Sessions

Keynote:

Creating a "Yes, And" Culture of High-Level Performance & Engagement
Galen Emanuele
President of Shift Yes

Concurrent Sessions:

Track: Instructional Design/Training & Delivery

Blend It 2017: A Blueprint for Creating Global Blended Learning Spaces

Paul Signorelli, Paul Signorelli & Associates

Talent development practitioners often struggle to carry a high level of engagement into online environments. An ever-expanding array of free or low-cost social media and online broadcast tools provide opportunities to seamlessly carry on-site interactions into online interactions, and extend the reach of online interactions back to on-site activities. This session, using a combination of case studies and participant interactions connected to elements of the ATD Competency Model, will explore how you can foster learner participation through engaging blended learning opportunities and how the use of specific tools can connect otherwise unavailable presenters with members, on-site and online. Leave with a clearer picture of how to make the leap to the use of social media and other tools as a way of reaching learners with opportunities that provide concrete, positive, measurable results.

After attending this session, you will:

Return to your workplace with at least two ideas for effectively extending the way you work with learners in blended (on-site and online) environments using low-cost or no-cost tools.
Discover at least two examples of blended learning that you can adapt to serve your learners and others online.
Brainstorm at least two ideas for extending the reach of your talent development efforts into online environments.

Create Your Own Video Learning Content: Process, Tips, and Tools

Tim Griffith, Sequoia Equities

Videos are a great way to demonstrate processes, share ideas, tell influential stories, or communicate in a different way than can be done live. The challenge is that relevant, high-quality video content can be expensive, difficult to find, or time-consuming to create. In this session, you’ll learn an easy process to develop high-quality video content of your own, using inexpensive resources that you probably already have. You'll get to practice planning your next video project, and you'll leave with a guide that documents the process, tools, and a wealth of other resources.

In this session, you will learn how to:

Identify the unique value of video as a training tool.
Discover and compare different video styles.
Leverage inexpensive and easy-to-use tools to create video content.
Apply a simple and efficient end-to-end process to create video files.

Trim Fat and Boost Performance With Great Job Aids

Joe Halpin, Peregrine Performance Group

One of the most valuable (yet underrated) performance support tools we can provide for our customers and teams is a great job aid. In this session, you’ll learn to recognize and create exemplary job aids and other performance support tools. It's no secret that billions of dollars are wasted every year on training and talent development initiatives. One of the best ways to reclaim some of those wasted dollars is to go back to basics and ensure that training programs are focused on performance and wrapped around relevant, effective job aids whenever possible. In some cases, an effective job aid can replace a course entirely. Learn how to identify, create, and use great job aids in this session.

In this session, you will learn how to:

Produce better results in less time in your performance improvement efforts with job aids.
Know when to use a job aid in place of or as a component of a training course or talent development initiative.
Design and create an exemplary job aid.

The Power of No-Tech Facilitation

Barbara Greenstein, HRx LLC

Join your colleagues for a discussion of an alternative method to engage your audience. Fully engage your learners without the use of technology-based learning platforms. This session will expose you to an alternative style of facilitation that captures the attention of your learners, resulting in higher retention of any type of learning content. Working with your fellow attendees, you will experience the method as your facilitator guides you through a step-by-step process that you can use to design and deliver your next learning program.

In this session, you will:

Engage with other participants to experience the no-tech method firsthand.
Identify how to incorporate the no-tech method for your own learning programs.
Identify your own learning content that could benefit from this no-tech method.

Track: Talent Development Management

Solving Issues, Not Symptoms: A Military Approach to Talent Development

Raymond Valenzuela, Caveo Learning

In the military, learning and performance is as serious as life or death. This session will demonstrate how to apply one U.S. military branch’s cutting-edge performance improvement approaches to the business world. Transitioning to a performance-focused mindset means moving away from thinking of training as the only tool in the toolbox—or even as the primary tool. You’ll discover how to change your perspective from a focus on conveying knowledge and skills to alignment with accomplishment and goal realization. Learn strategies for identifying performance barriers, aligning learning solutions to performance needs and business outcomes, and how to implement big-picture solutions throughout your enterprise.

In this session, you will learn how to:

Initiate a performance improvement transformation strategy for your organization.
Explain and implement the four guiding principles of the performance improvement model.
Identify and overcome common barriers, pitfalls, and resistance to performance improvement transformation.

