Chief Learning Officer - July 2016 by Chief Learning Officer

July 2016 | CLOmedia.com

Special Edition LEARNING IN

TALENT

MANAGEMENT

➤ Talent and Learning: The Perfect Partnership ➤ Learning Integration: Teaming Up With Talent ➤ G overnance: Where Should Learning Belong? ➤ CLO Roadmaps: Working With Talent Management Functions ➤ Hot List: Talent Management Suites

Williams-Sonoma’s

CARMEN ALLISON

Chief Learning Officer • Month 2014 • www.CLOmedia.com

EDITOR’S LETTER

Dollars and Sense D

ollars and cents. Pounds and pence. Euros, yen and yuan. These are the currency of the global economy. Despite language barriers, their meaning is universal. Cash is what drives deals and finalizes transactions. Profits are what investors are seeking. But while money makes the business world go round, it holds no intrinsic value other than what we place on it. What drives growth and progress isn’t money. Cash is a side effect of success. Talent is the real currency of innovation and growth. Warren Buffett isn’t one of the world’s richest businesspeople simply because he’s created cash through his company, Berkshire Hathaway. What drives that success is his talent for finding overlooked investment opportunities and putting his money to work for the long term.

Aligning powerful learning with broader talent management initiatives adds up to success.

it’s more important to connect people with one another rather than channel them into classes and curriculum. That’s why, as you’ll read in this special report, Nike’s CLO focuses not just on content but also on careers. When a recruit turns into an employee, they need targeted onboarding to get them up to speed fast. When that employee becomes a manager, a new focus is needed. Tying learning together with onboarding, performance management, succession planning and collaboration unleashes the power of development. That importance of integrated learning is also why we’ve refocused and relaunched our flagship fall event, newly branded as the CLO Symposium+Plus. It will bring you the cutting-edge learning and development ideas and insight you’ve come to expect from us since 2004. But this time we’re adding a little extra. Specially developed by our editors and built around the theme “The Talent Economy,” the CLO Symposium+Plus focuses on how learning integrated with talent management adds up to dramatic results. In addition to inspirational keynote speakers and more than two dozen workshops spotlighting core learning and talent issues, we’re providing a plus-sized symposium experience with exciting new enhancements to the agenda. Those additions include a hands-on practicum featuring a case study addressing real business challenges through an integrated talent development approach, and Fast Talks, which are short, powerful presentations from talent leaders who highlight what’s working in talent development and management. We’re also debuting a new mentoring program that will match attendees with experienced industry professionals to address their specific talent challenges. Check out the enhanced program by visiting CLOsymposiumplus.com. I hope you’ll consider joining us in Scottsdale, Arizona, this September. Developing talent isn’t just about dollars and cents. To compete in the fast-paced, idea-driven modern economy, it simply makes sense. CLO

Bill Gates, Larry Page, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg are wealthy because of the success of Microsoft, Google, Oracle and Facebook. But they acquired that wealth through smarts, hard work and, above all, talent. Talent is the most powerful resource a company can cultivate. The smart ones amass it and invest in it just as deliberately as they do other forms of capital. The reality is we live in a talent economy. How organizations manage the talent that does all that work is the most important decision they have to make. That’s why we’re taking an in-depth look at talent management in this special issue of Chief Learning Officer. Back when it was known as the training department, it was OK for learning and development to focus solely on courses and content. Identify an in-demand skill, talk to a few subject-matter experts and take a few months to develop a targeted course. That world is no more. Job tenure is plummeting as employers move from being a career destination to a mere stop along the way to another destination. Globalization and technology have amped up the speed of business, eliminating the long runway to develop content and courses. To be truly effective, learning needs to be tightly Mike Prokopeak aligned with larger people management processes. Tradi- Editor in Chief tional courses and content remain vital, but just as often mikep@CLOmedia.com 4 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Build a Coaching Culture More than 60% of organizations report higher engagement among high-potential employees with access to coaching. Building a Coaching Culture for Increased Employee Engagement

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July 2016 | Volume 15, Issue 7 PRESIDENT John R. Taggart jrtag@CLOmedia.com

COPY EDITOR Frannie Sprouls fsprouls@CLOmedia.com

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CREATIVE SERVICES Gwen Connelly gwen@CLOmedia.com

EDITORIAL ART DIRECTOR Anna Jo Beck abeck@CLOmedia.com

VICE PRESIDENT, CFO, COO Kevin A. Simpson ksimpson@CLOmedia.com VICE PRESIDENT, GROUP PUBLISHER Clifford Capone ccapone@CLOmedia.com VICE PRESIDENT, EDITOR IN CHIEF Mike Prokopeak mikep@CLOmedia.com

EDITORIAL INTERNS Andie Burjek aburjek@CLOmedia.com AnnMarie Kuzel akuzel@CLOmedia.com VICE PRESIDENT, RESEARCH & ADVISORY SERVICES Sarah Kimmel skimmel@CLOmedia.com RESEARCH MANAGER Tim Harnett tharnett@CLOmedia.com

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Rick Bell rbell@CLOmedia.com GROUP EDITOR/ASSOCIATE EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kellye Whitney kwhitney@CLOmedia.com

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CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Frank Kalman fkalman@CLOmedia.com

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EVENTS MARKETING MANAGER Anthony Zepeda azepeda@CLOmedia.com WEBCAST COORDINATOR Alec O’Dell aodell@CLOmedia.com BUSINESS MANAGER Vince Czarnowski vince@CLOmedia.com REGIONAL SALES MANAGERS Derek Graham dgraham@CLOmedia.com Marc Katz mkatz@CLOmedia.com Daniella Weinberg dweinberg@CLOmedia.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Brian Lorenz blorenz@CLOmedia.com DIRECTOR, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND EVENTS Kevin Fields kfields@CLOmedia.com

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION MANAGER Melanie Lee mlee@CLOmedia.com LEAD GENERATION ADMINISTRATOR Nick Safir nsafir@CLOmedia.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ellen R. Auster Ken Blanchard Andie Burjek Janice Burns Sarah Fister Gale Bravetta Hassell Lisa Hillenbrand Karl Kapp Elliot Masie Lee Maxey Bob Mosher Lynn Schroeder Barry Stern Kellye Whitney

AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Cindy Cardinal ccardinal@CLOmedia.com DIGITAL SPECIALIST Lauren Lynch llynch@CLOmedia.com

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John R. Taggart

Gwen Connelly

Kevin A. Simpson

PRESIDENT

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

Norman B. Kamikow CO-FOUNDER (1943-2014)

CHIEF LEARNING OFFICER EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Cushing Anderson, Program Director, Learning Ser vices, IDC Frank J. Anderson Jr., ( Ret.) President, Defense Acquisition Universit y Cedric Coco, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Lowe’s Cos. Inc. Lisa Doyle, Vice President, Learning and Development, Lowe’s Cos. Inc. Tamar Elkeles, Chief People Of ficer, Quixey Thomas Evans, ( Ret.) Chief Learning Of ficer, PricewaterhouseCoopers Ted Henson, Senior Strategist, Oracle Gerry Hudson-Martin, Director, Corporate Learning Strategies, Business Architects Kimo Kippen, Chief Learning Of ficer, Hilton Worldwide Rob Lauber, Vice President, Chief Learning Of ficer, McDonald’s Corp. Maj. Gen. Erwin F. Lessel, ( Ret.) U.S. Air Force, Director, Deloit te Consulting Justin Lombardo, Interim Chief Learning Of ficer, Baptist Health Alan Malinchak, Executive Advisor, Talent and Learning Practice, Deltek Universit y Lee Maxey, CEO, MindMax Jeanne C. Meister, Author and Independent Learning Consultant Bob Mosher, Senior Par tner and Chief Learning Evangelist, APPLY Synergies Rebecca Ray, Executive Vice President, The Conference Board Allison Rossett, ( Ret.) Professor of Educational Technology, San Diego State Universit y Diana Thomas, CEO and Founder, Winning Results Annette Thompson, Senior Vice President and Chief Learning Of ficer, Farmers Insurance David Vance, Former President, Caterpillar Universit y Kevin D. Wilde, Executive Leadership Fellow, Carlson School of Management, Universit y of Minnesota Chief Learning Officer (ISSN 1935-8148) is published monthly by MediaTec Publishing Inc., 111 E. Wacker Dr., Suite 1200, Chicago IL 60601. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Chief Learning Officer, P.O. Box 8712 Lowell, MA 01853. Subscriptions are free to qualified professionals within the US and Canada. Digital free subscriptions are available worldwide. Nonqualified paid subscriptions are available at the subscription price of $199 for 12 issues. All countries outside the US and Canada must be prepaid in US funds with an additional $33 postage surcharge. Single price copy is $29.95 Chief Learning Officer and CLOmedia.com are the trademarks of MediaTec Publishing Inc. Copyright © 2016, MediaTec Publishing Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reproduction of material published in Chief Learning Officer is forbidden without permission. Printed by: Quad/Graphics, Sussex, WI

FREE LIVE

ONLINE EVENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS JULY 2016

Special Edition

30-41 Features

18 42

When Employees Own Their Careers, Everyone Wins Lynn Schroeder In a transparent workplace, employees can build a clear path for job mobility and self-development.

5 Ways to Crush the Forgetting Curve Barry Stern and Janice Burns Much of what we learn doesn’t stick with us. There are five ways to minimize forgetting — and one of them is to go mobile.

Special Edition 30

Talent and Learning: The Perfect Partnership

Teaming Up With Talent

37 38

ON THE WEB

Kellye Whitney Savvy learning leaders will make a valued place for themselves amid the disparate facets of HR and business strategy.

We Want to Hear From You! #ReaderReaction You’ve probably noticed we’ve been featuring reader comments on the issues that affect you as a learning leader. So come chat with us and get your thoughts published. Keep an eye out for questions from our editors on the following social media platforms:

Sarah Fister Gale Learning leaders can partner with other functional leaders in myriad ways to create and deliver measurable business results.

@CLOmedia

Hot List of Talent Management Suites

tinyurl.com/CLOLinkedIn

Compiled by Andie Burjek A sample of talent management suites.

Where Should Learning Go? Bravetta Hassell Learning’s credibility rests in the CLO’s ability to work strategically, whether it lives in human resources or answers directly to the CEO.

8 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

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ON THE COVER: PHOTO BY GENEVIEVE SHIFFRAR

TABLE OF CONTENTS JULY 2016

Departments

Experts 10 IMPERATIVES

22 Profile Learner Knows Best Bravetta Hassell Williams-Sonoma’s Carmen Allison said that in learning, like in retail, customers’ needs and experiences must be weighed to deliver truly effective products.

46 Case Study Exposing Montgomery’s Ugly Policing History Sarah Fister Gale A white Alabama police chief vowed to shine a spotlight on civil rights-era police brutality so future generations of Montgomery cops could learn from those mistakes.

50 Business Intelligence Playing Games Leads to Better Learning Karl Kapp New research strongly suggests that casual game play drives engagement and better learning outcomes.

Elliott Masie Where Have All the Portals Gone?

