Most organizations embrace the tenet that developing strong leaders is paramount to both short- and long-term organizational success. Significant resources are plowed into leadership development programs. Yet there is frustration that despite investment, dedication and commitment to leadership development, the results can be disappointing. Organizations just don’t feel they are moving the needle enough on developing capable leaders. They remain concerned about their pipelines of leaders prepared to take on the challenges their organizations are facing.

Developing individuals into strong leaders is not a simple or quick process. It requires years of investment in the leader’s development and effort on the part of leaders and learning and development professionals. It also demands that organizations implement robust and comprehensive leadership development programs which leverage all five models of adult learning theory. It is on this last dimension where many leadership development programs fail. Programs may incorporate only a subset of the models or rely too heavily on a single theory. Even if an organization includes components of all five models in its leadership development program, it may fail to incorporate assessment of the learning from all five.

What are the five models of adult learning theory and how can L&D leaders develop an effective leadership development program that incorporates elements grounded in all five theories? In their book “Learning in Adulthood,” Merriam et. al describe five orientations toward learning. Each of these is focused on a different aspect of developing the capacity to understand and then apply leadership concepts. The five adult learning models are cognitivist, behaviorist, humanist, social cognitive and constructivist. The key is that the most effective leadership development curricula offers a blend of all five learning orientations.

The cognitivist orientation focuses on what the learner knows — their internal cognitive structure. In this model of learning, knowledge is built upon previous experiences and mental models. To properly support this model, the designer of a leadership development program must design a curriculum that presents theoretical leadership content in a logical, appropriately staged format. The goal is for the learner to master the key theoretical concepts in leadership development. The model helps leaders to learn by exposing them to an extensive body of knowledge of theoretical models that can inform their behavior. This sets a solid foundation for the other learning orientations. Understanding theoretical models of effective leadership such as problem-solving models, models of ethical decision-making and models of effective team dynamics, for example, can enable leaders to apply these models in novel situations. The cognitivist orientation can be the foundational element in a leadership development program. It is easily implemented by exposing the learner to a first-rate, off-the-shelf library of theoretical leadership development content. There are many providers of off-the-shelf on-line learning content for leadership development, but the selection of a provider should be based on a few criteria. First and foremost, the content must be rigorous and grounded in proven leadership theories. The content should be authored by subject matter experts who are recognized experts on the topic. Second, online courses should make heavy use of video which can allow for the depiction of scenarios involving actual human beings. Scenario-based training in the context of a video-based course is key because it grounds the theory in practice, but is also proven to aid learner recall. The visual cortex, we know from scientific research, is involved in a very important mechanism of memory. It includes a population of neurons that are selectively involved in processing different categories of images. A particular group of neurons is selectively activated in response to faces while another group activates in response to scenes. So, there is selectivity and the selective function makes individuals more efficient at processing what they see. Learning in this selective way helps to create a distinct memory in the brain that can then be more easily retrieved later on. Finally, the content should include both reflection exercises and assessments (or knowledge checks) which run throughout the course as well as at the conclusion of the course, in order to make sure that the learner is tracking with the content being covered.  Ideally the content is delivered using a modern cloud-based platform which enables easy access and seamless navigation.

While the cognitivist approach is a foundational piece for any effective leadership development program, it is limited in its ability to create true behavioral change. Some refer to this as the “knowing-doing gap.” This is why the learning experiences enabled by the other four adult learning orientations are so critical. The behaviorist orientation is concerned with an individual’s behavior change. Here, the designer of a leadership development program should be concerned with creating a program that ensures that desired leadership behaviors are shaped and reinforced, and that a leader displays increasing levels of mastery. Instructional strategies that can be used for this approach include virtual reality simulations, role plays and deliberate practice with a leadership coach. Ideally, there are trained observers who can assess behavior improvement when a leader is practicing giving an inspirational speech, problem-solving in the team setting, negotiating a deal or dealing with team conflict, for example. The objective of the behaviorist approach is for the leader to engage in regular, deliberate practice where they can receive real-time coaching and feedback on behavioral performance. There are many solutions on the market that designers of a leadership development program can leverage in order to include the behaviorist component into the leadership development program. Vendors include providers of face-to-face coaching, online platform-based coaching, virtual reality simulations, systems dynamics simulations, facilitated group role-playing, etc.

The humanistic adult learning orientation advocates that an individual find their own purpose and become self-actualized through the development of a highly personalized and self-directed learning path. Key to this orientation is the ability for the learner to understand and recognize their individual goals, motivations, strengths and values. Leaders need to deeply understand themselves in order to be effective. Research shows that being self-aware, self-actualized and autonomous makes for a stronger, more capable leader. Instructional strategies to incorporate the humanistic orientation include personality assessments (i.e., DISC or Myers-Briggs) 360-degree assessments, strengths assessments, individual and group reflection exercises and personal development plans. There are many vendors who provide assessments. Attention should be given to incorporating multiple assessments so that a robust, holistic assessment of a leader can be made. Leaders should also be required to engage in thoughtful self-assessment and self-reflection.

The social cognitive orientation to leadership learning asserts that learning occurs when interacting with others in a social context. For leaders, the purpose of learning in social cognitivism is to master new roles and behaviors facilitated by more experienced leaders who can serve as formal and informal mentors. The model seeks to ensure that leaders have role models and a network to help support them in learning and growth. Ideally, learners in leadership development are connected with individuals who are skilled at modeling desired leadership behaviors. The designer of a leadership development program must therefore include opportunities for mentorship into the leadership development program. This can include shadowing and structured development relationships between mentors and leader mentees. The program designer should create a database of all available mentors and mentees in need of mentoring, and, using descriptive tags and fields, optimize the assignment of mentees to appropriate mentors. There are platforms on the market which are designed to support mentorship programs and which automate the process of building a mentorship program.

Finally, the constructivist orientation is concerned with having a leader learner construct personal meaning from their experience, and this is achieved by providing learners with experience and then facilitating meaning making for learners. The constructivist orientation is unlocked through action learning experiences. These experiences are typically project-based and are sometimes called leader “stretch assignments.” The designer of a leadership development program should assign a stretch assignment to each leader learner based on the individual needs of the learner. Here, again, a database of stretch assignments or project-based opportunities can be created with tags and fields for optimized assignment of leaders to opportunities. Alternatively, mentors can be tasked with identifying and overseeing stretch assignments for their mentees. Mentors are often in an ideal position to identify, assign and oversee stretch assignments and project-based learning opportunities.

Table 1 provides a synopsis of the five adult learning orientations with additional information for supporting, applying and assessing each. It is critical for the designer of a leadership development program to leverage all five orientations and to do so in a blended manner. A siloed approach is much less effective. The best place for a leadership development program designer to start is to define the leadership competencies to be mastered, develop a curriculum map which incorporates these competencies, thoughtfully weave in all five adult learning orientations into the learning experience, and determine how to assess the effectiveness of each component and the overall program. An effective leadership development program requires 18-24 months where leader development is supported through consistent development and evaluation in multiple modalities. Implementing a leadership development program that incorporates all five adult learning orientations involves more commitment, resources, time and effort, but an organization is only as capable as its leaders. Optimizing the development of its leaders is arguably the most important step an organization can take to maintain and grow competitive advantage. There is no better investment it can make.

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As vice president and global head of learning at Moderna, Noah Rabinowitz leads an internal team of 10 talent and learning professionals using an untraditional approach to development. Despite only being a part of the Moderna team since March, Rabinowitz can tap into his extensive knowledge and perspective of the learning and development industry to build a world-leading learning university at Moderna. 

Before joining Moderna, Rabinowitz led and worked on many teams at organizations such as Intel, Deloitte, Korn Ferry and Lucent, where he helped work in the U.S. and overseas to design and develop L&D opportunities in varying environments from shop floors to university campuses. Rabinowitz has built extensive expertise in the L&D space by rethinking how his teams can learn, and collaborating with the highly skilled teams he’s worked on, from programs that help veterans tell their story to programs with the intentionality to last.

The path

Rabinowitz started in education long before his first experiences on professional L&D teams, while working at a wilderness summer camp. There, he found his passion for teaching and working with young people prior to working overseas as a teacher and going back to learn more himself. 

While at the University of Michigan pursuing his master’s in education, Rabinowitz honed his talents at an internship focused on skills-based L&D for university employees, until he eventually got a call to do consulting work at Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) before traveling the world and landing at Alcatel Lucent and eventually Lore. 

In his work in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Germany, China to name a few, he gained experience working with clients across industries from commercial and consumer goods to aerospace defense and energy sectors while rethinking the role of leadership development, succession planning and more. “I’m just getting this incredible set of experiences,” Rabinowitz says. 

At Korn Ferry, he moved up to become the global practice lead of leadership development in charge of several hundred practitioners. Over more than a decade there, Rabinowitz’s perspective on L&D evolved. “The diversity of experiences, traveling the world, meeting incredible people, working with other people that were doing human capital work in the executive space, in the recruitment process, automation and outsourcing space,” Rabinowitz says. “It broadened even more.”

Eventually, Rabinowitz got a call from Deloitte to work at their new startup learning practice where he worked closer to learning practice, gained exposure to learning management systems and aimed to disrupt the broader leadership development industry. His time there also helped him answer essential business questions about L&D functions, such as how to fund and budget a learning organization, create supporting governance and implement instructional design at a place where people come from all over the world to learn. “I got to be there, work there, take clients there and be a student myself there,” he says. Until on another “out-of-the-blue day,” he got a call from Intel to be their chief learning officer.

At Intel, serving a 120,000-person organization and one of the leading technology companies in the world, Rabinowitz thought he would be there for the rest of his career. But his ambitions didn’t end there. “In my space, [Intel is] kind of like the ultimate,” Rabinowitz says. “I went there thinking I would stay there probably for the rest of my career. There’s plenty of work to do.” 

Three years later, he got the call to join Moderna and help them become “the beacon of education for not just biopharma, but really for the health care industry in general,” Rabinowitz says. “It was just too good of an opportunity to say no to. It’s at a totally different stage of its evolution in terms of its maturity and everything, but that was actually what attracted me here. It’s the ultimate kind of startup” Rabinowitz joined Moderna for a chance to tap into his deep history of experience and expertise to build a world-leading learning ecosystem from the ground up. 

Breaking tradition

For Robinowitz, there’s no single success factor above the rest, but two of the biggest success indicators for Rabinowitz can be answered by simple questions: Are you creating well-being for your people? And, are you helping them develop skills to reach their full potential? Building a healthy brand for that success also serves to attract talent.

“Noah is a big-picture thinker, he certainly thinks at the 30,000-foot level,” says Wayne Robinson, executive leadership development lead at Google. “But he is also very innovative. He has a knack for taking learning principles and turning them into journeys that feel nice, easy, light, fun.” 

Another factor for his success is reducing development and rethinking strategies to their core. He’s all about asking questions and digging deeper, “like a traditional case of this skeptic, really challenging the underlying orthodoxies that form our assumptions, but also really thinking about what is the better way,” says Neil Alger, head of talent development at Google. “And I think that that’s in many ways probably a superpower.” A power that comes from intentional commitment to improvement. 

Rabinowitz’s approach to programs includes problem-solving that requires collaboration and moves away from how we traditionally think about L&D programs and strategies. Instead, he sees it as necessary to develop programs that address specific problems and rethink what’s taken for granted. “Something I’ve absolutely taken from Noah is this idea that no matter what it is, you can ask good questions about it that challenge the fundamental assumptions of what it has historically looked like,” says Alger. “In that process, you will find your way to new and novel ideas. If you don’t do that, you will find yourself stuck within a set of boundaries that are yours that you yourself have created.”

Above all, Rabinowitz’s ultimate goal and vision at Moderna is to cultivate a path toward exponential learning and that “beacon of education.” On that path is fulfillment and engagement that leads to more rewarding experiences for employees on their career journey and the organizational culture. 

The question for Rabinowitz becomes: How do we tap into human potential and help people achieve in their careers? “Because a career sometimes is a place to die,” he says. “Why is work something that you want to minimize in your life? I feel it’s because people aren’t achieving their fullest potential at work, and the way you do that is through learning and development. It’s like fuel for the human soul. And it takes your job, no matter what your job is, and turns it into something that you can love.” 

Rabinowitz sees work — and by extension, Moderna — as the place where you’re intended to produce the impact you will leave. “Your employer has a duty and a responsibility to help you live up to your fullest potential of what that impact can be,” Rabinowitz says. “That’s a belief system that exists here that doesn’t exist in many companies.” Instead, many solely focus on ROI when not everything is or should be calculable.

“The obsessive quest for ROI is not a healthy thing to create a learning and leadership development culture,” Rabinowitz says. “You can’t just be inefficient with money, but if that’s the guiding principle, you’ve already lost the battle.”

Instead, the battle should be focused on paving the way for exponential learning and “blurring the lines between working and learning,” Rabinowitz says. To “seamlessly integrate those two things.” As he envisions it, the flow of work approach would involve intentional reflection and exploration as employees and learners move through the day. Traditional corporate learning in publicly traded companies often lacks the “time and space, even if it’s just five minutes, to turn that experience into learning that can be applied to the next thing,” Rabinowitz says. “That is the path to exponential.” 

