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hpc’s Tom Armstrong’s shares his perspectives of the EMCC 25th Annual Coaching, Mentoring and Supervision Conference 2019

 

The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) recently held its 25th Annual Conference in Dublin. hpc’s Executive Coach, Tom Armstrong attended the three-day event alongside international coaches and mentors from as far away as New Zealand, Canada and Bahrain. With a keynote each day and a choice of over 40 sessions, there was enough variety to satisfy all appetites.

 

We asked Tom to share his views from the conference; here are his personal insights and highlights:

Magician Keith Barry kick-started the conference with an entertaining session including some good tips around increasing our persuasive powers through non-verbal communications. With my head still spinning from Keith’s mental hijinks, I headed for the session entitled ‘Feedback – take it like a champ, give it like a pro!’ led by Squadron Leader Carolyn Pezaro and Flight Lieutenant Andy Armstrong.

 

Feedback

This was an interesting session with focus on the ‘sometimes forgotten’ feedback receiver as well as the giver. Our New Zealand colleagues reminded us that despite their ‘tough’ operational focus, Airforce personnel are just as sensitive to tough feedback as the rest of the population. While most of us externally espouse a ‘growth mindset’, receiving and giving critical feedback can be uncomfortable and trigger negative emotional responses. And it’s hard to receive critical feedback when you are in a somewhat stressed state. To help the giver and receiver manage emotions through tough feedback conversations they brought us through their 4 step process (apparently engineers love processes) or ‘Empathy Standard Operating Procedure’:

 

1. Naming the emotion (even guessing it)

2. Validating the emotion

3. Allowing some time and space

4. Tackling the feedback together

 

Here’s what it looks like: “so you’re upset?”; “who wouldn’t feel upset after receiving critical feedback”; “how about I make us a cup of tea”; “what are your thoughts on how we go forward, let’s get this sorted”. This approach is simple and works well for them. It’s where pilot training has moved towards coaching culture, with emphasis on empathy and moving forward together.

 

Coaching Culture and Leadership

The keynote on Day Two entitled “Myths and legends of embedding a coaching and mentoring culture” was headed up by Professor David Clutterbuck, Rosarii Mannion and Paula King. A key output was the proposition that rather than embedding a coaching culture as a stand-alone project or goal, we might view it as part of a wider approach of the organisation to reach its goals in the light of its own realities. It’s a component of its strategy and not an end in itself.

 

In an exploration of leadership, as opposed to leaders, our attention was drawn to the commonalities between coaching and leadership…the 3 Cs…which turned into the 4 Cs:

 

1. Compassion – understanding and alleviating the pain of others

2. Curiosity – how are others making sense of the world

3. Courage – facing taboo topics

4. Connectedness – with each other and with the world

 

When I reflect on my time in leadership in industry, in a very practical sense, I wholly subscribe to the idea of achieving positive results while embodying the 4 Cs. As an Executive Coach the 4 Cs are essential components within and beyond the coach / client relationship…tools of the trade.

 

Reflection and Reflexivity

Dr Jacqueline McCartney led the session “Reflection and reflexivity – what’s the difference”. I was drawn to this session as I didn’t know the answer! Essentially, reflexivity is beyond the comfort of knowing…rather than things being “as they are”. It’s about being within a system and seeing things “as we are”. Reflexivity is beyond observation and reflection of self and system, it’s about bringing a range of perspectives to our actual experiences, knowing what is influencing us while we are affecting it, and distilling the reality of experience. It’s when professional development becomes personal development…a cycle incorporating new understanding and new practice.

 

Jacqueline led us through a simple paired exercise (one doing and one observing) of making a square out of a rectangular piece of paper. “Nothing much going on here”, I thought…until we broke the exercise down. Did I jump in? Did I have a plan? Did I stand back and assess matters? Was I wondering what my observer was thinking? What assumptions and choices did I make? What influenced my choices?

 

This was a great example of a simple exercise that tells us a lot about ourselves; great learning for coaches and for clients.

 

The Digital Age
No conference is complete nowadays without exploration of the impact of the digital age. As coaches and mentors, it’s probably fair to say bias and perspective play a big role in how we perceive the world of digital. The takeaways from this session weren’t that coaches would be replaced by robots but rather that the nature of coaching interventions will change and that certain types of coaching (for example career coaching) may actually benefit from the introduction of more technology.