12 SELLING UP, SELLING DOWN

Bob Mosher I Don’t Hate the Classroom

14 LEADERSHIP

Ken Blanchard Public Speaking? Yes, You Can

16 MAKING THE GRADE

Lee Maxey Government: the Missing Development Link

54 IN CONCLUSION

Ellen R. Auster and Lisa Hillenbrand Navigating the Politics of Change

Resources 4 Editor’s Letter

Dollars and Sense

53 Advertisers’ Index

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Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

IMPERATIVES

Where Have All the Portals Gone? Many are still there — somewhere — but no one’s using them • BY ELLIOTT MASIE

Elliott Masie is the chairman and CLO of The Masie Center’s Learning Consortium and CEO of The Masie Center, an international think tank focused on learning and workplace productivity. To comment, email editor@ CLOmedia.‌com.

ifteen years ago, the learning field thought the learning portal was going to be a powerful tool to drive employee performance improvement. Now when I look around, it is hard to find the 2016 “All Star” learning portal. While almost every learning management system provides a central entry page for each learner, these systems tend to be fairly nondynamic and only lightly personalized. What happened to the magical learning portals of our dreams? Here are some observations across enterprises: • Direct access to learning. Employees prefer a direct link or URL to a specific learning resource or class. While they may have to sign in, many systems allow for embedded login, skipping the need to go to a portal page. • Some assets aren’t official learning resources. Employees increasingly use learning assets such as corporate video segments, external knowledge objects like TED Talks, social network conversations, and other options not officially considered

As learning evolves, so must our perspectives around how our learners access resources. learning resources — and often cannot be handled or tracked by an LMS or learning portal. • Personalization, please. The learner is usually not interested in the entire library of corporate learning assets, even if it is organized neatly on a learning portal page. Learners want a highly personalized perspective, sorted learning resources for their roles, certifications, performance goals and learning history. If they do want a learning portal, they want it to be aligned to their needs and requirements. Learning portals made sense when the primary objective was to manage access to a select set of syndicated learning programs, often mapped to certification or compliance requirements. As the learner has become more involved in choosing from a wider, often more open set of resources, today’s learning portals need to be much more adaptive and personal. In 2016 and beyond, the ideal entry point for a 10 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

learner into learning resources might look like: • A knowledge scorecard. The learner would benefit from a scorecard that shows key competencies, skills or certifications, all color coded by readiness or gaps for each learner. This scorecard could serve as a coach or guide for an employee approaching their performance review or who is mapping their learning commitments for the quarter. • Social knowledge connections. The learner might value perspectives from fellow employees who could provide knowledge on key topics mapped to the learner’s scorecard — and to be linked to them through internal social networks. • Assessing, secretly. Many employees would value the ability to have an off-the-record assessment of their knowledge or readiness on a key topic as private feedback to facilitate skill acquisition. • Daily mentoring questions. My colleague Marshall Goldsmith advocates for a small set of personally selected questions that an employee could answer every day to help them achieve desired changes. An example might be, “Have I finished the sentences of my teammates?” Seeing a pattern of one’s responses can strongly affect change efforts. • Integrated search. Ironically, most systems are not searchable by internal corporate engines. So if an employee starts a knowledge search, they may not get access to the best elements behind the learning system’s firewall. Why not use search — even using ads on the side of the page — to suggest and link to learning resources. • A learning app. Imagine an app, downloaded or a native software version, that could provide learners with the aforementioned resources mapped to their needs and patterns of use. While it might sound just like a mini-portal, the learning app would be engineered more tightly to an employee’s user experience and have a mobile or desktop version that would be easy, simple and persistent. As the world of learning evolves, so must our perspectives of how our learners access resources. Clearly, learning systems can provide a variety of resources, prompts and reminders to employees about their choices. Learners will increasingly drive more of their own learning choices, and we must move beyond the static learning portal to a dynamic, integrated set of apps and access points for learning. CLO

SELLING UP, SELLING DOWN

I Don’t Hate the Classroom The classroom is an amazing environment, but we’ve done bad things to it • BY BOB MOSHER

Bob Mosher is a senior partner and chief learning evangelist for APPLY Synergies, a strategic consulting firm. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

had a very interesting experience at a conference recently. I was attending the social hour and doing the small talk greeting thing. One of the participants at my table suddenly recognized me. He said, “Oh I know you; you’re the ‘I hate the classroom’ guy!” I was fairly taken back by this. When I asked him to qualify his statement, he said I’m the guy who always bashes the classroom in my presentations when trying to explain the power of informal learning and/or performance support. I tried to explain that, first of all, I apologize if that’s how I’ve been portraying myself. Second, that statement couldn’t be further from the truth. The classroom is one of the most amazing, adaptive learning environments we have. I told him it’s not the classroom I hate. It’s what we’ve done to it along the way. Let me explain. As I travel around our industry, I hear two common themes: Learners are given less and less time away from work to learn, and that, with all of the amazing new technologies and methodologies available, learning needs to be moved out into the workflow in smaller sizes and more personalized ways. To meet these two objectives, we need to take a fresh look at how we’ve always done things. No more blended or flipped learning. I’m not bashing these efforts, but they start at the classroom and work out from there. With that approach, we’ll never push the envelope, holistically embrace new technologies and methodologies, and the classroom will never be free to do what it does best. Let’s redesign learning from the performer and the workflow back. What the classroom does better then any other learning environment — so far — is be highly adaptive, collaborative and safe. These are powerful things, things we rarely see exploited in the model. Instead, content dominates the outline, format and flow because we focus more on what people need to know ahead of what they need to do. Therein lies the rub. We rarely have a clear understanding of the doing, therefore we obsess on the knowing, leaving the classroom to be the catch all for everything. If we scrap the model and design for performance and sustained skill first, our design and learning solutions delivery will be quite different. If we get better at designing tools for the workflow that make the most current, applicable information just two clicks and 10 seconds away from a performer at their moment of

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apply, the classroom becomes a much different place. If we can finally let go of content dominating the classroom, knowing that it’s available in a more effective and powerful way, we can finally redesign the classroom differently. In this type of an approach, we bring people into classrooms to collaborate, problem solve, fail, succeed, help each other, and be guided rather then lectured at, subjected to death by PowerPoint and made to go through random practice activities that have little meaning outside the workflow. The classroom becomes a place to practice the tools of the trade of survival on the job.

This isn’t about replacing the classroom. It’s about freeing it to play a new and exciting role. These tools are experienced, practiced, pushed, challenged, embellished and synthesized so that they become intrinsic to the learner’s way of thinking, solving problems, applying knowledge and improving their performance over time. These classroom experiences can also be much shorter and more focused. The amount of content is reduced, and the valuable time left is replaced with everything I just mentioned. Again, this is not about replacing the classroom. It’s about freeing the classroom to play a new and exciting role. One about enablement and enhancing the journey toward performance, a journey without a beginning and an ending. The classroom will no longer be a place that starts the journey. It becomes the place a learner moves in and out of when appropriate, in a more meaningful and focused way. When the classroom is mixed with enabling tools like social media, mobile technologies, adaptive learning and performance support, it takes on a different meaning, design and significance. It no longer the tip of the sword, which is an amazing and freeing thing for the learner, the instructor and the environment. CLO

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LEADERSHIP

Public Speaking? Yes, You Can To overcome fear, change your belief system, body language and routine • BY KEN BLANCHARD

Ken Blanchard is chief spiritual officer of The Ken Blanchard Cos. and co-author of “Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster.” To comment, email editor@ CLOmedia.com.

fter I’ve given a speech, people sometimes come up to me and say, “Boy, I would love to be able to give speeches for a living.” When I ask them why they don’t pursue that dream, they say, “Oh, I could never do that.” But the good news is yes, you can. Public speaking is a learnable skill. Even someone who feels insecure in front of a group can learn to become a good speaker. It begins with preparation. I learned from Tony Robbins, the famous motivational speaker, that if you want to overcome your fear and learn to do something, three things can impact your performance: your belief system, body language and routine. Belief system: The late, great speech coach Dorothy Sarnoff used to teach her students to repeat these words before giving a speech: “I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad you’re here. I know what I know, and I care about you.” Repeating these thoughts changes your belief system. You actually become glad you are there. You know what you know, so you stop worrying about not being good. And when you care about the people in the audience, you lose your fear of them and your confidence soars.

Take what you do seriously, but take yourself lightly. If you allow negative thoughts to take over, your mind will respond to that. So plant only positive messages in your brain. Remember, your mind doesn’t know the difference between the truth and what you tell it. Body language: Pay attention to how good speakers carry themselves. Most hold their shoulders back and heads high. I use a lot of hand gestures when I speak. Think of a time when you felt confident and productive. How did you walk? How did you act? It’s pretty hard to feel inadequate if you walk and act like you know what you’re doing. Routine: Now look at your routine. A routine signals the brain that all is well. If I’m going to 14 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

deliver new material, I practice it several times with friends or family. I ask for feedback, and try to think of questions audience members are likely to have. I use notes until the information becomes second nature. Just before I go on, I do a little deep breathing, a quick review of what I plan to say, then I imagine the audience giving me a standing ovation. When I was 12 years old, I ran for president of the seventh grade and had to make a speech in front of the school. My dad coached me to start with humor to get everyone relaxed, including myself. So when I got called up and the audience finished applauding, the first thing I said was, “As the cow said to the farmer when the milking machine broke down, ‘Thanks for that warm hand!’” Everybody roared. I’m not sure if that had anything to do with my winning the election, but it sure felt good. My dad also taught me to take what you do seriously but take yourself lightly. I still live by that advice. In February, I was asked to give the dinner keynote after the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. There were more than 2,000 people there from 100 nations. The last two people on the stage before I spoke were amazing: first a hilarious singing and dancing comedian, then Jordan Smith, the talented young singer who won the TV show “The Voice.” They both got standing ovations. Then I heard, “Now here’s our keynote speaker, Ken Blanchard.” Talk about intimidating. I decided to take the humorous route, so I said to the audience, “If any of you have read ‘The One Minute Manager,’ you know the third secret is the One Minute Reprimand. I think I have to give one of those to the organizers who made me follow those last two performers!” I immediately got the crowd on my side so they were ready to hear my message — and I ended up getting a standing ovation, too. It was quite an experience. People are there to learn what you know. So remember, it’s not about you — it’s all about your audience. You will serve them well by seeing yourself in your best light and projecting a confidence that lets your message shine. Your audience will benefit, and so will you. CLO

MAKING THE GRADE

Government: the Missing Development Link Chief learning officers are the bridge to link government aid to business • BY LEE MAXEY

Lee Maxey is CEO of MindMax, a marketing and enrollment management services company. To comment, email editor@ CLOmedia.com.

ll columnists should take their own advice regularly, if for no other reason than to show some empathy for their readers. In past columns, I’ve posited ideas for how business and higher education can work together to develop tomorrow’s workforce today. Those columns encouraged CLOs to reach out to their counterparts in higher education. I decided to do some of this outreach myself recently, and I worked with Wayne Smutz, dean of continuing education and extension at UCLA, to put together an event to bring together businesses and academic leaders to discuss innovation and creating jobs. Smutz leads the academics, finances and operations for a $54.5 million enterprise; he receives no state or campus funding. He’s learned how to bring people together to get things done. He encourages as many high-ranking executives and their counterparts in higher education as possible to meet around a table because he said he finds one-on-one meetings move audacious agendas too slowly. The conversations I was part of during our fourhour event focused on how best to build workforce skills. We looked at ways to bring high school students into higher education; these are students, some from low-income areas, who may never have considered science, technology, engineering or math careers. With business leaders around the table, we were able to start outlining what it would take to get these students qualified to fill jobs that California employers have openings for now and, in all likelihood, in the future. According to Smutz, it’s easier to advance a cause if you’re solving problems in real-time. I saw the beginnings of that at our meeting. I also saw the group propel its conversation forward on the spot by creating a LinkedIn group for participants to use to keep formulating and exchanging ideas. As excited as I am to say this sort of approach works, I learned there’s a missing link: Government leaders are part of the workforce conversation. In San Diego, for example, Dean Joe Shapiro of the San Diego State University College of Extended Studies recently brought together leaders from academia, business and government to spark conversations about workforce innovation. Like Smutz, Shapiro sees these roundtables as an important way to create a space for collaboration. In San Diego, Mayor Kevin Faulconer noted the “growing chasm between good paying, middle-class job

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openings and workers with the skills to fill them.” With the cooperation of businesses like Qualcomm and the San Diego Community College District, Faulconer launched his OpportunityWORKS task force to focus business and education on five careers that promise higher pay and growth for San Diegans. The task force also teamed up with business leaders to give students, especially in minority neighborhoods, a taste of STEM education and high-tech careers. One way they’re doing this is by opening labs inspired by the Qualcomm Thinkabit Lab, which brings sixth- to eighth-grade students from all backgrounds into a facility to learn about programming, robotics, and how an office works.

