More Budgets

I wrote alot last year about budgets (see here). Lately, we as a class were challenged about budgeting programs and projects. When I read the challenge question then read my colleagues responses, I thought to myself that "of course budgets need to be considered." The actual question was: Would you or would you not consider budget issues when conducting a needs assessment? Please explain.

That's the way I've been conditioned though. 

For years, as a contractor, we lived and died by our financial status of the company and operations divisions, and our budgets for each department. We would have weekly meetings to discuss over all budgets and finances and allow the data from those meetings to drive almost every decision we made. Needs assessments too were first and foremost considered in terms of budgetary demands and budget considerations.

Then some of my colleagues comments about seeing the entire landscape without limitations like budgetary demands resonated with me. 

One thing I've been taught over the years when thinking about training projects or programs is "what would you do, how would you design this if money was no object?" In general the answer you land on is the right answer, at least according to my contracting organization's ethos. After you've determined what the right course to take is, the next step is to find the budget for it, or to convince someone in charge of budgets to fund it. 

Contractor Bureaucracy

One of my colleagues asked me after reading my last post, if I felt that the budget-driven operations of my work as a contractor created a bureaucracy? Rather than rules or mechanized controls through a hierarchy the budget required the consistent machine-like response?

I would say that the method that the contracting group created through these processes they enforced was not bureaucratic at all. In fact I think it made the organization incredibly dynamic and nimble. It also made the projects and programs we led incredibly potent and powerful compared to our competitors equivalents. 

The world we were living in was incredibly cut-throat and usually budgets were a primary constraint, and truthfully, in the operations departments, they may have been far more limited in terms of their creativity and resources than I was. But I know that my bosses, and their bosses enjoyed the opportunity to think beyond budgets and look at what would be ideal rather than what would be cost effective.

So I suppose to circle back to your question, instead of more red-tape or bureaucracy this type of project development and future casting without being limited by budget, helped us become more powerful, dynamic and nimble in the long run. 

Korean War EQ

One of my favorite eras and actions to read about is the Korean War. A colleague of mine brought up a book about a military company commander going against orders to make the ethical decision reminded me of a book I recently finished, On Desperate Ground by Hampton Sides. In the book Sides writes about two aviators Jesse Brown and Thomas Hudner. Hudner as I recall deliberately crashed landed his plane on the side of a snowy mountain despite orders not to in an effort to help his wingman Jesse Brown who had been shot down. He later received the Medal of Honor for his actions. Throughout a book that tells of many valiant efforts, that one stuck with me the most for Hudner's devotion to his buddy. Wondering if you've read On Desperate Ground. If not, you should.

I too had a boss who was a true salesman, and it wasn't until I read this article by Goleman several years ago that I realized how finely tuned his emotional intelligence was. I look through the characteristics that make up someone with a high degree of emotional intelligence and this boss has them all. It was a little like looking behind the curtain and finding out that Oz wasn't so great and powerful, but it did help me begin to develop my own emotional intelligence. 

I liked the passage in the article that discusses an executive with little empathy. Goleman states "to enhance emotional intelligence, organizations must refocus their training to include the limbic system," which is the part of the brain that focuses on emotions and memory. "That not only takes much more time than conventional training programs, it also requires an individualized approach." More time. More individual attention. Both of these would be tough to sell to any organization's leadership in an era where training budgets are so tight and will probably be cut as companies re-org after the COVID-19 losses. 

How to Make Computer Training More Effective

A constant dilemma in my field. We have thousands of CBTs that are boring, non-descript, and uninspired. The trainees know it and put about as much effort into learning the material as was put in by the developer making it. Ergo, I've started working with our development team to make the CBTs more engaging. That being said, CBTs will never be as engaging as instructor-led courses provided by a truly engaging instructor. But just as you can have a bad instructor giving poor information in a rotten way, you can have CBTs that are fun, inspiring, and worthwhile.

I have come to realize that because of their scalability, ease of delivery, and the fact they can be developed relatively cheaply, CBTs are a necessary evil. I believe that we need a mixture of type, tone, tenor, and style to keep our learners engaged as well as tools that reinforce the training. Imagine a CBT that includes interactive moments where the trainee has to use his mouse and identify danger areas at a workplace and select the right option for why they are a danger, imagine as well that every few minutes he is asked to put on a VR headset and put into practice what he has learned in the CBT. Then imagine instead of a typical passive CBT where they "tell" the trainee what they should know, it's a series of quizzes and tests whereby the trainee learns by failing and relearning, somewhat like Duolingo. Finally, imagine that after the trainee leaves, maybe a day or two later, he gets a text that asks him quiz questions about what he learned in the CBT and he has to remember what he learned. I think when you combine all of these together you might have a CBT experience that is worthwhile and effective.



