Standard

Posted by

Posted on

December 4, 2017

Posted under

Conferences, Learning Technology

Comments

1 Comment

Kineo Connect: Exploring your learning platform’s potential

A couple of really good sessions* at this Kineo client day.

In the same week as the UKeIG event this looked at the digital transformation of L&D and, therefore, the future of workplace learning.  The event took place alongside the availability of Kineo’s “Time to Transform” guide.

The guide is a nice summary of the state of the ‘learning landscape’ and, I would presume, the kind of developments most L&D teams are working on.  That said some of the points, such as “look ahead and promote the resource-based approach”, are not very ‘transformative’ (although I appreciate my background means I don’t have the ‘course first’ mind-set that still plagues the industry IMHO).

* Couple of good sessions:

  1. Time to Transform states “arguably at the heart of all digital transformation of L&D will be the role of data” and the session on xAPI was great.  I made a rather rambling point/question at the end of this, what I was basically saying was xAPI is always talked about in the same way as SCORM – i.e. to track things.  What this session actually pointed out, to me, was that xAPI is instead a standard to help aggregate data.  Using it in this way stops the risk of L&D, or at least an LRS, being a silo and thus largely pointless – indeed the red herring I warned about.  However, this was one of those sessions where I thought, “this is great BUT only really if you happen to be doing it first in your organisation”.  Where organisations are already data warehousing, managing metrics, etc. the Tin Can approach would seem to not add as much value.
  1. “Meeting MABLE from Mitchells & Butlers”, this session felt similar to the xAPI one in that your learning platform can be a fantastic, a ‘go to’ place, but it really only works when you aggregate on it and drive traffic – i.e. you do not have other silos, Intranets, etc. stealing time and attention from your colleagues.  M&B’s presentation showed how their advertising and culture is clearly fantastic and the value in L&D tram’s bringing in external advertising and branding support. The take-up of the platform and clever creation of a persona for the platform (including use of Facebook) – always referred to as “she” not “it” – is clever and in line with some of the cleverer characterisation of other services (such as museum communications via Walrus and library management via ‘cuddly’ penguin).  I also liked M&B’s #learninghero campaign through Totara Social to recognise who had helped colleagues to develop and grow.  This is part of an impressive digitisation, including the carving up of numerous training days into 1-hour Adobe Connect sessions.

The other sessions I attended initial results from LMS platform research – presentation here, nothing really surprising and a session on credentials which will be familiar to users of open badges and related approaches.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

December 1, 2017

Posted under

Conferences, Learning Technology, Library Services, Online Higher Education, Professional Development

Comments

1 Comment

UKeIG: Digital Literacy in the Workplace

This day workshop really ended up getting me thinking and my thoughts (as articulated below) are probably still not very tidy.

What does being ‘digitally literate’ even mean?  What does digital literacy look like?  What does it mean to different industries/sectors?  How does it compare to Information Literacy?

Perhaps predictably for a CILIP group event the first couple of presentations were quite focused on Information Literacy [in the SCONUL kind of sense] and the day did continue to think a lot about electronic resources and e-information.  This said, it did highlight how different people have different views on DL, for example mine would be more in line with the Belshaw model than how information professionals might consider the topic [note I tend not to call myself an info pro anymore!].

Key activities related to the topic were included in the day’s presentations, my interest in attending being particularly around the training of ‘clients’ (although a number of delegates made the point of not calling it ‘training’ to increase engagement), to up-skill staff and students (the latter for the large number of delegates working in education).  The “don’t call it training” advice will be well known by L&D folks and Wendy Foster’s session on the City Business Library made the point perfectly: it should be outcomes/WIIFM focused, i.e. not “database training” but “creating business to business contacts”.  eLearning was also mentioned as increasingly important for library/information professionals – and I made the point on Twitter that some of us have moved away from the ‘traditional’ profession via this route:

 

Personally, when I think about digital literacy, I’m thinking digital competency and capability.  This includes how people can be encouraged to be open to technological change, continue to develop their knowledge and skills within the requirements of their role and for possible future needs.  Indeed in the initial brainstorm of what it meant for us, I made the point of saying that it really can mean anything and everything.  I continued by arguing a need to “get on with it”, more than worrying about definitions, in a similar way to how L&D faffed about with what “coaching” meant only for people to go ahead and crack on with it (in various guises).