 

This brings with it the possibility of making coaching available to a wider audience in the future…a welcome prospect. However, the belief remains that as complexity grows, the need for wisdom and human contact increases rather than decreases. We were reminded that individuals need to be seen and to be heard; that the need for connection is human.

 

The obvious conclusion is that the only certainty is change and that human growth is possible through embracing new possibilities whilst learning from experience.

 

Game, Set and Match

As a keen tennis player and an Executive Coach, I was excited to hear from ‘Mr Inner Game’ himself, Tim Gallwey, a former tennis coach. During his keynote on “Learning from Experiences”, using nothing more than a tennis ball and an engaging delivery style, Tim brought us back to the basics of learning from experience. Rather than trying to repeat something that has worked well or correct something that hasn’t, Tim extolled the virtues of paying attention to what is happening and learning by awareness and doing.

 

He recounted his early tennis coaching days when he had to deal with the uncomfortable truth that less telling and less instructing (apparently ‘doing’ less) led to better results. He realised that his role was to empower his clients to learn from their own experience. He highlighted the importance of making the environment safe for the client and eliminating the stress of judgement from the coach…or whomever. I think
both coaches and their clients can identify with this.

 

To close the conference, Tim left us with a beautiful line; “Enrol in the school of life as a learner rather than a knower”.

Whether as a master coach or a human being, Tim left us with food for thought, smiles on our faces and hope in our hearts.

 

Tom Armstrong is a key member of hpc’s Accredited Executive Coaching Team. Coupled with his coaching expertise, his commercial focus extends to over 25 years in senior executive roles across multiple industry sectors.

A recent hpc, IITD and TLS collaboration to deliver Consulting Skills to L&D Professionals

“The new realities where organisations operate in highly dynamic external environments and have to be strategically flexible and agile, places significant responsibilities on the L&D function and L&D professionals.”

 

A strong opening statement to a piece of research conducted by Edinburgh Napier Business School on behalf of the Irish Institute of Training and Development (IITD). The research, which is aimed at informing some of the activities of the IITD, has shed light on the ever-changing context of the L&D professional. It examines the current challenges and future opportunities that need addressed to shift the power and position of this crucial organisational role.

 

As well as the changing world of L&D in organisations, the research explores the ‘hot issues’ for the L&D function and the key competencies required to enhance L&D effectiveness. Great emphasis was placed on the ‘alignment of L&D with business strategy and agility’ and how enhancing the skills of L&D professionals is vital in seeking to future proof this alignment.

 

As a result of some of the findings, the IITD and the Trainers’ Learning Skillnet collaborated with hpc to design and deliver a programme to address some of the developmental gaps in the world of L&D professionals. Its aim is to provide a platform from which to align new skills with strategic business needs.

 

Josh Blake of the Trainers’ Learning Skillnet, which provides funding for the programme explains,

 

“The IITD has responded to the needs of the L&D community with a powerful programme, designed in partnership with hpc: Internal Consulting Skills for L&D Professionals. We are halfway through our second programme and a third starts in October 2019.”

 

“The research that was commissioned emphasises the importance of aligning the L&D function with business strategy. To support this, there needs to be a greater focus on enhancing the agility of L&D professionals to influence corporate structure and people development. This will allow them to meet the changing needs of the business,” he adds.

 

Due to the ever-changing external environment and competitive landscape that organisations operate in today, the L&D function is expected to possess the dynamic capabilities to respond both strategically and quickly.

 

As Professor Thomas Garavan of Edinburgh Napier Business School further explains in the report,

“This suggests two important challenges for L&D professionals. First, they are increasingly expected to play a major role in helping organisations to be competitive in highly dynamic environments and to develop a workforce that can adapt quickly to change. Second, they are required to invest significant time and effort in their own development to ensure that they are one step ahead of the employees that they are required to develop.”

 

These important challenges have been recognised by the IITD and have contributed to hpc’s design and delivery of the Internal Consulting Skills Programme.

 

Josh Blake adds, “The programme is structured around the key competencies that L&D professionals need to enhance effectiveness. Their existing wealth of professional knowledge needs to be coupled with the skills that enable them to become strategic partners and agents of change. The programme equips them to better engage with and influence the mindsets of directors to better understand and invest in people development.”

 

As well as a need for greater engagement between L&D and the business, another ‘hot issue’ exists that requires greater emphasis on the development of the skills of L&D professionals. This is the main driver of the Internal Consulting Skills Programme facilitated by hpc’s Yvonne Farrell who comments:

 

“We talk about consulting skills encouraging stakeholders to think ‘outside the box’ but I believe that L&D consulting skills need to help stakeholders fundamentally understand ‘what’s inside the box?’.”

