That Fresh Training Program Smell

Last week I got to team up with the legend Krysta Van Ranst from Building PPL and we walked attendees through the incredibly-easy process to get state grants for training. You can watch that whole webinar here for free.​

From minute 26 through minute 36, Krysta actually applied for a real training grant for her team to take one of my programs, the Leadership Assessment and Team Workshop. 10 minutes to apply for $9K in grant money. What a great ROI.

So, what exactly did Krysta get for her team (and her business) at no cost?

Phase One: The Assessment

I will be distributing an industry-standard personality assessment to the Building PPL team, the Clifton34 Strengths Assessment.​

I like this assessment because it's framed through a Positive Psychology lens: focus on what you do well and do it better, rather than trying to compensate for your weaknesses.

It's also very well-known: if you Google StrengthsFinder (the old brand name), you'll find zounds of resources and communities that can support ongoing learning for people who get super excited by their results.

Phase Two: The Debrief

After her team members take the assessment, I will meet 1-1 with each one of them to debrief their unique results. They would have already gotten some standard literature from Gallup (the organization that facilitates the assessment), but this 1-1 debrief is super personalized to each individual.

In those 1-1s, we'll discuss how their strengths show up in their work, identify opportunities for growth, and explore how to make a bigger impact within the organization. It's a highly engaging conversation and participants walk out with a LOT of ideas of how they could grow.

Intermission: The Insights

As an outside facilitator, I often hear things that team members might not feel comfortable sharing with each other. No matter how much psychological safety a team has, having some space to speak about a sensitive work topic in a non-judgmental 1-1 conversation with a neutral 3rd party is liberating.

By being from the outside AND by meeting with everyone individually, I'll be able to share with Krysta a semi-anonymized pulse check on how her team is truly feeling. These insights are really hard for teams to produce on their own, but more importantly, they'll shape the final phase.

Phase Three: The Workshop

After sharing my findings with Krysta, I'll recommend a specific workshop focus to make immediate strides in improving how the Building PPL team works together. Every team is unique- I've done teambuilding, trust, praise, and more in these workshops- but almost every team needs to work on feedback.

These workshops are almost always about feedback.

For her team, I'll design and deliver a custom 3-hour workshop (or two 1.5 hour sessions) in-person or remote: depends on what she wants.

It'll also be designed so that Krysta and her team can continue the conversations and developmental work without me, embedding long-term change into her business.

From kickoff to close, this'll probably take two months. A week for her team to take the assessment, two weeks for me to meet 1-1 with everyone and generate an insights report, two weeks to debrief Krysta and decide the focus for the workshop, and then a week or two to design and run the workshop.

And she'll get this all at no cost to her business.

If you're a business that pays MA state taxes, you can watch Krysta fill out the application live and see how easy it is to get these training dollars in 10 minutes. You can use those funds to work with me, with the Building PPL team, or take any of the other 3000+ approved training programs.

A TL;DR from the CRO

Let's take a Sunday drive and you can tell me how you're really feeling. Yabba dabba doo!

-Roman Noodles, Chief Ruff Officer

Q3 Approaches- Do You Know Where Your Offsite Is?

As Q2 leaves early for Summer Fridays, Q3 is staying late, getting into the grindset to make up for a sluggish first half of the year. As you and your team start planning out July-September, consider getting out of the cubicle or home office into a team offsite.

• Use our Offsite in a Box to plan a stronger second half of the year. Access that comprehensive guide here​
• Need to convince someone up the chain that an offsite is worth the time? Here's the deck and script to propose an offsite at your organization​
• Don't know what an offsite is? Here's a quick overview of an offsite and why teams should be doing it every quarter​

This week I'm doing a working vacation along the coast of Nova Scotia. Half work, half play, but one of my goal rewards was that if I achieved my major strategic objectives for the quarter, I'd be allowed to really enjoy this roadtrip through Canada. More like 25% work, 75% play.

Incentives work! I was able to complete several goals the last day before I left, so I am indulging myself in frivolous roadside attractions:

Leave life open for surprise frivolous mastodons,

Dan from Learn to Scale​

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​PS. FUNK OVERLOAD​