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Be Supportive Of Your Peers

It may seem counterproductive to promote each other’s work. Whether it be a coworker or the work of another business that you compete with. But this is a great way to build strong relationships, interest and loyalty amongst colleagues, customers, clients and users.

All businesses have a great opportunity to form relationships with their customers or soon-to-be customers by establishing themselves within their field of expertise and within the community. All businesses can position themselves as being friendly and supportive by participating in the community and promoting the work of others. The bottom line: this helps strengthen your network.

Interact – take time to chat with others that have created the work that you’ll be sharing and then make sure you chat with your end-users or potential end-users about this.

Don’t be sarcastic – the best practice in this case is to simply say what you have to say in a direct manner and do so with a smile.

Be genuine – by sharing what others are doing and not trying to make a connection back to your own business will be the best move as this will be more likely to attract individuals rather than turning them away. 

Cross boundaries – if there is a business or individual in a completely unrelated field that is doing something that you can relate to within your community, share it. Look for an opportunity to learn from what else is being done.

Don’t promote – you don’t have to be a promotional machine for your direct competitors but it might be a good idea to know what others in your industry are doing to serve your community.

Explain – always make the effort to explain or share a quick note about why you are sharing the work of others. Did it move you in some fashion? Did you think that it was clever? Are there certain design elements that caught your attention?

Overall the message that you want others to receive is that you play nicely with others. It also shows that it’s important for you to exist in a connected and well supported world. That kind of feeling can lead others to do the same and be supportive of your work.

-RG

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Life: Make Time For It

Perhaps you’re like me…I’ve often thought that the long hours that small business hours put into their work was proof of the passion that they have for what they do. Recently I read an article in which a survey was conducted of self identified entrepreneurs. The results of the study show that nearly one in five entrepreneurs worked more than 60 hours a week, only one percent of those actually wanted to work that much. Many of those surveyed indicated that they were dreaming of a time when they could cut back and spend more of their time with family, leisure, travel and healthy activities. The authors of this article also shared three things that all entrepreneurs should do if longing for a better lifestyle. [these three things might apply to all working individuals].

Recovery time – it’s not just the amount of sleep that you get. This has to do with planning your days and taking time to organize and reflect about what you’re doing. Things to consider here include planning, prayer, meditation and just quiet time in general. Experts in this area encourage folks to schedule 50 minute meetings as opposed to one hour meetings during their days.

Give up being perfect – everything doesn’t have to be “right” or “perfect” in such a way that you are the only one that can perform…whatever the task at hand might be. Unless you’re a highly trained surgeon and the results of your work are a matter of life and death consider delegating tasks to others. The benefits of this practice are numerous.

What matters – simply decide what matters to you. We must come to the realization that we are not owned by our businesses or our employers. We own our time and that’s the most valuable thing. Breaking away from the daily to-do list can be difficult. Leadership and career coaching consultants recommend taking an extended lunch to talk to a longtime friend and agree not to check smart phones through the whole meal as a good way to get started. Make a goal of getting some exercise daily. A 30 minute walk is a great way to help bring balance to work and life responsibilities that we are faced with.

-RG

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Good Work Habits: Do They Exist?

Recently I’ve had conversations with several colleagues regarding the idea of good work habits and what exactly that means for an organization. This of course prompted us to reflect on both good and not-so-good work habits that we’ve experienced in the past. Some of the habits we discussed included personal-presentation, organization, productivity, work quality, initiative, consistency and follow up. 

Employees today seem to think that these basic work habits are considered as matters of personal choice and do not always see concrete business reasons for certain requirements or preferences of their managers or supervisors. Oftentimes managers and supervisors will have strong preferences or requirements without having any true business reason, that is their prerogative. At the end of the day EMPLOYERS you are paying the EMPLOYEES…it’s not the other way around. 

