Light and Fluffy to Saucy and Serious
The Douglas Coleman Show VE with Cheryl Johnson
===
Douglas Coleman: [00:00:00] Alright. Hi, Cheryl. How are you? Hi. Hi. Good. Good. Thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate it.
Cheyrl Johnson: Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate this opportunity.
Douglas Coleman: So what do you call yourself? What is your title of, uh?
Cheyrl Johnson: Well, um, when I first started off, I was just, you know, an instructional designer, which is what I do.
People understand that. But as I, um, throughout [00:01:00] my career, I've decided that I gave myself the title of a performance solution specialist because instructional designer lends people to believe that I write instructions, which is part of what I do, but I really like to build training. I like to build training programs that I think, um, or I hope anyway, to help people.
make a difference in the performance of people who actually complete the things that I've.
Douglas Coleman: Well, it's funny because when you first said instructional designer, what came to my head was fashion. Oh, okay. And the
Cheyrl Johnson: designer part, huh?
Douglas Coleman: Yeah. So I thought, Oh, she's teaching people how to, uh, how to make clothes.
I've had several people on the show who are Calling themselves, oh, various forms of that, Workplace, Leadership, Coaches, Training, [00:02:00] Improvement, all of this kind of thing. Is that what you're doing? I mean, are you going around to companies and, or companies are inviting you to come in to try to improve the quality of their facility and their employees?
Uh, come out of your seminars with a better attitude. Something like that.
Cheyrl Johnson: Um, I do a lot of contract work. I'm an independent consultant and, um, organizations, interestingly enough, I, I've been doing this for probably close to 30 years. Oh, wow. And when I, yeah, when I first started, uh, you know, I would, a lot of my work would come because I would find a job posting.
For, you know, an independent contractor. Being in the Northern Virginia area where I was for a long time, uh, the government had a lot of, um, independent contracting jobs and I would look at the [00:03:00] job posting and I would go, oh, wow, that. Sounds like it's perfect for me, you know, they have all these lofty goals about, you know, changing the dynamic of the people they were working with and making sure that people were really, um, taking advantage of the training that was going to be delivered and blah, blah, blah.
And so I'd go in there with my resume and they were really impressed with my resume and I thought, Oh, this is a good fit. This is great. This is wonderful. And then when I got there, more often than not, I would get. I sat down at a desk in front of a computer, and in my line of work, we have what are called authoring tools, which are just software programs that, in my opinion, if you think of PowerPoint, uh, they're glorified PowerPoint presentations, and I was tasked, probably 90 percent of the time, with doing that type of work, and I was really discouraged [00:04:00] because I was like, this isn't what I, this isn't Got in this business to do, um, and that's why I thus changed my title to a performance solution specialist, hoping to attract different types of, um, clients and working more in organizational development and, you know, changing the culture of an organization, that type of thing.
Douglas Coleman: So they had in mind for you to do a PowerPoint presentation and what did you really want to do? Did you want to work one on one with people in the company? Or a group, or how did you want to Run your show, so to speak.
Cheyrl Johnson: Um, I want to, I want to write training programs. That's, you know, was my initial, what's the word I'm looking for?
Aspiration. There's probably, I'm sure, a better word. Um, but anyway, I, that's what I thought I was going to do. And, uh, what I learned through reading these job [00:05:00] HR department went in there, found some generic, um, um, Job description for an instructional designer posted it and people didn't really know what they were looking for.
All they knew is that training had moved from the classroom, and this was even, you know, in the late 90s, early 2000s, online. People were moving training online. And so, of course, that was going to save them a whole bunch of money. People weren't going to have to travel, you know, and that kind of thing. And we weren't going to have to pull people out of their jobs for very long, you know, for two or three days to do a training.
Instead, we just have them sit at their desk and, you know, do this online learning kind of thing. And I was okay with the online learning, you know, thing. But, um, Michael Allen at the time was kind of a, [00:06:00] more than just a thought leader. He was definitely a leader in our industry. And, uh, this was before Adobe, there was, um, a software company called Macromedia.
And they had this software program that really created some interactive online learning experiences. And so I was real excited. I wanted to use this software. I wanted to create the kind of things that he did for his customers and that kind of thing. And, um, that just didn't end up being what it was. It was like, here's a subject matter expert, here's some content, take the words, put it on the screen, add some pretty little graphics, and we'll call it good.
So I was pretty discouraged. I mean, this went on for, I would say, the good first 10 to 15 years of my career.
Douglas Coleman: So that's, that's really what they expected you to do, you know. [00:07:00] Okay. So what are you doing now? That's different from that.
Cheyrl Johnson: Well, basically I got out, I got somewhat, I should say somewhat out of the, um, contracting side of things and decided I was going to create my own training.
And I actually put together a course, it's called creative by design that, Once again, this is all kind of interesting, is it's a course to teach instructional designers how to create better learning so they're not just create, especially online learning, they're not just creating PowerPoint presentations with information on it, but, you know, might have some interactions.
Douglas Coleman: So you've, you've gone from, excuse me for interrupting, but you've gone from doing instructions, to teaching people how to teach, basically.
Cheyrl Johnson: Yes.
Douglas Coleman: Yeah. Oh, that's good. I think that's very remarkable. Okay. Go on. I'm sorry. [00:08:00]
Cheyrl Johnson: Oh, no, that's okay. Um, and, you know, there's membership organizations in a lot of different industries, and we have some membership organizations in my industry, and we, I, I partnered with them to teach this class for a while, and then I, I, I got better at, when I would go into interviews, because I went, went back to contracting a little bit, but, um, when I would go into an interview, instead of allowing them to interview me, I got better at interviewing them and making sure that they were really wanting what I had to offer.
Douglas Coleman: Okay.
