Chief Learning Officer - September 2016 by Chief Learning Officer

September 2016 | CLOmedia.com

Special Edition

L EARNING T ECHNOLOGY

➤ Mentoring in the Cloud at Cardinal Health ➤ The Best of Both Worlds: Learning Through a Marketer’s Lens ➤ When It Comes to Technology, All That Glitters Is Not Gold ➤ Sink or Swim: Setting First-time Leaders Up for Success ➤ The Cultural Revolution ➤ How to Combat the Leadership Crisis

3M’s

JANETTE SHIMANSKI

HERE’S THE THING ABOUT HUMAN BEINGS. They’re wonderfully complex. Multidimensional. Different from each other. They’re driven by a spectacular array of motivations. And held back by a daunting volume of obstacles. Human beings are spirited. Autonomous. Unpredictable. You should know. You’re one of them. Now, imagine if you gave people a window to their best selves. Empowered them to take command of their own growth. And equipped them to join forces with others, for the benefit of all. If you didn’t just tell them to succeed, but showed them how. On their terms, by their measures, to their ends. The outcomes would be extraordinary. Not just for them. For any organization comprised of human beings.

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EDITOR’S LETTER

Learning Flipped F

or a long, long time, colleges and universities have had it pretty darn good. For centuries, they’ve cornered the market for higher education. Starting in medieval times and continuing through the age of the Internet, higher education has remained an enduring ticket to increased prosperity and opportunity. But even compared to that enviable record, universities have still had a remarkable past few decades. The post-World War II boom and programs like the GI Bill fueled a massive expansion of the college educated population. A growing economy and white collar jobs galore made a college degree the de facto prerequisite for entry to the middle class. Universities simply had to open their doors and the students came marching in. But recent developments make that primacy less durable. Cracks are showing in that long-lasting foundation. Corporate educators would be wise to pay attention.

Corporate education has a head start on higher education. But will it last?

cation altogether, encouraged by people like Silicon Valley financier Peter Thiel whose self-titled fellowship promises young entrepreneurs a cool $100,000 if they bypass the classroom and start a business. It’s not just West Coast tech types who are looking for another way. Corporate bosses tired of seeing graduates unprepared for the world of work and lacking critical thinking and communication skills are taking matters into their own hands. In the U.K., accounting firm PwC plans to hire 160 dropouts to take part in a twoyear apprenticeship program. Complete it successfully and they’ll earn the right to join the company on equal footing with an expensively educated college grad. This time, the disruption has a chance to finally crack the mold. Corporate educators find themselves in an enviable position. Long held to a high standard and required to demonstrate a return for spending, corporate universities and learning departments operate with an efficiency you’d be hard pressed to find in traditional education. They’ve invested in technology to flip the traditional model of education, taking rote learning and basic content out of the classroom and putting it online where it’s accessible 24/7. CLOs have stripped away the excess and created compelling and highly targeted learning experiences that appease skeptical bosses and make the most of busy workers’ time. But what comes next is an open debate. Facing this second round of disruption, universities are starting to tinker with change. Taking a cue from their corporate peers, some are using “flipped learning” and doing away with lectures. Rather, time together is spent working on complex projects and dealing with real-world challenges. As universities slowly turn the ship and more students graduate with the problem-solving and communication skills needed in the 21st century, learning departments will have to evolve once again. Some already have, focusing less on teaching and knowledge transfer and more on collaboration, connection and curation. For CLOs, continued innovation should be no problem. After all, they’ve never had the luxury of a centuries-old model to rely on. CLO

To be sure, this isn’t the first time traditional universities have faced competition. The rise of for-profit educational institutions like the University of Phoenix and Devry offered affordable education for the masses. Abundant federal loans, convenient night and weekend class times and customizable curricula sealed the deal for many working students. As a result, for-profit education became a lucrative $35 billion market. Unfortunately, suspect players entered the market, too. So-called diploma mills promised low-income, nontraditional students a degree in a hurry and guaranteed job placement after graduation. Crippling student debt and jobless former students prompted a wave of lawsuits and federal scrutiny that shut down the worst offenders and tarnished the reputation of the survivors. Through it all, traditional colleges continued to thrive despite the for-profit intrusion. Tuition ballooned nearly 260 percent from 1980 to 2015, with the average cost of tuition, room and board running in excess of $25,000. Enrollments, endowments and budgets never looked better. That doesn’t mean that all is well in academia. Skyrocketing costs and stale curricula and methods are Mike Prokopeak pushing some to reconsider the college path. Some Editor in Chief enterprising young folks are even skipping higher edu- mikep@CLOmedia.com 4 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

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A PUBLICATION OF

September 2016 | Volume 15, Issue 9 PRESIDENT John R. Taggart jrtag@CLOmedia.com

EDITORIAL ART DIRECTOR Anna Jo Beck abeck@CLOmedia.com

WEBCAST COORDINATOR Alec O’Dell aodell@CLOmedia.com

VICE PRESIDENT, CFO, COO Kevin A. Simpson ksimpson@CLOmedia.com

EDITORIAL INTERNS Sarah Foster sfoster@CLOmedia.com AnnMarie Kuzel akuzel@CLOmedia.com

EVENTS GRAPHIC DESIGNER Tonya Harris lharris@CLOmedia.com

VICE PRESIDENT, GROUP PUBLISHER Clifford Capone ccapone@CLOmedia.com VICE PRESIDENT, EDITOR IN CHIEF Mike Prokopeak mikep@CLOmedia.com

VICE PRESIDENT, RESEARCH & ADVISORY SERVICES Sarah Kimmel skimmel@CLOmedia.com RESEARCH MANAGER Tim Harnett tharnett@CLOmedia.com RESEARCH ANALYST Grey Litaker clitaker@CLOmedia.com

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BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION MANAGER Melanie Lee mlee@CLOmedia.com LEAD GENERATION ADMINISTRATOR Nick Safir nsafir@CLOmedia.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ken Blanchard Tacy M. Byham Sarah Fister Gale Bravetta Hassell Whitney Johnson AnnMArie Kuzel Lorrie Lykins Elliott Masie Lee Maxey Bob Mosher Dan Pontefract Howard Prager Jeff Weber Richard S. Wellins Kellye Whitney

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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

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ONLINE EVENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2016

Special Edition

L EARNING T ECHNOLOGY

Special Edition 34 36

Special Issue: Learning Technology

If innovative new technologies don’t drive business results they’re probably not worth the investment.

When It Comes to Technology, All That Glitters Is Not Gold Sarah Fister Gale The secret to maintaining the luster of learning is in knowing the destination.

How to Get What You Want from Vendors

34-41 Features

Sink or Swim: Setting First-time Leaders Up for Success Tacy M. Byham and Richard S. Wellins New leaders need more than just the opportunity to lead, and too many aren’t getting much support.

The Cultural Revolution

How to Combat the Leadership Crisis

Dan Pontefract There’s a movement afoot for CLOs to step away from tactics and focus on culture.

Howard Prager Building a better leader requires training, commitment, a willingness to move laterally, and above all, it takes a team.

AnnMarie Kuzel Tips and insights from industry veterans.

Hot List of LMS Providers Compiled by AnnMarie Kuzel A list of learning management system providers.

COVER PHOTO BY THOMAS STRAND

CORRECTION The July 2016 profile “When Learning Meets the Business, Success and Revenue Follow,” p. 22, incorrectly stated Kuntal McElroy’s doctoral degree. McElroy earned her doctorate in theoretical probability.

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

WHEN FRED LEARNS THE STUFF FRED NEEDS TO KNOW WHEN FRED NEEDS TO KNOW IT, FRED WORKS BETTER.

Xerox Learning Solutions make learning and work one. Anytime anywhere access to learning tools means Fred spends a lot less time training and a lot more time getting down to work. That’s a win-win for both Fred and your bottom line. Work can work better.

TABLE OF CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2016

Departments

Experts 12 IMPERATIVES

26 Profile The Best of Both Worlds: Learning Through a Marketer’s Lens Bravetta Hassell When 3M’s SVP of HR asked Janette Shimanski to join the organization as CLO, she asked for one thing: Do for learning what you did in marketing.

50 Case Study

Elliott Masie Stop Taking Employees Back to School

14 SELLING UP, SELLING DOWN

Bob Mosher Tools, Like Good Wine, Need to Mature

16 LEADERSHIP

Mentoring in the Cloud at Cardinal Health

Sarah Fister Gale Cardinal Health and MentorcliQ are playing matchmaker in the workplace.

18 MAKING THE GRADE

54 Business Intelligence Talent Mobility: The Unsung Development Hero Lorrie Lykins High performing companies find that creating a talent mobility strategy has ancillary learning benefits that promote internal leadership development as well.

Ken Blanchard Find the Right Mentor

Lee Maxey Are You Taking Learning Personally?

62 IN CONCLUSION

Whitney Johnson What to Do When You Hate to Hate Learning

Resources 4 Editor’s Letter

Learning Flipped

60 Advertisers’ Index

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IMPERATIVES

Stop Taking Employees Back to School Bring learning to the workplace instead • 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.

e’re tracking a trend in the learning and development field — a shift away from modeling our efforts after the images from school. But I say, “Let’s stop taking our employees back to school.” And I mean that quite literally. Our learning brands are often too closely aligned with images from grade school all the way to university. Consider these words and phrases that we hear from learning programs around the world: • Corporate university: It is common to model our learning programs around the image of a college. Yet, some of our programs are quite different from those at true universities. They are often easier and less challenging, and many do not yield a final result that provides upward mobility for employees. While there are many pluses to using the term university we are seeing some organizations evolve their focus and branding for their corporate universities. • Classrooms: In many organizations employees gather for face-to-face programs that are still called classes and that take place in a classroom. It assumes that a teacher is in charge, often providing content from the front of the room. Yet,

Our learning brands are often too closely aligned with images from grade school all the way to university. many successful programs are now blended, mixed, hybrid and experiential in design. Why not shift our language and try out action words like “lab” or “simulator”? • Modules and instructional language: As a designer, I understand the nature of an instructional module. Yet, I have never met a learner who says, “I loved the module that I took last month on safety changes!” Our use of instructional terms takes the learner into our world of curriculum design, and they are asked to act like students. Let’s shift our focus to the helpfulness of the content: “A Cool Video Clip” or “Travel Approvals — Step by Step.” You may be asking why I would suggest a shift in learning branding away from the verbiage of schools. It’s familiar, and for the most part it works. Clearly, 12 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

there are wonderful dimensions to being a teacher, and there are great models for impactful, effective classes and modules. So, why suggest the change? In a nutshell, learners do not really want to “return to school” as often as we want them to be in learning mode at work. Lifelong and continuous learning will be essential as the speed of business accelerates, and as the need for non-stop knowledge/skill acquisition and mastery grows. Our learners rarely turn to their families or friends with excitement about going to “class.” They are, however, excited to master new skills, access new roles, or take part in transformational experiences. As our learning activities are transformed by new digital platforms, machine learning, real-time remote mentoring, personalized content and workflow support, the branding associated with learning must change. Essentially, let’s bring learning to the workplace — instead of workers to the school. And, associations with school are not always aligned with positives for many in our workforce. For some, phrasing that is associated with the school house might trigger a lowered or difficult set of expectations. The image of school, K-12 or higher education, can evoke difficult memories: “I didn’t perform well at school. I was a C student and never felt successful in high school.” This learner will have an aversion to a setting that resembles a school. They are the least frequent participant or last minute canceler. “School was pretty lame. I learned way faster than the teacher taught. In fact, my parents let me be home schooled the last year so that I could soar academically.” This learner wants to shape and sequence content and might resist traditional design that hardens its scope and sequence. “The teacher teaching from the front of the room never worked for me. I skipped lectures and learned on my own with visits to the faculty office when I had questions.” This learner wants a form of home schooling at the workplace. We can weave together our learning resources, subject matter experts, super mentors and peer-to-peer content/collaboration into a workplace that lives and breathes learning — as a daily, dynamic aspect of work. Our employees will learn every day as they work and improve their talents, without having to put on the brand — or robe — of students at school. CLO

SELLING UP, SELLING DOWN

Tools, Like Good Wine, Need to Mature New tools are great, if methodology fits modality • 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.

