Target - Performance Improvement

My journey in the world of learning started more than a decade back. In the past decade, the first half was focused on learning & delivering, and the latter half is marked by learning, following AND facilitating. Whilst helping out others, I have always introduced with my note below which has been shamelessly inpired by Bob Mager's book, 'What Every Manager Should Know About Training'; and no, this is not plagiarism, but my effort to ensure that people, CEOs and CLOs, get the gist of the thought. My trademark 18-day 'Trainer BootCamp' starts with the concept of what training can / can not do, as mentioned in this note, and I have taken about 500 trainers through it during various bootcamps.

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Performance Improvement

is

the ‘T A R G E T’

Performance is key to a person’s success and that is integral to the organization’s success. However, the organization is always surrounded by challenges, which hinder performance. These Performance Challenges, specifically in the area of ‘the work’, ‘the worker’, and the ‘the work environment’, are a result of a measured disparity between the ‘desired’ and the ‘actual’ state of work performance or the expected disparity between the ‘desired’ and the ‘actual’ state of work performance.

This disparity, once broken down and analyzed, leads to a specific set of gaps. These gaps could be in the 3 specific areas, such as, knowledge gaps, skill gaps, and attitudinal gaps (including Motivation & Expectations).

These gaps could be handled in many a ways such as by giving Training interventions, Coaching interventions, Consulting interventions and Non-Training interventions. Training interventions help build the skills and self-efficacy in the trainees.

Skill

If people don’t know how to do it, they can’t do it. No amount of incentives or exhortations or threats will get them to do it. Without skill there can be no performance.

If they don’t know what to do and how to do it, and if they need to be able to do it, then someone will need to teach them to do it. But skills are not developed merely by listening to someone talk about how to perform. Skills are developed and strengthened through practice, through the actual doing of those work tasks.

Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy refers to the judgments people make about their abilities to execute particular courses of action – about their ability to do specific things. For example, “I know I’m a good golfer;” “I know I can beat my sales record of last year;” “I know that my fencing skill is the best in town.”

Self-efficacy isn’t about the actual skills people have; it’s about the judgments they make about the strength of those skills. People with low self-efficacy don’t believe they can do the things they actually can do. “Oh, well, I didn’t take the job offer because I didn’t think I was really good enough.”

Don’t confuse self-efficacy with self-confidence, which is a much more generalized way of referring to one’s feelings, and often refers to the expected outcomes of one’s actions.
Why is self-efficacy so important?

When people don’t judge themselves able to do something they actually can do, they may not even try to do it. They may avoid trying, regardless of the strength of their skills. Therefore, if people are given the skills they need, but not the self-efficacy, they will be unlikely to perform those skills on the job. No self-efficacy, no performance.

There’s more. People with strong self-efficacy will not only be more willing to try, they will be more willing to persist in the face of obstacles, failures, or embarrassment. They are less likely to give up in the face of adversity. Thus, strong self-efficacy makes people less vulnerable to on-the-job conditions that aren’t always supportive. How can you get people to “try, try again” in the face of difficulties or failures? Make sure you (and anyone training others) apply efficacy-strengthening techniques.

Unfortunately, the development of a skill isn’t automatically accompanied by a development of strong self-efficacy. You may recall instances in which people with great deal of skills didn’t believe they had the degree of skill they did. You’ve probably seen people hang back because of a lack of self-efficacy rather than because of a lack of skill.

"When people don’t judge themselves able to do something they actually can do, they may not even try to do it…"

Opportunity to Perform

Without the opportunity to perform, there will be no performance. Opportunity means being provided with items such as:

• The permission (or authority) to perform
• Information about expectations
• Tools and equipment needed to perform
• A place in which to perform
• The time to perform

If you were an accomplished sitar-player but didn’t have a sitar, you wouldn’t be able to perform sitar solos. No sitar, no performance. By the same token, if you had a sitar but lived in a state where playing the sitar is prohibited, you wouldn’t be able to perform (without running the risk of being caught by the anti-sitar police). If you don’t have the tools to do your job, or a place in which to do it, you won’t be able to perform. No opportunity, no performance.

But there’s more, because mere opportunity to perform is not enough.

You can’t store training! Use it or Lose it.

