Paul's Update Special 3/17

Disrupting 21st Century Corporate Learning – Innovation Excellence

Disrupting 21st Century Corporate Learning – Innovation Excellence The Innovation Excellence community is home to innovation articles, webinars, videos, training and education - p...

Our research indicates that business enterprises globally have the opportunity to meet the needs of the modern learner by responding strategically, and speedily to the diverse and complex range of trends impacting corporate learning.

These include key trends;

• Time scarcity; having less time to spend absorbing more knowledge and skills to complete more complex tasks faster.
• The war for attention; being distracted and often overwhelmed by a profusion of electronic and online devices available 24/7.
• Focus on the bottom line; securing ROI in uncertain and unstable times, questioning whether learning a short term cost or a longer term investment and lever for future competitiveness?
• Focusing the learning content and process mix; applying design thinking processes to empathize with modern learners to create contextualized experiences.
• Maximizing the use of technology and creating customized blended solutions; integrating broad range of technologies with other digital, interactive and on the job learning experiential methodologies.

In their recent industry report – “Ten Trends Shaping Corporate Learning”, Deloitte disclose that

• Learning and development spending has grown in double digits for four years in a row.
• Leadership development spending grew by 14% in 2014, the highest growth in a decade.
• Learning technology spending grew by 21% in 2014, representing a major“technology replacement cycle beginning.
• More than $6.4 billion of financing invested in education and training companies in 2015 (up from $3.5billion in 2011).

There is also a huge shift in content strategy, which is shifting resources away from instructor lead training towards online and on the job learning where in 2015;

• 32% of training was instructor led and is shrinking,
• 13% was virtual instructor led,
• 26% was online self study and is finally working,
• 15% on the job and 13% through collaboration which are also rapidly growing areas.

These trends and this data suggest that we are at a tipping point! Reinforcing the critical importance of a corporation becoming, what Peter Senge termed the Learning Organization; an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.

Corporations have the opportunity to use a “both (technology)/and (people)” approach.

• To strategically and systematically use innovation processes to see (discover) problems and opportunities, create ideas (design) and then execute (deliver) innovative learning solutions that people love and cherish. 
• Doing this strategically, systemically and effectively will unlock, mobilize and harness people’s collective genius, and empower people and teams to successfully drive and deliver the changes that result in breakthrough innovation.

The ultimate and most impactful corporate learning solution will embody a contextualized blend and combination of the most relevant content, delivery options and experiential choices outlined below;

• Facilitative and coaching processes, more mentoring and on the job apprenticeships.
• Bite sized learning solutions delivered through a range of accessible technologies.
• Mobile learning solutions that drive mindset and behavior change as well as skills development, integration and measurement.
• Virtual and live simulations of real life experiences using online game methodologies.
• Gamification built into all online learning methodologies aligned to demographic styles.
• Using social media to assess and predict personality types and learning styles.
• Small wearable computers that record physiological state to self manage and regulate emotional and reactive responses to complex problems and difficult situations.

The outcomes are the creation, acquisition, and transference of knowledge, skills and experience and at modifying mindsets and behaviors to reflect new knowledge, insights and change goal. Doing this intentionally and effectively will increase peoples’ management and leadership capabilities, organizational competitiveness and ultimately increase business growth, value and sustainability.

Creating a 1-Page Quarterly Action Plan for Your Business

Creating a 1-Page Quarterly Action Plan for Your Business A powerful format and 3-step process to create your own 1-page quarterly strategic action plan to grow your comp...

Your action plan must be adaptable to the changing circumstances of your marketplace, but also heed the high cost of lost momentum and a frustrated team if you change your company's focus too frequently.

So what's the key to maintaining a dynamic balance between flexibility and momentum? The quarter is the perfect unit of time to bridge your big-picture goals--which probably have a two- to five-year timeline or longer--and your weekly planning and daily action.

Why one page? This discipline of working with a quarterly one-page action plan has helped our business coaching clients enjoy an average annual growth rate of 32.4 percent. It just works.

Creating Your One-Page Quarterly Strategic Action Plan in Three Simple Steps

1. Pick Your Three "Focus Areas" for the Quarter. Your Focus Areas are the most important areas for your business to spotlight during the coming quarter.
   
2. Clarify the Criteria for Success for Each of Your Three Focus Areas. What would you need to accomplish this quarter to feel successful in this Focus Area? Be ruthlessly realistic about what it is possible to accomplish in 90 days.
   
3. Lay Out Your Key Action Steps and Milestones for the Quarter. To keep your plan to one page, you'll probably need to break down each Focus Area into five to seven action steps and milestones.

Do Your Slides Pass the Glance Test?

Do Your Slides Pass the Glance Test? An audience can’t listen to your presentation and read detailed, text-heavy slides at the same time (not without...

An audience can’t listen to your presentation and read detailed, text-heavy slides at the same time (not without missing key parts of your message, anyway). So make sure your slides pass what I call the glance test: People should be able to comprehend each one in about three seconds.