 

A wider interview with Yvonne Farrell and her insights into the changing world of L&D can be read here.

As one interviewee of the research study commented:
“I think that the most important aspect of our effectiveness over the next five years will be our ability to articulate how we will help the business and at the same time be concerned with the needs of employees. It’s important that L&D specialists understand their own development needs and are continuously focused on developing their strategic capabilities.”

 

The Internal Consulting Skills Programme offers the L&D community the support to further their personal developmental needs to drive and add value to the business. The third programme in October is now open for enrolment at the Trainers’ Learning Skillnet website.

HPC’s Yvonne Farrell shares some of her Insights into the changing world of L&D

Yvonne is passionate about her work and contribution to developments and strategic drivers within the L&D sector. Her heart has always been in HR and L&D, leading major internal change programmes.

 

Prior to joining HPC Yvonne’s career spanned a variety of roles including Talent and Performance Manager, Leadership & Development Manager and Head of People and Organisational Capability. Now an associate of hpc, she brings fresh and strategic thinking to the design, development and delivery of corporate talent management strategies to clients in a wide range of industry sectors.

 

As well as working with individuals and larger L&D teams on bespoke HPC programmes, her most recent collaboration has been with the IITD on the design and delivery of a programme to develop the consulting skills of internal L&D practitioners. By partnering effectively with their business and acting as an internal consultant, they can truly align the outputs of their talent management strategy with the goals of the business.

 

So, we asked Yvonne her views on how L&D professionals can change the way they engage and align their thinking internally and the positive impact this can make on the business.

 

Why do L&D professionals need to change the way they engage with the business?

 

Gone are the days of annual training course ‘menus’, devised by L&D and used by the business to manage and often ‘correct’ poor performance. These corrective measures have been overtaken by an environment today where the role of L&D is to enable employees to develop their skills and encourage mindset change; so that they can embrace and respond to the changing ways of working as well as driving competitive advantage for their businesses. L&D should be an enabler of change in organisations.

 

Within uncertain and evolving times, it is essential that L&D is all about alignment and engagement. By being more proactively linked to stakeholders that drive the business strategy, L&D professionals can ensure that they are delivering the same business outcomes as the leaders in the business. Equally important is working with the employees to understand their needs and evolve new ways of learning, particularly in a world where L&D opportunities are an important aspect of recruitment and retention.

 

Why are consulting skills critical to the L&D Professional of the future?

 

There is no doubt in L&D’s ability as a profession; however, a shift in thinking and approach will increase its wider credibility. L&D professionals need to demonstrate a deep and cross-functional understanding of the business to confidently approach business leaders with bold solutions to challenging business problems. They need an ability to ask questions rather than being prescriptive or reactive and not linking the L&D intervention to the business strategy.

 

We talk about consulting skills encouraging stakeholders to think ‘outside the box’ but I believe that L&D consulting skills need to help stakeholders fundamentally understand ‘what is inside the box?’. Businesses often push for L&D to change ‘something’ but as L&D internal consultants, we should challenge the current status quo ‘inside the box’ so that stakeholders and L&D professionals work together to understand current realities and future change.

 

What skills are needed to be an effective L&D consulting professional?

 

Many skills need to come into play: self-awareness, emotional intelligence and self-belief. Building trusting relationships, openly communicating and networking across the business is key.

 

To align with the business there clearly has to be a healthy level of interaction, connection and conversation with business leaders and employees around needs and expectations. A strong consulting mindset will constantly grow new knowledge about the business to shape meaningful and relevant L&D interventions.

 

Having the credibility, confidence and courage to challenge the norm and champion new learning journeys will give L&D the power and purpose to become agents and facilitators of change, with the ability to capture, demonstrate and communicate their added value.

 

How will the L&D professional measure success?

 

Initially during the diagnostic stage, it is about the level of buy in and engagement you are getting from the stakeholder – are they open to challenge, questions about their strategy and how L&D can support them? Or are they pushing back, expecting a single ‘intervention’ and then blaming the L&D professional when it doesn’t work or if changes aren’t evident.

 

If support and collaboration exist to identify a problem, issue or development need and positive change can be experienced and measured, then success will follow in the value add that is evident across the business. It is in those scenarios that L&D will have a serious place at the decision-making table.

 

In a world of personal busyness, family focus and client commitments, HPC’s Deirdre Foley believes that a positive and active mindset is key to her restoring balance and achieving performance.

