The Performance Improvement Blog

Retroactive Alignment

Nobody would disagree with the notion that alignment of learning interventions with business goals is a good thing. However, too often this connection is rationalized after the fact. That’s too late to make a difference for the organization. David Vance, former president of Caterpillar University, in an interview with ASTD, talks about the importance of aligning learning and business goals at the same time as fiscal-year budgeting is being done. He says:

It’s almost too easy to just say we need to align learning with the goals of the company. Everyone knows that is the correct answer. But in my experience, very few organizations do this strategically and proactively. Many will actually do it retroactively. They will connect the dots between the goals of the organization and the programs they ran last year. To me that is retroactive alignment, and you shouldn’t get credit for that. If you haven’t done alignment before the year began, how do you know if you have budgeted your learning toward the highest priority needs of the company? If you haven’t done it before the year begins, you haven’t given your CEO or governing body the ability to prioritize that spending and to make sure that the learning investment is being (properly) directed to the highest needs of the organization. You can only do that proactively.

I agree with Vance that budgeting and prioritizing are important reasons for aligning learning with company goals. However, those are not the only reasons for alignment. Alignment is also critical to retention and application of learning. Employees need to know that what they will be learning is valued in the organization and will help them contribute to achieving business success. They need to know the path that they will take from learning to application to business outcomes to achievement of strategic goals. Alignment that is apparent to learners is highly motivating and increases the likelihood that what they learn will be applied. If alignment is done retroactively, it cannot motivate learning nor can it ensure the application of that learning.

 

How to Have a Learning Conversation

Employees learn best when they have guidance, support, and performance feedback from someone they trust and respect in the organization. Ideally, this is a boss, supervisor, coach, or mentor who knows why that learning is important and how it aligns with strategic business goals. Managers, at all organizational levels, should have regular learning-focused conversations with the people who report to them. In these conversations, described in our book, The 5As Framework, managers should ask:

1. What do you need to learn in order to help this organization achieve its business goals?
2. Given what you need to learn, what should be your specific learning objectives for the short-term and long-term?
3. How will you and I know if you are making progress toward and achieving those objectives?
4. How can I help you get the most out of your learning opportunities?
5. What resources do you need and how can I help you get them?
6. What should be our schedule for regular conversations about your progress?
7. What do we need to change about this plan?

The key to making this a successful relationship is to keep the focus on how the employee’s learning and performance improvement will contribute to achieving business goals. Companies can no longer (as if they ever could) afford to allow employees to participate in learning activities simply because they are an enjoyable break from the routine, a motivating perk, or conveniently scheduled. Managers must make sure that the time, effort, and money invested in their direct reports is contributing to the organization being successful. 

 

Trust Me

The new social contract between employer and employee is no longer about loyalty; it’s about trust. Employees are saying, “I will work hard for you as long as you are trustworthy and you show that you trust me.” Employers are saying, “I can’t promise long-term employment, but if you are trustworthy and you trust me, I will support you and compensate you.” What both employees and employers mean is that while they can’t make long-term commitments to each other, if they feel respected and can count on each other to do what they say they will do and use good judgment in doing it, they will come through for each other.  

Managers, unfortunately, do many things intentionally and unintentionally that lose the trust of employees. For example, they conduct employee surveys without engaging employees in a discussion of the findings and not doing anything differently because of the findings. They ask employees to attend training events but then don’t provide opportunities to apply that learning on-the-job nor do they show any interest in what employees have learned.  Employers say that people are their most important asset and then they don’t ask employees what they think. They tell employees that this is an organization in which everyone can develop their abilities and then they don’t provide coaching and feedback.

Building and keeping trust requires avoiding these pitfalls. And it requires developing and applying certain behaviors and values. RealTime Performance writes this about trust:

At its most basic level, trust is the confidence people have that you will predictably act in their best interest, never knowingly committing actions that might harm them. There is no single activity that will build trust; rather, you establish trust over time by consistently exhibiting a number of behaviors and values.

According to RealTime Performance, if you want to build trust in an organization, you need to:

1. Be accountable for your actions
2. Act consistently with your words
3. Live your values and communicate them regularly
4. Admit mistakes and take blame
5. Listen for understanding
6. Act with integrity and ethics
7. Be an advocate for a fear-free culture
8. Face reality
9. Provide honest feedback
10. Build trust with openness

 Go to 10X10 for more information and resources for learning about each of these actions.   

 

Employee Engagement and the Bottom-Line

Does employee engagement make a difference in the performance of companies?  The evidence from a number of studies that correlate findings from employee surveys with financial indicators of company performance suggests that the answer is “yes”.  And everything I know about high performing employees tells me that engagement and performance are related. But a high correlation doesn’t mean that this is true in every case.  I want to know why some low-engagement companies are highly profitable and produce high shareholder return and why some high-engagement companies are not profitable and do not achieve an increase in share value. What is it about the work environment in some companies that even when employees experience what Towers Watson defines as  “…a combination of effective and caring leadership, appealing development opportunities, and a feeling of empowerment that comes with the ability to control one’s work situation”, they are still not successful? And why is it that in other companies, where leaders are uncaring and distant, development opportunities are absent, and employees have little control over their work situations, financial success is achieved?

Living close to their corporate offices, I hear about the fate of Borders Group Inc almost on a daily basis. This once successful giant in the retail book business, with still very loyal employees and customers, is now on the brink of bankruptcy. Employee engagement has been high in that company since it was founded by Tom and Louis Borders 40 years ago, but that has not been enough to save the company.

It’s possible that for companies like Borders evidence of employee engagement was collected at a time when the company was riding a wave of success generated by past practices and it would be just a matter of time before low employee engagement would begin to affect productivity. It’s also very likely that the link between employee engagement and financial performance of a company is not causal. I have addressed the fallacy of the correlation-causation assumption, previously. The relationship of employee engagement to performance is explained by considering other intervening variables. For example, a company that has several niche products and no competition, will, for a limited period of time, be successful in spite of itself. Conversely, a company that has strong employee engagement, but no market for its product and services, will not be successful over time.

Clearly, employee engagement is a key factor in bottom-line success. However, we make a mistake when we assume that employee engagement increases profitability and share value. Many factors contribute to organization performance (e.g., leadership, product/service quality, sales and marketing, financing, economic environment). All of these factors should be considered when attempting to explain or predict long-term success. 

 

Be Happy 2011

The most often stated wish for others this time of year has got to be “Happy New Year”. We don’t say, "Have a satisfying New Year” or an “Engaged New Year” or an “Emotionally Intelligent New Year”. Being the measurement-guy that I am, I wonder why, if we’re wishing for “happy”, we don’t measure “happy”. A few countries and organizations do.

In any case, Happy New Year! I hope your happiness index goes up in 2011.