Keep It Simple 

Research shows that people learn more effectively from multimedia messages when they’re stripped of extraneous words, graphics, animation, and sounds. 

It’s also important to stick to a consistent visual style in your slide deck. Select one typeface — two at most. Use the same color palette throughout (limit yourself to three complementary colors, plus a couple of neutral shades, like gray and pale blue). Photos should be taken by the same photographer or look as if they are. Illustrations should be done in the same style.

Care

These five design principles will help you simplify your slides so they’ll pass the glance test:

• Flow. You can direct people’s eyes to certain areas of a slide to emphasize important points.
• Contrast. Our eyes are drawn to things that stand out, so designers use contrast to focus attention.
• White space. White space is the open space surrounding items of interest. White space sharpens viewers’ focus by isolating elements.
• Hierarchy. A clear visual hierarchy allows viewers to quickly ascertain a slide’s most important elements.
• Unity. Slides with visual unity look as though the same person created them and make your message feel cohesive.

Presentation software gives us many shiny, seductive elements to work with. But there’s beauty and clarity in restraint. Use simple visuals that support your message, and you’ll free people up to really hear — and adopt — your ideas.

Paul's Update Special 3/10

Company training/e-learning is the least valued way of learning at work: what does this mean for L&D? – Modern Workplace Learning Magazine

Company training/e-learning is the least valued way of learning at work: wh...

I have been running the Learning in the Workplace survey for 5 years now, and after over 5,000 responses from 63 countries worldwide the results are clear: Company training is the least valued way of learning in the workplace. 

ways of learning	NI	QI	VI	Es	VI+Es
1 Knowledge sharing within team	2	10	30	58	88
2 Web search	3	17	32	48	80
3 General conversations	2	19	40	39	79
4 Networks & communities	3	23	39	35	74
5 Blog & news feeds	12	31	35	22	57
6 Curated content	9	35	36	20	56
7 Self-directed study	13	35	35	17	52
8 Company docs	13	38	31	18	49
9 Job aids	18	37	30	15	45
10 Company training/e-learning	21	39	23	17	40

Right at the bottom of the ranking lies company training/e-learning with only 40% of respondent believing it to be very important or essential. When we compare the profile of the youngest and the oldest workers –  i.e. how they ranked the 10 ways of learning relative to the overall profile (shown in brackets in the table below) –  this is what we find.

Under 30s	Over 60s
Knowledge sharing 96 (1) Conversations 91 (3) Web search 77 (2) Blog feeds 69 (5) Prof networks 66 (4) Company docs 52 (8) Company training 51 (10) Self-directed 50 (7) Curated content 48 (6) Job aids 43 (9)	Web search 86 (2) Knowledge sharing 83 (1) Prof networks 80 (4) Conversations 79 (3) Curated content 69 (6) Blog feeds 64 (5) Company docs 50 (8) Self-directed 47 (7) Job aids 39 (9) Company training 33 (10)

It is clear from the results that  informal, social as well as self-organized approaches are now the preferred means of learning for many, so this would suggest the need for L&D to adopt a new set of workplace learning practices that:

• focus less on the creation of top-down content (courses and resources) using a “one-size fits all” approach, and instead offer flexible, on demand content and collaborative activities that allow individuals to have a personal(ized) learning experience
• focus more on supporting the informal, social learning practices that take place in teams, projects and across the enterprise, and also
• focus more on supporting self-organized workers and the development of their own personal learning strategies.

How Leaders Dream Boldly to Bring New Futures to Life

How Leaders Dream Boldly to Bring New Futures to Life By Lisa Kay Solomon This article is part of a new series exploring the skills leaders must learn to make the most of rapid change in...

This article is part of a new series exploring the skills leaders must learn to make the most of rapid change in an increasingly disruptive world.

In times of increasing change and complexity, it can be difficult to envision bold new futures with any certainty.  Leaders need to embrace skills, practices and behaviors of futurists. Futurists don’t have secret powers to predict the future. Rather, futurists discipline themselves to question the status quo. They regularly scan external trends, adjacent industries and underlying forces. They consider diverse perspectives. And they boldly tell stories about the future before all of the data is available to back it up.

Our implicit views about the future are so ingrained in business plans, financial models, and strategy conversations that leaders often don’t take the time to articulate underlying assumptions. When they do, they may discover plans rely on variables that are far from given and perhaps not the only options. The future lives in a very broad set of possibilities, and these can unfold surprisingly quickly.

Methods commonly employed by futurists can help you strengthen your plans. Disciplined methods of strategic foresight systematically scan, analyze, probe and project the future beyond what we intuitively think might be possible.

The first step is identifying the most important and uncertain macro forces shaping your business. These can usually be divided into five broad categories: social, technological, economic, environmental and political. (Tip: Recall these with the acronym STEEP.)

