Leadership is a Culture: Linking People, Culture and Technology to drive ROI Performance...

It has recently been reported by one of the nation's largest consulting firms (Gartner, 2019) that over $32 Billion in e-learning technology investment over the past decade has not been linked to improve organizational ROI. This is no surprise as companies moved to downsize training budgets by leveraging technology, despite evidence from considerable research that the most effective learning blends instruction with online systems: elearning being just one tool or method for efficient delivery.

E-learning, while valuable, is effective in very focused, very specific, and very limited skill enhancement methods or updates (Rand, 2019; Rand & SLA, 2015; SRP, 2009-2014). For example, an E-learning content as a short video reminding nurses of new CPR fundamentals is more effective than teaching nurses a new soft-skill such as coaching. For this failed technology investment, LinkedIN (2019) recently reports that soft-skill performance remains a problem key performance indicator (KPI) for most organizations. Further evidence that elearning alone is insufficient. For $32 Billion, ROI could have been captured, had organizations focused on linking people, culture and technology - not replacing the HUMAN in favor of big-data.... #CultureROI - but why?

E-learning is a tool, and humans use tools to design, build, and interact with the world in every-way possible, but do not leverage tools for learning how their peers think, act, and behave in the workplace (RAND & SLA, 2015). For example, in over 3000 courses when tools for learning about peers - tools to promote soft-skill engagement confidence with a reliable and validated depiction of core values index ratings (e.g. a simple access psychometric system) - were provided and optional to use in applied-workplace settings, less than 20% of students engaged in those tools in class or work. This despite overall application and accuracy ratings from peers for the tool's influence improving quality of engagement being rated as over 92% for reliability, validity, and impact on soft-skill engagements with peers. However, when required to use the tools within live or online-live learning (completion in excess of 95% of basic use for required coursework), the rate of effective use of these tools in the workplace (learner optional continued use, not mandated by class) increased to over 63%.

In other words, the companies investing into providing access to the tools and quick, clean simple elearning tutorials would have lost over 80% of their investment compared to if they invested into live-learning environments where everyone would have been exposed to the tools and the rate of continued use would have increased. THAT is the time to have introduced short, reminder, and focused elearning tools to improve the 63% optional application in workplace use to drive that to higher-levels, but that is not how elearning has been deployed in America....

The key for effective learning is linking people, teams, and cultures to clear ROI outcomes through performance-thinking systems...

Performance Measurement Thinking

There are two models of process thinking that govern long-term (distal) or immediate (tactical) results. The first process is one of critical thinking. Critical thinking has many functions, but is best described as a process of learning (Rand, Rand, & Rand, 2011). The process starts with listing what is known followed by analyzing the relationships of what is known relative to the end goals (see Covey, 1991). In this standpoint, we use critical thinking to understand GAPS in knowledge by identifying the space between what is known versus the goal for desired knowing (Rand & Rand, 2010).

Critical thinking, in context of individual-contribution in the workplace should occur at the onset of any professional or organization development effort. All too often people will re-actively respond and jump immediately into implementation without focusing on the thinking-process to effectively analyze needs versus performance (RAND & SLA, 2015).

An example of this is the prior explanation of elearning for psychometric tool use in the workplace - most people simply opt to "engage" peers or direct-reports without using a process to defining an understanding, assessing consistent data versus observed workplace performance, and then adjusting to use tools and data for higher-levels of employee engagement. Critical thinking allows the opportunity to expand the space between the stimulus and response; and a score card is how to property capture and monitor the progress of performance-thinking measurements, or key performance indicators (KPIs) in real-time.

For example, if your base-ball coach states, "we need more home-runs." The best first thing is NOT to have all 20 players on the team start practicing how to hit the 'long-ball,' but to look at the team score card. Focus on Who first, then decide who is strongest at closing the gap. This is the essence of critical thinking in an applied context.

Does your team have a score card?

A score-card is just as it sounds - no different than a baseball card we had as children. The picture shows the external personal Individual-Contributor for which we see on a day to day basis: it’s who comes to mind. The back side of the card provides the stats on the individual. 

Disciplina-focused learning is the art of creating a cadence of accountability through focus

This is often defined as the focused-execution of wildly important, thoughtful, and profound performance goals. Do you #FOCUS your five-day a week roles and goals in that manner? You should! Research supports that great leaders, contributors, and organizations focus in this manner. 

Does your company count the important stats? 