Or, as the trainers say, use it or lose it. Unlike fine wines, skills do not improve merely with the passage of time. Think about the courses you took in school. Are you as sharp on each of those subjects as you were when the course ended? No? Why not? You’ve forgotten a lot of the information or skills because you haven’t used them – because you haven’t practiced them. Essentially, Use it or Lose it.

Supportive Environment

Suppose that every time you sat down to work on a budget, your boss came in and whacked you about the head and the shoulder with a rolled newspaper or showered you with verbal abuse. How long would you continue to work on budgets? Or, suppose that you were ridiculed by your peers every time you offered a suggestion at a meeting? How long would you continue to offer suggestions? Or, suppose that every time you made a worthwhile suggestion you were requires to head the committee organized to implement it? Or, suppose that every time you came in under budget, your budget was cut off for next year. No supportive environment, no performance.

A supportive environment is one that encourages desired performance. It is environment in which workers are given reasons (incentives) to perform in the desired manner, a clear description of the results to be obtained and the standards to be met; it is an environment which the employee’s world gets a little brighter when they do it right, and a little dimmer when they don’t. When the consequences of performing well are upside down – that is, punishments for doing it right or rewards for doing it wrong – desired performance will be difficult or impossible to sustain.

Performance then requires the presence of skill, self-efficacy, opportunity to perform, and a supportive environment. Take away any one of those ingredients and the performance will suffer, or worst, will never appear.

The diagram above although shows ‘interventions’ at a cross-section of gaps, however, it is just a diagrammatic representation.

Different types of gaps require to be treated in different ways. The ‘best way’ is the way in which the audience internalizes best and the one which impacts the learner’s performance as per the desired levels.

Gap Type                             Input Type Knowledge                            Training, Non-Training Skill                                        Training & Coaching Attitude                                 Training, Coaching, (including Motivations       Non-Training & Consulting & Expectations)

We should remember that all forms of gaps are not trainable from a corporate perspective, wherein time does not have an infinite value.

One, however, needs to keep in mind that Training is not the only solution for all kinds of performance problems, however, the propensity of most ‘trainers’ is to resort to ‘training’ as a solution to one & all. It’s like giving paracetamol for all kinds of ailments.

The Birth of Massacre

My car breaks down on deserted highway, and with no help in sight, I push her across the emergency line, lock it and start hailing for help. A kind trucker stops to give me a lift to the nearest garage.

The garage is a rickety shanty with old worn out cars gathering dust and allowing the wilderness to take over. Its evening and I want to be on my way as soon as possible; and the sight wasn’t too welcoming. At a distance I find two people conversing. By the looks of them, the guy in the greased overalls was undoubtedly the mechanic, and the gentleman in formal yet casual attire seems to be a travelling salesman. As I walk close to them, I garner from the animated movements of the salesman hands and fingers that he is furious about his car which doesn’t seem to get over its constant hiccups. As I try to follow his finger to figure out his bain, the car strikes me to be one from the carburetor era. On paying closer attention to the conversation I realize that the salesman is actually telling the mechanic about just not the symptoms, but also the problem with the car.

These travelling salesmen are sort of a walking encyclopedia on everything, and why wouldn’t they be; they travel so much. Anyways, once the salesman is through with his explanation, the mechanic gets on to his job. But before he does so, he assures me that he would be with me in the next twenty minutes. The twenty minutes seem like twenty hours, but eventually, the salesman drives away after having haggled for the cost of labor for about five minutes.

Once he is gone, the mechanic walks up to me, and asks me, “Sa’ab, so what is the problem with your car?”. My response was something he didn’t expect. I said, “I don’t know the problem, but the car just stopped in the middle of the road. So, if you could come along, we could tow the car with the help of your truck, and then you could mend it for me.” By the time I was through with the sentence, the mechanic was ready with his tow truck. He said, “Sa’ab, I shall try to mend it there itself, but in case it doesn’t, then I will have to tow your car to the garage to figure out the problem. I can’t give you an estimate of time required and money till such time I see your car”. Seemed rationale, and we got into his tow truck. With about twenty kilometers to travel, I tried striking a conversation by asking him about the travelling salesman. He said that the carburetor had no problem, and it was the quality of petrol which was creating a problem and that at best the air-intake filter that had to be dusted. I ask him as to why did he then clean the carburetor and change the filter and change one of the spark plugs.

