The end of life

This week, I’ve been writing about business acumen. About how it’s one of the hardest topics to provide training on, and there’s actually a range of things you need to have in place that enable people to develop this core business skill.

In the final piece of this, it’s worth considering what happens when people leave the business. Business success isn’t just dependent on developing the ability to make good business decisions, or just about developing that knowledge internally, or just about putting people through focused training that can increase their capacity and ability to be better at this skill. It’s also about retaining the knowledge once someone walks out that door. That person, they did something for the business. They brought with them a wealth of knowledge, experience, success and failure, that made them a part of the business. So what can be done to ensure we don’t lose that?

Let’s assume the parting is a mutual one, and not one forced by factors such as dismissal or redundancy or something else. In this case, we will know that we have period of time within which we can insert a data cable into said person’s brain and download everything they know about life. Wait, that’s a scene from Johnny Mnemonic. What do you mean you can’t take everyone’s knowledge and experience and skills when they leave?

Wait, wait, here’s what you’re doing. You’re getting them to hand over their knowledge, skills and experience through hand over notes. If you’re lucky enough to have hired a replacement you’ve got them joined at the hip until the minute they leave. One person has to interpret and make meaning from x years of experience in a matter of weeks, and decide what they’re going to listen to and what they’re not. You’re getting them to document their life in your business. It’s all there. For posterity. Waiting to be read. To gather dust and die because no-one goes back to that shit.

Can we do this differently? Of course we can! Else this would be a really short blog post.

Let’s start with some presentations shall we? Or some workshops? Some environment where Leaver Bob – because HR have to label him as a ‘Leaver’ you understand – shares his knowledge to a group of people. It should be quite structured. On Project X, I was involved like this. These are my learnings from working on it. This is a set of successes and failures. Here’s my take home messages. Let’s Q&A this project.

Let’s continue with some interviews from cross departmental peers. What did you do here? What was it like? How do we make it continue? What’s your perceptions on our effectiveness? Similar questions to what might be asked in an exit interview, but done by the business, to understand what’s happening in the business. Information like this is seriously rich and insightful and shouldn’t be left in the very capable hands of HR.

Get them to document stuff if they need to. Cos you know, that gives security. And death, but mainly security that we have things written down.

Help them leave well. I speak very well of my time at QVC because I bloody enjoyed every moment of it, even when I was leaving. A lot of teams/departments will just let someone go with no effort. That’s just poor. A good sending off – and I don’t mean a party or getting a leaving gift or getting drunk – means Leaver Bob will only recommend the company once they’re long gone.

Starter for ten? Am I on to something here? Am I spouting rubbish?

This is your life

Yesterday I spoke about the first steps in developing business acumen in the workplace. Already you can start to see that it’s wrought with an array of challenges simply in defining what does business acumen mean for the business. Simply, it is about helping people to understand the consequence of decisions on the business. From a decision to introduce a work/life balance policy, to introducing fresh fruit to the business, there is always the ripple effect, and there is always a consequence. We can’t plan for every outcome, but we sure can be mindful of making the right decision.

Those first steps were about when introducing new starters to the business. It’s then interesting to look at what’s happening with current people in the business. I’m not talking about learning and development specifically here, I’m talking about developing business acumen across the business. With that in mind, here are some suggestions.

With the prolification of technology in all we do, it’s easy to let staff share knowledge across a variety of platforms. At HRD two years back, I remember Peter Butler, former Director of Learning at BT talk about how they used Sharepoint as a platform to allow anyone to produce videos and upload them about the work they do. At the time I thought, yes that’s brilliant! I think the same now. Give people the opportunity to share knowledge, and they will make the best use of it. By and large, people are good willed, and willing to share what they know. Here within LBi, we have an internal blog which is used by many different departments to share content they find across the interwebs, and creates a good place to find good information and inspiration.

How does that link to making better business decisions? Because by sharing information on what you do, others are better able to understand how you might need to be involved in making something happen, or how you might need to be consulted for something to be effective, or why the idea might need to be refined because you hadn’t considered something. Good business sense?

Expanding on the previous, it’s quite easy these days to also create e-learning modules about different business services. This is really useful as people can go in and access these when they want. They can go quite in depth and allow for better exploration of what a team does, how they produce work, when they should be involved, and what they can do to help collaborate. Sounds quite rosy doesn’t it? Good business sense?

What about the management team, what business guidance are they being given? Let me guess. You put them through management training, and they receive a quarterly update from the Exec on business performance. That’s not developing their business acument. That’s skills training, and cascade of information. What they need is something like this. They need to go through a Finance for non-Financial Managers course. They need to go through a business simulation. I once worked with a company called Profitability, who may not be the best company to have a client relationship with, but by God did they have an awesome two day business acumen exercise to take you through. Truly cuts to the heart of what it means to make good decisions and how they impact business performance.

