Are You Growing Skills?

Have you noticed it’s harder to find – and keep – technical workers? You should have. For the first time in decades, companies are finding it more difficult to find blue-collar workers than white-collar workers. They are scarce. If you have them, you should try to keep them AND improve their soft skills such as Problem Solving, Decision Making, Analytic Ability, Team Orientation, Effective Communication, Initiative, Accountability, and Ability to Work with Others. We can help you grow and develop your existing talent. And you’ll find that far easier and less expensive than finding new talent. Give us a call at 478-795-0095 or email glister@gaptraining.co today. You’ll be glad you did.

Telling Isn’t Training

We won’t waste your training dollars with boring, ineffective training. Our training is interactive, practical, interesting, and gets results. We understand why and how training fails. We know what makes training successful. Our classes and workshops deliver astonishing results. If you want trainers who understand how learners learn, why learners learn, and how to make sure learning sticks, give us a call. We break through learning barriers and deliver learner-centered training. The best training activities fill in knowledge gaps where the learner lacks. We’ll make sure your training dollars are well spent.

Does your training command woolly mammoth-level attention?

Humans have always had an enormous capacity for learning. It’s genetically coded into us. That’s the good news. It’s helped us survive and even thrive. The bad news for organizations is that we’re programmed to ignore some things. We eliminate the irrelevant. If a saber-toothed tiger was approaching our ancestors, that would command all their attention, not the pretty red flower nearby. You – and your employees – are hardwired to filter out perceptual irrelevancies. We work hard to make sure your training doesn’t fall into that category. Call us today; we deliver effective training.

You’re Wasting Money!

If you aren’t dealing effectively with problem employees, you’re wasting money – and time and energy and other finite resources. We can help. Our experiential education techniques mesh extraordinarily well with corporate training to produce outstanding results. It opens eyes, helps eliminate unacceptable behavior, and saves you money. Studies have shown there are real financial impacts to problem employees. If they leave, there are on-boarding costs and costs to train their replacement. If they stay, there’s often decreased productivity and demands upon leadership time to deal with the issues they create. Why not turn problem employees into successful employees? Give us a call at 478-795-0095 or email glister@gaptraining.co . You’ll be glad you did.

How Are Your Employees’ Soft Skills?

Employers are bemoaning the soft skills gap. If this is your current reality, we should talk. We’ve been developing and enhancing soft skills for years. Our unique approach using experiential education techniques and exercises. It produces outstanding results. Nothing builds soft skills and teamwork like struggling together to overcome physical and mental challenges. It works…we’ve seen it time and time again. Invest in a day’s training for your team. You’ll reap dividends long after.

We’ll work as hard as you do…we promise!

We know you pour everything you’ve got into your performance. We do the same for our training. That’s one of the things that sets us apart. That, plus we actually listen. Instead of selling you a canned program that we developed years ago and have sitting on the shelf, we find out what your needs are. And we work to satisfy them – just as hard as you do. Use us once and you’ll do it again.

What a story!


From the cotton fields of Dodge County, Georgia to university lecture halls and corporate boardrooms, our president has had quite a journey. He’s an awesome storyteller and he can help you tell yours. Professional storytelling is POWERFUL!

Your professional stories are unique, wonderful, powerful, and profound. Let them come out…learn to tell then effectively. You’ll be glad you did.

Seth Godin said, “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” It’s time for you to become a better storyteller and we can help. Give us a call today.

Our Training & Coaching Saved Joe’s Job…

…and his company the expense of replacing an experienced (but troublesome) employee who possessed crucial skills and knowledge.

A regional manufacturer requested we develop a customized training program for one of their plants. There was nothing unusual about that; it happens all the time. The list of desired topics, however, was a little strange – especially in aggregate.

For a group of team leaders and first-line supervisors, they wanted lessons in project management, critical thinking, problem solving, team building, and diversity appreciation – lots of diversity appreciation, and it should all be delivered in eight hours or less.

We advised that was too much to cover in eight hours, but the client was persistent. We work hard at meeting expectations, so we got to work.

The request had telltale signs of an employer trying to correct bad behavior. We watched for the problem child (or children) to no avail. The group was diverse in age, race, and gender. Everyone seemed relaxed, at ease, and worked well together on our physical and mental challenges designed to facilitate teamwork.

After a jam-packed day, we left puzzled because none of us could identify the “bad actor(s)” and we all had plenty of experience in ferreting them out.

