The Curmudgeonly Trainer

Time for an update on the TRDEV forum (training and development) currently hosted at yahoogroups. First, the number and quality of posts continues to fall from previous years. Attempts (feeble and somewhat pathetic, but at least well meaning) by Owner/Moderator Bev Ferrell to stimulate discussion continue to fail badly, so what remains is the occasional discussions that involve essentially FOUR people out of 4,000+ members - Mr. Woodward, Ms. Ferrell, Mr. Howe, and on occasion Don Clark, who has been absent lately.

More reports are coming out about heavy handed actions by the owner/moderators to control the content, which clearly, has discouraged people from contributing. Censorship appears to have increased. Fred Nickols, a well respected long time member of the training and consulting community posted elsewhere about his posts being censored for posting a LINK, and that, even after what must be 5-10 years of participation the trdev folks mistrust him enough to moderate his posts (ie. censor and control).

The truth is that if the TRDEV folks don’t trust Fred, they won’t trust anyone.

Several other long time respected members have become fed up with the moderators and have decided to leave. Due to the censorship issues, of course, there’s no means for dissatisfied members to voice their dissatisfaction without being censored or being banned. It’s clear to long time members that the most active contributors have almost completely stopped posting.

Clearly, the paranoia about “protecting” community members has gone way over the edge. So, owner/moderators, save the forum for the trainers out there and RESIGN. Particularly Bev Ferrell. For the good of the resource, RESIGN. You’ve had issues elsewhere (on ITFORUM) about being controlling. Give us back OUR community.

There’s more. Another user reports that he was summarily banned from the trdev forum without explanation (even upon asking).

But here’s the kicker: A NEW TRDEV POLICY

Here’s how it goes: (taken from the trdev forum for commentary purposes)

While we appreciate notices of papers and info, the guidelines clearly
state:

We expect list members to refrain from posting links to papers in
messages to the list. This is especially true when the white paper
contains an advertisement for your site and/or services. This also
includes sending members to your site or blog that has commercial
intent with respect to the members. This falls under the commercial
clauses in our guidelines

Read this carefully. If you have a paper or article that YOU have written you are now forbidden to mention it or include a link to it in the trdev messages. if, however, you come across material written by someone else of high quality that you wish to share with other trainers, you may not reference it, post links to it, or anything else, particular if it is “commercial”.

Basically, what this means is that any links besides those from non-profits or governments are not permitted.

Now it may be that this isn’t what they intend. If, however they intend to stop virtually all linking in messages posted to trdev, they’ve lost their minds, and have completely lost an understanding of the Internet, the Web, and linking. In fact, if we can’t share great material, what IS the point?

And if they don’t intend this, or haven’t thought it through, one has to ask: “Are trainers/consultants who are running this show so absolutely stupid and ignorant that they are blind to what they have said?”

So, what’s the alternative? I’ve just joined the ASTD forums. I’ll post something on that soon.

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The recent exchange with Gary Lear about reliability and validity really highlights one of the major problems with these instruments and their usage. THIS IS IN NO WAY MEANT TO COMMENT ON GARY, BUT ON THE GENERAL SITUATION.

Even the companies that train and certify people to administer these tests are turning out people with a very poor grasp or understanding of the research, the theories IN CONTEXT, or the statistical aspects of the tests. This may not be an issue for some.

I don’t believe you can take a short certification course, and understand statistics, and clearly there are some that can’t make a distinction between reliability, validity (and all the different kinds). That’s not a fault of theirs so much as the impossibility of properly educating lay people in these things in a short time.

I don’t believe that people who know or understand ONE model of personality or one model of styles are in a position to place the instrument in a historical context. (After all there are hundreds of different style models, most of which the supposed test administrator have never heard of).

I think we need to look at the kinds of claims made and realize several things. Testing is a HUGE industry, and testing companies are in the business of making money. It’s not that they lie, but they have constraints on what they do, and are not a good source of unbiased information about tests.

Secondly, the fact one is certified in the DISC or the MBTI means very little in terms of a person’s grasp of testing, validities, reliabilities and testing principles UNLESS they have a further background in much more theory than the companies provide.

I would be far more supportive of these instruments if, as part of the training process, certified administrators learned how much they DO NOT KNOW about the fields of testing, psychology, and so forth.

Until that happens I will continue to critique their use.

Ok, I guess it’s time to really wrap this up, this MBTI question. I realize that there are those that believe and those that don’t. I have to offer the observation that this is like discussing religion or politics. No amount of facts, research is going to change the minds of those that hold the particular belief. That’s not much of a problemfor religion and politics, but the justification of the use of scientific or purported scientific instruments lies with the facts and the data. If people don’t understand the data, they don’t understand the
instrument.

