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Kate Shoup is the coauthor of Business Gamification For Dummies®. She has written more than 25 books, has coauthored a feature-length screenplay, and worked as the sports editor for NUVO newsweekly.

Kate Shoup

ATD Links Archive - ATD Links

Businesses That Are Making a Play: 10 Great Gamified Sites and Apps

Some guys may get instinctively defensive when the phrase “like a girl” is tossed at them, but it’s time for them to embrace it, and actually welcome it, if they want to be an effective leader. Inspired by the #LikeAGirl campaign, Michael and Katie Stallard contend that being told you lead “like a girl” should be considered a compliment.

This webcast reviews recent research and offers a fresh perspective on why women have superior leadership skills and what men can do to improve. Michael grew up in a male-dominated machismo culture in an industrial town in the Midwest and worked in the male-dominated culture of Wall Street before marrying Katie and becoming the father of daughters. Through humorous and heartwarming stories, Michael shares what he learned from Katie and their daughters that made him a better leader and person. Michael and Katie also look at several male leaders they’ve identified in researching healthy and productive workplace cultures and share ways in which these guys led “like a girl.” And leading effectively is especially important given the dismal state of employee engagement, with individuals and organizations suffering as a consequence of the current, predominant leadership practices.
In this webcast, you will learn:

why research is finding that women typically have superior leadership skills compared with their male counterparts
how historical cultures have produced a flawed mental model of effective leaders
a new mental model for effective leadership inspired by the contributions of female leaders
examples of outstanding, accomplished male leaders who led "like a girl"
actions leadership trainers can take to help any leader, irrespective of gender, become confident in leading to produce sustainable, superior performance.


Why Guys Should Lead "Like a Girl"

October 2022 - TD Magazine

Employee engagement and inclusion strategies should be interconnected.

View Engagement Through a DEI Lens

Being a consultant has never been easier or more accepted than it is today. An independent consulting practice can generate significant income, provide you with flexibility and control over your schedule, and allow you to home in on the work you love most. Yet more than 50 percent of these practices fail in the first few years. If you’ve pondered the idea of going out on your own, you’ll want to join this webcast led by Kris Taylor, who has had a successful, six-figure consulting practice for 15 years, and Katie McNamee, who is approaching four years as a digital marketing consultant.
Taylor and McNamee will help you discern if you have what it takes to become a consultant and will share five indicators that independent consulting may not be for you. Departing from a full-time permanent role is a big step, and this webcast can help you determine if you should take the leap from corporate to consulting.
By participating in this webcast, you will learn:
• helpful and clear ways to judge if consulting is for you
• key indicators that consulting may not be for you
• ways to go forward if you decide to pursue independent consulting.

5 Ways to Know if Consulting is for You (and 5 Warning Signs it May Not)

Being an independent consultant has never been easier or more accepted than today. An independent consulting practice can generate significant income, provide you with flexibility and control over your schedule, and allow you to home in on the work you love to do most. Yet more than 50 percent of these practices will fail in the first few years.
If you’ve pondered the idea of going out on your own, you’ll want to join this webcast led by Kris Taylor, who has had a successful, six-figure consulting practice for 14 years, and Katie Workman, who has launched a successful practice in under a year.
Kris and Katie will help you discern if you have what it takes to go out on your own and will share five indicators that independent consulting may not be for you. Going out on your own is a big step, and this webcast can help you determine if you should take the leap from corporate to consulting. By participating in Kris and Katie's webcast, you will learn:

helpful and clear ways to judge if independent consulting is for you
key indicators that consulting may not be for you
ways to go forward if you decide to pursue independent consulting.
 


