31 minute read
From Bystander to Upstander
Anti-harassment training is good. Antiharassment combined with bystander communication training is better.
BY ASHLEY VIRTUE
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We’ve changed the laws. We’ve mandated sexual harassment prevention training. But nearly three years after #MeToo, studies show that these efforts still might not make any difference in workplace culture and attitudes. What does then?
Up until a couple years ago, anti-harassment training was usually organized in response to a specific incident or public moment. Cynical employees could immediately spot this as the HR “check-the-box” effort that it was. Then, in late 2017, #MeToo happened, and preventing inappropriate interactions at work became a front-and-center priority. HR departments in almost every industry went into overdrive, amending company policies and making sexual harassment training integral to organizational practices.
It’s now commonly accepted that employees should know how to identify and combat harassment. Many states now require businesses to offer anti-harassment training. California currently has the most aggressive legal requirement, stating that any business with five or more employees (supervisory and nonsupervisory) must put those employees through mandatory
anti-harassment training — and many other states may soon follow suit.
So, how can business leaders design an anti-harassment training that actually resonates with employees and creates positive change in workplace culture?
Bystander Communication Works
When my organization began developing anti-harassment training programs for companies, we noticed one key issue that wasn’t being addressed in standard workshops: What about all of that stuff that happens before a situation turns into actual harassment or discrimination?
We had to acknowledge that, while it’s important to know what to do when someone clearly crosses a line, the real key to protecting employees is to stop that line from being crossed in the first place.
Bystander communication training is designed with an actual, real workplace in mind. It focuses on addressing microaggressions — the everyday slights and insults that can turn into harassing behavior over time — and teaches employees how they can spot red flags and intervene. Rather than simply highlighting what constitutes harassment, bystander training teaches employees how to communicate with a co-worker when they see red flags.
While many remarks or actions aren’t intentionally hurtful and may not seem overtly discriminatory, they can take a heavy psychological toll on recipients over time. Employees who know how to identify microaggressions, and understand why they are so hurtful, are more likely to intervene and talk to the offending party in a productive fashion. Bystander communication training teaches employees how to have the conversations that will make their workplace safer, more inclusive and happier overall.
The body of research supporting bystander training is growing. As a recent U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report stated, “[Harassment] training is important, but it needs to be the right training.” According to the same report, “Employers should consider workplace civility training and bystander intervention training.”
According to Psychology Today, theory and research both suggest bystander communication trainings “foster context-specific attitudes, beliefs, norms, and skills such that bystanders: are able to quickly and accurately identify a situation as intervention-appropriate, experience action-motivating arousal (including empathy) in the face of the event, have positive attitudes towards intervention and perceive the benefits of action as outweighing the perceived costs, are empowered to act and feel confident in their ability to effectively intervene (bystander efficacy) and are resistant to evaluation apprehension and norms contraindicating action.”
In plain English, this means that bystander communication training makes people more aware and better able to confront difficult situations.
How These Trainings Work
We usually begin by talking about microaggressions, including how they can, over time, lead to actual harassment. We have participants think about what microaggressions they have encountered in their own life and encourage them to discuss those with their co-participants. It’s important to acknowledge in some way that workers often see these red-flag situations happening, but don’t know what to do in the moment — and that it’s natural to feel afraid or hesitant to get involved.
Based on our experience leading these workshops, here are some of the most common fears workers might have about speaking up or intervening when they witness a microaggression: • Retaliation, such as being fired or passed over for a promotion. • Hurting your relationship with your colleagues and feeling like it’s “not your place” to get involved. • Jumping to conclusions, or getting involved with a situation that turned out to be harmless. • Harm to your reputation at work or becoming known as “overly PC” or “no fun.”
Our trainers then aim to help workers think about the reality of these fears and strategize ways to overcome them.
Participants also learn the 4 D’s of bystander communication. Two of them are options “in the moment” and two of them are options for after the incident has occurred.
In the Moment
Distract. This is a temporary action you can take in a situation where something needs to be done immediately, but you don’t have time to plan or go to someone else. Do something to interrupt the interaction between the person responsible and their target. If you notice a colleague is uncomfortable with another’s remarks, actions or jokes, make up a task you need their help with and pull them out of the situation.
