The Performance Improvement Blog

Coaching to Learn; Learning to Coach

Do you want employees to learn? Do you want them to transfer that learning to the workplace and apply that learning to achieve business goals? Then develop manager-employee relationships that are supportive of learning. This isn't a nice-to-have; this is a must-have. From all we know about learning in the workplace it is clear that managers and employees must be allied around learning. Whether developing leadership skills, using the latest software, or operating a new machine, employees need a learning coach. Steve Roesler writes about the nature of this relationship in a recent blog post. According to Roesler,

A productive manager-employee coaching relationship includes these elements:

• Self-Direction. The employee initiates areas for learning and relies on the manager for support when necessary.
  
  
• Self-Responsibility. The coaching manager encourages employees to make decisions through reflective questions.
  
  
• Focus on Learning. Employee develops new skills with the support of the coaching manager, then sets new goals and standards.

This learning "alliance" between manager and employee is fundamental to ensuring that learning makes a difference for the organization. The other organizational factors that ensure business results from learning are alignment, anticipation, application, and accountability. Together, these five factors that start with "A", makeup the 5As Framework. Managers need coaching skills, but they also need to be able to help employees align learning with business goals, anticipate success, apply new learning early and often, and be accountable for results.

The Coming Turnover Storm

Companies must start shifting their focus from downsizing to worker retention, so says Jon Picoult in a N.Y. Times article. He writes, “A turnover storm is looming, and most businesses are ill prepared for it.” I agree and have blogged about this issue previously. Retention will become a serious problem for any company seeking high performance. As soon as the economy starts to improve substantially, many of the best employees will choose to leave organizations that have gone through cut-backs and layoffs. They have watched their co-workers be pushed out or edged out and are now being asked to do more work with less resources. Learning opportunities have been postponed or eliminated entirely. Opportunities for advancement have been delayed. And open communication about the future of their employers is minimal. All of these factors have created an environment that is not conducive to engagement. Without a sense of engagement, the best performers will not want to stay.

Picoult blames this problem partly on executives who think of employees as human capital (Or is that “cattle”?). He writes:

Lost in this analogy is the fact that capital assets like aircraft depreciate over time. From an accounting and market-value standpoint, they’re gradually worth less. Eventually, they’re written off entirely. So just what message are companies sending to their employees when they wave the human-capital banner?

People are not equipment. They’re not investment capital. They have needs, wants, aspirations, worries, insecurities and lives outside of work. Companies that recognize this fact will shape their employer-employee interactions accordingly. These companies, and their managers, become more communicative, more appreciative, more connected and more civil. In a word, they become more human. The employee loyalty engendered by this simple approach can be striking.

Loyalty might not be possible or desirable in 21rst century companies, but engagement is essential. See my blog post on this topic. So the question is, “How can downsized companies create employee-employer interactions that engender employee engagement and retention?”  Shawn Murphy, in his blog post, “Bring Humanity Back to Work” offers suggestions to CEOs regarding what they can do to quell the turnover storm. He recommends: 1) getting out and making contact with employees; 2) communicating your values and then acting in a manner that is consistent with those values; 3) focusing on what could be rather than the current circumstances. I would add that it is critical that bosses develop a learning-alliance with their direct reports. Many additional suggestions can be found at The Employee Engagement Network.

 

Learning's Blindspot

Company executives have a “blindspot” for the language of learning. They don’t see the point. Given this blindspot, Clark Quinn asks the critical question that all trainers and learning specialists should be asking themselves. He writes in his blog:

The problem, then, is where do you come in?  What is the fog-penetrating terminology that will help
get the C-suite to really ‘get’ that you’re talking about stuff that’s mission-critical?  That’s a big blindspot.

Aaron Silvers offers some very insightful comments to Quinn’s blog post. He says that, from his experience, the key to moving out of the “blindspot” of C-suite executives is to: 1) leverage the fact that you are charged with the “know-how” (I would add “know-what” and “know-why”.) of the organization to make people listen to your recommendations; 2) explain how learning will help the organization (and business units) become more successful; and 3) align your learning goals with the strategic business goals of the organization; show the “line-of-sight” from your learning interventions to achieving  specific performance results. You need to show them how “…changing behaviors to reduce costs and increase revenues is worth their engagement and investment.”

i think this is great advice. It is the learning professional’s responsibility to escape the blindspot and get the attention and interest of C-Suite executives. When driving down the freeway, you can't depend on the driver of the car next to you to see you as you approach on the side. You have to take assertive action to make sure you’re noticed and taken seriously. So too with training and learning in organizations. 

 

Count What Counts

Are we measuring what really matters in organizations? ROI, market share, profit margin, cost savings, EPS, P/E ratio, EBITDA, and employee job satisfaction are common measures in business organizations today. While these are relatively easy to measure, the question we should be asking ourselves is, “Is this what we want to know?” Are we measuring these indicators because we can or because they truly measure what matters? A relevant quote attributed (probably erroneously) to Albert Einstein is, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

What if what really counts is “happiness”?  Before you write me off as just another old hippie, hear me out. Chip Conley, CEO of the boutique hotel company  “Joie de Vivre” and author of Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow and a TED presenter, argues that companies should measure the intangibles, more specifically, “transformation”. On a global level, he says that we should be measuring Gross National Happiness rather than GNP. He uses the country of Butan as an example of a government that shifted from a focus on GNP to a focus on GNH. They began asking citizens questions such as, “How do you feel about how you spend your time each day?’

Nic Marks, from the New Economics Foundation, in a TED presentation says that rather than measuring how much stuff we have, we should be measuring how much happiness we have. He presents economic data to make his case. He quotes Robert Kennedy: “…the GNP measures everything, in short, except that   which makes life worthwhile.” Marks cautions us that resources used to achieve global, national, or corporate happiness have to be balanced against ecological costs of creating that happiness. According to the Happy Planet Index, Costa Rica has the best ratio of happiness vs. use of natural resources. In other words, we shouldn’t deplete the earth’s resources in order to achieve happiness. That would be counter-productive. He goes on to say that what matters most to each person’s happiness are five things:

1. Being connected to other people
2. Being physically active
3. Taking notice of the world around you
4. Learning throughout life
5. Giving to others

I’m not saying that we should drop all of the other indicators of success and start measuring these indicators of “happiness”. However, I am saying that we should first decide what we want to achieve in our organizations (for-profit and nonprofit) and then develop measures of factors that indicate progress towards those goals. If we continue to measure what is easy or convenient or conventional, we will continue to be like the man who looked for his lost key under the streetlamp because that’s where there was light.