My topic was “Turning Good Intentions Into Good Results“, and I spoke about driving results through effective communication. The presentation was only 50 minutes long, and I choose to skim lightly over several topics rather than dig deeply into one area.

Needs Analysis

Identify the results you hope to achieve

Effective organizations begin with a needs analysis to determine the results they are hoping to achieve. This process results in an articulated goal that links the information to be provided directly with the mission of the organization.

Identify the actions that will contribute to those results

The next step is to identify the concrete actions that will contribute to the desired results. In many cases, this step can be completed by answering the question “What will success look like?” If you have people or teams in your organization who are already outperforming the average volunteer, looking to what those individuals are doing differently can provide clues to the actions that will lead to the results you want.

Identify the individuals who will be taking those actions

These individuals become the audience for communications or the target learners for training. It’s useful to know what information is driving their results now. This helps you identify what needs to shift to shift the results you are getting.

Identify the information needed to effectively take those actions

What Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes will support effective action? Training and communication can impact business results that are driven by the knowledge, skills and attitudes of the people involved. While this is true of nearly every part of the business, it is also true that in nearly all cases individual action does not independently control outcomes. Environment, tools, process and events are also factors. No amount of training will get timely results out of a computer system that’s down 40% of the time.

Other models of needs analysis can be found here and here.

Training / Communication Capacity

Training is my bread and butter, professionally speaking, and I’d love to tell you that it can achieve any organizational result without assistance. I’d be lying if I said that, though, so I won’t. Instead, training can change three things:

• Knowledge
• Skills
• Attitudes

Used effectively, these are very powerful tools. But, like all tools, they have their place.

Methods

When faced with an opportunity to share information with learners, there are three methods from which to choose.

Tell

Provides:

• Information

Use For:

• Situations where the learner drives how the information will be used
• Situations where the results are more important than the process
• Changing people’s beliefs

Teach

Provides:

• More complex information
• Guidance on applying the information

Use For:

• Information –dense topics
• Principles and foundational information
• Increasing people’s knowledge

Train

Provides:

• Skills
• Direct practice applying the information

Use For:

• Transferring skills to specific job situations
• Situations where the process is as important as the result
• Increasing people’s skills

Tips and Techniques

Whatever form of communication you use, you’ll need solid writing skills. There are a lot of great resources on the web. Grammar Girl makes grammar fun (well, as fun as grammar can be, at least). Some other grammar sites can be found here and here.

And finally, if you want to catch up on some web 2.0 technology like RSS feeds and wikis, check out the “in plain English” series of vodcasts by the folks at Common Craft.

Thanks for visiting.