Direct. Here, as the bystander, you make a brief, clear statement to stop the behavior. This statement shouldn’t be an attack on the person responsible, but
it should be clear enough to send a message that you weren’t comfortable. For example: “You know, Josh, usually I like your jokes but that one kind of crossed a line for me.”
After the Incident
Delegate. If you don’t feel like you are in a position to address the situation with one of the parties involved, go to someone with more power who can take appropriate steps. This could be as simple as reporting what you saw to an authority figure with formal power, such as an HR manager, or a colleague with informal power, who simply knows the people involved better than you do.
Dialogue. Using this step means you have decided to follow up with the person responsible and have a conversation about their words or actions. At first, this might seem like the most challenging task for bystanders, but it is by far the most effective in terms of long-term results. The trick to approaching a potentially volatile conversation like this is to listen respectfully to the other person while calmly stating what you saw occur. Be curious about their behavior and ask open-ended questions, such as, “What do you feel like the appropriate thing to say would have been in that situation?” or “Has anyone ever made you feel uncomfortable at work?” This may make them feel more at ease opening up about their behavior or acknowledging what they did was wrong.
A word about listening: Once you ask these openended questions, your goal should be to hear and understand what the other person is saying. That is very different from pretending to listen while you are actually thinking about and rehearsing your next response (which is human nature and often what happens in difficult conversations).
How the workshop unfolds from here is usually determined by the size of the group, the type of organization or industry we’re working with and how engaged the employees are. While these trainings can be done by someone on staff, such as an HR director, it’s usually best to bring in an outside organization to conduct them. It gives your company more protection in the event of a future lawsuit because it demonstrates that you brought in experts for the workshop. There is also a morale benefit: Bringing in outside experts shows employees you are truly invested in changing workplace culture.
Another benefit of an outside organization: They appear as a neutral party and create a safe space for employees to talk about issues. Often, employees feel nervous admitting that they have witnessed microaggressions or red flag behavior in the past and done nothing. With the right facilitators, these employees quickly learn that wanting to avoid confrontation is a natural, human response, and we have to acknowledge that.
Above all, though, when employees feel safe, it’s easier to focus on things that motivate bystanders to take action and move employees from seeing themselves as passive bystanders to active upstanders.
Case Studies
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of quantitative data available yet about the effects of bystander communication training, but it’s something we are working on measuring at the National Conflict Resolution Center. In the meantime, we have seen some impressive qualitative results and visible changes in a workplace’s culture and interactions with one another.
My organization has led bystander communication training for companies of every size and across a variety of industries, from a warehouse company to the Los Angeles Times newsroom to large corporations like Toyota. The one thing they all had in common was that they wanted to do more than check the box. They wanted to help prevent discrimination and harassment rather than just address it and move on.
Here are two recent case studies from workshops we’ve led that illustrate the effectiveness of bystander communication training.
Case Study No. 1: The Power of Nicknames
I was conducting a training with a group of employees at a company who all worked jobs that require physical labor, outside an office. During the session, I encountered some pushback while talking about microaggressions. I was giving examples of microaggressions and explaining how over time they can escalate and lead to harassment. As I was telling a story about a nickname that started out as a small tease but quickly escalated into a more serious workplace issue, one of the men in the room said, “Hey, listen. Joking and teasing is a part of our workplace. We don’t want to change that.”
