training, development, and organizational effectiveness

A team I belong to wanted to begin to describe an learning strategy and asked me to start the discussion with a few questions.  Here’s what I shared with them.

What do we mean by elearning strategy?

The origins of the idea of strategy are military, where the word means a dynamic plan to win a war through a set of engagements that are linked to have maximum effect at a cost of acceptable numbers of lives lost. Since business is competitive by nature, it is easy to see how strategy became a term that means a dynamic plan to compete and win though a set of engagements linked to have maximum effect at an acceptable cost of winning and delivering that business. Winning is often defined in market share or other terms depending on the industry and the maturity of the market.

Engagement is an attractive and useful term for the elements of strategy, especially in our context, which is neither a battlefield nor a market. As members of a the administrative core of a public service, not-for-profit organization, our competitive playing field could be described as seizing opportunity out of thin air. Few other businesses or groups will seize the opportunity that we would have won, but without focus on a set of objectives and persistence, the opportunity will go unrealized or disappear.

An elearning strategy is part of a learning strategy. Every organization has one, expressed in the training, learning, coaching, and mentoring it does. As I understand the mission of learning and training for those in administrative roles here, it is “to equip employees to carry out their current and future roles effectively and with integrity.” “Winning” in this context might be stated in terms of number of people who consistently carry out their job responsibilities and solve problems effectively and with integrity.

We have engaged in achieving this goal – our strategy – by delivering programs (e.g. ILT, elearning, documentation, demonstrations, etc.) from our respective departments, where capability and requirements reside. Through [another committee], we have progressively collaborated on linking our initiatives, a key feature of strategic engagement.

In light of these reflections, strategy seems to require that:

• Our mission is sound:   That is, our purpose is aligned with the organization’s mission and that direction is consistent with that of our leaders

• Opportunity exists and can be defined:   That is, we recognize what can be gained – what we want to win – and that it can be stated in ways that make it possible measure success.

• Capability exists or can be built:    That is, the organization has what it takes to seize the opportunity, or we are willing to do what it takes to develop it. (Or as we all learned from Princess Bride, never fight a land war in Asia.)

• Gains are clear, objective, and worth the cost:  That is, when we have seized the opportunity, it will have demonstrable benefit to those we serve: the staff and administrative employees, and administrative leaders

Strategy questions

What opportunity does elearning offer?

• If we were competing, what would we want to win? If we are seizing opportunity from thin air, what are we creating that would not exist otherwise?

What capabilities do we (the elearning team/community of practice) have to offer to seize that opportunity?

• Can we win, or do we need to build capability?

What will the organization gain when we seize that opportunity?

• How will the working and learning profile be different in three to five years if we “win”? What will administrative leaders say about the role of elearning in achieving that state?

Note:   If you find yourself answering the question “how,” you’re talking tactics. Whoa, Nelly! Strategy first.

Are we making progress?  It seems like we’re stalled.  You’ve had this experience, too, I suspect.  We push on and deliver as promised.  The project ends with vague success. Maybe we made a few too many compromises.  Maybe we lost support for the effort along the way.  Maybe it was, after all, the necessary work.  Period.

Why does this never happen to the writers of leadership books?  Some work doesn’t wow. Now one likes to admit it because that’s not what we aim for.  But much good work has to be done every day.  By all means, look closely at whether you’ve made missteps.  But since great leaders and managers just don’t stall, and it seems that you’re stalled, obviously, you’re not doing your job; you’re no leader. Or maybe today’s project is a drop in the bucket, which in time is certain to tip the scale of transformation, is just another drop.

Chop wood, carry water

Unlike the storied leaders, you have not had your breakthrough revelation.  I mean the big insight that turned a stagnant situation around and prevented ever repeating that situation again.  We want to be that leader. Today, though, there’s a lot of unexciting work to do.  This is what it takes to change things, without a swelling string section. This is the source of big revelations: just doing the work.

The sense of being stalled, accurate or otherwise, challenges all the thinking and planning that led to this moment.  The big ideas and deliberate influencing started the momentum.  People climbed on board.  Now they’re not seeing the benefits you promised.  They’re recognizing how hard the work is.  They’re not seeing the visionary end state.  You’re questioning it it, too.

This is the big challenge in choosing ideas as tools.  There is no way to be sure they’re the right ones until conditions are in place and the results start coming in.  Right now, they are hypotheses.   Everything in the system – too little time, obstacles to communication, the people who are involved, your own planning, other priority objectives – is testing whether this idea is the  the right idea right now.  It would be easier to strike a compromise and choose another idea that looks easier to implement.  And I concede, there is a time for compromise.  But this isn’t it.  This is a time to go deeper into relationships with the people who are testing your hypothesis.  This is a time for listening.  This is also time to review and refocus on the destination.