His response astonished me. The salesman had been in the garage for over two hours before I came, and had been bickering about all of the above problems, and was insistent about those repairs & replacements. So, our dear mechanic went ahead and did all of those things, and also told him to change the station from where he refuels, but he is sure that the salesman will come back the next day. When I asked him as to why he did what he did, he was emphatic about the fact that he believes that these travelling salesmen know more.

My car’s repairs took almost two hours, but I couldn’t tell him that I was a travelling salesman too.

I’ve witnessed many a occasions such as these where I have met clients who seemed to know the problem, and while in most case the diagnosis is flawed, trainers jump to the idea of providing training as a solution to the problem.

Training would do no good!

CLO Summit India... update

 

Organizational Learning
Impacting Business, Changing the Game
19-20 Nov, 2010, Mumbai, INDIA

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From my last blog on the CLO Summit to now, a lot of movement has happened... and am sure you are keeping a tab on the developments.

This edition gives you an expose to some very critical elements which will help you strengthen your conviction on attending the summit.


So, do I get to see you...


WIIFM: What's In It For Me

• Identifying best practices that could be replicated
• Wisdom of the leaders in the field
• Identify skill-sets required to be successful in the field of L&D
• Possible diversification in the business of learning
• Ways in which WE can help India Inc.
• Demystifying Corporate Universities
• Building Leaders in complex environments
• Most importantly, Voice YOUR opinion

 

 

What's Going To Happen... What To Expect

• Presentation of Case Studies and interactive session by Harvard Business Publishing
• Individual sessions by CEOs / Business Leaders
• In depth individual CLO sessions with ample opportunity for interaction.
• Panel discussion with CLOs & HR Heads moderated by Harvard Business Publishing
• A dedicated UnConference session

Broad Areas for the UnConference

Proficiency on ADDIE is good enough to be a good CLO
What will be your role in 2020?
What to measure in L&D… Business Impact or ROI? How?

Basic Rules of the UnConference

No Panel on the stage or Speaker at the Podium.
Participants to voice their opinions, and share their experiences
Keep posting their views on the topics during the course of the conference 

Topics Being Covered

• Skilling India Inc. Bridging the National Skill Deficit
• Establishing Certifications & Standards in India
• Building Corporate Universities
• Learning & Development: An Integral Competency for the CEO
• The Business Mandate for Leadership & Competency Development
• L&D Consulting for Internal Customers and Beyond
• Learning Challenges in the Public Sector
• Role of Learning in Innovation and creating new business models
• The role of the CLO in organizations; A look at current best practices, challenges and needs for the future
• Perspectives on L&D in Media & Journalism
• Learning as a tool for Sales & After Sales Service
• Leaders Build Leaders / Using blended learning to drive scale, impact and continuity

Making People, Organisations & Communities Successful

India has seen a rapid growth in the last few years. This growth cannot be called inclusive as it has not been able to bring about development at the grassroot levels. It is important that any economy developmental activity in today's world takes into account emergent issues, especially to do with the underserved population at all levels, i.e., individual, organisation and community.

This write-up aims at giving a peek into my understanding of the same.


Individual Level

There is a lot of traction on the individual level with a lot of focus by Min. of Rural Development and special agencies like National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) coming into the forefront, and adding gusto to the existing set of efforts being made by various Not-For-Profit organisations to help the socio-economic fabric in the underserved areas of the country.


NSDC (http://www.nsdcindia.org/): excerpt

The National Skill Development Corporation India (NSDC) is a one of its kind, Public Private Partnership in India. It aims to promote skill development by catalyzing creation of large, quality, for-profit vocational institutions. It provides viability gap funding to build scalable, for-profit vocational training initiatives. Its mandate is also to enable support systems such as quality assurance, information systems and train the trainer academies either directly or through partnerships.

 

The NSDC was set up as part of a national skill development mission to fulfill the growing need in India for skilled manpower across sectors and narrow the existing gap between the demand and supply of skills.

The Finance Minister of India announced the formation of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in his Budget Speech (2008-09):

 

"...There is a compelling need to launch a world class skill development programme in Mission mode that will address the challenge of imparting the skills required by a growing economy. Both the structure and the leadership of the Mission must be such that the programme can be scaled up quickly to cover the whole country."