Government leaders should be a key part of workforce development conversations. The San Diego mayor’s aim is aligned with what business leaders want and higher education can provide: educated workers. For example, roundtable discussions between San Diego’s officials, business leaders and educators spurred Faulconer to create economic incentives for companies in advanced manufacturing, health care and information technology to open or expand operations in low-to-moderate income neighborhoods. Educators see this as a way to expose students to available jobs, which in turn sparks an interest in studying. Businesses become visible to an entire pool of potential employees who, with the right instruction, can fill out the workforce rosters at these firms in the years ahead. The catalyst for arranging these types of meetings can and should be the CLO. In the meeting I was part of with Smutz, CLOs were at the table. There’s no reason CLOs can’t orchestrate the meetings. Any savvy government official understands the importance of keeping businesses on the tax rolls. Higher education sees each company as the punctuation mark for a student’s course of study. CLOs are uniquely qualified to tell both politicians and academics what’s needed in the way of support. CLO

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WHEN EMPLOYEES

OWN

THEIR CAREERS, EVERYONE

WINS

In a transparent workplace, employees can build a clear path for job mobility and self-development. BY LYNN SCHROEDER

ransparency is one of the latest buzzwords in corporate America. While employers may support the idea of being open with employees, understanding what that means and putting it into practice is something else. Transparency requires employers to have candid and meaningful conversations with employees. That means sharing information about the company’s growth plans for the future, informing employees about new roles they might fill at the company, and the skills needed for those new roles. In today’s labor market, transparency is more important than ever for several reasons. First, the U.S. is facing a talent shortage. There are millions of job openings, but companies cannot find workers with the right skills, training and credentials to fill them. In 2015, almost 4 out of 10 employers reported difficulty filling open positions with skilled workers, according to ManpowerGroup’s Talent Shortage Survey. An improved economy and lower unemployment rates have only intensified this talent crisis. Companies need to communicate the skills and competencies needed to fill these in-demand roles. Second, employees expect transparency. In five years, millennials will make up 50 percent of the workforce, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers’ “Millennials at Work: Reshaping the Workplace.” Many companies are already there. Career progression is a top priority for millennials, and they insist on transparent relationships with their employers. Therefore, employers need to have clear conversa-

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Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

tions with employees about the jobs they have, the jobs they want, and the jobs available in the future. Third, for many organizations, the old ways of filling the talent pipeline are no longer working. Employers need to look closer at their incumbent workforce. Many employees want the opportunity to fill those jobs, whether these are lateral or promotional moves, or a chance to gain new skills and do something different. Finally, turnover is expensive. According to a 2014 LinkedIn survey, 25 percent of employees are actively looking for new jobs. And according to a February Zane Benefits blog citing studies from organizations like SHRM, it costs an average 6 to 9 months’ salary to replace an employee who leaves: “For a manager making $40,000 a year, that’s $20,000 to $30,000 in recruiting and training expenses.” Clearly that money is better spent investing in efforts to retain current employees. Not only does a company save money by hiring from within, but also current employees have been vetted and understand the company culture. Likewise, the company knows the employee. Promoting from within is the most affirmative sign to employees that a firm takes job mobility seriously. So what can companies do, and where do they begin? It starts with the organization understanding the growth areas in its industry and what that means for them. Then it must translate that growth into the specific workforce skills needed to move the business into the future. That information must be distilled and shared widely and clearly with all employees so they can understand realistic options and take positive career action. When a company is committed to internal transparency, it forms an active partnership with the employee. As the company shares its vision for future growth with employees — including sharing the skills the company needs now and into the future — employees understand what the company values. This empowers employees to invest their time and energy in improving their skills in ways that make sense for them, and for their employer. Employees can then build a clear path for job mobility and self-development. This leads to a more engaged and productive workforce that can drive the business outcomes companies desire.

Being Open Doesn’t Have to Mean Telling It All Transparency is not a one-size-fits-all practice, so companies will need to define what being open with employees means for them. Becoming more transparent does not necessarily mean all the books are open. It could mean a company’s leaders have committed to clearly communicating the skills needed for future growth. Examples of greater openness from the C-suite 20 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Reader Reaction How much control should employees have over their career development?

Teri Johnson: Who would be better equipped to know what ignites excitement and enthusiasm than the employee? They are the only ones who could possibly be responsible for their development trajectory. Ultimately, what is good for the employee is also good for the company. If their passion takes them to another organization, it makes room for someone who is excited about what your organization is up to.

Allison Manswell: Employees being expected to take more control of their career is a blessing and a curse. On one hand it is empowering for individuals to look at their career as if it is their family’s intellectual property and take control of their future. One the other hand, there are some side effects of a differentiated talent strategy that mean some employees aren’t on the company’s radar, and never will be. In which case, they become the only ones focused on their future.

Julie Gouin: I am definitely in favor of people owning their career development. To some this comes easy. For most, raising awareness about how best to learn from experience and draw on mentors, coaches and communities can be helpful. If the organization shifts development ownership to its employees, it must also shift its role and practices. For instance, develop individuals’ learning agility rather than investing in costly training programs, and create an enabling learning culture where people have the right to fail. To your question on “how much is too much?” Too much is when ownership is delegated without making necessary shifts in the organization to support and recognize agile learners.

Don Berghoff: Providing employees with the opportunity to control some of their development and careers is a good thing, up to a point. One, employees often lack skills that are not readily apparent. The ability for someone to increase soft skills will instill confidence and higher job satisfaction. Two, self-motivated employees will rise to the top and provide the ability to identify those employees for career advancement. There has to be some control to ensure time spent does not interfere with current responsibilities or provide a means to train for their next job. What do you think? Join the discussion at tinyurl.com/ ControlOfCareers, follow us on Twitter @CLOmedia or join our Chief Learning Officer LinkedIn group.

to employees can include information on corporate organizational structure, which opportunities are sun-setting and which areas will see more growth, and preferred education requirements and salary ranges for these new positions. Greater corporate transparency also means twoway communication between employees and employer. When employees feel the business values their skills, trust and loyalty increase. Employees often want to stay at their company, but they don’t want to do the same job forever, nor do they want to have to wait for their manager to retire to advance their careers. Many employees find the only time they know that jobs are coming up is when the position is posted, leaving them little time to understand the position’s requirements and apply. Others may not know about opportunities outside of their department, or their manager doesn’t have the time or proper training to have a career-directed conversation. To be successful, companies should consistently share meaningful information with employees about careers and opportunities — both present and future. This commitment to openness goes hand-in-hand with a company understanding its growth strategy going forward and deciding on a communication plan for all employees. Over time, becoming transparent

becomes part of the company’s brand, both internally and externally. Kimo Kippen, chief learning officer for Hilton Worldwide, said the company’s more than 160,000 global team members represent the “Heart of Hilton.” As such, the company is committed to creating unique opportunities for them that support their personal and professional dreams. “To that end, our team members, regardless of their position, are encouraged to take advantage of numerous development programs including our GED assistance program, Hilton Worldwide University and our leadership development curriculum,” he said. “The opportunities we offer at Hilton Worldwide align with our competencies, mission and vision, which is to fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality. Making sure our people are happy, engaged and confident just makes sense.”

Tools to Meet Multiple Needs It can be difficult for companies to focus on their growth strategy as well as develop their employees’ careers. They need solutions that provide employees with the information they need to take charge of their caTRANSPARENCY continued on page 52

Education For Those Who Expect More American Public University knows the value of training and education. Learn talent development and other management strategies for organizational success in a competitive business world. APU offers 190+ career-relevant online degree and certificate programs. Partner with a nationally recognized leader in online education and strengthen your workforce investment. Learn more about the benefits of our educational partnerships at StudyAtAPU.com/CLO

We want you to make an informed decision about the university that’s right for you. For more about our graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed each program, and other important information, visit www.apus.edu/disclosure.

PROFILE Carmen Allison

Learner Knows Best BY BRAVETTA HASSELL

Williams-Sonoma’s Carmen Allison said that in learning, like in retail, customers’ needs and experiences must be weighed to deliver truly effective products.

hortly before her start at Williams-Sonoma Inc., Carmen Allison was given a challenge that would transform how she approached her work. Asked to develop a leadership program for more than a dozen of the specialty retailer’s high potential leaders, she first started down a more typical route, but there was a catch. The CEO suggested letting the leaders take the reins in deciding what development experience they wanted. Essentially, ask the learners what they need. “I really had to step back and say it’s not about me and my experience and my wisdom about what programs work and don’t work, what experiences work or don’t work,” said Allison, vice president of global talent development at the home products retailer.

‘We have the opportunity to ensure we’re walking the talk in how we engage and interact with everyone.’ —Carmen Allison, Williams-Sonoma So she sat in the passenger’s seat, and the leaders — vice presidents at the company with their own experiences — told her what they were missing, what they struggled with, and what areas of the company they wanted to become better acquainted with. They became the designers of the nine-month program that Allison would deliver. 22 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

This was a tremendous shift in perspective for her, one where she had to check her ego and her own expertise and “that’s what a lot of instructors do and programs do,” she said. “ ‘I know what you need and I’m going to give it you, and here’s the binder’ vs. I put all 18 of them in a room for a day and a half, teach them how to collaborate and then help them decide how to shape and design their year.” Each year since, cohorts have come up with different ideas she hadn’t thought of, Allison said. When one group went to the supply chain in Memphis, Tennessee, another wanted to go to Rejuvenation in Portland, Oregon, to see the company’s manufacturing and learn how a new brand is developed. Allison said she felt sad for the second group because the Memphis trip was so enriching, but the Portland experience was just what they wanted. Allison said she used her experience and wisdom to ask good questions. “But at the end of the day, they’re the decision-makers, not me.”

A Customer-Focused Experience With Williams-Sonoma for four years, Allison drives a learning strategy that mirrors the company’s internal mission to put people first. She talks about her associates like they’re customers, so she measures herself and her team’s success based on the customers’ satisfaction. “If a customer’s not satisfied, we pay a lot of attention to that,” Allison said. “If no one’s coming to the class, clearly the customer doesn’t want the product, and we need to shift.” Delivering these type of customer-focused experiences includes sitting down with leaders one-on-one, said Amanda Haas, director of culinary for Wil-

PHOTOS BY GENEVIEVE SHIFFRAR

Williams-Sonoma Inc.’s Carmen Allison sits outside the Stanford Shopping Center’s Pottery Barn in Palo Alto, California. Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

PROFILE Carmen Allison

liams-Sonoma brand. She said Allison’s work around delegation and negotiation has changed the way she leads her team. More often, however, these learning and development experiences are delivered across the organization, 29,000 employees worldwide. At any point, there’s a variety of webinars, blended learning and classroom experiences taking place across Williams-Sonoma’s 11 different functions and eight brands, including Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn and West Elm. Williams-Sonoma operates more than 600 retail locations in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom, and has franchises in the Middle East, Mexico and the Philippines. The company’s associates access training through Allison’s team as well as the compaAllison, Williams-Sonoma ny’s corporate education curriculum, WSI University. Allison meets with her 12 direct reports regularly to discuss employee feedback. “We talk collectively, and modify what we’re teaching, how we’re teaching, when we’re teaching or what we’re teaching,” Allison said. Prior to arriving at Williams-Sonoma, Allison worked for Gap Inc. where she said she really grew as a learning professional. She drove training strategy for the company’s Old Navy brand, and then led executive development before having to lay off everyone from the new department she had built, including herself. Allison said the downtime gave her time for think about the direction she wanted to go in next. What fed her? What did she get excited about? Food? She’d spent 13 years running a business unit with PepisCo Inc. and Yum Brands Inc. Or retail? “The pace and excitement within retail and having a product to sell and the people that support that work in the business is very exciting to me,” she said.

‘At the end of the day, they’re the decisionmakers, not me.’ —Carmen

world serving in the Army’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation facilities. She spent time at West Point in New York; Fort Benning, Georgia; and Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. She was also once stationed in South Korea where she led 170 national employees across three restaurants, a golf course, bowling alley, liquor package store and two taverns in subposts. She said she learned so much living in a foreign country that she’d recommend the military to anyone as a place to develop as a leader, become more flexible, self aware and culturally sensitive. Allison said she still draws on those experiences for her work in learning as well as diversity and inclusion, which she also leads. Working across the two functions makes sense. “We touch so many people. We have the opportunity to ensure we’re walking the talk in how we engage and interact with everyone,” Allison said. When she arrived at Williams-Sonoma, Allison said one of the first things she observed was how much learning focused on associates in San Francisco and New York. Learning was very classroom-centric, which made getting people together for training difficult. However, with time and help from Skillsoft, the company now offers training courses based on competencies through the online portal WSI University, which any employee can access. Allison’s team has transitioned several classroom

Time to Think Allison grew up in Leavenworth, Kansas, an army town. She attended Northern Arizona University and earned a business degree with an emphasis in hotel and restaurant management. The economy was good then, she said, and after graduation, there were plenty of jobs to choose from as well as the military, which was looking for people who could lead teams that ran restaurants. In her mid-20s, Allison traveled around the 24 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Carmen Allison spent a year learning about and making pottery. “It gives me such appreciation for what it takes to make some of our products, to envision and then have craftsmen all over the world make those products,” she said.

courses to e-learning, and that’s just the beginning. “It’s at that point of taking a first step and saying we need to make what we have accessible to other people,” she said. That need to share and collaborate and a continuous drive to improve has helped develop webinars, which are especially successful with the store management population, she said. Currently, the learning team is evaluating how best to deliver a 16-module interaction-driven course outside the classroom. Putting People First is a program for district managers that is all about coaching, feedback and inspiring and engaging. Working with Harvard’s Mentor Manager, Williams-Sonoma is piloting a blended learning program across Asia and Europe with a group of 10 directors. The leaders will meet together once in person as well as use Harvard’s leadership development program to complete homework and participate in a virtual webinar. Allison said developing critical thinking leadership skills virtually is a topic that comes up frequently among her peers at other companies. “People have tried different things,” she said. “I don’t know if anyone has really cracked the code on that — we’ll still have to fly everyone in, which gets very expensive.” But therein lies part of learning’s appeal to her: The act of working toward a solution, the assessing, improving, strengthening and scaling results.

