Big Dog's Human Resource Development Book Review

A guide to the digital world

Beyond The Podium: Delivering Training and Performance to a Digital World

by Allison Rossett & Kendra Sheldon

Extremely fascinating -- a book that makes you think! If you want to see how
learning, training, e-learning, knowledge management, and other topics of the
Digital Age are starting to flow together, then this book is made for you.

Mapping the Mind

by Rita Carter

A comprehensive book on the mind that covers such concepts as emotions, perception, language, and memory through great writing and beautiful illustrations. Technology not only gives us great views of the brain, but also aids in formulating our thoughts on how it works.

The 2001 ASTD Training and Performance Yearbook

by John A. Woods (Editor), James W. Cortada (Editor)

This fifth annual edition of The ASTD Training and Performance Yearbook gives readers the best articles and reference information of the past year from leading training industry periodicals so that trainers can stay current with the changes and cutting-edge thinking in their field.

A must have for accurate research on learning!

How College Affects Students

Although How College Affects Students, by Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini, 1991, San Francisco: Jossey Bass (894 pages that syntheses over 2,600 studies) is based on the academic world, many parts of it do concern the training world, particularly the parts on good research and how students learn. The authors use a narrative explanatory synthesis approach to come to their conclusions. Although it goes into some depth, it is still quite an easy read.

Well Worth its price!

The Winning Trainer (Third Edition)

Julius E. Eitington's The Winning Trainer discusses the techniques for conducting dynamic and active training sessions. It includes chapters for small group interactions, role playing, games and simulations, puzzles, self-discovery learning, case methods, etc. It also has more than 100 ready made handouts.

It provides valuable insight on effective icebreakers and openers, brainstorming, lectures, team building, and managing diversity in the classroom. Numerous examples and model dialogues will help trainers plug in this material immediately. If you need to learn how to get your learners involved in training, then you need The Winning Trainer.

The Corporate Book

For some great team activities, The Corporate Book by Darin Ulmer is a great place to start. It includes 5 stretching activities, hints (initiatives) for leading the activities, 15 activities, and some guidelines for closing.

The exercises are physical in nature and require such equipment as very soft balls, Hula Hoops, ropes, carpet squares, bucket, and Velcro strips. Most of the activities can be set up in just a few minutes. A couple take a little bit of planning and preparation. Each activity is explained in detail and are designed to build team skills such as trust, communication, working together, cooperation, celebrating achievements, and just plain having fun.

So, if you are tired of doing all your activities behind desks, then give Darin a call at (281) 367-3726, email darin.ulmer@usa.net, or visit Ulmer & Associates.

Square Wheels of Managing Improved Productivity

For a unique and effective training tool try Square Wheels of Managing Improved Productivity, by Scott J.Simmerman. This is a easy to use guide for trainers, coaches, and managers to facilitate change, productivity improvement, communication, teamwork, and performance strategies. It includes:

28 illustrations and overlays that can be used to make overhead transparencies.
Learner workbook pages ready to photocopy (no extra fees).
39 masters for easy reproduction.
Key learning points and outlines.
A wealth of ideals, stories, and thoughts on the use of each illustration.

Square Wheels is a highly flexible training tool that can be adapted to a wide variety of learning environments. While most training and development programs following a rigid step-by-step approach, Square Wheels can be customized to fit a wide variety of training needs.

Its use of simple, but creative drawings and metaphors invite learner participation, involvement, and feedback. You start by showing a drawing of some people pushing and pulling a wagon with square wheels. You make a few comments about it. This humorous and engaging drawing is guaranteed to break the ice by starting a lively discussion about how things are done within the organization. By following up with the other drawings, you guide the discussion through a number of subjects such as motivation, teamwork, change, leadership, and continuous improvement.

If you are implementing any Organization Development project, then you definitely need Square Wheels to bring out the best in your organization! And the price is right.

Performance Management Company, (1993 to 1996), call 1-800-659-1466, email scott@squarewheels.com, or visit Square Wheels.

