using all five senses
  • I stands for interpret, meaning that you interpret what you are taking in.
  • E stands for evaluate, meaning that you think about what you are taking in.
  • R stands for respond, meaning that you respond or react to what has been said to you.
How to Introduce Intuition into Great Listening

Theresa believes that great listening happens when people connect to much more than the words that are being said, Great listeners go on to connect with how they feel about what they are hearing, how they receive it, and how their bodies accept it.

“It’s the sixth sense,” Theresa told Evan. “You know, the sixth sense . . . What’s your intuition . . . what is that feeling . . . what is your body telling you? Because a lot of times, we’re not necessarily encouraged to listen to our feelings, right? That’s not professional! We want to keep the emotion out of it. And what I’m saying is you can become so proficient in hearing that you can have a visceral experience and trust that, even if everything somebody is saying sounds true, but something in you says, no, you can trust that. You can create a relationship with yourself and your capacity to listen to yourself.”

Theresa’s Offer to Members of the Training Unleashed Community

Theresa invites you to investigate the complimentary listening sessions that she offers through Her Life, Her Legacy.

“Oftentimes people don’t feel listened to,” she told Evan. “So I invite them to come into a space where they know someone’s going to listen to them. No judgment! I’d love to have a listening session with your listeners, and we can do that!”

Using Deep Listening in Training

Evan believes that Theresa’s ultra-effective listening approaches can help take training to higher levels. When you use them to connect more deeply with trainees, the entire training process can be optimized!

About Our Guest Theresa Campbell

Theresa Campbell is the founder and CEO of Her Life, Her Legacy, a leadership development organization dedicated to the power of deep listening. As a leadership coach, author, and life-long learner, she helps you find and listen to what matters, most.

Theresa, lovingly known by her clients as Coach T, serves humbly with an unwavering focus on service. She has over a decade’s worth of experience in the business and corporate world and has led multi-million dollar sales and marketing initiatives with a Fortune 500 organization (Ford). Her work has been featured in the likes of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Ford Motor Company, Women’s Executive Exchange of Central Florida and Journey by Afrotainment.

As a self-proclaimed, life-long learner, Theresa is committed to mastery. She’s a graduate of Michigan State University (Go Green!), received her MBA from Rollins College and is proudly coached by the world’s top leadership experts. Theresa believes that to be the best, one gets to learn from the best. It’s this attitude of growth, faith, and possibility that drives her mission in life.

She’s the proud author of three books. Her most recent work, Just Listen: Creating Confidence in Yourself, Others & God, is set to be released in the fall 2021.

2021-09-14T17:46:16-04:00September 14, 2021|

Learn from the Way NASCAR Trains with Jay Nadeau

Things can go wrong at NASCAR races. The crowds, parking areas, concessions, all offer opportunities for problems to arise. But despite those risks, NASCAR has established an enviable record of safety for both race patrons and NASCAR employees.

In this episode of Training Unleashed, Evan Hackel speaks with Jay Nadeau, Director of Risk Management and Loss Control for NASCAR, the person who makes everything run safely. 

Many of the training strategies Jay uses can be applied to training in your company too. Let’s take a closer look.

Jay Describes Race Day

“If anybody’s ever gone by a racetrack,” Jay told Evan, “They know it is an empty facility for a good part of the year. And then all of a sudden, the population pops up. There are hundreds, in some cases, thousands of people supporting that event. And for every moving part you have, there’s a potential for injury or accident, and that equates to a loss, whether a personal or financial loss. Safety for any business is always going to be one of the most important priorities.”

Evaluating Success

“Year after year, we look at incidents, which we consider in two buckets,” Jay explains. “First, we want to look at what happens to our employees. And then we look at stuff that happens in our facilities with our guests. Every year, we want those numbers to be less and less.”

NASCAR’s Approach to Training

There are a lot of different roles that people need to be quickly trained to perform. In addition, there are different kinds of people who work the events.