All of those require not just investment but will. The will to change from individual training modules to one that has guided blocks of training. My fear is that in this COVID 19 environment, organizations are going to further slash training budgets and rely on methods that are cheap, easy, and check a box. My goal is to have them check the box effectively, rather than just get it done.



I know when I develop my training I always use as a lodestone my time in the Army. The structure of moving from Basic to AIT to Airborne to RIP, then on from there is the same structure I try to use when I design training for our clients.

If You Don’t Have Less On Leadership Then You Have What?

So, here’s a bit more on leadership. One reason I didn’t get to write last week, as I mentioned the other day, is that I have been doing end of year stuff, budgets, wages, wage increases, bonuses, stuff like that. Well, I am also doing reviews, and a part of that is assessing my managers and leaders and trying to mentor them. 

One thing I love is the Ken Blanchard Situational Leadership Model. I’ve written about it before (see HERE and HERE for more). It changed my life as a manager and I hope it helps those I work with. 

I like it because it provides some concrete ways that leaders can address and affect positive changes in the troops or employees that we lead. I try to use it constantly for new managers, but what do you do when leaders and managers out grow that?

I am a Vice President now so I have more senior directors and senior mangers reporting to me. I have some with whom I do very little other than ask them, “What help do you need from me?” or “What can I do to help you?” They are that good and that senior. 

Then there are some others a bit less senior who need a tad bit of direction and I need a bit more information from. The one I’m thinking of is moving right on up and is almost at that next level I just mentioned above. 

Then there’s this one manager who is the newest of the bunch. She’s moving on up quick but she needs the most work and help, but in our last review I said, “hey, so I’m gonna start leaving you alone more now to do your own thing, and you just come to me when you need my help.”

She said the best thing that I could have hoped for. She said: “Yeah, doofus, we’ve basically been doing that for weeks! Keep up with this mentorship will ya!”              

Preparing and Managing Budgets in Program Planning

 As a part of my program planning class I had to provide a class presentation on one of the book's chapters (see here). The chapter I got was chapter 10 - budgeting and finance. Ugh. I'm the worlds worst person to ask about budgeting and finance, unless it's about personal finance, in which case I'm quite good. So that's what I focused on. 

I noticed something else, all the practice I've had in presentations is really paying off with my classes. I've done so many presentations that I can whip em out and make em worthwhile fairly easily. I got a 100% on this one, and truthfully, if you look at the samples I provided below, I really used way too much text. This is about 4 of my 15 slides. Mine are also heavy with animation so each slide is rich with depth. Others had 30 or 40 slides, mine just 15 but with more in each slide.

My style right now is very similar to a Steve Jobs Apple product launch presentation. Go check out one of those videos and you'll see that Jobs had no words on the screen, just images. This goes back to something I read about Mark Twain. apparently for his speeches he didn't' write things out so much as he drew illustrations to help remind himself what he wanted to say. 

I gave a presentation for work last month and was very concerned as I wanted for my turn because everyone before me had slide after slide of text, bullet lists, and numbers. Mine were nothing but images. My presentation went well, and afterward our meeting host, Paul, told me how impressed he was with my presentation. Cami said the same. 

Goes to show, have some faith. Enjoy and have confidence in your abilities. 

Funding Craft Training

My colleague in class works for a foundation that uses an endowment to continue to operate. She was comparing that to my last post on contracting and funding of projects. 

In regards to my own contracting story, I will say that in my case, I mentioned that I would present the idea as if budget was not an issue, then I would have to convince my bosses of the need for funds to make it a reality. 

In most cases, it was that discussion of funding where I would have to prove that it was either cost neutral, or had a positive impact on the overall health of the organization. 

One example I remember dealt with training and a craft skills training program (I've inserted a pic of that training above). To get that funded I had to track retention of our workers based on the fact/hope that by providing more training they would be less likely to leave. Employees staying around had a very positive impact on our recruiting and HR budgets. 

Regardless, having this open ended arrangement was nice especially when I think about having a limited budget that came from an endowment. Ours was a constantly moving target that was based on how well the organization did each quarter and the forecast for work in the coming quarter. 

Now, however I work in a less dynamic organization and is much closer to the one you describe in your post. I have to consider budgetary constraints in each of my projects and it would be less responsible to not keep them foremost in mind.