Salespeople's personality

As we all know, an important component in instructional design is understanding our learners motivations. To support this, I've been spent a little time researching the personality traits and motivational characteristics that have an effect on sales performance.

I've recently read an interesting article (cite below) that discusses which personality traits affect the ability to perform new skills/knowledge as compared to those traits required for successful experienced performance. Learning and performance were found to require two different sets of skills:

• Extroversion and Conscientiousness are required for experienced performance
  
• Agreeableness was required for successful application of new knowledge
  
• Openess to Experience was required for successful application of new knowledge and was associated with higher sales overall

In addition, this study found that pharmaceutical salespeople's performance improved over time, while a different study found that insurance salespeople's performance plateaued after three years.

I thought that this was interesting because it suggests that successful salespeople may not always have the traits of the successful student. I would also like to find out more about the effect of time on sales performance. It may be that a sales person might expect peak performance after a certain amount of time. This means that if you aren't happy with your sales after 3 years, you shouldn't expect too much of an increase after then.

Bibliography:
Thoresen, C. J., Bradley, J. C., Bliese, P.D. & Thoresen, J.D (2004). The Big Five Personality Traits and Individual Job Performance Growth Trajectories in Maintenance and Transitional Job Stages; Journal of Applied Psychology, 89 (5) 835-853.

Thought Experiment: Nursing

Imagine unlimited time, money and authority.

So - You are responsible for training new hire nurses for the Navy. They have been though the core training, so they know their job but not hospital procedure. Due to military procedure, you have 100% turnover every three years. You will be their supervisor after training.

Your problem: they do not complete the patients' charts accurately, or in a timely manner. This puts the hospital at significant risk in the case of an audit or a serious problem. While a catastrophe has not happened at this hospital, cases of patient injury or death are circulated to ensure awareness of problems resulting from incorrect procedures.

In general, the nurses hate paperwork. They are hoping to be promoted to the front line where they can be heroes - saving lives in a critical setting, and where little or no paperwork is required. Additionally, nobody really knows what "good" looks like. The current standard is that another nurse can review the chart and get a picture of everything that happened during the day: all the procedures and whatnot. There is no clear idea of what the critical pieces of information for each procedure.

What do you do?

Games: Cognitive Domain

Comprehension: Classify, group, identify, pick out, recognize, select, sort....

However you want to say it, how could you use the principles of this game to test comprehension? Play "Loop"

Sim Center

When I was at UPS, one of the ideas that the interns would bat around was "Sim Center." This was a virtual game that any employee could access at any time. Ideally, it would be used for both self-directed learning and learning mandated by management.

As we envisioned it, there would be modules for every position in a UPS package center. Employees would be able to complete modules for any position (perhaps by "clocking in" under a specific position title). This way, they could develop skills in their own jobs, learn the challenges and requirements of the positions that are upstream or downstream from them, or even get a taste of a position that they were interested in assuming.

The modules for each position would reflect the appropriate learning domains, so the game wouldn't be identical to "The Sims." For example, a package handler might play a Tetris-style game requiring the identification and proper placement of a package based on the UPS package label. A front line manager might be given a problem scenario; be asked to identify the problem using systems and reports, and by talking to people; and develop an effective solution. A center manager might be required to balance strategic planning against daily fires, and so on.

This thought experiment wasn't a serious project, but did offer insight into elegant training solutions for our ongoing projects.

Apparently, we weren't the only people thinking down this line. Bjorn Billhardt at Enspire Learning is creating similar programs as a way to combat the low completion rates of online courses. Check it out.

Journalism

During my last semester at Georgia State, I took a class in journalism to improve my writing technique. The focus was on intimate journalism and I learned a lot about crafting a story out of a mass of words and facts. I think that this experience has established a solid basis for interesting content - writing that "pops"- as an instructional designer.

One thing that I did not get, that produced an "aha" for me just a few days ago, was the journalistic purpose of research and interviewing: you do research in order to frame the article. The frame dictates who you talk to and what kinds of things you need them to say. To add a caveat, this doesn't mean that the article won't change during the writing, or that an informant might lead you to an entirely different article.

My problem was that I learned my interviewing style in folklore and psychology, eg. shut up and let them talk. In this style, questions are used to drill down on interesting points and to guide the conversation. I managed to put 2 and 2 together by the end of the class: in journalism you can ask leading questions to get the quote you want.

