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Philosophy &
Approach
Sterling Institute's programs are
distinctive in the philosophy and approach taken in designing them. Four
dimensions of that approach are most important:
-
Diagnostic
Design. Sterling Institute programs use a diagnostic learning
design, emphasizing self-discovery rather than prescriptive lecture.
In effect, the essence of Sterling Institute's diagnostic design and
use of the case method is that "wisdom cannot be
told." For the learning process to be effective, it calls
for self-discovery to take place within the learner. Unless these
discoveries take place, it is unlikely that participants will be
motivated to change their styles and practices or to acquire the
knowledge, skills and experience they need to improve performance. Our
programs help participants change by looking at themselves objectively
and identifying specific opportunities to increase their effectiveness
on the job. The assessment exercises we use in our programs help
create the vital psychological commitment to change, and encourage
participants to take responsibility for their own performance and
development.
Sterling Institute has been a pioneer in developing assessment
instruments and in integrating them with curriculum and course
designs. For example, more than 75 organizations have used our Management
Practices Survey as a primary instrument to shape curriculum
design and course development, as well as provide individual feedback
to managers from their employees. Our Leadership Practices Survey
is used in most of our Executive Development programs to provide
feedback to participants on their leadership practices, and our Associate
Practices Survey is particularly popular for front-line employees
and to gain customer feedback.
- Relevant Content. Many Sterling
Institute programs include relevant and practical video case studies
from governmental agencies which depict the critical issues, problems,
constraints and trade-offs that government employees face.
Participants are challenged to identify the most effective practices
for the situations presented, are provided with models and guidelines
to assist them in analyzing these situations, and then transfer the
insights they gain to their own work environment by completing various
types of application and assessment exercises. Management practices
taught in the programs are rooted in the award-winning Harvard
Business Review article "Pygmalion in Management,"
and the "The Myth of the Well-Educated Manager,"
written by the founder of our company, Dr. J. Sterling Livingston.
Since the publication of these articles, we have extended and honored
their fundamental concepts into the finest practical methods for
managers to use to enable employees to achieve their potential. As a
result, many thousands of managers have reversed performance problems
and have benefited from remarkable breakthroughs among their moderate
and high performers.
- Interactive Learning. Sterling
Institute’s learning designs enable participants to draw on the
collective experience of their colleagues in each seminar, providing
greater insight into real-world problem solving and decision making.
Programs that enable participants to learn from the experiences of
their peers stimulate development more effectively than programs that
simply dispense wisdom from instructor to student, especially when the
student is an adult who brings his/her entire life and work experience
into the seminar.
- Application on the Job. The
programs convey the knowledge, skills, and practices that can be
immediately applied on the job. In these programs, individual feedback
and action planning form a critical link between what is taught in the
classroom and what will be used back on the job. Participants prepare
specific action plans describing the steps they will take to make
improvements in their practices. Further, we work with clients to
develop a comprehensive follow-up strategy that ensures that
participants receive the ongoing support and guidance needed to
implement their plans and that clients are in a position to document
specific and tangible improvements in performance.
Many components and features of our design
contribute to our adult-learning model. One is relevancy. Our public
sector case studies create immediate involvement and engagement into the
situations presented. Our video situation response methodology sparks a
discussion of environmental and situational issues to consider when making
decisions. This easily leads to an analysis of the relevant issues each
organization faces. The video situations also create an opportunity for
discovery and diagnosis of individual styles and preferences. Then the
theories, models, and exercises are introduced in context. The program
participants are actively involved and are responsible for discussing
their decisions and analysis of each situation with their peers, thereby
uncovering two more critical components to the program design, that is
active participation and cooperative learning. We believe this process
best leads to self-directed development and long lasting results.
History
Sterling Institute creates educational
systems and programs that help organizations achieve their goals. We
provide the consulting services necessary to link learning designs with
organizational goals and to plan program implementation for optimal
impact. We develop curriculum with the ability to utilize a wide range of
advanced and innovative instructional technologies. We have exceptional
capability in delivering training for our customers or enabling them to
build internal capacity for training delivery.
In the early 1980's we began to focus on
the needs of government through a unique partnership with the New
York State Governor’s Office of Employee Relations (GOER), to
develop consulting expertise within its staff so that they could provide
organizational consulting to other state agencies. The partnership led to
the development of Profiles in Government Leadership, a
comprehensive, multi-level library of government-specific workshops
designed to address individual and organizational development needs in the
public sector.
We conducted extensive research in
government agencies to identify the critical issues, decisions,
constraints and tradeoffs that government employees at all levels face,
and to develop case studies that document the practices of people who have
dealt with these problems successfully. These real problems and the “benchmarks
of best practices” that resolved them, were reenacted on video as
interactive case studies which serve as the framework for our seminars.
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