Personality and Leading Through a Crisis
By: Ryne Sherman, Chase Borden, & Kimberly Nei
Every organization will face a crisis at some point. When that crisis occurs, people will turn to their leader for answers. How are we going to survive? How should we respond? What is the plan for getting us through the crisis and back to business as usual? Ultimately, it is the leader’s answers to these questions and the leader’s actions that determine whether an organization survives or collapses in the face of a crisis. The critical question then for organizations is this: who is best suited to lead us through a crisis? To find the answer to this question, we searched the academic literature on crisis leadership to identify the most critical competencies for leading through a crisis. This search, which included hundreds of scientific papers, journal articles, and book chapters, pointed to five things effective leaders do during a crisis. Here we describe these five behaviors and how they can be assessed with common personality instruments. The first thing effective leaders do during a crisis is remain calm. Crisis increases stress in everyone, which can lead to panic, chaos, and poor decision-making. A leader who remains calm – at least outwardly – maintains order and prevents panic. The key personality trait associated with remaining calm under pressure is Adjustment. Leaders who score high on Adjustment (or low on Neuroticism) are steady under pressure and convey a sense of calmness that prevents panic. Second, effective crisis leaders show compassion and concern for their constituents. The members of the organization—employees, citizens, customers—who are most effected by the crisis want to know that their leader cares about them and their needs. Showing compassion instills trust that the leader will make decisions in the best interest of the organization. The personality traits associated with these behaviors are Altruism and Interpersonal Sensitivity (or Agreeableness). Leaders who score high on these traits are seen as friendly, likeable, and care deeply about the people around them. Third, effective crisis leaders get comfortable with uncertainly. Part of what makes something a crisis is its unpredictable nature. Leaders who are more comfortable with uncertainly are less likely to panic and more likely to make reasonable decisions. The personality trait most associated with attitudes toward risk is Security. Leaders who score low Security are more comfortable with risk, uncertainty, and ambiguity. As a result, they are less likely to succumb to the inherent stress of a crisis.
Fourth, effective leaders during a crisis get realistic about the size and impact of the crisis. Crises are inconvenient. As humans, we naturally want to deny, ignore, or discount factors that are inconvenient for our plans. But, denying reality is a short-term solution that leads to long-term disaster. Leaders who are realistic about the size of the problem can best determine how to mitigate it. The two personality traits most associated with denying reality are Excitable and Reserved. Leaders who score high on these scales are more likely to deny problems and avoid confronting them.
Fifth, effective crisis leaders take charge and make decisions in a timely fashion. When a crisis occurs, it is easy to be uncertain of what to do and to freeze up. While acting rashly and without considering the information is problematic, it is just as problematic to delay action when the proper course is clear. Once the scope of the problem and possible solutions have been evaluated, people look to the leader to make a decision and to plot the course of action. The personality traits most associated with taking vs. not taking action are Ambition and Cautiousness. Leaders who are ambitious take charge of situations and try to solve problems immediately. On the other hand,
leaders who are Cautious are reluctant to act and hesitate far too long.
Summary
Crisis is inevitable. The best way to be prepared for a crisis is to have a leader who is effective at handling crises when they occur. Research on leadership tells us that the most effective leaders during a crisis remain calm, show compassion for others, are comfortable with uncertainty, are realistic about the scope of the problem, and act promptly. Additionally, these critical behaviors for crisis leadership can all be predicted by underlying personality traits.
As Hogan’s Chief Science Officer, Ryne is responsible for managing the primary functions within Hogan’s industry-leading research department, including client research, product development and maintenance, and Hogan’s research archive and infrastructure. Ryne’s previous research in personality psychology focused on the role of personality in career pursuits and workplace performance. He has also researched and experimented with new approaches to personality assessment, including unobtrusive assessment via new talent signals, such as voice prosody, word use, and affective responses to stimuli.
Learning Alignment in an Uncertain and Disrupted Business Climate
By: Alexandra Levit, Chairman, DeVry University Career Advisory Board
When speaking with a Chief Learning Officer at a Fortune 500 industrial equipment organization, I heard a leader who was both stressed out and inspired. She described how, after years of struggling to maintain her L&D budget, her function was now center stage. The CEO had a narrow set of strategies in mind to keep the business afloat during COVID-19, and he needed the CLO to quickly develop learning experiences to help employees execute on those strategies. The CLO’s plan includes bite-sized trainings on skills employees have never used before, from self-scheduling to virtual collaboration. And, since the business has shifted more toward e-commerce, she’s developing a program to bring all employees up to speed on the essential digital tools. Increased L&D investment isn’t purely a consequence of the pandemic. According to LinkedIn’s 2020 Workplace Learning Report – issued prior to the crisis – nearly 60 percent of surveyed L&D professionals expected to increase their online and virtual learning offerings in 2020. Just under three years ago, that number was 27 percent. But since COVID-19, the TrainingIndustry.com website, which targets corporate L&D professionals, has seen a 8,135 percent increase in topics related to remote learning, virtual instructor-led training (VILT), and leading through adversity, indicating that appetite for guidance has increased exponentially. In the current climate, business priorities are constantly shifting, and skill mastery must occur rapidly and with unprecedented agility. The corporate L&D function is more critical than ever because no team is better positioned to drive skills outcomes in line with overall business objectives.
