RealTime Leadership

Leadership development has long been considered a discretionary expense.  During economic downturns it is often one of the first budget line-items to be cut.  However, there was a different feeling this time around.  As we entered the recession in 2008 and 2009  there was hope, and some evidence, that  companies had learned from past downturns.  Eliminating leadership development only left them further behind when the economy did start picking up again, as it inevitably does.

In the Wall Street Journal last week, an article reports that training budgets over the past two years have been down 11%, but now there is signs that it is coming back.  It appears that the companies that did scale back training are now scrambling to catch up:

Already, some companies say they are finding they don’t have the managers to spearhead new projects or step in for departing executives, a problem as companies try to shift into growth mode.

The article goes on to report that companies like Amway and Rockwell Collins are re-launching leadership programs that were cancelled during the downturn.  The goal is to accelerate the development of internal talent while they hire experienced managers from the outside to meet the increased demand to fill vacancies.

Unfortunately the article does not contrast the experience of Amway and Rockwell with one or two companies that continued to invest in leadership development at a steady or increasing pace over the past two years.  Companies like O’Neal Steel remained committed to training and entered 2010 with a strong talent pipeline and engaged employees.  These organizations are better suited to take advantage of the opportunities for growth in 2010 and 2011.

As for the other companies, well, hopefully they learned their lesson; cutting spending on leadership development is more expensive in the long-term.

The current global economy is forcing people and organizations to find ways to do business more efficiently and more effectively. Companies are revisiting strategy, markets, R&D, size of workforce, and their entire cost structure. There is an intense focus on business results with an added emphasis on trimming anything that doesn’t directly contribute to the success of the organization.  These same forces are affecting training and development departments at corporations across the globe.

It is within this environment, where training departments are being asked to cut back on resources while increasing their value, that my colleague Dr. Stephen Gill and I set out to use our research and experience to help organizations make their learning interventions more effective. Specifically, we want to provide training professionals and frontline managers with a simple framework and strategy to get more from their investment in learning. Our new e-book, “Getting More from Your Investment in Training: The 5As Framework,” is for training professionals and business managers who are grappling with this new environment and the heightened expectations for results.

This book is not about how to be a stand-up trainer, or how to design e-learning, or even how to get more buns on seats. It is about what your organization needs to do to ensure that people learn and use that learning to achieve business goals.  We identify the organizational factors that have the greatest overall impact on how learning contributes to business success.  And then we offer tools and strategies for increasing the impact of learning at each step in the learning process.  We call these organizational factors the 5As, and they are;

1. Alignment – Align learning with strategic goals by helping learners understand how the skills and knowledge they acquire through training can be applied to deliver business results.

2. Anticipation – Research clearly shows that if learners anticipate success before training they are much more likely to experience success.  Help your learners anticipate success.
3. Alliance – Create a learning alliance between learner and boss.  Learners need feedback and coaching, especially as they attempt to apply new skills and behaviors on the job.
4. Application – Apply learning immediately after training, not six months later or even never, as so often happens.  Create opportunities for learners to apply new skills on the job, and receive relevant and timely feedback.
5. Accountability – Hold learner and organization accountable for business results from training.  Establish the expectation from the beginning that training is critical for organizational success and all participants will be held accountable to apply what they’ve learned to meet business goals.

This is the time, more than ever, to re-examine your training function and make all of your learning interventions (classes, simulations, e-learning, coaching, internships, etc.) more efficient and effective.  By applying the 5As framework to your organization, you can immediately identify areas for improvement that will help you achieve your business goals.  Download the first two chapters free.

Often when working with clients to design and deliver leadership training, I’m told to create an experience where participants have fun, are fully engaged in the program and learn new skills.  Recently, I partnered with a client, a major U.S.-based insurance company, that decided to raise the bar and set the expectation that learners would also apply what they learned back on their job in a way that impacts business results.  

To achieve this goal we applied the 5As Framework to the design and implementation of a training program for a group of  high-potential managers as part of a regional leadership conference.  The program we delivered was Interplay, a one-day business simulation where groups of 4 to 5 learners work together as a team to manage a business.  In this case, the management teams where running small start-up organizations that were competing with large established insurance companies. 

Interplay is a demanding program that keeps participants engaged at a high-level.  The friendly competition between teams allows for a lot of fun with cheers for the winning team and collegial encouragement for the teams that are struggling.  And throughout the day there are multiple opportunities to learn new skills around business acumen, teamwork, communication, decision making and strategy.  The most important and most powerful learning objective is for participants to understand how their decisions impact a company financially and drive value for shareholders.  Thus, Interplay met the criteria of being fun and engaging, and also taught new skills.  However to ensure the skills where applied and business outcomes where impacted, we applied the 5As Framework:

Anticipation

An SVP  kicked off the event by communicating to the participants how important this training is to their success.  The leader reinforced that the individuals in the room were selected for their management and leadership skills, and the company truly believed in their potential.  The SVP also set the expectation that the participants were expected to learn new skills, apply them back on their job, and help their department and the company achieve it’s business goals.  This short speech helped participants anticipate success and open their minds to the possibility of learning new skills.  It also reminded participants that they are expected to both apply new skills and achieve results. 

