The Chief Operating Officer (COO) asks the Chief Executive Officer (CEO): “What if we spend time and money training our employees and they leave the company?”

The CEO responds: “What if we don’t and they stay?”

Taking time and resources to train your personnel is often looked at as a necessary evil. Training employees takes them away from their day-to-day tasks and the cost will be reflected on the bottom line. Adding to the challenge of supporting training, is the uncertainty of the return-on-investment at both an individual and organizational productivity level.

As an executive who is considering training your team, the most important question you should ask is not: Should I train my team? but rather: What method of training should I use? Different training methods result in varying levels of content retention. Of course you want to ensure that your organization achieves the greatest value from training, so relevant content as well as deploying the use of experiential learning techniques should both be priorities.

As the image to the left illustrates, participatory learning, especially using simulation for practice, provides the highest level of retention for training, second only to “teaching others.”

What is simulation-based learning? It is an instructor-guided, interactive learning environment that replicates an actual business, technical, or educational challenge. It permits the learners to practice resolving issues in a relatively worry-free atmosphere. Not only is it authentic and relevant to the learners’ work, but it provides a safe environment to learn; mistakes won’t result in costly repercussions. It’s ideal to spur on innovation, too, because it allows for creative problem solving.

Simulation-based learning is the most effective technique for developing every professionals’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes, whilst protecting the organization from unnecessary risks. It is useful in resolving practical dilemmas, and provides four real-time benefits.

1. EXPERIENTIAL & REPETITIVE LEARNING. While in traditional lecture-based training, the desired outcome is merely explained; in simulation learning, individuals achieve an outcome from first-hand experience. Adults, like most people, learn better through experience. In the simulation, individuals have the opportunity for repetitive practice, which helps increases retention.


2. KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION. A key facet of any learning is that understanding is increased when it is linked to some already known piece of knowledge. Simulation-based learning, because of its participatory nature, has the added benefit of being able to psychologically link concepts and allow participants to link knowledge areas through their actions.


3. RISK-FREE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT. Regardless of our attitude, learning research validates that we learn by making mistakes. In fact, they are invaluable to the participant. If executive decision makers can participate in relevant and realistic simulations, they can safely make mistakes, learn from them, and promptly apply their learned knowledge to their real work challenges, avoiding costly mistakes or unintended consequences.


4. ABILITY TO ADJUST THE LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY. The technology provided in most simulation-based learning tools are designed to allow the difficulty level to increase as the competency of the individuals and teams improve. This provides additional flexibility and continual learning opportunities for a varied level of experienced personnel.

Simulation-based learning is the most effective learning technique for both your employees and your organization. Your training dollars are better invested with simulation training because of higher learning retention. Further, because your team will practice with relevant and practical scenarios, the potential for catastrophic mistakes is mitigated.

If you’re looking for a relevant, engaging interactive learning environment with simulation, call Merit and ask about our SimulTrain^® project management training experience. Contact Jim Wynne at jwynne@meritcd.com or call him at 610-225-0449.

Listening includes a lot more than just hearing words. Frequently, we need to interpret or infer a deeper or underlying message beyond the spoken word. We deploy many of our senses to detect non-verbal cues and assimilate our life experiences with the verbal message when we actively listen.

Usually, the objective of a conversation is to expand the listener’s knowledge, perspective or sensitivity to a topic that impacts behavior or beliefs. In the workplace, managing projects can implode due to poor communications. These can result in missing a critical deadline, budget overages, decreased sales, and in some cases, costly lawsuits.

The most effective communication takes place when both parties are actively listening. So what is “active listening” and how do we do this?

Your active listening is apparent to the other party through your audible or visible signals. This can include something as subtle as raising our eyebrows, leaning towards the speaker, or using certain gestures (like a thumbs up, high five, etc.) Tilting our heads when we listen, on the same angle as the speaker, generally reflects a subconscious agreement Uttering sounds like “uh huh” or “hmm” also tell the speaker that you’re paying attention. In America, making eye contact is considered a must in showing that you are listening, although this does vary in some cultures.