My partners at DeVryWORKS recently introduced the concept of learning alignment. When an organization is learning-aligned, L&D enables business strategy and measures learning initiatives’ success in transforming the organization. DeVryWORKS’ Sr. Director of Strategic Accounts, Duane Glader suggests that organizations are learning-aligned if they’ve implemented a continuous process to map the learning strategy to the business strategy, which may include: • Documenting learning or training requirements for new initiatives and planning rollouts in a way that integrates effectively with the whole. • Affiliating learning professionals with business units or geographic areas. • Including L&D components in all change management initiatives. • Creating flexible programs that can be instantly adjusted as business priorities change. • Leveraging analytics tools to quantify learning program impact on business performance. As a human capital expert, I have observed that a lack of alignment may result in diminished business performance, higher levels of employee confusion and disengagement, and poorer retention. Now that COVID-19 has ushered in a new era for L&D, we have an opportunity – and some might say a duty – to uplevel the function. DeVryWORKS named the following six areas as essential to learning alignment:
Business Relevance
The L&D team is clear on current and pressing business objectives and the HR organization is empowered to attract and retain top talent and fill skills gaps to execute on these objectives.
Awareness
Targeted employees or employee groups understand the L&D resources and opportunities available to them and where to access them. Awareness increases participation in learning programs, which cascades into higher levels of engagement and productivity. “ Skill requirements will be in flux for the foreseeable future, and what your organization needs today may well be different than what it needs tomorrow.
Management Support
Aligned organizations spread learning messages far and wide. C-level leaders publicly promote L&D offerings and evaluates managers based on the learning outcomes of their direct reports.
Utilization
Targeted employees or employee groups actively take advantage of L&D opportunities because learning is presented in a variety of formats that people can consume on their own time.
KPIs
Working in concert with c-level leaders, L&D has established success metrics and put tools in place to ensure consistent monitoring of performance.
Resources
Organizations secure and maintain enough L&D staff and budget to develop relevant and impactful programs. Like many aspects of the COVID-19 business world, learning alignment requires ongoing vigilance and oversight. The process of mapping learning to business strategy, gaining c-level buy-in, communicating learning availability and benefits, and demonstrating impact must be repeated and honed as your culture evolves and your company transitions out of the current crisis. Skill requirements will be in flux for the foreseeable future, and what your organization needs today may well be different than what it needs tomorrow.
In my opinion, learning leaders who use this time of disruption as an opening to think differently and try a new approach may be rewarded with a more stable organization and a workforce that is proactive and enthusiastic about upskilling as the business demands. Are you wondering how your organization compares to its peers with respect to learning alignment? How does learning alignment look in practice? What steps have your peers taken to transform their learning function from order taker to business enabler? Stay tuned for the results of DeVryWORKS’ and Human Capital Media’s Strategic Learning Alignment survey, to be released later this year.
Workforce Solutions to Attract, Acquire and Develop Talent At DeVryWORKS, we understand that one of the biggest challenges of any business is not only hiring skilled people but also providing opportunities to help them grow in their careers. DeVryWORKS seeks to truly understand your organization’s training and development needs so we can offer solutions to help you acquire and retain strong talent, plan for succession, and close the skills gap. www.devryworks.com.
Leadership Development on Every Level Crafting a plan to grow in a changing economy.
