Leading change is about channelling energy and creating a flow with your people. Take a look at the infographic to find out more…..
Evaluating learning – it’s back to front!
Learning programmes start with the best intentions. A senior leader has called you in to help solve a strategically important issue – we’re losing our best people, our customer satisfaction is falling, our people are struggling to adapt or our managers aren’t leading through change. The business case is approved; the budget is signed off and an extensive procurement process secures the perfect partner. Executive leaders show interest, putting in the time to record launch videos and even turn up at the early events to demonstrate commitment, everything is set up for success…….
…..then things start to falter. The roll-out drifts, the delivery team does a great job but embedding the learning becomes a distraction to real work. Learning evaluation, well that’s just way too difficult.
Sound familiar?
The programme needs a focal point, something to get real leadership attention. In my experience, this is best achieved by bringing learning evaluation from being a back-end activity to something that starts in the early consultative phases and flows through the programme, start to finish. I would personally spend less time getting a CEO to record a video and instead use the time to persuade the CEO to receive a regular update on the programme.
We all know that great learning evaluation is needs a powerful collaboration between the business, the learning team and any external parties. Right at the start of the programme I recommend pulling together the evaluation team to agree – what will be measured, who owns the information, when will it be measured and, importantly, why it matters?
This team becomes responsible for creating the Programme Evaluation Report that is used at key points during the life of the programme. The important word here being ‘used’ since far too much evaluation data is collected but is never used to create insight, get attention or inform future decisions. Without an agreed approach to evaluation at outset then you are leaving the outcome of the programme to chance.
This article isn’t about which evaluation model is best, so what follows is an illustration of how to better use evaluation loosely based on Kirkpatrick.
Participation
This first section is about doing what you promised. It’s about recording the learners progress through the journey, from kick off to completion. This information is essential to identify early potential blocks to roll-out but also to create some healthy competition between teams to track towards the promised level of participation.
Perception
The second section is about quality: what is working, what isn’t? Which elements are valuable, relevant and applicable? I always encourage the ‘bonnet to be lifted’ on the early sessions to ensure a strong focus on improvement for those that will follow. It is also often forgotten that the information gather at this stage can be used to ‘market’ the programme to those yet to attend, or better still get the early participants to spread the word on your behalf. At this stage, it is also incredibly powerful to check what the learners intend to do next – are they committed to putting the learning into practice and if not, deal with the barriers there and then.
Performance
In this section, you track what people are doing differently. Is there more evidence of the behaviour and practices that are targeted by the programme? For example, it could be evidence that managers are coaching more, a reduction in call handling time or maybe improved sales closures. My experience is that this level of evaluation can only be completed in collaboration with the operational teams, the buy-in to the need being gained right at outset when the initial snap-shot of performance is taken. Crack this and you will have credibility with the business.
Impact
Ultimately you should finish where you started. The very issues that led to the programme being created should be revisited at key points during the programme roll-out to demonstrate the investment is delivering the promised business impact. The story of the learning programme finishes where it started, solving strategically important business issues. Who wouldn’t invest in a team who can make this kind of impact.
Performance Management – don’t tinker, focus on people
Performance management is certainly grabbing the headlines right now!
Much of the debate is around frequency and form of performance management. I’m not convinced that a different set of ‘guidelines’ is really going to achieve a step change in the performance of our teams.
The debate also focuses around millennials demanding to be managed differently. A useful headline to help make the case to change but my experience is that people, regardless of age, still want the same thing. To make a difference, to receive regular feedback on how they are doing and to learn and grow. Maybe the millennials just want it quicker.
These expectations do need us to think and behave differently. We all know someone who does this brilliantly so I would encourage you to spend time with them to find out their magic formula to achieve great results time after time. One thing is for sure, being a slave to the retrospective rituals of performance management will not be top of the list.
My experience is that there are three practices that will consistently feature.
1. Own the recruitment process
Hire attitude, hire potential and involve your team in the decision on who joins. Make sure the process has the space to let the relationship start to take shape. Virgin are exceptional at this and it shows. If you do get it wrong, act quickly and fairly.