What is interesting is not that people differ in opinion but the actual reactions when people are faced with facts or information that could cause them to rethink their positions. With the topic of MBTI, it gets real interesting, because for those that believe strongly, the response is to deny the facts, ignore them, pretend they aren’t there, and respond (if at all) with personal attacks, or strange messages.

I’ve received both positive and negative messages on the topic, but none are more amusing than the approach of one list member, who enjoys sending “nastygrams’ in private e-mail. It’s no big deal but I think it is enlightening and relevant to the mindset of “believers”.
Here are three examples, all from the same person (on this list), all within 24 hours, that illustrates the odd responses. (name removed to protect the…well…).

#1

Oh dear Robert. Still trying to prove a point. Do you realise the brain is programmed to find what it is looking for? You dislike personality typing. I understand that. Why not accept the differences? Have you been hard done by through the use of profiling by some chance?

#2

Dear Robert

I see you still have a listening problem and so many are trying to get through to you. Sad.

#3

Dear Robert

I see you are digging an even deeper hole.

Lots of love

These responses typify the common reactions when this topic comes up. It’s almost like someone has dissed their mamas.

The question is: Do these reactions (and a few of the public ones on the list), MEAN something? Do they make the point that the instrument is often used (and abused) by people who can’t make more factual comments? Is there something about these “tools” that makes this subject particularly sensitive?

(PS. The poster of these examples often reacts like this…I have an entire collection of his wisdom, which rarely goes beyond this level…go figure).

Got a comment on this? Leave it below.

Below is part of a discussion on MBTI, learning instruments, assessments and so on.

Someone wrote:

> I’m not sure what was “proved” or “disproved” here other than a personal
> disapproval of learning instruments. It seems that a debate over the
> meaning of the terms “validity” and “reliability” was suddenly turned into
> a conclusion that instruments have little value. Regardless of the
> statistical arguments….don’t forget to consider reality — the real
> world.
>
> Here are few statistics to consider…
>
> Carlson Learning Company, a leader in the “learning instrument” industry
> reports over 30 million people worldwide using their tools. Is this “bad
> data”.

There are far more people who believe astrology has something to contribute to their lives. Does that mean we should use astrological signs to foster self-awareness?

Here is a list of companies who use and continue to use Carlson’s
> instruments in helping them achieve their business results… is this “bad
> logic” or “bad statistics”….go figure….or, perhaps the world is crazy
> on this one.

Actually, I can explain the wide-spread use, and it has nothing to do with whether the things measure what they purport to. They are perceived as useful for a number of reasons. 1) they have a purported scientific underpinning (astrology doesnt”); 2) the marketing investment is huge (not the case with astrology). 3) they
appeal to a strange western desire to find out about oneself from the outside in. That’s a few of the reasons…there are more.

As to useful…well, as I’ve said, many people on this list could make up something as “useful” that would mean nothing. Heck, it goes on in the popular magazines all the time, I understand — you know…those cute little tests about dating, etc.

…and of course at one time most people thought the world was flat, and that was “useful” and self-evident to them also (up to a point). That didn’t make it right or accurate.

In any event, people do what they do. If people want to spend money on this stuff, that’s fine with me. If trainers want to use them, that’s a little less fine, because most of them don’t understand the limitations, but go back to the “heeyyy…it’s “useful”.

…but the money, the desire to believe in something, etc has made this the astrological sign of the 90’s and 2000’s. A quick guide to knowing thyself, without the muss and fuss.

Another oft quoted set of statistics often stated by trainers has to do with differing retention rates for different learning activities. Here’s a message on trainer posted, and my response.

Rita wrote:

> Thank you all for your feedback on training retention rate statistics. My
> apologies for this long message.
>
> I have the information now, although slightly backhandedly… what a
> fascinating excercise this has been, and I thank everyone who sent me
> clues to information.
>
> It turns out that Hermann Ebbinghaus, a 19th century German
> psychologist, discovered that people forget almost all of what they
> learn in a class within thirty days, and hundreds of studies have
> confirmed the “Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve” since his work was
> originally published.  It’s a landmark theory describing not only how
> quickly people forget things following learning, but that overexposure to
> a lot of information can make things worse. The theory and Ebbinghaus’
> methodology are still taught in most university Psych programs today.

Rita, I’m sorry, but this is a misinterpretation of the data. Ebbinghaus worked on retention and the MEANINGFULNESS of what was learned, using a range of stimuli (word ranging from close to regular English, to random sets of three letters).

It has virtually NO application to the learning of meaningful data in training. Its only focus was on verbal learning of three letter “words”.

If I’m mistaken and he did work on retention of real world information and skills, please point me to the references.

The point I was trying to make is that even in situations where self-directed teams are desired, leadership MUST exist somewhere in the organization to make them work.

Think of it like a garden. For my garden to flourish in a way that pleases me, I can’t simply let it do what it likes, in the guise of abdicating leadership, no matter how I change my label, or envision my role.