In general they are very good reasons for following well-established best practices when it comes to good work habits. Things to consider:

  • If employees are not well or not healthy – there is an increased cost in terms of absenteeism and increased healthcare costs. This also has a negative impact on performance and morale.
  • Unfortunately when employees do not attend to their personal-presentation [grooming] this has a negative impression on those with whom they interact…both internal to the organization and most importantly customers.
  • When employees arrive to work late, take long breaks, leave early for missed deadlines they are adding less value to the organization and oftentimes are keeping others waiting. This too has a negative impact on how the organization is viewed.
  • Employees that don’t take notes, use checklists or have some sense of organization will often lose important details and just lose track of what they are doing. All of this makes it harder for others to collaborate with them.
  • If employees aren’t paying attention to the details they are going to make more mistakes…again diminishing the quality of work and requiring work to be redone.
  • Projects that are left unfinished are almost always the result of employees that cannot be counted on to follow up and then become a distraction as others will have to constantly remind them to keep moving forward.
  • Many problems that go unsolved are the direct result of opportunities that are missed or when employees simply do not take the initiative.

We all agreed that these are very solid business reasons for managers and supervisors to enforce basic work habits on their employees. However not all of them apply to all people in all jobs. As a manager or supervisor you should always ask yourself: what is the business reason for making this a requirement?

-RG

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Top 5 List: Help Students Find Success In An Online Course

Top 5 List

Many more students are finding their way to online courses than ever before. These students are looking for a convenient way to earn college/university credits from their home. Online coursework requires a tremendous amount of discipline and dedication and unfortunately many students are not prepared for an online learning environment. Students cite having a misconception about the rigor and underestimating the time involved to be successful as the top reasons for struggling in an online learning environment. Students may need help understanding how much time is needed to complete assignments, participate in group work, group discussions, quizzes and other assignments required in the course. It is important for the instructional team to help set the pace and the expectations of the course to help the students to succeed. Here is a Top 5 list of things that instructional teams or individual faculty can do to help students prepare for and succeed in an online course.

Use Weekly Announcements – weekly announcements are a great way for individual faculty or instructional teams to remain active in an online course. At a minimum consider an announcement to open and close each lesson. This allows for clarifying directions, reminders and motivation that will help students see that they have support along the way. Many faculty are turning to audio and video options to help communicate each week. A weekly screen-cast [lesson tour] will help students prepare for the material and be better prepared for the expectations. AND…these weekly screen-casts will help the other members of your instructional team understand the expectations as they prepare to work with their students.

Proactively Answer Questions – instructions must be easy to find and easy to follow. No detail should  be overlooked and step-by-step directions should be provided. Don’t make the assumption that your students or your instructional team will read between the lines to determine what the expectations are. Provide as much detail as possible to help complete the assignment. Consider providing a screen-cast where more detail can be shared about the type of files that will be expected, the naming convention of the files and the size of the files. Think through the questions that students might have when reading through the directions and try to address those questions by crafting well-written directions.

Utilize Peer Groups – collaboration is a new-century skill and should be encouraged as you move through the course. As the peer network starts to take form students will begin to rely on each other [the peer support network] and not rely so heavily on the instructional team. Online students often report feeling isolated and the experience does not have to be that way. Students need to learn to develop their own online support community and the instructional team  can help facilitate this. Students that report feeling like a valued member of their peer community are less likely to disappear and not complete the course.

Rubrics and Examples – in an effort to minimize questions from students [and the instructional team] and reduce course anxiety share examples of assignments from previous offerings of the course…or that you have prepared yourself. For presentations, share templates of what is expected and consider including more detail within the template. Additionally, rubrics should be provided up-front…again in an effort to reduce questions and assignment anxiety. Rubrics should be provided for all assignments and discussions that are graded. Students who have access to a rubric before they begin their work and know how they are being evaluated are more likely to successfully complete their work. Rubrics also work with you and your instructional team to help ease concerns over point deductions and grades that are being awarded.

Differing Instruction – we all learn differently and the online student is no exception to this. Students need to be given different opportunities for learning. Consider using video lectures, audio lectures and different project choices. For example, a final project might be presented as a choice between a formatted paper OR a narrated presentation. Giving the students options that maintain the rigor of the project will lead to an engaging and fulfilling experience.