Also see The Book of Square Wheels : A Tool Kit for Facilitatiors and Team Leaders that is a compendium of four other toolkits.

The ASTD Training & Development Handbook

The bible of training professionals is The ASTD Training & Development Handbook, Fourth Edition , Robert L. Craig (Editor), (1996), New York: McGraw-Hill . It contains about 1,070 pages from various authors on the following subjects:

The Training and Development Function
Program Design and Development
Media and Methods
Training Applications
Resources

Contains 51 chapters on learning and training information. This is one book you will consistently refer back to in your development efforts. Some of the subjects include the history of training, learning organizations, evaluations, leadership development, and meeting facilities.

Training Program Workbook & Kit

Need worksheets, checklists, and guidelines to development your training program? Then Training Program Workbook & Kit , Carolyn Nilson, (1989), Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, might be the guide you are looking for. It contains:

How to assess training needs
How to do job analysis
How to do Task Analysis
How to write a training proposal
How to design your own courses
How to design tests
How to choose the right training media
How to package training
How to conduct a field test
How to deliver training
Guidelines for selecting and using computer based instruction
How to set up workshops and conferences
Guidelines for purchasing and maintaining training equipment
How to attract employees to your training program
How to write a business plan
Project management
Planning the training budget
How to survive an operational audit
Ways to streamline training administration

This guide contains over 430 pages of useful guidelines for implementing and managing training. You will still have to know what you are doing as this book does not go into great depth, but mainly lays out the training cycle in an easy to read outline.

The Handbook of Human Resource Development

When I took my first Human Resource Development Course our instructor wanted us to have a reference that would help us not only in the classroom, but in the outside world too. So our textbook was actually a handbook. The Handbook of Human Resource Development, Second Edition , Leonard Nadler (Editor) (1990), New York: John Wiley & Sons , $130.00. This is a complete reference to the field of HRD. It contains about 830 pages from various authors on the following subjects:

The Field Of Human Resource Development - An overview and history of HRD. It explores such topics as the management of HRD, consulting, financial aspects, designing training programs, and instructing. - thirteen chapters
Program Areas Of HRD - Various training programs of HRD such as sales, technical, management, and schools. - eight chapters
International Areas Of HRD - Working internationally in a global society, with chapters devoted to Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. - six chapters
Human Resource Areas Related To HRD - How management, organization development, and career development relate with HRD. - three chapters
The Future of HRD - Projections, Paradoxes, Paradigms. - one chapter
An excellent Glossary and Index.

If you want a broad view of the HRD field, on almost any subject, then this is the best reference available. If you are into HRD, this is a must buy. It is well written and an excellent read. Leonard Nadler is an HRD Hall of Fame Member (Established in 1985 by Training Magazine and Lakewood Conferences).

May be purchased at Amazon.com - The Handbook of Human Resource Development

Approaches To Training And Development

A trainer's bookshelf needs at least one book. And that book is Approaches To Training And Development, Second Edition , Dugan Laird (1985), Reading Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley . To order The Training Clinic. Eighteen chapters covering such topics as:

Why Have A Training And Development Department?
How Do You Find Training Needs?
Learning Objectives
How Do People Learn?
What Methods Shall We Use?
How Important Is Teaching Technique?
What About Visual Aids?
How Can We Measure Training and Development?

Dugan Laird finished this revised manuscript shortly before his death in 1984, so we will not be treated to an updated version. He is an HRD Hall of Fame Member. What more can I say...this book covers the nuts and bolts of training. Follow his advice and you will be a great trainer!