very month I sit down in front of my laptop. I launch Microsoft Word, and I begin writing my column. I try to be articulate. I attempt to write well, but I know I fall short each month. Simply put, just because I have amazing tools like Word, and the desire and best intentions to write well, I am not a trained author. As my grandfather used to say, “Just because I can swing a hammer, it doesn’t make me a carpenter.” Segue to the learning and development industry. I recently attended a conference where three emerging disciplines were discussed — video, mobile, and performance support. There was an amazing expo where many suppliers showed their tools and capabilities. Business cards were exchanged, credit cards swiped, and “hammers” were sold. But I’m anxious about the application of those tools. They are the means, they are not the ends, and my 33-plus year journey through this industry has taught me: “Just because I buy an e-learning authoring system, there’s no guarantee I’m going to create effective e-learning.” I use that specific example because I did that exact thing very early in that modality’s existence and I created really bad — really bad — e-learning. Why? I hadn’t learned a fundamental principle in effective learning design: methodology, not a tool, wins the day. When I stumbled into e-learning I was a part of an instructor-led courseware publishing company. Our work had won all kinds of awards from the governing bodies and industry associations of the day. We felt they enhanced the classroom experience in powerful ways. They helped make inadequate instructors better. No matter who authored the courseware or the diversity of the content, an instructor could deliver a consistent classroom learning experience. That worked because the design methodology was crafted and adapted to fit the modality. How could great instruction in one modality not directly translate well to another? Then e-learning appeared. We took great courseware and PowerPoint slides, imported them into that tool, placed a “home, back, and forward” button somewhere on the screen and poof, we had equally great e-learning. Guess what? It didn’t happen. Once the glitter of the technology faded, it became apparent this new

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modality wasn’t as “just in time” as we had hoped. The good news is, over the years, we learned there are design methods that make e-learning what it is, and many are very different from the methods that made our courseware award-winning and effective in the classroom. I don’t fault us for applying old methods to new technologies. There are clear cost savings and the ability to scale a new technology or modality quickly when some of the older methodologies can be transferred. But if we jump to that conclusion too early we can spend years going the complete wrong way with e-learning design — and that ship is hard to turn around.

The application of these tools is the means, not the end. Our obligation to our learners and these emerging tools is to be sure we give them the time they need to mature. Sure, many fundamental design principles will transfer and apply, but they are principles not rules. They need to be adapted, tested, and at times thrown out if they don’t help these new technologies to reach their greatest potential. The most dangerous result in moving too quickly is that many of these new trends are consumed in the workflow and have a direct impact on a learner’s ability to perform effectively. We’re moving away from event-based models into ones that are highly personalized, contextual, and consumed at the moment of need. When those tools don’t work, the backlash can be devastating and long lasting. It’s one thing to take a poorly designed e-learning course in the evening, it’s another to invoke a mobile app when I’m trying to do my job and have it fail. The likelihood of me returning to that app, or anything like it, is very low. A lot rides on our ability to adapt or create new learning methodologies that optimize the many new tools in our toolkit. Many of these are outside of traditional thinking and design methods. We need to be very careful that we do our homework and adapt appropriately if we want them to become mainstream. CLO

LEADERSHIP

Find the Right Mentor Cross-generational mentoring can change your life • 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.

ne of the most invigorating experiences I’ve had in the past couple of years has been my partnership with Claire Diaz-Ortiz. A former Twitter vice president in her early thirties, Claire has taught me a great deal about the business of social networking — and I’ve helped her learn a few things about the business of publishing. Ours is truly a cross-generational mentoring relationship. This fall HarperCollins will publish our new book, “One Minute Mentoring.” Mentoring has become a hot topic in recent years, and it’s one that’s always been close to my heart. Yet despite growing interest, mentoring is still not a common practice. We’d like to change that. Our research has found that while people like the idea of mentoring, they encounter predictable obstacles when taking that first step. Many don’t know how to find a mentor. Then, many people aren’t sure how to work with a mentor. Even in organizations with formal mentoring programs, people often don’t think they have time to get involved in a mentoring relationship.

People like the idea of mentoring, but they encounter predictable obstacles when taking that first step. This is a shame on two levels. First, people are missing out on the opportunity to take big leaps forward in their growth and development. Second, organizations are missing out on a cost-effective way to assure that knowledge and skills are exchanged between one generation and another. The first hurdle to mentoring is lack of commitment. Once you set your intention to find a mentor, you become more open to potential mentoring partnerships all around you. You may find a mentor through company programs and professional associations. Or you may develop mentoring partnerships with former supervisors, college alumni, teachers, neighbors, friends, family and colleagues. But once opportunities present themselves, how do you know a person is the right mentor for you? Keep in mind there are two aspects of working with someone — essence and form. Essence is all about sharing heart-to-heart and finding common values. Form is about structure — the logistics of how you plan to 16 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

work together. In my experience, jumping to form before exploring essence seldom works out. I learned this early in my career, a couple of years after “The One Minute Manager” was released. My publisher suggested I partner with a well-known motivational speaker to write a book about the power of positive management. I’d been a longtime admirer of this speaker’s work, so I was excited about the prospect of writing a book with him. But during my first meeting with this celebrity, all he could talk about was the form aspect of our relationship — who would do what, what the royalty split would be, etc. I decided to pass on that opportunity. That’s when my publisher suggested I write a book with Norman Vincent Peale. Norman had written “The Power of Positive Thinking,” a book my mother had been reading for years. “Norman Vincent Peale!” I said. “Is he still alive?” “Not only is he alive, he’s fabulous!” said my publisher. So I met with Norman and his wife Ruth in New York City. At the time Norman was 86, and I was 45. Talk about cross-generational mentoring. We hit it off immediately. We talked about all kinds of things — our passions, inspirations, families. The subject of business didn’t come up until the very end of our time together. Norman was the writer-philosopher, and his wife Ruth was the “lady boss” who handled the business side of things. At the end of the evening Norman turned to his wife and asked the ultimate essence question, “Ruth, shall we work on this book with Ken?” “Yes, on one condition,” Ruth said. “What’s that?” he asked. “That whenever we meet, he brings his wife Margie, and the four of us work together.” We all became friends, and Norman became one of the most influential mentors in my life. He taught me life-changing lessons about values — and I taught him about writing parables. We remained close until Norman passed away at 95, and Ruth passed away at 102. Cross-generational mentoring can change your life. In the old days people said that a mentor was someone whose “hindsight can be your foresight.” In the fastpaced 21st century a mentor can be anyone with subject matter expertise, regardless of their age. Just make sure that before you jump into a mentoring partnership on the basis of a person’s expertise, you feel compatible with their essence as well. CLO

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MAKING THE GRADE

Are You Taking Learning Personally? Debating merits of in-person or online education misses an important question • BY LEE MAXEY

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

lot of chief learning officers and college administrators spend time answering two questions to help people excel professionally or to embrace a new educational construct: If you can learn something online, then why provide instruction in person? And if you can teach something in person, why offer online instruction? Both higher education and the corporate learning world get tripped up by these questions, but they’re red herrings. Consider a CLO making a policy decision about professional development plans for their company. Or take a college dean deciding how best to make courses available to adult learners. Both spend time figuring out if these approaches make sense. But they shouldn’t. Here’s some context for why. For 20 years, CLOs have seen a migration toward online education vis-à-vis corporate learning. In the 1990s, people touted online learning as a means to save costs. Remember the promise of building a course once to deliver it many times? By the early 2000s, employers learned that online learning wasn’t so cost effective after all, and a fully synchronous course isn’t that cheap to build. So the learning industry’s message du jour became: Online learning equals just-in-time, just enough and just-the-right learning content. There is definitely a place for self-service learning, but there’s a huge and growing market for in-person learning, too. Take business coaching, for example. Research firm IBISWorld reported in a June Business Coaching Market Research Report that the industry generates $12 billion annually and grew 3.4 percent from 2011 to 2016. Almost every executive will tell you how important business coaching is, whether it’s done in person or by phone. Corporations see big value in having a personalized coach and using the Socratic method to help people gain a deeper understanding of whatever they’re learning. The intersection between online and in-person learning is personalization. Whether learning happens online or in person, the goal is to help a person connect with learning that’s relevant to them. Some of this is based on the learner. Some relates to the topic. For instance, grand rounds, where a physician presents a medical problem and specific treatment for a patient to a group of residents and medical students, occur in person. Doctors and students, like law professors and their students, engage in the Socratic method.

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The line of questioning is ever-changing, and this could one day be augmented by artificial intelligence. But we’re not there, yet. That said, medicine is increasingly moving to a remote model where some patient education, especially follow-up on wellness visits, is now done online. So the question remains for educators and CLOs: Which instructional method is best for which circumstance?

Whether learning happens online or in person, the goal is to help a person connect with learning that’s relevant to them. But that’s not the right question because delivering learning is not about a choice between doing something in person or online. Delivering learning is figuring out how to help a person engage and improve their behavior or move intellectually to a new place. The question for CLOs and educators is: How does one make learning personally engaging? One answer lies in the fundamentals of good instructional design. Focus on the desired outcome for the training or what behavior the learning will change. As Stephen Covey wrote, “Begin with the end in mind.” Think about whether learning is knowledge-based or behavior-based. If it’s the latter, a CLO or academic must put enough support, experience and time into program designing to lift the learner to a higher level of knowledge. Even with the right goal in mind and the right method grafted onto it, a lot of behavioral changes don’t happen in a prescribed amount of time. If changing a learner’s behavior or taking him or her to a deeper understanding is the goal, we have to build a nexus between the instruction and the student. Engaging someone means they are taking learning personally, whether online or in person. CLO

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20 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

SINK OR SWIM: Setting First-time Leaders Up for Success New leaders need more than just the opportunity to lead, and too many aren’t getting much support. BY TACY M. BYHAM AND RICHARD S. WELLINS

n far too many organizations, new leaders unfortunately are figuratively thrown into the deep end to sink or swim — either to figure out on their own how to become a successful leader or to fail miserably and retreat, disillusioned, back to the ranks of individual contributors, perhaps never again to try their hand at a leadership role. It’s not just anecdotal evidence that underscores how tough it can be to become a leader for the first time. Our organization, Development Dimensions International, has studied leadership transitions and found that the struggles of new leaders are both real and widespread. One thing we found was that while stepping up as a manager is one of the most courageous decisions in one’s career, more than 87 percent of first-time leaders feel frustrated, anxious and uncertain about their new role. Only 11 percent, meanwhile, said they were groomed for the role through a development program. It doesn’t have to be like this. Instead, there is much that organizations can and should do to help increase the likelihood that their newly minted leaders will be set up for success, grow into the role more

quickly, and become proficient and effective. This goes beyond providing leadership development, though that certainly is important. It’s also about understanding the specific challenges facing new leaders, grasping what a successful leader needs to be and do now, and taking into consideration the often-underestimated impact that effective leaders can have on the organization — and beyond. Let’s examine some of the realities about new leaders.

Those Who Choose to Be Leaders Are More Successful To get at why there’s so much angst associated with becoming a leader, it’s important to understand why people become leaders in the first place. As Figure 2 shows, among the top reasons is that they were promoted as a reward for their technical expertise. In other words, they were promoted into leadership because they were high-performing individual contributors. Never mind that the skills that often enable an individual contributor to perform at a high level typically are not the same ones that will make for an effective leader. In DDI’s “Finding the First Rung”

study, we asked 1,130 front-line leaders, “How did you become a leader?” Only 9 percent “asked for it,” whereas most were promoted due to their technical abilities. Another 11 percent, meanwhile, said, “There was no one else for the job.” The truth is, those who choose to be leaders are more successful in the role, while those who didn’t choose to be a leader are three times more dissatisfied and two times more likely to quit. That means the vast majority of individuals promoted into leadership positions aren’t necessarily there because they want to be. When leadership is the result of an individual’s choice, they are more likely to bring to the role the right attitudes and behaviors that will breed success. To help ease the transition for new leaders, organizations need a robust selection or promotion process that measures both leadership skills and the motivation t o lead. Po t e n tial leadership candidates also need to be able to Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

make their own decisions without pressure or the fear of career consequences.