-RG

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Top 5 List: Simplify Course Revisions

Top 5 List

It is difficult to see beyond your first course offering when building a new online course or moving an existing face-to-face course online. And if you want there to be a second offering of your course, you’ll want to focus your energies on making the first offering a success. But don’t ignore the fact that you will want to make revisions to the course based on your experience and feedback. Designing online courses always takes much longer than expected and planning for future revisions seems like something that can be dealt with…well, in the future. Here is a Top 5 list of things to consider while building your course to simplify revisions.

One Source Information – if you have important information like assignment directions, discussion group expectations or details about online quizzes, place those items in ONE place and simply link back to it from all of the different locations where students may need to access it. As you move through the course you can remind students [and the other members of your instructional team] where the information is located. This will help minimize confusion in the course and allow for easy updating…as updates will only need to be made in ONE location. 

Another way to use this strategy is with the deliverable due dates in the course. Placing all of the due dates in ONE document/location will eliminate any conflicting information that could lead to a less than pleasant experience for the students…and the instructional team. Google Drive [documents] is a great solution.

Avoid Dates and Times – the goal here is to try to get as much mileage as possible out of your content. Avoid any mentions of dates, times, the weather, the season, the BIG championship game that just took place. Create a course schedule/calendar to refer students to. Consider a simple one-pager that allows for easy revisions. As you make revisions you need not worry about catching all of the places where dates were entered because that will all be contained in ONE location. Revisions can then be made lesson-by-lesson.

Compartmentalize Current Events – group discussions are usually a focal point of online courses and if current events are being discussed consider placing them in their own unique lesson rather than weaving them throughout the course. If your lectures are wrapped around a major current event like an election year you will want to create separate throw-away lectures that can be easily replaced after the event has taken place.

Place Content Into Modules – there are many reasons to place your content into smaller bite-size modules for the students. For example, taking that 30-minute lecture and creating six 5-minute lectures to help students maintain focus while watching and tracking their progress should they get interrupted. The benefit for faculty and the instructional team here is that this strategy makes locating areas to update much easier. Updating just one module might make more sense than trying to re-record an entire longer lecture.

Leverage Your Tools – many Learning Management Systems will have a feature that allows for a copy of your course to be moved from one session to the next. In those, cases you should consider creating a *master* copy of your course. A master copy of your course can be kept behind the scenes and never rolled out to students allowing you to constantly update as you move through your course. As the beginning of each session approaches you can copy out a fresh [pure] offering of your course and know that students will be getting the most up-to-date version. It takes discipline and organization to maintain a master shell with any success….and a talented instructional designer.

With every new semester or new session there will be some required work to get your online course ready to go again for the next wave of students. If you are working alone or with a team of other professionals using an external tool to help track the changes that should be considered will be the key to your success and the team you are working with. Consider a tool that allows for maximum collaboration.

-RG

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Top 5 List: Building Community In Your Online Courses

Top 5 List

Online education has allowed users to advance their education and develop new skills from any location. The trouble is that users can still feel isolated and this goes for the facilitator as well. With all of the benefits that come with online education the challenge of creating an online community is still a challenge. One strategy is to simply create more connections between the user and the facilitator. Here is a Top 5 list of things to try to help increase connections between the user and the facilitator.

Discussion Forums – get creative when using discussion forums. For too long online education has used the old *post-once AND reply-twice* approach to discussions. While this may be a quick way to meet a quantitative measure….it really does not do much for creating and encouraging a quality discussion. One suggestion is to create groups of 7-8 students and ask that they first create a Group Charter for their group before jumping right into the coursework. The group creates their own rules and work expectations while getting to know each other.

Encourage Real-Time Connections – connections can be limited student:student and student:faculty when only asynchronous options are considered. Providing an opportunity for synchronous communications will start the momentum of the back-and-forth discussions that will help proactively clear-up any miscommunications. Increasing the opportunities for synchronous communications can help build a greater sense of community in online courses.  There are many different opportunities for this type of communication including virtual office hours, small group meetings [6-8 students], large group meetings [24-28 students] and small study groups [2-4 students]. Google Hangouts is one good option to offer students to get the communication started.