 

Deirdre’s work as an HPC facilitator and coach is focused extensively at senior leadership level across the tech, utilities and finance sectors. Prior to joining hpc, she worked at a senior level in international IT sales, before pursuing professional training in executive coaching at UCD. She holds an MSc and professional diplomas in Business and Executive Coaching and Coaching Psychology as well as a host of other professional body accreditations. At present, she is studying for a Team Coaching qualification with Ashridge Management School.

 

 

Most clients and colleagues will be aware of Deirdre’s tenacious nature, aspirational attitude and positive outlook. They may know that she is a triathlete competing from Sprint to Ironman distance events at home and abroad and is dedicated to regular training whenever and wherever she can. She enjoys personal fitness, a sense of achievement and challenging herself at any opportunity.

 

Coupled with the behavioural change work she does for HPC, Deirdre sees a strong link between such personal activity and positive corporate performance; in terms of building resilience, facing challenges and reaching new heights.

 

“Life outside work and taking time for yourself is extremely important. For me, it’s all about family commitments and challenging myself physically. I can connect the way that challenges and achievement in sport give me the energy to push myself at work. They naturally balance each other and provide an energy that comes through in my everyday client work,” she says.

 

Anyone who encounters Deirdre will be familiar with her engaging energy and positive outlook. They will recognise this ‘strong link’ in the way she works. But Deirdre is also in a fantastic position as an Executive Coach and Facilitator to constantly spot these links in other people.

 

“I regularly get drawn into conversations while coaching individuals or facilitating a group about the pressures of work and people’s individual abilities to cope and push their own boundaries. I often see people who have balance, wellness and personal focus in their lives, being more effective in their corporate roles as a result of this ability to switch off from work.”

 

“We all know that “work-life balance” is something we should take seriously. It’s high on people’s agendas but time is often an issue. Looking after yourself, enjoying what matters to you and taking the time to prioritise these things are extremely important from a personal perspective as well as contributing towards better performance at work,” she adds.

 

Many organisations view “work-life balance” as an important component of their workplace culture, going as far as integrating the concept into their formal policies. They do this because they see real value in fostering healthy and well-rounded employees.

 

Deirdre observes that “when we find and sustain a healthy work-life balance, we develop a greater control over our focus and ability to concentrate on the task at hand and raise the bar of our ability. We all encounter new challenges that we need to overcome and just as we are feeling comfortable with one achievement, another scenario comes along to test us. As a result, we’re continually flexing and balancing to move ourselves forward.”

 

“For me, there is a strong relationship between regular physical activity and emotional well-being. The stronger your emotional well-being the stronger your ability to build resilience and inner strength to cope with what ‘life throws at you’.”

 

But while sport may be Deirdre’s forte, the same logic can be applied to other personal interests that strike the same balance. Other hobbies or activities to retreat to on a regular basis can ease the mounting pressure people feel from work. Individual “me time” pursuits can provide relaxation and time to recharge, while team or group activities provide social psychological benefits.

 

Whether it’s cooking, art, music, dancing, yoga or any other personal interest; everything has a place in people’s individual worlds and all contribute to personal health and wellbeing, which transfers over to the workplace.

 

The value of hobbies on professional lives goes beyond just personal health. Employers value healthy employees for the sake of productivity, but they also value well-rounded employees that offer diverse perspectives, creativity and personal connections.

 

Deirdre knows too well the pressures of the corporate world, through previous roles at sales director level in IT for a number of national and multinational organisations.“It’s about finding the time to get joy from the simple things in life,” Deirdre reiterates.

 

“Time is scarce and while I can make time to train on my own, quite often involving my family brings even more enjoyment. As soon as it was safe for them, my children were strapped safely onto the back of my bike and involved in my training and are now getting to the age where they can outperform me at park runs, swimming and soon biking too! The outdoor environment is part and parcel of their lives too and it is an extremely rewarding way to spend time together.”

 

Deirdre’s strength lies in her positive spirit; that is at the heart of her work as a coach and facilitator. Her motivation for what she does is driven by her energy to engage with people and deliver the best results for the clients she works with.

 

“Creating a lasting impact is central to my work. I am constantly using the power of positivity to do the best job to develop people to be more mentally and physically resilient leaders and become more aware and conscious of their behaviours and impacts on others,” she says.

 

Throughout this work Deirdre has encountered many stories of how people have or are trying to implement their own personal balance in whatever way works for them and she believes strongly that “personal development drives professional development.”

