Learning & Performance Readiness: Ready, Fire, Aim...

Does any of this ring true in tyour organization?

• Performance outcomes are not escalating to match the pace of competitive business demands.
  
• Conflicting priorities exist across stakeholder groups on how to address the shortfall.
  
• State of the art learning and performance technology deployed earlier is not being utilized with any consistency.
  
• Talent acquisition is more miss than hit, and churn is creeping up despite above-industry compensation programs and incentives.
  
• Three different conferencing vendors have seven active contracts within five different stakeholder silos.

Occurrences like these indicate that an organization is sorely in need of effective organizational learning and performance strategy. It eventually bubbles up to senior leadership and gains critical mass in the form of decisions laced with urgency to consolidate, cut costs and regain control.

Often, it is this same urgency, though legitimate in every respect, that precedes learning and performance readiness, and the wrong decisions are made for all the right reasons. Quite honestly, the decisions are not that wrong, they are just being made for an organization that is not ready to accept, much less implement.

Truly, being ready does not guarantee readiness!

Learning and performance (L&P) readiness is much more complex than being the proverbial jumping off point on the front end of an enterprise-wide transaction to buy new technology. I say this because L&P readiness is not a destination; it is a condition within the organization laced with critical interdependencies represented in three primary categories:

• L&P Technology
  
• L&P Methodology
  
• L&P Culture

Decisions cannot be made in any one of these three areas without understanding the impact of ripples sent upstream and downstream to and from the functional areas resonating in the other two. Of the three I’ve listed above, technology is often the first to be addressed; not always because it’s the right one, but because it is the most visible and viewed as producing the shortest path to tangible results. It may be; however, what good are tangible results that are not sustainable?

So...could it be that learning methods must be aligned before making the right technology decision? I hate to hand you an answer such as, “It depends.” But it does. Here’s a short life lesson that makes me so adamant about what I will soon share with you.

I used to work for Sprint Communications in the early 90’s, and they pulled off a coup by stealing away a young, hot-shot executive from AT&T by the name of Gary Forsee to lead the Business Sales Group. At the time, I was a Group Manager in Sales Training, and Mr. Forsee came into our group one day unannounced and asked us to gather in the conference room. We had a little chat. We walked out of that chat aligned and empowered. To this day I carry the impact of his words...

“Our mission is simple – acquire new, retain existing and stimulate additional minutes on our state-of-the-art network. As the sales training organization, you all play a critical role in our mission. I need each of you to assess what you are working on and decide if what you’re doing directly or indirectly drives acquisition of new minutes, protects and/or stimulates usage minutes on our network. If your actions are not doing either of those things, you have a responsibility to question the viability of those actions and pursue only those things that will enable the success of our mission.”

You might think that Mr. Foresee delivered clarity of vision that day, or demonstrated empowering leadership. I think both are true, but underlying it all was something he showed us all upon which sustainability could take root – business culture.

That morning, he established in my mind and in my heart a sense that not only Gary Forsee was behind what I did in my little silo, but the whole organization was rallying and pulling in the same direction. He established momentum by telling us we had to figure out through our choice of actions how to make the mission successful. He did not tell us how to do our jobs. He did not assign stretch objectives. He established a culture of individual empowerment that was in lock-step alignment with the corporate vision and mission. How we applied our departmental resources and priorities were our responsibility, not his.

To me, learning readiness should give the organization that same gut-level sense of knowledge and empowerment that the entire organization has made a commitment to L&P to ensure successful execution of the business strategy.

Certainly that means leveraging the latest technology and aggressively driving new L&P methodology into stakeholder units. The establishment of L&P culture must become a visible, sustained priority. This culture must become a rallying point where everyone in the organization feels empowered to learn and grow. It must become a visible “brand” that represents tangible proof that the organization recognizes and is serious about enabling the success and development of its most-prized human assets.

A visible culture of this nature will attract those who want to work in an environment where the organization expects them to succeed and grow. Visibility of this culture will demonstrate commitment by the organization that promotes retention of those who need the freshness of new challenge to facilitate continued growth.

A learning culture is not just the presence of a visible brand and a blend of leading-edge technology however. It must also promote a nontraditional environment where learning opportunities are continuous and accessible through informal, unstructured learning moments.

A learning culture is one where the learning is taken to the learner, not the other way around. If more learning really does happen at the water cooler than in the classroom, encourage more time around the water cooler. Collaboration is key. A learning culture embraces the concept of collaboration by taking radical approaches to encourage and promote organic sharing of informal, unstructured knowledge. Learning organizations facilitate it. They encourage it. They expect it.

For me, a commitment to embed a learning culture in the organization must be the first step taken by senior leadership. Aligning that journey with mission-critical business strategy must be continuous and visibly reinforced to maintain the momentum that drives sustainability. From that alignment, it is then possible to lead organizational change. It is then possible to gather “aligned” learning requirements that define the “right” blend of technological capabilities. It is then possible to define the “aligned” competencies to execute the “right” methods. When these things can be accomplished, L&P readiness changes from a condition to a state of mind possessed by every member within a winning, learning organization.

Is your organization ready to get ready?

Contact Human Performance Outfitters to discuss how a State of Learning Readiness Assessment may help build a roadmap for deploying your own holistic learning and performance strategy.

Gary G. Wise
Founder/Principle
Human Performance Outfitters, LLC.
g.wise@humanperformanceoutfitters.com

(317) 437-2555