Describes the successful quality circle program at Mercury Marine, a leading outboard motor manufacturer. Discusses reasons for quality circle failure in American industries and suggests ways to achieve success. (JOW)

Discusses the relationship between training effectiveness and one's reputation for being/for doing. Lists values important in achieving a long-term reputation for effectiveness and actions that will help build a reputation of which one can be proud. (JOW)

Results of a survey of 11,280 employees in seven Toledo, Ohio, organizations showed that a greater share of the work force participates when career development activities are part of a formal career development system. (SK)

Discusses the importance of avoiding training programs that look great on paper but do not work well in actual practice. Advocates focusing on the people and not the program or training technology. (JOW)

Discusses the benefits of combining a quality circles program with a work simplification program. Points out that both require participative management and that their combination can improve the effectiveness of quality circles. (JOW)

A survey of 83 quality circle members determined that there was no single variable that consistently emerged as the most important contributor to the effectiveness of quality circles. Member training did appear to be stronger than the other variables. (JOW)

A training program for members of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce Training Advisory Committee, which is 80 percent small business, incorporated the following features: (1) four hours in the morning; (2) Friday morning programs; (3) $35 per program; (4) series; and (5) low fees to trainers. (JOW)

Individual change is the key to organizational change. A seven-step model of individual change--awareness, understanding, belief, effort, reward, feedback, and system accommodation--provides a structure for the design and content of training programs that will ensure transfer of learning to the workplace. (SK)

Four major considerations must be taken into account when planning a training program: content, external constraints, skills and preferences of faculty, and learning styles of participants. Understanding differences in learning styles can significantly affect the outcome of training. (JOW)

Details a training program designed by the Zale Corporation to develop professional store management staff. Includes the specific goals, methodology, description, and results of the program, which has become an integral part of the Zale Corporation and a contributor to the success of the company. (JOW)

Clarifies three basic causes of the success of human resource development functions from an internal marketing perspective. They are functions actively rendering services in the right "client segments" of their organization; functions doing a few important tasks well; and doing those right things consistently. (CT)

A new evaluation technique developed by the Life Office Management Association (LOMA) has developed an evaluation form for measuring and improving training effectiveness. (BP)

Examines the effectiveness of wilderness labs as a medium for developing management skills. Wilderness labs involve taking managers out of the corporate comfort zone into the outdoors to confront physical challenges. (JOW)

A program to train bank operations supervisors to conduct quarterly informal performance appraisals involved three modes: content-only training, content-plus-procedure training, and no training. While content-plus-procedure was predictably the most satisfactory, content-only, because it lacked a practice component, was less effective than no…

The author believes that the position inventory type of description of management requirements does a disservice to a proper evaluation of management development as it judges the subject as a personality rather than as a manager. (EK)