6 Implementation Best Practices That Spark Learning Transfer and Ignite Training Outcomes

Carl Eidson, Wilson Learning

The question most L&D professionals face is, “What can you do to ensure that learning gets used and drives performance?” In this session, you will gain new ideas, tools, and techniques for implementing best practices that produce better business outcomes. You’ll complete a learning implementation audit and share your findings with the group. Gain further insight as you explore six proven implementation best practices to ensure your learning initiatives deliver sustained business results.

In this session, you will learn how to:

Increase learner motivation before training begins.
Extend learning initiatives beyond a program or event.
Involve managers in helping learners apply what they learn.
Align learning with your organization’s strategy to secure successful business outcomes.

Eliminate Fake Training: Implement the 6 Paths to Sustainable Training

Chuck Udell, Essential Action Design Group

How often do we send associates to a training event, and they return to your workplace excited and ready to implement what they learned? Yet, after several months, nothing has changed. The reason you sent them to this training was to improve performance—but after they returned, performance did not improve. Unfortunately, this costs organizations significantly in terms of resources wasted and time lost. How can these situations be avoided? These instances are referred to as fake training. How can training programs consistently ensure that stakeholder demands for increased performance are met? Attend this session to learn how organizations are led to fake training, and find your way to real training. These steps include identifying performance gaps, what your associates must do close these gaps, and how to ensure that associates attending will apply what they learned so that the gap is closed. You will receive instruments so that you can determine how much fake training your organization has, and where in your learning process it is happening. Through a case study, you will learn how to assess the impact of learning on performance and how to apply this and the other steps to fake training in your organization.

Track: Personal/Professional Growth

Step Into Thought Leadership: Become an Expert

Halelly Azulay, TalentGrow LLC

Have you ever read an industry book, participated in a webinar, or sat at a conference and thought to yourself, "I could do that"? And more important, "I want to do that! I just don't know how to get started"? This session will pull back the curtain on one thought leader’s journey so that you can develop the mindset, behaviors, skills, relationships, and resources to achieve your dreams. Whether you aspire to be a thought leader within your organization or to build your own consulting business, these simple, actionable strategies paired with valuable information on platforms and opportunities will ensure you leave this session inspired and poised to take strategic action.

In this session, you will learn how to:

Identify your “secret sauce” as a talent development professional—and how to sculpt it into an idea from which to build a thought leadership platform.
Explore ways to build mutually beneficial relationships with established industry thought leaders who can mentor you, champion your work, help you grow your audience, and introduce you to decision makers who can green light your ideas.
Create an action plan for applying your insights.

Meditation Alone Does Not a Mindful Leader (or Organization) Make

Julie Winkle Giulioni, DesignArounds

Mindfulness and meditation contribute to positive outcomes along countless physical, mental, and organizational health dimensions—from stress reduction to enhanced relationships to greater innovation. And even the most traditional public and private enterprises are incorporating mindfulness and meditation into their cultures. Unfortunately, in the process, some confusion has arisen. Many people are blurring the two topics, erroneously believing that mindfulness and the act of meditation are actually the same thing. In this session, you’ll update your definition of mindfulness and generate actionable strategies to heighten your own mindfulness and that of the teams you lead. Additionally, you’ll explore instructional approaches that leverage mindfulness and elevate the quality and results of the learning you offer within your organization.

In this session, you will learn how to:

Describe the business case for mindfulness.
Translate mindfulness into business-centric terms and activities.
Identify key behaviors that magnify the mindfulness of one's team.
Incorporate simple practices that contribute to a more mindful culture.
Leverage mindfulness principles toward more effective instructional strategies.

Outsmart Your Brain: How to Manage Your Mind When Emotions Take the Wheel

Marcia Reynolds, Covisioning LLC

Masterful delivery requires you to set and maintain a positive emotional tone even when you are challenged by people or technology. This means you need to notice when your own emotions arise and shift back to being present, positive, and accepting. To do this, you must master your brain when you feel impatient or uncomfortable. This session includes practical exercises to immediately help you ease your tension, curb your defensiveness, and create a powerful learning environment. You will learn how to identify your most common emotional triggers and defuse their energy when teaching, presenting ideas, and receiving feedback. The energy you bring to the room has as much, if not more, impact than your words. Master your brain to maximize your results.