Learning’s Continued Draw One of the things that excited Allison about leading learning and development for Williams-Sonoma was the fact that half the company’s business came from online and the other from its physical stores. The dynamic was new for her, challenging what it would mean to develop, train and support the respective employee groups. “You can walk into a brick-and-mortar store, and you can talk to the associate and see and hear very easily what skills they have, what they know, what they don’t know, how they’re taking care of the customer,” Allison said. “But within the online area, the e-commerce, you can see some of the products but it’s much more hidden around who owns the different pieces.” This makes assessing online skills gaps to figure out how to train to fill them difficult, she said. But some progress is being made. Allison and the heads of marketing and human resources have partnered to identify ways that allow teams to connect with each other and learn together. This has included the development of more collaborative interactive learning sessions and more interactive meetings as well as the use of social media. Allison said she’s seen some success in this new en-

Carmen Allison, outside of the Stanford Shopping Center’s Williams-Sonoma store, said she is fortunate to have fostered close partnerships with a handful of external experts.

vironment; “now we’re determining whether there are certain skills that need to be taught or skills that need to be bought.” When it comes to driving e-commerce performance, executive-level consultant Brian Zotti said it’s critical for companies like Williams-Sonoma that have significant activity in-store and online to invite feedback from their customers. Their voices in the dialogues about customer experiences inform business strategy and add a critical perspective to further enlighten employee strengths and opportunities. “It’s important that they first ask, ‘Who are we reaching and how are we reaching them,” he said, “but then bring those customers into the conversation.” Allison said the team hasn’t found the perfect way to assess and address the necessary skills for e-commerce employees, but they’re getting there. Creating a truly inclusive global learning environment is important. Allison is digging into what makes mentorships effective, and whether there’s some hybrid solution she can create for the company’s call centers. There are five “care centers” across the U.S., and soon some of the associates will begin working remotely. What will that mean for those employees’ training and development? Allison said it’s an interesting challenge. Rare is the moment a leader can sit back, relaxed and confident they’ve got it all figured out, especially in learning. A program may be great, but it has a shelf life, she explained. This constantly raises the bar, and keeps her and her team going. “Things making a great impact in the company today may not make an impact tomorrow,” she said. “I have to be ready to constantly assess and reassess to make sure we’re meeting the needs of the business.” CLO Bravetta Hassell is a Chief Learning Officer associate editor. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com. Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

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BEST PRACTICES IN ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

LEARNING IN THE HANDS OF THE LEARNERS How personalized learning empowers employees and energizes the organization BY TIM HARNETT

Organizational learning and development has faced many disruptions in recent years, between tighter learning budgets and younger employees entering the workforce with different approaches to their own learning. In this state of constant disruption, traditional learning methods may not reflect how employees truly learn. Research suggests that formal learning such as classroom training accounts for 80 percent of learning resources, but only 20 percent of actual learning. However, classroom learning doesn’t reflect how employees learn outside the workplace. To reach employees with relevant content, organizations need new strategies that can be applied at scale. Enter personalized learning, a method of gathering and presenting the information and resources reflective of employees as individuals. While the underlying principles have been around since the 1920s, technology advancements have made it possible to deliver tailored instruction at the

enterprise level. “Learning of the future will be about customization,” says James Brooks, Chief Innovation Officer for SurePeople. “Employees will expect their workplace to emulate their day-to-day experiences and classroom-based learning might not be oriented to either their jobs or who they are as people. At SurePeople, we’ve developed a system that can deliver a bespoke learning solution to everyone in the organization—from entry-level employees right up to the C-suite—motivating learners more so than traditional classroom learning because learning is built around them.” Can personalized learning be done at scale? Brooks says yes. “As L&D and travel budgets contract, organizations will need different solutions to develop their talent, which is where personalized learning platforms come in. Using technology to deliver on-time, just-in-time learning will empower the workforce for less than the cost of a traditional classroom course.”

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How can organizations incorporate personalized learning into their learning strategy? Brooks suggests several ways. 1. START AT THE BEGINNING. “Workers need to be ready for the job from day one,” Brooks says. “Starting personalized learning at the onboarding stage increases their speed to competency. By developing a set of common standards employees need to know and having them ingest the knowledge at their own pace, organizations prepare employees for their future roles and keep them engaged as they do so.” 2. LEVERAGE DATA. “SurePeople’s proprietary Prism algorithm leverages psychometric data,” Brooks says, “allowing for the creation of emotional, relational and team intelligence development plans. Once the organization has an established baseline, we can create a combination of organizational learning programs that are fully customizable to target specific needs of learners. These programs ensure employees are on the right path and help the organization better understand its workforce.” ®

3. EMPOWER LEARNERS. “While in the past the role of the learner was secondary, now it’s primary,” Brooks says. “Learning was something that happened to the learner. With personalized learning, the learner chooses when, where and how learning happens. While managers used to take on the role of teachers, feeding

Personalized learning puts learners ahead of the career curve. information to their students, with personalized learning the manager takes on a different role: that of a guide, directing learners to the content and encouraging as needed.” “The expectation is that technology will allow solutions outside of the traditional classroom,” Brooks says. “Classroom learning isn’t going away, but personalized learning can be used in a blended learning approach to empower learners to seek out information. Employees best succeed when work is reflective of their interests and personalized learning can make available that kind of curated content relevant to where employees are in their lives, both personally and professionally.” “Personalized learning puts learners ahead of the career curve,” Brooks says. “Employees should ask themselves ‘What do I really need to be successful in my role’? Organizations can then set clear goals and curate content, empowering learners to own their career path. By allowing employees to initiate learning on their own terms, organizations prove their commitment to their workforce’s long-term stability, saving time and money in the process.”

Blackboard. (2009). Disappointed with Formal Training? How Informal Learning Drives Business Performance.

Moon, M. (2016). “Technology As Enabler Of 2016 HR Trends: Personalized Learning And Transparency.” Talent Culture.

COMPANY PROFILE SurePeople is a cloud-based provider of intelligent learning, performance and hiring solutions. Our innovative offering applies qualitative and quantitative data to people development, with a foundation in emotional, relational and team intelligence (ERT-i). Delivering an engaging experience in one integrated platform that’s scalable, measurable and actionable. Together, we can achieve extraordinary outcomes. To learn more about how SurePeople can help your organization craft a personalized learning strategy, visit www.SurePeople.com.

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BEST PRACTICES IN DIVERSITY

Improving Diversity And Inclusion With Effective Higher Ed Partnerships BY COLLEGE FOR AMERICA

Diversity as a business advantage

The role of education in developing your workforce Though there is not one silver bullet to fix this problem, building increasingly diverse pipelines of workers at all levels of an organization will contribute to a richer talent pool for middle management and more-senior roles. Employers who create opportunities for personal and professional growth of their employees are ahead of the curve in hiring and promoting key talent. These workplaces tend to be rated more favorably by employees and have higher retention and satisfaction rates.

Our workplaces and boardrooms are seldom representative of the broader US population. According to a 2015 study of the top 200 companies in the S&P 500, only 15 percent of board members were minorities and only 31 percent were women.1 The trend continues at the operating level: 13 percent of executive or senior-level managers in the US were minorities, and 29 percent were women (according to 2014 data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission).2 At lower levels also, there were gaps in racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in many workplaces.

Diversifying the workplace and filling talent pipelines requires more than institutional or technical training. The World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs Report” finds that the most in-demand skills in 2020’s workforce will relate to complex problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity.3 Developing these competencies will be key at practically every level of the company—and universities that can translate liberal arts capabilities into professionally relevant education will be valuable partners in workforce development.

There is a saying: Talent is evenly distributed but opportunity is not. This simple statement, often used to point to the untapped potential of underserved populations, has profound implications for organizations as well as the underserved. The related question for talent professionals is: How can you find and cultivate those employees who have not yet been given the opportunity to perform at their full potential?

Diversifying the workforce is of course an issue of equity— but many companies believe that increasing diversity in their employee base has tangible business impacts as well. Diverse workplaces allow companies to serve a larger set of customers because those who are designing the products and services and dealing with customers are representative of them. There is evidence to suggest diverse teams can solve problems more creatively. Recruitment efforts tapping a larger population pool are more likely to find higher quality candidates. And retention, engagement, and productivity increase with positive work environments—to which diversity and inclusion can contribute.

A study funded by the Lumina Foundation and conducted by Accenture found that Cigna’s ROI on its tuition reimbursement program is 129 percent.4 These dollars, spent on higher education, create value for the company based on increased promotions, retention, and lateral transfers for the employees taking advantage.5

Combining diversity efforts and workforce development through higher education If workforce development through higher education is a growing best practice, as evidenced by the increasing number of business-education partnerships, and if fostering diversity

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at all levels is a best practice, it follows that educational and training partnerships should be evaluated according to their ability to serve diverse populations. In fact, education partners that focus on underserved populations may be even more attractive to employers seeking to rebalance their management at all levels.

to serve diverse student populations. For example, College for America is proving to truly be a “college for America,” serving many of those who are traditionally underrepresented in higher education or senior management roles. In its associate’s program, for example, students are 77 percent women, 30 percent African American, and 17 percent Hispanic; and 72

Talent is evenly distributed but opportunity is not. Institutions of higher education have mixed track records in reaching varied populations. College entry and completion among racial and ethnic groups is uneven. Black and Hispanic Americans are less likely to attain degrees, even if they initially enroll in college.6 African American students are more likely to take on student debt than other populations, 7 and the impact of this debt can be especially crippling if students don’t complete their degrees.8 There are significant, lifelong socioeconomic and professional consequences for those populations as a result. It is important to build your talent and leadership pipelines by choosing an educational institution that understands how

percent are the first in their family to attend college. Of all students and graduates, 70 percent will earn their degrees debt-free. How many workers do you have in your company for whom college has never been an option? Providing access to higher education in the workplace is key to increased upward mobility in your organization for a diverse group of workers—an investment with demonstrated value for your business, for society, and for your employees. For information about you can improve college accessibility for your diverse workforce, contact info@collegeforamerica.org or visit collegeforamerica.org/diversity.

2015 Spencer Stuart Board Index. https://www.spencerstuart.com/~/media/pdf%20files/research%20and%20insight%20pdfs/ssbi-2015_110215-web.pdf

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “Employment Statistics.” Accessed May 24, 2016. https://www1.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/employment/

The Future of Jobs Employment, Skills and Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Rep.). (2016, January). Retrieved May 25, 2016, from World Economic Forum website: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs.pdf

Talent Investments Pay Off White Paper | Cigna Realizes Return on Investment from Tuition Benefits (Rep.). (2016, May). Retrieved May 25, 2016, from Lumina Foundation website: https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/talent-investments-pay-off-cigna-full.pdf

Bersin, J. (2015, December 07). Why Diversity and Inclusion Has Become a Business Priority. Retrieved May 25, 2016, from http://joshbersin.com/2015/12/whydiversity-and-inclusion-will-be-a-top-priority-for-2016/

Casselman, B. (2014, April 30). Race Gap Narrows in College Enrollment, But Not in Graduation. Retrieved May 25, 2016, from http://fivethirtyeight.com/ features/race-gap-narrows-in-college-enrollment-but-not-in-graduation/

Quinton, S. (2015, May 5). The Disproportionate Burden of Student-Loan Debt on Minorities. Retrieved May 25, 2016, from http://www.theatlantic.com/ education/archive/2015/05/the-disproportionate-burden-of-student-loan-debt-on-minorities/392456/

The Relationship Between Student Debt and College Completion. (2015, June 26). Retrieved May 25, 2016, from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ higher-education/news/2015/06/26/116019/the-relationship-between-student-debt-and-college-completion/

COMPANY PROFILE College for America at Southern New Hampshire University is an accredited, nonprofit college that helps employers upskill their workforce through competency-based associate’s and bachelor’s degrees—ones that are extraordinarily low cost, built for working adults, and uniquely applicable in the workplace. Our college is dedicated to better connecting workforce research, higher education, and labor market needs.

Special Edition

30 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Talent and Learning:

THE PERFECT PARTNERSHIP Learning and talent management can no longer operate as separate functions. Savvy learning leaders will make a valued place for themselves amid the disparate facets of HR and business strategy.