Alignment

The first exercise of the day invited participants to review 10 learning outcomes from Interplay and select the 2-3 that are most important to them personally.  In addition, we invited participants to share within their groups why these outcomes where so important, especially with respect to their current jobs and responsibilities at the company.   Already, the participants were aligning learning outcomes with activities and results on their job, yet in a traditional sense, the “learning” had not yet started.

Alliance

There were six vice presidents and six Interplay teams participating in the program.  Throughout the day, the vice presidents rotated from team to team, so they got a chance to observe and engage with each team.   The V.P.s offered feedback, coaching and guidance, enriching the learning process.  Later that evening, each V.P. was assigned a group of participants where, over dinner, they continued to coach and reflect on the learning.

Application

At the end of the day, when the energy and excitement was at its peak, we asked participants to personally reflect on their own Interplay Success Map.  A Success Map is a document that explicitly identifies the linkages between the learning outcomes of Interplay, applications of that learning on the job and organizational results.  For example, one participant identified the following linkage:

Interplay Learning Outcome: Understand how an investment in people development impacts business results.

Application on-the-job: Spend more time and resources at my regional office, getting to know my employees better, taking the time to coach and development them, and invest in employee development.

Impact on Results: Higher retention and increased employee productivity.

This participant now clearly understands the linkage between the learning outcome of Interplay (importance of people development) on the business outcome (employee productivity).

Accountability

Once the Success Maps were created and discussed at each team, we announced the “winners” of the Interplay simulation to great cheers.  Thus we ended the day on a high-note with a burst of positive energy.  But there was one more important message to be delivered before participants walked out the door.  The SVP took the stage again and challenged everyone in the room to take the Success Map back to their offices and share them with their direct supervisors.  If additional ideas or thoughts came to them on the plane, continue to add to the document.  And finally, the SVP let them know that he was personally going to follow up with their supervisors to ensure that a conversation took place, and results where being measured.

The high-potential leaders in the room were not daunted, rather they were motivated to truly apply their new skills and achieve business success.  They wanted to be accountable for their learning.  In fact, they expected nothing less for their leaders and their organizations.

  One of the great business challenges of the 21st century will be building the capacity of large, complex organizations to change and evolve continuously in order to deliver ever-increasing value to customers.  In the world of leadership development, we often think of this pursuit through the narrow lens of developing individual leadership skills and competencies through training.

Creating a Learning Culture
However, an adaptive and flexible organization is the result of a true learning culture.  To create such a culture requires going far beyond individual training to include team learning, organizational learning and customer learning.  In his new book, Developing a Learning Culture in Non-Profit Organizations, Dr. Stephen J. Gill writes about how organizations can overcome the inherent barriers that prevent a true learning culture from taking hold.  Although Dr. Gill addresses the non-profit audience, the barriers and potential solutions are the same for corporations looking to become more innovative and adaptive to change.

Individual versus Organizational Learning
Dr. Gill advances the theory that, although individual leadership development is important, it’s just one piece of the puzzle.  Effective learning cultures like Toyota are concerned with developing the leadership skills of their managers, of course, but they never lose focus on the more over-arching goal of building organizational capacity to continuously improve performance through the Toyota Production System.

What Dr. Gill is really talking about here is teaching the organization to learn how to learn.  As you focus on developing the latest training programs and action learning experiences for your employees, spend some time reflecting on how these efforts interact with and support the overall learning culture of your organization.  As you begin to consider your plans and budget for leadership development in 2010, ask yourself, how is your organization supporting:

    1. Individual Learning – are you establishing an alliance between the learner and their boss to provide feedback and support to the learner?  Is the learner accountable for results based on applying the new learning?  Is individual learning aligned with critical business outcomes?
    2. Team Learning – are you establishing learning and performance goals for teams?  Are you fostering true dialogue on your teams?  Do teams at your organization practice the principles of continuous process improvement?
    3. Organizational Learning- do you have a clear vision for the future and is everyone committed to that vision?  Are there connections established between various functions in your organization so that knowledge sharing and integrated learning can occur?  Do you regularly assess your organizations learning culture?  Are you leveraging social media to connect people to other people and ideas?

   4. Customer or Community Learning- In Dr. Gill’s book, he calls this community learning, but in for-profit corporations, you might think of this as customer learning or stakeholder learning.  Are you listening to your customers and stakeholders, and incorporating their knowledge and contributions?   Does your organization depend on a healthy environment, strong communities or robust economies?  What is your company doing to ensure sustainability in these communities?

RealTime Performanceand Dr. Stephen Gill recently developed an Organizational Audit to help our clients identify opportunities for enhancing and developing a learning culture.  Our collaboration with Dr. Gill has evolved into an ebook that will be published next month titled “Getting More from Your Investment in Training: The 5As Framework.”  More on this book soon.