5 Ways to Tell If Independent Consulting Is For You--And 5 Indicators That It's Not!

It’s ironic that successful self-leadership has more to do with others and less to do with self. I learned this later in life. The sooner you see it, the better for your career. Following are three lessons I learned from personal and professional experiences.Surprise #1: Serve a Cause Greater than SelfThe first surprise about self-leadership is that working for money, power, and fame is an unfulfilling pursuit. Frances Hesselbein says it succinctly: to serve is to live.Choose a career that helps others by bringing truth, goodness, or beauty into the world and you will find greater career satisfaction and contentment. From time to time, you will experience the joy that comes from seeing the efforts of your work directly improve the lives of others. Here are a few examples:The teacher who helps a student learn to read brings greater truth and goodness to the world.The landscape architect who designs aesthetically pleasing outdoor environments brings greater beauty to the world.The journalist who helps the public see both sides of a story brings greater truth to the world.The salesman who helps a customer find the right product or service to meet a real need brings greater goodness into the world.You should seek to serve others in these ways, too.Surprise #2: Get a Coach or Mentor(s)No world-class athlete gets to the top without the help of a coach or multiple coaches. We need other people to help us achieve our potential.For instance, each of us has blind spots. Your blind spot may be that you are argumentative or perhaps you don’t speak up when you should. Some people have a blind spot when it comes to not knowing when to end a conversation or meeting. Some managers have blind spots of being over-controlling, and others don’t interact enough with the people they are responsible for leading.The need for coaching and mentoring goes beyond needing to address our blind spots, though. We need experts to help us develop skills. When I left Wall Street to write a book and begin public speaking and teaching, I needed the help of Twyla Thompson, a top acting coach at the Actors Institute. Twyla taught me how to emotionally connect with an audience.On Wall Street, I had learned to turn off my emotions when communicating and I needed Twyla’s help to turn my emotions back on. She had me do exercises that included speaking to a group of acting students. I had to make eye contact with one student at a time and maintain eye contact until the student raised his or her hand to signal that he or she felt connected to me.Twyla’s colleague Gifford Booth would stand at the back of the room and yell, “Louder, louder,” as I spoke. He helped me see a blind spot I had: I was too soft spoken. I could never have learned these things on my own and I’m grateful that Twyla and Gifford helped me become a more effective speaker.#3: Be Intentional About Connecting With PeopleI learned the hard way that all people are hardwired to connect. Connect with God.  Connect with one another. When we don’t connect, we become dysfunctional. We feel lonely, which makes us more vulnerable to stress, anxiety, and depression.  Connection makes us healthier, happier, and more productive. It helps us grow in competence and character. It gets us through the inevitable difficult seasons we all experience in life, a lesson I learned as our family and friends helped us get through the three bouts of cancer my wife Katie experienced. Today, she is cancer free and thriving.Bottom line: You can be more successful in your career and life if you serve a cause greater than yourself, get coaches and/or mentors to help you learn and grow in competence and character, and be intentional about connecting with God, family, and friends. As you experience greater peace, hope, and joy that comes from having an abundance of connection in your life, you will discover wealth of even greater value.Is your workplace culture supporting your success with self-leadership? Join Michael Lee Stallard for the June 23 webcast, “Your Workplace Culture: Life-Giving or Draining the Life Out of You?” to learn about three predominant relational cultures in the workplace—and how each affects your productivity, health, and happiness.Editor’s Note: This post is adapted from Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy and Understanding at Work. Read more on the Connection Culture website.