I can call myself “garden servant” but the flowers, and the weeds, don’t care. There is a garden reality that requires me to lead that garden so that it doesn’t become over-run by weeds. The responsibility can NOT BE ABDICATED, or everyone loses.
The same thing applies to teaching in classrooms, by the way. I’ve seen situations where, in continuing ed. classes, the professors were so adamant in their refusal to take any leadership responsibility, under the guise of some philisophical BS, that they relied on the students to “teach each other”.

Sadly, the outcome (and I have a particular instance in mind), was that almost no learning occurred over a complete year, and the students were almost universally disappointed, and in fact angry. Many simply stopped attending, realizing there was nothing there for them in terms of learning, and just did what they needed to do to get their credit.

Three choices: leaders lead. Leaders refuse to lead, and chaos, resentment and failure result, or leaders who do not want to lead step aside, hopefully to be replaced by someone who wants to lead.

BTW, effective leadership, IMHO, results in LESS need to manage and micromanage.

(Part of a conversation of emotional abuse, at home and at work, and why people stay…

Chris, these are obviously sensitive topics, so I’m going to comment (and also disagree with you on something), and I’m trying to do it without causing emotional or intellectual offense.

I’d appreciate it if people read my WHOLE message before replying.

I should tell you that I’ve been working in the area of verbal abuse (and potential physical abuse) in workplaces for some 15 years.

On 18 Aug 2006 at 1:44, Chris Kloth wrote:

> What I am most struck by is profound lack of empathy in these posts.  As
> we make glib connections between how people stay trapped in violent
> relationships (and staying in bad jobs) and change management (which I
> have at times been known to do), I hope that we also take note of the
> physical and emotional pain that victims/survivors experience and that
> we avoid implicitly blaming the victim or, worse, making the victim
> invisible by limiting our language to intellectual or academic concepts.

I’ve been around victims/surviviors for many years, and been around, and I’ve even debated online Patricia Evans around the time her first book came out.

The issue I have is that often in the process of concern over not blaming the victim, many people, authors and professionals do a huge dis-service to targets of abuse, because by removing all responsibility for change from the victim, one also DISEMPOWERS the victim. When empathy for pain stands in for empowering people to remove the pain (to the extent that is possible) we have tragic lose.

Personally I think that Patricia Evans, and the phobia about blaming victims is one of the biggest tragic positions taken in the field (as opposed to say, the works of Suzette Haden-Elgin) In the process of EMPOWERING people (in groups, individually) you HAVE to focus on the issue of who controls what, and who is ultimately responsible for the present and the future.

And, ultimately, it may be that people must grow to understand that often they ARE contributors to their own situations (not blameable, just contributors). Understanding that one is both a contributor, and that one can change one’s contributions is a HUGE mental step that opens the door for empowerment, and helping people find the wherewithal to remove themselves from toxic situations.

You simply can’t move people out of victimhood unless they understand that regardless of the past, it is THEY and ONLY they that can change their futures.

That process often sounds like “blaming the victim”, when it is simply recognizing some simple dynamics of life.

> I hope when people talk with their clients about how these perspectives
> might help understand how people react to change in organizations that
> they also consider the possibility that their reactions to change at
> work may be intertwined with or exacerbated by other sources of real
> pain in their lives.

I doubt anyone could disagree with this. Except for one practicality in working with such people, and that is that one’s mandate and expertise is likely NOT going to be one of offering therapy, or real help that addresses the “other sources of pain”. I’ve been in some of these kinds of situations (inadvertently), and even though I do have some therapeutic education, it was clear I had to refer.

But for those who think that
> politics and social justice are not the stuff of OD, a growing number of
> employers are recognizing the impact of family and intimate partner
> violence, as well as sexual assault, on the workplace and in the workplace.

Certainly so. I’ve worked with many companies in related areas, and have talked about the very real concerns companies are having about workplace violence that is related to family/intimate partner issues.

Sadly, they are having to look at it because it’s jumping up loudly in front of them.

I have one other comment which bridges a bit between the issues of blame, responsibility, accountability and empowerment generally.

We really have moved into an era of absolution of blame and responsibility for one’s own life, while pointing and blaming at others, companies, politics, the world.

The reality is that in relationships, work situations, etc, where there is a problem, I doubt I have EVER seen a situation where both people have NOT contributed to that problem (however unevenly).

However, the barrier to extracting oneself, or mitigating the effects is that by saying “I didn’t do nuttin to cause this”, the corrolary is “there’s nothing I can do to fix this for myself”.

We need to lose the issue of blame ALTOGETHER, and look to empowerment which is based not on some bogus ideology to protect a victim, but empowerment that recognizes the power of choice — both
in contributing to a situation where a person may fall victim, and creating a solution for oneself.

Unfortunately, I believe we’ve gone backwards, since I’ve been in the field.

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