I also researched like a psychologist, which meant that I tried to write a journalistic research paper with live quotes. Very sad. It's one of the cases where you'd like to take the class again to get it right.

In sum, it took me almost a year to understand some of the basic principles of journalism. Of course, I wouldn't have ever gotten them if I hadn't taken the class a year ago, it's too bad that you always have to start off as a novice...

Basics: Decision points

One of the "of course" touchpoints that I use to keep my training on course is teaching toward decision points. This is especially easy when training processes, but is very effective in product training. It is the easiest way I've found to eliminate the "nice to knows."

Basically, before you touch the content, you ask yourself or the SME "What decision must be made?" There has got to be some decision, an "if this, then that"; otherwise it's just a nice to know.

Product decisions

• Why does the participant need to know about the product? What will they do with this knowledge?


• Answer customer questions (facts about various products). What are the most common questions? What about a FAQ sheet?


• Decide which product to use (Determine the best option for specific needs or a specific scenario). What are the knock-outs? Would a decision tree be helpful?


• Troubleshoot product issues (progressively test product until problem is eliminated)? What are the common problems? Would a decision tree be helpful?
  

Process decisions

• What is the next step in the process? What are the possible choices at that step? What would happen if each choice was made?


• What is generated at this step in the process? Who gets this item/information?


• What is the ultimate goal of the process? Is it worth it?

After determining the types of decisions and the decision points, you eliminate all content that doesn't directly inform the decision. After all, if nobody is going to do anything with the content, what effect will not teaching this content have on the world?

Basics: Performance Based Learning

I ran across the following point in an ISPI newsletter article "Is your training truly performance-based? Seven keys to unlocking the power of performance-based training."

2. Is Training derived directly from the job?
It’s common sense, but not common practice, that training should be derived from job performance requirements. Before design or development begins, you must first determine (for each job task) precisely what it is you want the learner to be able to do. If you are unclear about what the performance target is, the learner will be too. True performance-based training is designed from the job out. This eliminates all “knowledge transfer” issues.

It's one of those oh-so-basic concepts that's easy to lose, but that shocks you with its power when you're reminded of it.

Training Decision-making Skills: The challenges of finances

On Tuesday, May 31st, NPR ran a story about including financial education in school curriculum. This reminded me of a suggestion in the Dog Trainer’s Guide to Parenting: to avoid issues with your kids in public areas, you must train them on how to behave. This is difficult to do in the supermarket when you’re rushing to make a vital milk purchase before going home for nap-time so, to train and test appropriate behavior, you need to make trial runs when the kids are rested and happy, and you aren’t buying anything crucial. That way you can focus on your kid’s behavior, rewarding and punishing as necessary without creating major issues in your own life.

It is amazing to me, in the increasing complexity of modern life, the assumptions we make about appropriate behavior. This is especially true when considering the soundness of the advice given in the Dog Trainer’s Guide: good training can be required for the most obvious and simple actions of living. Managing personal finances and debt goes well beyond proper grocery store behavior. Experience has shown that all but the most savvy consumers have managed to pile up a considerable debt. This includes people with a fair amount of life experience. The financial options and risks are not what they what they were 20 years ago, so it makes sense that a certain amount of training is mandatory to ensure that young adults have the information they need to make the correct decisions.

On the other hand, we know that the transfer of training to real life has its own challenges. Given the enticements of the consumer economy and the volume of items and services that are compulsory today – cell phone, personal computer with internet, cable – that had just been invented 20 years ago, it will be a challenge for young adults to make the right decisions, even if they score 100% on their classroom tests. In addition to the classroom teaching, we need to come up with some sort of “training wheels” that goes beyond the lessons of the weekly allowance.

Atomic Train

I’m in Las Vegas for my company’s national sales conference. Last night, I curled up on the couch in my room and watched “Atomic Train” on the Sci Fi channel. Interestingly, this trashy action movie provided a perspective on today’s expectations of expertise, resonating with my role in the sales conference. Essentially, in the movie, everybody did their best to stop a disaster. The movie was rife with the typical American individualism but, instead of the entrepreneurial spirit saving the day as it would have 20 or 50 years ago, the best and heroic efforts of the non-experts defeated the efforts of the experts until the situation was snafued beyond all redemption.

The plot started out blandly enough – the owner of a business that decommissioned nuclear weapons put an old Russian nuke on a freight train, but hid it on the manifest to avoid a $2000 insurance fee. This caused the shipment to bypass many safety regulations. The action started when the brakes on the train got disconnected due to some chemical dripping on them. The train starts speeding out-of-control, downhill towards Denver.