For any organization, people are gaining knowledge and having interactions all day, but the intentionality to analyze and digest what you just learned is something Rabinowitz has been working on since his time at Deloitte — and something he wants to fully realize at Moderna. Because beyond just making powerpoints and forgetting about them the next day, being intentional about learning and being committed to getting better and verifying the intended message from feedback is crucial to building the best programs.

“Yes, you can learn by doing,” Rabinowitz says. “But to go exponential with learning, you have to take that small timeout — or medium or big — to turn the experience you’ve had into something that might actually change the wiring of your brain.”

Conditions for reinvention

Throughout his career with focuses on consulting, corporate universities, in-house sales transformations and learning organizations serving 120,000 people; the only thing left to do for Rabinowitz was to try to build something entirely new from the ground up. Moderna offers the opportunity to build a world-class example of the best that learning can be. “There’s no better place to do that than Moderna because Moderna’s role in the world is unique. People listen to what we do, and they respect us, we’re an innovative company that is changing human health care,” Rabinowitz says. “It’s a place where we have a CEO who cares and is passionate about learning and development. It’s got all the right conditions to reinvent the way we do learning completely.”

Moderna is “small but mighty,” says Tracey Franklin, chief human resources officer at Moderna. “What we’ve been able to accomplish is heroic.” Growing from 700 people to just under 2,000 employees and delivering hundreds of millions of vaccine doses while building out a company overnight is a unique position at our moment in time. “It looks and feels like it’s all built, but in reality it is very much still a startup,” Franklin says. And with recent expansion into 11 different countries where LMS needs to be installed, “that’s where he just has the experience,” Franklin says. “We will lay that piping at a faster pace than others will be able to.”

In a short amount of time, Rabinowitz has been a calm presence for a team that has been quite “hair on fire,” Franklin says. “He’s very in touch with what makes an organization breathe and what employees want. In addition to being business savvy, he’s really going to be able to make sure it’s a differentiated employee experience.”

Right in line with his philosophies of constant progress and rethinking, Rabinowitz’s L&D department at Moderna operates differently than most. With an internal L&D team of 10, they take an untraditional approach to be responsive enough to take on the problems of a growing company. By partnering and collaborating with outside organizations, it provides flexibility for L&D and growth that few organizations fully consider when simply growing internally. “We’re building an ecosystem that’s based on the idea of building the best learning and development experiences on the planet and using resources flexibly to achieve that goal,” Rabinowitz says. “The goal is to be the best at everything,” from manager development to artificial intelligence academies and cyberlearning.

“I’m so excited to see what happens when there’s that much white space, frankly,” Alger says. “The conditions exist for something radical in there, and he’s the catalyst of it. There’s something about this moment that’s very unique.”

Back to basics

“Wherever Noah goes, he’s going to push down so it’s not going to be learning and development as it was yesterday,” Robinson says. “He’s great at bringing in all aspects of learning, from micro-learning to learning on demand to leveraging technology to whatever he can leverage to take leaders or executives to the next level.” 

With an extensive toolkit of L&D knowledge and experience, Rabinowitz knows what works and what doesn’t. “He understands the business aspects and he’s able to pull the levers of learning to provide the most impact,” Franklin says.

He also knows that as an industry, the L&D world gets “caught up in the shiny object syndrome to the expense of the growth mindset, which has to be really intentionally developed,” Rabinowitz says. “If you’re not developing it, what you’re doing is you’re building a house with no foundation. The path to an exponential building culture begins with developing the ability to learn.”

Photos by Fred Levy.

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Every year, the LearningElite Awards program honors the best organizations in learning and development. The 54 organizations being recognized this year are no exception to the champions of workforce learning design, delivery and impact we see every year in this program.

To qualify for LearningElite status, organizations must succeed in scoring above the qualifying benchmark in five key performance areas critical to L&D: learning strategy, leadership commitment, learning execution, learning impact and business performance results. Each organization is scored and ranked Gold, Silver or Bronze based on their score relative to the benchmark. Seven Editor’s Choice awards are also given out each year: one for each of the five LearningElite dimensions, one for Best Midsize Company and one for Best Small Company.

This year’s Organization of the Year, ADP Inc., joins Verizon and AT&T in the LearningElite Winner’s Circle, which is the organization of previous No 1s. The Organization of the Year is a part of the Winner’s Circle for three years. Leaving the Winner’s Circle this year is Nationwide. Winner’s Circle organizations may participate in the benchmarking portion of the LearningElite program, but they are not eligible for banding or ranking. After three years, the organization may once again participate.

The LearningElite Awards program was created in 2011 under the watchful guidance of chief learning officers and senior L&D practitioners. Now in its 12th year, the program continues to use best practice in evaluation to rank the top organizations based on their impact, size and industries served.

Congratulations to all the 2022 winners!

Gold

1. ADP, Inc.
2. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina
3. Accenture Plc.
4. Choice Hotels International
5. Ecolab, Inc.

Silver

6. ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited
7. Sidley Austin LLP
8. SWBC
9. Allied Universal
10. Cleveland Clinic Foundation
11. ManTech International Corporation
12. Health Plan Workforce Development, Kaiser Permanente
13. SAP
14. PPD Clinical Research Services
15. Sam’s Club Field Learning at The Walmart Academy
16. Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores
17. BKD CPAs & Advisors
18. State Compensation Insurance Fund
19. Cardinal Health, Inc.
20. KPMG LLP
21. University Health
22. Rosendin Electric Inc.
23. Mount Sinai Health System
24. MTM inc.
25. Infosys Limited
26. Siemens AG
27. IBM Center for Cloud Training

Bronze

28. New York Life
29. CNO Financial Group
30. Zions Bancorporation, N.A.
31. Tennessee Valley Authority
32. Davenport University
33. Suntory Holdings Limited
34. Greenberg Traurig LLP
35. Round Room, LLC
36. Oncology Nursing Society
37. Baker Hughes Co.
38. Collaborative Solutions, LLC
39. Center for Development of Security Excellence, Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, DOD
40. Department of Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy
41. Sysco Corporation
42. Deutsche Post DHL Group (DP DHL)
43. Viettel Academy
44. Syneos Health
45. Pure Storage Inc.
46. Trianz Digital Consulting Inc.
47. Tokio Marine HCC
48. Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
49. Keeley Companies
50. Grubhub Inc.
51. Kimball Midwest
52. Bill.com
53. RELX Group PLC
54. The Estée Lauder Companies

Editor’s Choice Awards:

• Learning Strategy: Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina
• Leadership Commitment: EcoLab, Inc.
• Learning Execution: ADP, Inc.
• Learning Impact: ADP, Inc.
• Business Performance: Accenture Plc.
• Best Small Company: Choice Hotels International
• Best Mid-Size Company: Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina

Winner’s Circle:

• 2021: Verizon Communications
• 2020: AT&T
• 2019: Nationwide

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Most remote onboarding processes fail to build meaningful peer connections between new hires. “What could newbies possibly teach each other about how our company works,” the thinking seems to go. So instead, we expect already-overloaded managers to act as coach, feedback-giver and social support during a new hire’s first weeks. Is it any wonder fewer than 50 percent of onboarding programs are actually deemed successful?

Neglecting the power of collaborative learning was perhaps understandable in the days of in-person onboarding. But today, building connections with peers has taken on a new importance in the workplace. 

The shift to remote work has increased loneliness in the workplace by almost 70 percent, while the Great Resignation has weakened emotional connections between workers. And new hires are more likely than ever to leave a position within six months if the company doesn’t sit right with them. New hires’ expectations and needs from onboarding have changed, but most companies’ new hire processes have yet to catch up.

New hires deserve a remote onboarding experience that forges rapid emotional links with fellow onboarders, leverages collaboration to increase company loyalty, and maximizes information uptake via feedback giving, as well as getting.

As VP of people development at Animalz content marketing agency, I’ve onboarded more than 100 remote hires in the last 12 months, and our onboarding process scores 90 percent positive engagement in new hire surveys. This article will dive into the psychological principles we leverage in our new hire onboarding and suggest ways other companies can do the same.

The psychology of collaborative learning in onboarding

Collaborative learning isn’t a unified pedagogical approach. Instead, the term encompasses, “any form of learning that occurs as a result of social interaction between two or more employees when they are working together on the same task or toward the same goal […] where peers stand to benefit equally from the learning experience” (taken from Eduflow’s recent report on the state of collaborative learning in 2022).

By that definition, collaborative learning can and should be leveraged frequently in the workplace, from official training to informal problem solving. Onboarding is one of the stages of the employee lifecycle where collaborative learning can be most impactful on both improving performance and increasing team integration. Three phenomena help us understand this potential impact:

• Social constructivism
• Learning in heterogeneous groups
• The power of personal connection

Let’s look at why each of these factors helps people learn more, and how the phenomena can apply to remote onboarding.

Social constructivism

Social constructivism as a theory posits that learning is inextricably bound up with social interaction. This means learning, according to social constructivists, is not just the absorption of new knowledge; rather, it’s the act of becoming assimilated into a knowledge community, a group of people who share your newly acquired knowledge. 

In this paradigm, what learners already know (their past experiences) and how they interact with others are key factors in their development. Teachers and facilitators are there to help learners actively construct knowledge.

Social constructivist Lev Vygotsky stated that social interaction, as well as assistance from “more knowledgeable others,” helps people learn more than they would be able to alone. For Vygotsky, there are three “zones” of potential learning:

• What the learner can do by themself
• What the learner cannot do
• And in between these two, the zone of proximal development: what the learner can do, but only with guidance.

In the zone of proximal development, the learner needs assistance to complete a task. That assistance usually comes from a teacher or peer, acting as a guide. The guide helps the learner attain the relevant skills, until guidance is no longer needed and the task moves into the “what the learner can do by themselves” zone.

All good onboarding aims to move new hires from the outer zone (what the learner cannot do) to the inner zone (what the learner can do by themselves).

How to leverage social constructivism in remote onboarding

Introducing collaborative learning activities into remote onboarding allows us to leverage the social aspect of constructing knowledge. We can do this either by asking tenured hires to act as guides, or  asking new hires to guide each other.

• When we leverage tenured hires as guides, we allow learners to see desired workplace behaviors in action. The new hire learns by assuming and testing those new behaviors; the tenured hire reinforces their own mastery of what they’re teaching.
• When we ask fellow new hires to teach other onboarders something they themselves only recently learned, we speed up the retention of new information, and accelerate the process of both new hires moving through the zone of proximal development to competency.

To engage new hires in the zone of proximal development, build an onboarding structure that asks them to assume the roles of both The Guide and The Guided, alternately:

• New hires as The Guide: Build peer review activities into each stage of remote onboarding. As soon as a new hire learns a new company process, ask them to review the work of other new hires on that process, and give feedback. This structure allows the feedback giver to become a Guide in controlled circumstances and to strengthen their own uptake of new information as they advise others.
• New hires as The Guided: Support new hires by engineering mentorship moments with people across the team throughout onboarding. This can take the form of customized onboarding interactions with managers, who identify each individual’s zone of proximal development; or of informal touchpoints with onboarding buddies, tenured peers who act as “more knowledgeable others.”

At Animalz, we leverage social constructivism by adding peer review activities to our asynchronous onboarding, based on this onboarding template. You can read more about why we’re so focused on social onboarding here.

Heterogeneous group formation

In learning, heterogeneous grouping is the placement of learners with different abilities or knowledge levels together to optimize information uptake. Research shows groups made up of heterogeneous learners tend to perform betterthan groups formed by students with similar learning characteristics.

Educators have a rule of thumb for choosing heterogeneous or homogenous group formation: If the purpose of the group learning activity is to help struggling students reach baseline expectations, the research shows heterogeneous groups may help most. On the other hand, if the purpose is to encourage medium-ability groups to learn at high levels, homogeneous grouping is better.

Onboarding is all about getting everyone to a baseline. It’s not about excelling, it’s about meeting baseline expectations and integrating into the team. That’s why heterogeneous groups are powerful. They also help break down silos, encourage cross-department collaboration and can even support wider DEI efforts.

How to leverage heterogeneous groups in remote onboarding

Cohort onboarding naturally throws together people of different skill sets and abilities. As learning practitioners, we can capitalize on heterogeneous grouping to help new hires learn. Remote settings are no excuse for not leveraging heterogeneous groups; rather, we need to be imaginative enough to find moments of group collaboration for distributed teams.

But how do you create meaningful group formations when new hires are in different time zones, or at least not in the same room? There are a few ways you can try:

• Peer-to-peer workshops: Ask new hires to work through a challenge as a group. At Animalz, we do this in two formats: a Values workshop, in which we ask new hires to solve hypothetical problems as a group, through the lens of our company values; and a Strategy in Action workshop, in which groups solve a customer problem in real time and present their solutions.
• Completion of a group project or deliverable: Ask each onboarding cohort to complete a well-defined project together within a short space of time.
• Group presentations: Ask each cohort to create a presentation for the cohort that follows them, focused on core aspects of the onboarding process.