By: Kristen Britt
Adaptation and improvement have always been key to organizational success, and there has been quite a lot of disruption in the business world recently. As organizations focus on the changing face of the workplace, they want to upskill their current employees thoughtfully and efficiently. Considering whether to develop training in-house or purchase something off the shelf can be challenging, and choosing the wrong option can be costly. Time and money are tight in most industries, and learning and development might be neglected to focus on other considerations. That means learning solutions providers need to be equipped to deal with the challenges facing these organizations and be able to maintain both top-quality content and tailored support for customers at every stage. Can a third-party learning solution be as good as bespoke? Gabriel Clevenger, assistant vice president of enrollment management at Champlain College Online, says yes. “In this new normal that we’re approaching ... learning leaders are likely going to be asked to do more with less.” A trusted, academically sound learning partner that is willing to consult with and listen to organizational needs to deliver quality content will be crucial. The team at Champlain College considers which of their offerings would be a good fit for an organization by not just selling or consulting, but by building a learning partnership. A college with a history of career-focused education along with being a pioneer in online academics can easily adapt to a changing world. Today, leadership and management training requires more than a quick online course. That is why Champlain College Online developed “Champlain Stackables,” a suite of modularized courses designed to support upskilling efforts at various education levels and professional experience. Domain areas include leadership and management, project management, human resources, cybersecurity, and healthcare. With options for certificates, bachelor’s, and master’s-level courses along with custom modules delivered online, face-to-face, or a hybrid of both, the aim is to provide the ideal leadership training solution for any type or size organization. Stackables aims to address three big considerations an organization would have when choosing a third-party learning solution — flexibility, collaboration, and timeliness.
Flexible
Potential managers and organizational leaders already have different levels and types of education. For industries like health care, government, or engineering, high-performing employees might have mastered skills that don’t easily transfer to management. They may need new skills but don’t have time to complete a full degree program. Organizations and their employees need the ability to choose program types and lengths that fit their needs. For some, one course offering a continuing education unit (CEU) will provide their organization with the leadership development needed, while others might need employees to complete a full bachelor’s or master’s degree program to achieve their business goals. Along with program duration, many may consider location a key to determining the right learning solution. Should employees attend in-person or online courses, or is a combination of the two more practical? Within an organization, there may be different needs for different business functions, and finding solutions from a single provider can be the most cost-effective.
Collaborative
Finding a learning solution can be difficult, and consulting experts can sometimes lead to a decision that feels like it belongs to someone else. Organizations can look to higher education to find academically sound partners with proven track records, but finding one that is interested in tailoring a solution to specific organizational needs may still be a challenge. “ Learning solutions providers need to be equipped to deal with the challenges facing these organizations and maintain both top-quality content and tailored support for customers at every stage.
For Champlain College Online this means that though people tend to read “custom” or “tailored” and think “more expensive,” Clevenger says, “we intentionally designed the modules with a level of flexibility that allows for customization without cost being inflated.” Working with a learning provider to determine the combination of timeframe, location, and skills that makes the most sense for individual learners and the organization is key to finding the right solution. An institution should be a guide and allow for a diversity of needs among learners and their organizations. Listening is key to being successful guides and collaborators.
Timely
Getting the learning solution you need when you need it is key to maximizing ROI. Many organizations have experienced big changes recently and may look to training to achieve their business goals. As these organizations attempt to regain lost ground, short courses that can later become certifications or degrees can jumpstart ongoing success. A mix of readyto-use and organization-specific offerings can also help to upskill employees quickly in the short term while setting them up for continued achievement. The business case for learning solutions to build leadership and management skills can be made in most situations. Today’s leaders and managers need organizational support to develop the skills necessary to flourish as individuals and team members. Employing a leadership development program like Champlain College Online’s Champlain Stackables ensures that an organization will be able to find the right fit for growing its management and leadership. Learn more about Champlain Stackables at www.online.champlain.edu/jointruED.
Champlain College Online is at the forefront of adult education. Since 1993, we have carefully crafted online education to match the career aspirations of employees with the industry-driven needs of the organizations that employ them. As one of the first online programs in the United States, we are proud to be part of the distinguished history of regionally accredited, not-for-profit Champlain College, founded in Burlington, Vermont in 1878. Champlain College Online is consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report as a leader in online higher education. Our nationally recognized programs address industry trends and critical skills gaps. We serve more than 3,000 students through 60 online undergraduate and graduate degrees, certificates, and stackable credentials in high-demand fields like cybersecurity, business, healthcare, and information technology. Through our workforce development program called truED, we partner with some of the nation’s leading businesses and organizations in a bold reimagining of workplace learning that enables employees to flourish and organizations to grow.