There’s No Underestimating How Stressful the Transition Can Be The transition from an individual contributor to a leader is not an easy one and should not be underestimated. When we asked leaders in our “Leaders in Transition: Stepping Up, Not Off” study to rank a list of life challenges in order of greatest difficulty, making a career transition was deemed more challenging than personal illness or managing teenagers. Unfortunately, the majority of organizations do not provide the support required to enable leaders to successfully transition into a first-time leadership position. Development and learning programs should be in place to begin building leadership skills months before a transition, not after. Plus, the new leader’s manager should be trained to provide coaching and support on a regular basis. They also need to examine their own motivations to lead. If those motivations are to gain more power and higher pay, they may very well be disappointed. If, instead, they seek to make a difference and think they would enjoy seeing people around them succeed, then they are on the right track.

Changing Times Call for a New Kind of Leader Rapid changes in the business environment require a rethinking of the traditional role of a leader. What’s needed, we believe, is what we call “catalyst leaders.” They represent the gold standard of leadership. And, as the name suggests, they can ignite a flame in others, gain their commitment, and drive productivity. Catalyst leaders require a strong set of skills. They consistently lead others by: • Helping people and organizations grow by FIGURE 1: CREATING A CATALYST LEADER The following attributes are integral parts of the catalyst leader’s makeup. Asks and listens Provides balanced feedback Focuses on people’s potential Empowers others Energizes and mobilizes Source: Development Dimensions International Inc., 2015.

22 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Fosters innovation

Builds trust

Collaborates and networks Encourages development Aligns actions with strategy

Reader Reaction What Do First-Time Leaders Need to Be Successful?

John McCoy: Promote them for the right reasons. I have seen many talented individual contributors led to career stagnation or destruction, influenced by the expectation that top performers should always aspire to leadership, and that top performers will naturally be good leaders; they accept management roles for which they had no aptitude. The remedy is to use the same rigor in selecting internal candidates for a promotion that you would apply to vetting external candidates. Use assessments to determine whether they have leadership qualities that training can’t help, and the aptitude to learn the skills that learning can develop. Don’t set people up to fail.

Ashim Parida: The most important thing to do is to define success for the first-time leaders. Clarify expectations, and then co-design the route to success.

Christine Monks: A new leader should start by creating a two-fold strategy — one to build themselves and another to build their team. Both should tie back to overarching business goals, and there should be ample room to iterate as they learn, grow and as organizational needs change.

John St. John: Becoming a new leader is like climbing Everest. — Prepare for the ascent with real world context and basic skill preparation, first. — Adopt the right mindset. Sometimes you follow paths or make your own. — Assemble and practice with the right leadership tools like experiential learning. — Read the map; get clarity on individual and team performance expectations. — Hire a Sherpa; Get a mentor/coach until skills and results are proven.

Steve Trainor: They must be able to demonstrate three things to their team: competence, do you know your job; compassion, do you care about your people as much as you care about yourself; and courage, are you willing to do the right thing, even there is a cost to you? What do you think? Join the discussion at tinyurl.com/h2su2co, follow us on Twitter @CLOmedia or join our Chief Learning Officer LinkedIn group.

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intentionally pursuing goals that stretch their skills and test their mettle. • Collaborating and fostering interdependence. • Becoming opportunity creators by opening doors of opportunity for others. Specifically, catalyst leaders can be defined through their behaviors. Figure 1 identifies 10 such behaviors. Beyond this set of skills, the common characteristic in catalyst leaders is their passion to become better leaders. Catalyst leaders leave the organization better off than they found it, and also leave people better off than they found them. One additional notable thing about catalyst leaders is that there are too few of them. For a DDI study a few years ago, we asked more than 1,200 employees around the world what they thought about their managers. One question we asked was, “What differentiates the best boss from the worst boss you ever worked for?” Sadly, only 22 percent of employees said they felt they were working for their best boss ever. No surprise, they rated their best bosses as two to three times more likely to use catalyst behaviors. To put new leaders on the path to becoming catalyst leaders, ensure they have a crystal-clear picture of what being a catalyst leader entails and how it differs from traditional leadership.

Great Leadership is Practiced One Conversation at a Time Catalyst leaders create an environment where their teams are both engaged and motivated. They get stuff done, they are more productive and they execute. They don’t do this by magic or through position power. Instead, they do it by interacting effectively with others. The quality of interactions matters because it affects how people feel about their leader, how they feel about themselves (whether their leader tears them down or builds them up), and how they feel about being a part of the team or the organization. It’s important to recognize that great conversations also drive bottom-line impact. An important finding in the “Global Leadership Forecast 2014-15” study from DDI and The Conference Board is that organizations that value interactions are 3½ times more likely to have a strong leadership bench and twice as likely to be among the top financially performing companies. An upfront diagnostic tool may also help create awareness for your leaders as to where their skills are strong or need to be developed.

It Takes Time to Develop Leadership Skills Becoming proficient and capable as a leader takes time and practice. As Malcolm Gladwell suggested in his book “Outliers,” it takes 10,000 hours to master a 24 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

FIGURE 2: HOW DID YOU BECOME A LEADER? Technical know-how opens doors. I was hired into a management position

33% Given a leadership position as a form of reward for technical expertise

20% Others see me as a natural leader

12% There was no one else for the job

11% I was groomed to be a leader by a development program internally

11% I asked for it

9% Given a leadership position as a result of my background (e.g., MBA)

4% Source: “Finding the First Rung,” Development Dimensions International Inc., 2010.

skill. It won’t take business leaders that long to master their interaction skills, but it will take practice. Organizations can support the development of leadership skills by focusing on building leadership development journeys that span multiple years. Forget the shortcuts. Leadership, like any other profession, requires continued opportunities for practice, skill-building, and real-world experiences. HR needs to provide the tools and supportive culture to make this happen. A new leader should look at their role as a “profession,” not just as a job. Leaders also need to remember that building leadership skills is a never-ending journey and they need to proactively seek out experiences to apply these skills. In addition, they need to get into the habit of always collecting feedback from others on how they are doing as a leader. The best leaders are always looking in the mirror to reflect on how they can get better.

A Helping Hand What are you doing in your organization to help your new leaders rise to the challenge, find success, and blossom into the catalyst leaders you need them to be? While you might be doing a lot, the best answer is always “not enough.” No leader is ever a finished product. And even when leaders become proficient, the environment in which they operate will more than likely change, creating a new set of expectations and critical skills to be developed. New leaders need extra care, support and empathy. These things are what determine whether or not a new leader will unceremoniously sink or swimmingly succeed. CLO Tacy M. Byham is CEO of Development Dimensions International. Richard S. Wellins is senior vice president of Development Dimensions International and a global expert in leadership development.

PROFILE Janette Shimanski

The Best of Both Worlds: Learning Through a Marketer’s Lens When 3M’s SVP of HR asked Janette Shimanski to join the organization as CLO, she asked for one thing: Do for learning what you did in marketing. BY BRAVETTA HASSELL

hen a leader with deep marketing expertise is asked to take over a learning role, learning — specifically leadership development — becomes exciting. It becomes engaging, and most important for participants, it becomes interesting. At least that’s what happened when 3M Chief Learning Officer Janette Shimanski took over the company learning function in 2015. Marketing and learning share many similarities. Substitute the word employee for customer and at their heart both are about understanding consumers and then translating those insights into products and solutions they want and need. Benchmarking, understanding the landscape, putting together a strategic plan, these things are as crucial for marketing as they are for learning and development, but not all learning leaders place the same value on marketing. That can be a mistake; marketing can have a powerful influence on whether a learning leaders’ efforts succeed or fail. Shimanski handles this power conscientiously. She uses marketing both to raise the learning organization’s profile, and as a tool to engage learners with the same high spirit retailers use to create the bells and whistles they sound to attract prospective customers. “When I was in the marketing role, we looked at creating a company brand,” she said. “In this role, it’s all about our brand as an employer, how we attract people to the company, and then retain them through our development program.” When considering a company’s employment brand, it’s critical that learning organizations are aware

26 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

of their own brand if they want to make a significant impact on the business, said J. Hruby, vice president of sales and marketing for Fredrickson Learning, a company that develops custom learning strategies and products as well as provides interim staffing for learn-

“We’re illuminating our leaders — painting an image. A brand is who you really are. People could attend ‘Leadership Number 1142’ or they can attend Spark where they could be ignited, they could be amplified, they could be catalyzed.” — Janette Shimanski, CLO, 3M ing and development roles. “Every learning organization already has a brand, just like every business has a brand,” he said. “The question is, is it the brand you want?” Hruby said learning leaders like Shimanski, who are thoughtful about their department’s brand, care about employee experiences with the learning de-

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

PROFILE Janette Shimanski

partment, and take a continuous pulse check to determine customer behaviors and needs.

Serendipitous Connections A National Society of High School Scholars survey released in June named 3M a dream company for millennials, and since many in this particular demographic value things like development over pay increases, Shimanski said that amplifying 3M’s brand as a people developer is paramount. Shimanski likely wasn’t considering the serendipitous connections between marketing and learning when she pursued her master’s in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a doctorate degree from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management; all degrees earned were in combinations of business and marketing. But that background and expertise has made her a uniquely valuable asset at 3M, a science-based company that’s been around for more than a century and is well known for products like transparent tape and scouring pads. Today, at least a third of the company’s sales success comes from innovations created in the past five years — and clever marketing has helped to ensure the public knows how relevant the company still is. Shimanski said she took an unconventional path to her current role. She initially came to 3M in 1988 to work in strategic business development, with internal consultants across divisions on a variety of projects including market research and building business plans. Torn between staying in the business field and pursuing a career in academia, she left 3M in 1996 to work on her doctorate, and to work for another company, returning to 3M in 2008. Shimanski came back to lead international marketing for the organization and she worked closely with head of international HR Marlene McGrath. When McGrath became senior vice president of HR, she asked Shimanski to take on a new role. “ ‘I want you to come into the learning function, and help us transform leadership development and do exactly what you did in marketing in HR,’ ” Shimanski recalled McGrath saying.

plify and Catalyst. She said she was strategic with those names. Top leaders vetted them, and Shimanski tested them with a variety of external and internal stakeholders to see whether the ideas resonated because she said branding creates excitement. “We’re illuminating our leaders — painting an image. A brand is who you really are,” she said. “People could attend ‘Leadership Number 1142’ or they can attend Spark where they could be ignited, they could be amplified, they could be catalyzed.” Shimanski said all of the programs are extremely experiential, and range from three to 12 months in length. Spark, based on the idea that an idea starts with a spark — “a glimmer of what can be” — is targeted to junior leaders in the organization who have been identified as high potential and who are doing a lot of self-discovery work. Ignite participants are typically new supervisors who are learning their management role and what it means to be a good coach. In Amplify, leaders of multiple teams work to create a voice for the organization over a nine-month period where they are exposed to a variety of external perspectives. They also engage in projects, go on customer visits and work on their holistic selves. Catalyst, 3M Leadership Way’s pinnacle program, is a yearlong, externally focused development journey with a great deal of commitment from top leadership. Participants attend leadership summits, gain exposure to perspectives outside of 3M, and participate in one of three projects: a challenge issued by top management on a 3M issue or opportunity; a

A Learning Spark Shimanski took that directive to heart. She brought a marketer’s lens to branding efforts for one of her points of pride: 3M Leadership Way. The leadership development series launched in 2015 and focuses not just on developing stronger leaders, but on developing more influential ones. “The program is also focused on creating better leaders who can help grow our customers and help impact the world in which we live,” she said. The program has four levels: Spark, Ignite, Am28 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Janette Shimanski sees the powerful influence marketing can have on whether a learning leader’s efforts succeed or fail. “In this role, it’s all about our brand as an employer,” she said.

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customer engagement project in which leaders work with customers to help solve some of their needs; or a community-based project. Each level of the program has similar elements as participants move from Spark to Catalyst. In the Ignite program, for example, Shimanski said participants are first assessed on their current abilities to supervise. The program also includes a discovery process for the leaders, spot coaching, and some targeted attention to building and developing teams using gamification, virtual technology and cohorts with peers as learning delivery vehicles. The projects relate to a participant’s particular business and are based on something the manager and leadership team agree on. “[It’s] something that has a beginning and end, and something they can accomplish and apply their learning,” Shimanski said. Ignite culminates with a capstone project leaders have to complete in order to show learning impact and application in their day-to-day jobs. Along with the discovery process, the 360-degree feedback and coaching, all of the programs have a university component in addition to a real-time projects element. The first wave of 3M Leadership Way — 180 high-potential leaders — was completed in May. Shimanski said the next wave will have about 1,000 people. In the future, the learning department will use the program to reach about 2,000 people each year. To develop the series, Shimanski said she did a lot of benchmarking at companies different from 3M as well as similar to it. She spent about a month traveling to gather a variety of diverse perspectives, looking at companies in the United States and around the world. She also did a lot of stakeholder interviews to understand what future leaders would need, and she reached out to some of the company’s key account contacts for insight. “People weren’t used to HR calling on some of our key accounts,” she said. “It was fabulous because they were giving me so much great input into how they develop their people, and what they appreciate about our people.”

