EDCI-528 Presenter #1: Chris Ross

Name of presenter: Chris Ross

Presenter Summary: Chris Ross owns The Engagement Effect, which is a multi-discipline training and consulting firm. He works with clients throughout North America to provide solutions for performance improvement. He has also been a performance consultant, trainer, lecturer, and presenter for more than 800 organizations. Chris has also presented more than a thousand training classes, workshops, and presentations for a variety of organizations. He has also earned several professional certifications and has authored numerous publications, including his own book “Consultant Business Development Guide: Starting and Succeeding with a SH&E Consulting Practice.”

My take-aways: I really found Chris’s information about Gilbert’s Behavior Engineering Model interesting. It seems so practical and easy to understand. I was particularly interested in hearing more about the 4 Motivational Switches: Do I understand what’s being asked of me? Can I do it? Will I be permitted? Do I feel like it? Sometimes I get so focused on the data components of the analysis, that the motivational factors are easy to overlook. These switches are things that are very relevant to everyone.

I also found his Key Conclusions to be really interesting. 

1. Lack of performance in the workplace is more often environmental/organizational factors rather than personal factors.
2. Nonetheless, we keep trying to fix the individual.
3. It’s cheaper and easier to fix the environment/organization than to try and fix the individual. His correlation to a marriage relationship was a really insightful way to illustrate this point. It seems true that most of the time organizations try to focus on individual employees rather than environmental barriers 

Personal reflections/impact: I found this presentation to be very insightful in understanding what HPT looks like in the real world. The visuals were easy to understanding and were engaging (for the most part). Since I tend to be a more visual learner, seeing some of this information organized in graphics helped me make some connections with the classroom information. Such as Chris’s graphic showing types of organizational barriers the “Performance World” section in Training Ain’t Performance wherein the author discusses environmental factors and how they can affect human performance in the organization (Stolovitch, H., pp.28-31).

Based on the information that I’ve learned in this course so far, and the presentation by Chris Ross, I feel that I would not like to work in an HPT role. It is heavily analytical and seems more data-driven than a role in the ID field would be. I find the information interesting, and useful for reference in my current ID position. However, it lacks the creative element that is associated with instructional design. Just based on my strengths and personality, I don’t feel it’s a good fit for me. 

Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2004). Training Ain't Performance. American Society for Training & Development.