Critical analysis can help us establish what should be counted because it provides important and useful data toward the end-goal (in this article focus, hitting more home-runs). Assume for now, the team's score card is well in place. They might determine that they only have one player whose stats support the talent to hit a long-ball. This is where strategic thinking re-enters; and critical planning moves toward implementation.

First, because the base-ball team needs to win, the strategy must be reviewed. Hitting long-balls (home runs to the non-baseball fan) might be a strategy best achieved over-time; therefore, the team will need to shift the tactics toward moving players from base to base by hitting shorter hits and putting players on the bases first thing, first. 

As the team engages this process, they can track better data by being both operationally and strategically FOCUSED:

• Is there unrecognized talent?
• Can a player be taught to hit the long-ball?
• Where does the team have an overload of talent? How can those players be shifted to meet short-term needs?

The score card keeps a team focused on the performance-measurement goals while so that focused lead-time can be properly measured, analyzed, and inform purposefully learned strategic shifts of direction. This is how process thinking is both strategic and critical. On the one hand the team must win games now. In doing so, they can fill GAPS from their initial ASSESSMENT and continue to redesign the strategy based on key benchmark findings (bench-marking is establishing the baseline performance at the start... not mid intervention!).....

Strategic Thinking requires a determined process for how/what is sought. Strategies are the chosen methods to reaching the mission and purpose. These are defined based on several key steps (see Section Two) that include share/stake holder satisfaction, values, strengths, and opportunities. Data that comes from critical analysis can help provide indications for a need to alter the future strategic vision, or simply modify the GOALS for ensuring the vision is obtained. Strategy by nature should be long-term, or distal (Carruthers & Hood, 2007; See also Rand & Rand, 2010). But, it can provide an over-arching concept for short-term endeavors.

For example, non-profits paint a great picture for how strategy is both long-range and real-time. While the long-range strategy of an organization might be success developed through personal relationships developed through outreach... the short-term strategy might require developing profitable relationships to fuel contributions supporting the cultivation of long-term success for said outreach programs. In other words, the strategy remains the same - a path of engagement based on delivery of services (outreach) and relationships. But, in the short-term the "ideal" may have to be conducted in a manner that requires much more concrete specific profitable miles-stones than a long-range strategy. 

All too often non-profits, as the example, will focus too much on grass-roots - the heart and spirit of supporters; but then as they become stabilized, the urgency dies and the non-profit fails to grow. On the other hand, start-up non-profits will also fall victim to too much planning and reliance on ONE source of long-term revenue (such as a single contributor, or a specific grant request) and fail to engage a team to build the breadth of their support. The solution: balancing the experience (heart & spirit of volunteers) with performance (articulating and obtaining procedural grants) with a clear and compelling score-card FOCUSED on measurements that count toward ROI.

In this example, one can see how some situations require BOTH critical thinking AND strategic thinking. Situations may be primarily strategic, or primarily critical, but most life and business occurrences have elements of both. For this reason, recognizing situations for their true nature (critical or strategic is very important) and requires the proper FOCUS to then execute in a discipline manner.

Consider organizational Development in the following manner: An organization is a circle, the size 6 inches. Within that circle are 100 teams; these teams are made of up 3 people. These three people fill the entire team circle and all 100 teams fill the entire organizational circle. In this manner, organizations - like individuals - are complex systems. 

Each individual has the opportunity to be developed and cultivated. As each member of a team is cultivated, their teams have the chance to develop more cohesive interaction. As these teams gain more inter-dependence the organization as a whole can move through the process of development toward effectiveness. This culminates in a shared and inspired vision built on purpose with profoundly important goals. The Inspira-disciplina of learning ensures adequate 5-day focus on what is most wildly important to attaining the directed ROI - discipline meaning focused and inspired learning. A clear score card counts, measures, and provides clear visual progress; but the cadence of accountability is the process to ensure the continued disciplina remains focused on a shared, inspired, and interdependent vision. This a process of creating a culture of leadership!

 The individual development process is the same. The individual is the circle, and within the circle there are 4 domains - think of a globe that has an air, molten lava, crust/mantle, and water. These domains represent: mind, body, spirit, and heart. In all ways they are separate; yet all are required to function together to have life within the globe. As such, these domains are influenced by short-term effects - elements. 