Written May 17, 2010.

When you learn how to design and develop training, you learn habits.  They have worked for you in the past and you stick to them.  They become a strength of your practice.   And without knowing it, they become a weakness as well.

When I started working here, I was asked to create a training program for people in a set of important administrative roles that would positively influence compliance results.  And if you have offered compliance training, you know that the training itself is a compliance initiative.   I was convinced that, while it would be a big challenge, it was certainly possible.  The work and challenges of the people in those administrative roles are varied, so it would present opportunities to use an interesting range of learning methods.  Because the desired result was better compliance, I was hopeful that learning and maybe even performance would be measurable.  And the program would get a lot of attention.  Many people would recognize that it was meeting a long-acknowledged need.

My practice over the years has been to work closely with clients and quickly and clearly define projects.  The discussion encompasses objectives, goals, practical constraints, culture questions, and the business content of the program, usually all at once in a sorting, prioritizing, focusing discussion – even debate – that results in a rough and ready design very quickly.  In my experience, if you’ve been hired for the project, that quick discovery and design process is productive and valuable.  Soon, you’re back at your desk actually developing that program.  But if you’re on staff somewhere, that approach has drawbacks.

When you factor in a few other variables – attitudes toward training, an oral-history culture, highly variable work processes and context, incomplete agreement on a “right” answer to questions, as well as other factors, I discovered that the quick and conceptual design won’t serve.  Neither will the slow and comprehensive one designed to bring everyone to the same conception of the plan.  Nor will the action-learning approach solve all our problems.  And there are many questions that remain to be answered.

From time to time, as I revise and deliver the second implementation of this program, I’ll highlight some of the lessons from good intentions and good enough information, and illustrate some solutions and emergent qualities of a program that is part training, part seminar, and part leadership discussion.

Here’s where we are, after a year of thinking, planning, surveying, and introducing the idea as the foundation of what it means to manage people.

Every manager created a simple plan.  It records the climate dimensions that they want to influence: clarity, standards, responsibility, recognition, teamwork/support, and commitment.  What’s in the plan?  One or more practices – an activity that will influence, say clarity of work and roles – the concrete action the manager will take, and the results or evidence that will indicate that the practice is having an effect.  Simple, descriptive, and entirely within the control of managers.

Managers reported this plan to their managers, whose role is to monitor, coach, and insist on accountability.  It’s straightforward and designed not to be too time consuming.  The biggest bit of work lay in developing a plan and satisfying our managers – I’m one of the managers with a climate improvement plan.  We have had it for three months.

Even though I may be the exception because I have very two very new hires, I’m working on providing, above all, clarity, standards, and responsibility.  As well, I’m working to bring teamwork to a team that isn’t one yet, at least by insisting on a systems perspective to our work together:  If I’m a seaside town in Indonesia, you are creating a tidal wave by flapping your wings here in Boston.

Maybe the most important thing I’ve learned is that it takes practice and preparation to set clear expectations and to communicate in ways that ensure you’re heard.  Few of us want to hear bad news about our work; there are always reasons and explanations.  As a manager, it can be difficult to imagine and anticipate, before you see the performance, all of the important aspects of it.   So I’m working on the assumption that I will not always be perfectly clear, that folks will fail a little, and that if I’m coaching folks well, they’ll come to learn that learning from mistakes is even more important than perfect execution.

In that reflection, you see the dynamic of being a manager and the strength of the climate model. Climate provides objectives, not prescriptions.  It is my responsibility and role to strive for high measures on all of the strategically aligned climate model dimensions.  That’s the social science, though.  Practically speaking, I want folks to feel motivated, have a sense of agency, and a portfolio against which to execute their skills and effort.  With feedback from my manager and my people, I hope to cut a pretty straight path to achieving our goals and measurable success.  I’ll let you know how it’s going.

This is the leader-manager’s dilemma.

John Kotter makes a distinction between leaders’ and managers’ focus. Leaders’ domain is complexity, identifying opportunity, scanning the environment and spurring change to address it. They’re focusing on answering, “What’s right for this organization?”

Managers (paraphrasing Kotter) are focused on answering, “How do we do this right?” They stand out as the ones who can make the most of the system or develop new systems to get the most out of people and processes in ways that are repeatable and motivating. I’ve met a few of these geniuses of consistency and operational clarity. They always open my eyes to the profound value of managing.