3 Surprising Ways to Succeed in Self-Leadership

 In my last post, I explored how certain personality differences--described by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) assessment—give rise to an approach to work that is often confused with procrastination. MBTI preferences for either Perceiving (P) or Judging (J) describe how we organize the world, and at what point we want to make a final decision. The tendency of those preferring P to usually wait to make a final decision until close to the deadline—and thus begin the actual production portion of a project later—is often mistakenly labeled as procrastination. This behavior stems from the need to gather as much information as possible before closing off any options, not from a lackadaisical approach to work. Although often misunderstood, their most effective and efficient energy actually comes close to the deadline or end of the project. Those preferring Judging, on the other hand, are most efficient at the beginning of the project, and naturally employ a work style that incorporates making decisions and going into production mode much earlier in the process--a characteristic that our culture more frequently associates with productivity and efficiency. Within teams, simply knowing that these differences exist can pave the way toward a less stressful, more productive work environment that enables individuals to more fully leverage their natural talents. However, intellectualizing J/P differences is one thing, but actually implementing changes that allow team members to deploy both work styles within the same project is quite another issue. Individuals can achieve top-notch results employing either approach, but teams can also encounter major problems if these radically different work styles aren’t effectively integrated. Making Team Tradeoffs That Don’t Sacrifice Individual Effectiveness Often in teambuilding we talk about “flexing” one’s preferences to work more effectively with someone with an opposite preference, which involves operating outside one’s preferred style. For most of us this is a growing experience and a necessary part of career development. However, while flexing works quite well when bridging Introversion/Extraversion differences, for example, it is actually quite difficult to flex your work style between Judging and Perceiving without diminishing your effectiveness. Those preferring J who try to operate within a P work style will perform below their abilities, and vice versa. Rather than expecting individuals to flex their natural styles, teams need to make structural trade-offs that will allow every member of the team to work within his or her own preferences. Agreeing on Deadlines The most immediate area where this can be applied involves deadlines and milestones. Both J and P preferences find deadlines to be a helpful tool in accomplishing goals. Yet the way that those preferring P approach deadlines may be confusing to J-preferring colleagues, and vice versa. Those who prefer P are averse to the kind of arbitrary or fake deadlines which are sometimes imposed by those with J preferences for the purpose of motivating their P colleagues going into production mode earlier in the process. Meanwhile, those who prefer J might use deadlines as a tool to keep a project on track and are usually motivated to complete projects significantly before the deadline to avoid the last minute rush. Those preferring P tend to view deadlines as markers indicating the point at which something truly must be completed. This also helps them determine when they need to start working on the project in order to maximize their productivity—which for them is closer to the deadline. Consequently, if J-preferring team members try to impose arbitrary deadlines on P-preferring colleagues as markers or motivators to keep a project on pace, they’ll know they really have more time, and will view these as “fake” and often won’t take them seriously. Furthermore, this creates a situation that likely forces those with P preferences to complete tasks early in the project, when they’re less productive because they haven’t had sufficient time to explore all the possibilities for the projects direction. You can get better results from P-preferring colleagues by setting deadlines that accurately reflect a project’s realities, allowing them to plan their work in such a way that lets them get most of the project done at the end, when they’re most productive. When negotiating milestone dates, be sure that they are visibly tied to the real-life consequences of not meeting that deadline. If, for example, a client needs a set of blueprints by a certain date, the milestones should reflect the actual steps that need to be taken in order to make that happen--not just the J-preferences need to complete a project significantly before the actual deadline to allow time for revision. Accepting a Larger View of What Constitutes “Reality” On the flip side, those preferring P must appreciate that their J-preferring colleagues operate most efficiently on a more scheduled timeline. What’s more, they must respect the fact that some J preference team members may not do their best work when handed a project at the last minute. So, if you must deliver a set of blueprints to a J-preferring colleague for review or iteration, understand that they really need to do this earlier in the process in order to offer their best, most efficient work. Adopt the point of view that this is not an arbitrarily early deadline, but rather one that is necessary to ensure the quality of the project. Be willing to set and adhere to milestones that accommodate the J’s need for more structure, and earlier project completion. Bottom Line: Don’t Ask a Pea Factory to Produce Carrots Furthermore, a P-preferring manager working with a predominantly J-preferring team must take into account that last minute changes to a project may have a profoundly negative effect on the group’s ability to deliver excellent results. J-preferring individuals tend to work along a more even pace, accomplishing a great deal of a project’s tasks near the beginning of the process. Throwing a last-minute curve ball at a team that primarily prefers P might be okay, because they don’t go fully into production mode until the end of a project. In other words, they’ve been spending their time getting their ducks in a row, and in manufacturing parlance, the “factory” hasn’t yet opened. A predominantly J-preferring team, on the other hand, will have likely gone into production mode much earlier, so significant changes in direction can’t occur late in a project. It’s like asking a factory to produce canned carrots when it’s already started producing peas. If you want carrots, ask for them before the factory turns on its conveyor belts.