The different perceptions, semantics and language used around the topic continued to come up throughout the day and I couldn’t help but feel that businesses have adopted “digital transformation” as a buzzword, largely via IT Services, whilst a lot of professions have been left behind.  This is an interesting one for libraries/information considering eLib was a very ‘early’ series of service transformations (again for education – and a key part of my MA dissertation) that arguably (at least in my dissertation) was not followed through (or at least maintained).  eLib, however, is largely the cause of the LMS language divide between workplace LMS (learning) and UK higher ed (library – and use of VLE over LMS).  Anyways, I’m getting waylaid by semantics and history (which I tend to be)…

The day considered various pieces of research such as the ‘Google Generation’ which got me thinking about the laziness, ‘buzyitus’ and other factors which might be as important as UI/UX decisions:

 

A couple of sessions referenced Information Literacy in the Workplace by Marc Forster.  I don’t think I’ve ever looked at this [at c.£50 (it’s a Facet book after all) I’m unlikely to] nor the also referenced Information Literacy Landscapes by Lloyd.  Overall there remained a feeling that we were talking about a narrow subset of the digital skills I would consider people need.  I quite liked this model when reflecting on the day and Googling alternatives and, for workplace’s aligning to the apprenticeship standards, perhaps functional skills frameworks are the standard to be applied.

The JISC session nicely considered the wider issues (Flexing our digital muscle: beyond information literacy) but, unsurprisingly again, was very HE orientated – their model of “digital capability” however could be flexed for other environments.  Is the model of creation, problem-solving and innovation (in addition to an information focus) the way to go when thinking about digital skills – i.e. should they just be embedded at appropriate (Blooms taxonomy?) levels of technical capability?

Overall, there is a huge impact on productivity from information overload, a lack of digital skills and related issues.  If we (as in our organisations and the UK overall) are to improve perhaps we need to recognise this and invest in people for longer term impact and improvement.  Whilst one session, correctly, pointed out that work is about “KPIs not coursework” it is also an oversimplification.  As required skills are changed by technology the knowledge, skills and behaviours will change and be reinforced.  In terms of quick wins, the start point may well be developing some shared vocabulary within your own organisation to then support people with.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 29, 2017

Posted under

Conferences, Organizational Development, Professional Development

Comments

Leave a comment

Interact Taster Day

I previously mentioned that I recently attended a taster day at Interact’s London office.  Beforehand I did not really know what to expect, having agreed to attend to see if there were some useful tips and tricks for my own leadership and management support.

Overall, it was a good day.  I’ll admit to initially being nervous about an actor-led development organisation but there were a lot of useful points to reflect on.

Some particular takeaway points reflected on below.

A bit on Interact

Undoubtedly some real value in the techniques (such as forum theatre, hot seating, etc) and it is very impressive that they’ve managed to grow to “over 1000 associates”.  That number means they are now likely the largest employer of actors in the country after only the BBC – with most having achieved additional relevant qualifications in areas such as executive coaching.

Value of stories

A number of examples were of the all-important impact through stories to “provide meaning”.  This will resonate with most people who have any kind of instructional design background – but coming at the issue from the world of drama and acting.

First thing the founder did with the company was to ban the use of “role play” – instead want people to be themselves, actors pick up the customer or other perspectives.  I can recognise here the value in seeking realism, however, I’ve also had some success where playing a role (other than your own) can change perspectives.

Value of actors

Undoubtedly there is value in actors providing a real life environment for safe learning environments.

I have had mixed feelings about this in the past, over if there is realism in using actors, for “practice based learning”.  However, I’ve see plenty of good examples over the years and the day included more, including forum theatres for Transport For London.  Interact’s standard practice is starting with the extreme bad situation (to get people engaged) and work backwards.  In TFL’s case this was about not just following process but delivering customer service, part of organisational change from ‘we were running a railway, now we run a service’.  The argument being that drama is 3D and human so will engage, unlike PowerPoint.

Another advantage of actors is undoubtedly the ability to playback ‘scenes’ and there were some good examples where they replicated scenarios perfectly so people could improve their performance.

Role of the facilitator (beyond acting)

Useful to keep in mind that “facilia” of “facilitator” is to “make easy”.

I liked this as it is somewhat ‘meta’ for L&D professionals but it is the balance of educationalist rules and ‘teaching’ versus the more realistic key purpose of the role: engage.