Catalyzing Sustainability at 3M Shimanski’s learning team takes a similar approach in order to maintain awareness of business learning needs as well as keep a sharp eye on learning innovations that could be used to help meet those needs. She said her team of about 90 people around the world is active in conferences and benchmarking and attends many external speaking engagements to learn from others in the field. Internally, the global learning team established a common needs assessment, though Shimanski said members were careful not to neglect efforts to meet 30 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Shimanski investigated best practices at companies around the world in order to craft a plan to develop internal employees at 3M.

local needs as they arise — “but the assessment process is very consistent.” It includes getting feedback from various levels in the organization and looks both externally and internally to ascertain the voice of the learning department’s customers — 3M leaders and employees. McGrath said the rapid pace of change in the world has created an urgent need to make continuous investments in learning and development opportunities for 3M’s people across all levels of leadership. 3M Leadership Way falls under a broader umbrella around one of the company’s sustainability objectives — that 100 percent of 3M’s workforce, some 90,000 employees across 70 countries — will be actively involved in development opportunities by 2025. “We are a tremendous company for leaders — we just want to really invest in them and take them to that next level,” Shimanski said. In addition to the leadership development work, Shimanski is also investing in technology to aid virtual facilitations and reach more people around the globe. 3M certifies people to become experts in virtual technology, and puts employees through certified coaching programs so they can reach as many people as possible and develop them in deeper ways. The learning function employs numerous online platforms as well, and Shimanski said she is working to make sure that employees around the world have access to mobile learning in numerous languages. “We believe that everyone has the right to be developed at 3M,” she said. With Shimanski at the helm of the company’s learning activities — using marketing as a strategic lever to augment and shine a light on her work — 3M is well on its way to meeting its goals. CLO Bravetta Hassell is a Chief Learning Officer associate editor. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

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BEST PRACTICES IN HR TECHNOLOGY

The Next Evolution in Role Clarity Using Role Excellence Profiles to Discover and Drive Organizational Value BY TIM HARNETT

When contemplating talent acquisition, one of the first things hiring managers think about is a job description or profile — a set of skills and competencies required for the position. As the initial screening mechanism, job descriptions are important for setting expectations. Yet traditional job descriptions have their limits, especially for current employees. “Job descriptions excel during the hiring process,” said Butler Newman, vice president of organizational excellence for GP Strategies®. “They focus on the initial selection and help winnow the field of applicants. But for many organizations, that’s where job descriptions begin and end. How do you best develop competence in the role and evaluate performance once the hiring decision has been made?” “Job descriptions are a great way for helping identify people with the right skills for your organization’s job requirements,” adds Paul Pearce, managing director of business development for GP Strategies. “They’re essential for letting potential applicants know what skills, competencies or certifications they need to apply for the job. But to develop your current employees into strong contributors, you need more. This is where Role Excellence Profiles can help.”

Job descriptions vs. Role Excellence Profiles (REPs) “How do you identify if your employees are moving in the direction the business needs them to move in?” Newman asks. “Traditional job descriptions don’t provide much structured guidance on how to equip people to be successful in adding value to

the organization. Companies should develop a clear picture of how the role provides organizational value. This value contribution is one of the key features of the REP.” “REPs not only give employees the skills to make an impact to the organization, but they also measure that impact,” Pearce said. “To be truly successful in their roles, employees need to know how to contribute value. REPs put an indicator and measurement on outcomes and track the value to the organization far more effectively than we’ve ever been able to do in the past. By incorporating REPs into the mix, organizations can codify how employees add business value as opposed to merely identifying what skills you want your workforce to have. It’s the difference in possessing a competency and demonstrating competent performance in the role.”

“Understanding the mental model top performers use to achieve success is critical to overall organizational performance.” How c a n o r g a n i z a t i o n s d e ve l o p R E Ps ? By identifying top performers, securing leadership

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BEST PRACTICES IN HR TECHNOLOGY

sponsors and working with the right people, your organization can give its employees the right tools for success in their roles.

of top performers is their ability to integrate skillful human interactions into technical aspects of the role,” Newman said.

Secure leadership sponsorship and identify critical roles

“This goes beyond enhancing soft skills,” Pearce said. “REPs describe major accomplishments and outcomes of top performers within the organization. Gathering those outcomes helps us develop measures of success for others to emulate, allowing all members of the organization to produce outcomes that drive business performance.”

Identify relevant stakeholders and secure buy-in from business leaders who will directly benefit from improved performance in the critical roles. “At GP Strategies, we work with the heads of business lines to understand the critical roles needed to execute their business strategy,” Newman said. “Once we’ve identified those critical roles, we’ll work with the front-line supervisors to identify specific top performers in those roles.”

Understand top performer outcomes REPs give organizations measurable ways to identify how their best employees deliver business value; developing REPs starts with identifying these specific individuals. “Top performers often produce value at levels 10 times that of average performers,” Pearce said. “Understanding the mental model they use to achieving that success is critical to overall organizational performance.”

Give your employees the tools they need to succeed “Along with the technically oriented outcomes, we’ve found that one of the distinguishing characteristics

“ This approach works for any role,” Newman said. “While REPs are designed to increase the performance of the median of your workforce, they can also have a positive effect on top performers. In REPs, your top performers might find something they aren’t yet doing and then adopt that into their own practice, delivering even more business value to your organization.” “The best companies don’t wait for their competitors to outperform them,” Pearce said. “Role Excellence Profiles aim to push employees from good to great. By demanding the excellence your organization requires, you’ll stay one step ahead of the competition.” To learn more about how GP Strategies can develop Role Excellence Profiles for your organization, visit http://bit.ly/GPStrategiesHCM.

COMPANY PROFILE Discover customized performance improvement programs that strategically align with your unique business objectives and differentiate your global workforce, leaders and salespeople to ensure business excellence. Our managed learning strategies include repeatable processes to make knowledge transfer more efficient and cost-effective. Our sales solutions emphasize rich experiences to foster sales and loyalty. And our leadership development strategies stress employee engagement. Everything we do, from technical and compliance training to process improvement and human capital technology integration, is focused on helping your organization deliver meaningful results.

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34 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Learning Technology

Special Edition

Learning leaders are often eager to embrace innovative new technologies, but if these tools don’t drive business results they are probably not worth the investment. INTRODUCTION BY KELLYE WHITNEY

here’s a good reason why people associate the latest tech gadgets and systems with toys. The noisy bells and whistles get our attention. They shine, they glitter, but remember, all that glitters is not gold. There’s another cliché that is appropriate for new learning technology purchases, which often require considerable time to research, not to mention implement: The only thing worse than wasted money is wasted time. Without the proper context, as well as user adoption and a firm business case, learning leaders can make serious and costly mistakes in judgment when investing in the latest learn-

ing technology system or platform. It’s imperative that before signing an expensive or lengthy contract for a new product or service, that the service or product has been properly vetted to ensure it will meet learner’s needs, business needs, and align with the organization’s overall learning strategy. In this special report, Chief Learning Officer talked to vendors and learning leaders to determine why the latest trends and fads may not elicit the best tech investments, what are the most important considerations when contemplating a substantial technology purchase, and what are the best ways to work with vendors to get exactly what learners and companies want and need from new technology. CLO

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

WHEN IT COMES TO TECHNOLOGY,

All That Glitters Is Not Gold For leaders investing in learning technology, establishing a clear sense of what is needed and a plan of action will ensure the luster never wears off for learners.

BY SARAH FISTER GALE

hese are heady days for learning leaders. Executives 2016 “Global Human Capital Trends” report, 84 percent of execrely on them to rapidly build employee’s skills, and utives said learning is an important (40 percent) or very importvendors offer an array of dazzling new learning tech- ant (44 percent) issue. Yet many learning leaders struggle with nologies that promise to make employees better, faster outdated platforms and static learning approaches, suggesting a and more engaged at work. But CLOs need to be need for better technology-enabled learning solutions. thoughtful about the tools they choose to ensure they deliver busiThe technology sector is responding by rolling out dozens of ness results. new tools and platforms that promise to make learn“Technology is an enabler not a solution,” said Dani ing easier, more engaging and more accessible to finJohnson, vice president of learning and development icky learners. In 2015 alone, more than $6.54 bilresearch for Bersin by Deloitte, Delion in investments were made in loitte Consulting, the human resources new learning technologies, which is advisory and research firm. Too often up dramatically from previous recompanies decide they need a new cords of $2.42 billion in 2014 and learning management system or invest $1.64 billion in 2013. That is great in a new content development platnews for learning leaders who are form without first figuring out what ready to upgrade their out of date —PricewaterhouseCoopers’ annual “HR business purpose it will serve — and systems. But before spending a dime, Technology Survey,” 2016 whether learners will even use it. That they have to ask themselves: will any is a mistake. “It doesn’t matter how great the technology is, if learn- of it make employees better at their jobs? ers won’t use it, it does no one any good,” Johnson said. The answer isn’t always yes, said Ray Wang, founder and prinTechnology is a key piece in a learning strategy, but mistakes cipal analyst for Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research. “Few can be costly; learning must come first. According to Deloitte’s new learning solutions address the real issue of how learners want

of companies are satisfied with their learning management system.

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

L EARNING T ECHNOLOGY

How to Get What You Want from Vendors By AnnMarie Kuzel Vendor relationships can be tricky. At best, learning leaders get the tech products and solutions they need. At worst, they don’t — but they still have to pay. Asking vendors the right questions ensures that CLOs get exactly what they want.

n a learning leader’s ideal world, the most Iwould purposeful and efficient learning technology be easy to access, reasonably priced,

and facilitate workforce development in a way that’s best for the organization. Should technology malfunction or no longer serve its purpose, it would be seamlessly replaced with the help of an honest, easy-to-work-with vendor. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

to learn,” he said. Learning leaders have to resist the lure of what’s trendy to ensure their investments drive actual business outcomes that lead to a measurable ROI. Taking a business-driven approach to learning technology will prevent learning leaders from investing in expensive but not terribly useful solutions — if they make the time up-front to determine what learning is needed, and what will entice employees to engage with learning content. “Decide what the ideal learning looks like, and be open to new types of content and learning styles,” Wang said.

Chief Content Curator One of the key trends in learning technology today is to offer constant access to small bits of content that meet learner’s just-in-time needs. This is especially true among millennial employees, who now make up more than half of the workforce and have grown up getting immediate answers to any question by asking Siri or watching YouTube videos. This has created a different learning environment from

Fortunately, this world doesn’t only exist in wishful thinkers’ minds. CLOs and learning leaders who have strong relationships with learning technology vendors know, when substantial learning technology investments are at the center of the conversation, honest and thorough discussions are vital. CLOs and learning leaders must clearly state their learning and development goals in order to avoid investing in inadequate technology, but they must also be willing to listen to the information and advice that their vendor has to offer. In the process of purchasing learning technology from a vendor, learning leaders often forget to ask the most important questions. In this Chief Learning Officer Special Report on learning technology, Niko Drakoulis of SurePeople; Don Hernandez of D2L; and Kieran King of Skillsoft discussed via email how learning leaders can communicate with vendors to ensure they get the products and services their organizations really need without wasting time, money and resources. Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Niko Drakoulis FOUNDER AND CEO, SUREPEOPLE

AnnMarie Kuzel: How far in advance should the CLO start communicating with the vendor? Niko Drakoulis: If it’s a large effort with multiple stakeholders and design complexity, three months is ideal. With a targeted project that has very clear parameters and leverages a vendor’s core competency, four to eight weeks should suffice. There is a direct correlation between the level of customization required and runway to accomplish the task. Kuzel: What does that conversation look like? What sort of information is vital to communicate in order to ensure that CLO and vendor work together efficiently? Drakoulis: The CLO has to be as clear as possible about a few key items: • The business imperative/need — what problem are we solving together? The hardest thing is when, as a vendor, you are chasing solutions in search of problems. A good vendor should not be transactional or provide a solution that isn’t perceived as meeting the need. • What success looks like — a clear “vision statement” about the desired outcomes for the organization is important so that a shared image of success and how the project will be measured is communicated and achieved. • Clarity on key stakeholders — these are folks who can influence, block or drive the effort forward. • Budget parameters — this is directly linked to understanding the business need, vision and scope. If a vendor is a true partner, this should be an open dialogue.