Use a Variety of Tools – there are many tools available that can be used to increase student interaction and get them engaged in their courses. Many institutions are looking to private social networks that allow for student connections to take place from course-to-course as students move through a degree program.  However, if the need is for just ONE course, Skype and Google Hangouts have proven to be effective tools to go above and beyond the pre-programmed messages such as lesson tours, presentations/lectures and announcements.

Develop a Plan – developing a plan around the activities and the tools selected for the course will lead to a successful experience in your course. The tools will only be as effective as they way they are presented and implemented. Consideration must be given to answering the question…how will this tool increase connections and support the outcomes/objectives of the course.

Interact with Non-Task Activities – consider using interactions that are not related to a specific task as a way to make connections. Find a way to connect with students or facilitate students connecting with each other in ways that are not directly related to learning. Connections made this way can foster a supportive learning community. Many LMS offer some functionality that will allow for this type of social networking. If for some reason the LMS doesn’t offer this functionality you may have to create your own private Facebook page or use a tool like Slack. Simply asking your students to come up with a suggestion to enhance networking might be a good option. Chances are good they may already be using a tool that could be shared.

-RG

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Top 5 List: Be A Great Leader

Top 5 List

Someone asked me the other day what I thought it takes to be a great leader. Having had what I believe to be very good leadership training combined with my experiences in a leadership role….and of course from what I have read on the subject there are a few things that a great leader will need to help form the foundation for a high performing team:

  • Encourage professional workplace relationships – most people go to work with the expectation of a colleague friendly work environment. I’ve often thought that strong social connections outside the workplace are a strong indicator of job satisfaction. The social connections don’t just happen and are rare. Great leaders will help shape and guide culture to create ways to build rapport amongst the team. Great leaders will set the tone and establish just the right balance.
  • Approach employees as individuals – Great leaders will see their employees as more than just that they see them as individuals. Leaders must recognize the unique desires and abilities so they can manage how to bring out the best in each member of the team. The approach to managing individuals that are part of a larger team must be fine-tuned to reach a situation and this will create a culture that is based on performance rather than an entitlement.
  • Adult behavior – the one main ingredient that will drive every aspect of the work culture is that of adult behavior. A “management genius” who builds and leads in a culture that is adult minded will be one that is based on maturity and personal responsibility. 
  • Value the individual – every member of the team, independent from their job title and most recent performance should be showing respect and value by every member of the team. This approach will build long-lasting loyalty and commitment much further than just today’s work.
  • Be the captain – as a leader this is your team, and you are responsible for the work done by the individual members of the team. A great leader will establish respect for managing the work and finding effective ways to ensure that people are listening. The right combination of power, authority and influence to delegate work and provide direction will teach people how you intend to manage them so they know what to expect. There should be NO surprises.

-RG

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Make It Happen – Creating Opportunities

Would it be fair to say that things are rapidly changing around us? Yes, of course. Careers, jobs and businesses in general are coming and going at a rate like we’ve never seen. We all need to be open and aware of ways to make changes to stay relevant while continuing to serve our customers. If we fully intend to take advantage of growth with new technologies we might need a few tips to help discover opportunities as we move forward. Here are a few things to keep in mind if you are looking for new opportunities:

Networking – over the course of time networking remains to be a constant need to do business. In order to identify and take advantage of the new opportunities we need to seek out people who have insights and contacts within our own industry. Some ways to continue or begin networking would include participating in trade association gatherings, communities of learning and practice within your field, and also subscribing to a variety of social media sites and groups. Find a way to select and participate in a group and make yourself an asset. Doing so will create opportunity.

Regulations – when trying to get out in front of an opportunity think about what needs to come about as a result of new laws or regulations regarding technologies. As new laws and regulations are created there will be a need for consultants and trainers who are knowledgeable in those areas resulting in the need for new products and/or services.

Capitalize – capitalizing on new technology that disrupts the existing ways of making, sharing and distributing things creates opportunities. For instance, if you wanted to take advantage of a new technology like 3-D printing and create an opportunity….ask yourself are there ways in which you could use this to provide a service? Or fulfill a need?

Tracking – tracking social trends and demographic information could lead to serving very specific ethnic markets, an age group or regional interests. A good question to ask yourself would be is there a need to address based on a certain type of tourism in your area?