Of course asking good questions is one of the best ways to demonstrate that you are listening.
If you don’t have any questions (perhaps, because the message is crystal clear to you) then paraphrase the speaker’s message. You can preface your restated summary by saying something like: “Ok, now, if I understand what you’re telling me, you’d like to … (paraphrased summary of speaker’s objective).”

It is important to be authentic, too! In your effort to make it evident that you genuinely hear the speaker’s message, do not diminish your own persona or credibility. Be sure to phrase your introduction to your rephrased statement in a style that is consistent with the way you speak.

Why not find out if you’re as good a listener as you think you are? If you haven’t taken this insightful (and free) listening assessment yet, you can right now – or later when you have about 45 minutes and no distractions. When you’re ready, take the Active Listening Assessment here. Upon completion, you will receive an explanatory report along with tips and techniques that you can use to become a better active listener and communicator.

If you or your staff would benefit from mastering effective communications, improving active listening and learning “meaning-centered communication”, we can help. Please contact Jim Wynne at jwynne@meritcd.com or call him at 610-225-0449.


NOTE: PMPs^®: This assessment qualifies for one PDU^® and you will receive a certificate.

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PMP and PDU are registered trademarks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

One of the biggest challenges in risk management is risk identification. Humans are naturally optimistic; therefore, we do not like to recognize or discuss risks. We need to incorporate processes such as scenario planning and the pre-mortem technique into our forecasting practices. These techniques help us overcome our aversion to recognizing and discussing risks. Only after we have identified risks can we implement tactics to reduce their probability.

Merit is frequently asked to help businesses, federal agencies and membership organizations reduce or mitigate risk – regardless of their size and business type. Often their project teams collaborate and discuss methods for improving their risk status but have proven to be flawed. The most common flaw that sets them back is their goal to have all risk plans drive their risk probability and impact to zero, in which case it would not be a risk.

Standard risk responses include Avoidance, Mitigation, Transference, and Acceptance (passive/active). At Merit, we developed a reporting process that would show that the risk factors were decreasing as the project progressed. Supplemented with suitable risk responses, the true reduction of risk probability occurs over time.

The added value that we incorporated into the risk management process was two-fold. First, because of the desire to drive the risk to as low as possible, the use of multiple risk responses could be utilized. The second process improvement would be not only to subsequently reassess the risk, but also to re-evaluate the risk probability and impact matrix after the implementation of the risk response over time.

The Probability and Impact Matrix is one of the tools that we recommend in a risk management strategy. It is superimposed with risks that are labeled or numbered as in the above example. “Red” area risks were uniquely documented on a trending month-to-month basis such that it could be seen “driving” toward zero.

The implementation of a risk response would then “reclassify” the risk event for the next reporting period. However, the biggest impact on reducing risk is time. Time because we are progressively refining our process as our project develops, and because the physical window (amount of time available) for a risk event is reduced.

We invite you to learn about our modified process template so you too can incorporate it into your project plans. For more information, to learn other advanced risk monitoring, reporting, and controlling techniques or to schedule a risk management training customized for your team, contact Jim Wynne at jwynne@meritcd.com or by calling (610) 225-0449.

During my research on how to make better decisions I came across the pre-mortem in the writings of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. He notes in his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), that the pre-mortem technique is valuable in the decision-making process because it has two main advantages.

First, it overcomes “groupthink” that affects many teams once a decision appears to be made. When groupthink is in effect, the wisdom of a plan or decision is gradually suppressed and eventually come to be treated as evidence of disloyalty. The collective suppression of doubt contributes to the group’s overconfidence, which is often a tragic flaw.

Second, it unleashes the imagination of knowledgeable individuals in a much needed direction—the opposite direction of the decision. The principal advantage of the pre-mortem technique is that it legitimizes doubts and encourages everyone, even supporters of the decision, to search for possible threats not considered in the decision-making process. I immediately recognized it as an excellent technique for decision-making, risk management and general leadership.

Because this has proven to be of great value, I would like to share this excellent technique with you. The pre-mortem is easy to implement once the team reaches a decision or finalizes a course of action. Here’s what you need to do:

Step back and state the following: “Imagine that we are one year into the future. We implemented (the decision and plan) exactly as decided here today. The outcome was a total complete disaster. Take 5 to 10 minutes to write a brief history of that disaster.” If someone asks: “What do you mean by a total disaster?” Reply: “In any and every way imaginable it was a total failure.”