In the examples shown, the facilitator, separate from the actors (at least on the taster day), support the interactions/acting and move into skills via facilitating the audience discussion.

Importance of culture and language

Interesting cultural differences were discussed throughout the day, for example, Americans tend to expect to see good practice first, not bad.  However, Interact find better retention with their approach – 30 writers making use of humour (including a bit of drama shown adapted from the famous John Cleese/Two Ronnies sketch) on and other techniques.

There were some good conversations on the day around language, including a recommendation to avoid asking for volunteers: instead give orders (“show me what you mean”) but not in the tone of an order (so avoid negativity).

Founded by a playwright, they stress the importance of words, for example “as you know” is the beginning of a telling off, not the way to start feedback.  The 93% non-verbal ‘rule’ has been debunked and we do need to think about what we say and how.

Context is king and globalisation has led to “leading by written word” (particularly email), indeed I’ve often thought this is in part why leadership is being viewed so poorly).  Another activity considered “what is leadership?” and an analysis of the words people responded with (nouns vs verbs, etc.) was really good.  Again, cultural differences were considered – in this case due to the nature of the English, French, German, Arabic, Chinese and other dictionaries.  This is a personal topic of interest for me as I think English, or at least my, education failed to look at English in the same way that you would then be expected to know linguistic rules to learn other languages.  Thus I found French and German very difficult.  There is, of course, the argument that learning Latin is a great way to understand such rules but that’s probably not going to be a realistic way forward for most people.

The importance of language was shown in some good examples, for example M&S adverts used noun > adjective > adjective > adjective to turn the brand (M&S) itself into an adjective.

Won me over on Communication Styles

Communication styles [HRDQ style series] was used well in another activity to get people thinking and talking in the room.  Generally I’ve resisted such activities that attempt to put people in/on a limited scale (a spectrum of four categories in this example) but, again, the facilitation was very good in getting the attendees involved and getting key messages across (including the need for balance) and how people go about the work, e.g. as a “systematic” communicator I wrote on the flipchart with arrow bullet points, hinting at the ‘getting on with the task’ mentality.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 28, 2017

Posted under

Conferences, Professional Development

Comments

1 Comment

The 11th Annual Talent Management and Leadership Development Summit

My first Symposium event (I think) and my first ‘public’ conference presentation for quite a while (slides are up on SlideShare).  Overall, I really enjoyed the day.  Sessions were short and punchy and I think all the presenters could have gone on for longer and still kept me engaged.

Of my presentation, I’m more than aware of the various faux pas including using charts in PowerPoint and talking too much about context.  However, the latter was key to explaining why we have done what we have and the former for showing some level of evaluation.  As blog readers will know I’m rather keen on evaluation.

My session seemed to hit a good spot with the audience, with plenty of interest in the breaks around what we have done with ILM, the apprenticeship levy and how we are tackling the healthcare workforce crisis.  Really, what I did amounted to a fairly standard case study which wouldn’t have been much ‘new’ to an L&D audience so I was happy that people at least looked engaged.

Chair’s opening remarks – Amy Armstrong, Senior Faculty, Hult International Business School

A session on the conference chair’s interests including “crucible leadership”, the term used for the impact of difficult personal experiences on an individual’s development.

The importance of the human element was considered alongside, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI), the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”,.  Amy argued that the future will mean combining Human Resources (HR) with BR (Bot Resources); the first time I’ve heard of “BR” and something undoubtedly to keep in mind going forward.

The focus of her work is on leader’s role in leading for the “human moment” at work, namely the compassion to connect and care (i.e. what AI can’t do – for now at least).  Amy mentioned the thematic crossover with the rise of self-focused individualism, in part due to dehumanization via electronic communication, increasing loneliness, increased stress and decreased networks (such as close friends at work).  Increasingly, it was argued, workplace interactions are very superficial and I guess I would agree with this considering how few of my close friends have come from the workplace (unlike school, university, etc. and unlike if I think about my dad at my age and his circle of friends).