Problems – be aware of and notice problems that people frequently comment and complain about. This could be related to a product or service that is no longer on the market and is in need of replacement. As products and services are removed from the market there’s often still a need and there will be an opportunity for others who can step in to fill that gap.

– RG

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Top 5 List: Be Present In Your Online Course

Top 5 List

Having worked as an adjunct instructor [part-time faculty member] since the late 90s I’ve noticed and have heard of many instructors that seem to disappear while teaching their online course. I’ve always found this to be a little upsetting since this is the number one thing that we must do when teaching an online course. 

Of course there are varying degrees of faculty engagement. On the one hand there is the instructor that provides no communication, no feedback, and no encouragement to students. On the other hand is the instructor who provides feedback that is not constructive or provides feedback…but it’s too late for students to use to improve the assignments that follow.

Here are a few things that can be done to help remain present in your online course and be available to students:

  1. Dedicate certain times to go to class – I’ve always suggested to my own students that they dedicate certain times of the day to attend an online course. As instructors we should do the same. This dedicated time can be used to grade, respond to emails and provide general announcements that will help keep students focused.
  1. Personalize the course by being present – when working with new faculty I always suggest that they include a welcome video at the beginning of the course as well as the beginning of each lesson, module or unit. And when needed I recommend that new faculty create an assignment-specific video for those assignments that may trip students up or include detailed directions. Taking this approach not only helps to engage the students and personalize the content but it also helps the faculty to feel more vested in their course. 
  1. Be creative when engaging students – learning to teach online is not something we can learn overnight. Some faculty that I have worked with will write personalized emails to a few students every week with some positive information about the tasks performed during the previous week. Another faculty person that I’ve met along the way uses screencasting to review and provide feedback for writing assignments. They can quickly share that message with students via link to the video. This is all done in an effort to make the students feel that you are present and interested in their success.
  1. Use discussion boards – using discussion boards often is a wise move for all faculty. This helps keep the course on point so this can quickly hear off on a tangent and steer away from the content. This also lets students know that you’re interested and care about what they’re saying, as they will be looking forward to your responses. Responses can be praise, critiques or just simply calling for more critical thinking. 
  1. Online does not mean off-line – because the content assignments and assessments are all done online this does not mean that faculty should not be available and off-line. Students will not be successful if the faculty are not involved with the learning experience and provide the depth, breadth and overall richness of a valuable learning experience. All faculty should be available for scheduled office hours at least once a week when students can reach out via phone or video chat session.

-RG

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Leaders and Success – Work To Retain People

Recently, I was having a conversation with a colleague and we were reflecting back on our first leadership opportunities. The first time we were really in charge of others, a team or a group of coworkers. During this conversation it became clear to us that one of the most important things that successful leaders can do to retain their best employees…was create a sense of loyalty. Here are some of the ideas we discussed:

Believe and trust – to believe and trust that your employees will perform to the best of their duties leads to loyalty. These people have been hired for a reason and should be trusted to do so until a situation arises in which they cannot be trusted. In a book titled The Speed of Trust, Stephen M. R. Covey tells us that a team with high trust will produce better results faster and at a much lower cost. 

Respect – respect the people you lead. Leaders who make a conscious decision to create a workplace in which people are treated with respect and dignity will see great results even when challenging employees to perform at the highest levels. Silos must be broken down, leaders must begin to listen and self serving leaders must be reassigned or let go. The bottom line – workers need to be valued.

Respond – Great leaders respond to the needs of their people. Taking a genuine interest in the jobs and career aspirations of the individuals on their teams will create loyalty. Look to the future to help create learning and development opportunities for team members. Leaders must find out what motivates their best people by getting to know them and what drives them to do a job well. As a leader, do you know why each member of your team gets up in the morning to do the best work that they can do? If not, you might consider asking them.

Freedom – many years ago employees would stand on a production line and simply do what they were told to do, taking orders from high-above. That doesn’t work today. Today’s employees want the freedom to collaborate, organize and innovate within an organization. Everyone should have the choice and responsibility to exercise leadership from their position…regardless of title. 

-RG