Then, explore all the possible reasons that the decision or plan failed. By taking this opposite approach to brainstorming the ideas, your team will likely realize that there are more points that need to be thought through before the plan is implemented.

Merit Career Development incorporates this technique into our leadership, strategic decision-making, risk management and project management classes and it is very well received. In one recent class the participants clutched the flip charts from the group discussion. I saw this and asked what were they going to do with them? I was told that they were going to present the findings to upper management; they had never participated in such a rewarding experience.

Merit can help guide your team through various tools and techniques to optimize your team’s knowledge, skills and ability with techniques and tools such as pre-mortem and many others. Please contact Jim Wynne at jwynne@meritcd.com or call him at 610-225-0449 to schedule training to learn this and other valuable decision-making techniques.

The concept of emotional intelligence, EQ, has been studied for over 30 years. Research shows that high EQ predicts success beyond an individual’s knowledge, skills and abilities. Emotionally intelligent leaders have significantly greater annual profit growth, increased customer satisfaction, and higher personnel retention. In management, the more senior the leader, the more the EQ matters. In sales and customer service capacities, the higher EQs correlate directly to success.

Studies show that lack of EQ may limit a person’s ability to achieve results. Lower EQ scores correlate with lower merit pay increases, lower job satisfaction and more burnout. Managers’ and supervisors’ EQ scores correlate with their performance ratings.

The definition of emotional intelligence has been the subject of ongoing debates; however, researchers all agree that it consists of two principal components. The first component; intrapersonal skills or self-awareness, is the ability to recognize one’s emotions as they occur, helping one gain self-control in potentially emotionally charged situations.

The second component, interpersonal skills or social awareness, is the ability to recognize others’ emotions. The ability to express empathy enables one to have more positive relationships and minimize unproductive conflict. EQ helps put people at ease, build and mend relationships, confront problem employees, and manage change.

It is important to note that emotional intelligence can be learned. Understanding and incorporating specific EQ skills, techniques, and behaviors can help improve both the intrapersonal and interpersonal skill sets. An intra-personal skill, self-monitoring, can help one can limit or minimize emotional hijacking. Let‘s look at this closer…

We all have specific words or phrases that are steeped in emotion. During the 1960s and 70s, the term “nuclear power” raised a great deal of emotion—both positive and negative. Similarly today we have emotionally charged words or phrases such as “gun control”, terrorism, and consumer privacy. It is important to recognize one’s own emotionally charged phrases and stop the emotional hijacking that is about to take place.

By recognizing our emotional responses when we hear a cue by self-monitoring, we can prevent emotional hijacking before it takes place. Stopping to recognize the emotional trigger is an important first step. Taking a deep breath, and/or silently counting to 10 can help us regain composure and react in a rational manner.

As for interpersonal skills, empathy helps us develop more positive relationships with others at work. Increasing our display of empathy enables us to connect with another person on an emotional level, thus allowing us to develop a meaningful, trusting relationship.

The question remains, however, how much emotional intelligence do you have—what is your baseline? Do you have an EQ deficiency, or are you well above average? There is only one way to know your EQ baseline and that is to take an assessment. Many exist on the Internet, some free others fee-based, however they may not stand up to statistical reliability and validity standards.

Would you like some guidance to improve your staff’s EQ? Merit offers half-day and full day workshops that help participants understand, identify their baseline, and strengthen their emotional intelligence. With exercises and interactive assessment tools, this workshop is engaging and life changing. For more information, please contact Jim Wynne at jwynne@meritcd.com or call him at 610-225-0449.

The Results are In!

On behalf of all of us at Merit Career Development, we’d like to thank everyone who participated in our 2^nd annual 3-Question Training Planning Survey last month. As promised, we are reporting on the results – which have, interestingly, shifted even from a year ago.