So how do you start with this?  The presentation argued compassion needs to start with yourself (i.e. you need to take time to care for self, which can include mindfulness, etc.).  Kristen Nef’s work around self-compassion was referenced before the room did a “feel present” breathing exercise.  I must admit that I nearly dozed off with the breathing exercise, when I caught up with Amy later she admitted that’s not uncommon as people are so worn out that the exercise often is a rare opportunity for people to take a few minutes.  I would not say I am particularly worn out but then perhaps that is the point as the exercise might suggest otherwise!  In conversation with other attendees later in the day, there were some interesting ideas around this, such as a person who, in their Outlook calendar, has “looking out of the window” time.  Personally I was not sure if that is a good idea or just sad that we have reached that point, with all the conflict our society has been through and the technological developments is the nature of ‘being’?

Agile by design: the future of leadership development is here – Anna Seely, Principal, Talent Strategy and Leadership Development, Mercer UK

This session argued for the importance of agility (over other buzzwords such as VUCA).  Why?  Agility is what is needed to deal and change with the widespread industry disruption, including changes to customer expectations.

Amy argued that agility, not productivity, will ensure long term success if startups master scale and/or corporates master agility (the latter leading to the oft referenced decline in Fortune 500 companies over the last few decades).  What agility actually means was talked about at different levels, i.e. country, organisation, team and individual – for organisations it means being nimble.  One quote I don’t think I’ve heard before is “agility rhymes with stability” and the stress was on the need for a strong base.  A dancer metaphor lining this up as about a strong ‘core’, combined with dynamic moving parts that do not weaken the core.  This was quite a nice way to put the ideas across as not everything should be ‘made’ lean or have scrum applied to it and I’d certainly agree that too often people can be won over by trends that are not always directly applicable.

The session also considered the need to develop your practice identity, a model of continuous improvement Mercer use with clients.  This identity is “How I Lead” and “Who I Am” – these are influenced by factors including the crucible moments of the first session.  The “Who” is the core of conviction and beliefs whilst the “How” are behaviours, competencies and things you do.  Context is king with this, different levels need to manage differently and I was pleased to see this knowing my own presentation would look at levels of competency/how.

What makes leaders less agile was also considered, including their/organisational measures of success acting as blockers and encouraging short-termism.  Locked down processes and change resistance also play a part.  I agreed with the challenge that leaders need to get people to imagine a different future.  Indeed a nice example of a programme for a Pharma client showed how this can be done, a spaced 9-month programme combining experience, encounter (inc. classroom) and exposure.  Interesting that Mercer work on content only 2 months in advance to allow for the same overall journey but agility to current trends, with the Pharma’s CEO driving areas to focus on due to changes in the market.

Mercer sponsored the event and had a number of good takeaway materials available too.

Mind the Leadership Gap: the journey to inform, inspire and develop leadership potential – Transport for London

A good presentation from TFL on changes to their business plan and implications for L&D support for their leaders.  Their first, pan-TFL, director programme was launched in 2013 (prior to this was piecemeal across different departments – one of a few areas where it was similar to my presentation).  The first programme was run through CASS and cascaded down the management team/levels.

Following the cascade they reached the point to consider what they should do next and they have shifted to DeSmet’s idea of “leader led” learning making use of the fact “every leader has a teachable point of view”.  I’d certainly agree everyone has sharable lessons but I don’t know if this should be a formal thing over amplifying the leader’s reflections via ESNs, blogging, etc.  Interestingly they benchmarked this leader-led learning to other examples at Deloitte and the DWP, but generally speaking there are a lack of UK-based examples.  The model has allowed for agility and at zero cost (to be fair the Q&A did call this out as not really being zero considering the time involved – really the shift is from the  external costs of CASS to internal ones).

They also had levels for different audiences, three in their case, with a focus on learner/leader self-direction and on-demand resources.  There are common/core elements across the three: the “expert hours” (with the leaders presenting for 20 minutes, 10-minute discussion and 30 mins on adopting/implanting), short term placements, mentoring, perspectives (external networking, recommended TEDs, etc.) and leadership challenges (specific issues with group brainstorming).  Overall the website they used looked good as a non-typical-LMS approach to supporting people across 5 topics (leading/self-awareness/change/financial and commercial), via these resource/activity types in the different ‘journeys’.  Again, like we have attempted to achieve, they have tried to encourage mentoring via lining up relevant people with specific roles.

A standout figure from the presentation, for me, was that 30% of the 500 leaders asked to contribute were immediately willing to mentor or contribute other content.  Personally, this sounded really impressive and it would be interesting to know how many organisations would get that kind of buy-in to a new approach.  However, they also acknowledged that moving from people having six days at CASS does risk a loss of kudos. The mooted idea of having contribution link to pay/bonus/performance reviews might also have had an impact on take-up!

