The Performance Improvement Blog

The 5As Framework for Increasing Impact of Learning in Organizations

You don’t get as much value as you should out of your organization’s training and development programs In fact, the number of trainees who apply new learning in their organizations is estimated to be only about 15% to 20%. That is a sad state of affairs. The 5As Framework is a solution to this problem.

The 5As Framework is an easy to remember aid for ensuring that any learning intervention, whether
classroom training, elearning, coaching and mentoring, self-directed study, internships, etc., results in participants applying what they have learned in their organizations. The Framework was created by Sean Murray and myself to help trainers and managers get more out of their investment in training and development programs.

Interest in the 5As Framework has increased recently. In part, this is because of an online course I am facilitating for ASTD titled, Developing an Organizational Learning Culture, and because of a  presentation I gave in the ZingTrain Speaker Series.  I want interested readers of this blog to easily find information about the 5As Framework. Therefore, I am summarizing information in this post.

For a brief summary: http://stephenjgill.typepad.com/performance_improvement_b/2009/02/increasing-business-results-from-training-5as-framework.html

For a manager’s guide to conducting an alliance (one of the 5As) conversation with learners: http://stephenjgill.typepad.com/performance_improvement_b/2011/01/how-to-have-a-learning-conversation.html

For a link to our ebook about the 5As Framework: http://stephenjgill.typepad.com/performance_improvement_b/2009/11/new-ebook-for-getting-business-results-from-training.html

For research on the impact of training: http://stephenjgill.typepad.com/performance_improvement_b/2010/11/mckinsey-discovers-what-we-already-knew-about-training-impact.html

For a description of the role of managers in the 5As Framework: http://stephenjgill.typepad.com/performance_improvement_b/2009/12/managers-are-the-gatekeepers-to-employee-learning.html

Developing Trust in a Hierarchical Culture

Organizational culture has become a hot topic in the popular business press. Recently, GM’s culture has become front page news with calls for greater transparency and open communication, and with claims that culture is what got the company into trouble with government regulators and customers.

It’s easy to talk about culture, and blame culture, and say that culture should be changed. It’s quite another thing to actually create a different culture, especially in old-line, hierarchical manufacturing organizations like GM.

One way to transform culture in this kind of organization is for leaders to start inviting honesty from each other. A story is told about Mulally at Ford Motor that exemplifies this shift. Shortly after he was hired as CEO and had his first meeting with his executive team, one of them said that he was going to delay production of a new vehicle. Everyone around the table feared that the executive would be fired, which would have likely been the case in the old Ford. To their surprise, Mulally praised the executive for what he had done and this led to more executives communicating problems when they occurred.

Honest and open communication allows for collaboration which is critical to good problem-solving and decision-making. Miki Kashtan, author and consultant, writes in the New York Times:

When leaders commit to involving the whole group, organizations are transformed. Although collaboration — or “laboring together” (collaborare in Latin) — isn’t easy, it becomes easier the more we welcome differences and even conflict in service of a larger whole. The results are higher trust, increased productivity and rich creativity.

Of course, there are always risks in asking questions for which you don’t know the answers from people who may or may not want to collaborate. It’s possible they will tell you something that you don’t want to hear or something that will open the door for others to say something you don’t want to hear. Maybe what they say will create conflict or require you to take an action that will be uncomfortable for you to do.

These are possibilities. However, knowing the truth and driving out fear and worry from the culture will result in a highly productive work environment. This means collaborating with stakeholders and showing them the respect that they deserve.

GM's Culture Ate Its Strategy for Breakfast

Peter Drucker, considered the father of modern management, is famously credited with saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Probably no better example of this is GM and how it has handled the problem with ignition switches in the Cobalt. Coming out of the government bailout the company had an excellent strategy: build high quality, fuel efficient cars that meet the needs of all segments of drivers. The only problem is the company culture has been a barrier to this strategy.

Now the culture seems to be changing under the leadership of GM's new CEO Mary Barra.  Prior to her appointment the company was all about no-bad-news, a focus on cost-savings, and maximizing shareholder value at the expense of quality.

Joe Nocera, the New York Times Op-Ed columnist, writes this about GM:

What it now needs to prove is that it makes cars that will cause us all to forget about the Cobalt. That’s when we’ll really know if it has changed.

I’m afraid that making great cars will help but it’s not the whole answer. In a business and product as complicated as an automobile, problems will continue to come up and it will be how GM responds that will tell us if the culture is truly changing. Will the company encourage employees to speak the truth? Will the company be transparent internally and externally?

John Baldoni writes about GM transparency in a blog post for Forbes:

Transparency is a cultural issue. When problems arise it often is because individuals with something to lose hide bad news from other people who could use that information against them. It may make an executive look bad if he speaks up about a problem so he keeps things to himself. Self-protection trumps organizational health.

The solution is not easy. The correction begins at the top. The CEO must hold herself accountable. Apology and amends will follow, but again these are initial steps. The cultural change must be instituted throughout the company. The CEO must become the public face of transparency that is, rooting out trouble and seeking remedies.

The crisis in GM presents Barra with an opportunity to accelerate movement towards a different culture. Editors of Crain’s Detroit Business write that Barra now has “…a powerful hammer to pound away at needed culture changes.” Let’s hope that not only Barra, but all of the leaders within GM recognize that it’s about culture, not strategy. 

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Don't Use SAT Scores for Job Hiring

I was surprised (closer to shocked)to read that McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, Goldman Sachs and other companies are using SAT scores to screen job applicants. That is a misuse of the test and a disservice to the applicant and to those organizations.

Apparently, some HR managers claim that this practice is okay because they use the score in combination with other factors. However, if they are using the SAT to sort applicants and disqualify some, then it doesn’t matter what other factors that are being used - they are using the SAT inappropriately.

The SAT should not be used in this way for three reasons.  First of all, job applicant screening is not the purpose for which the test was designed. The test was designed to give high schools students and college admissions staff an additional indicator of academic success. In combination with high school grades, the test is probably the best indicator we have for success in the first year of college. That doesn’t mean it’s a good indicator of academic success; it just means it’s better than anything else that can be easily managed by college personnel.

Another reason the SAT should not be used for hiring is that although, as a group, people who score high on the test are statistically more likely to do well in school than people who score low, that doesn’t mean this is true for an individual job applicant. Statistical significance (better than chance) is not the same as practical significance. Someone who scores low on the SAT (or any achievement test) could become a wonderful employee and someone who scores high on the SAT could become a terrible employee.

And the third reason is that test scores are just not good predictors of workplace performance, unless, of course, the job task is to do well on tests. The best predictor of job performance is job performance. Companies like Menlo Innovations have job applicants do the job for a few months before they make a hiring decision. In this way, they can look at culture fit as well as competencies.

David Brooks, in his column in the New York Times titled “The Employer’s Creed”, urges employers to look beyond grades, perfectionism, and projected image of job applicants, and look for traits such as being passionate about something, doing the right thing, showing social courage, being willing to speak the truth, overcoming setbacks, and being honest about themselves. About grades, Brooks writes:

Don’t mindlessly favor people with high G.P.A.s. Students who get straight As have an ability to prudentially master their passions so they can achieve proficiency across a range of subjects. But you probably want employees who are relentlessly dedicated to one subject. In school, those people often got As in subjects they were passionate about but got Bs in subjects that did not arouse their imagination.

I understand the need to efficiently sort through hundreds, maybe thousands of job applications. But using SAT scores is a careless and unprofessional way to do this. Companies that use SAT scores to screen applicants will eliminate from consideration some of the best people in the pool.