 

Its objective is to contribute significantly (about 30 per cent) to the overall target of skilling / upskilling 500 million people in India by 2022, mainly by fostering private sector initiatives in skill development programmes and providing viability gap funding.

NSDC is also working very aggressively on setting skill-standards in India and am sure are researching and contacting skill-standard bodies in other countries as well. Setting skill-standards and then working towards a metricised approach to building competencies is the way forward. Do look at the skill-gap analysis available with them. Other apex bodies have established active workgroups to build a focus on skill-building (www.cii-skillsdevelopment.in/ and http://www.ficciskillforum.org/) and help establish Sector Skills Council (SSC) like the ones established in developed economies, like UK (http://www.sscalliance.org/)

There are a lot of organisations & individuals who are now preparing themselves or have already got into the fray of skill-building at the grassroot level, and that is commendable. In fact there is a clear business opportunity in this area and those who have the understanding of skill development and have the will to move out of their environmentally controlled cubicles, would see the scope. Organisations like Work Skills India (a Bharti venture), NIS Sparta (a part of Reliance Telecom), and IndiaCan (a JV between Pearson & Educomp) have already gotten themselves in this space, and like many other individuals & organisations are striving to help the country achieve their target. International agencies from all over the world are making their pitch to get into this next big wave of 'creating employable individuals'.


Organisation Level

The next level is that of helping organisations build at the small enterprise level and this is one area in which a lot of work has happened, and there are a plethora of organisations who are helping these organisations to establish themselves. The Indian government has a special ministry called the Min. of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) to aid the effort. Policy makers view MSME sector, which is the second largest employer after agriculture, as a critical vehicle for creating jobs and eradicating poverty. Accordingly, many MSME public support programmes have been in vogue in India for a long time. Such programmes have met with varying degree of success. Lately, to enhance outreach and efficacy of such programmes further, public schemes increasingly focus on MSME associations for tasks ranging from enhancing awareness to implementation to creation of support institutions in Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP). The issue of capabilities of MSME associations in design and execution of such schemes, has assumed critical importance.

Banks & Lending Institutions are also working on helping these organisations grow. Infact the Reserve Bank of India has announced the availability of loans upto INR 500,000 without any collateral guarantee (http://www.fisme.org.in/RBICircular.pdf). There is also Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) which is actively working with to empower MSME sector with a view to contributing to the process of economic growth, employment generation and balanced regional development.

SIDBI Foundation for Micro Credit (SFMC) was launched by the Bank in January 1999 for channelising funds to the poor in line with the success of pilot phase of Micro Credit Scheme. SFMC's mission is to create a national network of strong, viable and sustainable Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) from the informal and formal financial sector to provide micro finance services to the poor, especially women.

SFMC is the apex wholesaler for micro finance in India providing a complete range of financial and non-financial services such as loan funds, grant support, equity and institution building support to the retailing Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) including two-tier MFIs so as to facilitate their development into financially sustainable entities, besides developing a network of service providers for the sector. SFMC is also playing significant role in advocating appropriate policies and regulations and to act as a platform for exchange of information across the sector. The launch of SFMC by SIDBI has been with a clear focus and strategy to make it as the main purveyor of micro finance in the country. Operations of SFMC in the coming years, are not only expected to contribute significantly towards development of a more formal, extensive and effective micro finance sector serving the poor in India, but also ensure sustainability at all levels viz. at the apex level (SFMC), at the MFI level and at the client level to ensure continuance of such arrangement. Most importantly, SFMC has strived to create a mechanism in which there should be no barriers to growth. Under the dispensation, there is focus on innovation and action research.

The Federation of Indian Micro and Small and Medium Enterprises (http://www.fisme.org.in/) has been working to integrate the efforts. After opening up of Indian economy, close to the heels of establishment of WTO, eight state-level SME associations gave birth to FISME in 1995 to gear up the Indian SMEs at the national level to the challenges thrown open by changed economic realities. Today as umbrella organization of SMEs, FISME has associated associations in all the progressive states of the country.

A program called 'Capable' is being launched with the larger overall goal of improvement in MSME associations' awareness capacity and capability to facilitate MSME competitiveness enhancement. The objectives of the program are two-fold:

• Capability Development of MSME associations to improve their a) efficacy & sustainability, and b) Implementation capability of MSME development programs and schemes.