Interestingly they consider themselves moving away from a “learning organisation” to a “teaching organisation” – in language terms I thought many L&D professionals might feel that is a step backwards but you could understand what they mean, i.e. that it’s being less passive than participating in learning and more about all managers leading it for the organisation.

In the Q&A, BP mentioned that they too are moving away from a residential business school programme (for them MIT) and facing the challenge of ongoing learning being seen as as valuable.  There was also the usual discussion around competencies being valid constructs for some consistency/clarity versus unwieldy corporate documents (again I touched upon our approach in my presentation and some previous thoughts on this are here).

Panel discussion – When it comes to leadership, does experience matter?

A discussion on the importance of experience, the panel being a Mercer consultant and a start-up recruiter.  Started with the geopolitical climate of young leaders breaking age records in Canada, France and Austria – evidence for the argument that leadership quality (or the perception of it) is not attached to experience.  Meanwhile leaders in industry include young leaders of tech startups whilst large corporates are changing too, Kraft just appointing a CFO in his 30s.  What has been found though is that young leaders need experienced heads around them.

The session went on to the rise of start-ups and wider trends toward flat structures, including the problem of people wanting to ‘move on’ which leads to management even if they don’t want it.  To an extent this is not a new problem, with all industries having promoted people for competence in one area and not necessarily any leadership or management potential.  I did disagree with a point made that you should accelerate young leaders to support digital-first policy, this being age presumptuous which is one of the things that really annoys me although older people obviously have to have continued their lifelong learning (to avoid being the old guy in the corner).

Some evidence from the research was mentioned including young leaders changing and adopting their behaviours quicker than older workers (which you’d suspect probably would be the case – i.e. they are less stuck in their ways).  The challenge was set for the delegates to have high potential development programmes challenge the identity (as in the earlier session) of how people manage/lead – with 50% of high potential programmes failing currently, in part, due to a failure to tackle this challenge.

The room’s input was that experience certainly cannot equal age any more.  I challenged a number of people during the day over why we then insist still in job adverts for set numbers of years of experience (and even worse specific industry experience for roles that are based on a largely generic skillset such as L&D).

How to develop your culture to become a values-based leadership organisation – Sandy Wilkie, Staff Engagement Lead, Bolton NHS Foundation Trust

A session on the Barrett Centre PVA model for the redesign of values for this part of the NHS, creating a standard vocabulary and common language around behaviour.  Sandy ran design sessions with staff, with the top ten values leading into a second stage which then created the Bolton V.O.I.C.E.

They have then worked on what the values look like through practices and they have become integral from recruitment, through performance management and development.  One aspect is “value based decision making” where values are pitted against difficult questions/situations for how people should act (using some of the theory from Myers Briggs).

There were aspects similar to the ‘identity’ piece earlier in the day in considering what personal values are and the desired ‘as-is’ to ‘to-be’.  The ‘cultural entropy’ levels considered across departments and their physical estate/layout.  They’ve found some surprise issues through this, including issues within teams that were previously thought okay whilst finding other areas for development elsewhere, including improving team morale.  Overall they are continuing on a cultural journey, as they move out of special measures.  That journey is led from the top, with the chief exec still running a clinic a week (as a doctor) to be ‘on the front line’.

I suspect many organisations have their values/behaviours, etc. but it was good to see an example of where they seemed to have had input from the whole organisation, leading to ownership and use.

Group Discussion on Table

A couple of questions were given to the room to contemplate, abbreviated versions:

  1. What is key for leadership and management success?
  2. How can we ensure future talent pools?

We discussed point two, considering how we might be able to create some clarity in a world of unknowns, not least the implications of BR and other technology.  Issues we considered included what skills we need for people to prepare for this.  Is a key skill/knowledge piece now better horizon scanning?  Is it all about adaptability?

On point one the debrief between the groups was to drive talent and engagement through really acting on the value in employee surveys, change culture so change is a positive, local individual development (1-2-1 with managers) will stay essential, seeing engagement as a tick box/RAG, don’t see talent as about creating elites (which resonated with my presentation calling for more ‘socialist’ availability of development in organisations) to maximise everyone’s potential.