Cheyrl Johnson: So in the last couple, you know, four or five years probably, I've been able to do a little bit more along the lines of what I want to do.
Douglas Coleman: Let's touch on your book because we have about five minutes left in the interview and I want to get to, I want to get to your book. Your book is called Ambition, The Missing Attribute in Your [00:09:00] Employees.
I really love the title and I'm thinking in my head, a big corporation, uh, with lots of hundreds of employees. And people have various tasks and do various things. How do you convince somebody in a company like that, especially these days? It used to be, like back in the days of my father or my grandfather, they were pretty loyal to their employers.
And they would work there for 20 years, get the gold watch, get the pension, and move to Florida and get a little pension. Condo by the beach and that would be it that doesn't seem to happen so much anymore with people staying in one place for their Whole life people hop around a lot and the attitude that I've seen in big Corporations is that people just they're there for a paycheck [00:10:00] and nothing else.
They don't care really what they're doing There's no desire to be meticulous in their work, particularly they come in, do what's expected, go home, get their check. Is that, is that accurate, do you think?
Cheyrl Johnson: Yes, definitely. And I think that, you know, we can spend hours discussing why that is. Um, but really, it really, it really is the way it is.
Um, I think partly because, Employers are not loyal to their employees, and then thus, employees in turn aren't loyal to their employers. But I think part of it too is, especially nowadays, and I'm not exactly sure why, but, um, they don't start, I'll give you just a short example that I share in the book.
Employers don't start their employees off on the right foot for the most part, especially great big companies. Big organizations. Um, my daughter, she started working for a large insurance company and for the first week that she was [00:11:00] there, they sat her down at a computer that she couldn't access anything because they, they, for a week, she didn't even have her credentials to log in.
So for a week, she just sat there and read books. And then once she could get into the computer, you know, it was another couple weeks before she could actually do, you know, what her job entailed, and they didn't provide her with the good training that she needed to do her job. And so, She was, you know, she started off this job all excited, all, you know, starry eyed.
It was a good paying job. She planned on building a career there, but after a couple of weeks, she was just really discouraged. And, and then once she did get some of the training, you know, you've heard it said, and it is so true. People don't quit a job. They quit their boss. And if it's not their boss specifically, you know, they quit.
the organization's [00:12:00] culture kind of thing. She, she just didn't feel like she was going to ever go anywhere. And not that she wanted to climb the ladder, you know, super fast. That wasn't at all it, but it just became really apparent that they didn't have any, um, when there were opportunities for her to be a contributor and not just answer the phone, um, And she volunteered and was excited.
They just were like, no, we have other people who can do that. And no, they've been here a little bit longer than you. And, you know, that really squelches people, people's motivation. They don't want to work for a company where they don't feel like they are a valued and contributing member. And I, in, oh, All the jobs and I've had tons of them cause I'm a contractor.
Um, if I don't feel that my work is valued and if I don't feel like I'm making a contribution, I'm, I'm not, um, a millennial by any means. Um, but it doesn't [00:13:00] matter. I still want to feel valued. I still want to feel like. I'm making a contribution. And my book is really short, has lots of stories and examples of exactly that.
How can you make the people that work for you feel valued and like they're a contributing member?
Douglas Coleman: Can you give us one quick example of how somebody could do that?
Cheyrl Johnson: Um, interestingly enough, the ones that come to my mind quickly are my, from my own kids. Um, my youngest son, Actually went to work for my brother who, um, had this electrical, you know, he worked in this electrical for an electrical company, but he was, he was my son's boss.
And on Fridays, every Friday, they have a safety meeting at 7 a. m, you know, and these guys, They hire a lot of young kids as apprentices. My son happened to be one of them. And [00:14:00] these kids would come, they'd fall asleep, you know, they bought them donuts, that didn't work, you know, and they just didn't feel like, you know, the things that they were teaching them in these safety meetings was carrying over onto their job.
And I said, well, Why don't you just try, why don't you try this idea? And I said, why don't you have them teach, take turns, you know, teaching the um, safety lesson of the week or whatever. He's like, oh no, we can't have them do that, though, you know, they'll, they'll never be able to do that right, and I don't want them teaching things that are incorrect.
And I'm like, oh no, no, no, I didn't say just throw them up there. I said, you know, give them a week and say, next Friday is your turn, Let's work together this week on preparing what you're going to deliver. You're going to be sitting right there. So if they say anything incorrect, you can correct them. And what better way to learn?
The best way for people to learn is for them to teach something. And so if you give people the opportunity to share what they've learned and their knowledge and [00:15:00] whatever, um, they're much more. interested in learning and taking that learning and transferring it to the workplace. Um, it turned out it worked out pretty well.
Douglas Coleman: Yeah. And you know, it's a great idea. And also, uh, for many people having to do some sort of a presentation in front of other people is a better shot of adrenaline than five cups of coffee, because a lot of people get very nervous when they have to do something, but they're awake. You better believe that it will work.
And they
Cheyrl Johnson: want to, they want to know, they don't want to get up there and look like a fool. Right. So they're going to prepare. They're going to, you know, put forth some effort to really learn that information.
Douglas Coleman: And to look good and to make sure that the, you know, that they're doing a good presentation. Oh yeah, that'll wake them right up.
You said donuts didn't work, but that will.
Cheyrl Johnson: Yeah.
Douglas Coleman: Well, Cheryl, we got to wrap this up. Unfortunately, [00:16:00] we are out of time. Do you have a website that you want to give out?
Cheyrl Johnson: Um, the one I typically give out is Smart Learning for Business Success. And it's all just one big long word, um, smartbusinessforlearningsuccess.
com. And that kind of outlines my overall approach to learning and how I see Learning playing out in the workplace.
Douglas Coleman: Okay, great. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing and enlightening us This was an interesting [00:17:00] conversation