2. Involve the team in shaping the future
Be brave enough to involve your people in shaping the goals of the team. This means sharing information about challenges facing the business and trusting your team to define what success looks like. The collective creativity, knowledge and ambition of the team will set the bar well beyond traditional performance management practices, with the added advantage of commitment and peer accountability being baked in. Get your team together and give them the freedom to think.
3. Coach in the moment
Create regular opportunities to coach in the moment. Focus on the individual sitting in front of you and provide what they need right now to perform at their best. It could be a deep dive into a challenging goal, sharing feedback on how they are doing, recognising greatness, a review of priorities or developing a new skill. It’s not a one-size fits all approach. It doesn’t need a system or form to make it happen.
It is refreshing to read that managers and employees are to be ‘trusted’ more as we move away from prescriptive performance management practices. You can then focus more on hiring great people. involving the team in shaping the future and coaching in the moment. Give good people the freedom to act and it can only benefit the customer and the business.
I would encourage HR leaders to focus on making it easy for leaders to lead; reduce the paperwork and provide the leaders with the confidence and skills to make performance management a natural part of what they do every day.
I’d love to hear from others what they would add to the list.
Creativity – look to the future
Ideas, big and small, are essential to growing a healthy business. The ability to innovate provides a genuine competitive advantage, whether it is ground breaking new products or simple innovations to improve the customer journey or reduce process costs.
With such clear benefits to business I am always amazed by how few organisations invest in growing the creative talents of their people. Maybe the reason is that many people believe that creativity is the preserve of a few gifted artists, musicians and those people who work in the marketing and R&D functions. It is certainly true that the western education system and the average workplace has inhibited the ability to think divergently, to come up with multiple answers to a question, or even interpret the problem in different ways.
When running Creativity workshops, I see this in practice. I ask people to come up with as many uses for a paperclip, or similar object, as they can in 90 seconds. Invariably people stumble to 5 ideas, sometimes 10 but even with more time the ideas just dry up. Research has shown that children under the age of 5 would knock the socks off the average adult.
Watch the funny TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson to find out why this happens.
So, does that mean that the talent of creative thinking is lost forever or can it be rediscovered?
My answer to this starts by exploring some of the common barriers to creativity in the workplace.
Many employees fear putting forward what may be perceived as ‘silly ideas’ but this can be overcome by building more trust and a better understanding that innovation does need a good dose of silliness.
Some employees let ‘imaginary’ rules of what can and can’t be done get in the way of ideas generation. People filter out ideas before they have even been formulated – we can’t afford that, it won’t get management support, we don’t have the time, are common phrases I hear. I know that Virgin Atlantic didn’t let imaginary rules get in the way when nurturing the idea of the ‘drive-thru’ airport check-in. There were more than enough real rules to content with.
Creativity can also be killed in the room by someone (often by the manager) who wants be the smartest kid in the room, critiques too early or simply leaps on the first workable idea at the expense of the creativity than may follow. Ego, rank and sometimes pragmatism needs to be left at the door if creativity is to thrive.
So how do you overcome these barriers, and others? What can you do to stimulate creativity of your people?
In addition to addressing some of the cultural barriers (that’s for a different blog) I have personally found that techniques that introduce a different perspective can quickly stimulate ideas. At Virgin, I was introduced to a technique called ‘Imagine the Future’.
You encourage the team to work in the future, imagining in some detail a time when they have achieved a transformational goal. This can be described as a newspaper article or maybe even an acceptance speech for an industry award. You then get the team to work back from the future to describe what they did to achieve the goal. I have found that working in the future, in a fun, collaborative and engaging way, makes it possible for the team to suspend the usual rules and behaviours that stifle creativity. Without fail teams have generated ideas that have become a real part of their plans simply by imagining the future.
I’d be very interested to learn from readers what techniques they have used to stimulate creative thinking.
Please get in touch if you would like find out how I can help your teams be more creative.