For point two one option remains to buy it in, inc. the large number of tech acquisitions by companies in recent years.  Wider development of talent pools needs to involve all level, chief execs or other levels are not special, have management mentors and projects: not necessarily clear up front what trying to achieve (i.e. give some structure but allow people to get what they want/need not have to do whole lot – which would be different to my session’s focus on apprenticeships).  I made the point that business needs to stop complaining about talent and do more with schools and apprenticeships.

Engineering a sustainable tomorrow to have a workforce that is representative of society – Jenny Tomkins, HR Operations Director, Costain

Some on the work they have done on equality, diversity and inclusion (including some of the slides from their training).  Showed, for example, the iceberg of differences (i.e. visible and non-visible).

Incorporated some of the evidence than diversity trumps ability through different perspectives and viewpoints.  They have taken this on with broader talent pools, LGBTI and BAME networks, refresh of emerging talent brand and role model for flexible working practices.  They are also including 50/50 female/male graduates intake.

They have set management bonuses for diversity targets.

The benefits and impacts of moving out the ‘9-box grid’ – Jennifer Doyle, Executive Resourcing & Talent, Financial Conduct Authority

A look at moving away from the 9 box – as I tweeted:

https://twitter.com/iangardnergb/status/921005646702698497

Issues with 9-box included that little evidence people manage to get it implemented well.  Tracking organisation-wide is often an issue too (and has been for me over the years).

Their alternative is “scope for growth” – which actually ended up being 9 positions but focused on the positive, everyone has potential.  The desire here was to recognise that, from a growth and talent perspective, meeting objectives are part of the impact but not the be all and end all.

The balance of impact and growth creates the 3 zones.

Three zone:

  • Depth: expand expertise in specialism
  • Breadth: build career beyond single specialism
  • Stretch: grow beyond your role, moving to positions of greater complexity

each has three levels, for example, if you are in the Depth area you are a ‘developing specialist’, ‘core contributor’ or ‘expert’.

I really liked the language here in relation to positive psychology and it’s a way to have “I’m happy where I am” as a positive (rather than always encouraging people to move up/on).  The support provided by the central team includes indicators of what the 9 look like (such as eLearning to provide background info).  The new tool/language used as part of review and career conversations.  The individual is given a worksheet to help with GROW and what want to be known for (i.e. identity again).

Advantages for The FCA include central reporting so have profiles across departments.  As have the data can map it to diversity profiles, etc.

Panel Discussion: Brexit and the future of attracting and retaining talent – Sandy Wilkie, Staff Engagement Lead, Bolton NHS Foundation Trust & Julia Howes, Head of Workforce Planning, Mercer UK

Mercer research shows Brexit is being blamed but demographic implications (such as ageing workforce and ageing overall population) were already underway.

Since 2013 (excluding immigrants) the UK workforce already falling.  Productivity challenges include dealing with this via reskilling older people and inactive people (such as home mothers/fathers).  Brexit has made it more urgent but varies by industry (health, in particular, is in trouble).

The NHS perspective included that there simply are not enough nurses and increasing demand with limited resourcing.  Challenges with current setup, six Philippine nurses who were brought in but only two have been able to get all the way through the conversion rules.

There was some agreement on needing a “grow our own” (like our model) but need national picture/solutions.  The c-suite often try to recruit out of problems, but now being punished for underinvestment in L&D since 2008.  Recruitment is also a risky approach, especially graduate schemes as there are less people aged 10-20 than 20-30 so not sustainable in immediate future.

Jon who was next up raised the point that, in part, we need to stop investing in cheap labour – instead there should be a focus on tech…

“The End of Leadership Development” – Jon Ingham, Executive HR Consultant and author of The Social Organization

Jon had sat next to me for much of the day and did a good job of putting together a presentation not really aligned to the advertised title (“New directions and opportunities in how we think about talent and leadership ”) but tackling some of the research and points made during the day.

One graph showed increasing spend on leadership and management development versus for a decrease in confidence in leadership.  I’ve seen this before but there’s lots to it, potentially, if you unpack it.  I’d say it is in part due to a loss of faith in capitalism (promises in the fall of the Berlin Wall drying up), the rise of the 1%, the rise of email (and loss of personal touch as mentioned earlier in the day) and much more.

So what should leaders be doing?  Jon argued for Simon Sinek’s approach.

