Workplace Learning & Leadership Quotes

“the principal barriers to achieving greater application of learning and subsequent business results lie in the performance environment of the trainees, not in flaws (though there may be some) in the training programs and interventions themselves.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“I apply the materials, nobody says anything. If I don’t apply the materials, nobody says anything. That’s where I become apathetic. … There’s a dual message I hear: “You go to training, but we really don’t care.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“The trainer is there to create the exercises and to guide and encourage staff along the way, but the responsibility for learning is ultimately in the hands of the learner—where it should be. This self-directed approach to learning rather than training allows the learner to apply immediately what is learned in relation to the learner’s job or personal interests. This immediacy and this choice of how to apply what is being learned are what makes the learning stick.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“to your direct reports you are the most important leader in your organization. … The leaders who have the most influence on people are those who are the closest to them,” they write. “You have to challenge the myth that leadership is about position and power.”2”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“what is missing from so many learning opportunities: the personal involvement and support of key players and stakeholders, and a personal and organizational commitment to creating the sort of workplace where, when learners return from formal lessons, they are encouraged to implement what they have learned.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“moving past the idea that training is what happens while the student is with us and embrace a larger and far more positive belief that training is an ongoing process drawing from the creation of communities of learning.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“Too many times, a person comes back to their place of work and is never asked to discuss, demonstrate, implement … what learning took place in a session. If learning is not reinforced soon, much is quickly lost,”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“He who is doing the talking is doing the learning.” This is the essence of the Socratic method of facilitation. Our adult learners bring with them vast amounts of knowledge and experience. Letting them share their wisdom with the group is what makes adult learning such a rewarding experience for us.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“Elaine Biech, in Training for Dummies, writes that trainers should build interest in the session from the start. “Save the ground rules and the housekeeping details for later. Be creative with your opening. … Participants will want to know what’s in it for them: how what they learn will be useful to them personally or how it will make their jobs easier.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“the best workplace learning and performance leaders are always open to ideas for the next learning opportunity they need to oversee, and they work hard to avoid being hindered by obstacles.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“A basic question tends to be posed at every possible moment: what can be done to make the setting and the lesson engaging?”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“training needs to be part of the overall organization: “Training in a good organization should be work. It should be part of the expectation. [Otherwise] it’s stuck on the wall with chewing gum. Everything else you do and now you have to fit in training.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“the communities of learning she has joined: “The successful ones always seem to create diversity of opportunities—to offer different types of learning experiences as well as avenues for their members to create connections between one another and indicate their specializations. Successful learning communities are all about finding and sustaining a sense of shared effort and interest and also speaking usefully to an area of actual, practical need.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“Do your job well. Share your knowledge. Be an informal mentor. Be very visible in your organization for the right reasons. Stop and offer on-the-spot training whenever you can to whomever you can. Share your knowledge outside of your organization if opportunity arises. Attend local, regional, and national gatherings as often as you can. Share what you learn and how you learn with other people. Be nice to everyone.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“the strongest learning cultures exist in those organizations where directors not only support training but also participate alongside members of staff in learning opportunities. They understand what is being offered, understand that their presence encourages others to take training and learning seriously, and gain a perspective not available to those who are disengaged from what is happening within their organizations’ learning programs.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers

“we know we are in a first-rate organization where collaboration and workplace learning and performance are valued and of value.”
― Lori Reed, Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers