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January 2022

Jan 27
Love3

Creating an Agile Organizational Learning Strategy

By Change Management, Learning No Comments

Is your organizational learning strategy keeping pace with agile business strategy?

As a business leader, you have heard the buzz, “The Big Quit” … “The Great Reshuffle” …” Hybrid Workforce”, etc. As we headed into 2020, business and learning leaders were preparing for mass upskilling to enable the workforce of the future for digital transformation. Strategies were prepared and plans were made. And then came COVID-19.

“… what is your approach to ensuring your organizational learning strategy is appropriate for today’s business realities? Are you leading learning from a strategic point of view or from a to-do list?”

Fast forward two years, and as we prepare and implement our 2022 business and learning strategies, we still have a need to upskill and reskill for ongoing digital transformation, in addition to adjusting to new ways of working and fast changing market and consumer conditions. We are seeing businesses both merge and split. We are seeing rapid growth and the impact of the health crisis on employment.

So, what is your approach to ensuring your organizational learning strategy is appropriate for today’s business realities? Are you leading learning from a strategic point of view or from a to do list?

In our August 2019 blog “The 10 Elements of Organizational Learning Strategy” we said: “A well-crafted and rigorously executed organizational learning strategy can ensure that your learning and development organization supports the business in achieving the strategic goals set forth by senior leaders. Without a clear strategy, learning and development organizations tend to lose focus and effectiveness.” This holds true today.

Strategic Framework for Creating an Agile Learning and Development Strategy

Leverage the strategic framework and review the statements below to audit your approach to creating a L&D Strategy that aligned to your business strategy.

 

 

Put yourself into the role of a L&D leader in your business as your review the statements below. Any statement that you cannot say yes to can become an action taken to create or improve upon your L&D Strategy.

DEFINE BUSINESS PRIORITIES

  • I know the key business strategies and initiatives that the learning organization will need to support. (i.e.: new lines of business, new ways of working, merger/acquisitions, market expansions, technology adoption, etc.)
  • I meet with key stakeholders and/or appropriate business leaders to understand their initiatives and identify support needed and/or expected.
  • I am aligned with other Talent Management work streams such as recruiting, performance management and succession planning.

CONDUCT L&D SWOT

  • Through assessment and surveys, I have documented my team’s strengths and weaknesses.
  • I stay connected with external influences to understand opportunities to leverage new learning techniques, technologies, delivery methods.
  • I understand what legislation and regulations may impact learning policies and procedures.

SECURE SPONSORSHIP

  • L&D has a sponsor who advocates for the organizational learning strategy with senior decision makers.
  • I present the L&D strategy and plans to senior decision makers to gain feedback and alignment.
  • Senior decision makers keep me informed of business shifts so that plans can be adjusted.

DEVELOP KPIs

  • I have KPIs defined and agreed upon to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and business results.
  • I have an actionable scorecard or measurement system developed to track KPIs.

ENABLE EXECUTION

  • A plan has been created to depict learning projects, programs design and delivery dates.
  • Systems and processes are in place to ensure learning projects run smoothly.
  • The L&D team is upskilled to support the execution of the strategy.
  • Subject matter experts are oriented to their role and expectations for partnering with the Learning Organization.

MEASURE, COMMUNICATE & ADJUST

  • I keep key stakeholders informed of KPIs discussing what, so what and now what based on metrics.
  • Learning costs are calculated regularly and reviewed.

What connects all the elements of the framework is ongoing communication with your key stakeholders. This cadence of communication is essential to determine if your organizational learning strategy is enabling your business strategy. While an annual planning process kick starts your year, ongoing measurement and communication is essential to ensure that your strategy powers the performance of your workforce and enables business strategy.

Contact us if you would like to discuss your organizational learning strategy needs at marketing@thecaragroup.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 11
Love1

Actively Engage Participants in Their Learning: 5 Quick Activities to Use

By Learning No Comments

Consider these instructor scenarios:

  • “I feel like I’m pulling teeth to get my students to actively participate in their learning or remember the key points I just presented.”
  • “At the end of the session, I feel like all I did was talk, talk, talk and they just nodded in agreement.”
  • “ I want to do something to make changes to the class so they participate more, but the reality is, I just don’t have time!”

As a consultant, I have found my clients experience these scenarios because, often, the instructor is the Subject Matter Expert (SME). While there are advantages of having the SME as the instructor, there can also be some challenges such as not having facilitation experience or the ability/time to develop activities to incorporate interactivity into the session.

Recently, I came across the book, Training from the BACK of the Room! 65 Ways to Step Aside and Let Them Learn (Sharon L. Bowman). The book details 65 activities/techniques to actively involve participants in their learning and divides them into 4 Cs:

  1. Connections – helps participants connect to the content
  2. Concepts – helps participants learn the training concepts
  3. Concrete Practice – helps participants apply what they learned via concrete practice
  4. Conclusions – helps participants conclude/summarize the key learnings/concepts presented in the session

As I read it, I realized I had incorporated many of the activities as an instructor and found them to be very successful. This book seemed to be a perfect tool for my SME instructor client, so I approached the client with the idea of conducting a Lunch & Learn Session to demonstrate some of these activities and provide a development opportunity for the instructors.

Five Activities to Use

In preparation for the session, I chose five activities because they are quick to complete, easy for the instructor to implement in their existing training materials and require little to NO preparation on their part . I felt the instructors could be successful in implementing these activities if I demonstrated how easy they were to use, how little time it takes to prepare to use them and then practice using each activity. The five activities (Concepts & Conclusion) are:

  1. Rapid Response
  2. Concept Clinic/Mind Map
  3. Paired Teach-Backs
  4. Fact or Myth
  5. Improv Teach-Backs

I presented the 90-minute Lunch & Learn session explaining each activity type, providing examples of the group size appropriate for the activity and when/how it could be implemented during the session (i.e., end of the day, beginning of the day, after an activity, at the end of a module, etc.). Instructors then practiced each activity by using general company content.

For example, when instructors practiced Concept Clinic/Mind Map, flipcharts displayed around the room were labeled, Tools, Safety, Performance Tools, etc. so each instructor could fully participate in the activity since each has his/her own specific content area.

After each activity, I conducted a debrief with my co-facilitator, a current SME instructor, who successfully incorporated these techniques into his existing training sessions. He shared his experience, how engaged the students were and how using follow-up questioning techniques and building off the students’ responses helped draw more information/key concepts from the students and engage them even more in their learning.

The first Lunch & Learn session (12 instructors) was so successful, that I presented three additional sessions to other departments. Each instructor left the session with the tools needed to implement these activities. These tools included a copy of the book, pack of index cards, flipchart markers, pad of flipchart paper, the PowerPoint presentation I used and one set of prepared flipcharts as a give-away.

Summary

Presenting the Lunch & Learn sessions was a huge success with my client. The instructors are now implementing the techniques, seeing the positive results and realizing how easy they are to implement.

I had the opportunity to get feedback from the students who practiced the paired teach-backs and they raved about it. They said they liked being involved in the learning and having to re-read the materials and prepare a presentation helped them retain the content.

Taking the initiative to present the Lunch & Learn was a win for my client because it helped develop their instructors. As a consultant, it was a win because it strengthened the consultant/client relationship. Just like the instructors, we consultants don’t typically “have the time” to create additional materials/training for our clients. However, in this case the good-will it established was priceless.

 

Source: Training from the BACK of the Room! 65 Ways to Step Aside and Let Them Learn by Sharon L. Bowman ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0787996628

 

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