Do you distinguish between the management team and the leadership team? If so, then the leadership team are likely to be the Exec or the Senior Leadership Team, right? What about these guys? Aren’t they also liable to receive some sort of continuous professional development? They bloody well should, because they’re the ones who are meant to be guiding the business to absolute success. Send them on MBA courses, or get Cranfield School of Management involved to give high quality training. Invest in executive coaches who have steered businesses to success and help guide this team to identifying the right objectives to be focusing on. The value of an external facilitator at this level is quite vital. Sometimes the Exec team in particular can get so caught up in themselves, they lose sight of how to make good business decisions and get wrapped up in politics instead.

Internal knowledge sharing sessions are awesome. I don’t mean team meetings where someone is asked to present something for 20 mins. I mean regular internal business wide presentations that are an hour long, and allow the opportunity to discuss and share some fascinating insights, knowledge, and new thinking that helps to inspire the business to do and try new things. A lot of people in your workplace have their own pet projects they’re working on right now. Some would like to have a pet project. Others didn’t know they could have a pet project. Ultimately, what you’re trying to do is engage the workforce to share what they know. Where’s the business sense in doing this? You never know where a good idea might come from. Any business that has success, finds it because those ideas get surfaced in the right way.

Welcome to life!

In my role of L&D, one of the things I’m always keen to ensure we’re getting right is how we help the business understand itself. Not just itself, but also the consequence of actions taken on the business, and how we might make better business decisions.  Yes, I’m talking about business acumen. The thing is when you try and break that down, it’s a really hard thing to create L&D initiatives around.

I’m going to do a short series on how we might develop this very important skill in organisations, and what we can do to support the business enabling decision making to be better. Gosh that last sentence had a lot of horrid business speak, but sometimes needs must.

I think the first step in handling this topic is to have a well developed set of opportunities for your new starters. They are the ones who are being recruited into the business to bring about something different and or new, and is vital they receive the right kind of introduction.

The ‘hygiene’ stuff has to be in place. That is, give them a station to work from, the right tools, a line manager, probation objectives, set up on payroll, and all that kind of stuff. We’re talking onboarding, so let’s get it right.

The things that start to make the difference are what happens around all of the day to day tasks. Have you got a developed plan for them which shows them what they can expect to learn, who from, when, within their first six months? This provides security to both the new starter and the line manager in setting clear expectations for what will be achieved.

They may have a distinct role within the business, but this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be exposed to everything the business does. Get them meeting people in other departments. Shadowing for a day can be highly insightful. One to one meetings are great way to nurture relationships. Is there information they can access in their spare time on wikis or e-learning modules that have been created?

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know I’m proud of our company Induction at LBi. It’s consistently one of the best learning events we deliver to our new starters. A number of things have come together to make this happen. The Exec, Senior Leadership Team and Department Heads all see the benefit in being personally involved. The insight they bring when delivering their presentations is highly relevant and key to developing understanding of how the business operates. The day is mixed up with exercises that help the new starters think about how decisions impact the business through using case studies. We also focus a whole piece just on the culture of the company. Not a presentation, but a workshop piece which works better than selling how great we are to work for.

I facilitate the whole day. Having someone present the whole day like this is absolutely key to the success of the day. People know who they can turn to, if the agenda needs changing what to do, if exercises need to happen, what to do when the technology goes tits up. Someone needs to be there to just get things done. More though, the facilitator gets a sense of the success of the day. Are people ok? Are they grumbling? Are they being fed enough? Do they need a break? Are they engaged?

Good things should also be happening on the Induction. Host a lunch, everyone appreciates a free lunch. Get people from the HR team to be part of that too. We are a social bunch, and there’s nothing like breaking down some barriers eh. Have fresh fruit available just because it’s a good thing to do! Give people plenty of opportunity to mingle and just chat. Doing the hard work is good, relaxing the brain during the day is good too. Celebrate the end of the Induction. We’re an agency, so this naturally involves alcohol. Whatever you choose to do, it helps to give a sense of, wow that was a long day, and we did a lot, and now we can enjoy the end of the day too, as opposed to being shuffled back to their desks.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The company Induction is by far and above one of the key L&D activities, that I believe just has to take place. If there’s no other formal learning and development intervention in place, and you had to pick one to do, this is the one to pick and do. It doesn’t matter if it’s not monthly. But it has to be regular, and it has to be excellent.

Zappos

Reblogged from Floraworks:

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Zappos is an American company that sells shoes and clothes online. It’s been in business since 1999. Over the last few years it has become famous for its focus on corporate culture. In 2009 it was named in Forbes magazine in their top 25 companies to work for, and in 2010 the CEO, Tony Hsieh (pronounced ‘Shay’) published his autobiography. It’s called…

Read more… 1,613 more words

There are a lot of good insights here from Flora that are worth sharing to a wider audience.