Transparent budget discussions define a strategic versus a transactional relationship. A one-hour launch meeting to discuss the purpose, business objectives and metrics, desired outcomes of the effort, expectations, budgets, stakeholders and agreements for “how we will work together” are critical at the outset. Kuzel: Once things get rolling, how often do the parties need to speak? Drakoulis: Aside from the fact that a vendor partner should be available to a customer at any given moment, this is one of the items that gets worked out in the launch meeting. Executive sponsors may need to be informed monthly, whereas the project team needs to meet weekly or biweekly. It is always helpful to establish a weekly 30-minute continuous improvement conversation with the folks on the ground to troubleshoot, share insights and key learnings, build relationships and maintain a sense of discipline throughout the effort. Kuzel: At what point in the project should they report progress? Drakoulis: This usually gets agreed to in the launch meeting. However, best practice is usually at several key milestones, including the launch; midway through an implementation; about one month before the conclusion; and 30-60-90 days post-implementation. Kuzel: How do course corrections work? If a CLO changes his mind about the product desired, how should CLO and vendor work to correct this as seamlessly as possible? Drakoulis: As a vendor, you must approach your relationship with a collaborative attitude and realize that people are probably responding to exigencies or shifts in the business. A change, depending on how big, should simply be a conscious conversation so that new expectations and needs can be scoped out, agreed upon, and responded to. The “shockers” happen when, as a provider, you are in a transactional relationship with your customer, not tightly aligned to the business need, or missing a major set of stakeholders.

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

10 years ago, when all of the information an employee needed came from the learning and development department, Johnson said. Fortunately, it can be relatively easy and low cost to enable organic information-sharing by providing employees with GoPro cameras, or encouraging them to use their smartphones to capture best practices on the job that can be shared with colleagues. Employee-generated content has become a valuable addition to the learning tools repository, but learning leaders need to figure out how to mold it into a manageable content database that can be vetted and accessed by the right people at the right time. “Now the CLO’s job is less about what content to create, and more about how to curate that content and make it easily available,” Johnson said. The ability to generate content immediately may require vetting and cataloging thousands of pieces of training. “No one has a handle yet on how to make this happen.”

“Few new learning solutions address the real issue of how learners want to learn.” — Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst, Constellation Research Vendors like Degreed and Curatr are attempting to ease this transition with a variety of tools and system features. These companies also offer content curation as part of their learning management systems. Similarly, Workday recently rolled out Workday Learning, an application that offers employees learning and career development suggestions based on their jobs and past learning experiences; and Skillsoft is now offering a version of SumTotal’s Talent Expansion suite to create tighter integration between content and the talent management platforms to personalize learning. These are early generation tools though, and not all of them will be as intuitive and flexible as customers would like, Johnson said. “The vendors who build their systems around content usability and accessibility are doing the best job.” She also said that CLOs can’t rely on these platforms to do all of the work — even if they are easy to use. Learning leaders have to take a hard look at their content; weed out anything irrelevant, dated or

L EARNING T ECHNOLOGY

that does not support current strategic goals. Learning leaders also need to determine how to make the remaining content searchable and easy to access so learners come to a particular platform first for answers, said Steve Paul, learning product manager for SilkRoad. “Ease of use and shareability is very important to this generation.” Content also has to be relevant. For instance, Paul said many companies are pushing for mobile-enabled content as the next big thing, which is a great idea — if content and formats meet mobile learner’s needs. Giving workers in the field a quick checklist or short video to help them do their jobs is valuable, but offering an hours-long leadership training seminar via a smartphone is unlikely to be used. “Customers have a lot of expectations that mobile will solve all of their problems, but it is not always the case.”

The Quest for Metrics To avoid making costly technology mistakes, many customers are looking for better analytics and metrics to help them assess learning impact. Tying learning metrics to business performance is vital to learning program success. It is also a key characteristic of “talent-driven organizations,” according to Sierra-Cedar’s 2015-16 “HR Systems Survey.” Talent-driven organizations are 1½ times more likely to report learning metrics than non-talent-driven organizations; they achieve higher than average levels of return on equity, generate 1.4 times the revenue per employee, and have a higher profit per employee than non-talent-driven organizations. The report suggests the companies achieve these results because they focus on employee outcomes, and how learning and talent development supports those goals. Customers don’t just want whiz-bang dashboards telling them who took what training, though that is a good first step, Paul said. “What they really want is data that will give them true prescriptive analytics to understand where they need to make changes.” That may still be a lofty goal, but vendors like SilkRoad are moving in that direction by making it easier to ask questions and run algorithms on existing talent data, though he notes that this aspect of learning technology still has a long way to go. “Organizations already hold a lot of employee data, but they still struggle to analyze it in a way that tells them what drives performance.” Axonify is attempting to address many of these challenges by offering client’s employees daily three-minute learning nuggets, in which they an-

Don Hernandez VICE PRESIDENT OF ENTERPRISE SALES, D2L

AnnMarie Kuzel: How far in advance should the CLO start communicating with the vendor? Don Hernandez: Open the lines of communication as early as possible. The CLO should contact vendors after the problem definition phase of an initiative but before the solution definition phase, allowing vendors to offer valuable insight based on other customer experiences. Kuzel: What does that conversation look like? What sort of information is vital to communicate in order to ensure that CLO and vendor work together efficiently? Hernandez: It’s important to share your over-arching vision for your business and the metrics that matter most to your organization. Let your vendors know what your strategic goals are and what success looks like. Share your challenges. You have probably learned from your organization’s past mistakes, and sharing what you’ve learned is critical to help vendors to help you. It’s also important to ask vendors what their strategic goals are, and the vision for their company, products and services. Kuzel: Once things get rolling, how often do the parties need to speak? Hernandez: Before a contract is signed, a detailed implementation should be reviewed and agreed to. Once the contract is signed, it’s important to establish regular touchpoints across the stages of the project and at various levels to ensure open communication for an effective partnership: During implementation: • The project team involved in the implementation will need weekly check-ins to ensure the project

stays on track and that both client and vendor are aligned. If timelines are particularly tight, check-ins may need to be daily at some points. • The leadership team from the vendor and client should also establish check-ins during the implementation — this could be bi-weekly or monthly. Ongoing: • Once the implementation is complete, the program manager from both client and vendor should establish a cadence for meetings, typically either weekly or monthly. The CLO needs to clearly understand how clients transition in each vendor organization, with clearly documented handover protocols an absolute minimum. • On a quarterly basis, the program managers and leadership from both sides, including executive sponsors, should meet to discuss the program’s achievement against success criteria, organizational updates, and next steps. Kuzel: At what point in the project should they report progress? Hernandez: The initial implementation plan should have a communication process that is utilized over the span of the engagement. The main project team should provide regular communication; other stakeholders may require less. Kuzel: How do course corrections work? If a CLO changes his mind about the product desired, how should CLO and vendor work to correct this as seamlessly as possible? Hernandez: Vendors understand that business objectives, strategies and markets change. CLOs should be communicating any changes to their requirements as early as possible and identifying any new showstoppers, while being realistic about timelines and efforts involved in meeting custom requests. Vendors can help these conversations by providing insight into product strategy, offering services to help bridge feature gaps, or considering integrations or partnerships to best meet the needs for the organization.

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

L EARNING T ECHNOLOGY

Kieran King

VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL CUSTOMER INSIGHT, SKILLSOFT

AnnMarie Kuzel: How far in advance should the CLO start communicating with the vendor? Kieran King: CLOs should not predetermine a particular solution and then start shopping. Instead, they should be clear about the desired result to be achieved. From there, engage leading suppliers early in the thinking. The best suppliers will teach CLO’s new insights about how to address their desired business outcomes, so allocate time for that discovery process. Kuzel: What does that conversation look like? What sort of information is vital in order to ensure that a CLO and vendor are working together as efficiently as possible? King: I would suggest three categories of discussion: 1. Desired objectives: • Specific business outcomes you seek to impact. • Target populations that relate to those business outcomes. • Business stakeholders and target audiences. • Knowledge, skill or capabilities the target population needs to demonstrate. • Timeframe when results need to be attained. 2. Current state: • Methods, if any, used today to address these capabilities. • Rationale for making a change from the existing approach. • Current learner time-to-capability. • Total cost of ownership for the current solution. • An estimate of the target audience participating in the current solution. 3. Managing expectations:

• The degree to which learning is expected to influence the outcome. • Business measures that should be positively affected. • Suggestions to evaluate the new solution’s impact. • Frequency for progress updates and how that dovetails with business cycles. Kuzel: Once things get rolling, how often do the parties need to speak? King: For a large-scale project the vendor will often assign a resource to project manage this stage of the partnership in order to look after all the moving parts, ensure deliverables are on track, and facilitate fluid communication to the project team. Smaller-scale and non-custom projects require less communication frequency, but even in these instances the vendor should work through a predictable success plan, and report when milestones have been attained or delays hamper execution. Once onboarding is complete and the project is fully implemented, communication is still key because a CLO’s desired outcomes and a vendor’s capabilities are continually evolving. Kuzel: At what point in the project should they report progress? King: Progress reporting best practice is comprised of four dimensions: • On-demand — self-service reports should be available from the vendor to gauge basic metrics regarding learning technology solutions adoption. • Bi-weekly or monthly — operational topics are discussed routinely to ensure that deployment aspects are properly managed and optimized for greatest efficiency. • Quarterly — at 90-day intervals, there should be a touch-point to ensure that targets set for the desired outcomes are on track and any deviations can be remediated. • Annually — the CLO and vendor representatives should reflect on strategic changes taking place, set goals based on that contemporary understanding, and benchmark the partnership’s performance against best-in-class.

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

swer questions while engaging in a gaming environment. Based on their responses, the system customizes content for the next day. The technology is based on learning theory that people are better able to retain information when they are introduced to it at random points over time, said Axonify CEO Carol Leaman. These kinds of tools address several key challenges for learning leaders — they provide learning in small chunks, make it easily accessible, and provide key metrics to demonstrate business results. “We had a theory that it would work and it did, like crazy,” she said. After implementing the program at Pep Boys to address accidents and theft on the job, the specialty auto retailer recorded 40 percent fewer safety incidents and a 55 percent decrease in inventory shrink in the shops that use the training.

% of companies

audited said that “blended learning” will continue to be the primary approach for corporate learning. —Speexx Exchange survey, 2016 Southeastern Grocers in Jacksonville, Florida, saw similar results when the retail grocer implemented Axonify to measure its employees’ knowledge. “It is a micro-learning tool that helps us measure what people know,” said Rebecca Sinclair, former CHRO for Southeastern Grocers, and current consultant with Perceptive Management consulting in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. She said it fit nicely with the company’s broader learning strategy and addressed the need for quick bits of training for young staffers. Though “it doesn’t take away from the need for coaching, mentoring and other forms of knowledge sharing,” she said. “The technology just helps us to be smarter and faster.” That is good advice for all learning leaders who are embarking on a technology purchase: “Don’t start with the system, start with where you want to go,” Deloitte’s Johnson said. “You need to know what your goals are before you can choose technology that will get you get there.” CLO Sarah Fister Gale is a writer based in Chicago. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

HOT LIST

L EARNING T ECHNOLOGY

Learning Management System Providers

Listed alphabetically; compiled by AnnMarie Kuzel; editor@CLOmedia.com Company name and web address

Cornerstone OnDemand cornerstone ondemand.com

Halogen Software halogensoftware. com

Oracle Corp. cloud.oracle.com/ hcm-cloud

PeopleFluent peoplefluent.com

Saba Software saba.com/us

SAP SuccessFactors successfactors.com

SilkRoad silkroad.com

SumTotal Systems sumtotalsystems. com/solutions/ learn/

Number of LMS clients

Number of products

Starwood Hotels & Resorts; Walgreens; T-Mobile; Abbott Laboratories; Hallmark; New Belgium Brewing; Team Rubicon

2,700

Summer Rogers, associate vice president of product management

Halogen Learning

Black River Memorial Hospital; Brundage Management Co.; Canal Insurance Co.; Oil States Industries; SGT Inc.; University of Wisconsin Credit Union

2,100

Kristy Holmes, product manager

Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud

N/A

6,000*

Steve Viarengo, vice president of product management

PeopleFluent Learning Management

Standard Bank; Bombardier Aerospace; GoodLife Fitness Centers Inc.