BY KELLYE WHITNEY

earning and development is a key piece of a savvy organization’s business plan. A company’s strategic objectives have implications for the workforce, specifically developing and advancing organizational capabilities and individual skills, creating new areas of expertise or supporting innovation. With that in hand, talented employees are free to do what they do best — build a better and more competitive global business. To get the best value from the learning function, it’s important to integrate learning into the organization’s talent management strategy. Learning cannot and should not operate on its own. If it does, leaders end up with a talent puzzle that has key pieces missing. Learning leaders should actively partner with their line of business peers in different facets of talent management and operations to inculcate needed learning more deeply into workflows and talent processes. Today, the learning leaders’ business value comes not from effectively managing a learning management system or portfolio of programs and content but from a keen ability to be flexible and work with other talent leaders to help identify and solve defined business problems. Having the learning program act as a linchpin in a broader talent management strategy affects every piece of the employee life cycle for the better. From determining whether a company can recruit and keep its high-performing millennial

employees, to ensuring successful career transitions to management or leadership, to transferring knowledge from retiring talent to those next in the pipeline, there are few areas where learning and talent management leaders should not collaborate. Learning leaders cannot take their eye off the prize — developing people to meet strategic business objectives. To do that effectively, they must be able to move fearlessly through all facets of talent management so learning becomes a tool with which to help recruit, retain, skill and plan for the future. In this report, we’ll delve into exactly how learning leaders can collaborate with their talent management peers by using real company examples to illustrate the ins and outs of this symbiotic relationship and the benefits from such a partnership. In our governance feature, we show that when it comes to an effective talent management-learning collaboration, it doesn’t matter if the CLO reports in to the HR organization or directly to the CEO — it only matters how they work to move the business forward. There’s also a roadmap to show learning leaders a path they can take to identify talent development needs, launch the necessary programs and then ensure those programs achieve an ROI the business can be proud of. Let the talent management-learning collaboration begin. CLO

Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Teaming Up WITH TALENT

raditional CLOs are up against a serious challenge right now, according to Dave Koll, enterprise learning leader for CGB Enterprises Inc., a grain and transportation company headquartered outside of New Orleans. It’s not enough to have a learning management system and a portfolio of content. “If they aren’t solving clearly defined business problems, they aren’t adding value,” he said. To do that, learning leaders need to get much closer to talent leaders to help identify those business problems and figure out how learning can help solve them. In fact, CLOs have to think of themselves as talent leaders — not keepers of the learning func-

32 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Learning leaders can partner with other functional leaders in myriad ways to create and deliver measurable business results. BY SARAH FISTER GALE

LEARNING IN

TALENT

MANAGEMENT

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MANAGEMENT

Nike Management Heads to Boot Camp

ne of the biggest talent management risks learning leaders can directly address is transitions — those points in a career when a recruit becomes an employee, an employee becomes a manager, and a manager becomes a leader. Employees are more vulnerable and less productive at these points in their careers, and they need additional support to be successful, said Andre Martin, chief learning officer at Nike, the global athletic apparel company based Beaverton, Oregon. “In transitions, you have the opportunity to ground lessons learned, and to give people the tools to accelerate to high performance in less time.” Nike is a design company, and that extends to the way it thinks about talent development and learning. Just as the company partners with top athletes to build and promote the brand, Martin sought out top performers in the company to model learning programs.

One of the first things he did when he joined Nike in 2014 was to identify the top 100 managers based on interviews and observations. Then he had his team shadow them to see what habits make them great at their jobs. His team used these observations to develop a new manager boot camp, which will be piloted this summer to help new leaders develop the core skills and behaviors needed to succeed. The program will include live and online training, simulations, workshops and ample time to practice in small groups. His team also rolled out a new upward feedback tool to help managers calibrate their performance, and to help the leadership team identify broad areas in need of improvement. It differs from a 360-degree feedback tool in that it focuses specifically on the behaviors the company wants to change, Martin said. Once the survey is complete, managers are encouraged to talk to their employees and to their own manager about what they heard and what they could do to improve. “It’s not so much a measure of performance, but an opportunity to develop and grow,” Martin said. It also creates a forum for managers to build trust with their teams, and to create avenues for safe and productive performance conversations. “Until you give them a forum to share honest feedback, you have no mechanism to build that trust.” The boot camp and feedback tool demonstrates the power of working alongside employees to build a business and culture where people feel like their managers are invested, thereby unleashing their potential, Martin said. “The more you can show the power of working alongside employees the easier it is to show the business the value of what you do.”

—Sarah Fister Gale 34 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

tion — and broaden their value proposition by partnering with their peers in talent management. This not only puts pressure on learning leaders to demonstrate value in different and potentially unfamiliar ways but also gives them an opportunity to address critical business needs, said David Jackson, partner in Mercer’s Talent, Leadership and Organizational Performance unit in Baltimore. For instance, by working with recruiters and hiring managers, they can help bolster the value of an organization’s brand to attract new recruits. Or this partnership will help engage high performers through career development programs and ensure they stick around to become the next generation of leaders. “Millennial recruits really want to believe they will be a valuable part of the team and will have a chance to grow in the organization,” Jackson said. “A strong learning program is an important part of that story.” Having a great learning program as part of the broader talent management process also may determine whether a company can recruit and keep its high-performing millennial employees. According to Deloitte’s Millennial Survey 2016, this generation is alarmingly disloyal. Almost half (44 percent) of millennials plan to look for new jobs in the next two years, and of this group, 71 percent say they are unhappy with how their skills are being developed. Conversely, employees who are most loyal to their employers say there is a lot of development available for those who want to take on leadership roles. These numbers underscore the need for learning leaders to create engaging talent development programs that align with the needs of both employees and the business.

Lean In to Learning Fortunately, CLOs today have more tools, technology, data and metrics to identify these needs and deliver results through a variety of platforms and formats. Most human resources and learning management system vendors offer learning tools and content to tie in with their customers’ recruiting, workforce planning, and knowledge management systems so that they can create a more seamless onboarding and talent management experience. “We’ve always talked about training being integrated into performance management, but now that trend is really gaining traction,” said Mike Gaines, director of strategic alliances for Halogen, in Ottawa, Ontario. Halogen customers are pushing for more agile and seamless connections between learning and performance from the cloud-based software company. “It’s no longer about performance reviews and periodic feedback,” Gaines said. “The trend now is to give employees control over their career development.” That means creating an on-demand learning environment where employees have access to content in real time via any device, rather than being told to go to a course or conference. Technology is enabling this transition, but rolling out e-learning programs or providing access to content via mobile devices isn’t going to solve every business challenge, said Matt MacInnis, CEO of Inkling, a learning content platform company based in San Francisco. His company works mostly with CLOs and chief human resource officers looking for ways to deliver content more seamlessly to employees, but it’s the reason behind the technology that makes all the difference. About half of Inkling’s clients have a clear understanding of the business needs they want to meet, and the metrics they will use to measure them, he said. “The other 50 percent think mobile will help them, but they don’t know how.” This is where some CLOs fall short. If they don’t partner with HR and business unit leaders to tie specific problems to learning technology, then they aren’t able make the value connection. “Learning needs context,” MacInnis

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said. “Tying it to a business-focused result provides that context.” This collaborative approach to learning is forcing CLOs to serve two distinct roles: a business partner to executives and managers who can understand their challenges and help them see how and when learning can help overcome them; and a guide for employees to navigate the diverse content offerings available to improve their performance, said Sameer Patel, senior vice president and general manager, collaboration and communities at SAP. “The business drivers come from the top or the organization, but they are implemented and achieved through the employees.”

If CLOs don’t partner with HR and business unit leaders to tie specific problems to learning technology, then they aren’t able make a value connection. For example, Patel said he worked with a client that operates a chain of arts and crafts stores where executives noticed a pattern of inconsistent upselling from store to store. Working with local managers, learning leaders analyzed selling habits in various stores and found that seasoned staff were more likely to shelve related products in proximity to each other, which drove up sales. In response, the company created short videos about shelfing strategies for new managers, and created online forums where managers from across the chain could ask each other questions and share best practices. “That’s not something you can put in a learning management system,” Patel said. “The solution was about connecting up-and-comers with seasoned experts to achieve a business goal.”

The Value of Virtual Mentors This demand for on-the-spot learning also has driven internal social media use to make learning and mentoring a more seamless part of the employee experience. “There has been a flood of social collaboration technology in the learning space over the past four years,” Patel said. These platforms and the informal learning and mentoring they enable make it necessary for learning leaders to work more closely with employees and business units to build content and create a culture where people turn to each other for help and knowledge-sharing instead of the learning department. In these environments, learning leaders become coaches and communicators, urging employees to share their best practices in conversations and through videos and shared documents hosted on these platforms. These kinds of learning moments have real business impact because they are integrated into fast-paced day-to-day performance needs, Patel said. Whether it’s giving salespeople access to new product information as soon as it is available, or creating mentoring moments that more naturally transfer knowledge from one generation to the next, learning transpires in a fastpaced, agile work environment. “These tools turn end users into mentors. They are the charter of what learning can be.” This is especially useful in fast growth companies with far-flung staff, said Marc Farrugia, vice president of human resources for Sun Communities, a real

Centralized Learning at CGB

ave Koll began his career in sales, with Maytag, Nestle and ConAgra Foods, but he was drawn to the learning and performance management side of the business. “I spent 80 percent of every meeting talking about talent,” he said.

He transitioned to head of sales training and eventually became enterprise learning leader at ConAgra. Then in 2015, he was recruited into the same role CGB, a food production and transportation company with an array of businesses that was struggling to create unified approach to learning and development. Each division was completely siloed with its own approach to learning. “There were pockets of excellence but a lot of inconsistency and wasted resources,” he said. Koll began by meeting with every business unit leader to understand their learning resources and how they aligned learning with performance. “We had many discussions about their goals and skill gaps, so I could qualify their needs.” Then he worked with them to merge their learning resources in a learning center of excellence, where business units now share learning resources that are relevant to each division and take advantage of the expertise of other business units to close their skill gaps. By doing this, Koll was able to make better use of training resources and ensure everyone got the same level of investment and support. “It gave me the framework to tackle customer facing development needs, and to build key skills and acumen across the company,” Koll said. One of the first department heads Koll worked with was the leader of the Crop Insurance Risk Management organization. “He had a lot of reference guides and resources, but no business rationale for using them.” First, Koll worked with him to understand the business goals, then he helped him take advantage of his team’s expertise and existing sales training tools to build a training program based on his best performers. The new program helps sales people ramp up their skills and better understand the sales life cycle. Within five months of launching the program, that unit signed 5,000 new farmers to its crop insurance program, a significant jump from previous years that is driving measurable increases in revenue. Koll attributes the results to the sales team’s improved capability and confidence post-training. “When you are close to the business units, you can see what their needs are and create aerosolized solutions,” he said. “Being there when they need you is the biggest barrier CLOs need to overcome.”

—Sarah Fister Gale Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

ROADMAPS Collaborative Learning Plan Incorporate conversations about emerging and critical capabilities into every workforce planning conversation. Don’t wait for business leaders to come to you, said David Jackson, partner at Mercer. Use business leaders’ annual goals to identify what competencies will be most critical to help them achieve success. “Leaders can then complete competency assessments to establish baselines and identify training to further develop these competencies,” said Mike Gaines, director of strategic alliances at Halogen. Invite business leaders to learning teamwork sessions. Use these meetings to get a sense of the perceived and measurable business value of current learning offerings and what you can do to improve, Jackson said.

Do Model the life cycle for each employee. “This the most effective way to dig into the challenges, and ensure business unit leaders feel joint ownership of the solutions you develop,” Patel said. Provide relevancy at the point of need. Today’s learning is situation-driven, so design learning that is accessible where they need to learn, said CGB Enterprises’ Dave Koll. Hold managers responsible for success. Before employees take training, introduce managers to the content and set expectations for them to model that learning on the job, Gaines said.

Review Link learning initiatives to clear business objectives, then track them. For example, if the goal is more inclusive hiring and promotion as a result of unconscious bias training, track the inclusiveness of teams managed by those in the training, and compare them with diversity and inclusion stats for other managers, Jackson said. Incorporate the employees’ perspective on need. Nike has a “voice of the employee” day where CLO Andre Martin’s team reviews the learning experience and locates the greatest/least value. Focus more on whether the learning drove new ways of working, and less on content and design. “Measurement should be used to shift behavior not to assess value,” Martin said. Measure what counts. ROI is an often overstated approach, Patel said. He said he prefers to calculate the value of adequately equipping employees to do their jobs.

36 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

estate investment trust and manufactured housing property manager. When Sun Communities was smaller, training was mostly conducted live in a classroom or on a job site. But the Michigan-based company has nearly doubled in size in the last year through acquisitions and now has more than 1,200 employees at 253 sites across the country. “Our primary struggle now is how dispersed we are,” Farrugia said. In many cases, there are only three or four staffers at each site, making on-site training impractical. But new employees, especially those at newly acquired sites, still need training and support to learn the Sun Communities culture, business and way of operating.