Jay explains, “You’ll have somebody who maybe sells auto parts in his job from Monday through Friday, and then he’s going to run a food concession stand at the track. Well, that person has to be trained. Sales knowledge does not apply to making hamburgers! That’s as simple as I can make it. Without training, things would be chaos, that’s the word I would use.”

How Does Training Work?

In general, training of short-term, seasonal employees starts about two weeks before race day.

“It varies from facility to facility,” Jay told Evan. “Volunteers will come in. They could even be Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, whatever, who want to raise money. They could be helping to park cars or hand out gifts at the gate.

“So the training would be about what the workers are going to do . . . whoever the lead person is, we make sure that they have the proper training or that they have the proper credentialing, and we expect them to pass on what they know to their volunteers. When it comes to concessions, for example, there are food handling requirements, and the training will be in person. For other roles, we might offer an online training course . . .   there is never just one method of training that will work for everyone.”

Training Permanent NASCAR Employees

Jay also points out that NASCAR itself owns 15 racetracks that are located all over the country. So NASCAR has a group of permanent employees who travel to those different facilities. But even though those employees have been trained to do their jobs, they still need to be taught to adjust to the needs of the next facility where they will be working.

“So now you’ve got people who will be working at a different facility,” Jay explains. “But what we’ve learned is prior to those events, we get department heads on a phone call and kind of walk through the whole event again. You can’t have a thousand employees on one phone call, but empowering those department heads to teach their employees and come up with plans they believe are going to be the most effective . . .  it’s a team effort.”

About Our Guest 

Jay Nadeau currently serves as the Director of Risk Management and Loss Control for NASCAR.  After  20 years as a public servant he retired as Battalion Chief from the fire department in  2013. Upon his retirement he assumed the role as the Manger of Emergency services at the Daytona International Speedway “The World Center of Racing”.   After overseeing emergency operations for 6 years he moved to NASCAR Corporate offices in 2019 where he assists in OSHA Compliance, Property Insurance, and all aspects of safety at the various NASCAR owned properties.  During his spare time he enjoys hunting and since 2005 he has instructed new firefighter recruits at Daytona State College.   He is a lifelong resident of central Florida where he lives with his wife and a whole bunch of 4- legged children. (Dogs, Cats and Horses).

2021-09-07T15:10:38-04:00September 7, 2021|

The Transformative Power of Culture with Chuck Cooper

In this episode of Training Unleashed, Evan Hackel and Chuck Cooper on the Transformative Power of Culture.

What steps should you take to lead your enterprise during the post-Covid-19 return to business? Every business leader is trying to answer that question today. So it was timely that Evan Hackel interviewed Chuck Cooper on this issue in a recent Training Unleashed Podcast. Chuck is a consultant and author who is a deep thinker about leadership, motivation, company culture, and more.

We know you will want to take the time listen to the powerful ideas that Chuck explored in his talk with Evan. Here are some highlights from the Podcast.

Leaders Need to Focus on the Nuts and Bolts . . . Get Things Done!

Chuck told Evan, “I think when you’re looking at where we are as a country right now as we’re making that transition into what we would consider our norm, there’s just a lot of uncertainty at this point.

“Yet I think leadership has a good handle right now and has clarity on how they want to move forward. They’re just not sure about the nuts and bolts of how they’re going to go about it. Are they bringing all the people back into the office, or are they going to continue to let part of their organization work from home? And how do you handle that hybrid?

“So there are some unknowns at this point, but I think that overall people are feeling much more optimistic and they’re more sure about where we’re going as it relates to businesses today.”

There Are Many Reasons to Be Optimistic

In speaking of his own company, Chuck said, “So overall, the last year has been really amazing . . . it really opened up a lot more opportunities for us to work with our clients from coast to coast. And so there have been great opportunities because of the number of people who have been vaccinated and the fact that we are moving very quickly. I’m feeling much more optimistic right now where we’re going for the next six to nine months. And I think 2021 is set up to be a really good year for a lot of companies.”

How the Focus on Virtual Work Has Expanded Our Horizons

“Virtual has changed everything,” Chuck told Evan. “You know, where you were in a region before, now you can be anywhere in the country or for that matter, you could be anywhere in the world. You could be in California and be working on jobs in North Carolina. I was just on a call this morning, and we had somebody from South Africa that was that was a part of our conversation.

