Phew! Is it just us or are the months moving by faster and faster. It’s been an exciting first half of the year for us at Optim. We have had the opportunity to work with new clients across a broad spectrum of training projects including systems training, leadership development, product training, induction and soft skills development.
One thing that we are loving in the market place, is how savvy organisations are becoming regarding their organisational and learning development strategies. It’s great to see that as a learning community our colleagues and clients are raising the bar and providing their people superior and more targeted training.
Whilst we promise to continue to be innovative in our learning strategies and content design, we hope this positive demand continues making Queensland a true leader in the learning design space.
The Importance of Feedback
One thing that we have always prided ourselves on here at Optim is our genuine interest in feedback. We believe that feedback is a critical component of design and have even included it in our Optim Design Model (see this month’s tips for more information).
Feedback not only assists with continuous improvement strategies but is also a critical component of measuring return on investments. Now we don’t just mean the simplistic “Happy Sheets” or “Tick and Flick” forms, we mean going to the heart of the business and asking the hard questions. How has the training impacted worker attitudes / skills / behaviours? How have processes become more streamlined? How much time or money is being saved?
It is this type of feedback that you really need to be asking during any review or evaluation process for your learning and development strategies. If you need any advice or guidance in achieving this Optim is always here to support you.
Continuous Improvement – What Have You Improved Lately?
The words Continuous Improvement get thrown around the office space so often now that they seem to have become a little bit blurred. We have worked with some organisations where this phrase simply referred to what we would consider a normal part of the design-review-amend process. It’s time that continuous improvement really implied out-of-the-box positive adaptation and change.
Consider one or two of your organisation’s learning and development initiatives. When was the last time they were reviewed for currency? When was the last time they were amended to reflect changes in organisational strategy and objectives. We’ll bet fairly recently and on a reasonably regular basis. Now ask yourself, when were they assessed in terms of current best practice in the learning and design space? When were media through which they are delivered evaluated against the changes needs of the environment and audience? Our guess is not as often.
Continuous improvement should also reflect these types of discussions and the outcomes generated from them. Optim specialised in the learning and design space and can assist you with a comprehensive review of your development initiatives.
Creative Leadership
Recently some of our consultants attended a seminar that focused on leadership development. However, this was no ordinary leadership workshop. It was all about a new concept sweeping organisational development called creative leadership or creative intelligence.
In essence this concept focuses on being innovative in your work through the application of “artful practice”. We think of artists as being creative, but consider what they actually do. They have developed their skills in going beyond what exists and creating something new and interesting. This is a skill that leaders are being encouraged to develop.
An effective or creative leader is someone who is innovative and able to see more than just the picture in front of them. They are artful in their leadership when they lead others to improve and implement novel strategies to further the organisation.
If you would like to know more about this exciting work and how you can incorporate it into your leadership development initiatives contact us on enquiries@optimlearning.com.au for further information.