Having a great learning program in the talent management process may determine whether a company can recruit and keep high-performing millennial employees. To accommodate rapid growth, Farrugia worked with the information technology team and business unit leaders to develop a knowledge and training portal on SAP Jam, SAP’s social collaboration platform. It took 18 months to build a portfolio of content that includes onboarding courses, job aids, workplace templates, PowerPoint presentations, best practice documents and access to internal experts. Now, instead of completing formal training, employees can search the database to answer questions and find the tools they need to solve problems they have in the moment. “It’s like Google on speed,” he said. “It makes our people much more self-sufficient.” The message is clear: To be successful in today’s fastpaced business environment, learning leaders need to work directly with management, executives and employees to identify business needs and solve them in real time with learning opportunities that have measurable business impact. “CLOs need to rethink what learning is and how to make it impactful,” Jackson said. While there will always be a place for formal training, they have to be more proactive and adapt their content to learners real time needs.” CLO Sarah Fister Gale is writer based in Chicago. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

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HOT LIST Talent Management

Listed alphabetically; compiled by Andie Burjek; editor@CLOmedia.com.

Company name and web address

Acendre Inc. acendre.com

Notable clients

Name of common learning modules

N/A

Acendre Learning

1 year

Acendre Recruit; Acendre Onboard; Acendre Perform

Joe Abusamra, vice president of product marketing

Cornerstone Learning; Cornerstone Collaborative Learning; Cornerstone for Salesforce

17 years

Cornerstone Onboarding; Cornerstone Recruiting; Cornerstone Connect

Summer Rogers, associate vice president of product management

Black River Memorial Hospital; Brundage Management Co.; University of Wisconsin Credit Union

Halogen Learning

8 years

Halogen Performance; Halogen 1:1 Exchange; Halogen 360 Multirater

Jennifer Morin, director of product development

Standard Bank; Bombardier Aerospace; GoodLife Fitness Centers Inc.

PeopleFluent Learning Management

4 years

PeopleFluent Recruiting; Jim Bowley, vice PeopleFluent Compensa- president of product tion; PeopleFluent Perfor- management mance

Air Canada; Cisco; Dell; Guitar Center

Saba Learning@ Work; Saba Enterprise

19 years

Saba Performance@ Work; Saba Succession@ Work; Saba Planning@ Work

Ben Willis, vice president of products

Joe Herman, vice president of product management; Emily Wilson, director of solution management

Cornerstone OnDemand

Xerox; Walgreens; cornerstoneondemand. New Belgium Brewing com

Halogen Software halogensoftware.com

PeopleFluent peoplefluent.com

Saba Software saba.com

SAP SuccessFactors successfactors.com

SilkRoad silkroad.com

SumTotal Systems sumtotalsystems.com

How long have you had a learning Other popular modules in Name of learning product? the suite product manager/lead

B/E Aerospace; Bertelsmann; Timken

SAP SuccessFactors Learning

20 years

SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals; SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics & Planning; SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting

Toro; McAfee; Unisys

Silkroad Learning

8 years

Silkroad Onboarding; Silkroad Recruiting; Silkroad Performance

Lyle Emmott, senior project manager; Steve Paul, project manager

Capgemini; the American Cancer Society; and Fallon Health

Common Learning modules: SumTotal Learn

30 years

SumTotal Extended Enterprise; SumTotal Mobile

Tena Lyons, director of solutions marketing

Note: Oracle and Ultimate Software either declined to participate or did not respond to requests for information. Source: Companies

Chief Learning Officer â&#x20AC;˘ July 2016 â&#x20AC;˘ www.CLOmedia.com

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38 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

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WHERE SHOULD

Learning Go? Learning’s credibility and transformative power rests in the CLO’s ability to work strategically, whether it lives in human resources or answers directly to the CEO.

BY BRAVETTA HASSELL

ucy Dinwiddie has worked under many organizational structures over her career in learning, but in a majority of cases, learning has been housed within the human resources function. Considering how knitted — and today increasingly so — learning and development is to what it takes for an organization to fulfill its business plan, this common relationship simply makes sense, said Dinwiddie, chief learning officer at Bechtel Corp. The company’s strategic objectives have implications for talent management — building organizational capabilities or individual competencies, and creating new areas of expertise and innovation that, when processed as human resources needs, can be addressed with talent strategies that often include a learning component.

Get Close to the Action As apparent as the synergy is between learning, talent management and human resources, Dinwiddie said she can understand any CLO’s interest in having a direct line to the CEO. In such a position, learning leaders are closer to hearing about business needs and challenges. They’re also closer to the business plan that’s ultimately put into action through the company’s people and their skills and knowledge. Additionally, funding may come easier when learning is that close to the business because leadership can more closely see and hear about more often learning’s contribution. “Legal, finance, HR. We all say we want a seat at the table,” Dinwiddie said. “But it’s a dodge to say if ‘I don’t have a seat at the table

Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

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I’m not connected to the business.’ ” She said it’s good practice to meet regularly with business function leads and key leadership to make sure learning’s work is aligned to the business strategy. No matter where a learning leader sits in relation to the CEO, they have to work to be connected to the business. And that puts learning leaders square in the middle of identifying, developing and retaining talented employees. At Choice Hotels, learning for internal associates resides in HR, where there is a focus on hiring, growing, developing and training talent. But another part of the company’s learning can actually be found in strategy, said Tim Tobin, dean of Choice University, who reports to the HR function’s senior vice president. From this vantage point, learning is used as resource to help the company’s franchisees realize greater benefits to the businesses their running, which will ultimately bring greater value to Choice Hotels. Tobin said he thinks this structure sets the stage for how all learning leaders should think about learning regardless of where it falls in the organization hierarchy. “We in the learning profession need to be strategic minded,” he said. “We need to ask questions and be involved and understand where does the business want to go and how can learning help us get there.” Directly tied to the strategy aspect of the business, Tobin has no other choice but to ask these questions every day. It helps him focus on the more important priorities as opposed to losing time on peripheral projects that improve neither the business nor the people who operate it. If learning leaders aren’t taking a critical eye to their work or asking whether a given solution is actually making the company work at a higher level, they shouldn’t expect learning to be taken seriously as a profession that adds value to the business. Worry about learning’s position in the organization chart less, concern yourselves instead more with engaging colleagues and peers and working across all aspects of the organization, Tobin said. “To me, what becomes most important is that leaders see the value of learning and how it can positively impact the business.” Left to their own devices, leaders might not necessarily see it, he said. “It is our job as learning professionals, wherever we are in the organizational structure — to be able to demonstrate that value.”

He said he thinks it is important that learning leaders now and in the future see themselves almost first and foremost as performance consultants who happen to have a deep expertise in learning or talent development. These leaders have the ability and skill set to have a conversation across the company — if, as in many cases, learning is housed in HR, it isn’t enough for the CLO to know what the HR leaders want. Learning leaders need to work across the business functions, asking questions and listening, to begin working strategically to add to what the different lines of business are doing. Tobin remembered once at a different organization when a team asked the learning organization for its help with enhancing its culture. The team had some workshops in mind they wanted learning’s help with delivering. “My response was, ‘Let me first say, yes we can. But if what you’re trying to do is build a culture, then workshops by themselves aren’t going to do it. We need to start thinking about what we can do on a more frequent and regular basis, perhaps on a daily basis, that’s going to get the culture message out in front of all of our employees,’ ” Tobin said. These types of conversations can’t take place without some relationship building across the company, wherein learning leaders get to understand the various functions by working with their peers and colleagues and asking about their top business priorities and how learning can contribute to them. Tobin likes to think about learning as the engine that fuels the culture and performance of an organization, and because of that influencing potential across all areas of business, learning leaders reporting directly to CEO or reporting to HR, “really can’t leave any stone unturned.” The necessity of working together is key, Dinwiddie said. Learning leaders must choose to collaborate with their colleagues if, for instance, the learning organization is housed within HR. In the quest to have power, functions driven by a scarcity mindset may cordon themselves off from collaboration. If the belief that one initiative progresses to the detriment of another doesn’t create an adversarial relationship, it surely creates silos. Neither of those drive positive business results. “Whether it’s being with the business or it’s partnering with HR, the one thing I’ve come to appreciate

In learning, it’s imperative that successful strategy goes beyond structure.

40 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

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So You’re Thinking About Learning Governance

xecutive leadership veteran and former General Mills Chief Learning Officer Kevin Wilde says adopting a learning governance board will only serve to improve a learning organizations’ ability to delivery effectively against broader business goals, and he’s glad to see more companies are thinking about it. But don’t go chasing someone else’s model of success when it comes creating this governing body, he cautions learning leaders.

“You can learn from others. Others can give you good questions and good examples,” he said. “But figure out what fits your context and your mission right now.” Don’t blindly adopt anything, as assembling a board requires some strategy in itself. Wilde offered some fundamentals. Purpose: Leaders have got to be very clear on the purpose of the team input or decision-making. Are the members role in organization interdependent? Is there any valued added by having this group in the room? Learning leaders should define what would be clear and credible as far as the purpose the mission and deliverables of the group. Roles: Leaders must know the role they’re playing in this governing body, and be clear on the roles and deliverables of the people on the team. Are they representing their function or geography or area of learning? Are they present to help share and allocate resources or just to give a business update? To what degree are members being held accountable for supporting the decisions or input of this group? Wilde said when it comes to adopting a learning governance body, CLOs should be looking for those two fundamentals to make smarter decisions around learning and rally support around the learning agenda.

—Bravetta Hassell

in my many years of working is you need to go in as partners and you need to go in with respect and you need to go in with a mindset of what’s best for the organization, not what’s best for my learning budget,” Dinwiddie said. To work in isolation is to suboptimize, she said.

An Informed Choice One way learning leaders can make that connection is through a governance board. Learning gover-

nance can elevate the learning function’s ability to add value to talent management by enhancing CLO decision-making. Rather than just the learning leader making key decisions on their own, they’re pooling the perspectives of a select group of people. Executive leadership veteran and former General Mills Chief Learning Officer Kevin Wilde said there are fundamentally two types of governance approaches: 1. A light version in which a group of people is assembled to give input and perspective only. The group could consist of representatives from every function or every geography, for instance. In this scenario, the CLO holds the decision rights. 2. In a deciding board, members co-own the learning strategy, deciding upon and getting as close as possible to allocating corporate resources to initiatives. The size and style an organization follows takes into account a number of factors, including the organization’s strategy, how the learning organization is structured and the maturity of the learning organization. “Learning governance is a smart thing to do,” Wilde insisted. “More people are seeing this.” Conferring or partnering with a learning governance board, CLOs can lead in a way that is bigger than the sum of the parts, he said. “We can collectively view things, coordinate things and prioritize things, and that’s going to have a bigger impact on the organization and make a bigger contribution.” The workforce is evolving, and learning leaders can look in any direction and see this, Choice Hotels’ Tobin said. From the global advances in technology, to the implications of a multigenerational workforce and other realties, together these things are simultaneously having a significant impact on how learning leaders need to think about their work. “We can’t just roll out training the way we used to and think ‘OK. We checked the box.’ And I think organizations will continue to check the box because that’s the path of least resistance,” Tobin said. “But if you truly want to be transformational and utilize learning and development to move the business forward … be strategic.” Leaders will need to pay attention not just to environmental cues and trends but the internal resources their companies possess — what Tobin calls the operational realities of a particular organization. The learning leaders who will win the battle of learning, will be the ones who do those things, and will create and reinforce the value of learning by working strategically across the organization and not just within their given place on the organizational chart. CLO Bravetta Hassell is a Chief Learning Officer associate editor. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com. Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

h us. Much of what we learn doesn’t stick wit g— There are five ways to minimize forgettin and one of them is to go mobile.

42 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

BY BARRY STERN AND JANICE BURNS

n the late 19th and early 20th centuries, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus completed the seminal research on memory. He was the first to describe the learning curve, which depicts the rate at which people learn information. He also discovered the spacing effect, the superiority of “spaced” vs. “massed” learning. For example, when students cram for a test, they may do well yet have little to no retention beyond the exam. The same material learned over a more extended time period, however, will produce greater long-term retention. Ebbinghaus’ third major discovery, the forgetting curve, is more cautionary. His research showed that after 31 days,

only about 20 percent of particular memories remained present. Our ability to “crush” the forgetting curve is a critical imperative if we are to build the leadership and workforce capability our organizations must have to be successful. This challenge is made more formidable by the complexity of today’s learning environments. The acronym CAT — content, access and technology — is shorthand for the current relationship between learners and information. Today, it is not only about the content, but about how learners access that content and the technology use to create and distribute it. Given that reality, today’s “learning experience manager” —

Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

a term more descriptive of the new profile necessary to create effective experiences than the traditional term “course designer” — must consider memory dynamics and seek new ways to grab the learner’s attention. As organizations shift the responsibility for learning onto learners, they have to take charge of their experiences with the guidance of mentors to create meaningful personal focus. Recently, in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, Development Dimensions International developed a conceptual model to understand the plight of the modern learner and the mechanisms to successfully create impact (Editor’s note: One of the authors works for DDI). The resulting “fan model” refers to three stages necessary to produce successful learning interventions (Figure 1). The fan will collapse, and the gap between learning and performing will narrow or be eliminated by successfully addressing each stages’ requirements. The stages are: 1. Engage: While attention always has been a prerequisite to learning, its importance cannot be overstated in today’s era of information ubiquity. There are numerous ways this can be done, such as through motion graphics on the small screen, a credible facilitator/leader at the top of their game in front of a physical or virtual classroom, a research study that’s relevant to the training audience, or an emotional appeal. Any of these drive learners to stop “filtering out” mechanisms, and focus on the information, if only for a few seconds. 2. Learn: Unlike Ebbinghaus’ experiments, our learning journeys aren’t administered in controlled laboratory conditions. They are designed to be porous, to maximize both the transfer of learning environment and application. One obvious example is how social media and online communities have changed how learners communicate and share information. This interactivity has

its pros and cons, however. While it is easier for learners to share information, they might be less inclined to do so if their comments are subject to evaluative statements and actions from superiors. Gamification will continue to push the boundaries of learning design in years to come, as we ex-

Crushing the forgetting curve by engaging learners is at the heart of what learning experience managers must do.