Hot Topics

Although project management professionals represented more than 60% of our invitation mailing, the topics in greatest demand for 2016 are Leadership, Team-Building, Communications, and Critical Thinking and Decision-Making. These ranged from 38% to 29%, while the overall category of Project Management (PM) dropped to 13% this year (from 45% last year.) In the PM arena, both years, “Identifying and Managing Project Risks” were in the top third ranking at 29%. See the Q1 chart above for details.

Delivery Methods

The preferred delivery methods have changed, as well. For the past few years, there was a growing interest in
web-based learning and self-paced, DIY courses. This year, on-site, full day courses have re-gained their
popularity, with 54.4% of respondents choosing this as their preferred delivery method. In 2014 on-site, full day courses were only requested by 34.2% of respondents. For more details, see the Q2 chart.

Choosing the Course and the Provider

The basis for choosing a course and provider were measured differently last year, but in both instances, the primary driver is the course topic and/or area that most needs development, followed by convenience of timing, and location. The program cost was lower in priority. See Q3 chart on the left for details.


If you are seeking to reduce your organization’s gaps in skills, improve cooperation and productivity through better communications and decision-making knowledge, or provide some morale-improving, team-building workshops, let’s talk. With a wide variety of courses, delivery techniques and a highly skilled training team, we will help you achieve your training goals for 2016 and beyond.

Contact Jim Wynne at 610-225-0449 or at jwynne@meritcd.com.

The start of a new year brings with it many changes, professionally as well as personally. Many of us choose to start the New Year by making goals and resolutions, whether resolving to stick to a budget, or picking up a new hobby. Mine? I’m in the majority of the population: lose weight. To help me achieve my resolution I’ve started an exercise program called CrossFit training.

What is CrossFit training? The CrossFit training program, as explained by its founder Greg Glassman, is a system of performing functional movements that are constantly varied at high intensity. CrossFit is a strength and conditioning program that optimizes physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains: Cardiovascular and Respiratory Endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy.

The CrossFit program was developed to enhance an individual’s competency at all physical tasks. Athletes are trained to perform at multiple, diverse, and randomized physical challenges. This type of fitness is demanded of military and police personnel, firefighters, and many sports requiring overall physical prowess.

CrossFit training benefits the body by training your individual muscles over time to work together to provide an overall greater level of personal fitness than can be achieved by only conditioning one set of muscles at a time. This got me thinking: are there other areas in my life where I can use this approach? How can I “crossfit” my skills to become better at my job? How can I crossfit new learning opportunities to become a more valuable employee?

How can CrossFit training the body carry over to crossfit training your mind? If we consider our skills, hobbies, and responsibilities in our careers as muscles, we can make the analogy that those skills are muscles needing exercise. Some muscles are used more than others; some are barely used at all. All too often in our jobs, there is a set way of doing things that is like performing a repetitive workout. However, the brain is a muscle that like all muscles must be exercised to be kept in peak condition.

Modern cognitive psychology has demonstrated that the brain is not a static entity. Rather, the brain is continually and constantly developing and pruning pathways across skillsets, linking new knowledge to existing knowledge, or destroying old pathways which aren’t utilized to make room for new synaptic links. You can take advantage of this process by crossfit training your brain with a new skill or area of knowledge, which is seemingly unrelated to your existing career or job responsibilities.

How can crossfit training your mind benefit you in your workplace? Cross-functional training has many benefits for organizations as well as employees. At an organizational level, cross training skillsets help safeguard the organization against widening skills gaps. Organizations that cross-train employees across a range of functions put themselves in a good position to prevent sudden shortfalls and manage surges in specific areas when there is a spike in demand. On an individual level, cross training enables employees to explore and assess alternative interests and abilities. It also enables managers to identify and nurture employees who show exceptional talent in a particular function. Cross-training yourself to learn new skills, can increase your employability and enable you to stay relevant.

A few examples …learning the components of Strategic Leadership as a Project Manager (PM) can help reduce the probability of failure by sharpening leadership skills that enable the PM to better understand, motivate and build consensus with other members of a project team. Or, learning to identify the role emotions and subconscious biases play in the decision making process can enable an individual to make more effective decisions. Learning Risk Management skills can enable a Human Resources manager to better anticipate potential problems and know how to create effective solutions before a problem arises.