For any activities to truly spark learning for everyone, follow Marzano, Pickering and Pollock’s advice on effective learning in groups:

• The work must involve every member of the group.
• Each person has a valid job to perform with a known standard of completion.
• Each member is invested in completing the task or learning goal.
• Each member is accountable individually and collectively.

Heterogeneous group work not only allows new hires to test their new skills in a low-risk way, but also starts to forge deep personal connections with new colleagues. That’s an aspect of remote onboarding that we’ll look at next.

The power of personal connection

So far, we’ve looked at how collaborative learning helps new hires learn new information faster and more efficiently in onboarding. But collaboration also has a secondary benefit: linking a new hire emotionally to their new team.

This feels intuitively true, but it’s also backed up by recent research in remote contexts. In 2021, Harvard Business School conducted a randomized field experiment at a large global company to uncover the impact of synchronous “virtual water coolers” between senior managers and remote interns. The data showed interns who had these 1:1 watercoolers were significantly more likely to receive offers for full-time employment, achieved higher weekly performance ratings, and had more positive attitudes toward their remote internships.

Personal connection in remote workplaces helps us feel more positive about work, and to excel in moments when we’re working asynchronously.

How to leverage personal connection in remote onboarding

Building meaningful connections is possible both asynchronously and synchronously during onboarding.

Asynchronous personal connections

Build an online discussion board into your onboarding structure, where new hires introduce themselves and share something personal at the start of onboarding. Future new hires can engage with the discussion board, creating conversation threads and getting to know onboarders in previous cohorts from day one.

Combine this with activities such as weekly question prompts that ask team members to share something fun about themselves in an async forum such as Slack. Light-hearted questions about favorite movies, food or travel can help team members forge bonds.

Synchronous personal connections:

We run regular huddles for new hires, where anyone still in their first three months at the company can come along and chat. There’s no agenda, and a moderator guides the discussion loosely to encourage the sharing of experiences.

We also add new hires to our fortnightly watercooler chats. These 1:1 meetings randomly pair two team members for a 30-minute conversation, with only one rule to follow—don’t talk about work.

Work is social. Onboarding should be too.

Workplace collaboration and connection has become more important than ever in our increasingly remote professional lives. Creating a safe space for new hires to give feedback to others, to build emotional connections with colleagues and to take risks fearlessly, is our job as talent and learning professionals. Only by doing this can we expect to have happy, healthy team members who stay with our companies for the long haul.

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With 1 in 3 women considering leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers in the past year versus 1 in 4 the year before, the need for organizations that provide meaningful support to women is now higher than ever. The pandemic has exacerbated many inequalities for the work-life balance of women — who made up 70 percent of unpaid caregivers in 2020. 

As explored earlier this year, learning and development leaders must do more to develop a “more holistic talent pipeline” for women leaders through actions that are proactive against the “glass cliff.” Looking at the corporate leadership pipeline by gender — the differences in representation are stark. According to McKinsey’s “Women in the Workplace 2021” survey, women make up just 24 percent of leaders at the C-suite level and less than 40 percent of total leadership positions above the manager level. 

The rise of women’s leadership organizations — such as Chief, NextUp, WOMEN Unlimited and WNorth — can provide a crucial bridge to bridge this power gap. To ensure women are supported with the networks and tools they need to be successful and close the power gap in their careers, successful leaders must think outside of the limits of their organization.

Beyond the pipeline

“The pandemic accelerated and highlighted the disproportionate household burden that women carry,” says Judy Whitcomb, senior vice president of organizational strategy at Vi Living. According to McKinsey, more than 42 percent of women say they were often or almost always burned out in 2021 — a ten percent increase over a year ago — compared to 35 percent of men. 

“I have a lot of colleagues that just said, ‘I’m not doing this anymore,’ because they’re not offered any other choices,” Whitcomb says. “Companies need to think about that before women get to that point. They need to be proactive and start coming up with solutions.” Solutions that most companies can’t offer internally.

Fortunately, women’s leadership organizations are now working to fill the gap for the leadership, development and networking for women outside of the workplace. 

Chief’s mission for change is centered around bringing accomplished women business leaders from across the country together to foster connections and share knowledge that can collectively grow women’s power in the workplace. Designed for women in the C-suite and other senior executives roles, more than 60 percent of Fortune 100 companies such as Google, Disney and Nike have had their female executives join the organization. Members can access a network of peers, a core peer group and workshops to address the challenges of today and beyond. 

“What we’re trying to do here at Chief, it really requires businesses to start thinking about how they’re broadening the way they define leadership,” says Kendra Mitchell, chief people officer at Chief. “Both what the leader says and what a leader looks like.” To fix our broken talent pipeline for all people, we must improve how we think about and exercise leadership. 

“Chief is really founded on the premise that it’s lonely at the top,” Mitchell says. “One of our greatest value propositions is actually just a sense of community and belonging.” And crucial to fixing the gender power gap; with more than 12,000 members, Chief brings women together across industries and companies to foster communities and tackle development opportunities together. 

For prospective women leaders who often feel like they have to work twice as hard to be seen, Chief’s resources provide a space to be open about struggles in shared leadership journeys and connect with valuable resources. Additionally, 35 percent of Chief members identify as BIPOC, almost double the percentage of women of color in executive leadership roles. 

Chief members are put into a core group that meets monthly to discuss challenges, receive support and listen to guidance from peers and an executive coach moderator. In this core group, “you develop deep relationships,” says Whitcomb, a founding Chief member. “They try to align you with individuals that may be going through the same kinds of challenges or career experiences.”

Now in Vi Living’s second year of membership, Whitcomb has found the accessibility of Chief to be valuable in strengthening leaders, improving their influence and providing connections to help women. Members can download the Chief app, which provides direct access to their group members and attend weekly workshops from influential speakers like Stacey Abrahams, Amal Clooney and Adam Grant. And as more things return to in-person, Chief+ members also have access to clubhouses across the U.S. that they’re able to utilize or rent for in-person networking.

Outside the top-level focus of Chief, many other women’s organizations exist to help all levels of female talent. For female leaders of tomorrow, it’s essential to not just focus at the top level of who is making decisions and policies, but the mid- and lower levels where leadership opportunities and the “broken rung” problem often begin — for every 100 men promoted to manager level, only 86 women are promoted, according to McKinsey. For smaller organizations that lack the budget or resources, the Center for Creative Leadership and women’s organizations like NextUp offer learning opportunities and allyship programs to sponsor, Whitcomb says. 

In their mission to advance all women in business, NextUp offers programs for women at every level in the workforce. Their 15,000 members across more than 900 companies such as CocaCola, Microsoft and Intel can take part in shared programs focused on elevating women through L&D, networking opportunities and leadership growth. NextUp also provides workshops to speak to challenges specific companies may be facing, so that you provide a culture where “people feel included and also feel they belong,” says Sarah Alter, president and CEO of NextUp. NextUp’s “top-down and bottom-up approach operates at an individual level, and at the corporate or organizational level.”

Whitcomb took part in NextUp’s Rising Stars program, where she worked with six women who were mid-level leaders across different organizations. She coached them, went over assignments and helped them network and access more resources to aid advancement in their careers. Beyond that, Whitcomb wanted to make sure she coached them to ask for what was important to them and be their authentic selves. “What were their barriers? What were their fears? What were the challenges they were encountering?” she says. “It shaped me as a leader and as a coach.”

Expanding the table

It’s important for leaders to understand their people and act structurally about creating a more inclusive environment. “If you do the work to build a diverse workforce, but you don’t look at your policies and practices to make sure that those people’s contributions are seen and recognized, and their voices are valued and heard,” Mitchell says. “You will continue to think that you have a quote-unquote pipeline problem.” A pipeline problem that Mitchell says is an outdated way of thinking about the problem of leadership representation in the workplace.

Once you start to broaden the voices at the leadership table and go back to the drawing board, “you’ll very quickly begin to see that the pipeline problem is more of a fallacy than a reality,” Mitchell says. “There are probably a number of great potential leaders in your business that are women or other underrepresented groups, who may not have been considered when you had a myopic, outdated view of leadership.”

For companies trying to figure out how to unlock the potential of women leaders within their organizations or attract external talent, women’s organizations like Chief are “a really tangible way to demonstrate that they are invested in their leaders who are women,” Mitchell says. Women’s organizations such as Chief and NextUp can connect women with a community outside of work and help them discover clear pathways to develop competencies with a higher ROI than typical 1-on-1 coaching. 

Much of the actual diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in a business comes down to concrete policies and strategies beyond just getting people in the door. Once in leadership roles, women are up to twice as likely to spend time on DEIB work that falls outside of their formal responsibilities by supporting ERGs, organizing events and recruiting employees from underrepresented groups. 

Having women at the tables where flexible and dynamic work-life policies or otherwise are made is crucial because they “acutely understand those challenges and really understand the dynamics that cause people to fall off the leadership rung,” Mitchell says. “So that you’re thinking about how you can keep people in the workplace and support them as they’re navigating being humans and family members and employees.”

Better leaders, better teams

Data suggests that women may be better suited for leadership roles than men when they get the chance to lead. According to McKinsey, women do more to promote employee well-being by checking in on their teams, managing workloads and supporting those dealing with work-life challenges than men. Thirty-one percent of employees with a female manager said they provided emotional and well-being support, compared to just 19 percent who had a male manager. “Women aren’t broken, they don’t need to be fixed,” Alter says. “But we can all be better leaders.” 

When employees have strong allies, they are 53 percent less likely to consider leaving their company and 40 percent less likely to experience burnout. Data shows that women take part in allyship activities more than 10 percent higher than men. Organizations that struggle with representation are missing out across the board. 

“Bottom line, business outcomes are better when your leadership and board are more diverse,” Mitchell says. “Having a broader, more inclusive lens around leadership and who gets to be in leadership and the representation it drives can impact both attraction and retention, engaging and developing talent.” 

“The best products and services come from a diverse perspective,” Whitcomb says. “And if those people making decisions are primarily white men, that’s going to impact your ability to excel as an organization.” Representing their workforce in leadership roles allows companies to expand their ability to reach and understand their consumers. 

For those who come next

“Organizations have to give women leaders opportunities to access established networks, whether it’s Chief or NextUp,” Whitcomb says. “Organizations should be explicit in their approach to offering these opportunities.” 

Whitcomb says she’s rooted in a lot of the experiences that happened to her when she was younger. Like networking opportunities centered on traditional men’s activities, or the job interviews in her 20s when interviewers would comment on her being young or newly married and just say, “I don’t know that I can hire you because I really need someone here.” For Whitcomb, those things said long ago caused her to work twice as hard, not ask for time off, not disagree and ultimately sacrifice her true self — she doesn’t want to see other women have to take that path. 

Which is why she sees partnering with women’s leadership organizations as valuable opportunities to make it easier for those who come next, “I want other women to feel it’s normal to have balance and not feel like you have to work harder because you’re a female.”

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It’s hard to believe it’s been more than forty years since Spencer Johnson and I wrote “The One Minute Manager®” in 1981. When it was published, it hit the bestseller lists and remained there for years. The book’s original “three secrets” of management were: one-minute goals, one-inute praisings and one-inute reprimands (changed to one-inute redirects in “The New One Minute Manager®,” which was published in 2015). The simplicity of these principles, I am told, helped guide thousands of managers in supporting, developing and helping people achieve their goals. 

These days, every so often, someone will ask me whether I think the One Minute Manager’s simple philosophies of leadership can stand up in today’s unpredictable, relentlessly changing business world. In essence, they are asking me, are the three secrets of the one-minute manager still relevant in 2022?My answer: I don’t just think they are relevant today. I know they are.

It’s true that today’s managers face responsibilities, problems and challenges that no manager has faced before. They are responsible for accomplishing their own goals while supervising and supporting people who may be located in other towns, states or countries. They may be working with smaller budgets and fewer people due to the pandemic and the Great Resignation. Distractions and obstacles abound. And organizational leaders — striving to keep their companies solvent and their own heads above water — may be incapable of offering managers much in the way of help. 

Can today’s overwhelmed managers be effective leaders with management theories from 40 years ago? They certainly can. It’s all about communication. 

Communication and the three secrets

As you read these descriptions of each of these three secrets, think about how large a part clarity of communication plays in their success. Keep in mind that each process takes only a few minutes to implement.

The first secret: one-minute goals. To successfully implement one-minute goals, managers have a goal-setting conversation with direct reports. The manager listens to the person’s input and they work side by side to plan goals together. They ensure the person knows what a good job looks like. The manager also asks the person to write out their goals and briefly review the most important goals every day, and they encourage the person to ensure their behavior matches their goals. If it doesn’t, the manager suggests the person re-think their behavior so they can realize their goals sooner. One-minute goals work because the manager makes sure that the goal is clear and the person knows what a good job looks like.