5,100

Jim Bowley, vice president of product management

Name of LMS

Major LMS clients

Cornerstone Learning

Saba Cloud Learning@ Work

Dell; Virgin Atlantic; HP; Hyatt Hotels; RR Donnelley; Air Canada; Guitar Center; Express; Ford

2,200

16,000 on premise and SAP Bertelsmann; Brookshire Grocery Co.; 4,800 cloud customers SuccessFacSerco; The Timken Co. across 25 tors Learning industries worldwide

SilkRoad Learning

SumTotal Learn

Can be licensed alone or as part of a suite, which includes modules for Ben Willis, vice learning, performance, president of product succession, planning, management compensation and recruiting.

Joe Herman, vice president of product management

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

Tena Lyons, director of solutions marketing; Eric Theobald, vice president of product management

350 (LMS

McLeod Health; OGE Energy Corp.; clients), Front Range Community College 2,000 (total clients)

Capgemini; American Cancer Society; McAfee; Express Scripts

580

Learning product manager/lead

*Oracle’s total number of clients for Oracle HCM Cloud. It does not break out specific numbers for its Oracle Learn product. Notes: Workday declined to participate; Deltek did not respond to requests for information; SumTotal System is a Skillsoft Company Source: Companies, 2016

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

The Cultural

Revolution There’s a movement afoot for CLOs to step away from tactics and focus on culture.

BY DAN PONTEFRACT

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

or what seems like decades, learning leaders have been fixated on the tactical side of their profession. Developing courses, implementing learning management delivery systems and running evaluations based on Don Kirkpatrick’s groundbreaking four levels of training occupies a large portion of their time. It is as though everyone in the learning profession has read the same book, avoiding the possibility of reading something new. Far too many learning departments have become order takers. They wait on a leader to make a demand for learning, and they satisfy whatever has been requested. Questions are seldom asked. Worse, the interaction is one that has become reactive, not proactive. “L&D, rather than providing a better way is

simply doing requested content development piecework and whining about it,” said Patti Shank, founder of Learning Peaks. “What a mess.” The learning function is missing out on data that is staring them right in the face. When you review how training dollars get spent, according to an ATD research report, an alarmingly high percentage goes to management training and then to compliance requirements. As it turns out, the higher up the hierarchy one is, the more money that gets invested in their development. Is that fair? Is that practical? Is it even making a difference in the health, wellness and engagement levels of the organization? Oxford Economics research suggests 50 percent of employees do not believe they have the skills today that they will need in three years’ time, and roughly 66

percent indicated their companies can’t or won’t provide them the training they need to be ready for tomorrow. Facing the possibility that 47 percent of all jobs have a high likelihood of being replaced by technology and automation in the next 20 years, no wonder people are worried about becoming obsolete. No wonder employee engagement remains anemically low. Learning and development departments seem to think their customers are the top executives of the company. Instead of playing offense they play defense. Instead of crafting a future that ensures both the skills development for all of its employees and a healthier, more engaged organization itself, they satisfy those orders, issue reports on the attendance, and generally fail to demonstrate a more thoughtful level of long-term leadership.

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, theLearning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com Chief median debt of students who completed each program, and other important information, visit www.apus.edu/disclosure.

Employees Need a Hand to Be Successful at Work By Jeff Weber

2015 study from Bridge by Instructure found that 75 percent of college-educated workers believe knowledge and skills in their field become quickly antiquated, and 90 percent of study participants also said that changes in their field required them to update knowledge and learn new professional skills. Further, workers aren’t gaining all of the professional skills they need while attending their alma mater. The study found that college-educated workers feel their university prepared them for roughly 68 percent of their career needs.

“We’re finding more and more that neither colleges nor companies are helping workers to keep their skills updated,” said Jared Stein, vice president of research and education at Instructure. “Corporations now have a prime opportunity to fill this gap with practical training and education that will reap benefits for both companies and employees.” The onus to combat irrelevant or outdated skills through frequent education shouldn’t lie solely in the hands of employees. Corporations can and should provide more relevant and practical learning solutions to keep their employees’ skills current. Here are several easily implemented practices and applications: 1. Integrate meaningful training into a mobile format. Many employees are quite literally taking learning into their own hands when they’re not provided with adequate education resources at work. According to the Bridge study, 80 percent of college-educated employees use their mobile devices to gain continued education. This means there’s an opportunity for organizations to adapt to this mobile-driven workforce by investing in mobile-optimized training that employees can use while on the go. 2. Create content that’s easy to consume. When designing training, organizations should create streamlined, bite-sized courses that appeal to those with shorter attention spans, particularly the newer demographic entering the workforce who are accustomed to learning in shorter segments. According to a 2015 Microsoft survey, the average attention span dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds in 2015, forcing everyone from advertisers to teachers to deliver compelling messages that can be consumed quickly. 3. Keep a training repository. Corporations should gather a collection of training offerings in an easily accessible location to help keep employees and leadership up-to-speed on best practices and industry-leading skills. Think of this repository as a tool to deliver training on demand. It should be accessible immediately when needed from any device. Within this platform, learning leaders should store readily available employee training information. This will allow managers to spend more time on their jobs and less on physically administering training sessions, a structure that promotes productivity and reduces wasted time.

Jeff Weber is the senior vice president of people and places at Bridge by Instructure. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

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

The Drive-Thru The mindset of L&D has become one in which senior leaders step up to the drive-thru menu, order their course and then expect it to be wrapped in a brown bag at the second window. Sadly, the profession does not seem to realize they have a moral responsibility to all stakeholders in the organization to create a sustainable future. I believe the L&D function has a fiduciary obligation to the organization’s culture, its purpose and overarching future. The learning and development department ought to become the enabler of employee engagement and a purpose-driven ethos. The function can no longer remain a drive-thru window. “The CLO and L&D function is still tactical in 75 percent of the companies I talk with,” said Josh Bersin, principal and founder of Bersin by Deloitte. “Despite the C-level title, most CLOs are heads of training focused mostly on developing great training and

The L&D function has a fiduciary obligation to the organization’s culture, its purpose and future. content. There’s much more for this profession to do in the future. There’s a greater responsibility of leadership they can take.” Jane Hart, founder of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, made eerily similar remarks. “CLOs and L&D departments in general still equate workplace learning with training. They remain focused on designing, delivering and — most of all — managing training and e-learning.” Hart insisted that learning leaders are possessed to track everything everyone learns at work. “They seem to find it very difficult — if not impossible — to support the real learning that takes place in the organization, learning that happens every day in their jobs, teams and social groups.” Judging from global employee engagement surveys — where levels of internal employee engagement continue to remain woefully low — well over three-quarters of those employed on the planet do not find meaning in their work. According to Gallup, 52 percent of employees are actually checked out at work. Some of this blame falls squarely on the individual, for certain, but L&D can consider themselves culpable as well. The future with respect to L&D is not about developing courses, learning management systems or evaluations. While these aspects can continue, more is needed from L&D. The L&D profession has to become an instigator, a leader and a catalyst for culture change. It must help the organization become more practical, engaged, and possess and exhibit a collaborative operating system, espousing a higher purpose that aims to serve all stakeholders. The learning profession needs to establish a new moonshot. It must lead the charge and change its decades-old DNA from being tactical (and defensive) course builders to becoming proactive, progressive and practical thought leaders. The organization is in need

of a culture change leader. L&D is just the unit to deliver such leadership.

The Way Forward According to George Stonehouse and Jonathan Pemberton of the University of Northumbria, organizational culture “consists of the values, attitudes and beliefs that steer the actions and behavior of the individuals making up the organization.” Robert A. Cooke, CEO and director of Human Synergistics International and associate professor emeritus of management at the University of Illinois, defines the culture of an organization as “the way employees behave at the workplace to ensure stable future and growth.” As part of its mandate, L&D must take steps to redefine the organization’s values, attributes, behaviors and operating practices such that employees at all levels become more collaborative, connected and communicative. But this only comes to fruition if there is a mandate to change at the senior-most level in the organization itself. Thus, the L&D department needs to shift its mandate and the CLO role has to become more than a learning leader. Karie Willyerd, former CLO of Sun Microsystems

and now chief evangelist of SAP SuccessFactors, said, “Learning leaders need to step up and take responsibility for building the capabilities of the future.” Willyerd envisions an augmented role emerging for CLOs and this redefinition of the organization’s culture. “I think there needs to be some sort of chief talent success advocate and it needs to be split off from human resources. The role should be viewed as an equal report into the CEO.” In Willyerd’s view, it will be enlightened CLO leaders and L&D employees who make such a vision of engagement, culture, purpose and being practical to materialize, “not the service-minded order takers in most CLO roles and L&D departments.” She feels so strongly about this new role and accountability for L&D, she “would advocate that it should also have responsibility to the board.” The CLO title should change to chief culture officer, and the L&D department name should become People and Engagement — P&E for short. “In many of my discussions with companies, I recommend that the CLO also own employee communications and employee engagement — because the skills are very similar,” Bersin said. LEARNING CULTURE continued on page 58

How to Combat the

Leadership Crisis Building a better leader requires training, commitment, a willingness to move laterally, and above all, it takes a team.

BY HOWARD PRAGER

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

eadership development is failing. The leadership pipeline is low, and executive search firms are growing thanks to a pronounced need for talented leaders at all levels. A seismic shift is needed to bring about new thinking in how best to develop future leaders. Yet we don’t have time to wait for this shift; we need to develop leaders now. Part of the problem is that too often leadership has been a solo sport. Success stories abound, rife with “I’m going as far and as high as I can” thinking, with an emphasis on the “I.” Despite myriad books and public accolades about great leaders, nearly every truly great leader will credit others they worked with for their success. Even fictional heroes such as Harry Potter had help. No one rises on their own, they do so with collaboration and support from their colleagues and team. In their book “Learning Leadership: The Five Fundamentals of Becoming an Exemplary Leader,” James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner write that “no one ever made anything extraordinary happen alone.” The number of learning activities that involve teamwork and collaboration attest to the fact that learning how to build and manage teams is an important part of leadership. In Ram Charan’s book “The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company,” he talks about six leadership passages leaders go through as they progress through the leadership ranks. Each level requires a different set of skills than the one before, and development to ensure leaders learn the right skills at each level. Truly, there is more than one way to grow leaders. Learning leaders need to: 1. Ensure that learning fits the organization’s culture and goals. No one learning platform or learning style fits all. 2. Provide the systems so learning does not occur in a vacuum but is fully supported on the job and within the leader’s team. 3. Realize that up is not the only direction on the leadership ladder, and in today’s VUCA — volatile, uncertain, complex and agile — world, up may not even be the best way. The ladder should be turned sideways so that leadership growth occurs laterally or even spirals as leaders learn about a new function or department. And bring in leaders where their skills and talents are — individual con-

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

tributor, front-line man- FIGURE 1: CONNECT THE DOTS ager, mid-level manager/ Effective leadership development requires marked connections between learning initiatives, company culture, business goals and strategy. director and executive — and allow them to reOrganizational main successful longer at culture these levels.