Motor City’s Resourceful Learning Leader
Iris Ware proves you don’t need a big budget to build a world-class learning program.
BY SARAH FISTER GALE
Detroit was one of the hardest hit American cities during the financial crisis of 2007-2008. The automotive industry collapsed, the state lost more than 800,000 jobs between 2000 and 2009, and median household incomes are still down more than 15 percent from before the recession.
But the city is recovering — and Iris Ware is helping to make it happen.
Ware was hired as chief learning officer for the City of Detroit in 2014. She was the first learning leader in more than eight years, taking over a department that had been essentially eliminated during the downturn. “There was no formalized training and development, and no performance management,” she said. “It was just me.” But she was up for the task.
Ware is a native Detroiter. She is a first-generation college graduate who went on to receive a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Michigan Universities. However, she admits that early on she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. “Everyone in my family and neighborhood was in manufacturing,” she said. “It’s a great life, but I didn’t want that for myself.”
Uncertain about her future after completing an associate degree, she spent the summer with friends in East Lansing, where she decided to take a class at Michigan State University. She met a counselor who suggested she pursue a career in HR. “I never looked back,” Ware said.
She completed her bachelor’s degree at MSU and then got her master’s in labor and industrial relations at Wayne State in Detroit. She later completed her Ph.D. in learning and design technology, when she saw where the industry was going. “I fell in love with HR,” she said.
Close to Home
Ware never lost her connection to Detroit. After completing her masters, she landed a job with DaimlerChysler, where she was quickly selected for a fast-track leadership development program. Then in 2008, she launched her own learning consulting agency, where she worked with several Michigan organizations before being recruited as CLO by Detroit’s mayor, Mike Duggan.
“It’s never about the technology. It’s always about the process and the people.” — Iris Ware, CLO, City of Detroit
Ware spent the first six months as Detroit’s new CLO building her team and outlining a scalable learning strategy to help city employees develop new skills as the city emerged from bankruptcy. Ware quickly realized that while the mayor’s ambitions for providing training to the city’s 9,000-plus employees were big, her budget was not.
“It was a very different experience from the way you provide learning at a for-profit company,” she said. As a city leader, she has minimal budget, old computers, and whatever additional content and equipment she and her team can cobble together.
“We don’t have fancy software, but that is OK,” said Daryl Conrad, chief recruitment officer for the
ILLUSTRATION BY ZOË VAN DIJK
City of Detroit. He noted that Ware has a knack That spurred Ware’s team to create a 10-module for turning even the most limited resources into competency-based supervisor training program powerful training solutions. “She builds things using focusing on the city’s core values, and the skills free software online, and she develops partnerships they needed to be successful. with other organizations and local colleges,” he said. “The supervisor training was our foundational “She gets things done.” program,” said Maria Graves, the branding, comThree Questions Each course is four hours, and trainees receive cer
When Ware was hired, many of the city’s tification when they complete them all. employees were going through redeployment, It became so popular they had to clarify that which meant they had to move into new roles and anyone could participate — not just supervisors, departments as the city rebuilt. After all the changes, about 80 employees were left without a position. That’s where “She is the type of Ware began. She and her team rapidly created leader who pushes a program to help these employees everyone else up.” find new jobs in the city. They taught interview skills and résumé building, offered basic computer skills training — Coy Mosley, HR director, Empowerment Plan and helped them apply for appropriate openings in the city infrastructure. Within three Graves said. They also created a spin-off 10-module weeks, 90 percent of them found new full-time follow-up training program called Learn Engage positions. “It’s one of the things I’m most proud Apply Perform, or LEAP, that any employee can of,” Ware said. take to further enhance their supervisory skills.