The second secret: one-minute praisings. When a manager notices someone doing something right, they let the person know as soon as possible and give praise. They tell the person how good they feel about what the person did, and then pause so the person can feel good about what they did as well. The manager encourages the person to do more of the same and expresses confidence in them and their success. One-minute praisings work because they are merited, sincere and build trust.

The third secret: one-minute redirects. When a manager becomes aware that a person’s performance in a particular area is not meeting the agreed-upon standard, the first thing they do is ensure that the person was clear on the initial goal they set together. If it turns out the person was not clear on the goal, the manager takes responsibility and clarifies the goal. If the person was clear on the goal when their performance began to go off-track, the manager confirms the facts with the person until they reach agreement on what happened. Then the manager asks, “How can I help you get back on track?” At the end of the conversation, the manager should let the person know they are better than their poor performance, and expresses confidence and trust in the person and their future success. One-minute redirects work because they happen as soon as the manager is aware of the situation and they don’t take long. The manager focuses on the specific behavior that caused the below-average performance and reaffirms the person. This process can also apply when someone makes a mistake.

You’ll notice that each of the three secrets are accomplished through brief but explicit conversations between the manager and the direct report. This works whether the manager and direct report are in the same room or miles apart. Communication is the key. If the manager follows the simple steps of the process, the one-minute goal, praising or redirecting will be successful. Each one makes sense because it is communicated clearly and with fair-mindedness on the part of the manager. 

When times are tough, mutual trust in the workplace is more important than ever. When managers are able to communicate openly with their people, when they freely share information about the organization and about themselves, team members begin to see them as fellow human beings they can identify with. This creates an invaluable sense of connection and trust that can become a deep and meaningful alliance between manager and direct report.

It doesn’t take long before both managers and team members understand that this kind of management is the best way to maintain good relationships while encouraging accountability, high performance and goal achievement.

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The second episode of Chief Learning Officer’s new podcast, Voices of CLO, is now live!

This bi-monthly podcast hosts learning and development’s movers and shakers as they share their stories, their successes and setbacks, and what’s top of mind as we move forward into the future of learning and work.

This latest episode features a coaching-focused conversation between Chief Learning Officer’s editor-in-chief, Ashley St. John, and Judy Whitcomb, senior vice president – organizational strategy and effectiveness at Vi.

The following is an excerpt from CLO’s new podcast, Voices of CLO. To hear the full conversation, click here. 

Ashley St. John: Welcome Judy. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Judy Whitcomb: Thanks, Ashley. I’m thrilled to join you today and looking forward to our discussion.

Ashley: Yes, me too. I know we really want to focus our conversation around coaching today, but before we jump into it, let’s talk a little bit about your own professional journey and your role within Vi, your current organization, and how you’ve navigated to where you are today in your career.

Judy: You know, gosh, I’ve had a 30-plus year career, and prior to coming to VI, I spent 19 years of my career working at United Airlines in so many different roles: marketing, operations, human resources and learning. And all throughout my career, I had great mentors and coaches. And so as I continued my journey through human resources and learning, I always came back to learning and development. And so back in 2007, when I had this opportunity to join Vi, I had the opportunity to build a ground-up learning and development department. And one of my first realizations in that role was the fact that we had so many employees who didn’t have the same opportunities as our senior-level leaders in the organization.

So, I spent my first couple of years really looking at, you know, how do we offer learning and development programs for all levels? And in our company, we operate two separate businesses. We operate a hospitality side and a health care side. And, you know, how do you offer learning and development opportunities for, for housekeepers and cooks at the same time, nurses and sales professionals and accountants?

And so I was really committed to ensure that every employee, regardless of their role, had opportunities for learning and development. A few years after I had been in the chief learning officer role for Vi, I was asked to oversee HR and learning for the company, and I maintained that role until last year. And I made the decision to transition to a role that is focused strictly on organizational development and organizational strategy. So, I get the great opportunity to spend about 65 to 70 percent of my job coaching every day. It is the most fulfilling part of my job. It’s a fulfilling part of my career.

So that’s where I’m at today and how I got to the role I am in at Vi. I do a lot of work outside of Vi for coaching for not-for-profits and other organizations, but coaching and employee development are my North Star. I really enjoy it. It brings me energy every day.

To hear the full conversation, click here. This transcript has been edited and cut for clarity.

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Engaging your workforce in learning and development activities pre-pandemic was a relatively simple task. Employees would gather in a meeting space (either on-site or off-site) and work with each other and a trainer to learn the skills necessary to perform their job duties at the highest levels.

Beginning in 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world of work fundamentally changed. The inability to travel and employees shifting to working remotely put an abrupt halt on bringing everyone together to execute traditional training sessions, which continues to present challenges for chief learning officers and other training personnel for organizations across the country.

The question currently arising in many boardrooms is how to provide effective training under these altered circumstances because they show no signs of slowing down any time soon. The answer, in keeping with the trend toward allowing employees to “work from anywhere,” is to shift L&D opportunities to a “train from anywhere” approach. To facilitate this new mode of training, more organizations than ever before are seeking to use virtual reality technology to allow employees to train from where they are.

Shortcomings of traditional modalities

As the pandemic forced more workers to abandon offices for the relative safety of their own homes, the shortcomings of traditional training modalities became largely exposed. The ongoing training that kept employees engaged with career growth opportunities and skill enhancement became ever-more difficult to deliver.

After all, in-person training is impossible to do when employees can’t assemble in the same place, and one-size-fits-all training sessions no longer adequately meet the needs of employees or employers. CLOs sought innovative learning modalities to allow for customized training for employees even under the unusual conditions imposed by COVID-19. VR opened up new possibilities on both fronts.

The interactive nature of VR boosts retention of the information employees are tasked with learning. According to a study published in the journal “Research in Learning Technology,” using VR/AR training improved retention significantly, and learners reported they remained more engaged with the training materials than traditional instructor-led training or video training.

Taking advantage of VR/AR

The idea of “training from anywhere” was a new one to most CLOs. It requires out-of-the-box thinking and creative execution. Before VR technology became readily available, it was difficult to even envision such a future. Fortunately, advances in VR technology now allow organizations to reach employees wherever they are.

Not only can you use advanced hardware and headsets, but you can even access VR training content through a computer browser and even your smartphone. This flexibility ensures that all learners are comfortable with their learning experience while being immersed in training content.

This same flexibility extends to learning content creators as well. By using the same modality and tools, L&D professionals can deploy training that covers a wide range of topics — spanning from foundational soft skills to the more specialized technical skills.

Your L&D team can train your learners on communication and leadership by using VR practice role-play activities on their own. They can use a headset, computer or phone to learn key concepts and put them into practice in a safe learning space. 

Then with the same equipment, you can train a different team on equipment repair and allow them to explore equipment parts and how to fix common issues. This can also be done with a headset, computer or smartphone, and protects employees and equipment from potential damage while training.

It also allows them to repeat scenarios several times to hone their skills and build confidence that they know how to do their jobs proficiently and effectively.

Finally, VR training puts the training schedule in the hands of the employees and allows them to learn at their own pace in their own environment. It also allows them to repeat scenarios several times to hone their skills and build confidence that they know how to do their jobs proficiently and effectively.

 Giving learners the freedom to train where they want and when they want empowers them by putting them in charge of their training and career growth.

Updating training to meet the new reality

In a world where workers are no longer in the office all the time, innovative organizations are looking for opportunities to change the way they train their workers. One of the most effective emerging technologies is VR/AR training to meet the employees where they currently are and help them to retain the information more efficiently and effectively.

It’s time to update your training modalities to meet the moment and improve the way your employees are learning. VR/AR technology can help you build those bridges to a bright tomorrow.

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Today, Skillsoft Corp., a provider of learning and human capital management, announced its plans to sell its SumTotal business to Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc. for approximately $200 million.

Leaders in the learning and development industry say this marks a new era in L&D. “This pretty much ends the innovative phase of the Learning Management Systems market,” says corporate talent, HR and learning analyst Josh Bersin in commentary published today. 

Bersin says the SumTotal LMS software is the combination of many older LMS technologies and the LMS market has moved on to skills-based systems. “Companies no longer really want their LMS to operate as an employee-facing system,” Bersin says. “The traditional compliance-based LMS market, which SumTotal pioneered, has simply become a feature set of back-office software.”

CEO of Skillsoft Jeffrey Tarr says the divestiture of SumTotal will help align and simplify Skillsoft’s portfolio. “This transaction enables us to sharpen our focus on accelerating growth in our core business of providing customers transformative learning experiences,” Tarr says in a Skillsoft statement. 

This announcement follows Cornerstone’s recent acquisition of learning experience platform software EdCast, which was the first planned transaction by Cornerstone since joining the Clearlake portfolio in late 2021 in a $5.2 billion deal. Cornerstone has also acquired other legacy talent platforms including Saba, Lumesse and Halogen. 

Himanshu Palsule, CEO of Cornerstone, says the acquisition will aid in its mission to help

organizations and their people to develop future-proof skills, flexibly grow their careers, and achieve shared success. “The additional depth of expertise from SumTotal, particularly in high-consequence vertical markets, is an ideal complement to Cornerstone,” Palsule says in a news release. 

According to the news release, the transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2022, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. 

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Despite organizations signaling commitment, important questions remain around equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace. What does it mean to feel included at work? Why is cultivating DEI necessary for organizational success? And how might organizations make meaningful, authentic and sustainable changes to their DEI culture? 

Our work with clients over the past two years underscores an important message: Inclusion and belonging matter for your organization’s success and can be supported through changes to your workplace environment and culture. While sustainable culture change must start at the top and include organizational accountability, it must also involve all employees, collectively learning and working together to shift processes, behaviors and attitudes. 

Involving every member of your organization in the culture change process is the logical approach to take when embarking on your DEI journey. Your employees’ participation will not only give you the insights you need to make shifts in the right direction; showing them you value their input and are invested in their development can also foster feelings of inclusion and belonging from the outset. 

Measure current DEI perceptions to develop a roadmap for culture change 

Employees’ perceptions of the workplace are critical to decisions around remaining with an organization or taking a new position elsewhere. However, it can be challenging to assess current states of culture and levels of DEI at work. The Center for Creative Leadership  developed a DEI culture survey in partnership with a client — a leader in the global automotive technology industry — to capture a wide range of DEI-related factors.

Responses from more than 2,500 employees suggested that cultivating a DEI culture matters for retaining committed, energized and resilient employees. Employees’ perceptions of the company’s DEI culture accounted for 20-34 percent of reported burnout, work-life balance and turnover intentions. To illustrate, knowing how employees perceived their DEI culture predicted one-third of employees’ decisions to look for another job. Considering the cost of retention and burnout, DEI perceptions provide a critical lever in individual well-being and organizational success. 

Inclusion and belonging also consistently emerged as key predictors of turnover and burnout. Employees who perceived more inclusive workplace practices (e.g., recruiting and promoting a diverse workforce) reported less burnout and greater work-life balance. Similarly, employees who reported high belonging were less likely to report looking for other jobs or experiencing burnout. Responses suggest that employees’ perceptions of inclusion and belonging are crucial to supporting a happy, engaged and committed workforce. 

Changing your culture requires changing your actions

Simply assessing DEI in the workplace is not enough to create change; instead, measuring DEI is most powerful when it is used to guide strategic action. Based on findings from the survey, CCL and the client company partnered to develop a strategic plan for meaningful culture change. This action plan was powerful because it was data-based, tailored to the company’s organizational context and scalable. Action steps included: 

• Hiring a dedicated full-time diversity and inclusion director to augment efforts from the existing diversity and inclusion council.
• Founding employee resource groups to support employees with shared identities.
• Reviewing and revising policies and recruitment practices with an eye toward inclusion.
• Developing a deliberate communication strategy around DEI efforts at the company.
• Standing up a diversity and inclusion academy focused on scaling DEI training and development throughout a major portion of the organization.

The company’s diversity and inclusion academy plays an important role in offering training to all employees, exemplifying a model for fostering a learning culture and scaling efforts for the greatest impact. Democratizing access to DEI development — not just a select few — is a powerful tool to address the mindset, skillset and toolset needed for their entire employee population to lead with DEI in mind.

Walk your talk by democratizing access to learning and development opportunities

Every organization is unique. As an L&D leader, how can you ensure that all — not just some — of your employees can access opportunities to promote inclusion and belonging at your organization? Below are recommendations for fostering equitable access to opportunities to learn and develop, backed by recent CCL research on their importance.  

1. Ensure equitable access. Leadership development is often only offered to select high-potential employees, limiting options to scale and sustain change. In two studies with more than 24,000 young professionals (18-30 year olds) from 62 countries, 60 percent reported that leadership opportunities for young people are inequitable. Democratizing access requires an honest examination of who is involved and why. Ensure equitable access by practicing: 

• Inclusive nominations. Be intentional about who is nominated to participate in DEI programs when there is limited space. Nominate employees who bring a range of experience levels, backgrounds and expertise. Intentionally reach out to employees participating in ERGs or performing informal leadership duties. Consider whether leadership opportunities are available to employees who hold different social identities, from sexual orientation and veteran status to ability level and age.  
• Self-selection opportunities. Offer development opportunities to everyone, not just those who already hold leadership roles or have openly expressed interest in leading. Opportunities to engage in meaningful development opportunities can promote value, autonomy and trust. 

