In late September, leaders from 30 of the world’s most progressive learning organizations gathered in Mendenhall, Pennsylvania to share best practices for turning learning into results. Convened by the Fort Hill Company, the Fourth Annual Best Practices Summit included presentations by many well-known companies like Humana, Pfizer, General Electric, and participants from as far away as Beirut, Lebanon. Here are some of the highlights:
Maximizing Impact
A key theme of the Summit was the importance of follow-through and practice to increase learning transfer and maximize training’s impact. Steve Kontra and Doug Trainor, Learning Directors at Pfizer, presented data from follow-up 360° feedback studies that dramatically illustrated both the value of leadership training as well as how much managers of participants influence the outcome.
In one study, learners showed statistically-significant gains on all of the five most frequent development plan items when their managers were actively involved in the post-course period, but none when their managers weren’t. In a second study, improvement was seen with and without manager involvement, but the gains were larger in several measures when managers were actively involved post program.
Adam Nelson (Chief Learning Architect) of Ninth House concurred and shared a study that Ninth House had just completed with American Express (http://www.ninthhouse.com/papers/AmEx_RealROI.pdf) which concluded that “the true impact of a training program will best be predicted by the work climate each participant returns to after the event.” Therefore, “creating a high transfer climate should swiftly move to the forefront of any training initiative or strategy.”
Participants were asked to share their best practices for getting managers involved and creating a favorable transfer climate:
- Pfizer has seen an increase in managerial involvement since it began sharing the data on impact cited above with the supervisors of program participants.
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- Jim White, Manager, Training and Development at Michelin explained how Michelin provides its managers with a toolkit to help guide discussions with their direct reports before and after training.
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- According to Doreen Hackey and Milynn Swofford (Talent Management and Organizational Development) of Centocor, managers of participants in programs that involve Global Leadership Profile 360° feedback in the BIO sector of Johnson & Johnson are trained to support development during the time that the direct reports are receiving the results of their feedback. Managers and participants are brought together immediately afterward to discuss developmental goals and the support needed to achieve them.
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- At Chubb Insurance, Bill Amaxopoulos (Leadership Program Manager) has moved to a three-phased approach to leadership development, in which participants and their managers attend pre-course and post-course webcasts together.
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Measuring Impact
Many of the presentations included innovative approaches for assessing the impact the initiatives were having.
- Bob Sturm, Director of Talent Development for The Babcock and Wilcox Companies (B&W), and Dave Schrader, President of LeadingWork LLC, presented the results of Leader to Leader - a program to strengthen the leadership pipeline at B&W. Recognizing that followers ultimately determine the success or failure of leaders, they polled the direct reports of program participants and were able to show significant gains in leadership ability in the opinion of those being led.
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- Cynthia Casados, Associate Relationship Manager for WSFS Bank, explained how they are using associate engagement and customer satisfaction survey data to identify areas of opportunity, and also to track progress on managers’ plans to further improve the work environment and delivery of service.
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- Larry Mohl, CLO for Children’s’ HealthCare of Atlanta, described CHOA’s Center for Leadership program which includes multiple learning experiences with rigorous follow through after each. Using Brinkerhoff’s Success Case Methodology, CHOA was able to point to specific improvements in Systems, Operations, Personal Leadership, and Finance amounting to millions of dollars in cost savings and avoidance.
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Learning as Change Strategy
Ray Vigil, CLO of Humana, explained how learning and development are an integral part of Humana’s strategy for reinvention and continued growth. To become truly integrated into the business strategy, he explained, learning leaders must speak the language of the business, familiarize themselves with the key strategies, and be proactive: “Having read your strategy, it seems to me that there are several specific places that training and development can make a significant difference to the business …”
Ed Betof, Director of the Work-Based learning Leadership Program of the University of Pennsylvania, described Penn’s new Executive Program for Chief Learning Officers – the first of its kind. Created as a joint venture between the Wharton Business School and Penn’s Graduate School of Education, the program acknowledges that “in a knowledge economy – recruitment, retention, engagement, and development of people – are key to business strategy.” The program is designed to provide participants with the skills, knowledge, and network to be thought leaders in the profession.
Other strategic initiatives included:
- Bob Sachs, Vice President Learning and Organizational Development, described Kaiser Permanente’s strategy for using The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning (Pfeiffer, 2006) to create a common language and approach among K-P’s large number of decentralized and specialized learning leaders, an approach also being employed by Genentech, Agilent, and General Mills.
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- Jayne Johnson, Manager of Global Leadership Development at General Electric, discussed her strategy for incorporating a more rigorous follow-through approach (ResultsEngine) to enhance the outcomes of the already very successful Experienced Leaders Development Symposium at Crotonville.
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- Majorie Pomper, Director of Corporate Learning, described the challenges of leadership development at AutoTrader.com, which has been growing by more than 40% a year. She concluded that results are a function of the quality of the strategy times the quality of the execution. Too often companies fail to execute well. When the results are sub optimal, they change the strategy, rather than improve the execution. For these reasons, AutoTrader has built a strong follow-through component in its leadership programs to enhance execution of development plans.
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In discussions, the group agreed that achieving greater managerial involvement and support; improved participant commitment to execution, and more effective communication of results were key areas for continued research and improvement. They welcomed the opportunity to share successes and challenges in an open forum and several commented that it was the most productive meeting they had attended all year.
Marie Stewart is Vice President, Client Services at Fort Hill Company. She can be reached at stewart@forthillcompany.com. This article originally appeared as part of Fort Hill Company’s Learning Alert #26. |