Under each of these categories, there are a number of driving forces and external variables that might lead to very different futures. Once these high-impact variables are identified and prioritized, futurists gather diverse inputs to establish a range of how the variables are likely to play out over time. The further ahead they go, the wider the range of possibilities.

Futurists call this the cone of possibilities and carefully organize their forecasts into four buckets.

• What are possible futures? This is the full range of events that could unfold.
• What are plausible futures? This is what we believe is possible but unlikely.
• What are probable futures? This is what’s most likely to happen.
• What are preferred futures? This is what we want to happen.

Once you’ve identified your preferred future, you can start to identify key activities and milestones that would help create that future. Backcasting is the act of imagining a preferred future and then stepping backward toward the present, repeatedly probing what has to happen to enable each step.

To dream up bold, new possibilities, try imagining an outcome 10 times better, cheaper, or more impactful than what exists today. 

One of the most challenging aspects of practicing the skills of a futurist is getting comfortable with the reality that we simply cannot predict the future. For many senior leaders, this is deeply unsettling. How can we possibly make big bets on the future without all the facts and data? We are all capable of becoming better futurists.  In doing so, we not only architect hope of new possibilities, we also build more flexible, adaptive and resilient organizations in the process.

Why Bringing Compassion to Work is Good for Business | Heleo

Why Bringing Compassion to Work is Good for Business | Heleo By Heleo Editors “You don't have to be in HR to expand your role to include compassion. Everybody can be important for notici...

Michelle: One of the things I often find is that there’s a bit of confusion about the difference between compassion and empathy. Can we start there?

Monica: We talk about compassion as a four-part human experience that unfolds in relation to suffering.

First, we have to notice that suffering is present in our lives and in the organizations around us. Second, we have to interpret that suffering in a way that makes us more likely to feel empathy and concern for what’s happening. The third part, empathic concern, is actually a form of empathy, and that feeling leads us to [the fourth part]: taking action, to do something about suffering. Overall, compassion is defined as a process that leads us to notice and alleviate the suffering of others around us.

Michelle: Why might companies invest in building compassionate practices into our workplaces? 

Monica: Leaders feel like compassion is too soft to be relevant to their bottom line performance. But we have over 20 years of research on the topic of compassion in organizations, and we see that compassion impacts costly things. 

There’s a very high correlation between whether people think they work in a compassionate organization and how much they are committed to stay in that organization. Compassion is helpful to performance in an organization through retention and commitment of employees.

Another way compassion matters to the bottom line of an organization is that compassionate environments increase employee engagement, and employee engagement heightens customer engagement. 

A third way that compassion affects the bottom line is through resilience. Compassion helps people be adaptable to change, and performance research in the financial services industry shows that when organizations are more compassionate, they’re more likely to bounce back faster after a downturn.

Michelle: You have built into the book a personal blueprint that people can use in workplaces to improve their levels of compassion. Can you talk us through what the blueprint recommends?

Monica: The first thing that people can do is simply open their eyes more and make themselves more available to notice the suffering that’s going on around them.

The second part is making more generous interpretations. This one is hard and takes practice, because when people are suffering and upset, they can act that out in all kinds of ways. 

Another way is to tap into the empathy aspect of compassion and to bolster your feeling of concern. We can do this easily by listening to our own self-talk. Empathy is really sensitive to costs. If you can activate your sense of, “I feel concerned for what’s going on. I wonder if I could just do something small,” then the fourth way that people can increase compassion around them is by finding ways to act.

It’s common that people tell us that they want to be compassionate, but they don’t know what to do. Even if there’s nothing heroic that you can do to fix what they’re going through, the acknowledgement of it and the expression of concern changes the work environment.

Michelle: We all share that same deep psychological need to feel respected, valued, and appreciated. The sense of safety that that brings for us, to feel that we have been seen, that we are connected and supported in some way—we underestimate how powerful those small gestures can be. If you’re going to awaken compassion across a whole organization, exactly how do you pull that off?

Monica: In our lab we have studied four or five parts of an organization that leaders and managers can work with to draw out compassion.

The first is networks—how people are connected together, and how you use the communication connections to share news about suffering and to update people about others’ wellbeing.

The next part is values, especially the values that are lived out in the organization. Especially [important] for compassion are the values that feed into our sense of shared humanity.  If those values are woven into the way we live our work life together, then it’s a lot easier to be compassionate when suffering strikes.

The third part is role definition. That might sound a little boring, like how we define our roles, but job crafting and role-making can be powerful to change the meaning of our work. You don’t have to be in HR to expand your role to include compassion. Everybody can be important for noticing if something’s going wrong, or if someone is in pain.

Another thing that is really powerful are the routines of an organization. Once they’re well-established, they’re stored as procedural memory. People don’t have to think about them in order to do them. So if people think that taking care of each other is such an important part of getting work done that they incorporate it into their routines, you can change things that look like small behavior and get powerful system-wide effects.

The final thing is leadership. We try to help leaders think about role modeling, and the ways they hope other people in the organization will treat each other. Leaders as examples of compassion are really powerful.