There was a nod for the E-Test (which I’ve never really thought of as more than a joke – for example to do it ‘correctly’ you really need the knowledge of how writing mirrors) it does not feel like a robust scientific experiment to test something as important as empathy.

Pay and rewards have been shown to negatively impact performance, CIPD high pay research so have to look elsewhere.  Part is avoiding “buzyness” syndrome (another pet hate of mine) – mindfulness can help but also the need to think socially to engage brains and think about problems differently (this is in part why I advocate positive psychology to not become blinkered by problems but also the importance of inclusion as mentioned earlier).

He advocated for less leadership development and more imagination around organisational design and development, for example, do we need permanent leaders?  Examples exist of electing leaders for companies, bottom up, for more empathy.

There was a plug for Mintzberg (who I must admit I hadn’t realised was still active) and his work on ‘communityship’: more leaders, less followers.  Nice idea and would be interesting to see how well that works – ultimately, to me, we still seem to live in a ‘carry the can’ society and it feels like someone is still expected hold responsibilities across the board.

On the community theme there was a bit on conversation/network analysis for identifying your key brokers and central connectors.  I must admit I’d largely forgotten about this as a technique after being excited about it from an IM/KM perspective previously.  In other words “social talent management” is the option to go for – I guess the criticism here would be that your social influencers may also be the people that (in 9 box grid land) you are easing out!  However, the challenge of how to recognise those who help others and not just themselves certainly came up more than once through the day – better goal setting would be the solution in part?  He finished with that very point on the need to performance manage teams, not individuals.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 8, 2017

Posted under

Conferences, Organizational Development

Comments

1 Comment

Raytheon Symposium 2017

I was not going to go to the RS this year – even though I was invited following attendance in 2016 – mostly as the sessions did not seem hugely promising.  However, I am glad I did as a couple of the presentations we’re really good.

The below write-up focuses on those two with some brief comments on the other presentation session.

Learning and Development in a VUCA World: Inform, Inspire, Involve

This session was particularly worrying – see previous comments on VUCA and L&D – when I read the invitation.  However, Susan Goldsworthy put together a really nice combination of positive psychology and other concepts to encourage inclusive L&D (I’ll add a fourth ‘I’ to her list!).

Susan referenced a number of models that would be familiar to L&D folks but with good examples and a real energy in presentation, some of the more interesting points with my comments indented underneath:

  1. Knowledge into behavior.   Example: Just look at huge value/revenues in diet industry to show that knowledge (eat less & exercise more) does not lead to desired behavior change (nor the results – of weight loss).
    1. L&D focus on knowledge and skills is fine but an organization has to do more.
  2. Human needs beyond Maslow.  Two key ones are acceptance (including belonging) and achievement (incorporating recognition).
    1. Have to agree with these and also closely aligned to Strengthscope’s 5A model and other techniques.
  3. Challenge to create a climate of caring and daring.
    1. I suspect a lot of organization would like to claim this (for example through value and behavior statements) but suspect they might fall down on it.  There were similarities to Strengthscope in the idea of stretch and the need to enjoy challenges.  I particularly liked the calling out of one of my pet annoyances – “do as we’ve always done it” – and the need to balance courage and energy.
  4. Four states of organizational energy – Productive, Comfortable, Resigned and Corrosive.  If you think from this perspective then you can see the negative impact of attempts – for example, new CEOs trying to be productive and move people out of comfortable, aka “do as we’ve always done it”, risk being dominating in a control/corrosive style.
    1. Not sure I’ve seen this particular model before but it makes a lot of sense, more about this view of organizational energy here.
  5. Trust is all important – combination of warmth (good intentions) and competence (evidence can act on good intentions).
    1. Trust is, of course, fundamental to many models – not least The Trusted Advisor.
  6. More natural to focus on negative.  Need to recognize this and focus on what can do instead.
    1. Again, similar to Strengthscope and the logic of needing to focus on the ‘path of possibility‘.
  7. Recognize learning from failure as a positive base.  Example: one of her clients use “get out of jail free” cards – people can use once to recognize failure and report the learning to the team.  The, Canadian, client’s boss being the first person to show how it was acceptable to admit mistakes.
    1. I liked this idea but perhaps limiting to only have one and make so specific?
  8. Importance of saving F.A.C.E. – four ‘buttons’ to get people involved: Fairness, Autonomy, Certainty and Empathy.
    1. Another really good idea/model, the kind of concepts that make a lot of sense but is useful to be reinforced when attending networking and development events like this.  Bit of detail on it below…
  9. Fairness: need to express what think, including negative emotions.  Being open about negative emotions reduces them, combined with courage of being open stops gossip and negative communication.  For example, Susan mentioned work she does with teams prior to moves to open planning working to allow people to express their concerns in advance so boundaries can be defined by getting people involved in decision making…
  10. Autonomy: give people a choice, even if limited – they might have to do something but leaders can give people options within it.  Most important element is self control.
  11. Certainty: ‘the need to know’, ‘cool head, warm heart’, live values, communicate (bad news is better than no news), etc.
  12. Empathy: “social disconnection creates social pain” [I loved that line].  Exclusion shows in brain as same part of MRI scan as physical pain!  Thus need professional and social collaboration and interaction.
  13. Shift power to people with environments where people own and share.  Waterfalls (top down – parent to child) to waves (in and out – adult to adult).
    1. This made sense and I particularly like the link to language [more on that when I get to writing up a recent Interact event I attended].  An Australian example was given on this, dont use “stop>start>continue” as parent-like telling off.  Instead “decrease>increase>maintain”.

