An organization’s perspective: Torstar, a Canadian media company, has worked with Discovery Learning, Inc. to craft its baseline training program for high potential employees.
A manager’s perspective: Tivoli Systems found surviving rapid growth and producing strong teams to be possible using Paper Planes, Inc.
A participant’s perspective: Bob started the program believing this was just another simple exercise, but could not have been more wrong.
A consultant’s perspective: Keith Caver at DDI has found Discovery Learning’s products to be invaluable tools in his training arsenal.
A trainer’s perspective: Phyllis Powell saw a transformation in the attitudes of her learners after implementing an assessment from Discovery Learning, Inc.
At Discovery Learning, our client’s experience is what matters most to us. We strive to exceed expectations in all our client interactions. Though we can say more, we prefer to let our clients speak for our work below:
“An Organization’s Perspective”
Torstar, a Canadian media company, can’t produce the hundreds of books, newspapers, and magazines read by millions without the collaborative talents of its 6,000 employees, who work in four distinct business units and operate out of 15 different countries. Torstar’s publications include the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper, as well as the scores of women’s romantic fiction titles that are marketed annually under the well known Harlequin brand.
To ensure the quality of the company’s future leadership, Torstar has created a leadership development program that uses simulations to nurture top talent and create future leaders. The global leadership development program teaches a common set of leadership principles, encourages appropriate collaboration, and helps Torstar’s top talent create synergies that profit the organization as a whole.
With the success of the leadership development program for the top 100 executives, Torstar has crafted the baseline training program for the next tier of Torstar leaders. This group, made up of 500 leadership initiative group participants, has become known as the Discovery Group - named after Discovery Learning. Torstar partnered with DLI to create the second-tier program, which also uses simulations as its key training component.
The simulations used, Paper Planes® and PressTime,® are not only fun but provide a strong link to the business context, which links the theoretical to the practical in an observable way,” says Christopher Musselwhite, president of Discovery Learning. Like the leadership development group, the Discovery Group program incorporates a full complement of integrated simulations and assessments. Learnings include evaluation and development of better work processes, communications, strategic thinking, influencing, collaborating, and improved team performance.
According to Trish Hewitt, Torstar’s vice president of human resources for Harlequin, the program has helped unlock potential and uncover hidden talent. The simulation component has also made the program very popular. When asked to rate the success of their experience, participants in the Discovery Group consistently give a success rating of 6.7 out of a possible 7, giving Torstar the rare but welcome problem of having more people who want to participate than they can handle.
-Excerpts from Training + Development Journal
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“A Manager’s Perspective”
When several Tivoli department managers from around the world headed off to the factory, they weren’t exactly sure why. Brent Vance, Tivoli Systems' director of global employee communications and leader of this training experience, wanted it that way. "The less you know going in, the more knowledge you take out," Vance says. Vance wanted Tivoli managers to participate in an interdepartmental team-building exercise without preconceived notions and negative attitudes. Vance, his direct reports, and managers of various teams "reorganized" to run Paper Planes Inc.®, a business simulation created by Discovery Learning, a developer of leadership and organizational development products, in Greensboro, N.C.
Surviving rapid growth and producing strong teams were major factors for Vance in deciding to participate in the exercise. "We had enough growing pains to worry about. I didn't want office politics to become one of them," Vance says. Rapid growth means that employees and managers of different departments often haven't time or opportunity to bond. For Vance, the exercise helped break the ice among employees from six Tivoli offices around the world.
The exercise began with the arbitrary assignment of 13 positions. These "employees," who face conflicting departmental goals back in the real world, have 30 minutes to make the factory a success. They must manufacture and sell as many standard-specific planes as possible. In minutes, the simulation gets to the root of office politics - identifying hostilities and communication barriers.
“Paper Planes factory employees fail to meet goals and come to realize that putting personal or department interests ahead of interdepartmental or corporate goals doesn't work,” Vance says. "After the first phase people realized 'I can't fix this alone.' That triggered what I was hoping for, the need to confirm with each other, see how their individual pieces fit in the big picture." Something began to happen – teamwork!
-Excerpts for Training Magazine
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“A Participant’s Perspective”
Ten minutes into the presentation the trainer is acutely aware of Bob flagrantly reading the morning paper. Not only is Bob, a participant in a week long leadership development program, reading a fully opened newspaper, he is doing so while seated at the front of the classroom. While feeling annoyed, the presenter is not surprised by this behavior. Bob was identified as the program's problem child the first day and he has lived up to the early assessment for three days. The current program component is entitled "systems" and Bob's attitude towards "systems" is reflective of his attitude toward the entire program: "I am above this; I already know all of this". Fast forward three hours and find Bob in the hallway outside the classroom; jumping, laughing, shouting and encouraging his classmates as he enthusiastically flies paper airplanes. "I started the session believing this was just another simplistic exercise that couldn't teach me anything new. Boy was I wrong. This simulation really captures the essence of the toughest issues organizational leaders face an understanding of how seeing anything less than the big picture creates divisiveness, lowers commitment, and lessens quality."
Bob reported his greatest learning to be "the importance of everyone understanding the big picture". Other learnings from the simulation debrief included:
- Having a goal or vision
- Collaborative team work
- Communication is essential
- Structure gives rise to behavior
- Quality and whole systems
- Learning as continuous improvement
- Adaptive or innovative change
- Team participation requires process
-Excerpts from Excursions 2007
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“A Consultant’s Perspective”
“The Change Style Indicator® has been a valuable part of my consulting tool kit for several years. It is my instrument of choice when working with groups struggling with change. This tool not only offers excellent insight into how one’s preference for change impacts one’s approach to change, it also informs how that preference may be perceived by others and how differing styles can be of value. The CSI is a well-researched, easy-to-use assessment that is always enthusiastically received by participants, whether they be individual contributors or senior leaders.”
Keith Caver
Executive Consultant, DDI
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“A Trainer’s Perspective”
I learned about Change Style Indicator® from Dr. Lucy Marion, at the time, my department head at College of Nursing. Lucy had all of the graduate students in the program I was teaching in the Department of Public Health, Mental Health and Administrative nursing use this tool as part of our expectation of them becoming school nurse leaders.
The transformation in their attitude and the number of times these learners reference this tool over the 15weeks of their online course work amazed me. These learners mentioned the impact of knowing their preferred style to others and as a result of the demand; Lucy trained me to use the tool so that I could present it to other groups of prospective school nurse leaders.
-Phyllis Powell Pelt, MS, RN
“A Trainer’s Perspective”
I have worked with a variety of major training resource providers and I find Discovery Learning significantly more user friendly. Many of our training resource providers are so committed to protecting themselves from copyright abuse that they forget companies need easy access and reasonable costs for products. They have some of the finest materials available. Plus, the cost isn’t prohibitive, and access to everything is smooth.”
Jo-Ann Hague
Organizational Capabilities Coordinator
International Truck and Engine
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