CLO Symposium, TISS, Mumbai

I recently attended the one-day CLO Symposium in India (http://www.closummitindia.com/). I must appreciate the effort made by Kumaar Bagrodia to organise such an event, and TISS for supporting the initiative. One could always write a thesis on things that should be done differently, but it is important to celebrate the learning. I wish more people attended, and more importantly let's make an effort to make these successful in years to come.

I had been speaking to a lot of friends and industry-colleagues beforehand about their interest in attending the symposium, and although a few had mentioned that they would attend, but many were skeptical about attending. While there may be quite a few reasons for that kind of response, but I believe it was mostly because of the absence of a 'fraternity'. And this symposium and such symposia would, undoubtedly, ensure that the 'fraternity' gets built.

To begin with we were a few of us who had once worked for NIS Sparta (http://www.nissparta.com/), and it was quite a reunion-of-sorts (Vinay Pradhan, TV Binoj Vasu, Bulbul Ray, Rituraj Sar, Rahul Mehta, Me...). Navin Bhatia and Anand Dewan couldn't make it! Psst!

Unfortunately, I had to leave and hence could not attend Dr. Chandra's session onwards. The star of the entire session was the session by Mr. Bhaskar Chatterjee... he was smooth and moreover he gave us all something that we could carry back. Transcript of his session is at the bottom of this note.

Quite a decent bunch of speakers were there, most of them were good, but only a few could make it interesting. I have baptised their sessions basis my interpretation of what was being discussed, and my rating of the session.

Keynote Speakers (9/10)

• Mr. Bhaskar Chatterjee (Secretary, Department of Heavy Ind and Pub Ent, GoI)
• Mr. Kumaar Bagrodia (CEO, LeapVault)

Round Table: Who's a CLO and do we really need one? (6/10)

• Mr. Arun Balakrishnan (CMD, HPCL)
• Mr. Thomas Varghese (CEO, Aditya Birla Retail)
• Dr. Mukund Rajan (MD, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd)
• Prof. S Parsuraman (Director, TISS)
• Vikram Oza (Bloomberg -UTV), Session Convenor

Learning at Teach for India (7/10)

• Ms. Shaheen Mistri (CEO, Teach for India) - Introduced the work being done at Teach For India... very 'moving' presentation
  

Learning and Development in the PSU Sector (1/10)

• Mr. S Mohan (Director, BPCL)
• Mr. V C Agarwal (Director, Indian Oil Corporation)
• Mr. K S Jamestin (Group GM, ONGC)

Individual Sessions (3/10)

• Ms. Susan Bloch (CLO, Aditya Birla Group): The session was a polling session to figure out what people thought 'contributes' to learning. The audio-video presentation was good
• Mr. Nilesh Kulkarni (Head HR, Novartis Consumer Health): The session was focused at Learning and Development in a Bio-Research environment

Round Table: Role of a CLO (8/10)

• Mr. Yogi Sriram (EVP, L&T) - Session Convenor
• Ms. Suchitra Rajendra (Director, Organization Capability, Pepsico)
• Mr. Kalyan Banerjee (Head Learning, Mindtree)
• Dr. Gopal Mahapatra (CLO, Oracle)
• Captain Mohanlal J P (Head, Learning and Development, SBI Life Insurance)

Individual Sessions - Couldn't attend hereon...psst!

• Dr. S Chandrasekhar (VP HR South Asia, IBM)
• Mr. Ranajit Mukherjee (GM, Advisory Services NIIT)
• Someone representing 'Who Moved My Cheese'

Transcript of Bhaskar Chatterjee's presentation

Will the CLO survive... Yes, In today's changing world, someone has to be responsible for the activity of Learning.

What defines a Learning Organization?

1. Shared Vision - Disseminated or built bottom up. The CLO has to do that.
2. Building Inertia - Stillness is calm and peaceful. Movement needs to be included to bring about change.
3. Open Communication - Able to communicate without fear... question it... not just the board, but just about anyone.
4. Departmental Interest - It has to be subjugated to to ensure the shared vision. We currently operate in a single-loop learning environment; but we need to build an environment of double-loop learning - mistake is a part of the process; use mistakes as a learning process. Could we work around a list of failures, rather than just a list of best practices?
   

CLO's responsibility is to ensure a constant learning process. The commitment has to be top-down. Evolving organizational structure needs to be ensured; one that works around the learnt elements; a culture promoting innovation.

Who is a CLO?

• Highest ranking corporate officer concerned with talent and learning management. Expert in training and development of organizational talent for optimization of business results. Needs to be shrewed business person; responsible for optimization of business results.

What does the CLO do?

• They don't provide companies with learning programs. They are responsible for fostering change in the workplace. Requires leadership skills, and also courage to bring about change... in a quite and gentle way.

What are the traits of a CLO?

• Communication- One cannot be a retiscient communicator.
• Influencer - Use right influencing techniques to get points across, in an assertive yet gentle manner.
• Consulting Skills - Its about the CLO providing consultation to others and others doing it with the CLO.
• Starategic Thinking - Where is the company moving.
• Business Person - Every change is linked to business... Business Acumen
  

3Cs of a successful CLO

• Care for people in the company
• Content (core) of the organization
• Contact (networked) within the orgzn.

5 things CLOs should do.

• Understand business processes.
• Learning resources to orient towards business processes.
• Push employees' performance.
• Promote a culture of innovation and successes, and a supportive attitude towards failure.
• People will stop innovating if failures are not accepted.
• Support CEO in reorganization. Be a champion of ideas and foster the same within the organization.