An out-of-control train is an extremely complex problem with every potential for disaster, even without a nuclear weapon. The train is expensive, the chemicals it carries are hazardous, there are five people on the train who can lose their lives and, if the train reaches Denver, all bets are off. The distance to Denver also puts a tight timeframe on the problem – the train is going 70 miles an hour, Denver is 300 miles away - simple math give a mere couple of hours for a solution. Everybody in the movie slaps together all of the options that they can.

The first options: a train crash expert boards a train behind the runaway with the plan to couple with it and brake it from behind. The railroad also makes plans to slow the train with sand piled on the tracks or to derail the train in a spot that minimizes the catastrophe.

At this point, an employee from the nuclear decommissioning company calls the railroad and informs them of the contraband nuke. The derailment is called off as the impact might set off the old, poorly-made nuke. Time is lost, the White House gets involved and everybody tries to find a way of either stopping, or minimizing the impact from a possible nuclear explosion. Every expert came up with solutions based on their perspective and expertise. The solutions had a wide range, from braking the train with the second train to bombing the train into a crater – which would guarantee a nuclear explosion, reduce the airborne fallout and would cause permanent damage to the groundwater. This last option would be a last-ditch effort, but bombers become airborne to keep all options open.

The first options are ineffectual. The sand doesn’t slow the train and the braking attempt fails, shearing a piece off of the second train, and a brakeman dies after heroically risking his life to couple the trains. The crash expert uses the brief joining to board the runaway train. The second train continues to pursue the runaway, attempting to save the remaining two brakemen. This attempt to save lives backfires after the second engineer is told to “back off” because of the quickly changing situation. He turns down his radio and succeeds in saving one man. The silent radio cuts off communication with the people who have the big picture. Missing this strategic viewpoint, he destroys the one opportunity to save the situation. The runaway train engineer and the crash expert successfully lock the breaks on an uphill grade. The runaway slows to less than 25 miles an hour. Since the second train cannot hear this information or any warnings, he rear-ends the runaway, unlocking its brakes and sending the train careening toward disaster. The message here is clear: even if the commonsense course seems clear and ethical, it is still better to listen to the experts with the big picture.

All survivors escaped when the train slowed, so loss of life was no longer a factor in derailment, so that became the next option. The bomb, luckily, does not go off in the impact. On the other hand, some of the chemicals and other items on the train catch fire. As an extra twist, some of the chemicals in the same car with the bomb react explosively with water so the fire suppressant brought in with helicopters is the only thing that can be used to control the flames.

Unfortunately, the bomb cannot be removed from the boxcar, so an expert with the ability to decommission the bomb braves the fires and explosions to dismantle the trigger. The value from this attempt is voided by two helicopter pilots who attempt to save the situation themselves. They load up with water and decide to go directly to the crash site as it is between them and the command center. On the way, they hear that fire suppressant is being used. Taking the attitude “water is better than nothing,” they explosively dump their water directly on the volatile chemicals thereby killing the bomb expert and setting off the nuke. Once again, people trying to save the day without the needed specialized knowledge or advice worsen the situation.

In opposition to the demonstrations of the harm that laypeople can do, there were several demonstrations of effective heroism possible with expertise:

• A police officer resolves a traffic situation then forcibly slows evacuation traffic to 40 M.P.H. to eliminate potential accidents. After the blast destroys a crucial bridge, he leads people on foot across country using a compass, finally saving them.
• Knowledge of knot-tying is key to a rescue and the information that electromagnetic force will knock out microchips, including those in cars, helps a family find a vehicle that helps them get to safety.
• Some railroad personnel risk, and lose, their lives to successfully get four other trains out of the area.
• News personnel remain in the area during the derailment so they can provide essential information to the people of Denver.
  
  Thus, by doing their job beyond the call of duty; and using and sharing their specialized knowledge; people were able to help others and make the situation better. By stepping outside of their job role or acting without the strategic view, people effectively killed thousands.
  
  As I mentioned earlier, the message in this movie resonated with my role at the sales conference. Our main initiative is to roll out the next word in sales techniques. What this means is that we, as a company, don’t feel that our salespeople can maximize their sales as novices and laypeople. We provide substantial training to make sure that they are experts not only on our products but on a strategic sales process. Sales and sales strategy, as well as business and business strategy, have become so complex that specialized skills are needed to develop an optimal sales or business strategy.