 

“Switching off from work and giving your personal life equal measures of attention is vital; so, find the time to spark an interest, ignite a passion or discover a new path.”

 

 

HPC’s ‘Facilitator Focus’ series is a celebration of our client-facing team of coaches and facilitators – to share their insights, motivations and where they find joy that inspires their work. As the series progresses, we will introduce you to other members of our team who drive our client work at HPC.

Bob Lee’s expertise lies in how and why the world’s best employers use great workplace cultures to drive competitive advantage. Utilising his knowledge and harnessing it as a facilitator for HPC adds great strength and impact to our client relationships. In light of this accolade, we wanted to focus on the work that has helped Bob achieve this recognition.

 

At the heart of Bob’s knowledge lies the subject of trust; a complex area that is easy to get wrong and sometimes very hard to get right. To many it is a behaviour, a belief, a feeling or an attitude, but for people who know more that most, it represents a complex neural process that binds relationships together.

 

This year marks the 9th annual ‘Trust Across America Top Thought Leaders in Trust’ to celebrate those whose work helps foster organisational trust, a key driver of long-term success. The honour has been extended to global professionals from a broad functional base including integrity and trust, leadership, culture, employee engagement, sales and customer service.

 

Prior to joining HPC, Bob founded the Great Place to Work Institute in UK and Ireland and held senior leadership positions with the Institute from 2002 to 2017, including four years as chair of its Worldwide Advisory Board. He continues to support global multinational clients in his role as a senior consultant with Great Place to Work USA.

 

“I am a business performance specialist. I show clients how the world’s best companies use workplace culture to achieve their market-leading business results, and I help them to do the same”, says Bob.

 

“My work with some of the world’s best-run businesses led me to a simple question: why and how do some managers build high-achieving teams of highly-engaged individuals, while so many others struggle to inspire their people to achieve even average performance and results?”

 

His analysis of the Great Place to Work Institute’s database of two million employees in 80 countries revealed a surprisingly simple truth: the best managers do the same things as all other managers – but they do them more thoughtfully, more sincerely, and more consistently than everyone else.

 

His quest to understand what separates great managers from the rest and what one factor dictates great team results points quite simply towards: how much the manager and their employees trust each other.

 

He is the author of Amazon #1 Best-seller ‘Trust Rules: How the World’s Best Managers Create Great Places to Work’, based on this extensive research and published in May 2017. It is a manager’s guide to the actions and attitudes that have the greatest impact on trust in workplace relationships and through that, on organisational performance.

 

“Culture drives performance, and managers drive culture. So, the key to creating a high-performance culture is to create high-trust relationships, particularly between managers and their teams. Building high-trust is mostly about getting the basics right – keeping promises, really listening, living with integrity.

 

It’s not complicated – most of us have been doing it effortlessly since birth…my role is to help people unleash that natural expertise”, he says.

 

The message of Trust Rules is both simple and inspiring. Simple, because small margins drive big results – the world’s best companies achieve their superior results because of only minor differences in how they manage their people. And inspiring because the rules show that every manager can be a great manager if they just choose the right attitude and consistently back it up with the right behaviour.

 

So, trust is a big deal to Bob. He has experienced it, encouraged it and helps it evolve through the work he delivers for clients. The recognition from ‘Trust Across America’ is testament to this work when they openly say that;

 

“Each year for the past nine years, hundreds of hours are spent reviewing potential honourees, and compiling a list of global professionals who ‘walk their talk.’”

 

A well-deserved achievement for Bob whose work in this area is inspirational in outlook and practical in approach.

HPC has created a culture in which creative and innovative minds meet; where our people add their own unique value to our team and create a profound and positive impact on the clients they work with.

Due to the continued growth of our business, we are delighted to introduce you to the new faces of our ever-expanding team. Across all business functions, we have made a number of new appointments who are all having an impact on the work we do at HPC.

 

 

Facilitator & Coaching Team

 

Every member of our facilitator and coaching team shares our ethos of delivering insightful, adaptable and progressive solutions in partnership with our clients. Paramount to their role is a client centric mindset, an ability to engage effectively in different industry sectors and a deep understanding of how ever-changing business needs impact how HPC can add value at a strategic level.

 

We’re delighted to welcome Barry O’Sullivan back to HPC. Previously a member of our core Executive Coaching Team, Barry returns with a strong focus on individual coaching as well as adding further value to the area of team coaching.

