Learning to succeed

I recently had the great pleasure to attend an online presentation about Organisational Learning in conjunction with Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce. This came hard on the heels of us getting together at Cannafull to agree on a 90-day plan for the business. These events got me thinking about my own personal development journey and how tough it can be to make sure I am always challenging myself to improve.

Back when I first embarked on my “proper” career, in the mid-nineties, after several years of floating from job to job, my first real learning experiences came at the hands of Xerox. They were strong on the training side and made a big play out of turning people into “Xeroids”, all clamouring to offer the same high level of product training and sales techniques.

It was only many years later, upon joining Apple, that this training aspect turned towards personal development and organisational learning. They were laser focussed on all manner of development, working on commercial acumen, product training and emotional intelligence. My few years there did not just take me a step forward, more like a generational shift. But then, after leaving, I honestly stagnated and fell into a comfort zone of knowing I could perform, but not working on what I needed to improve.

But the wind of change has blown once more, and I recently left my IT career behind to join the Cannabis industry and my thirst for knowledge and development has erupted once more. There is so much good that this wee plant can offer people, such complexity in the cannabinoids within the plant, so much to learn that my head was spinning for the first few weeks. Luckily, I work with a fabulously talented team, with a variety of strengths and knowledge levels, so I have had all the help I needed to get through this “thrown in at the deep end” career move.

And it was this learning that got me back to my own emotional development and how we could utilise my experience to learn together as an organisation. Whilst we all have different backgrounds and strengths, it is vitally important in a small team, in a nascent industry, to be pushing in the same direction and to believe in the cause. This is where Organisational Learning comes in, but how do you do all you can to give you the best chance for success?

At an organisation like Apple, millions are spent each year on their training and development department and the vast number of employees mean that there is always an opportunity for a few in each store or department to be spending time on development. But when you are a business like ours, with five employees, how can you work on the business whilst working in it?

Come up with the plan

Take the time to meet as a team and compile a gap analysis of where training could improve it. It may be as simple as product knowledge, but also consider communication skills, commercial acumen, empathy, lean processes, etc. What can make our life easier, our processes more streamlined, our customer service ethic better? And who is responsible for delivering the training and ensuring the success of it?

What does good look like?

What constitutes success in a learning plan? What are the deliverables? Are we looking purely at emotional growth, or demonstrable numbers that can be improved? Let’s suggest you are looking to improve inter team communication skills. Maybe a deliverable could be a reduction in team calls or meetings? Maybe the installation of a piece of software that allows shared communications across several platforms? Possibly, better communications will lead to a shorter time to close service tickets and therefore increase client satisfaction scores? Think about the why, then the what, then the how and you will not go far wrong.

Stick to the plan

It is 9am on a Tuesday and you are about to embark on your learning plan. The phone rings and it is one of your new business prospects. You answer it and end up in an hour long conversation. A great conversation too and this prospect is now closer than ever to being a client. Now it is 10am and time for your first Teams meeting. Ach, you’ll do your learning plan tomorrow instead. Sound familiar?

Alternatively, it’s a fortnight before you are due to begin. You place an hour long slot in your diary for your learning plan. You title it with what you are going to be learning about. It’s in there as a meeting. Two weeks later, it’s 9am and you are ready to go. You are respecting the plan by treating this diary entry as if it’s the most important client meeting of the week. Would you go into a client meeting with your mobile switched on? Of course not, so off it goes. You aren’t to be disturbed as you are respecting the plan. You do your hour of development and go straight into your Teams meeting at 10am. At 1115, after the Teams, the mobile goes back on and you’ve a voicemail from your prospect. You call them and have a great conversation, after all it’s only a couple of hours since they left you a message and they know you are busy. The plan was respected, you’ve developed, and you’ve not lost any business.

Celebrate success together

We meet as a team every Friday afternoon and discuss where we need the help of others to deliver our “90 day plan responsibilities” and to chat about the week that was and the week coming up. Sometimes, these calls are 20 minutes, at times 2 hours, but we always end the same way, with our Wins Of The Week. It’s great to end on a high like this, as we are now not only calling one another out for hitting the heights in the previous week but being brave enough to share with the group where we have succeeded ourselves. It’s easy to be self-deprecating in situations like this, but stand up, be proud and let everyone know you are excelling.

Agree to invest

Is a training and development plan free? From a cash perspective, of course it can be. But not from a time perspective. This time investment must be agreed at every level of the business for the plan to have any chance of success. If the above strategy is stuck to and the individuals and team have a thirst to improve, this investment will pay off in spades.

Those who know me, know I'm not into pithy "inspirational" quotes, but there is one that sticks in my mind and encapsulates the whole ethos behind learning together as an organisation. It's supposedly from Henry Ford, but does the trick here.

The only thing worse than training your employees and have them leave, is to not train them and have them stay

I’m so fortunate to work alongside two such talented teams as those at Cannafull and Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce. Both roles give me the opportunity to flex my developmental muscles and the time to pass this knowledge and experience on to others through mentoring. If anyone is looking to implement a training & development plan within their organisation, my door is always open to questions or feedback.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!