FiSH! Training Video

You know how you can sometimes forget to invite your own best friend to your birthday party because you feel like you must have done that already?

That's the best way I can think of to explain why it's taken me so long to write about FiSH!

Anyway, I like it. It meant a lot to me at the time I watched it, and I really do feel like the world could stand to hear its message again and again.

Spending day after day knee deep in training videos, I of course am going to hear about the FiSH! video repeatedly, ad nauseum. (Yes, it really is easy to be cynical, even about this soi-dissant "Antidote to Cynicism.") When you get right down to it, if my workplace did not already feel like Play and if I did not feel like Being (t)Here, I would not be here for long. Working where I do makes it easy to Choose My Attitude because working here is so awesome. I realize I am one of the lucky ones in the world to be blessed as I am.

However, these guys aren't so lucky. They're surrounded by the smell of fish and hounded constantly by customers-- tourists, no less (shudder)-- and for pete's sake... they live in SEATTLE where it rains all the time!

Yet they're happy. They love their jobs.

So if you need a training video that breathes new life into the way your team does their daily duty and simultaneously makes them realize they don't actually have it that bad after all, Catch the FiSH Video.

Village of 100 training video review

It should be made mandatory to watch "Village of 100" in order to be a citizen of the world. People get so wrapped up in their individual idea of what it means to be a human on this planet, that it is so easy to lose perspective of the true makeup of this world's population. I wish American politicians would watch this film.

As far as the practical applications for this as a training video, it is short and is only a presentation of neutral fact. Unlike most diversity films, "Village" makes its point without going into dramatics or bordering on the offensive. It removes the viewer from his/her comfort zone to greater appreciate our human diversity.

Bonus? It's really short and, therefore, relatively inexpensive!

Everyday Creativity training video review

When I finally watched "Everyday Creativity," I was already a big fan of Dewitt Jones' training video " Celebrate What's Right with the World." Dewitt Jones not only reminds me of my own wonderful father (who is, surprise!, also in the Training & Development industry), but also he has the most enviable job I can imagine-- a globe-trotting photographer for National Geographic. While "Celebrate" is a great program for motivating a better, sunnier overall attitude toward life in general, "Everyday Creativity" is about achieving that attitude through a better work-life balance. This is a HUGE focus in Human Resources right now, who have been forced in these latter years by increasing turnover and even workplace violence, to make employees' health and happiness a greater priority.

See also "For the Love of It."

Is Good Enough? training video review

Well, to answer the rhetorical question the title of this motivational training video poses, directly addressing my overall opinion of the training video itself... YES.

There's a good reason people in the Training and Development field are all abuzz about this new meeting opener release. "Is 'Good' Enough?" fills a need-- the need of any meeting opener-- to get the conversation started about what "good" looks like to a group. Sure, the statistics are a bit bleak, but it is understood very quickly that this program aims to get the group thinking positively about the impact each person in the training group has and the commitment it takes to make that impact count.

That point about positive impact is really driven home in the guided discussion the producers provide. What, you thought they were only going to send you a 4 minute video clip? Of course not. The curriculum provided motivates trainees at the very least to talk about what their "best" is and gets them thinking about how to get there. Quite honestly, when I was trained with "Is 'Good' Enough?", this discussion was my favorite part of the program. It is amazing what a few minutes of facts can fill an hour with highly productive discourse!

More Than a Gut Feeling training video review

Everyone who hires personnel is familiar with the buzz term "behavioral interviewing," but the HR recruiting crowd is divided evenly on the validity of the method, and the half that asserts the validity are further divided into those who do and do not put the method into practice."More That a Gut Feeling," an interviewing training video with versions most recently produced in 2000, shows how to do it... correctly. However, one realizes after watching it why the majority of recruiters either do not subscribe to the methodology or simply do not put it into practice.

Why? Because behavioral interviewing is difficult. It advocates uncomfortable silences and putting people on the spot. It certainly does not win you any friends when you have to ask an interviewee to answer a question... again... and, hey, do not beat around the bush this time... Difficult it may be, but behavioral interviewing will help you avoid the pitfalls of one bad hire or even a cycle of bad recruiting habits, both of which are timely and costly to repair.

"More Than a Gut Feeling" as a hiring training video title has become synonymous with behavioral interviewing processes, and for good reason. Its actors/characters are believable, and the script delivers the key points effectively with little-to-no clumsiness or "cheese."

The only critique I have for the actual video production is that it is not updated often enough. Sure, the fashion is a little (er...) plain, but now that I think about it, the workplace is not exactly a runway show (nor has "career wear" ever been encouraged as an art medium per se.) No, more particularly, this show has potential for whole worlds of versions in addition to the four they currently have-- sales, service/hospitality, office and manufacturing. This technique is so completely applicable to the skills-based hiring and interviewing necessary in industries currently experiencing the biggest employment gaps and turnover rates, such as Technology and Education.


See also: "Behavioral Interviewing."