 

Bob Lee joins our Design and Facilitation Team with many years of experience in the corporate world of executive leadership as well as being the founder of ‘Great Place to Work’ Ireland.

 

Chris Rogerson joins HPC as a facilitator and executive coach. He brings a wealth of knowledge of L&D internally from the corporate side of business as well as delivering external consultative solutions in a wide range of industries.

 

John Hill’s experience lies at the heart of business development, entrepreneurship and CEO level roles. His natural transition into coaching and facilitation for the last 10 years adds value to his role within leadership development at HPC.

 

Barry, Bob, Chris and John join our wider team who all have unquestionable experience, wisdom and insights into the corporate world. Every member of our highly experienced design, delivery and coaching team has a strong operational business background that creates a cultural fit with our clients. Combining this with their natural instinct and ability to create positive behavioural change for people and organisations, is an extremely powerful proposition.

 

Brand, Marketing & Internal Projects

 

Katrina Dowling joins HPC and takes the lead on brand and marketing. Her knowledge from the brand agency world will stand us in good stead as we plan for new developments and strategic changes in the near future.

 

Jayne Mulhall supports many of the important internal projects that are of practical and strategic importance to HPC – from marketing and digital media to our approach to evaluation and communicating key findings to clients.

 

Client Focus

 

A core focus of our customer’s experience rests with our internal team of project and administrative coordinators. Programme planning, general logistics and relationship building are at the heart of our internal team,
plus much more.

 

Melissa Murray joins our Client Project Coordinator Team, the operational engine in HPC that surrounds the delivery of client programmes. They pride themselves on their commitment to the flawless execution of programmes and deliverables, as well as feedback and evaluation.

 

Laura Ead provides administrative support to client facing teams to ensure the delivery of an engaging client experience. Her attention to detail and focus on quality control are vital to her role of coordinating all the programme materials that accompany our facilitative work.

 

People are at the heart of what we do at HPC and every new appointment made adds more depth and experience to the existing strength of our team. Whatever your interaction with HPC, our new team members will look forward to engaging with you.

For the past 40 years, Dr. Robert Brinkerhoff has been recognised internationally as one of the leading authorities on learning effectiveness and the evaluation of learning impact. Creator of the Success Case Method, his work has shifted the conversation away from the purely descriptive data of Phillips and Kirkpatrick towards a more rounded view of understanding impact.

 

Robert Brinkerhoff’s latest work, in partnership with Promote International, is designed to provide L&D practitioners with a framework to build programmes that deliver impact. Based on his research over the past 40 years, High Performance Learning Journeys (HPLJ’s) have been designed with learning professionals in mind. Their aim is to transform training interventions from events into rich journeys that deliver desired performance, tangible results and measurable business impact. A process or ‘learning journey’ approach combines formal training with participants’ working reality and shifts the focus from “gaining knowledge” to performance.

 

 

hpc has been partnering with Promote International for the past two years, utilising their online learning transfer platform. hpc’s Kevin Hannigan explains why the Promote Learning Transfer platform is a key element of their offering:

“We partner with Promote and leverage their platform to enhance the impact of our programmes. Increasingly, we are working with our clients to broaden the scope of our programmes beyond the learning environment and to include a real emphasis on the performance environment. The platform enables us to track the application of learning to real life situations and integrates concepts and practice along with social learning and coach feedback.”

 

The certified programme is gaining ground in assisting L&D professionals to reshape traditional training events into more beneficial learning journeys that are more measurable and impactful.

 

Last year, Fergal O’Connor and Hilary Anderson of hpc travelled to Stockholm to undertake the HPLJ certification with Robert Brinkerhoff and the Promote International team. This HPLJ programme is designed to assist L&D professionals reshape traditional training events into more beneficial learning journeys that are measurable and impactful. While the Promote platform complements the HPLJ approach, the HPLJ approach is sufficiently robust to use on any programme without a digital platform.

 

 

Since his accreditation in Stockholm, hpc’s Fergal O’Connor observes the impact of the HPLJ approach on clients:

“The HPLJ approach is strengthening hpc’s existing ethos of developing solutions that are aligned to a central business need and instilling organisational and personal responsibility to keep the transfer of learning alive.”

 

“We’ve applied it to our existing design and delivery standards and clients are benefitting from the behavioural change that occurs when learning is applied to real life ‘moments that matter’ across participant roles.”

 

Mark Gussetti of Promote International adds,

 

“hpc’s Fergal O’Connor and Hilary Anderson are the first and currently the only Irish based professionals who have received the accolade of being HPLJ certified.”