Our feedback was overwhelmingly positive, both from the participants and the corporate client, so we assumed we’d accomplished their goals.

About three months later, the same client called for an EMERGENCY session for ONE client. It HAD to be conducted off-site, on a Saturday, and last all day. Finally! The problem child was soon to be revealed, along with the unspoken goal from the beginning.

At the appointed time and place, Joe appeared. He’d been part of the earlier group and hadn’t stood out in any material way. He was an older white male and most decidedly didn’t want to spend his day off with us.

No judgement here, just a description. Joe was a veteran (US Army), enjoyed Fox News, was an evangelical, and was as set in his ways as an old oak tree. He didn’t WANT to change and challenged us to make him.

Our team rose to the challenge and pulled out all the stops. We used lecture, discussion, role play, experiential activities – and nothing worked. Both student and instructors were getting increasingly frustrated as the day passed.

Joe continued to spout (perhaps for effect or challenge) hateful rhetoric and uttered forbidden phrases and comments best left for the sanctity of one’s own home. We were failing – miserably. This was new to us and we didn’t like it, so we got creative.

We took Joe to dinner at one of Macon, Georgia’s most popular soul food restaurants and forbade him from speaking to anyone but us. He was to only observe our interchange with staff and patrons. Our instructors showed what acceptable interactions looked like.

Afterwards, we debriefed in a cold, dark parking lot in downtown Macon and quizzed Joe. He passed, although the hour and the location may have lent a sense of urgency.

We closed with a word to the wise: “Today’s emergency session for just you cost your company more than the previous session for you and two dozen of your coworkers. Your company is obviously trying to salvage you, but they have obligations to their other employees. What do you think will happen if they don’t see a change?”

Joe thought for a minute and said, “I guess they’ll let me go. In fact, I’m sure of it. I can now see signs I’ve been missing.”

We all shook hands and parted after a long, hard day. I checked up on Joe about a year later. He was still with the company, so our mission was accomplished. 

MERGE: Gaining Cohesion in a Multigenerational Workforce

We’re excited to announce a new course – MERGE: Gaining Cohesion in a Multigenerational Workforce. While completely customizable, in its standard format it is 48 hours delivered over the course of several weeks. It can be used in onboarding, team building, leadership development, change management, policy deployment, and annual refreshers. Let’s talk today about how this course or one like it can be right for you.

When Experiential Education Saved the Fleet

The planes are all in the boneyard or museums now.  And the once bustling organization that managed the maintenance, repair, and operation of a fleet of giant cargo aircraft exists only in the memories of a few gray heads.  But it faced a crisis in its heyday and the C-141 Management Directorate became involved in experiential education quite by accident – and was surprised beyond all expectations. What follows is an account of how a military organization’s experiment with experiential education as a corporate training tool created dramatic change in the organization itself, in the workforce, and in the lives of individual employees.

The C-141 STARLIFTER was the backbone of the nation’s long-range military airlift capability since its introduction into service in 1962. It was the last of the nation’s “bargain” aircraft, despite the increasingly heavy maintenance and repair workload required to keep the aging workhorse viable. With an originally designed service life of 30,000 flying hours, modifications and repairs gave the fleet a new lease on life with continued service expected through 45,000 flying hours. The C-141 Management Directorate was an example of excellent stewardship of taxpayer dollars. Maintenance, modification, repair, and world-wide logistics support were accomplished at Robins AFB since the aircraft’s introduction into service. The STARLIFTER Team always met and exceed customer expectations. Innovative and unique repair techniques and procedures evolved to meet the aircraft’s changing mission needs and support requirements.

The team’s support of this aircraft was at a level unparalleled in either military or industry. Constant and effective communication between the depot, customers, designers, and supporting community ensured world-class maintenance and support to keep the C-141 one of the safest, most effective, most economical aircraft ever bought and used by our country. Examples of its performance ranged from world-wide military operations (Desert Shield / Desert Storm) to world-wide humanitarian efforts (Restore Hope). The value of this aircraft to the nation was far beyond its cost. Equally valuable to the nation was the dedicated, experienced workforce that took pride in maintaining the aging mainstay. Despite trends in industry that sometimes cause employment to be viewed purely as a business arrangement, the STARLIFTER Team represented a loyal, dedicated, and proud work force – in some cases second and third generation Robins Air Force Base employees.