Well-Being is defined in this manner. To develop skills and capabilities in one element, will cause impacts on others. Likewise, to influence domains it may take a long-range development plan for an individual - the constant reliance on both strategic thinking AND critical thinking. Ultimately, to choose to focus on only one element, within one domain, is to take a very finite approach to well-being. This is often a result of reactive thinking - such as organizations that were quick to remove robust learning and education systems in favor of over-priced and ineffective E-Learning tools - when we allow life's circumstances to bring all attention on one negative situation; opposed to leveraging our strengths and opportunities in various domains and elements to help shore up a weakness.

Keep the image of a globe in mind… The domains are best represented in context of 4 Roles of Leader. These domains are known as Modeling, Path-finding, Alignment, and Empowerment (Covey, 2004). These roles take into consideration that a company has domains made up of individual contributors within the functioning organizational system. These roles, however, are best modeled within relationship to the specific internal systems and processes (domains and elements) that influence the company.

Leadership & Well-Being in an Organization:

This section will define in more detail the steps of creating a leader based on theoretic and academic research models. For a comprehensive understanding of creating a CULTURE OF LEADERSHIP then review the article LINK HERE.

Model

A leader models the way by engaging other individuals in assisting them with their self-development as employees through a coaching experience. This process is one that involves five steps. A leader must model, inspire, challenge, empower, and celebrate individuals one-on-one and within a team context (Covey, 2004; Kouzes & Posner, 2005). This process, like elements, must be measured and applied repeatedly and on a tactical (critical) basis on an individual-contributors score card.

However, in order to model, a leader must demonstrate their ability to engage in self-development - to LEAD.This is important to differentiate between being perfect in all areas: modeling is not perfection, it is open-willingness, and intense passion, aware, consistency, and buoyancy to change (see Collins, 2012; Pink, 2010; Pink 2013). In other words, to model as a leader is to be aware of your own best contributions, your own appearances (oceans, lakes, land, continents, etc.) vs. the shadow cast by your weaknesses. Development by nature is continuous and evolving; therefore, never perfect and molded forever. 

Clarify

The process of clarity is one of helping to link people, teams, and strategy within an organization (see SRP, 2011). This process requires an individual leader help clarify purpose from those tasked with keeping a keen eye on the long-range results versus those tasked with ensuring the wheel functions smoothly right here, right now (see Habit Three; Covey, 1991). Unfortunately, this is often where companies struggle the most. It is also the first step and role of a leader to ensure clarity and buoyancy within changing long-term and short-term situations.

Align

The concept of alignment is rooted in the systematic process of assessing individuals and teams. The purpose is to avoid what is known as the Pareto effect (Rand, 2007; see also Covey 1991; Collins, 2005). This is the concept that 20% of the employees produce 80% of the output! Research tells us that this occurrence is alive and well despite economic cutbacks and forced increase effort (see Taylor, 2010). Therefore, structural support can be considered the process for ensuring that the various individual “globes” within the organizational “sphere” are working properly in relationship to their mutually related objectives. This is the first step toward being a "good" company.

The second step is conducting further critical assessment and hiring the right person (globe) to meet the company’s needs (see Collins, 2005). For example, imagine that after a strategy has been clarified, a team leader has created the inner-core, the air, the ozone, but is lacking the right continents with certain features; how do they fix this gap? They go to market to find human capital to provide those needs. The challenge, however, is often focused on the external role of what is needed versus "who is needed." In other words, hiring professionals and managers will start first by designing the role and implementing (hiring), but not exploring the purpose, vision, and values needed to succeed in creating what the “globe” lacks holistically. 

Assessments are a great tool often deployed incorrectly to help achieve consistent clarity. Assessments are valuable in many regards as one tool for fitting the right person onto the team; more importantly individuals who choose to think, act, and learn as a leader use tools to support their performance (Rand & Associates, 2013; Rand & SRP, 2013; see also Collins, 2005).

For example, the Myers-Briggs is the old-hand of assessments. However, this assessment only measures the presence of very specific elements of well-being in relationship to the shadows cast outwardly by the globe being measured (see prior notes; globe = person). The tool is very good, therefore, for a team leader in context of clarity, problem-solving, and building team relationships by overcoming perceived short-term behaviors. However, because it measures the elements of external influences, the findings frequently change and last for a very short-time when we consider the role of well-being throughout a team's lifespan (think of a passing shooting star, it might hit the ozone creating sudden awareness to an external situation, but does little beyond catching the attention of a few attuned people). 

