muniBLOG Archives

The “thinking the same” Paradox……

Paradox: a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.

I need to look at things differently.

Everyone else is thinking the same way.

I better keeping thinking the same way, what if I’m wrong?

It seems to me that most of us are happy to be agreeable when it comes to our perspective about how the world works, especially in business. LinkedIn is a great example of individuals that find some sense of mental piece knowing that they think like the rest of the group. It’s like a fine line in the sand that very few are willing to cross, the question is “Why?”

I imagine that there are many reasons, but at the heart of it, I believe it’s the fear of being wrong, perhaps even being considered the, “Odd Duck.” LinkedIn is really a haven for the safe thinkers, those that aren’t or willing to challenge conventional wisdom. This became an epiphany for me several years ago when I started challenging everything that I had always believed and decided, what if I’m wrong and what if we are all wrong? When I came to this realization it was quite liberating.  However, the down side was trying to open other people’s possibilities to thinking differently, that requires a monumental effort.

Here are some simple of examples of how my thinking has changed:

  • You can motivate people.  Not really, and if you could, you’d be focusing your energy on the average performers – high performers are self-motivated
  • Employee engagement is necessary to move the organizational needle.  No it’s not.  You’re still focusing on mediocre performers, focus on hiring high performers
  • You can’t have a full understanding or appreciation for your professional discipline if you don’t take a macro look at what’s happening around the world, socially, environmentally, economically and the list goes on and on
  • If there was one thing your organization should do well, is have the ability to identify and hire high performers.  Everything else really doesn’t matter as much. Your time investment will be cut significantly
  • If you don’t understand the Pareto Principle, you’re going to miss the opportunity to have an in-depth perspective on your organization
  • Leadership is innate.  All you need to do is look at the supporting data – $45B invested in leadership training, however, the number of effective leaders hasn’t really grown
  • Just because you read something in a book, doesn’t make it true. Yes there are great writers, however look at the number of different opinions, stop trying to change your organization based on a book you read –  it’s ridiculous
  • Your organization’s performance can’t improve without embracing some form of coaching.  No feedback, no improvement
  • We don’t understand the fundamental principle of what trait is required for successful service organizations – friendly people.  You can’t teach an unfriendly person to be friendly

Now, you could and probably would certainly disagree with some or all of what I’ve said. But here’s the problem – where’s your proof, where’s the supporting data?

I can defend my comments quite easily, but most individuals can’t.  Now that doesn’t make me right in my thinking. I’m not interested in being right, I’m interested in doing the right thing.

Throughout my career I’ve made some very unusual predictions – many have come true, but at the time, I had an uphill battle trying to get others to see the world from a different perspective.

If you or if we, want to make a difference in our lives or in the lives of others, we need to challenge our thinking at every step. We used to say, if it isn’t broken, don’t break it, today, some of us would say, if it isn’t broken, break it and then rebuild it and make it better.

I don’t have to tell you the times in our history when people said, it can’t be done. There was a time where society believed the world was flat.  I really don’t believe that much has changed.  Many of us today still believe the world is somehow flat.

Do yourself a favor – don’t be afraid to cross that line in the sand, the other side can be very invigorating.