2. Embrace differences. Teams and organizations with greater diversity are more productive, accurate and innovative and better problem solvers. Embrace differences by centering:

• Different perspectives. People tend to form relationships with others who are similar. Intentionally forming development cohorts that span functions, geographies, leader levels, generations and backgrounds creates opportunities for perspective taking and learning. Consider connecting leaders who wouldn’t normally interact and construct opportunities for boundary spanning. Also, advocate for trainers and facilitators who bring disparate backgrounds, expertise and points of view. 
• Sponsorship, allyship and mentorship. Sponsorship, allyship and mentorship can help employees at all stages of their careers, from building professional networks to creating promotion opportunities. Sponsors can also create opportunities for challenging assignments and heat experiences, which CCL research suggests are fodder for growth. However, access to these important relationships is rarely equitable. Partner with leaders across the organization to create sponsors, allies and mentors for underestimated populations. Consider who is being mentored, by whom and at what points in their career.

3. Enlist managers. Leaders have been faced with managing important paradoxes during COVID-19, including fostering inclusion and belonging in an increasingly hybrid world. This challenge is further complicated as some employees return to the office full-or part-time or remain remote. Provide your managers with the right tools for managing teams by emphasizing:

• Psychological safety. More than 62 percent of senior leadership teams demonstrate significant variability in their feelings of psychological safety, which predicts team outcomes like performance, conflict and respect. Create opportunities for teams to explore, discuss and address psychological safety at work. Equip managers with training, support and resources to hold important and difficult conversations. Solicit feedback from managers on supports, barriers and nuances to psychological safety at your organization. 
• Moving beyond bias. To support a more inclusive work environment, organizations must move beyond bias awareness training to provide managers with concrete strategies to counteract bias. Equip managers with research-backed strategies for themselves and the people they lead to recognize and replace biased thinking and actions. 

4. Extend meaningful opportunities to promote DEI. DEI is not the responsibility of a single leader, council or department. All employees — across business units and leader levels — have a role to play in culture change. Extend opportunities to participate by communicating:

• Clear expectations. Organizations and organizational cultures are ultimately driven by people. Make clear that promoting inclusion and belonging is a shared responsibility and articulate the role that everyone is expected to play. Then, provide development, support and resources to enable all employees to actively build a culture of DEI. 
• The importance of action. In our DEI culture survey, we found that what employees said they believed about DEI was only moderately related to what they had actually done to promote DEI in the past 90 days. Create opportunities for employees to take DEI-related action, then ensure that all employees are aware and have access to those opportunities. Model walking your talk from the top and consider highlighting exemplars of DEI in action. 

Inclusion and belonging affects all employees, regardless of where they sit or who they are. So, why would learning how to foster an inclusive environment be limited to a small group of employees? Extending an invitation to all employees to help build an inclusive work environment, along with providing opportunities for them to develop personally and professionally, embodies the spirit of inclusion and belonging. Unite employees in the collective process of culture change by promoting widespread participation and utilizing scalable, equitable solutions.

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Measuring learning has always been important, but in today’s remote and hybrid workplaces, it’s essential. You can develop, design and deliver the best training programs, but if you can’t show stakeholders across the organization that it actually “worked,” then you’re missing a crucial part of the story. Today’s remote and hybrid workplaces demonstrate that it’s more important than ever to use structured and intentional measurement methods, due to the reduced visibility and increased flexibility of our workforce. If business leaders were skeptical before about how in-person training impacted behaviors in the office, imagine how skeptical they might be now as training takes place from home in our pajamas.

Showing training results under these conditions has never been so important for learning and development. While the training environments have changed, companies still need to show that every dollar spent was a good investment. And how can we say training, or the L&D function it comes out of, is valuable if we never measure its effectiveness?

Today, very few organizations do a good job of measuring and reporting the impact of their learning initiatives, which only perpetuates the question — does training really work? Does it impact employee behaviors on the job, and does it impact the business bottom line? Respect in the boardroom ultimately comes from being able to prove your contributions to the organization, so for this reason, chief learning officers need to make measurement a priority and they need to get it right.

As we continue to face an unprecedented new work environment, marked by largely remote and hybrid work, the only thing that can keep us confident training is having an impact is measuring the effectiveness of our solutions. This new organizational landscape requires new thinking on how best to create and maintain a “quantified workplace” where measurement allows us to analyze peak performance, assess which delivery modes are most effective and compare which programs drive the biggest performance impact.

In general, it’s about leveling up from what we’ll call “best intentions,” such as saying you’re “all in” on diversity, equity and inclusion training, but not having a systematic way to measure the actual behavioral and organizational impact of your DEIB-focused initiatives. Similarly, many organizations have become skilled at creating training that is engaging, with a real “wow factor” — but again, they need to measure the impact of that training down the road, on both behavior and performance, in order to tell a compelling value story.

Beyond a dramatically changing work environment, we must also contend with a tumultuous world economy where every bit of capital invested matters. Here, you have to justify your budget to fellow senior leaders and be able to track ROI on at least some of your high investment programs. If you don’t measure them, you don’t know whether they hit the mark or whether you should continue to invest in them.

These are just some of the reasons why measurement matters now more than ever.

Below, I offer five mutually reinforcing best practices to help you harness the power of L&D measurement in your organization. They are based on efforts we’ve made in our own and client organizations, and on conversations with established assessment experts.

Measure your baseline. If you don’t know where you started, you can’t know how far you’ve come. Similarly, if you don’t know where you are, it’s hard to think about where you want to be. That’s why it’s critical to use a strong, comprehensive pre-training assessment to uncover which skills and behaviors you want to improve, and preemptively map how those behaviors will impact the business metrics that matter. Whether it’s competence with financial strategy or creating an inclusive work environment, pre-training assessment can help yield a more targeted development plan for leaders, as well as boosting long-term impact on the organization.

Use a forward-thinking model. A great measurement model can capture not only current training impact, but also tell you how to increase that impact in the future. For example, a leveled-up Kirkpatrick/Phillips model can enable you to assess the impact of training programs on six levels, from Level 1, “Did they like it?” to “Are they doing anything different or better?” to “Was it worth the investment?” all the way to Level 6, “What maximizes the training impact?”  This last level helps you understand and quantify what environmental factors back on the job enable participants to get the most transfer and impact from their learning experience. This helps you boost the effectiveness of learning and launch smarter solutions in the future.

Harness technology. Technology can help you systematize measurement and improve the behavior change and business impact that results from training. This might be through sustainability tools such as Slack integrations, in-house apps or technology-enabled internal social networks. For example, some learners will take advantage of post-training refreshers or pushes provided by technology (what we might call “bursts and boosts”) while others may not, leading to fairly dramatic differences in behavior and performance outcomes. The impact of these technology-driven tools are important to track and measure for stronger ROI. So, think hard about how to make the intersection of learning, technology and measurement work for you, and seek out the right platforms and tools.

Follow 80/20. This applies to both how you deliver training and how you measure its impact. It’s the idea that across almost all domains 20 percent of inputs drive 80 percent of the value or effect. That means that of a typical 8-hour classroom-based training experience, about 1.5 hours of content will yield most of the impact. So, a 90-minute Zoom event can likely take the place of a full-day training, with much less expense, inconvenience and exhaustion. Research also tells us that powerful bite-size training in intervals can lead to 50 percent more effective learning transfer than bombarding participants with hours and hours of content all at once.  Similarly, you can use measurement to try to capture the 20 percent of those larger L&D initiatives that people are responding to, and look for ways to shorten, sharpen and scale that even further.

Don’t be afraid to trumpet your impact story. The two biggest obstacles to measuring training effectiveness is the fear that stakeholders won’t believe your results, or worse yet the results will be negative. For these reasons, most L&D professionals either never get started, or fail to communicate any results internally or externally. This is especially sad because when asked, more than 90 percent of senior business leaders in top organizations around the world want these L&D results, while less than 10 percent said they ever get any. A few good case studies, with a few select programs can close this gap and transform the way business leaders and stakeholders perceive learning initiatives in your company.

I urge you to think about these opportunities and use these practices within your own organizations. Doing so proactively, and with care for context, will surely benefit not only your learning function, but your entire company. And that’s a great outcome by any measure.

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Agile and flexible working is non-negotiable. Employees are likely to quit if they don’t get it. We’re also in a massive skills shortage, with CEOs rating it as one of the top five risks to their business.

As the war for talent continues, the C-suite is relying on strained human resource leaders to deliver learning and development strategies to fill their skill gaps.

With this kind of pressure, it’s easy for L&D and HR managers to fall into the trap of investing in “trendy” new tools or policies that look like a quick fix, but produce weak results. It’s easy to overlook the underlying factors that are critical to successful hybrid learning — trust and accountability.

To achieve hybrid learning success, employers must understand hybrid working

Hybrid working is disrupting myths that working from the office every day is essential for employees to perform well. A study of 21 remote teams and 22 office-based teams found the performance differences — including innovation, efficiency, and quality of work — are minimal.

However, human costs are high. Teams spread across different locations experience higher levels of task conflict — disagreements about what work they are doing. They also experience greater interpersonal conflicts; disputes about how the team works together to achieve their goals.

To solve these conflicts, employees are having 13 percent more meetings, extending their working day by 8 percent. If you’re working a 9-5 job, that’s an extra 40 minutes a day.

Employees and employers are still divided on hybrid

When individuals and their employers were asked how much time staff should be spending in the office, there was a 20 percent difference in the answers.

Companies want more in-person collaboration because it sparks faster decisions, enables teams to adapt to change better and learn from each other.

But many professionals say they work better from home due to the increased flexibility, ability to focus and better work-home balance.

This divide can’t be ignored. Employers that fail to rectify this gap with their workforce will see:   

• Key employees resign: 46 percent are already planning to make a major career pivot.
• Increased cynicism to business change: Remote employee tracking systems has made employees nearly two times more likely to pretend to be working.
• Reduced employee trust and job satisfaction: One in five global survey respondents say their employer doesn’t care about their work-life balance.

To close the hybrid divide, build a culture of trust and accountability

Together, trust and accountability create psychological safety for hybrid workers and is vital for maximizing their learning.

Without fear of condemnation, people want to share their ideas, opinions or questions.They need the room to make mistakes, and the guidance and accountability to assess where they went wrong and take the steps to resolve it.

Getting the balance right between trust and accountability is critical. When one is higher than the other, you get either micromanagement — which ruins employee morale — or social loafing, where people stop contributing. And people tend to do the bare minimum to get by when there is an absence of both.  

Therefore, leaders should ensure their hybrid strategy includes: 

• Setting a clear hybrid narrative: Tell the story of the value of hybrid working and learning and how it will empower every person.   
• Prioritizing knowledge sharing: Create spaces and tools for people to share ideas, questions, successes and failures. 
• Holding every person accountable: From casual one-to-one discussions between managers and employees to weekly checklists, make everyone feel a part of making hybrid learning successful.

In hybrid learning, bite-size is the right size

Hybrid working has changed the way employees think about learning. Formal learning needs to easily fit into an individual’s day, making it easier for learners to engage with their learning, and they will feel more motivated, trusted and accountable.

Research suggests that short, sharp training sessions delivered in spaced out chunks giving people the information when they’re most engaged is the most effective approach to creating a sustained change to behavior.

A distributed bite size approach results in 17 percent greater transfer than traditional learning methods without blowing HR’s budget.

The key is to integrate three phases into your learning experience that gets, on average, 87 percent of people to apply what they learn in the classroom back at work: 

• Engage: Get people to care about the problem that the learning solves. This includes making learning relevant, timely and applicable.
• Participate: Connect people with others who can help them to learn and solve problems.  Provide tips, techniques and practices that they can experiment with and are instantly applicable.
• Activate: Make it easy for people to apply their learning to the real world.

Use the office to expand social interactions and relationships

Whether it’s having a quick chat with a colleague by the coffee machine or popping over to your manager’s desk and asking a few questions, informal learning is fantastic for developing skills, generating new ideas and building great relationships with others.

It’s one of the key advantages of employees being in the office, and employers must ensure they are accelerating informal learning by breaking down the barriers to individual and team communication.

Since the start of the pandemic, remote working has led many people to work in silos and the amount of time people spend interacting with different people outside of their team or department has diminished. This dampens innovation, creativity, communication and productivity.

Therefore, leaders need to create an environment that encourages employees to expand their social interactions with people across the company, not just in their usual work circle.

To achieve this, employers can use mentoring, reverse mentoring and online learning communities to build unity and share knowledge, as well as web platforms like SharePoint, Slack or Confluence.

By using these behavioral science-backed practices, leaders will build a hybrid learning approach that maximizes impact for everyone thrust into a world of remote working and hybrid learning.