In 2016, give consideration to learning things outside the scope of your role or responsibilities. Even if learning new skills may not seem directly related to your current work position, you will be increasing your value. Soon, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without these new skills.

If you are seeking to reduce your organization’s gaps in skills, improve cooperation and productivity through better communications and decision-making knowledge, or provide some morale-improving, team-building workshops, let’s talk. With a wide variety of courses, delivery techniques and a highly skilled training team, we will help you achieve your training goals for 2016 and beyond.

Contact Jim Wynne at 610-225-0449 or at jwynne@meritcd.com.

Most people know what they do. Some understand how they do it. Few people take the time to understand why they do what they do. (And no, the answer is not to make money!) As an organization committed to inspiring others to enrich their career, the team at Merit Career Development conducted a “Why” exercise at our annual planning session.

In order to better understand “why” we, the Merit team, we began by reviewing the TedTalk of Simon Sinek, on “Start With Why.” We then tasked each member of our team to consider three important questions:

1. Why do we do what we do?
2. How do we do what we do?
3. What do we do

The results were simultaneously surprising and unsurprising because we were all quite precise and remarkably similar in our expressed thoughts. We agreed...

Why do we work at Merit:

• Education changes the world
• Education empowers people to take control of their lives
• We are improving people's lives through education
• We can and do make a difference in people's lives through education

How we do our work

…by designing and delivering engaging and interactive courses that center around techniques that increase retention. Using proven research grounded in adult education theory, our courses are designed for people to experience the learning in a hands-on, practical, and engaging medium so they can immediately put the knowledge they learn into practice.

What we do:

With a very talented, highly educated team, we design and deliver relevant professional education and training using engaging and memorable techniques.

Merit Career Development hopes to have the opportunity to work with your organization in 2016. We believe that we can make a difference in your life and in your organization.

Enjoy the Simon Sinek TedTalk by clicking here: http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action

...And Better Decision-Making Will Follow

From emotions to the time of day, it is often the little things that impact our ability to make a swift and accurate decision. A range of factors can compound the challenges in making good choices, both directly and indirectly.

The framing effect is what happens when an individual applies a specific perception to a given scenario, which can have both positive and negative impacts on decision-making. For example, while an accountant will view an issue through his or her fiscally oriented frame, a lawyer would examine the same issue through a legal frame of reference.

While these frames can be effective when used in the appropriate scenario, the wrong frame in the wrong situation can negatively affect an individual’s perception and lead to poor decisions.

Studying the Brain's Frame

The ways that options are presented to us has an effect on the choices we make. Benedetto de Martino, M.D., a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London, sought to measure brain activity during the decision-making process and published his results in Science magazine. With 20 volunteers, Martino and his colleagues told participants – while positioned under the imaging equipment – that they had received a considerable amount of money, and assigned them one of two hypothetical scenarios: Keep a chunk of money or gamble, or lose a chunk of money or gamble.

The participants who were told that they could keep a portion of the funds or gamble were hesitant of the risk involved. On the other side, those who were informed that they would lose a bit of their money were less averse to risk. The individuals who were affected by framing had greater activity in the amygdala, a region of the brain associated with learning and emotions. Those immune to framing had increased activity in their orbital and medial prefrontal cortex, which, when impaired, can lead to behavior driven by impulse and feelings.

Martino’s study showed that emotions could play a significant role in decision-making when the information is incomplete or complex. When working on projects, employees need to examine issues outside of their context to eliminate the effects of framing.

Closing the Framing Gap

As demonstrated by Martino’s research, frames are a part of the brain’s structure and can be shaped by various influences, such as education, upbringing, socioeconomic status, friendships and family. Failure to recognize active and subconscious framing can negatively impact important decisions and ultimately, a company’s future.

Consider this classic example: About 250 years ago, Encyclopedia Britannica founded and became one of the top resources for information on practically any subject possible. However, as the rest of the world began transitioning to the Internet and digital media, the organization staunchly insisted on selling print versions of its materials. Encyclopedia Britannica’s frame was of print publications – it refused to broaden or look outside that frame, and it hurt the company. Once CDs and the Web became the go-to sources for educational tools, Encyclopedia Britannica disappeared from bookshelves and went into bankruptcy before finally re-emerging as an online resource. They published their first online encyclopedia in 1994 and in 2012 completely stopped producing print versions.