Connect Leadership Development to Company Culture

Organizational initiative

Organizational goals and strategy

There are many options Source: Advance Learning Group, 2016 available for leadership development, from online to onsite, from executive education to project sponsor. “These 80 leaders explore both culexperiential activities. But whatever learning delivery ture and leadership while doing real work and helping method wins, leadership development programs to build the culture we desire,” said Kara Laverde, the need to fit the culture, style and goals for both the foundation’s manager for leadership and learning. organization and the leaders receiving the training. G. Rajkumar, former CLO at Dr. Reddy’s LaboToo often, they simply don’t. Customization is min- ratories, agreed that customizing culture-related imal — putting the company name on the program leadership development offerings is important, as is or perhaps adding an industry-specific case study. context for learning when developing leaders. To truly fit the organization, leadership develop- “While cross-fertilization of leadership practices is ment programs must be linked to three organizational most welcome, there are industry-specific nuances facets: initiatives, key goals and strategy and culture. that need to be learned by future leaders,” he said. It’s long been said that culture eats strategy for lunch. Figure 1 shows the interconnection between an If leadership development acknowledged this, tied its organizational initiative, culture and its goals and activities to both culture and strategy, and integrated strategy. To be most effective, leadership developwith key initiatives, it would create a program that fits ment must be linked to all three. Leadership develthe organization like the proverbial glove. opment then becomes integrated into the organizaThe Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has suc- tion rather than a one-off learning event. cessfully integrated both culture and learning. For example, the company has a monthly leadership devel- Don’t Discount Different Leadership opment cadre, which includes guided discussion by a Development Methods coach on a specific subject. This is followed by Usually, to learn how to be a leader, high potenself-identified assignments where leaders practice a tials work with other leaders. Learning methods inskill before the next meeting, then come back and re- clude self-study, classroom, virtual and on-the-job, port results. and they take place in many ways including onsite, This reminds leaders that they are the “culture car- offsite, online and mobile because individuals learn riers” for the foundation, and the flipped discussion differently. Incorporating different learning methods helps drive culture and leadership development. Senior ensures that every leader can learn in a way that leaders also engage in action learning with the CEO as works best for them. But there’s a problem. Leadership actually happens in moments spent with the leader’s team, business unit FIGURE 2: THE LPU METHOD and direct reports. But high potentials can’t learn leadLPU is about learning, practicing, teaching and then using ership with peers and then go back to their units, dea newly developed skill. partments, organizations and boards with just an action plan and a commitment form. How often do those commitments last when they’re hit with crises, Teach Learn Practice emergencies or just a backlog of work? They disappear and use new skill new skill in a flash. new skill Terrence Donahue, corporate director for learning in the Charles F. Knight Learning Center at Feedback Loop Emerson, a global manufacturing and technology company, said that when managers return from Source: Advance Learning Group, 2016 training, their employees have new, higher expec48 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

tations for them. “They want their managers to implement the company collaborated with a leading business school and their newly-gained skills and be more effective in their role,” over 16 months used a combination of classroom and action he said. learning projects. As a result, some 60 percent of SMEs became For instance, to develop mid-level leaders at Emerson, which front-line leaders with high employee satisfaction and retention. has more than 235 locations in 140 countries, Donahue said Senior leaders played a key role in this effort as facilitators, prothe challenge was to establish both a company and a country viding budget and resources, review and direction, success culture for them. This desire ultimately spawned the Leading at Emerson 2.0 program. Another part of the challenge was to de- GROWING LEADERSHIP continued on page 58 sign a leadership development program that was transformational, not just informational, and that would turn a local common practice into a L E A R N L E A D I N S P I R E best practice, and balance relationships with results. A different kind of learning system can help to mitigate the gap between a leader’s desire to learn and the realities of a busy executive’s life. LPU is such a system. It stands for learn, practice, teach and use, and it acts as a kind of central processing unit for learning (see Figure 2). Here’s how it works. Leaders: 1. Learn the skill or knowledge in the style that works best for them. 2. Practice either in the classroom, through action learning, or via another way to transfer learning with coaching support. 3. Teach and use this new skill with their team. Teaching and using the skill with the team is key. This ensures that direct reports hear and understand what the leader has learned, and leaders develop the skill better because teaching a skill to others is one of the best ways to reinforce a newly learned concept. The LPU method helps ensure that direct reports are not on the outside looking in; they are actively involved in learning, implementation Let Georgetown Executive Custom Programs provide a tailored learning and use of new leadership skills. This experience to help shape the future of your organization. increases engagement levels. “Employees should have expectations of their boss when they attend training,” Donahue said. Infosys BPO also has a great system for developing front-line leaders. According to Amit Nagpal, former head of capability planning and development for the global outsourcing firm, in order to build a pipeline of Office of Executive Education ready-to-deploy front-line leaders,

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CASE STUDY

Mentoring in the Cloud at Cardinal Health BY SARAH FISTER GALE

ne of the biggest challenges associated with mentoring programs is keeping executives and employees invested. People may be excited about participating initially, but excessive paperwork, lack of marketing and unclear expectations can cause excitement to wane and programs to languish. Cardinal Health is no exception. The Fortune 500 health care services company headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, has 37,000 employees, and many formal and informal mentoring programs, but they never thrived, said Susan Moss, senior consultant for talent management in the leadership development group. When she was hired in 2013, one of her first mandates was to breathe new life into the mentoring culture. Moss wanted a formal program to enable employees to connect across different departments and geographies. That’s one of the key benefits of formal versus informal mentoring programs, she said. “Informal mentoring is based on your network and who you already know. We wanted a program that helped people build new networks.”

Five Minutes and You’re In The company already had a web-based mentoring software system, but Moss said it was cumbersome and too complicated. So she replaced it with MentorcliQ, a cloud-based mentoring system that uses algorithms to match mentors and mentees, and provides tools to track and manage those relationships. Moss said she liked the ease-of-use of the system, and the fact that employees could enroll in the program in a matter of minutes via their computer or mobile device. But good software is only the first step to make a mentoring program work. To drive program awareness and drum up interest in participating, Moss customized the program to be minimally invasive. Once mentors and mentees are connected, they set their own agendas using the system to schedule meetings and send alerts. She also set a timeline of six months for mentoring relationships, with the option to renew for another six months. She said the predefined timeline made the program more intentional and gave participants a sense of what they are committing to. “They 50 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

SNAPSHOT Cardinal Health’s cloud-based mentoring solution is creating career-boosting connections across the global health care company.

know how long they will be in the relationship and they know what is expected of them in that time.” To ensure relationships play out as intended, mentors and mentees are asked to complete a short monthly survey via email about whether they are meeting as planned and achieving pre-established goals. Along with setting goals and periodic check-ins, the system asks participants to provide a wrap-up at the end of six months summarizing whether they met their goals and whether they want to renew. “We wanted to provide enough structure so that people have the support and tools they need to be successful, then get out of their way,” Moss explained. Once the system was in place in 2014, the team set up a pilot program inviting potential mentors and mentees to participate based on suggestions from the HR team. Early pairings went well, so Moss’ team began marketing and promoting the program through a variety of channels, including posters and cafeteria table tents, articles on the website, mentor spotlight stories in company newsletters, and presentations at company meetings. Most participation comes from word of mouth, she said. “People love it and they talk about it, so the growth has been phenomenal.”

You’ve Got a Match The criteria for mentors is they have to have been with Cardinal for at least a year, and agree that if they are chosen they will participate. They do not need to be at a senior level in the organization, and Moss noted there are several mentoring relationships in which younger staff and individual contributors mentor senior leaders. To sign up, mentors complete a short training course about mentoring and how to use the MentorcliQ program, then they fill out a profile highlighting their areas of expertise and what they think they have to offer a

mentee. They also complete a Big Five personality profile that measures their level of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience. Mentees also fill out a profile about themselves and what they are looking for in a mentor. Some come in with a specific mentor in mind, others search the database for options, and others rely on the system’s algorithm to provide a list of potential matches based on profile compatibility. The process is often compared to a dating site, and that was intentional, said Andrew George, co-founder of MentorcliQ in Columbus, Ohio. “These are relationships, and it is important to have a sophisticated way to make the right connections so they have a high likelihood of success,” he said.

the relationship, and establish meeting agendas. Gleason said she felt intimidated at first, but she and Muck quickly found their groove. They spent their first call getting to know each other; on the second call they set goals focused around her professional development, deciding to reconnect for 30 minutes every two weeks. Gleason said there were times she felt too busy to meet, but if the company and Muck were willing to invest in her, she needed to make time. “Dusty helped me realize that investing time in my professional development is important to my career, and that it is something I need to prioritize,” she said. Over the first few meetings, Gleason and Muck focused on her original development goals but that changed three weeks in when Gleason was informed

‘These are relationships, and it is important to have a sophisticated way to make the right connections so they have a high likelihood of success.’ —Andrew George, co-founder MentorcliQ Karen Gleason, manager of specialty markets and programs for Cardinal in La Vergne, Tennessee, joined MentorcliQ in 2015 after reading about it in the company newsletter. Gleason had been looking for someone to help her with professional development, and her manager encouraged her to sign up. A few days later she got a list of potential mentors. Each list of matches includes mentors’ bios, mentoring objectives and a percentage score showing how well they matched the mentee’s criteria. Gleason chose the second candidate on her list: Dusty Muck, a senior consultant in the ambulatory care division in the headquarters office. He was at the same level in the organization as Gleason, but in a different department. They were a 97 percent match. She liked that he was a man, he had technical expertise, and he was in an area of the business she knew nothing about. “I wanted to step outside my comfort zone so Dusty was a good choice,” she said. Muck had been with Cardinal for more than seven years and had good mentoring experiences in the past. When he read about the new program on the company intranet he said he jumped at the chance to share his knowledge. It also would help him develop his own leadership and talent management skills, which were among his personal development goals.

Making the First Move Mentees are required to drive the relationship. They are expected to make first contact, to set goals for 52 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

that her position was being eliminated. She immediately called Muck, and the two of them strategized new goals to help build her resume, expand her network and learn more about other areas of the business. The strategy helped Gleason secure a more prominent role within 60 days, which she began in January. “Dusty challenged me to set stretch goals and challenge myself, and that helped me find this new job,” she said. The mentorship ended in March, and they opted not to renew it due to time constraints, though Gleason and Muck still communicate regularly. “Anytime she needs me she knows she can call,” he said.

Satisfaction Guaranteed Since they launched MentorcliQ in 2014, Cardinal employees have invested nearly 9,000 hours in the program, with almost 1,000 people participating in 2015 alone. Surveys show 97 percent of participants are happy with the experience, Moss said. The system also tracks career moves among mentees, retention of key talent, and whether participants feel they have met their development goals. For companies considering their own mentoring program, Moss said to set measurable goals that align with business objectives, and to hold mentors and mentees accountable for their participation. “People have to be committed for mentoring to work.” CLO Sarah Fister Gale is a writer based in Chicago. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Talent Mobility: The Unsung Development Hero BY LORRIE LYKINS

High performing companies find that creating a talent mobility strategy, always a boon for retention, has ancillary learning benefits that promote internal leadership development as well.

hen it comes to developing and retaining talent, staying ahead of the competition requires raising the bar to an increasingly higher level. For learning leaders in high-performance organizations focused on transforming learning processes and improving leadership development practices, using diverse developmental activities, in particular, talent mobility, is a critical element. A September 2015 global study, “Talent Mobility Matters,” conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity found that talent mobility — defined by i4cp’s nearly 40-member Chief Learning and Talent Officer Board, as: rapidly and strategically identifying, developing, and deploying talent to meet business needs, customer requirements, and employee aspirations — is part of the learning and development strategy for high-performance organizations.