FIGURE 1: LEARNING-PERFORMING GAP The three stages to produce successful learning interventions are grow, learn and engage.

Source: DDI, 2016

44 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

plore new ways to apply it. For now, gamification is an approach that has shown to have legs, but we don’t know how long and sturdy those legs are. 3. Grow. Never has the opportunity been greater to propel individual learners toward mastery of a particular skill or knowledge set. While significant acceleration moments might be provided, real and lasting memory — the precursor to personal and organizational impact — is more likely to come, as Ebbinghaus first noted, through spaced experiences learners have over time — what we now call learning journeys. Cardinal Health, a Fortune 500 health care services company, created learning journeys for five levels of formal and informal leaders. The learning journeys employ a cohort approach that brings together formal and informal learning activities spread out over time — the spacing effect in action — customized for each level. “Our wild and crazy idea was to have intact reporting groups have common shared experience with the journeys,” said Julie Blust, director of learning management. “This enables transparency, consistent language, learning together, open dialogue, and positive and reinforcement coaching.”

5 Ways to Minimize Forgetting How can we use the nexus of current learning science, organizational dynamics and technology to produce maximal effect over time, and minimize forgetting and learning waste? Let’s examine five valuable approaches. 1. Create multiple spaced impressions. The term impression means what is done rather than its impact. Techniques such as “push” mechanisms to mobile devices that stress key learning points, stimulate conversation, ask individuals to reflect or share with others, or dig deeper into specific areas all can be effective. Engaging virtual environments or mobile tools that

Reader Reaction How do you help learners retain information?

Sidd Maini: Project based learning that simulates the real world environment is always much harder to forget. We as humans are wired to forget information we do not think is important. Knowledge or wisdom gained working in teams where there is a lot of cross-pollination is bound to be sustainable. A learning strategy should consider learning outcomes with goals.

K V Vishwanathan: The best ways I have found learners retain information are as follows: (1) Align learning to a business goal/strategy (2) Post the class room/e-learning tie this learning to an action learning project, (3) assign a mentor and a coach wherever applicable and needed. Where there are more participants to be covered assign one mentor for a group of learners who will then monitor their progress, (4) wherever possible assign learning miles/credits for completing the entire life cycle of learning by the learner.

Jeff McLanahan: A big part of retention is repetition. We have all heard the phrase, “Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them” but retention relies on how you “tell them.” Training must answer the participant’s, “What’s in it for me?” in words that are understandable.

Ellen V. Platton: To make training memorable, we must keep the learner engaged. How do we do that? Deliver what they “need” to know and less “nice” to know information. Also, we need to deliver training as needed, in a timely fashion. Training too early or too late can make the training null. Let’s make the training relatable. By tell stories and using analogies we help the learner turn a concept into something they can better understand.

Ashley Spowart: The most important thing to do is to not think of your learning as a specific event but rather as a series of exposures to thoughts, skills and ideas. It is critical that you brief line managers on learning their people will undergo. You then need them to hold 1:1’s with their direct reports stipulating how what they are going to learn will help them attain their personal KPI’s and how it will help achieve the team goals. What do you think? Join the discussion at tinyurl.com/ LearnerRetention, follow us on Twitter @CLOmedia or join our Chief Learning Officer LinkedIn group.

“pull” learners in can be engineered for maximal impact with some combination of user control, adaptive algorithms, and engaging assets. Also, lower-tech techniques, such as brown bag lunches, office campaigns involving signage, topics of the month, seminars put forth by company or industry experts, or skilled mentors working a quality development plan, also prove effective. 2. Use the power of video 2.0. The full range and power of this new video era has yet to be fully explored. Videos can demonstrate positive and negative models for skill application and technique, and they can be employed to tell stories, elicit emotions that enhance attentional staying power and stimulate reflection and insights. Learners can pause and replay them at will, and choose which ones to gloss over. When done well, videos can be more information-rich than the written word, and convey volume, inflections in body language and tone. They can break down complex tasks into component parts that can be seen clearly. Perhaps most important, they can be done much cheaper than in the past thanks to technology, such as engaging animations. 3. Go mobile. Impressions today are increasingly made on the small screen. A mobile-ready strategy will make assets available to learners on their devices but will not use the true power of native applications. At the other extreme, a mobile-first approach may use the native device capabilities but likely will require more expense to create and maintain. It has yet to be demonstrated what native capabilities truly will be effective in our field. The technological boundaries seem almost limitless as we consider possibilities in biometric measurements, geolocation, or photographic/video integration. A mobile-focus strategy might be more effective in that it can use common tools across devices and take advantage of some of their native characteristics. 4. Integrate social and search. While we can create comprehensive learning journeys for learners, they have a magic key: the ability to search. Search capability combines hardwired human reinforcement mechanisms with increasingly sophisticated predictive algorithms. We search, we are reinforced by getting exactly what we want, and we search again. We are addicted — and it’s an addiction that can undermine our best efforts to guide learners down a set path. Simultaneously, we are rediscovering that learning, even in cyberspace, should be at least partially social. The aim is to reproduce the magic a skilled presenter or facilitator created in the training rooms of yesteryear. We must provide opportunities for learners to collaborate and solve real business problems together, FORGETTING CURVE continued on page 52 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

CASE STUDY

Exposing Montgomery’s Ugly Policing History BY SARAH FISTER GALE

hen Kevin Murphy was a young police officer in Montgomery, Alabama, in the ’80s, he encountered many citizens who were immediately hostile and distrustful of him, even if he was there to help. “I knew where it came from, but it was still surprising,” he said. Montgomery has a long history of segregation and violent clashes between white authorities and black citizens. The local police force was used to enforce unjust laws and “keep blacks in their place,” Murphy said. This culture of abuse gained national notoriety in 1955 with the Montgomery bus boycott after Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, but a litany of bias-driven events reaches back for years. Many of the most egregious events happened before Murphy was born, and he didn’t understand the intensity of emotion the community still held toward police officers decades later. He tried asking older officers who’d been on the streets during that time, but they were reluctant to discuss it. So he did his own research. In the years leading up to 1955, he found stories of lynchings, shootings, cover-ups, jury nullifications, and white criminals being exonerated of crimes against black citizens. During the civil rights movements, there were more famous examples, including the beating of civil rights activists in 1961 by a crowd of 1,000 whites carrying rocks, bottles, and even pitchforks while police did nothing to intervene. Decades later there was the chilling example of Bernard Whitehurst, a black janitor who while walking home from work in 1976 was shot in the back by white police officers who had been looking for another man accused of robbery. When the police started chasing him he ran, and that was enough, Murphy said. “Back then, the law authorized the use of deadly force against a ‘fleeing felon,’ ” he said. Murphy wasn’t sure which was more upsetting, the brutality of the stories or the fact that he and his peers were unaware of these events and how they shaped in-

46 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

SNAPSHOT To shine a spotlight on civil rights-era police brutality, a white Alabama police chief created a course that helps dispel decades of suspicion and change the community’s culture.

teractions between officers and local civilians. In 2011, 25 years later, he was sworn in as chief of the Montgomery Police Department. One of his first moves was to commission “Policing in a Historic City,” a class for all current and incoming officers to make them aware of the city’s history of bias in policing. “I wanted to show them an unsanitized version of our history that would expose them to the dark reality of civil rights era law enforcement.” The learning program was a bold move that would challenge every officer to acknowledge mistakes from the past in order to change their behavior in the future. In developing the course, Murphy’s team would not only improve the culture of policing within the force, but also it would help to alter the public’s perception of their role within the community over time.

Lessons From the Past The day-and-a-half long course was designed with archival data on landmark cases that would highlight decades-old transgressions involving race in the nation and in the city. Officers learn about civil rights history and national examples of bias in policing, said Lt. Stephen Lavender, who has taught the course for the past five years at the Montgomery Police Academy. The stories include the death of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy who was lynched in Mississippi for reportedly flirting with a white girl in 1955 and the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-yearold who was shot at least six times by a white police officer in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.

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There are specific examples of bias by the Montgomery police, including the Whitehurst Case, the 1961 Freedom Riders attack, and the story of Todd Road, when two plainclothes detectives raided a home where a family was gathering for a funeral in 1982, claiming to be looking for a person of interest. The officers were attacked until back-up officers arrived who subsequently arrested mourners and purportedly abused them in custody. “That event split the community and created tremendous distrust that has lasted for years,” Murphy said.

before they hit the streets.” Devin Douglas completed the course this spring. Douglas, a white woman in her 20s, was born and raised in Alabama. She said her generation is a lot more open minded than her older peers. Going into the class, she felt that race wasn’t really an issue. Like Murphy and Lavender, she was educated about civil rights in school but she had never heard the stories of how local officers were involved in some of these incidents, or thought about how those events have repercussions today.

‘I wanted to show them an unsanitized version of our history that would expose them to the dark reality of civil rights-era law enforcement.’ —Kevin Murphy, chief of Montgomery Police Department In the second half of the course, officers take a trip to the Rosa Parks Museum in downtown Montgomery. There are also class discussions about bias based policing. Lavender said originally the course was supposed to last one day, but discussions were so compelling he decided to extend it. “I wanted them to be able to express their opinions and share different points of view based on the questions we asked without feeling rushed.” Officers watch a series of video exchanges between police officers and citizens, then vote whether they strongly agree, agree with reservations, disagree with reservations or strongly disagree with the officers’ behavior. “It’s interesting to see how their upbringing shapes their perspective,” Lavender said. These exercises spur discussions and even arguments over who is right, and what is considered appropriate behavior for an officer. Sometimes close friends find themselves taking opposing views, leaving him to mediate.

Still Relevant Lavender, who is African American, has had many experiences in his own career where he didn’t understand the disdain he received from citizens in the neighborhoods where the Todd Road and Whitehurst incidents took place until after he took the class. He now uses his experience to help his students understand why it so important for officers to know these events and to take them into account when engaging with citizens. He also uses the class to gain additional insight into how new officers might behave on the job. “The class helps us understand their personal beliefs 48 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

“It was surprising, especially when you could tell that some officers wanted segregation while others weren’t sure what to do,” she said. Completing the course made her realize how important it is for these stories to be told even though many of them occurred decades ago and don’t shine a positive light on the police department’s history. “We have to know what happened so that history doesn’t repeat itself,” she said. She’s only been working as an officer for a short while, but she said the class is helping her and her peers be more thoughtful about how they interact with people. “Because I’m white and I’m in a uniform, people see me in a certain way,” she said. “The only way their opinion of us is going to change is if we handle ourselves differently. This class is helping us do that.” This is exactly the effect Murphy and his team hoped for. “Being an officer isn’t just about being a tough guy,” he said. “It’s about being a human being who is calm and careful and thinks through their actions.” The course is having an impact. There have been fewer complaints about police behavior since it was implemented, and it has helped bridge the customer service gap between citizens and the Montgomery Police Department. “The officers give the course rave reviews, and the community is benefiting,” Murphy said. “Everyone needs to find their own watershed moments — and every agency has them,” he said. “It will be painful at times, and people will resist, but we’ve made these errors in judgment, and now we need to learn from our mistakes.” CLO Sarah Fister Gale is a writer based in Chicago. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Playing Games Leads to Better Learning BY KARL KAPP

New research strongly suggests that casual game play drives engagement and better learning outcomes.

raining isn’t a subject that excites most employees. Add to this, employees face a growing number of distractions — Facebook updates, text notifications, incoming emails and more. To combat this, companies have begun using “serious games” to engage employees in learning initiatives. Serious games are not designed for entertainment. They focus on training a specific skill or educating someone on a concept. For example, a mobile game that requires retail associates to select the right product features to match a customer’s needs. The popularity of serious games is expected to reach a market value of approximately $5.5 million by 2020 because of an estimated 16 percent compounded annual growth rate, according to “Serious Game Market by Vertical, Application Platform, End-User and Region — Forecast to 2020,” a report from research firm Markets to Markets.