 

hpc’s work of combining the latest research and insights, along with a powerful process to apply the learning in a performance environment, is increasing the impact our clients are having on their business.

hpc’s Kevin Hannigan explores why Learning and Development Professionals should look to other professions for insights into how they might transform their practice.

Last year’s IITD conference looked at the future world of work, the rise of AI, and the rapid disruption of industries. We now largely accept that to survive in “the new normal” we need to prepare people to learn and to change at an extraordinary rate.

 

 

These circumstances provide L&D professionals with an extraordinary opportunity to take their ‘seat at the table’ and support organisational transformation. Unfortunately, many L&D functions are struggling to justify their worth to the business.

 

 

Is this a failure of senior leadership to grasp our worth and impact on the organisation or should we bear some of the blame? In our rush to push out training, have we inadvertently focused on events rather than
performance.

 

 

If we do want to take our seat at the table, what will it take to shift from designing ‘learning events’ to creating ecosystems and experiences that increase performance? We think that the answer may lie in taking inspiration from other professions to craft new ways of thinking about our work.

 

 

These 5 ideas won’t solve all our woes, but they will play an important part in enabling this change and, in the process, future-proofing your career:

 

BUILD LIKE AN ARCHITECT

 

The Roman architect Vitruvius in his treatise on architecture, De Architectura, asserted that there were three principles of good architecture:

 

• Firmatis (Durability) – it should stand up robustly and remain in good condition.

• Utilitas (Utility) – it should be useful and function well for the people using it.

• Venustatis (Beauty) – it should delight people and raise their spirits.

 

 

These three principles could equally be applied to Learning and Development.

Durability – are our programmes based on robust evidence and sound research?

Utility – Just as architects believe that “form follows function”, we too should choose the most appropriate tools, inputs and supports to create a learning environment that influences behaviour, experience and performance.

Beauty – Great architecture is influenced by its surroundings – would the Eiffel Tower work as well in a high-rise city like New York? In a similar way, our learning and development strategy and each intervention should reflect the environment in which they were created and our organisational strategy.

 

 

CREATE LIKE A DESIGNER

 

Great design makes us want to engage with a product or service. The iPhone changed the world not just because of its combination of technologies but also because its design made us want to engage with it. Many businesses and social organisations now embed design thinking throughout entire organisational policies and practices to be more constructive and innovative. Stanford University’s D-School’s ‘5 stages of Design Thinking’ raise some interesting questions for us:

 

 

Stage 1 – Empathise – Have we spent time observing our audience in their environment (as opposed to focus groups)?

Stage 2 – Define – Have we segmented our audience properly; defining their pain points, challenges and understanding their incentives to change? (see marketing above)

Stage 3 – Ideate – Have we considered new approaches and tools or that a training programme isn’t the correct approach?

Stage 4 – Prototype – Designers build quickly, fail fast and learn from the process.

Stage 5 – Test – Sometimes, the only way to trial something is to build it and seek feedback. Great designers build, test and learn from feedback.

 

 

ENGAGE LIKE A MARKETEER

 

If you build it, they won’t necessarily come. Marketeers understand that people engage with brands and that brands convey meaning, emotion and purpose. If you think about your function as a brand, how would people describe it? Is it a brand that they want to engage with? Do they trust your brand in the same way that Irish people voted the Credit Union as the most trusted brand in the country?

 

Marketeers also understand their audience and continually segment their customers to understand their needs. This segmentation extends beyond needs analysis to include:

 

• Communicating with different stakeholders through different channels and with different messages;

• Developing new offerings based on both horizontal and vertical segments;

• Differentiated investment in different segments; and

• Analysing data based on segments.

 

 

SOLVE LIKE A HACKER

 

Hacking can have negative connotations particularly as it relates to criminally “hacking” databases and secure servers. However, the original meaning of the term referred to ‘a desire to solve a problem using playful cleverness and creativity’. Indeed, people like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux identify themselves as hackers. Hacking is about being outcome driven and using anything and everything around you to achieve your goal. Rather than seeing every problem as a nail and smashing it with the ‘hammer’ of formal training, hacking implies that we expand our toolkit and consider all available options to achieve the results we require.

 

 

Even better, if like a marketeer you understand your audience, you’ll recognise their current tools, processes and practice, so you can build a solution into and aligned with their workflow.