To be effective as a growth and retention strategy, talent movement as well as assignment duration must be thoughtfully determined based on the employees’ developmental needs. The board collectively posited that companies should consider cutting or reducing classroom training budgets in favor of experiential learning activities that walk hand-in-hand with internal talent moves. This coincides with survey data, which indicates that high-performance organizations are two times more likely to prioritize talent mobility than lower-performing companies. Leaders in these high-performance organizations view talent development and retention as essential parts of a winning formula to fill key roles 54 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

with internal talent. “Talent Mobility Matters” surveyed more than 650 respondents, and its data revealed that leaders in high-performance organizations should extend their gazes beyond their companies to collaborate with external partners to provide developmental opportunities for employees. Forming mutually beneficial partnerships with external stakeholders for employee development is not yet a widely adopted strategy, but it has a positive correlation to market performance, and is often employed by a relatively small group of top-performing organizations, including Boeing. Further, the survey results support much of what learning leaders know anecdotally to be true: The best companies build cultures of mobility. High-performance organizations are more than twice as likely to prioritize talent movement; low-performing companies are two-and-a-half times more likely to say that talent movement doesn’t matter — reinforcing the link between mobility and market performance. Among high-performance organizations, talent mobility is carefully planned and executed, rather than a reactive move. Leaders at global project management firm Schlumberger, which was featured in the study, promote a “borderless careers” philosophy. Essentially, they believe the best way to develop people for leadership roles is to give them exposure in three areas: cross-geography, cross-business, and cross-function. “The idea is to take risks on people,” said Career Planning and Leadership Development Manager Janice Hyslip. “If you take risk on one axis, that’s limited risk or reasonable risk. If you take risk on two axes, it’s bigger risk, where you have to wait it out and maybe support the person more. So we give people lots of different chances in lots of roles around the company.” FedEx Ground takes things a step further; the company has built a strategy around looking at the career

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ladder differently. No longer does it only go up; by emphasizing lateral, internal career moves the organization can meet business needs as well as employees’ career needs, provide cross-functional exposure and develop talent without losing them. Strong talent mobility programs are built on transparency and communication. High-performance organizations are more likely to define talent mobility broadly, to track their top talent, to reward managers for developing and moving their direct reports, and to communicate job openings across the enterprise. They are also 4½ times more likely to report that criterion for talent mobility is transparent to their entire organizations. See Figure 1. Leading organizations build cultures of mobility to retain top talent. True cultures of mobility encourage and enable employees to look at internal opportunities before they look externally. High-performance organizations say high-potential talent retention is the leading catalyst for investing in talent mobility; 30 percent of respondents said talent mobility demonstrates to employees that they have a future with the company. Only 10 percent of low-performing organizations agreed with this statement. But while the study found that having a formal talent mobility process correlates to high performance, only one-third of the survey respondents reported that their organizations have any kind of system or process in place to address talent mobility. To be effective as a growth and retention strategy, talent movement as well as assignment duration must be thoughtfully determined based on the employees’ developmental needs, the project and team needs the employee will be moved to, and ultimately business needs. See Figure 2. Further, organizations must start early. At Schlumberger, the employee population is considered the foundation for its next generation of leaders. Managers look deep into the organization to identify top talent early so that they receive the development they need and demand. This formal talent mobility strategy identifies employees as soon as they are hired, which helps high-performance organizations hang onto top talent, while ensuring their succession pipelines are well established. It’s important to provide incentives for managers to develop and move their people, but the following are also important considerations: 1. Pre-movement assessment: Movement for movement’s sake makes no sense; employ assessments to ensure the right people are being moved into the right roles for the right reasons. Assessments can identify developmental needs that, if met, might aid time to productivity in the role. TALENT MOBILITY continued on page 60 56 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

FIGURE 1: MAKE MOBILITY PLANS KNOWN High-performance organizations are twice as likely to prioritize talent mobility and to clearly articulate the process. MPI (market performance index) | MRI (mobility readiness index)

Make mobility a high priority 59% 27%

High positive correlation to MPI and MRI

Clearly articulate the mobility process 47% 27%

High positive correlation to MPI and MRI

■ High-performance organizations ■ Low-performance organizations Source: i4cp, 2016

FIGURE 2: PLAN TALENT MOVEMENT High-performance organizations are more likely to plan talent movement. Functions

Projects 67%

63% 53%

40%

Business Units 59% 32%

Geographies

No planned movement across business units has a negative correlation to MPI.

External Stakeholders

43% 32%

21% 8%

2.5X

■ High-performance organizations ■ Low-performance organizations Source: i4cp, 2016

FIGURE 3: REWARD TALENT MOBILITY Most companies have no formal mechanism to reward managers for developing talent. High-performance organizations

7% 9% 9% 12%

60% 63%

Low-performance organizations 70% Strong negative correlation to MRI

■ No formal reward mechanism ■ Tied to both compensation and advancement decisions ■ Tied to the manager’s annual compensation ■ Don’t know ■ Tied to decisions about advancement (i.e. promotion) Source: i4cp, 2016

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LEARNING CULTURE continued from page 45

GROWING LEADERSHIP continued from page 49

He believes enterprisewide programs and surrounding infrastructure around learning touches every employee in highly engaging ways. “Employee development, on-the-job support, and career mobility are among the biggest drivers of engagement — so it makes a lot of sense for the CLO to take on a more important scope.” Hart suggested that for CLOs to become these new types of leaders, “They need to break out of the mold of running a traditional training department.” She said that there ought to be a new L&D mindset “but also a new organizational mindset so that L&D are not just seen as course order-takers, but their role is to support all the ways we learn and engage in our work.” An open, transparent and engaging culture — one that is practical — is one that calls upon its leaders to demonstrate reciprocity alongside a clearly delineated strategy. The chief culture officer and their team ought to become the group that ensures all employees begin to act as a unified corporate organism, one working together to achieve its enterprisewide goals. Change is hard. Most individuals, however, do not think solely about themselves, rather they act with the greater good of the organization itself and its people in mind. Employees want to “do good” and it ought to become the responsibility of the chief culture officer and team to make this happen. Hitting business financial targets is important, but it only will happen if organizational culture is one that promotes the well-being of its people. This is where the chief culture officer and the new P&E team come into play. When an organization is united such that duplication is negated and a selfless amount of collaboration is the norm, a new culture is set in motion. It is no longer a culture of “command and control,” but rather one of “engage and empower” combined with flawless execution. An organization that is practical, purposeful and engaged becomes the point at which there is an unobstructed flow of corporate commonality. Albert Einstein once said, “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” The CLO and the L&D function — now the chief culture officer amid the P&E team — also needs a new type of thinking if the organization is to survive and move toward a more sustainable future. CLO

through scalability, recognition, and a best practice sharing mechanism.

Dan Pontefract is author of “The Purpose Effect” and “Flat Army,” and is chief envisioner of Telus. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com. 58 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

Explore Horizontal Leadership Growth Options In a traditional workplace, the only way to grow as a leader is to move up. Yet, that can mean fewer opportunities as high potential leaders have only a few options: become the chosen successor; have organizational knowledge, skills and abilities go unused; or find a new place to work and lead. There’s a better way, one that retains valued leaders. In the aforementioned book, Charan identifies different skills needed at each organizational level. Why not make it possible for someone to lead where they lead best? Why not encourage talented individuals to become a master at one level, and then take that knowledge and leadership skill to other units within the organization? It’s an interesting and valuable perspective on talent mobility as a development tool. That individual gets cross-trained in other areas of the organization to enhance their knowledge and skills. And the new team gets knowledge of a department or function they may not have worked in. Further, even if someone is good at being a frontline leader or senior manager, there’s no guarantee that he or she will be great at the next level. A spiraling leadership career path may be a better way to broaden the leader’s knowledge through various functions and still ensure the organization benefits from the development exercise. Flatter organizations may even have a wider compensation band to provide salary increases for moving to a new area. The spiral also can slowly rise, allowing leaders to share their knowledge and skills through different departments in the organization, and then perhaps move up one level. To combat the leadership crisis, learning leaders have to ensure leadership development fits an organization’s culture, goals, strategy and initiatives. The LPU method — learn, practice, teach and use — is one way to involve the leader’s direct reports in development, which is important because leadership is not an individual activity. Then, create spiral or horizontal career paths that extend the expertise and skills at the level where leaders are most successful. And when they appear ready to move up a level, do so with preparation and action learning. These thoughtful activities will help leaders become the guiding force behind an organization’s future success. CLO Howard Prager is president of Advance Learning Group. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

TALENT MOBILITY continued from page 56 2. Orientation: Fully integrating employees into new teams and roles is critical for success. 3. Offboarding/reboarding: Whether it’s returning from an assignment abroad, from an external partner, or a rotation on another team in the organization, having clear plans and processes to reassimilate people who return from developmental assignments is a practice that correlates with market performance. To build success with talent mobility, look closely at the organization’s current, likely long-standing structure and consider loosening up on policies that restrict talent movement. Create a clearly articulated talent mobility definition and process — most organizations have not done this — and ensure that all employees are aware of available job openings enterprisewide. When mobility isn’t an option for whatever reason, it’s incumbent on learning leaders to model creativity in thinking, expanding roles and responsibilities to actively engage high-potential employees. This can go a long way to sustain a culture in which

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employees are eager to take on new assignments and responsibilities. See Figure 3. A mobility program that enables strategic and planned talent movement helps meet the growing demand among all high-performing employees — not just the millennial generation — for greater control and flexibility such as variability in jobs and roles, as well as development opportunities. The value of connecting with external stakeholders is a strategy without parallel, and in addition to the opportunity such partnerings offer high-potential employees, the perspective leaders gain deepens exponentially. A leader who is able to lead beyond the figurative and literal confines of their organization to develop employees and create influence with critical stakeholders such as customers, partners and distributors is one who is positioning their organization — and themselves — for success now and well into the future. CLO

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IN CONCLUSION

What to Do When You Hate to Hate Learning Perpetual frustration can indicate that you are pursuing the wrong goal • BY WHITNEY JOHNSON

Whitney Johnson is CEO and Founder of WLJ Advisors LLC and author of “Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work.” To comment email editor@ CLOmedia.com.

love to learn. But when it’s actually time to learn, it’s not always as fun as I’d hoped. I can feel clumsy. I worry about appearing inept. I may fight fatigue and hunger. I might be grumpy or struggle to complete my other work. So sometimes I hate it — this thing I love. Disrupting the status quo, which new learning requires, involves a jump, often backward, in anticipation of new growth opportunities. The model for this shift is similar to the path new technologies follow as they penetrate the marketplace. The starting mark is at the low end of an S-curve where progress is slow until there’s a tipping point, basic competence in a new job, for example, or a certain level of market penetration. Then comes hypergrowth, rapid advancement up the steep, sleek back of the curve. At the top of the curve, growth slows again, potential is exhausted necessitating a leap to a new curve to embrace opportunity anew.

Disrupting the status quo, which new learning requires, involves a jump, often backward, in anticipation of new growth opportunities. Golfer Dan McLaughlin is a great illustration of surfing the S-curve. Having never played 18 holes of golf, McLaughlin quit his job as a commercial photographer to become a top professional golfer. Initial improvement was slow but accelerated as the various pieces of his game came together, consistent with hypergrowth. Some 28 months into the project, he had surpassed 91 percent of the 26 million golfers who register a handicap with the U.S. Golf Association database. His rate of improvement slowed as he faced competition from the top 10 percent of amateur golfers. A lot happens in our brains at the low-end of our learning curve. Though remarkable, the human brain depends on finite resources to perform. Energy devoted to new learning is diverted from other purposes, resulting in some overall performance decline. More of the stress hormone cortisol is produced; we feel tired, hungrier, irritable. Anticipating the natural physiological effects we will encounter at the low end of the curve 62 Chief Learning Officer • September 2016 • www.CLOmedia.com

can help us persevere through those difficult, discouraging early days. As we put in hours and hours of practice, hypergrowth begins, learning accelerates and increasing competence breeds confidence. Feel good neurotransmitters like dopamine are released; what was initially challenging and even painful becomes a delight. Then, as we approach mastery, our growth decelerates; we achieve competence, even excellence, but we no longer enjoy the same rush of pleasurable brain chemicals. Stagnation, boredom and complacency may result, and performance may decline. If we don’t jump to a new learning curve, the plateau may become a precipice. Sometimes our dislike is genuinely justified — we’re on the wrong learning curve. While we tend to want to do things we love or feel passionate about, our best chance of success comes when we do things that play to our natural strengths, which is not always the same thing. Consider best-selling author Augusten Burroughs. He wanted to be an actor as a child, and was confident he would be “one of the greatest actors of the day, possibly the greatest.” Then he saw himself on videotape. “It was a stunning revelation. My knowledge that I was giving an incredible performance in no way aligned with what I saw. I sucked worse than anything has ever sucked in the history of suckage.” Eventually he made his way toward writing, which he does well. He explains, “When I chose writing over acting, I didn’t give up on a dream, I gave up on my choice of vehicle used to deliver the dream.” It is important to evaluate whether we are encountering expected difficulties, or if we are feeling thwarted most of the time. Perpetual frustration can be an indicator that we are pursuing the wrong goal, and it can have adverse effects on physical and mental well-being. If you or a subordinate seem to be at risk, reevaluate the suitability of the curve. Sometimes hard is just hard. The Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand has studied competitive surfers and determined that typically 8 percent of their time is spent riding waves, 54 percent paddling and 28 percent waiting. No one would suggest the paddling, waiting and inevitable wipe-outs aren’t integral to the ultimate success. Anticipating the thrill ride to come can help us love the hard part of learning, even when we hate it. CLO

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