Brokering Peace in the War Over Deadlines

In the talent development field, we talk a lot about “getting a seat at the table.” The idea is that the talent development function of an organization should be aligned strategically with the mission of the business or organization, and its head (such as the chief learning officer, or CLO) should be at the same level as other senior executives (like the chief information officer and the chief marketing officer). Regardless of the title used, the head of talent development needs to be a part of the strategic leadership team.But every executive “seat” needs to be filled with a strategic leader in its respective discipline. So, how do you make the leap from training manager to CLO? Well, there are three areas you should pay particular attention to as you plan for your development and your leap into the executive suite: technical skills, business savvy, and strategic leadership. Let’s look at each.Technical SkillsEach person in the “c-suite” brings to the table their professional background and expertise. And even at the highest levels of executive leadership, they’re still called on to provide that expertise in leading the enterprise. In talent development, that means the CLO needs to have a clear understanding of—and experience in—the various functions of that department, including assessment, design and development, andragogy, measurement, knowledge management, and more. You probably won’t be an expert in every aspect of the talent development field, but having a good handle on each one is vital to your role as an executive.So, how do you get this expertise? Here are some questions to ask yourself. Have you done a professional credential like ATD’s Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD®) or the Associate Professional in Talent Development (APTD®)? Or perhaps a certificate program? Are you engaged with your local ATD chapter? Do you keep up to date with the latest trends in the field found in magazines, journals, and books? In short, how engaged are you with the profession’s body of knowledge?Technical skills are one piece of the developmental ladder to the executive suite. Let’s look at the others.Business SavvyWhat do you call a member of the US Air Force who spends their entire career on the ground, never setting foot in a plane? Airman. Everyone is an “airman,” regardless of what specialty they hold and perform. Why? Because a key to cohesiveness and mission performance is that everyone understands the mission and embraces the organizational culture.What do you know about your enterprise’s mission beyond your own contribution to it? For example, if you are a leadership trainer for a nationwide homebuilder, do you understand the dynamics of that field? Do you know how land is acquired and planned, how homes are constructed and financed, how they’re sold, and how customers are serviced? If you’re going to move into an executive role, you will need to understand the context in which you operate—and understand the people and culture surrounding you—if you’re going to make meaningful contributions to the leadership of the business.Strategic LeadershipLeadership comes in two varieties: interpersonal and strategic. Interpersonal leadership centers on employee engagement, performance management, interpersonal communications, and more. It is a management function. Strategic leadership, on the other hand, is focused on the direction of the business or organization into the future—into the unknown. Strategic leaders need to be able to anticipate new trends and developments, create new solutions and innovations, and situate the business into the greater society. Effective strategic leaders relate to people, are highly self-aware, embrace authenticity, examine issues systemically (not in a vacuum), and achieve results.How do you develop your strategic leadership skills? The first step is awareness—what are your strengths and weaknesses? Where do you excel and in which areas do you need to improve? Evaluations—for example, a 360-degree assessment—can give you insights and help you to create a development plan. Universities, companies, and professional organizations offer training in strategic development skills. And, books specifically written for the developing executive are all means you can use to elevate your strategic leadership game.SummaryIt’s easy to get trapped in our technical expertise as we grow into our profession. After all, that’s what we get paid to do, right? But if we want to move beyond growing and we want to develop to later career stages, we also need to ensure our understanding of the business environment (business savvy) and strategic leadership skills are highly developed, as well. As Marshall Goldsmith reminds us, “What got you here won’t get you there.”

Crossing The Executive Threshold: Four Areas You Should Be Developing

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning could prove to be invaluable as solutions to both hiring and modern skill development challenges. The problem? Many of us don’t actually know the differences, and most tech providers that say they do AI don’t actually provide exactly that.
Join us to get a better understanding of these terms and how they can be used to benefit both employees and L&D management.
In this webcast, you’ll learn:

the differences between AI, machine learning, and personalization
how these principles can and should be applied to learning operations
suggestions for bringing AI into your learning organization.


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