Stick Your Neck Out for the Issues On the Public Problems You Care About

Here is an accessible, eminently practical, and inspiring guide to working effectively for change in your community and beyond. John Graham draws on his own extensive experiences as an activist and negotiator, as well as on the advice of other seasoned activists around the world. Dozens of real-life stories—of artists, truck drivers, doctors, waitresses, and others—show how citizens have successfully taken on problems like poverty, racism, gang violence, environmental pollution, and many others.

Stick Your Neck Out is a comprehensive and practical guide to the skills, qualities, and strategies you need to make a difference, covering every aspect of working for change—from choosing an issue to mapping out a plan, creating a vision of success, organizing a team,  building trust, resolving conflicts, working with the media, moving through bureaucracies, setting legal strategies, and more. Filled with practical tips and inspiring examples, this book provides the missing link between ideas and ideals on one hand, and effective action on the other. It can change your world—and add meaning to your life.

"If you are not happy with the way things are in your life, in your organization, in your family, in your country or in the world, maybe you can be a catalyst for making things better. Here are practical suggestions on how you can use your talents and ideas to help create the changes you desire."
—Millard Fuller, Founder and President, Habitat for Humanity International

Bridge the Divide Between Learning and Behavior

Today, trainers, training consultants, and anyone responsible for the performance of others is saddled with the job not of simply imparting skills, but of improving performance by changing behavior. Here, training evaluation expert Donald Kirkpatrick and his son James speak to training specialists, HR managers, group leaders, technical support professionals, small business owners, supervisors, managers, and even corporate executives, showing how to bridge the divide between learning and behavior.

Donald Kirkpatrick's famous four level model has become the model for evaluating the effectiveness of training programs. In Transferring Learning to Behavior, Donald and James show how this model can be used to confront what has always been the most difficult training challenge: getting people to apply what they learn once the training is over. They examine the reasons for the devastating disconnect between learning and behavior; describe the foundations that must be in place before moving on to confront the true challenge of transferring learning to behavior; and, finally, show precisely how to ensure that there is organizational support, and employee and managerial accountability, for putting the new behaviors into practice.

Twelve best-practice case studies from companies such as Toyota, First USA Bank, Nextel, and Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield illustrate how an already proven model can be applied to solve a most difficult problem and produce concrete results.

"Don't miss reading this book.  It's practical, easy to understand, and can make a real difference in the bang you get for your training buck."
—Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager(tm) and The Secret