Other exams, such as the Big-Five seeks to measure more consistent internal elements of personality. As such, it becomes very reliable when engaging individuals and teams for critical task accomplishment, but does not provide information as to determine if the person is on the right seat on the bus. This results from the fact that there is no substantive proof that the Big-Five (McCrea & Costa, 1987) can be applied to align an in-organic role with an organic team-member to fill the role (Rand, 2010). Therefore, consider this assessment to be the typical weather-pattern an individual can be seen (from the exterior) with little understanding about the driving internal forces that inspire and influence that person.  

Consequently, in spite of tools available for measurement, a leader must choose how to help individuals understand what any hundreds of measurements mean within context of all domains and elements (internal and external) of the individual. In this manner, the leader can better engage that individual through coaching to apply process thinking for the purpose of capitalizing on opportunities by leveraging strengths and helping to diminish the negative shadow cast from threats. 

For this reason, the Core Values Index (CVI) appears to be the only available tool that helps an external coach effectively teach a person how to gain more from life based on their internal mission, vision, and values with a three year reliability (accuracy) of 94% (Rand, McKay, & SRP, 2014; see also SRI, 1999). Moreover, the CVI provides a robust portrait of an individual with long-term reliability that warrants taking time to "learn" the norms. This is important given less than 30% of managers rely on assessments as a tool for effective engagement despite that over 85% of employees and 92% of managers rate assessment tools as valid measures.

Engagement (REACH):

The simplest but often most challenging role of a leader is to create a culture of true engagement. This begins with the five steps of modeling and builds overtime. However, it is more quickly created with the context of the speed of trust (Covey, 2008). Trust is the key to empowering employees. While modeling is the center core of team-development: it is both long-term and critical process that is built on trust which is earned through continual application. 

Clarity, structural-support, and engagement consistent processes that support the development of the team are best defined by the acronym REAL-REACH. Because these processes ensure each individual-contributor may achieve their maximum Professionalism: Effectively Applied Knowledge (PEAK) potential through learning potential; the process of engagement is best understood through key process-model:

• To Coach
• To Teach
• To Negotiate

It is important that these process models are iterative in nature, they do not occur in a linear manner.  

Organizational Development as a business system summary

The key to organizational development is to focus on the long-term and short-term company needs. To do so confidently requires: attunement, buoyancy, and consistency (Pink; 2013). Effectiveness, therefore, is a consistent process within every system to ensure the proper holistic relationships are working together. Organizational development, therefore, is a process for company, team, and individual improvement and awareness. It is a process that must be deployed in long-term and short-term situations with regards to both internal and external forces influencing the entire system. 

Learning Application:

1. Take a moment to contemplate the various systems that you see in your workplace.
2. Brainstorm by using a mind-map to examine the tasks, roles, and processed, procedures, systems, in all domains and elements within a company at a very broad level.
3. Then deploy the relationship-diagramming process to create consistent systems that encompass roles and tasks

By doing this you should evaluate the well-being development FRAMEWORK. This framework should simultaneously improve the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) of a company as well as the SWOT of an individual in the many complex, ambiguous, but inter-related components that must be taken into consideration before a specific plan can be designed. Focus your FRAMEWORK by using outlining as a method to structure your findings.

Remember, the simple clarity for organizational development, and individual development, is to remember that the role of the leader is promote understanding and learning by asking questions to challenge others to be the lead (to COACH); it is to teach others a foundation focused on performance ROI by promoting collaborative inclusion and analysis of perspectives based on data - not opinion (to TEACH), and to focus the collective majority to a single ROI performance focus (to NEGOTIATE).

Therefore, remember the role of the coach, leader, negotiator is to promote a process to help others in the organization to discover simple clarity in pursuit of their passion. In order for that person to recognize their passion and purposefully pursue their passion, leaders foster learning by using regular, consistent, buoyant, and attuned processes and tools (Rand & Mashuta, 2013; Rand & SRP, 2013). Great leaders avoid reacting quickly and without assessing, planning, and crafting creative solutions to short-term “shooting stars” that might distract them from their best and highest contribution to themselves and others they interact with in life. 

For more on LEADERSHIP see: Creating Cultures of Leadership !

For the complete "City of Companies: Linking People, Cultures & Technology" at my FOCUS 2020 book tour kick-off along with other chapter books including "The Orchard" "The Club" and my groundbreaking research on "The DAD JOB" coming soon...! Follow RSOLUTIONS for details!

#CultureROI

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