With employees placed, Ware set out to deterThe supervisory training programs sent the mesmine what city departments needed from her. sage that Ware’s team was committed to solving
She spent weeks interviewing leaders, superthe departments’ learning needs. It started a flood visors and employees across city departments of requests and communications with department about what they did and what they needed. Her leaders, including Conrad, who said everyone on audience was vast and varied, ranging from police his team has taken part in one or more of the superand firemen to parking meter attendants, health visory courses. department personnel and tax collectors. “There His team has also benefited from partnerships are 36 departments and agencies and they all have that Ware has launched with local colleges to learning needs,” she said. offer courses on project management, time man
The research took a lot of time and effort, but agement, leadership development and other core it helped her team determine what role they would skills. Having access to such formal training for the play in helping employees achieve their goals. “We don’t want to build something unless we are sure people will come,” Ware said. “So we align everything we do to the city’s mission and the department’s desired results.”
To get to the core of those needs, she asked everyone three questions: What do you like about working here? What would you change? Why hasn’t it happened?
Their responses guided her toward the right solutions. For example, she found that leaders felt their supervisors weren’t as effective as they should be, while supervisors were unhappy
munications and logistics specialist on Ware’s team. with the lack of opportunity to build When Iris Ware was named CLO of the City of Detroit in 2014, the city had been the skills they needed to be effective. without a learning leader for the past eight years.
first time in years has had a profound impact on Detroit’s employees, Conrad said. “They aren’t just building new skills. It is changing the way they see themselves and where they can go in their careers.”
Everyone’s an Expert
This focus on personal development doesn’t just extend to the training Ware’s department offers. Ware prides herself on helping everyone on her team find and hone a specific area of expertise. “She doesn’t create traditional roles,” Conrad said. “She tries to find a specialty for each person to augment the team.”
For example, Graves originally met Ware when they worked together on the launch of Detroit Manufacturing Systems, a small Tier One automotive supplier. It was a bare bones start-up and Graves recognized that the company had no communication and branding strategy. So she took some classes and slowly developed a unique brand image and communication strategy for the company.
— Iris Ware, CLO, City of Detroit
“She saw what I did, and when she was recruited to the city she thought I’d be perfect for her new division,” Graves said of Ware. It took Graves a year of going through formal city hiring channels, but once she joined the team in 2015, Ware put her in charge of creating all the communication for the division. Graves has since taken over the department’s social media and internal communication channels, designed the department’s brand and messaging, created an HR newsletter and started facilitating course design. “I’ve had a lot of opportunities to grow under her direction,” she said.
She particularly appreciates how Ware has empowered her to take charge from the beginning. “When I come to her with an issue, she helps me think it through, but then she defers to me to make the final decision,” Graves said. Ware takes a similar approach with all of her team, allowing them to take charge of one aspect of the department’s operations.
“She is the type of leader who pushes everyone else up,” said Coy Mosley, HR director for the nonprofit Empowerment Plan, which makes coats that convert to sleeping bags for homeless people. Mosley worked with Ware on a Head Start program in Detroit several years ago, and Ware has continued to mentor her throughout her career. Recently, Ware co-hosted a vision board session with Mosley’s team to help them come up with low-cost solutions to support homeless women. “She’s really good at finding ways to help people on a budget,” Mosley said.
Mosley also appreciates how respectful Ware is when working with the women her organization serves. “They have a lot of trust issues, but they love Iris because she talks to them, not at them,” she said. “It is a special kind of person who can relate just as easily to DaimlerChrysler executives as women in a homeless shelter.”
E-Learning on a Budget
Ware attributes her success to her passion for learning and her participatory/benevolent leadership style. “I’m always concerned about the well-being of my team and my organization,” she said. That informs her approach to identifying training needs and creating solutions with limited resources that help people reach their potential.
These days, Ware is focused on offering more online learning content for city employees, which she believes will be critical for their ongoing training needs. “Things are changing so quickly that we need to provide learning opportunities that employees can use without interrupting their work,” she said. “They need personalized, scalable learning that they can access quickly on their time.”
To maximize her budget, she is taking advantage of every free and low-cost software she can find and leveraging the talent on her team to find and create content that employees need. “We can do amazing things with committed people and few gadgets,” she said. “It’s never about the technology. It’s always about the process and the people.”
Ware’s advice to other leaders? Focus on what matters most to the business, rather than what the learning function wants to do. “Learning and development exists to serve the employees by addressing their pain points with real solutions. It is not about just providing feel-good training,” she said. When learning teams focus on real business goals, she added, everything they deliver will add value. CLO
