How do you develop staff and leadership strategies together?

The first thing I did as a one person shop - new to the organization with no established in-house network and no staff was to find out what had been done before I got there. Then I enlisted each of the senior leaders as the sponsor in one part of the OD strategy designed to address key known issues. They attended training, learned to teach the material and then made sure all of the senior leadership attended the classes prior to the roll out to the supervisors and individual contributors. This ensured that even in meetings I wasn’t invited to - someone in leadership knew what we were doing to address the key concerns of the organization.

The says, "[...staff and leadership development are not always aligned...} As a leader with 30 years of management experience with a very high retention rate, staff and leadership development should be separated and will align naturally if done properly. Not all staff want or have the aptitude to be developed. My own formula, D.A.T.-Desire, Aptitude and Training (to develop staff into leaders) has taught me that a staff member must have the desire, aptitude and training to become a leader, which is a totally separate job. Ergo, the greatest mistake made in moving staff to leadership. Those positions are as different as a mechanic and a painter. If they are treated that way, alignment becomes a process!

When I joined my last organisation it was important for me to understand where the company was in their journey to develop their people. I had to be willing to ask questions to people I'd never met before, what has happened before I got here, what will be important in the future, what's missing right now? It was important to understand where the company was from a culture and learning maturity perspective as well. If you are just starting your learning journey, then best practice can be a terrible decision to implement into your business. You have to meet the company where it is, while also planning for the future.

There is a degree of subjectivity at play when assessing skills , values, culture etc. I would start with the numbers…how many, how much…not just ￡‘s but numbers of staff, leaders, customers. Get the numbers. Work out the kpis. Share them with everyone. Build the staff and leadership development plan around them and related goals. I also agree with Patsy…history is important and needs to be understood and celebrated.

For me, the outcomes aren't usually SMART, they are strategic. How will align this back to organisational strategy or the people plan to get the best outcome for the company. Learning outcomes, well defined ones, come from a clear understanding of where you want to go. I use Kirkpatrick starting at Level 4 (organisational impact) and rolling backwards to end with learning outcomes. I have to understand what behaviour will shift and be shifted by learning. Embracing Cathy Moore has helped evaluate how I consult on solutions by ensuring that I'm not just recommending learning as a solution.

One time at work, I had to make phone calls for the Shriner’s Club. It was hard because many people hung up on me. This was before caller ID what I learned from that, at the time, was to answer when someone called me.

When looking at implementation of learning, I want to understand whether I can measure the behaviour shift, which means I have to pick delivery mechanisms that allow me to see that. In my previous roles, the use of data became paramount to secure funding so that became part of the decision making process around methods and strategies that I selected. Another consideration is: Is the learning I'm making equitable? Can everyone arrive at the learning and gain what they need from it as they are. There has been big pushback to get people back to in person learning, but with that means we exclude people from the benefits of the experience.

Collaborative environments that enable idea sharing, conversations and access to qualified advisors is prefers to traditional training formats. These areas are less about learning skills and more focused on disrupting patterns and creating new paradigms that lead to new behavior patterns. Podcasts, journey stories and documentary style videos are perfect content vehicles. Utilize YouTube for thought leaders and researchers in key areas.

Learning is not an event, an event can be part of your learning journey but it is not where learning happens. Learning needs to be embedded into the rhythms of the organisation. For that to happen you need to ensure that all our your project team are clear on what they need to deliver which means regular check ins, follow ups, and accountability conversations when things go wrong. Project management plays a far bigger role in learning then ever before and will continue to be a skill that all learning teams need to integrate into their thinking.

This section for me is where social learning comes to play. To really embed learning across an organisation, we as a function have to stop gatekeeping learning. We are here to enable incredible experiences for our people. Creating moments of connection for our people through online forums, community meet ups, networking and mentoring events. This is where we can cement learning beyond the activities we create. This is where we see the most amount of change in behaviour and shift in mindsets, but we have to create spaces were people can do that.

I never agree with the concept of creating a culture of learning. It’s good to expand your insight and broaden your knowledge base but learning for the sake of learning is for school. The focus should always be the result of learning - increase performance, new behaviors, actions and the continuous pursuit of productivity and profitability. Their isn’t an organization without it.

Returning to the flat organizational structure where everyone has to become a self-learner and understand they must have the ability to acquire and be able to apply leadership skills when they are called upon to manage different situations.