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Amid America’s reckoning with racial injustice and the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities of color, companies are exploring how to better find, recruit and nurture talent from long-underrepresented backgrounds. Still largely left out of the conversation, however, are the millions of non-native English speakers who live and work in the United States.

Nearly 20 million U.S. adults have limited proficiency in English and an estimated 80 percent of refugees do not speak the language well upon their arrival in the country. Unable to fully convey their skills and backgrounds, and facing the deeply entrenched biases of companies hesitant to hire anyone not fluent in English, nearly 2 million college-educated immigrants and refugees are unemployed or underemployed in the United States. 

Working-age speakers of other languages earn as much as 40 percent less than their English-speaking peers. The pandemic has only widened these gaps, with foreign-born workers experiencing sharper job losses than those born in the U.S. Hispanic workers – one-third of whom primarily speak Spanish rather than English – faced devastating job losses as COVID-19 roiled the U.S. economy. 

A culture of care begins with ensuring every employee feels their whole self is being supported and given the tools to thrive, including our non-native English speakers. Unfortunately, too few of these vital members of the workforce are given anywhere near this level of crucial support. 

This is not only a moral imperative, but also an economic one. A recent report from JFF found immigrant workers deliver a massive boost to both individual businesses and the U.S. economy as a whole. Their economic contributions account for nearly $2 trillion of total U.S. GDP. They are the only talent pool growing at a pace quickly enough to offset the impending retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. 

In the United States, 97 percent of net workforce growth by 2030 will be immigrants and their children. Over the next 15 years, immigrants and refugees are projected to add about 18 million working-age people to the workforce. Providing greater support for these workers is critical for the health and sustainability of our economy. 

Only 4 percent of English language learners have access to instruction, which presents employers with a large opportunity to improve the lives of their workers who speak another language. The first step toward cultivating a more inclusive workplace for these employees is ensuring that English is no longer a communication hurdle. Indeed, the benefits of English language training are clear – English proficiency is associated with increased wages, career advancement, improved performance as well as employee retention.

Some employers are starting to recognize the power of providing language learning as a core upskilling benefit alongside other training and education offerings. Amazon’s Career Choice program, for example, is designed to empower employees to learn new skills for successful careers at Amazon or elsewhere. The program provides a variety of educational opportunities, including full college tuition and industry certifications designed to lead to in-demand jobs. In March, the company announced it would now offer personalized language learning to its hourly employees as part of the program to increase access to the foundational skills that many adults need before beginning credential programs.

Amazon joins other major companies such as Chobani, Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe, Target and Walmart in discovering just how integral language training is to the advancement of their equity and training goals. They are learning that speaking a language other than English has little to do with an employee’s abilities or expertise. Providing non-native English speakers with the support and training they need allows employers to build and pull from entirely new pipelines of promising talent, both internally and externally. 

Our recent survey of workers at several of these companies found that the programs are unlocking new career opportunities and boosting self-confidence. About 80 percent of those participating in the language training reported achieving career goals, including pay raises and promotions. Nearly 60 percent of learners reported improving their communication with colleagues. 

By removing English as a barrier, employers can provide immigrants, refugees and speakers of other languages a stronger path toward advancing their careers and achieving social mobility. And they can begin to extend a culture of care to all of their workers, not just those who are native English speakers. 

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Cultivating a culture of belonging is crucial to ensuring that workplaces are diverse, equitable, and inclusive, and that employees can perform at their peak to achieve bottom-line results. But this is an ambitious goal these days, especially in a world of work still feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two years after the start of the pandemic, COVID-related stress continues to take a toll on the mental health of workers. The prevalence of remote and hybrid work models makes it more difficult for businesses to address the myriad needs of their employees. Three-quarters of remote workers say they struggle to interact regularly with their colleagues, and researchers have long known that remote work can dramatically increase feelings of loneliness. Only about a third of U.S. workers say they feel enthusiastic and committed to their work.

It has never been more important for companies to create and maintain a culture of belonging so employees feel safe, supported and valued. One recent survey found that compared to employees who don’t believe they fit in at work, employees who feel a strong sense of belonging are a lot more likely to perform better and significantly less likely to quit or take sick days. Another survey found that more than half of employees who quit their jobs during the pandemic didn’t feel valued by their boss or their company or lacked a sense of belonging.

Talent and learning leaders have a role more critical than ever to play in bringing people together, whether they work side-by-side in an office or only see each other on video screens because they work at home or across the country. Here are four ways companies can equip managers and employees with the skills they need to ensure their workplace is a caring environment where everyone can thrive:

Gather feedback from employees. Creating a culture of belonging is all about people, but laying this foundation will require gathering and understanding data. This vital effort starts with listening to what employees say they value about belonging, diversity, equity and inclusion. Companies should conduct ongoing pulse check-ins to collect information over time. Then they should take a deep look at the employee insight they get at the organizational and divisional levels to determine where they should focus their training efforts.

Train everyone on unconscious bias. Unconscious biases can hinder a culture of belonging. In many instances, these biases lead people to behave in ways that can undermine efforts to build safe and supportive environments necessary for strong teamwork, idea generation and risk-taking.

Unconscious bias training can provide practical ways to minimize these biases and foster both belonging and psychological safety at work. Leaders can turn their workplaces into environments where everyone truly feels a sense of belonging and appreciation by replacing superficial, one-off training with longer-term, more substantial efforts that help people understand their own unconscious biases, change their behavior and measure their progress.

Coach your leaders and managers to take more emotional risks. A culture of belonging provides employees with a feeling of psychological safety at work. Employees should feel like they can share their whole selves with their co-workers and managers.

Before employees can do that, they look to their leaders and managers for guidance on workplace rules for conduct, behavior and interpersonal relationships. They also turn to them for subtle cues on the boundaries for what is acceptable to share about their personal lives — including details about religion, sexual preference or orientation, disability, veteran status, or health conditions. 

It’s critical for managers to maintain professional boundaries when discussing their own personal lives or the private lives of their employees. But they can also demonstrate the sort of encouraging and compassionate leadership that cultivates a culture of belonging by expressing empathy and solidarity with employees experiencing challenges beyond the workplace.  

Shift from recognition to appreciation. Employee recognition is crucial. It drives employee retention, engagement and performance. But hiring managers should teach the entire organization to do a better job of not only praising the end result but also showing appreciation for an individual’s unique gifts and strengths.

Too often, company recognition efforts only highlight the tasks or projects that employees have completed or the successes they have achieved. Appreciation, on the other hand, champions the specific attributes of the person who reached a goal or completed a project.

Companies should celebrate each individual who contributes to the organization. Which parts of themselves did they have to bring out to get a project done? Were they creative? Did they take risks? Did they stretch or grow or overcome a difficult challenge to complete a challenging task? These are the key questions to ask and answer so employees know they’re valued for their whole selves that they bring to work.

Fortunately, there has been an explosion of new tools and technologies that can assist HR, talent, and learning and development professionals in developing a sense of belonging at work. For example, national nonprofit Jobs for the Future published a sweeping analysis called Thrive@Work that reviewed more than 1,000 companies and tech startups focused on improving the experience of its youngest employees. It found that many of these firms had a special emphasis on improving company culture and employee belonging at work. 

If talent and L&D managers appreciate the strengths and superpowers of individuals more often, employees will feel more confident about deploying their unique skills and abilities in ways that benefit the organization. Because HR professionals sit at the center of an organization, they have the responsibility to lead efforts to build a culture of belonging by integrating these concepts into every facet of the business and modeling these changes for both managers and employees. Ensuring that employees feel that their whole selves belong within an organization will go a long way toward recruiting and retaining a diverse and powerful workforce, and creating a workplace where talented people will want to be.

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When George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officers in 2020, it triggered difficult conversations about racism, inclusion and bias in a lot of board rooms. These include Accenture, the global professional services firm with nearly 700,000 employees worldwide.

“We already had a lot of diversity and inclusion programs in place for women, LGBTQ+ communities and ethnically diverse talent,” says Amanda McCalla-Leacy, global managing director of inclusion and diversity at Accenture in the U.K. “But when George Floyd was killed, it spurred new discussions.” 

Most of the existing programs focused on big picture issues, like pay equity, diversity in hiring and retention among key demographics. “We were good at staying strong in these areas, but we needed to work on the more nuanced issues,” McCalla-Leacy says.

Her team started talking about systemic racism and how it can inhibit career progress among Black talent, even in the most forward-thinking organizations. This would be a critical issue to address for the company to meet its public goal of increasing the percentage of Black people at all levels of the business by 2025.

So they began brainstorming ways to address these barriers. It was the natural next step for Accenture, which is often lauded for its diversity and inclusion efforts. The company has been listed among the Top 50 Companies for Diversity 16 years in a row by Diversity Inc., which vets companies based on their human capital diversity metrics, leadership accountability and other notable diversity measures.

The U.K. leadership team began exploring the day-to-day decisions that can embed unconscious bias in the workplace, like how teams get selected, who receives coaching and how individuals receive attribution for a successful project or share of sales. “A lot of women and minority ethnic groups are at a disadvantage in these situations, but no one talks about it,” McCalla-Leacy says.

When these events go unaddressed, it can thwart D&I efforts by creating a culture where cis-gendered white males get all the support and opportunities required to fast-track them into leadership roles.

In 2021,  Accenture U.K.’s leadership team set out to fix this problem through Engage! The Engage! program brings together Accenture U.K.’s high-potential Black managers and supervisors, alongside their line managers, sponsors and Black leaders they work with, into a single leadership development program. 

Culture change in ecosystem

Engage! Is not meant to be an employee resource group or a training program about unconscious bias. Its goal is to promote inclusive behavior and to support rising Black leaders through mentoring, career planning and training to help them achieve their goals. 

The structure of Engage! is in response to research that demonstrated how appropriate career advice and sponsorship make a significant difference in outcomes. 

“It is a 360-degree leadership journey — meaning we are focused on producing culture change by targeting the employee ecosystem,” McCalla-Leacy says. “The goal of the program is to drive cultural change and foster an environment in which all our leaders can thrive.”

The pilot program was launched in December 2021. It included approximately 25 Black managers and senior managers, 25 people leads and 25 sponsors from across the U.K. organization. Richard McGowan, senior manager of the Google Cloud Practice, was one of the high performers invited to participate.

He admits to being a little skeptical at first: “We have talked about the need to do something about these issues for a long time, but I had never seen it go anywhere.” 

However, when he heard about the goals of Engage! and the senior leaders who had agreed to be sponsors, he decided to participate. “Everyone involved was energized to do the right thing,” he says. 

Planning your journey

The program lasts nine months and involves a regular cadence of monthly meetings using material pulled from books and research, along with internal company metrics and external trend data. These include: 

• A monthly all-group meeting where participants discuss broad topics about corporate politics and issues around microaggressions, workplace bias and representation. 
• A monthly meeting with journey teams made up of smaller cohorts of participants who share their stories and support each other’s journey planning activities.
• A monthly one-on-one between participants and their sponsors to talk about personal needs and set goals.
• A monthly one-on-one between participants and their team leads to share what’s happening in the program and how it ties to their day-to-day performance and long-term career goals.

McGowan found the journey team meetings to be the most impactful part of the program. All of his journey team members had very different experiences in life and work and were at different points in their careers. 

“I was able to talk to people about what they had achieved and what they did to get there,” he says. 

It was a supportive experience that helped him start to think differently about his own goals and personal journey. 

“At the start, for me it was about money,” McGowan says. “But as we challenged ourselves to think about the impact we make, it became about becoming a role model for the next generation of people of Black heritage. It took a lot of introspection to get there.”

Eye opening

Neil Wetherell also found the experience to be enlightening. Wetherell is a managing director for Accenture Technology and McGowan’s sponsor for the program. He and McCalla-Leacy were among the senior leaders selected to sponsor Engage! participants. Wetherell knew McGowan already, and was already an active coach and mentor at Accenture.

Like McGowan, he wasn’t sure at first what the intent of the program was, but after looking at statistics showing the impact of unconscious bias on high-performing people of Black heritage, he knew it was something he wanted to be a part of. “We’ve spent a number of years trying to make sure Accenture is an inclusive place to work for everyone,” he says. “To do that, we have to make it a place where everyone can thrive.”

He liked that the Engage! program was proactive in helping individuals achieve their career goals and how it shifted the conversation away from what Black leaders should do to overcome bias and focused instead on what sponsors can do better. 

“It is changing the narrative about what people of Black heritage hear,” McGowan notes. “It’s not about what we need to do to fix ourselves. It is what can the organization do as a collective to solve these problems.”

Difficult conversations

Before the program began, sponsors were given training on what topics to cover, how to have conversations with sponsees about their experiences, how to provide feedback and how to foster those relationships. 

“You can’t give constructive feedback without building a close relationship,” McCalla-Leacy says. “When you build trust first, the experience of giving and receiving feedback is vastly enhanced.” 