“So virtual has opened up from a global perspective. We’ve got opportunities now to work anywhere in the world. And it’s going to create some interesting issues for people in the U.S. when we start having people from Japan or from China or other countries taking positions or, you know, accepting opportunities here in Charlotte.”

The Rubber Band Analogy

Evan and Chuck compared what we have been over the last year to stretching a rubber band.

“Over the last year we have done things so differently, we have stretched the rubber band,” Chuck said to Evan. “And if we just release that rubber band, it’s simply not going to go right back to the shape it had before the pandemic. And even if it did go right back to the way it was before, that’s not the right place to be.”

One Key Role Training Can Play

Chuck believes that training can plan an important role. As one example, he mentioned the period when employees are reviewing and renewing their participation in benefit plans.

“I think there has to be an education strategy that has to be implemented from a training perspective,” Chuck observed. “And so what we do with a lot of our clients is we actually have created annual programs for them where we will do things like `lunch and learns’ where we provide PDFs or with handouts and provide them with other tools that can help educate them just on the terminology of the benefit plans and also help them understand how to most effectively use the benefits that they have.”

An Opportunity to Create and Grow to Become Whatever We Want To . . . to Make Things Much Better

Evan and Chuck got excited when they began to discuss how exciting it will be to realize that rubber band is never going back to what it used to be. 

Chuck explained, “The reality is, we’re not going back. It’s never going to be the same. The great thing is we’ve got an opportunity right now to be able to create what we want things to be going forward . . . Let’s make something better, because when you think back the way things used to be, I can remember everybody talking about how the work/life balance was so bad . . .Well, we’ve got an opportunity to make things better. So let’s focus on that. Mental health is going to improve.”

Focus on Company Culture: A Deep Insight from Chuck

“Let’s get back, though, to culture,” Evan said to Chuck. “Because culture is king. Someone once said that every company has culture. The question is, are you the one creating it or is it being created by itself?”

Chuck was quick to take up that line of thinking and added, “Yes, most companies that I’ve spoken with over the last year have had to pivot and make a change in direction about how they are going to be able to move forward. . .  we’re trying to understand at this point exactly what we want our culture to be.

“So when I talk with leaders today, they are working very closely with their leadership teams to identify what their mission, vision, and values are, and what’s really important to them from a from their people perspective.”

“And I think that employees, when it comes to culture, are looking for leadership to be much more empathetic, to be much more transparent, to provide more granular communication so that employees can have confidence and have trust in their leadership. So they as an organization can move forward together more as a community rather than the hierarchy that we’ve seen in the past.”

A Special Offer for Training Unleashed Podcast Listeners from Chuck Cooper

If you visit whitewaterconsulting/trainingunleashed, you will find a selection of special resources that Chuck and his team have made available to the Training Unleashed Podcast community.

One of those one of the gifts is a copy of the recent Business Saver case study from WhiteWater. In addition, Chuck and his team are offering a complimentary 20-minute phone consultation to viewers of this Training Unleashed Podcast.

Chuck summarizes, “We’d love to be able to be a resource for you.”

About Our Guest 

Chuck Cooper is Founder and Managing Member at WhiteWater Consulting, a Charlotte, NC-based consulting firm with the simple yet powerful mission to “help small to mid-size companies become better . . . Our team is committed to helping companies strengthen and automate their processes so that they can focus on growing revenues, managing expenses, maximizing profits, and taking care of their greatest asset, their people.”

At WhiteWater, Chuck sets the Mission, Vision and Values for the company. Over the past 25 years, Chuck has had the experience of starting, acquiring, building, and selling businesses in multiple industries. During this time, he experienced the thrill of victories and the agony of defeat. His passion for founding WhiteWater Consulting is to help enable employers and HR practitioners to drive their organizations to realize an improved company culture while simultaneously attaining enhanced financial results.

2021-08-31T17:13:51-04:00August 31, 2021|
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