Creating Learning Flexibility While Following the Business Beat

A nice attempt at a jazz metaphor and visual cues in the slides albeit a metaphor that didn’t feel like it quite worked.  It was, at least, a slightly different way to consider how L&D needs to change.  If the organization is the baseline, and face-to-face learning is classical music then jazz would be allowing individuals their improvisation in an individual-centric solution.

Program and Content Curation in Times of Complexity

A refreshingly honest session from Aimee O’Malley of Google’s L&D team.  The title didn’t really align to the presentation (again) but was good.

Rapid growth continues for Google and still “scrappy” with lots of “trial and error” internally.

Working on 5 principles (as below some of my comments below) for L&D:

  1. From skills to mindsets.
    1. I thought this was interesting in that it seemed less a decision to leave technical with the SMEs and focus L&D on ‘soft’ or generic skills (which is often the approach).  Instead it was about acknowledging that long term planning is difficult so need people to be less role orientated and need them to be self learners who can change over time.
  2. Restructure yourself to be nimble.
    1. When I went through a redundancy due to L&D team relocation/restructure one of the strong messages from fellow professionals and recruiters was that very few people will have a long HR/L&D career without redundancies.  For Google they’ve shifted from business units (i.e. customer) focus to try and be more centralized and thus able to support emerging areas.  Still probably one of those issues where there is never a perfect solution but the ‘pool’ (rather than business unit resource) idea obviously could work but needs to be flexible – scale being the challenge.
  3. Ruthlessly prioritize.
    1. There was one great stat in Aimee’s presentation: for the last 6000 hired Googlers there has been 1 new L&D person.  Thus they have come to the conclusion that rather than “stacking programmes” they need to focus on the most high impact ones.  Aimee admitting this has been difficult for many, the “sun-setting” of one programme even being raised on a whole company call with the founders.  Again, I can sympathize with this having experienced the ongoing, vocal, advocacy for retired programmes in the past.  The organizational legacy and shifting the “this is how we’ve always done it” is of course very difficult.  I did like the idea, they have introduced, of “viking funerals” to celebrate the closure of programmes, including being open on the rationale for why things are being stopped.
  4. Open source everything.
    1. An open approach – the lack of L&D resource meaning materials are put out there with 85% of internal training by Googler-to-Googler (rather than L&D or external vendors).  This in part about scale but also opportunity cost, i.e. do L&D have to be involved?  Basic, level 1 type, feedback can then be used to spot the people not delivering well.
  5. Focus on landings not launches.
    1. A decreased focus on the “new” is no doubt something that would be good for lots of support structures.  This is of course, in part, the argument for better evaluation and less jumping from one need/project to another.  A particularly good idea, Google has introduced, was for L&D staff performance reviews to be focused on work completed 18 months earlier – i.e. the impact of previous work with better KPIs.  The “landing plan” of expected impact being largely aligned to the logic of learning indicators.

 

The final session should have been from AMEX but unfortunately the presenter was ill and the discussion in its place, on my table at least, was pretty broad and without too many outcomes for me – in part that I think I probably spoke too much!