At first, Wetherell admits that he was a little nervous to hear from McGowan and other participants about their experiences with racism in the workplace. But the experience was enlightening. 

“It opened my eyes and caused me to work on my own unconscious bias,” he says.

These conversations also helped Wetherell better understand what McGowan needed from him and how he could help him create his journey plan and find opportunities to advance. 

He wasn’t alone. “All of the sponsors came in wanting to learn, and they left feeling like the experience was transformational,” McCalla-Leacy says. “We gained a lot of understanding.”

The program appears to have had the desired impact. While it is still only the first cohort, McCalla-Leacy reports that many participants have received promotions to senior manager roles, and one moved into a managing director role. The company’s employee survey also shows  an increase in satisfaction among employees of Black heritage. “We are raising awareness around the topic,” she says.

Engage! was considered such a success that Accenture is now looking at ways to expand it to leaders in the U.S. and to mid-level Black employees who are still early in their career journeys. 

“When you do a pilot like this, you have to ask, ‘how can we expand it to others?’” Wetherell says. 

How to get Engaged!

For companies interested in launching their own version of Engage!, McGowan suggests starting small with a pilot program before launching it company-wide. That way leaders can see what the program requires and what impact it can have. They can use that data to help secure funding and convince more sponsors to get involved.

Leadership support is also key. “When people see that our U.K. CEO is a sponsor and attends all the sessions, that has a huge impact on everyone,” McCalla-Leacy says. 

It’s a small time commitment that can generate desired results and help companies tackle some of the hidden bias that otherwise deters great employees from doing their best work, she says. It’s one more way that Accenture’s leadership is demonstrating a commitment to diversity and inclusion in a way that drives real results.

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According to a recent report from LinkedIn Learning, it is becoming clearer than ever that learning and development must be central to your organization. In fact, 34 percent of employees who left their previous job did so because they believed they weren’t offered enough opportunities for career growth.

Many organizations focus on training when their employees are first hired but don’t realize that they should be developing training throughout the entire employee lifecycle — from the time they are hired until the day they retire. Employees want organizations who invest in their growth through career blueprints and ongoing development.

The key to ongoing training success is designing and championing an L&D program with clear career guideposts and steps to reach each milestone. This helps you create long-term employees who drive measurable business results.

Key areas of training to guide the employee lifecycle

Simply put, the employee lifecycle is the journey an employee takes with your organization from the time they’re hired until their last day of service with you. There are three key areas of training that can help guide an employee through their career at your organization:

• Thorough and effective onboarding, which gives employees the tools they need to succeed from day one.
• Developing soft skills, which provides them with skills they can use wherever their career takes them, from foundational topics like communication to more sophisticated leadership training.
• Upskilling and reskilling technical skills, which give your employees the ability to stay current with the latest technology and organizational processes as they apply to their work. 

Throughout the entire employee lifecycle, L&D leaders and their teams should support their organization’s effort to  prioritize developing skills that will support long-term employee growth. Such an approach keeps employees engaged and focused on reaching your organization’s goals. In addition, the investment in training at different stages of the employee lifecycle reinforces the value of your workforce and their long-term development.

Starting with a training needs analysis

To fully understand the ongoing training needs of your employees, your organization should begin with a training needs analysis. The importance of a TNA can’t be underestimated because it will help you understand what performance gaps exist and how they can be addressed with targeted training content. 

A TNA often begins with a comparison of performance trends and business goals to see how well they currently align. When conducting an analysis, your team should be able to determine:

• Short- and long-term business goals.
• What your organization is doing well.
• What improvements are needed.

By widening your analysis scope to not only include your training goals but also your overall business goals, you’ll discover the most effective course of action and effectively prioritize your learners’ training needs. A thorough TNA will allow your organization to avoid costly mistakes by ensuring training is focused on the right areas.

Your next steps

Once your organization completes a TNA, your L&D team will have the necessary information to create a customized L&D program that addresses your specific training needs. Guide your organization toward adopting a blended learning program, which could include elements of e-learning, virtual reality, augmented reality, instructor-led training, virtual-instructor-led training or some combination. Such a blended learning approach has the potential to engage learners in a variety of ways and keep them focused on new, more targeted learning solutions.

But, as we already know, simply creating an L&D program isn’t enough. You must follow up with your learners once the finite training is complete because the Ebbinghaus “forgetting curve” indicates that learners forget up to 90 percent of what they learned unless a strategy of learning reinforcement is employed.

Learning reinforcement is a strategy that sandwiches formal training with pre-work and post-work tasks (reading informational articles, journaling or printing out a job aid, for example). Pre-work activities introduce training topics and prepare learners for the primary training, while post-work activities solidify the learning by encouraging learners to think about how they’ll apply what they’ve learned to their role.

Such strategies have been shown to improve knowledge retention and help employees put what they’ve learned into practice. It ultimately leads to sustained behavioral change that positively affects an organization.

Fortunately, this process is not something you need to do alone. There are partners you can rely on to help you elevate your organization’s training programs and build career-long educational opportunities for your employees. Once you’ve accomplished those goals, you will see significant improvements in employee retention and will be able to more effectively reach your ongoing business objectives.

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Change has become a constant in most organizations. Most of us feel the impact daily, it seems there’s no escape and it’s not going to stop soon. That’s why we must adopt new ways of thinking, working and learning — we all need new skills.

Senior teams are looking to us in learning and development to help them move forward with the challenge of workforce upskilling by creating a culture where learning and working are integrated across the whole organization. This gives us new opportunities to influence the business, so long as we embrace organizational reality.

Our clients at Stellar Labs, many of them L&D leaders like you, are looking for new frameworks to help them steer a course through these challenging but exciting times. They want a strong DNA for learning that is people focused, pragmatic, evidence-based and enables them to tackle the challenges of digitalization, flexible working and an increasingly global and diverse workforce. 

L&D leaders want to influence multiple stakeholders at a time when operational pressures are high. Many  want to initiate self-directed learning but also keep the human connections that promote a successful workforce. And like you, they want to be credible and professional and able to show the value they bring to an organization. 

In this article, I will explore real stories through the lens of the DNA for an effective learning culture and discover practical examples you can apply in your own organization.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that we can adapt quickly and effectively when needed. But it has left some people feeling lost, tired and exhausted, whereas others are exhilarated by the opportunities. This was experiential learning in action. But to learn from an experience, we need to reflect, take stock, identify what we’ve learned and what we need to do differently for the future.

So, how is the learning culture where you work now? What’s stayed the same? What’s changed?

Arie de Geus, former CEO of Shell, said “The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”   

Now is the perfect time to examine your learning culture and work on it afresh; it’s alive and ready to continue its evolution.

We recently did a Linkedin survey to find out what are considered the most valuable elements of a learning culture. It came as no surprise to find that most respondents thought the vital, universal ingredient is people.

You need all your people for a strong learning culture; it’s not just L&D and employees who are involved in learning. Proximus, Belgium’s biggest telecom company, were surprised at what a learning stakeholder analysis revealed. They anticipated that L&D, HR and the people in the training were involved but with some careful questioning, that list became longer. 

They recognized every single person in the business needs to learn, from the CEO to the most junior recruit. Everyone is a learner when “the times they are a-changin’.”

The C-suite had already identified the upskilling challenge and established that all their business-critical processes needed to change, including sales, product development, operations and recruitment, etc. The balance of skills is shifting as the requirements for different ways of working change and there are new skills they currently lack altogether or are in very short supply. This was a benefit to L&D because the C-suite already recognized the business value of effective training but additionally they want to be able to measure the impact and return on their investment.

In an effective learning culture there isn’t anyone who’s not involved in some way.  Are all your people pulling in the same direction? 

Managers and supervisors are a critical factor in motivating people to get trained despite the challenges it creates for them in operational downtime. Crucially, they are also best placed to find opportunities to apply new skills in day to day situations. Some people think learning happens in training programs, but it really happens when people practice what they learned in the context of real work until they reach desired performance levels. Training must be connected to operational reality.

Social learning is also essential, such as buddying up, mentoring or coaching. They can also learn from the experience. Imagine the value of cascading your new knowledge and skills to your teammates so they can also develop and a most effective way to learn is to teach.

HR monitors and measures performance after training, which also means finance plays a part. How are people rewarded for developing themselves and the organization?

Follow the science

Why is science important for learning — surely we all know how to learn and many know how to teach? The trouble is, most people or organizations don’t know enough about the science of learning to learn or train effectively. Millions of dollars are wasted every year on ineffective training with no impact or return on investment.

Learning happens in our brains and bodies and if you’re designing or delivering learning interventions with impact, then what you’re actually doing is rewiring people’s neuroplastic brains.  

When people talk about changed behaviors, upskilling or knowledge acquisition, what they really mean, at a fundamental level, are changes to the structure, chemistry and function of our brain. These become our perceptions, memories, behaviors, habits and skills. When you don’t know any of the science, your training interventions are more likely to be hit and miss. Your training can become much more effective and armed with some proven tools to drive attention, build memories and create new habits.

We’re not claiming that every chief learning officer  employs a team of neuroscientists on the spot. But someone in the team needs to be able to challenge ineffective practices and have the knowledge and skills to apply evidence-based principles.

We recommend you don’t try to change everything at once – that would be an almost impossible challenge. Instead, take it step by step to move towards evidence-based learning. IKEA asked us to audit a selection of their e-learning offerings to see how they can apply a more science-based approach to topics ranging from food safety to facilitation skills.  Whilst the quality of the learning experience was already high, they recognised it wasn’t improving performance because people quickly forgot what they’d learned.  Their first improvement is to implement spaced repetition  into  e-learning courses as a first step to help people remember processes or product features for the longer term. 

Take charge of the process

Learning is an iterative process of change in the brain and body. It takes effort and time — there  isn’t an easily inserted learning microchip yet. However, you can greatly increase the likelihood that effort and time result in improved personal and organizational performance by following evidence-based processes.

The learning process is universal. For a learner to change the way they work they must build long term memories, behaviors and habits. They need to:

• feel motivated.
• experience memorable, sensory, emotional input. 
• explore and experiment.
• practice regularly with feedback.
• have support and guidance.
• apply new skills at work.
• regularly repeat, recall and reflect. 

To successfully transfer skills L&D must follow a process to apply specific transfer levers into the design to support learners and create an ecosystem where the organization plays its part. 

Organizations like AstraZeneca, Novartis and Melexis are working on initiatives to give more autonomy to learners themselves. But it’s no good directing people to the LMS and simply saying “There are some great courses here,” because content is only the start of the learning process. Many people don’t know how they really learn, falling back on ineffective techniques like highlighting their notes or watching videos. This is why learning agility is quickly becoming a key skill for the future because it underpins how well you’ll learn everything else in life.

Champion learning with technology

Technology has always been an enabler of learning, from the invention of the pencil up to the most sophisticated artificial intelligence-driven, virtual reality options of our modern world.  Even now, many technology solutions are designed by IT specialists and not learning specialists. So, whilst they may have amazing features to engage, entertain or help you search vast content libraries, most technology only plays a supporting role in acquiring new skills. 

We strongly recommend you ask your technology suppliers deeper questions about learning science and processes. What elements of an evidence-based learning process do they support and what can’t they support? Armed with that information you can make informed choices about what else needs to happen to genuinely accelerate performance in the flow of work.

Trust the data

Of course, technology does enable us to collect data — vast quantities of data. But what will you do with the data to enhance your learning culture and drive personal and organizational success.

The first question to ask yourself about data is, “why do you want it in the first place?” What decisions will it help you make? How can it help your people track their own progress or help managers offer the right support at the appropriate time? 

What can that data offer to you in L&D to build your credibility.? The C-suite doesn’t want to know how many people you onboarded or how long anyone spent on e-learning. They want to know whether there are sufficient, skilled people at the right levels to do the job now, and what new skills are being nurtured that they will need in five years. 

One of our clients, an international building firm, is measuring progress on a leadership trajectory including tracking their results from real life work activities built into the program. Whilst much of the data is subjective it’s been linked back to business objectives and KPIs. Data analysis enables the L&D team to see how, when and what elements of the training are having the most impact in the workplace and they can report ROI to the senior team.

You’ve been on a trip through the DNA of an effective learning culture and heard some real life stories and examples along the way about people, science, process, technology and data. Armed with this DNA, what are the next steps you will take? How will you start to create an ecosystem where your people and your organization thrive and everyone learns, every day, everywhere?

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The Great Talent Show is coming soon to organizations everywhere. While many have pointed to a talent movement often termed “The Great Resignation,” not all have reflected on the new priorities and needs of the talent that are at its root. This reflection presents an opportunity for learning and development teams to enter the spotlight. If there was ever a time to shine as L&D professionals, that time is now.

But how can organizations ensure their learning troupe doesn’t simply get a ticket to the show, and is instead cast in a starring role? 

In this article series, ADP learning experts illustrate the multifaceted ways learning organizations can influence real results that impact the business while also supporting talent in reaching their full potential.