Show me the way

A while back I wrote about the Myth of Gen Y. In that post, I was mainly making the point that treating Gen Y as a special category to be dealt with in organisations is the wrong way to think. In fact you should go off and read it before carrying on. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Welcome back. The development needs of the workforce are no different for Gen Y to any other generation. At the recent HRD12 held by the CIPD, there was a session I attended on Engaging Gen Y in the workplace. There were two interesting talks given from KPMG and Travelodge. As I said in the post, I think Travelodge have chosen the right approach to developing the new workforce of the future.

I want to take a moment to get us to think about how the L&D world seems to be tackling the Gen Y thing. I don’t think we’re tackling it at all, and this is partly a concern for me, and partly a chance to muse about if we need to. The main thing the Gen Y theory has been focused on, if we don’t engage them, we’ll lose them. Well, yes, I can see that would happen. But what does that engagement look like? Dig a little deeper into that question and what I’m asking is, what does L&D look like for this group?

And let’s dig further still. Am I supposed to train this group differently? Do their expectations of immediacy/feedback/collaboration mean I am behind the times in my delivery style? What about their learning methods? All this about digital being ubiquitous in their lives, what do I do with that? Am I meant to create a host of elearning courses that cater for their ‘when I want it’ attitudes? And social media, sure I’m active on it, but I look around, and half of these Gen Y’ers aren’t using it the same way I am, and many others I know. So am I using it wrong, or are they, or have we just not found a place to meet in the middle?

The nuggets I’m searching for have been few and far between. There certainly seems to be some good recruitment activity by various companies for this group, and that’s a good thing. But when I want to know what specific L&D interventions made a difference to the way this group learn, I am left desperately wanting. Adapting my delivery style and understanding the learning needs of the people I’m with is at the core of what I do.

Two companies come to mind, from recent exposure that tell me, yes, they seem to be doing the right kind of thing. The first is Travelodge and their management training programme. It’s aimed at school leavers, and gives them the opportunity gain real world experience at the same time as a solid career. The programme itself is worth applauding, but I heard nothing about the format of the courses, the facilitators of the event, outputs created, or anything which would suggest that I need to up my game.

The second is from a collaborative initiative with Google, Hyperisland and the IPA. It’s called Google Squared, and is a 12 week programme for young people in the media/advertising industries to gain a certificate in digital marketing. I know of the programme because we’ve sent three graduates from LBi to the pilot programme. They’ve come back raving about it, and how great the experience was, and what excellent learning they had. All great stuff. Yet, from what I gather, the delivery of the programme is no different to a well planned, collaborative effort in making the content highly engaging, relevant and meaningful. Give me the arsenal of the above three, and I could produce the same.

So come on. Tell me I’m missing something here. For all the hoo ha there is about retaining this generation for the success of the future, how do we actually do that? And don’t tell me it’s just about offering better coaching and mentoring programmes to them. Or that elearning has to form part of the mix. Or that line managers need better training. Or that they need better exposure to the senior people in an organisation. Those things are already in play by a lot of companies. Tell me that L&D is completely missing the mark in developing Gen Y, and what we can do to make it better.

Be Free

Ssh. Take a moment, friend, and listen to the sound of your breath. We’re about to embark on a journey, you and I, and together we’re going to end up somewhere quite special. Notice your chest rising and falling as you breathe. Hear the breath enter your body as you read. Start to clear your mind of the clutter. Think about a happy moment you’ve experienced in recent days. This is important. You are fully able and capable of doing this. Your breathing, it’s the focus of what will help you get that clarity.

Don’t rush. Take your time. Life is full of opportunities and moments to grasp. We just need to be brave enough to see them and hold on to them when they stand in front of us. You might call them challenges. You might call them barriers. You might call them opportunities. Whatever you call it, the moment is yours. Are you being conscious of those breaths? Can you feel your body fill with the vitality that breathing provides? It’s amazing, what this simple act does for us.

Have a look around you. Notice the others in your vicinity. We’re all creating a moment for something to happen. Those breaths. Keep noticing them. Be free. Let those thoughts clear from your mind. Don’t be constrained. Trust yourself. Trust your mind. Trust your soul. Breathe in. Breathe out. Such simplicity and such vigour. It’s awesome.

We’ve connected. We’ve found a way to bridge space through this medium. Mindful breathing has helped us get here. We’re ready now to take that next step. Those breaths. So simple. So vital.

Forget HR. Forget Learning and Development. Forget Recruitment. Forget Organisational Development. Forget Coaching. Forget Employee Engagement. Forget this profession. Forget this industry. Clear your mind.

We’re there. Are you ready? Breathe in. Breathe out.

Imagine the job you do didn’t exist. Imagine there’s simply a better way to support the people you work with.

What does this new world of work look like for you?