The Complete Games Trainers Play: Experiential Learning Exercises

Liven up your learning activities with The Complete Games Trainers Play , Edward E. Scannell and John W. Newstrom (1994), New York: McGraw-Hill , Inc., $110.00. A collection of over 300 games for the following learning activities:
Part I - The Trainer's Resource Kit:

The Trainer's Resources Kit
Planning Administration
Program/Agenda Design
Event/Production

Part II - Games Trainers Play:

Conference Leadership
Climate Settings and Icebreakers
Presentation
Methods
Motivation
Self-Concept
Learning
Communication
Perception
Problem Solving and Creativity
Evaluation
Transfer of Training
Brain teasers
Presentation Tools
Team building

This is a diverse collection of training games that will get learners involved in your training activities. It consists of a three-ring binder (for easy copying) of over 1,000 pages (most of the back pages are blank). There are a couple of items lacking in this book. First, there is no index or table that will allow you to follow a topic or select a game for a particular behavior. For example, The Learning section has 35 games listed, with such titles as Hand Clasp, Jeopardy, Stop the Music!, and Film Recaps. To find a certain behavior or task, I had to look through all 35 games to see if it is covered in one of the games. At some games, I had to study the complete section to find the behavior being taught as some of the Objectives , which are listed at the beginning of each game, are kind of vague. For example, To provide a dramatic visual model....., To introduce topics in an enjoyable way, and To encourage creative thought. The second thing that stands out is the layout. The fonts and type vary from chapter to chapter. Apparently the publisher just gathered up the authors' collection of games and placed them in a binder, without any editorial input or control.

The Complete Games Trainers Play (Games Trainers Play Series Vol. 2)

Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture

by Frank R. Wilson

A vast undertaking in which the author duly acknowledges that each chapter raises more questions than it answers. The hand is a complex symbol that representing both the creative and the prosaic. It is this blending of the spiritual and the mundane is what makes the hand unique, as it in turn makes us unique among animals. Neurologist Frank R. Wilson has taken on a heroic task: to explain the hand on both of these levels and to show us how we use these marvelous instruments to find and create meaning in our lives. The author maintains that the hand is equal to the brain in understanding human evolution and intelligence.

Growing Up Digital : The Rise of the Net Generation

In Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation, Tapscott parlays some 300 interviews into predictions on how today's 2- to 22-year-olds might reshape society. His observations about this enormously influential population, which will total 88 million in North America alone by the year 2000, range from the kind of employees they may eventually be to how they could be reached by marketers. The author calls this group a "tsunami" that will force changes in communications, retailing, branding, advertising, education.

There is some limitations in the sampling that Tapscott used to arrive at his findings and the all-encompassing generalizations. This is really evident in regard to the techo-savvy of all the children born during or after 1977.

The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge (1990)

This book describes the learning organization and how to build one. He describes the organization as an organism with the capacity to enhance its capabilities and shape its own future. A learning organization is any organization (e.g. school, business, government agency) that understands itself as a complex, organic system that has a vision and purpose. It uses feedback systems and alignment mechanisms to achieve its goals. It values teams and leadership throughout the ranks.A learning organization seeks to create its own future; it assumes learning is an ongoing and creative process for its members; it develops, adapts and transforms itself in response to the needs and aspirations of people, both inside and beyond. There are five disciplines in a learning organization:

Personal Mastery - Seeing what is and what could be and then changing to meet the vision.

Mental Models - Assumptions about how we see the world.

Shared Vision - A team competency in which everyone has a common goal or shared picture.

Team Learning - The team suspend their assumptions and take up dialogue that embraces the collective good.

Real learning is not just limited to understanding what is necessary to survive (adaptive learning), but also includes "generative learning:" expands the human's capacity to create the results a person truly desires. Learning itself includes three different activities: thinking, communicating and cooperating. When our capacities to think, communicate and cooperate are enhanced, so is our ability to learn. Thus, a learning organization is one which fosters and enhances these activities for its members and members of the community in which it exists.

A related book, The Fifth Discipline Field book: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization (1994) provides tools, techniques, exercises, ideas and stories to help the practitioner apply the concepts. This is a step-by-step guide for establishing learning organizations within existing companies functions as a participative workbook, with exercises for both individuals and teams, suggested approaches and ideas, and success stories.

Notes

For author and copyright information, see the About page.

Created July 13, 1995
Updated January 6, 2008

A Big Dog, Little Dog and Knowledge Jump Production.
Contact: donclark@nwlink.com