 

 

MEASURE LIKE A SCIENTIST

 

Sixty years on, Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation has cornered the market on evaluation in L&D. That’s unfortunate because it’s largely tied to the event-based model of training we’re trying to relegate to history. Worse, it’s ‘reaction’ level runs counter to the reality of learning whereby learner happiness after training has little correlation to actual learning.

 

We need to develop an evidence-based approach to decision making, leveraging data to justify targeted investment in L&D. We need to be curious about our impact and look across the organisation for potential evidence of impact. This means us becoming more comfortable with data and measurement and engaging with data from other functions.

If you really want to get value from your core values, you need them to resonate across the organisation. They can’t be just aspirational, beautifully crafted words in an annual report, or an excuse for a marketing launch: they need to mean as much to the person driving the forklift, as they do to the leadership team. As learning professionals, we all know this: we’re well versed in the arguments for building a shared sense of purpose, a common culture, and a meaningful set of values.

 

But the elephant in the room is that, too often, an organisation’s core values are anything but meaningful to the people who matter most.

 

In a Deloitte Survey, half of employees thought that “clearly defined values and beliefs” contributed to their company’s success. But that means one in two employees didn’t.

 

In the most extreme cases, the problem is not just that employees don’t see the value in the values; it is that they have strong feelings of negativity and cynicism towards them. This is particularly the case in companies which have been through more than one cycle of rolling out a new set of corporate values, usually preceded by a change in leadership. The reaction from employees, understandably perhaps, is ‘here we go again’ and ‘what does this have to do with me?’

 

Writing in Harvard Business Review, Patrick M. Lencioni cites the example of the CEO of a financial services company, who kicked off a management conference with an announcement about a new set of values. The announcement was accompanied by a slick video with a rousing soundtrack and stock footage of famous athletes, intercut with employees waving awkwardly at the camera. When the video finished, the CEO asked the assembled managers if they wanted to see it again, and he was met with a loud “No!”

 

That audible groan of dismay will be familiar to many of us who have been responsible for starting a conversation about values. So what’s to be done about it?

 

At hpc, we take the approach that values should be thought of in a three layer structure, which sit one above the other: ‘they’, ‘we’ and ‘me’.

 

Often, values are seen by employees as something that concerns the management team, shareholders or the media – it’s something ‘they’ devised, and something ‘they’ talk about, with no real connection to us or our daily lives.

 

The challenge for organisations is to encourage employees to think about how ‘we’ implement those values in our roles, how they matter to ‘us’, and ultimately, why they matter to ‘me’. 

 

We kickstart this process by bringing groups together across the organisation, and asking people to think first about the company’s values in the context of the things that they do really well. It can be as straightforward as choosing a value, and asking how it comes to life in their part of the organisation.

 

The process doesn’t have to involve anything more complex than a flipchart and a few markers – but the results can be astonishing. Focusing on the positive gives employees a tremendous sense of ownership, encouragement and self-regard. Once this conversation begins to open up, the biggest challenge can be getting employees to stop talking.

 

The second step is to look at the things that are not being done so well, and run counter to the organisation’s values. Because they have focused on excellence first, employees typically feel more empowered to talk about the areas where the values are not being lived.

 

The third question is what can be done to address these areas. And just like that, we’ve moved values from being something ‘they’ talk about to something ‘we’ do every day, to something that can drive ‘me’ in my work and something that ‘I’ can actively contribute to.

 

It is a powerful process, and one that is effective not just in newer organisations, but even in longer-established ones.

 

Storytelling is an important part of the conversation too: it needs to involve examples of values being lived well and less well both inside and outside the organisation.

 

When we’re asked why values matter, we sometimes share the story once shared with us by an acquaintance who went to pitch for the retention of a contract from an important client. The client told her that a competitor had just been in and had been badmouthing her company. In the interests of fairness, the client offered her the opportunity to respond.

 

She thought about it for a moment, and then – feeling that no matter how much she’d like to set the record straight, engaging in slagging off a competitor was at odds with her company’s values—she declined and said she’d prefer to talk about her proposal.

 

Two weeks later, the call came. The client said her company’s proposal was more expensive – but what followed wasn’t the rejection she was expecting. He’d been impressed by her integrity, he said, and he felt confident she would be just as discreet if she was ever asked about his organisation. She stayed true to her organisation’s values and her own—and retained the contract.

 

Having a real, meaningful set of values that are lived by every individual in the organisation should be the goal for every company. The good news is that getting there might just be easier than you thought.

 

Author – Justin Kinnear, Senior Facilitator, hpc.