A casual game can place a learner in a state of flow, or a state of high concentration and alertness, and make the learner more open to learning. “Casual games” are also increasingly popular in corporate learning programs. Casual games, as defined by the International Game Developers Association, have “a low barrier to entry and can be enjoyed 50 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

in short increments.” They have simple controls, are easy to master and are meant for entertainment, which is likely why they have been met with skepticism in the workplace. Learning leaders are confronted regularly with questions about workplace game usage: Can casual games really lead to learning, or are they simply a distraction or a waste of time? What types of games lead to positive learning outcomes? Do fully developed strategic games need to be developed or can simple casual games work to boost learning outcomes by increasing learner recall?

Casual Games for Learning at Work The problem is, while many have strong opinions regarding the answers to these questions, there hasn’t been enough data to support these hypotheses. “Enhancing Motivation in Workplace Training With Casual Games: A Twelve Month Study of Retail Employees” offers an alternate perspective. The study of 6,301 retail associates in the U.S. and Canada examined the motivational impact of casual games on learning in a real business environment. The study focused on two research questions: 1. Does playing a casual game make an impact on employee engagement when logged into a gamified software learning platform? 2. Does engagement within the gamified platform subsequently impact learning results? The data, analyzed in 2015, looked at two different conditions in two different retail organizations. In the first condition, casual games were used as motivation to engage employees with the gamified platform. Employees were given the opportunity to play

a game before answering training questions. In the second condition, the game feature was turned off, so employees answered training questions without playing a game first. However, employees had access to the gamified platform, and things like the leaderboard and personal report card. Data collected included a representative sample of corporate employees over the age of 18, all of whom used the gamified Axonify software platform. The platform could track learner performance in a setting where the only software difference between the two groups was whether the casual games function was turned on or off (See “Tracking Learner Experience”).

The Case for Casual Game Play During the 12-month study, learners’ questions and answers were automatically recorded along with their interactions with other sections of the platform, including the news feed, leaderboard, prize auction, extra training panel and personal report card. Results actively support casual game use in employee learning programs. The study found: • Playing a casual game prior to engaging in a learning activity that involved answering questions produced significant levels of engagement with the learning platform. • Learners in the game condition logged in to do their training significantly more often than those in the no-game condition. • Adult learners were more motivated to come back and engage with the learning platform when they could play a game. • Learning elements did not need to be embedded into a serious game to be engaged. It appears that engagement occurred even with casual games as a motivational hook. • Learners in the game condition answered significantly more questions correctly and had significantly longer correct answer streaks than learners in the no-game condition. • Learners who are motivated to pursue extra learning opportunities answer more questions correctly, as expected. Playing the casual game seemed to place the learner in a state of flow — a mental state in which a person is fully immersed and focused in what they are doing — and allowed them to concentrate more fully on a question after they had played the game for a few moments. It’s also possible that playing the casual game enhanced learning by boosting vigilance and CASUAL GAMES continued on page 53

Tracking Learner Experience Game

No Game

The learner logged into the Axonify platform, at which point they were prompted to select a game or proceed directly to learning materials.

The learner logged into the Axonify platform.

If the learner proceeded directly to the learning material, their experience for that day was identical to the no-game condition.

Upon entering their login credentials, they were informed how much learning material was assigned for the day.

If the learner selected a game to play, they played the chosen mini-game for up to two minutes as regulated by a strict timer. Upon completing each game level, the game timer was paused and learning content was delivered in brief 30-second segments. The game resumed after each segment of learning content.

The learner had the option of logging out if they didn’t believe they had enough time to go through the material or proceeding with the scheduled learning material for the next five minutes.

If learners answered quiz questions correctly during the learning segments, they were awarded up to 10 seconds of bonus game time per correctly answered question.

If the learner elected to proceed, they were given a mixture of video, image and text-based learning and quiz content that was assigned by the employer and required for their job.

Once the game timer expired, the remaining learning content was delivered all at once in a similar fashion to the no-game condition.

Upon completing the content, the learner was automatically directed to a dashboard on the platform where they could elect to click on and engage with new pages that featured a news feed, leader board, prize auction, personal learning report card, or extra training panel.

Upon completion of the assigned daily learning material, the rest of the experience was identical to the no-game condition.

If learners selected their report card, they could review past learning material. If they selected the extra training option, they could interact with new learning topics.

Source: “Enhancing Motivation in the Workplace With Casual Games,” 2016

Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

TRANSPARENCY continued from page 21

FORGETTING CURVE continued from page 47

reers. Interactive career maps and external advising can take the pressure off supervisors and managers who are not trained, prepared or even interested in having career conversations with employees. And for job seekers, knowing that a company invests in its employees and provides them access to career maps and advising can be a huge benefit to lure, engage and retain talent. Interactive career maps help to fine-tune a company’s talent strategy by encouraging employees to take charge of their own career development. These solutions help employees uncover career paths within the organization, identify appropriate positions, and then connect them with the skills and education the company is looking for. Special features like crosswalk and job matching tools show employees how their skills and interest transfer from one part of the company to another. When done well, career maps even allow employees to create an online action plan that outlines the learning and experiences needed to reach their goals. Career and development advising gives employees a confidential place to candidly discuss their short- and long-term career goals. Advisers work with employees to ensure their learning and development choices are made with complete knowledge of the options available and the company’s business needs. Advising also helps increase the effectiveness of a company’s tuition assistance benefit by helping employees take the most efficient and cost effective path to get the education and credentials they need for career mobility. When career maps are paired with effective advising, employees are empowered with tools and support to own their careers and actualize their future with the company making it a win-win for both employee and company. The result is employees who are in charge of, and enthusiastic about, their careers. When a company is committed to transparency, it forms a partnership between the employer and the employee. As the company shares its vision for the future with employees, workers will understand what the company values, and they can invest their time and energy in improving the skills they know they need to successfully advance within the organization. Investing in current employees and being transparent builds a stronger, more engaged workforce where employees enjoy job mobility, self-development and a better quality of life. It also creates a more productive and powerful workforce that keeps companies competitive, driving the business outcomes that organizations need to succeed and prosper. CLO

even if they’re not sitting in the same classroom. Talked about less often is the blend of social and search. We might search for an item to buy or, for that matter, to learn from, but we are more likely to engage with or purchase it if others have told us it is valuable. The same applies to learning. Learners can search but have those search results validate, amplify, or reinforce the learning content. 5. Prove learning value through business context. Big data has ushered in an era of unprecedented opportunity and complexity. There’s less focus on looking back at “smile sheets” and more on looking forward to see how a given set of experiences affect leadership capability and organizational readiness. The cruciality of context cannot be overstated. For example, while it’s important to answer the question, “How can I develop good leaders?” it’s more useful in an organizational context to ask questions such as “How can I develop the leaders necessary to drive product innovation, global expansion, and/or process efficiencies?” For example, drawing on its data multinational conglomerate, Hitachi rolled out a global leadership development program designed to align with its business requirements, especially the need to create customer value. Among the specific actions leaders need to take upon completing the training curriculum is developing an action plan to apply what they learn to the business. Meanwhile, global manufacturing services company Jabil Circuit Inc. invested in a transitional leadership model program to develop leaders at all levels to align with the organization’s Manufacturing 4.0 initiatives. To reinforce learning, Jabil employed Lean and Six Sigma principles, systems and tools. “Growing our talent across all demographics to ensure they are knowledgeable and equipped to handle the changes in our industry is a key driver to our competitive edge,” said Brent Bethel, operations manager at Jabil. Crushing the forgetting curve by engaging learners to ensure learning happens, sticks and is applied, is at the heart of what learning experience managers must do for their organizations. Understanding the stages that create effective learning, and mastering the aforementioned five approaches can help learning experience managers develop and distribute appropriate content and methodologies to drive meaningful learning and impact. Most importantly, harnessing their power in a mindful way will prepare organizations with talent necessary for their success. CLO

Lynn Schroeder is vice president of client relations for Council for Adult and Experiential Learning. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com. 52 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Barry Stern is senior vice president and head of Accelerated Development Solutions, and Janice Burns is director of product development and manager for Development Dimensions International. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

CASUAL GAMES continued from page 51 alertness prior to engaging with the learning content. Research on the neuroscience of memory has consistently shown that the process of storing new memories can be significantly enhanced by increasing physiological arousal such as vigilance and stress. Further research needs to be conducted to determine the cause of the increased learning outcomes. But if a casual game can place a learner in a state of flow, or a state of high concentration and alertness, the learner may be more open to learning. If casual games can motivate learners to engage with learning content and seek out optional learning opportunities more often, which occurred in this study, an alternate route to using complex and expensive serious games in the learning in-

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dustry may be to use casual games in tandem with optional learning opportunities. By engaging learners through nonlearning casual games, it may be possible to harness their transient level of engagement and use it to enhance learning. Playing a short, casual game during a learning process can increase learning and motivation to voluntarily engage with extra learning opportunities. Chief learning officers no longer need to question if game play is valid. The only thing they should be asking now is: How soon can I incorporate casual game play into our learning programs? CLO

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IN CONCLUSION

Navigating the Politics of Change Change management skills can be learned • BY ELLEN R. AUSTER AND LISA HILLENBRAND

Ellen R. Auster is a Strategic Management Professor at York University. Lisa Hillenbrand is the former head of P&G’s Brand Building Learning Organization. They are authors of “Stragility: Excelling at Strategic Changes.” To comment, email editor@ CLOmedia.com.

s learning leaders, we’re frequently at the center of major change in the organization. We create implementation strategies and learning plans to help people develop the necessary job-based skills needed to execute the changes. Then we watch the best strategies and plans get derailed by emotions, politics and burnout — all of which seem out of our control. Enter change management skills, like the ability to sense and shift strategies, inspire and engage, and navigate politics. Change management skills are valuable, sustainable and often overlooked, but they can be learned. They greatly increase the chance that change efforts will succeed, and they offer competitive advantage as organizations grow and adapt to a relentlessly shifting external environment. Navigating the politics of change is arguably the most difficult change management skill. But CLOs who excel at building change management capabilities offer value that every organization needs. We can help teams use political dynamics to increase engagement, passion and change effort success. Here are three key steps to navigate politics: Map the political landscape. Identify which groups are potential supporters and promoters, which are more likely to be skeptical, and which will be most difficult to convince. Within these groups, which individuals are the opinion leaders? These key influencers have the resources, skills or social networks needed to win over the hearts and minds in the larger group. To find influencers in each group, look for the go-to people whose opinions can sway others. They may have formal power, or their pull may stem from their expertise or their networks. Understand magnet and fear factors. Do sensing interviews with people from a variety of groups and points of view. Map magnet factors — things likely to excite people and pull people toward the change. Also, map fear factors that may cause resistance with potential action steps to address them. Mapping skeptics fear factors might look like this: Fear factor: “Our team has brilliant ideas for solving these issues, but we’re afraid of the consequences if it doesn’t exactly work.” Action step: Encourage prototyping and learning. Fail fast and cheap, and learn from the experience. Fear factor: “Nobody talked with us about this. Before this rolls forward, they need to understand all

54 Chief Learning Officer • July 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

the things that have to be in place for it to work here.” Action step: Preemptively gather input and ideas on how to integrate new changes. Enroll a rep from this stakeholder group so they can shape the “what” and the “how” from the start. Fear factor: “This change is too risky and too costly.” Action step: Explore ways to minimize risk and reduce cost. Demonstrate long-run benefits associated with the change. Engage the skeptics. Most leaders are inclined to pay attention to the supporters and ignore or shut down skeptics. But many may be “positive skeptics.” They believe the change has flaws that need to be addressed. Engaging these skeptics has benefits. First, they can be catalysts to rethink different aspects of the change, make it more successful, and save your team months of rework by catching flaws early.

Navigating the politics of change is arguably the most difficult skill. Second, engaging them often leads to their increased ownership and commitment. Instead of standing on the sidelines, they often become organizational leaders as the change rolls out. Finally, involving them in the process sends a powerful signal to the rest of the organization that all voices are important, alternative points of view can be heard, and constructive feedback and future efforts are welcome. Each skeptic will have fear factors that underlie their reservations about the change. Addressing their concerns, listening to their input, opening up channels of communication and alleviating their anxiety by taking their fears seriously and developing action steps will aid the change process and minimize resistance. As you look at your learning curriculum, consider building in change management workshops and learning programs. These offer foundational skills your people will use again and again enabling the organization to achieve stragility — strategic, agile people-powered change that creates sustainable competitive advantage. CLO