Aging aircraft can be roughly compared to the more mechanically familiar aging automobile. As planes and cars get older and accumulate more miles (or flying hours), they become more difficult and more expensive to maintain. Heavy demand and usage, plus age, results in a formidable workload in maintaining these aircraft. After months of meeting every challenge with a “whatever it takes” attitude, work force burnout became a very real possibility. We began searching for a way to step back, regroup, refocus, and to become proactive again, instead of reactive. The fires were out, or smoldering rather than blazing, and we needed to again focus on our traditional strong points such as quality, productivity, planning, etc. We wanted to corporately shift from a fire-fighting mode to a more detailed, methodical, and process-conscious mode. We found it hard, however, to shift from a crisis mode. We chose a very natural and very common solution of conducting team building classes. But, we got lucky on the method of delivery.

We stumbled upon experiential education because we were searching for a way to make our training a fun, enjoyable, memorable experience, which would contribute to the shift back to a cohesive team. Using experiential education as a corporate training tool, we did all that and more. We developed an experiential education-based curriculum that helped the C-141 Management Directorate continually improve the performance of maintenance, repair, modification, and world-wide logistics support of the fleet of C-141 STARLIFTERS. As those familiar with experiential education know, experiential education dates back to World War II, when the Royal British Navy discovered, contrary to expectations, that survivors of enemy submarine attacks were older sailors. This discovery was puzzling, as the younger sailors were more fit, in better condition, and would be expected to survive in greater proportion than older sailors. To capture the mental toughness, grit, fortitude, and survival skills of the older sailors and transfer this knowledge to the younger sailors, the Outward Bound (a nautical term referring to ships departing from harbor) School was formed. This was one of the earliest recorded formal uses of experiential education.

In the Sixties and Seventies experiential education was used mostly in clinical settings to treat behavioral problems, juvenile offenders, chemical and alcohol dependencies, etc. Clinicians observed, however, that the groups being treated displayed behaviors that are desirable in the work place, such as improved ability to function as a cohesive group, increased diversity awareness and respect, greater creativity in problem solving, and better leadership and followship skills. These results, reported in medical and psychiatric journals, went largely unnoticed by the business world. With the focus on teams and teamwork of the eighties and industry’s increased usage of motivational speakers (many of whom had clinical backgrounds), the use of experiential education as a corporate training tool began to increase. It became widespread in use in such companies as Saturn, Exxon, IBM, AT&T, Digital Equipment Corporation, Du Pont, Schering-Plough, Canadian Tire, General Electric, and Westinghouse.

Our use of experiential education produced outstanding results. We found it got the employees involved in their training through active participation. It was fun, relevant, effective, and provided the employees with a memorable experience. It helped bridge the communication gaps in a very diverse workforce. The C-141 Management Directorate had approximately 1500 employees in nearly every skill or profession except for sales and medicine. We had secretaries, clerks, acquisition and procurement personnel, several disciplines of engineers (aeronautical, mechanical, electrical, systems, structural, and industrial), managers, executives, all disciplines of aircraft mechanics (electrical, hydraulic, sheet metal, aircraft, etc.), information systems professionals, accountants, item and material managers, facilities managers, operations research analysts, corporate trainers, equipment specialists, production managers, workload schedulers, and human resource personnel. All these different people, with different skills and jobs, sometimes found it difficult to talk with each other with a common language and an understanding attitude. Experiential Education helped. It did it with props and training aids such as giant beach balls, darts and blow guns, hula hoops, race cars, tennis balls, parachutes, blindfolds, eggs, green buttermilk, twenty-pound rocks, utility poles, ropes, kid’s play tunnels, water guns, cotton balls, hand lotion, pizza, and fun. If you didn’t hear the discussion and facilitation going on, it looked a lot like play. But make no mistake, it accomplished, in exemplary fashion, our training goals. Our training techniques invited and supported growth – individual, interpersonal, and organizational. Participants learned new skills, or improved and enhanced existing skills, in the areas of team building, conflict management, creative problem solving, leadership and followship, and gained both a greater appreciation for diversity and enhanced self-esteem. If you haven’t yet tried experiential education as a corporate training tool, you should. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Challenge

I ran a half marathon this weekend. It was my first in over six years. I’d let myself get fat and lazy, in no shape to run even a single step, and certainly not 13.1 miles. But I challenged myself to change.