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

Determine the circumstances that are likely to trigger your emotions and judgments.
Use reflective intelligence to "catch your emotions" before you react while teaching or presenting ideas.
Reset your listening position when challenged in the classroom.
Apply a cognitive reframing process to counter your impulses and maintain a powerful learning environment.
Choose the best time for you to receive feedback on your delivery.

Peak Performance: Achieving Great Results in a Complex Life

Bill Sanford; Bell Leadership Institute

In a complex, challenging life full of personal and professional pressures and demands, how do we manage it all and perform at the top of our game, not only at work but in our lives? What threatens to send us over the edge, and what brings out our best? In this session, you will learn advanced strategies and practical, take-home techniques for managing your time, succeeding at your most important priorities, and building a great life. Discover no-nonsense techniques you can implement right away to improve your performance, balance, success, and satisfaction personally and professionally, for the rest of your life. Come ready to think, work, and learn—and leave with tools to change your life.

In this session, you will:

Discover the five main causes of peak performance and low performance, so you can increase the amount of time you spend at your best, and help lead others to higher levels of performance as well.
Assess your own and others’ performance using a proprietary system so you have a practical framework for measuring and improving performance and productivity.
Distinguish time spent in alpha state from time in beta, and identify alpha builders and beta creators, to maximize time spent in the zone.
Develop personalized action steps to achieve a higher level of personal and professional excellence that is sustainable over time.

Track: Leadership Development

Business Comes Alive! A Visual Approach to Financial and Business Acumen

Peter Frampton, Color Accounting International

Using a breakthrough graphical and plain-words system, this session will make business come alive. You will use a worksheet to build a profound model of how your business works. Props and sounds effects will anchor key concepts, allowing you to deeply grasp business finance in a fun and easy way. This method, called color accounting, has been praised by Harvard Business School. You'll apply this model of how business works directly to key talent management competencies. You will examine your financial mission, explore a tip sheet with key business metrics, and expose financial-communication pitfalls.

In this session, you will learn how to:

Read and comprehend financial statements.
Confidently engage in financial and budgeting matters.
Articulate a powerful, holistic value-generation model of business.
Justify and explain increased return on L&D investment.
Build staff engagement through alignment with your organization's financial mission.

How to Be a Good Bad Guy

Deirdre Maloney, Momentum LLC

True success requires individuals who don’t just perform well today, but also learn from challenges and grow over time. To make this happen most effectively, managers and talent development staff must build strong teams, finding that elusive balance between support and accountability, and it’s often those hard conversations about accountability that get us stuck. Somehow, no matter how carefully we go about it, we often find ourselves with an unwelcome title: the bad guy. This session provides validation, concrete tips, and thoughtful planning on how to be a good bad guy, and how to help managers do the same. It also covers how to feel OK about a difficult conversation before, during, and afterwards. You’ll walk out with a set of new ideas and plans on how to be better at being the bad guy.

In this session, you will:

Learn nine steps that will help you navigate a hard conversation from start to finish . . . and feel OK about it when it’s over.
Hear from others about how they have successfully gotten through similar situations.
Create your own customized plan for strengthening your ability (and your managers’ ability) to be effective “bad guys.”
Determine how you will hold yourself accountable to the difficult conversation, and how you will help other managers do the same.

Leadership Agility and Culture Change Through the Power of Play

Gary Muszynski, Orchestrating Excellence

Organizations that are best able to anticipate market movements, emerge from the worst system shocks, and take advantage of gaps left by others will win. Doing so requires agility, individually and collectively. Given this pace and complexity, it's important to adapt your leadership style to the situation at hand. Music and the neuroscience of change provide valuable insights, skills, and frameworks through five key principles and practices: listening, synchronizing, orchestrating, collaborating, and improvising. These ways of leading at the team and organizational levels begin to affect culture by improving communication, teaming, and resilience. Learn how to apply this methodology to your organization in this session.

In this session, you will:

Discover specific leadership lessons embedded in music to make you a more effective and flexible leader depending on the situation.
Leave with new ideas, frameworks, and tools for becoming more agile in navigating complexity, ambiguity, change, and dissonance.
Learn about recent research on the neuroscience of collaboration and the implications for how leaders can help to shift individuals and teams to a growth mindset.

A Case Study: Implementing Multi-Level Leadership Development Initiatives

Kristal Walker, Guitar Center