We all have seen that one performance that deeply resonated with us. It moved you to rise to your feet, applaud and think: This performance was made just for me. Simultaneously, you heard thunderous applause coming from fellow audience members. As you looked around, you saw them joining you in a standing ovation.

Just like there are common themes in theatre that unite us — such as familial love or the relentless pursuit of a better future — there are also elements of instructional design and delivery that speak directly to learners.

But how do you design and deliver learning experiences that are deeply relevant to audiences while not stretching your team too thin? The answer is found in the innovative creativity of your design team and the diverse performances of your delivery team.

Make performances feel personal

While you do not need to put on a different show for each learner — your audience — they should feel like you are performing just for them. Every learner comes to you with unique skills and knowledge. To assume that there is a one-size-fits-all solution for your learners is a disservice to them and to your team. By customizing learning and development experiences, your team can reduce seat time and boost effectiveness. 

A simple, but effective way to match content to your learners’ knowledge and skill level is to use pre-tests to help individualize the lesson for the learner. Furthermore, by leveraging adaptive learning platforms, learners can approach the subject matter through an exploratory lens, with content served up based on demonstrated knowledge gaps. 

Beyond that, proactively analyzing data empowers your L&D team to pinpoint which content to offer learners to help them improve. Rather than waiting for learners to tell you where they are struggling, look at business and key performance indicators. This might include trends in call interaction data for service professionals to identify the types of calls that are challenging for learners, and then create relevant, personalized learning based on employee performance metrics. 

Keep the knowledge flowing without learners having to break character  

As much as we wish it were not true, learners do not want to stop what they are doing and attend a multi-act production in your learning management system. Afterall, your audience is used to having access to learn anywhere, at any time and with any medium — videos, podcasts, e-learning, mobile, social media, articles — without leaving their seat.

To keep today’s learners engaged while reducing their time to mastery, we know that we must set the context quickly and as close to the point of application as possible. Here are several innovative ways your team can put relevant resources at learners’ fingertips: 

• Point-of-need learning walkthroughs and tooltips that are embedded into the applications your learners use everyday.
• Structured on-the-job activities.
• Social learning communities and peer-to-peer mentoring.

When getting answers quickly is the goal, a knowledge management library with a powerful search engine enables talent to find answers mid-task. In a search-first world, this will feel natural to your audiences since they are accustomed to exploring the internet to find their own answers. Not only does this build employee confidence, but it also empowers learners to complete their tasks accurately and more efficiently.

Make peer-to-peer and self-directed learning your co-stars 

Great learning talent is sitting right there in your audience. Cast them! By embedding teach backs into your curriculum, you change how your audience consumes, interprets and interacts with learning content. Take a step back from lecturing and put your L&D audience into the spotlight. Not only does this help them to create lasting connections with one another, it also creates opportunities for learning that surpasses what you can accomplish with one-way communication. 

Exploratory self-paced exercises also allow learners to guide their own learning playbill. Internal social learning platforms are another great way to connect learners with one another so they can crowdsource solutions. By investing in the right authoring tools, your L&D team can even equip peers and subject matter experts with the ability to easily record videos. By empowering SMEs to share expertise on demand with those who need it, you can maximize their time investment by increasing audience reach.

Set the scene for context and application 

Rehearsals are helpful, but they don’t always prepare you for the feeling of performing in front of a live audience. To prepare learners to apply what they learn, it is important to set realistic context in the classroom. This is rooted in mirroring the ways learners will apply knowledge and skills on the job. But how can you do this? You can set the stage with themes, personas, role plays and exploratory learning to simulate real-life scenarios. Although these are tried and tested approaches, there is always room to innovate. By using artificial intelligence or augmented reality tools to simulate real-life, on-the-job interactions, you can provide learners with a controlled and authentic environment to learn in the context of application and — in some cases — a personalized coach.

Bolster confidence after training

Nothing can ruin a performance like stage fright. If you want learners to be ready to take center stage after training, you must bolster their confidence. The best approach is to deconstruct the learning to avoid overwhelming them. By partnering with stakeholders, your team can be more strategic about how and when to deliver learning topics. By breaking up content into levels that include foundational essentials, refreshers, and advanced proficiency, you give learners time to acclimate and build confidence with on-the-job application in between to support long-term behavioral changes. 

This can also help your team have a positive impact on improving attrition. Learners who rank their confidence as low might be waving a red flag that they’re considering an exit. By leveraging mentoring and performance support, you can help them feel supported with the right resources along the way — boosting confidence to help curtail turnover.

By showcasing these learning results to stakeholders, you reinforce that your learners’ success is the main stage of your design and delivery strategy, and that you are committed to helping your audience achieve standing ovations of their own.

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One of the biggest challenges all leaders face is getting others to “see” what they’re saying. And one of the most powerful and effective ways of successfully achieving this objective is by leveraging the power of visual thinking and visual communication.

In my corporate leadership programs and in my NYU and Columbia University leadership graduate classes, when I ask participants to shout out the first word that comes to mind when they hear the words “leadership, leading or leader” the most common response — by far — tends to be “vision.” 

But what does it mean to have a leadership vision? Or to call someone a “visionary leader” — or a “leadership visionary?”

In a nutshell, it’s about having a picture — an image — in one’s mind’s eye of a future state that is different from and better than the current reality. For example, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the king of visual communication, did not have a lengthy operational plan filled with details and deadlines. He simply had a dream. 

Similarly, how can you get your dream or vision out of your head and into the heads of others in your organization so as to turn that mental picture of a better future into a reality?

One incredibly powerful and effective way of doing so is by leveraging the power of visual thinking and visual communication.

What is visual thinking?

What do I mean by “visual thinking?” In short, it’s about thinking in pictures — as opposed to words or numbers.

Similarly, if “visual thinking” is about thinking in pictures, then “visual communication” is about communicating with pictures. Again, if your goal is to get others to “see” what you’re saying, using visual imagery and visual language is one of the most effective ways of getting your message across.

For example, how many times have you had an idea that was crystal clear in your own mind, only to find that you were unable to successfully translate and transmit this idea into the minds of others? Or, as a learning professional, how many times have you faced challenges, barriers, and obstacles when it came to creating understanding and recall in the minds of your learners? 

In my book, “VisuaLeadership: Leveraging the Power of Visual Thinking in Leadership and in Life” and in my TEDx talk on “The Power of Visual Thinking,” as well as in my teaching and my leadership consulting, training and executive coaching work, my “focus” is on helping people to better be able to get others to “see” what they’re saying — as well as to more effectively be able to see the world through the “lens” of others with understanding, empathy, and compassion, and in a spirit of diversity, inclusion, and belonging. In so doing, you, as a leader, can not only turn your visions into reality, but help others to do so, too.  

Four ways to think and communicate more visually

It’s one thing to talk in theory about taking a more visual thinking-based approach, but what does it actually look like in reality? How can you apply these methodologies in your own day-to-day work? 

In short, I tend to break it down into these four methods:

• Visual imagery and/or drawing. 
• Mental models and frameworks.
• Metaphor and analogy.
• Visual storytelling and humor (if/when appropriate). 

Whether you use visual imagery or visual language — or, most impactfully, both in combination — using these visually-oriented techniques helps to enhance your overall effectiveness in terms of attention, comprehension and retention. Communicating visually helps you to get people to focus (attention), enables them to better understand (comprehension) and enhances their ability to remember (retention). 

Science backs this up. For example, the principle known as the “picture superiority effect” has shown that when words or numbers compete with visual images, the pictures always win in terms of the listeners’ or readers’ focus, understanding, and recall. For example, would you buy a product online just from the description if there was no photo of the item? Would you accept a LinkedIn invitation from someone you don’t know if there was no headshot attached to their profile? Are you more likely to read a blog post that has a photo, or one that doesn’t? In all of these cases, incorporating an image — and adding a little “color” to the conversation — dramatically enhances the effectiveness of the messaging.

Similarly, “dual-coding theory” states that when you combine both words or numbers AND pictures, it is far more effective than either on their own. 

In today’s world of information overload, never-ending distractions and ever-shortening attention spans — whether in the office, the training room or the classroom, and whether in-person or online – being able to more effectively cut through the clutter is essential for getting your message across.   

A real-life example

One of my executive coaching clients, the CFO of a tech start-up, began his 30-minute portion of the company’s Town Hall meeting by saying, “This first part will be a little boring, but it gets more interesting later on — I just have to get through all the numbers. So just bear with me until we get to the good stuff.”

Um, no. Your people are not going to bear with you. They are going to mentally check out in a matter of minutes (if not seconds) as their eyes glaze over, zone out and battle to stay awake, or start looking at their phones just to get a little mental stimulation. And if you’re presenting online, don’t blink or you’ll miss people’s cameras clicking off one by one, as happened in this sad case. By the time this CFO finally got to his graphs, metaphors and stories halfway through his boring presentation, the attention (and interest level) of his audience was a distant memory. 

So, why do so many leaders — and many learning and development professionals –– despite knowing better  — continue to get up there and bore people with their “death by bullet point” presentations, rather than engaging and inspiring them with their vision for the future? Why do they lecture at people rather than interact with them? And why are they not leveraging the power of visual imagery and visual language, when it is so obviously a more effective way to get one’s message across, to motivate and inspire people and to turn ideas into actions, and actions into results?

Putting the four ways into action

Just as with the above CFO example, my recommendation for the C-suite, including chief learning officers, as well as everyone else, is to seek to incorporate the four visual thinking and visual communication approaches into your work at every opportunity,either in isolation or in combination. 

For example:

• Visual imagery and drawing. Instead of the same boring text-based PowerPoint slides, look to incorporate more images to represent your ideas. As humans, we are wired visually. And when we “show” rather than “tell,” we engage people in our message. Go to YouTube to see how Steve Jobs used to do it: big, bold images with very little text, along with visual demonstrations, color, movement, and sound. Rather than delivering a presentation, he created an experience. And if, as the classic saying goes, “He (or She) who wields the pen, wields the power,” then grab a marker. Even if you suffer from “I Can’t Draw” syndrome, if you are skilled enough to play Pictionary with your friends and family, you are skilled enough to stick-figure your way through explaining your ideas. Or you can incorporate numerous other visual methods — from videos to props to live demonstrations in order to “illustrate” your points and bring them to life in a more compelling, exciting and memorable way. 

• Mental models and frameworks. Again, rather than just using text or bullet point lists, seek to translate your ideas into a visual model or framework — e.g., a four-box matrix, a pie chart, a pyramid, a diagram, a process map, a mind map, a storyboard, etc. Doing so will serve the dual purpose of thinking through your idea, as well as getting others to envision and understand it. Think about some of the concepts you can recreate from memory simply because you carry the picture around in your mind, such as Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” pyramid or theEisenhower “Time Management Matrix.”You’ll find that sometimes it helps — when trying to “think outside the box” — to begin by placing your ideas inside a box. And, in  doing so, it forces you to think things through, simplify complexity, see possible new solutions and communicate to others.

• Metaphors and analogies. Comparing something intangible, unfamiliar, complex or abstract to something tangible, familiar, simple or concrete is an effective and memorable way to create understanding and make the invisible visible. But it’s important to use metaphors that your audience will understand and relate to, lest you confuse and alienate rather than clarify and connect. For example, I’ve learned the hard way that my baseball analogies and Seinfeld references don’t always translate to, or resonate with, audiences from diverse geographical, generational or cultural backgrounds. So, we need to remember to meet our audiences not where we live, but where they live. And to remember — as L&D professionals — that when we are talking about the difference between teaching someone to fish versus giving them a fish, we may need to explain that this statement has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with fishing, but everything to do with learning.  

• Storytelling and humor (if/when appropriate). Telling stories makes us personable, vulnerable, interesting and, yes, human. They allow us to share something of ourselves in an engaging way and enable us to connect with others in a more memorable way. It is valuable to remember that it is not facts and figures, but feelings that motivate and inspire others to think, to change and to act. But, just as with metaphors, the examples you use and the stories you choose to tell should be both relevant and relatable to your topic and to your audience. A CEO who tells a story to their employees about “a funny incident that happened to me while playing golf at the yacht and country club last weekend” (as one recent CEO did) will serve to alienate and turn off your audience, rather than connect to and with them. Similarly, for me personally, when discussing the subject of teams in my leadership course, a great story I told about Simon and Garfunkel failed to resonate with my young graduate students, as they assumed this pairing I was referencing to be the name of a management consulting firm rather than that of a famous musical duo from the 1960s/70s. My reference to the fact that some managers still want their employees to punch a timeclock “as if it were ‘The Flintstones’” prompted one of my students to ask, “Professor Cherches…what is a “flin stone’?” Unfortunately, I’ve found that the longer I’ve been around, the more of my pop culture references have gone the way of the dinosaur.

The ability to see the world through the lens of others — as well as the ability to enable others to understand what’s going on in our mind — is among the greatest challenges that leaders face. As Bernard Baruch said, “The ability to communicate an idea is as important as the idea itself.” So, if you want to be more effective at getting others to see what you’re saying, my suggestion is that you try to make your messaging more visual, and see what happens.

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