Ten things I learned about Learning at the CLO Exchange West

I got back late Tuesday from the IQPC CLO Exchange West in Carlsbad, CA exhausted. For a group of people (learning leaders) who ostensibly tries to be mindful of not packing too much content into one day...it was a lot. But oh man was it rich. Here are my top ten takeaways.

Disclaimer: These insights came mostly from the excellent speakers and delegates. I've synthesized or put in my own words others' great insights, and few are my own. I tried hard to, to the best of my memory, attribute. But if you read that and think "I said that!" or "XXXX said that!" please let me know, and I'll revise accordingly.

The New Face of Leadership Development

1.The leaders of yesterday are/were "closed and knowing." The leaders of tomorrow are "open and learning." (Dave MacLeod, ThoughtExchange) Some of the best companies are taking this to heart, and some are moving entirely to a leader as coach mentality. That involves leaders asking great questions, not just having good answers. (Judy Dutton, eBay, and Accenture in general)

2. In leadership development, vulnerability isn’t a dirty word, it’s actually a cornerstone of good leadership. Vulnerable leaders aren’t the weak leaders, they’re the strong ones. (Daryl Juran, New Balance)

Moving from Creation to Curation

3. With the proliferation of good learning content and an expanding definition of what makes "good learning content" (a TED talk can be as rich as a traditional eLearning course), the name of the game is curation. Traditional instructional designers, beware.

4. If you can get your high-profile subject matter experts invested in your learning agenda, that's the sweet spot. An SME recommending learning content has two advantages: you can trust them to recommend top-notch content, and people are eager to hear what they have to teach.

5. An amazing LMS or LEP is like a brand new, top of the line refrigerator: it can have all the bells and whistles, but if it's messy and the food in there is old and unappealing, people will only open it up once. (I forget who said this one, but it was at the last roundtable, give me a shout if you were in the curation group!)

The Evolving Role of Learning Leader

6. The learning function is ultimately about transformation and change. Learning leaders help the organization make sense of change, lead through it, and ensure that the business has the right skills for the other side.

7. A learning leader needs to focus as much on marketing as they do on “teaching”. The next generation of learning leaders will live by the ethos of consumer marketing and borrow the sophisticated techniques their marketing and sales teams use to reach their customers. Learning leaders need, ultimately, to have a deep understanding of their consumer (the learner), meeting them where they are, and presenting an irresistible value proposition. (TJ Hunter, Udemy)

8. Any good business leader starts with the desired business outcome and designs their team's operating model accordingly. Why should a learning function be any different? (JP Mula, Charter Communications) -- My favorite part of this presentation was when JP described Kirkpatrick as the "happy scale" and said, "yeah... I use KPIs instead."

9. The cobbler's kids have the worst shoes...except when they have the best, and it's awesome. Great learning leaders create a genuine culture of learning on their teams, and they can effectively serve as role models for the organization. (this was a conversation over dinner w/ Jenn Reid of Grant Thornton.)

Making the business case...it's not just about ROI

10. Quantifying ROI of learning programs is hard, so in response, learning leaders share as many as 53% more performance improvement measures in their presentations without explaining how they reached their figures. Sure, learning leaders need to present compelling data on business results to justify an investment of learning dollars. One great shortcut, however, is to tell a great story, and storytelling is an actual skill that you can learn and practice (presentations from Darren Shimkus of Udemy and Daryl Juran of New Balance both talked about the power and importance of storytelling).