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Advantage Performance Group Launches New Product to Stamp Out Unprofitable Training

'The Advantage Way' Brings Together 10 Years of Research in a Powerful Methodology that Hardwires Training to Business Results

TIBURON, Calif. (October 27, 2003) — Advantage Performance Group (APG), one of the world’s largest human performance consulting networks, today announced availability of a new suite of tools and methods called The Advantage Way^SM, designed for companies seeking to eliminate unprofitable training initiatives from their organizations. Based on 10 years of research by training effectiveness expert Robert O. Brinkerhoff, Ed.D., The Advantage Way provides a tried-and-true blueprint for easily and consistently linking training to business goals, with powerful results.

The Advantage Way was developed by APG in collaboration with Robert O. Brinkerhoff and Dennis Dressler and The Real Learning Company, a provider of innovative models, tools and learning programs for sales and leadership development. The program was created to address the current wasted training dollars in corporate America -- where up to 90% of training fails to produce desired business outcomes, according to various researchers in the field. The Advantage Way remedies this problem with a systemic approach using proven tools from Robert O. Brinkerhoff’s work on training effectiveness and business impact evaluation, including:

• “Impact Mapping” – a quick, powerful way to link training objectives to performance and business goals.
• “Learner Intentionality” – a concept that creates enthusiastic and focused learners who are committed to learn and apply just the right new skills that will most significantly impact the business.
• “Performance Support” – a mechanism to reinforce desired job behaviors and remove obstacles in the work environment.
• “Success Case Evaluation” – a practical approach for documenting the bottom line value of an organization’s training in terms that senior management understands and cares about.

These tools are already in use by companies worldwide to eliminate ineffective training from their organizations as featured in Brinkerhoff’s books The Success Case Method and High Impact Learning.

"These books are good tools for establishing a "clear line of sight" between our customer’s mission and business results," said Ken Dutkiewicz, Steelcase Inc. "Brinkerhoff's concepts are our bible for responding to internal requests for training and for meeting new business issues with learning that delivers results."

The Advantage Way makes it simple for every organization to benefit by helping them adopt these methods and apply them to either new learning initiatives or existing programs.

“The Advantage Way brings the powerful concepts of high impact learning and the success case method to life in a practical set of tools that can be readily applied by any organization,” said Robert O. Brinkerhoff. “Advantage Performance Group has developed a tour-de-force solution that will change the way corporate America approaches learning.”

The Advantage Way is APG’s first foray into product development, building on 13 years of successful human performance consulting, which have seen the company provide solutions for companies such as Toyota, Daimler Chrysler, Edward Jones, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Bristol-Meyers Squibb and work with dozens of world-class developers of training solutions, in order to deliver the best and most appropriate training solutions for the job.

"Working with organizations across the U.S. we realized that there was an unmet need for a rigorous blueprint that guaranteed measurable business results from training,” said Glenn Jackson, president of APG. “With The Advantage Way, we are increasing the impact of every world-class training solution that we offer by ensuring that training organizations achieve a clear business result from each of their training initiatives.”

About Robert O. Brinkerhoff
Robert O. Brinkerhoff, Ed.D., is the co-founder of Learning Alliance, and an internationally recognized expert in training effectiveness and evaluation. He has provided consultation to dozens of major companies and organizations in the United States and around the world. Rob is a co-developer with Dennis Dressler of High Impact Learning Systems®. Author of numerous books on evaluation and training, his most recent is The Success Case Method: Find Out Quickly What’s Working and What’s Not (Berrett-Koehler). He earned a doctorate at the University of Virginia in program evaluation and is currently a professor of counseling psychology at Western Michigan University, where he coordinates graduate programs in human resource development.

About The Real Learning Company
The Real Learning Company (www.reallearning.com) transforms training activity into behavioral change. The company develops practical models, tools and learning programs for sales manager development and sales professional strategy and skill development. The Sales Mastery System™ and the Performance Mastery System™ are strategically customized performance improvement programs that accelerate time to performance by blending experiential learning with software tools and Internet application, designed to help companies drive business results.

Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, privately-held The Real Learning Company has helped more than 150 organizations, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, improve their people's effectiveness and achieve competitive advantage.

About Advantage Performance Group
Advantage Performance Group (APG) is one of the world’s largest and fastest growing human performance consulting networks, and was recently named as one of the largest management consulting companies in the San Francisco Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times. APG partners with world-class developers of training solutions and then applies a unique methodology to help organizations maximize their training ROI. By “doing training right” rather than focusing on “writing the training,” APG has helped dozens of industry leaders maximize their training investments, including: Toyota, DaimlerChrysler, Edward Jones, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Bristol-Meyers Squibb. APG can be reached at http://www.advantageperformance.com.