John Prpich, TalentBlueprint

Share

If You Don’t Understand These Concepts You Don’t Understand Learning

Here’s some Key Learning & Development Concepts to Consider

  • Content is less important than you think, even poor content – the focus needs to be on what happens after the delivery.
  • If you’re not familiar with the Kirkpatrick or Phillips models of evaluation, then you will not understanding that Level 3 is a very critical level. What I see is most doing level one and two then wanting to jump to 4 or 5 depending on what model you follow 
  • Everyone shouldn’t have access to learning, it should be a privilege that’s earned. Over $40B spent on learning, where’s the ROI? Did you ever notice that those who did well in your workshops were the high performers, not a coincidence
  • If building organizational competence is truly your mission, then don’t hire anyone that isn’t willing to learn on the companies time and their time.
  • If you don’t get to application after two weeks of the learning intervention, your attendees will lose 70% of they’ve learned, this is why application is so critical.
  • If you keep conducting the same classes or offering the same content and nothing has changed, stop doing that and move to another approach or different content
  • Most of you have forgotten about the 9 Box Transfer of Training Model, Vertical axis, Boss, Employee Trainer, Horizontal Access, Before, During and After. Box one and three, is the boss before and after, box 2 is the trainer delivering the knowledge to the employee. Guess what, 1 and 3 never happen, so nothing changes, this issue is one faced by every organization, I mean ever
  • Learning should be competency driven, that’s how you build organizational competence, you identify the core competencies that drive organizational results, guess what, your other talent systems, selection, performance management and succession planning are all competency-driven. Less than 50% of Fortune 500 companies use competency modeling, don’t know why
  • If you are using an LMS, make certain that you build in the Amazon 5 star rating approach. It helps drive others to the content and more importantly, tells you how your customer feels about the content
  • When your customer comes to you with a problem that requires your learning solution, don’t believe what they tell you. I’ve learned that my customers bring me symptoms, I ask a lot of good open-ended questions to ensure I’m dealing with the root cause. I passed this skill on to my team, you need to know how to consult
  • If your learning strategy is a push and not a pull, you’ll never be successful.
  • If you’re a learning department consider yourself to be a vendor and the currency of your customer to be time. You have to sell them on the idea of using your solutions, the best way to do that is have other customers talk about the effectiveness of your solutions. Remember, nothing beats a good testimonial and don’t be afraid to share those with the organization.
  • If the flipped classroom approach isn’t in your strategy, you’re missing the boat and the point. As I mentioned earlier, degreed has taken care of the content, you need to focus on getting the learner or a group focused on applying that learning in a real live project. Two things happen, you get real-time experience and you move the needle on the company’s results 
  • If your goal is to build certain organizational competencies, remember, more is less. Instead of focusing on several, which forces you to go 10 miles wide and an inch deep, pick one or two and do a real deep dive, so that you’re a mile wide and 10 miles deep, a better return
  • Whose responsibility is the development of the company’s employees? If you said you are, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Employee development is and will always be the responsibility of the leader, you are merely the catalyst 
  • Stop using meeting webinar solutions to deliver synchronous and asynchronous learning, look at products like Adobe Connect or Go To Training, there’s a big difference. 

Where the field of learning has really failed in this country is that those in the discipline still continue to focus on the tools instead of the process. This is similar to those in the HR discipline when it comes to performance management. They focus on the tool and not the system or process.

If I gave you Rachel Ray’s cookware, do you think you could cook as good as she does, I don’t think so?

John Prpich, Learning Protagonist

 

Share

Competency-Based Learning

One of the most significant opportunities being missed by most organizations today is the lack of a competency talent framework. I’ve always believed that the only true business differentiator is the competency of your organization. Everything else can typically be easily duplicated with financial resources.

The exact opposite is true for people. They are complex and require a great deal of effort and energy, however, if you can tap into their talents and keep them engaged in building their strengths, you will flourish.  History has proven this time and time again.

When it comes to the term competency, it’s often confused with other words like talent, strengths, or skills. By definition, a competency is where, motivation, knowledge, and skill meet. A competency can be a talent and it can certainly be a strength, so let’s not get too hung up on the term. The goal is to identify the critical or core competencies that are drivers of your organization’s success. Typically, I encourage the organization to select anywhere from 8-12 competencies – more than 12 becomes difficult to manage.

Once they’ve been identified and agreed upon,(this requires feedback from all levels of the organization), you can then start to incorporate them into the other systems and processes that drive your talent framework – selection, performance management, succession planning, personal development, and organizational values. These competencies also become an integral part of your culture.

Marcus Buckingham, the author of, Go Put Your Strengths To Work, also advocates focusing on the people’s strengths and not their weaknesses. What I found compelling about his work was that it aligned with my experiences as a leader.