You can disagree with Kotter if you like, but practically speaking, every manager needs to be an operational genius all day long and still provide leadership. The ambiguity that comes with steady change means that there is no steady state or equilibrium that we can call rest. The chances that we’re going to end up back in that comfortable position again are nil.

Every one of us have to be leaning forward and sniffing the air for change. Stay loose, be clear is my advice to myself as we begin to hire folks and create a training SWAT team, so to speak.

What do you tell yourself to keep your eyes on being a both a leader and manager every day?

I’ve been looking for someone to double the size of the training team, currently made up of me.  My boss and I have worked hard to make this an objective and transparent process.  We’ve learned a number of lessons from the experience.  I heard one of them when I met to get acquainted with a candidate over lunch.  It was eye-opening to learn that our effort to be candid and open about the current state of the organization created the impression that we were underselling the job.

This is a great job

Corallary:  The challenges that are so present to you are not disincentives to new folks; they’re  the real reason to work here.

Let’s face it.  Interesting skill development and organizational development are beset by inertia, doubters, authority-wielders, cultural drag, and competing visions of the future.  It’s tough going some days.  But you come to work every day and go at it like a happy warrior.  You, too, have a vision for the future and it is still conceivable that you’ll achieve it.  That way, that future is possible.  You who are considering taking the job, you could be a part of it.  That’s what makes this a great job.

Fit is made not found

Corallary:  I’m convinced the fit questionis not, “Do they fit?” but, “Could they fit?”

The only perfect-fit candidate is the one that you, managers, adapt to.  Just like your manager did.  So, if you can’t hire the person who is going to school you in every facet of this work and bring deep experience in every facet of the business, select people with plenty of intelligence and ability.  Then explore the best ways to manage the person so that they’re as free as they can be to succeed.  Make the most of the fact that they don’t fit perfectly.  Learn from their perspective.

Still learning…

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, such stuff as job performance, training programs, and competency models are pretty near the top.  Food and shelter near the bottom.  Because I get to spend most of my time thinking about the former, I’ve been supporting Somerville Homeless Coalition for ten years.

This year I’m challenging myself to raise money and run the fundraising road race.  Okay, 5K isn’t a big challenge.  But you have to raise a kitty, show up regardless the weather, and run.  It’s my way of having some skin in the game and to share the road with others who care about home, their hometown, and our neighbors without homes.

If home is important to you and you don’t worry having it or keeping it, consider making even a small contribution to help me get to my $100 goal.  Sure, I could be more ambitious, but this goal is achievable and time-bound (think “SMART”).  The race is Saturday October 2.

Thank you in advance.  If after considering whether you can give, you decide not to contribute to this run, please take a look around your home town, reflect on what you value, and take some emblematic action there.

I had dinner with an old friend a couple days ago and he told me this story.

My son – he’s four – has been going to a great daycare this summer.  They organize some kind of learning around theme days.  Last week they chose pirate days.  I’m not sure what they learned, but he brought home a little plastic compass.  Apparently you need compass on the bounding main.  I was leaving for work the next day.  I said goodbye and he offered me the compass.

“Here, Daddy,” he said.  “Take this with you so you always know which way is North.”  You know how that turns your heart to loving mush.  But he didn’t want me to get lost and knew that pirates use a compass to find their way on the open sea.  I was delivering training to new managers that day.  I started class by assuring them, “Thanks to my son, we can”t get lost, no matter what happens, because I have a compass and I know where I’m going.”

Not a verbatim account, but that’s what I heard.

We are all our own leaders

Every day the demands on the job threaten to distract us from the few simple good things we’re aiming at.  Thanks to a four year old, I’m reminded of the two most important principles to live and work by, no matter what you do or what level you’ve achieved in the organization.

Principles for being your own leader (Thanks to Cap’n Jack)

• Stick to the heading the leads to your destination.

• Be a pirate!

Dear job candidates and instructional designer/trainers,

As you know, we’ve been looking for an instructional designer and trainer who, I can see more clearly, needs to be an “intrapreneur.”  They are hard to find.  Thank you for all the things I’ve learned about current state of your skills and experience.   Or maybe what I have really learned is that instructional designers value the product of their work but find it very difficult to describe the skills they exercise.  As a result, I see that I’d want to develop a set of skills and abilities in the talented person we find.  I don’t think a lead instructional designer or trainer is really capable without them.

Focus on results

You have undoubtedly created great training for some proprietary software, the performance management system, some internal training function or [fill in the program here]. It’s complete, well-designed, and a great-looking final product. What did that training do for the business? Any other successes you think you achieved are irrelevant without an answer to that question.  Around here, we aim at that goal every day and deal with reality as we must.