As a leader, manager, coach, corporate trainer, and lifelong learner, I know the importance of challenging oneself. We can always improve and take our performance to the next level. I seek to improve a little bit every day.

What surprises me, however, is how much books on the bestseller list (both present and past) support this. I am sixty years old. Since July, I’ve lost sixty pounds, restarted my exercise regimen, and am no longer a pre-diabetic. I’ve found help and inspiration on my journey to better health with Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors by Timothy Ferris, Radical Candor by Kim Scott, Do Over and Start by Jon Acuff, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Made for Amazing by Mark Nation, and many more – my to-be-read stack is huge.

It’s good to challenge oneself, especially if the results are better health, more productivity or capability, increased knowledge or skills, or better job security or earning potential. The feelings that come from meeting challenges are priceless.

Have you challenged yourself lately?

Thank You!

I always enjoy graduations. They are special events. Prison graduations are even more special. They represent redemption, hope, deliverance, and rebuilding. They also represent a bargain for taxpayers. Most offenders come home. We all benefit when they come home equipped to reenter society, find a job, support their families, pay taxes, etc. I’m extremely proud of the work I’ve done to reinvent Career, Technical, and Post-Secondary education in Georgia’s prisons. The photo above is of me accepting a model forklift after speaking to graduates. We produced certificated graduates in Welding, Diesel Mechanics, Forklift Operation, and Carpentry.

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Equipping Manufacturing Leaders

In today’s tough environment, leaders need all the help they can get. Our customized leadership courses are industry-focused and have an immediate impact on productivity and effectiveness. We got rave reviews for this series of courses. We trained a hundred foremen, supervisors, managers, and team leads. Followup and company feedback shows our instruction provided new skills for these leaders, which they took back to the assembly line and put to work right away. We can do the same for your company.

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Equipping Construction Leaders

We were proud to partner with Oconee Fall Line Technical College and the Associated General Contractors of Georgia (AGCG) in a nationally recognized training program. It prepares individuals for leadership roles in the construction industry. We facilitated workshops on Risk Management and Problem Solving for members of the AGCG. They were a great group and we all enjoyed practicing and sharpening our problem solving skills.

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A Skills Gap?

I hear about the skills gap every day from clients. I experience it every day as a consumer of good and services. So, I know there is a skills gap – in every sector, every organization, and every company. But I decided to take a broader look. Google found over two million hits for a “skills gap” search. Interestingly, a significant portion declared there was no skills gap. I disagree, and I bet you do as well. If you’d like to resolve a skills gap in your organization, give us a call. We can help. Here are a few.

The MIT Technology Review posted an article calling the skills gap a myth – https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608707/the-myth-of-the-skills-gap/

Inc. poses the question “Is there a skills gap?” – https://www.inc.com/magazine/201404/cait-murphy/skills-gap-in-the-labor-force.html

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) also flatly declares it a myth – https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/1217/pages/the-skills-gap-is-a-myth.aspx

And there are others disputing a skills gap. I’d be interested in hearing your perspective. Please leave a comment to let us hear your opinion on the issue.

What’s Your Value Proposition?

Move your company forward by recognizing that it is a business; acknowledge that customers and owners are its primary constituencies; and understand that strategy, culture and vision are tools for delivering products to customers and returns to owners. Connections to community and service are fine values, but they’re also investments that generate returns in talent attraction and retention, and in corporate reputation.

Therefore, you should focus your leadership efforts on creating seven statements that provide guidelines to current operations and a path to the future:

  • Statement of purpose explaining why your company exists.
  • Statement of the company’s competitive advantage and core competencies.
  • Value Proposition for your customers.
  • Value Proposition for your leadership and/or owners.
  • Vision statement that frames the company’s future direction.
  • Values and ethics statement that defines the company’s culture, describes the organization as a place to work, and is directed at employees.
  • Strategy proposition, founded upon the value propositions, that ties together the vision of the future with sources of competitive advantage and the values of the workplace.

Each of these needs to be operationalized, measured, and reviewed regularly in the spirit of continuous improvement.

Well-crafted, widely disseminated statements of purpose, competitive advantage, and value propositions are helpful in reminding employees, customers and investors about the essence and purpose of an organization, and form the foundation of a business plan. In contrast, sloppy, generic statements generate apathy and cynicism at best, and active resistance and sabotage at worst.

Which will you choose?