Most performance review processes focus on improving someone’s weakness but rarely have I seen an improvement.  However, if they focused on a strength, I would see great strides being made. Even Dan Pink discussed this when he identified what motivates individuals – Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose. The mastery of skills is aligned with focusing on strengths and that’s aligned with what Malcolm Gladwell shared in his book, Outliers, where he wrote that “ ten thousand hours is the magic of greatness.”

If you are going to build a competency-based organization, make certain that the learning opportunities you provide are tied to those competencies and incorporate them into everything you do.

On a final note, I’d like to suggest another philosophical opportunity. Would you hire a person that wasn’t willing to develop or improve themselves?  You probably will tell me that you wouldn’t but we do it all the time. One important criterion that is missed in the selection process is assuring newcomers that if they join your organization, they have to be willing to continue to learn and develop.  If not, why would you hire them?

If the competence of your employees is a business differentiator everyone has to be willing to continue to learn.

John Prpich, TalentBlueprint

Share

Becoming a Learning Organization

During my 20 years in the business of learning and competency development, I’ve experienced a pattern that continues to plague organizations – confusing tools with strategy and process.

A good example of this can be found in performance management. Organizations focus all their energy on the tools and ignore the process, therefore the system has always failed. As the old saying goes, if I give you a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Developing an organizational mindset with a focus on behaviors necessary to ensure that the crystallization of the behaviors that will support the change you are looking for.

In the business of learning, organizations typically go directly to purchasing content or tools that will support the content – Learning Management Systems (LMS). Let’s remember if you buy a racing car that doesn’t make you a racing car driver.  It just makes you someone with a racing car. If your goal is to build organizational competence, you need to understand how to bring that change about. 

It isn’t easy. There are a series of questions you must ask yourself, here are some examples:

  • What does it mean to be a learning organization?
  • What are the benefits?
  • What are the challenges?
  • How does this align with our Mission, Vision, and Values?
  • What are the desired outcomes?
  • Who will champion this change?
  • How will this impact our goals?
  • What type of investment is involved?
  • How will this impact our culture?
  • How will this impact our ability to attract talent?
  • What behaviors are we trying to change?

As you can see, the list of questions will be very long and there’s a good reason. The average investment for a LMS today is around $100K, not including the learning content you would purchase or the overhead expense for managing the process. Take that and then factor in learning engagement trends, (30-40% of the organization), you’ll start to understand that this can easily be an expense instead of an investment.

Most organizations don’t realize the pre-work that proceeds getting ready to become a learning organization and they simply fail. Learning in North America is more of an expense than an investment. Billions of dollars are spent every year yet its rare for someone to articulate what happened or changed that impacted that expense that made it worthwhile. Part of this failure must do the lack of understanding of the model of learning evaluation (See Jack Phillips or Donald Kirkpatrick). Organizations should be developing Level 3 type evaluations to measure behavioral change.  It isn’t difficult, but most don’t understand how.

The other challenge is the perspective you must take when it comes to learning as a support function should engage with internal customers. Most learning departments use a push strategy, trying to force their customers to engage in learning –  this never works. You need to have the mindset that you are a vendor with a solution that can help your internal customers and the currency you are dealing with is time. How do you get your customers to invest their time in your solution? You must market your solution and you need testimonials from internal customers to encourage other customers to engage in your solution. This is a completely different mindset, but it works well.  I’ve been doing it for 18 years.

The other two critical components that are always missing are the Communication and Change Management strategies. How many times have you observed your organization’s leadership announce a change without doing any ground work and then watched that change fail.  People went back to work doing the same things they were doing before you told them what was going to change. We tend to forget the dangers in not explaining the Why’s of what we want to do and how that will positively impact the employee first, not the organization.

The other value of change management and communication is to get buy in. Remember, you want the leaders of the organization to drive the process and change, not the learning department.

John Prpich, Learning Protagonist

TalentBlueprint

 

Share