Playing Devil's Advocate

Subsequently, managers learned from Britannica’s mistakes. To improve the decision-making process in project management, they learned to analyze the frames of stakeholders and see how they apply to given scenarios.

Managers need to create a decision frame that benefits both the company and the overall objectives of the project. They could have stakeholders with disparate frames play devil’s advocate in order to identify their own frames and discover and analyze others. From there, project managers can choose the best frame and proceed with decision-making.

For more information on framing, biases and other factors that can impact the quality of decision-making, please contact Jim Wynne at jwynne@meritcd.com or by phone at 610-225-0449. Take a look at Merit’s course catalogue for related courses and other leadership and project management workshops, all accredited for PDUs, CEUs and CPEs.

Even the most carefully planned project can run into trouble. Unanticipated weather problems can disrupt the logistics of construction projects, a key software developer quits to take new jobs or an engineer underestimates the time needed to implement components of a production line. Whatever the issue, the challenge of finding a solution falls to the project manager (PM).

It’s a high-pressure situation. The sequence of tasks laid out in the project plan suddenly has holes in it. In essence, the rules of the game have changed though its original objectives remain. Now, the PM must sync up the effort’s priorities with an unanticipated reality. This can mean revisiting the original plan — or at least portions of it — with an eye toward redeploying resources and revamping task lists. All the while, the client expects you to meet the project’s original scope, schedule and budget.

Such situations can’t be addressed on the fly. Developing a plan of attack requires care and detailed communications with everyone involved in the effort.

Determine the Most Important Component. Is the most important driver scope, schedule, available resources or cost? If nothing else, taking a fresh look at this will confirm whether the assumptions you made in your original plan still hold. That’s important as you sketch out an approach to surmounting the new challenges you face. For example, if delivery date is the overriding concern, you may need to adjust the project’s scope or add resources. If budget’s the priority, trimming scope may be your best option. Whatever the situation, the project’s overarching goals are obvious and critical considerations.

Develop a Matrix. Create a grid for the project’s key features and determine whether each is required, important or nice to have. (More articles on creating matrixes here. *See end of this article for sample matrix.) This will help you do two things: First, get a sense of what’s realistic in terms of time, cost and scope given the challenges you have and, perhaps more important, give you a starting point for discussions with your stakeholders and team.

Consult the Project Team. It’s essential to view that matrix as a working document. While you’re compiling it, talk to the project team to get its take on what’s required to complete each feature given the new circumstances. Their input will help you present an accurate picture to stakeholders of the project’s true status and their options going forward.

Talk to the Stakeholders. With a clear picture of the project’s technical needs, you’ll be able to provide stakeholders with an accurate view of the scenarios available to them. For instance, if the launch date is critical, you can show exactly how additional resources can maintain scope while meeting the original schedule. Again, though, make it clear that you’re gathering information and presenting options. As you did when creating the original project plan, your goal is to develop a consensus around your solutions.

Document Everything. Clear communication is always a vital part of project management, but it’s especially important when things are in flux. Be sure everyone involved understands the concerns of others and has their own interests addressed. Once you’ve settled on a course of action, get necessary approvals promptly on paper or by email.

When unforeseen events disrupt your plan, it’s important to take a step back. Evaluate the circumstances carefully and work with the project team and stakeholders to set the priorities necessary to keeping the project on-track.

Merit Career Development can help you develop the skills to respond to real world project management challenges. In fact, many mentioned in the first paragraph of this article are likely to take place in our simulation tool, SimulTrain®. This tool creates an engaging training experience using state-of-the-art computer-based technology. Our PM training programs include key project management topics like risk management, scheduling, managing scope and cost, and leadership skills including negotiation, improved decision-making, and conflict management. For more information, please contact Jim Wynne at jwynne@meritcd.com.

Sample Matrix to Help Prioritize PM Elements