Focus on needs

Nobody needs training programs, or meetings, or to be educated about what you can do for them. They need to be able to do their work. You are here to equip people to do their work. Your colleagues and I need to clearly see that your efforts are leading to that result. If you are not focusing on others’ needs, you’re not doing the right work.

Ask questions

I can see that when you’re given a design and development project, you ask a lot of questions. Good questions. Don’t wait for the assignment. Take nothing for granted. You don’t know the way the organization works.  You don’t understand enough about the business.  You cannot extrapolate more than a little using past experience. Start by asking people their perspectives and use them to form a set of hypotheses about how the organization works. I haven’t even mentioned training or performance yet. Neither should you.

Move the work ahead…

…by solving problems and trying different approaches. Past and current obstacles serve to illustrate one thing: how you reframe relationships and adapt your approach so that you get results. Is momentum flagging? You should recognize it, identify the source, and try to change the dynamic. This is the most important use of your imagination at work. Sure, I can advise you about culture and context, but interpreting where you are and influencing those with whom you work is a critical job skill.

Do the things that matter

Quick, what did you accomplish this week? Why does that matter? Can we measure it or can others tell you did it? If not, you probably spent too much time on that. Sure we all have bad weeks. Don’t allow yourself to have two of them in a row.

Strive to make sense of things…

…and confirm it with those you work with. See, “Ask questions,” above. Then reflect what you’re learning to stakeholders.  For perspective, see if you conception of how things work here is accurate and practical with those around you who are effective and successful.

You’re succeeding when people respect your work

And that means that people are not going to like everything you say or propose to do. (I’m not talking about being a jerk for a higher purpose. Don’t make me stop this car….) But if it addresses their needs (see “Focus on needs”), they’ll forgive you for making them uncomfortable for a time or engaging in work that stretches them and you.

Are you interviewing for a job in the next few weeks? Hmmm. Wouldn’t it be super if you described – in a planned, concrete, and specific anecdote – how you’d demonstrated some of these abilities? Yes! Yes it would be super.

Following some advice that Kris Dunn offered a while ago about making job postings more like what a real person might want out of a job than what you would want out of the person, I’m posting a job for which I’m the hiring manager and sharing it through social nets I belong to. (For those of you who just came back from HR Capitalist, No, I can’t find the HR Capitalist post that I’m thinking of…or dreamed…either.)

Maybe the best part of the exercise was that it allowed me to to include all the aspirational qualities that the right person could exercise in this role. I know, it’s a lot.  But they are certainly the things that keep me going strong.

Let me know how you’d improve this or if you’re interested in striving for “better living though performance-based training” and whole lot more.  And if you want to see the official posting, click this.

You are a TRAINING SPECIALIST…

…who is eager to bring better living through performance-based training, which you do by practicing instructional design, program development, and delivering instructor-led training. What really jazzes you up is the chance to tie learning to strategic objectives. It gives work a real sense of meaning and value.

Then again, your feet are solidly on the ground. In fact, nobody knows better than you that day to day, you are constantly working to influence others and make steady progress toward more effective training for the right target audiences. Meanwhile, you are quickly mastering the business content and dynamics of the area you serve, even though that content is devilishly complicated and not well documented. It’s not, but if it were rocket science, you’d persist in learning it, not just for training, but to be a partner to front-line managers. When you have a free moment, it continues to bother your conscience that the effect of training isn’t measured more often. But you patiently look for opportunities to define performance so that you can measure learning. And you continue to propose realistic ways to measure learning whenever the opportunity arises.

You have worked in a number of different groups, cultures, and subcultures. You relish the challenge of learning a new culture, but you try to stay attentive so that you never fully assimilate. You’ve have developed an ability to interpret and appropriately raise issues that will make you and your work effective: how ready are these folks for change, how much will debate and dissent be valued, how much should I compromise, how much should I try to educate folks, and how much should I change my vocabulary so that we can understand one another better.

You adapt yourself to most settings in which you need to work while staying true to your goals. You look for opportunities to raise the standards of performance and training without judging the current state of affairs to be inadequate and benighted. In fact, more often than not, you discover that you need to learn more if you’re going to excel at this work in this context. You assign yourself and challenge yourself to learn those things.

You believe that you can make a difference. You’ve had some success doing so in a number of places you’ve worked. You stick to your own high standards most of the time, even if leadership is not there to back you up. You have your sights set on what this place can look like when it’s a very high performing organization. So while you may feel daily setbacks sharply, you bounce back. You are eager to work with those who have a similar vision. You work to influence those who don’t share that vision, aiming to raise their sights through practical, concrete actions and initiatives whenever you get the chance.