• Facilitating better designing, management and effective implementation of various Government sponsored schemes intended for MSMEs and associations.

 

Lately the entrance of the concept of Social Enterprise has also seen a lot of work. There are a multitude of people wanting to fund these. While venture capital an private equity funds have been helping start-ups build the foundation of some great ideas, there is now a new breed of organisations that are focused on building the social enterprise structure in the country. PE Funds like Acumen Fund are in the constant search for ideas that are exciting, and those which could be seeded to build as successful organisations.

Community Level
An economic community as I see it are of two types, basis their composition, however, emerging from the same concept of 'organisation':

1. Community of Small Enterprises
2. Community of Micro Enterprises

I have intentionally kept Medium Enterpises as they may possibly have the ability to handle themselves in terms of their growth in the perpsective that I am about to share. The challenge with most organisations in this sector are two folds:

1. Unavailability of managerial competence
2. Unavailability of reckonable brand

My thought around both are that there is considerable business opportunity around the two.

• Managerial Competence

The right competence is something that I would like to see beforehand in case I want to invest in an organisation (running/start-up), as I want to be sure that the monies would be used properly and that I should have a decent return on equity. Having said that, the lag is the unavailibility of managerial competence in these organisations that take loans to build and/or run. Financial institutions should look a the way in which their funds are being put to use. One could be content that the money being given is a 'loan', so, how does it matter whether the managerial competence is available or not till such time the money is returned along with interest and that the proposition doesn't become a NPA. Here is the difference.

A usual lending agency would have this philosophy, however, lending organisations who are in the business of lending to high risk enterprises of considerably small size should be in a position to offer services which would help build the managerial competence, as this would aid in assuring assured and timely return on the money lent.

Can private agencies look at this as a business opportunity where SMSEs are trained and coached on increasing their own effectiveness as managers hence bolstering the chances of increased efficiency of their organisation. This will not only ensure that the return on investment is secured, but an efficient organisation would ensure that it takes more lending as the 'efficient & effective' organisation now starts to grow. The growth will also ensure better payout to workers and hence increasing consumption... and that's how the cycle moves on an upward spiral. This model could be adopted by lending agencies or they could get into a partnership with organisations which can build such competencies.

• Reckonable Brand

I visited some villages and what came out strongly is that there are three specific activities that happen in a village. And one need not be an economist to understand the same; production, consumption and sale of excesses. The interesting component is 'sale of excesses'. The excesses are sold in nearby towns (accumulation centres) and from there it goes to distribution centres from where it comes to your and my house. The inefficiencies in this system is not something unknown to anyone.

However, in this environment we have the example of successful cooperatives such as Amul which went ahead and collected milk from everywhere and packaged it and retailed it. The model was so successful that it was replicated by some private enterprises too.

The business opportunity lurking in mind takes off from here. Let's look at an average MSME industrial belt. There are hundreds who manufacture various goods and they are sold across to those who need it which essentially are larger organisations or in larger markets. Let's take the case of the products that are designated to be sold to the market. The inefficiencies of marketing, branding and quality hound them; with every manufacturer having their own benchmark. On the other hand, one could look at a scenario where all the products are pooled together by a cooperative society for the cluster, quality checked against decided norms, and then packaged with a common brand.

For example, if I pick up all the goods produced in the industrial area at Kalyani (70kms from Kolkata) and brand all of the goods with 'Kalyani' as the brand. The cooperative that does it, is owned and funded by partnering manufacturers, but run by professionals. The benefits are that the brand establishes itself as a mark of certain level of quality, uses the 'pooled' funds to mobilise markets and uses economies of scale in distribution system; and hence becoming an efficient system and returning more value to the manufacturers. The manufacturers get to retain their identity and continue to sell to their existing customers as well. As we move on the cooperative could actually revive the organisations that have perished (bankrupt) by sensing the need of the market and getting the same produced. Everyone is a shareholder, so everyone benefits.

The same could work in the micro-industrial sector in another form. Let's say, a similar cooperative is created by a tribal village, and all of their excess produce and handicrafts could be branded by the name of their village and retailed to larger stores in big cities or fed to the same people who were earlier purchasing from individuals. Everyone is a shareholder, so everyone benefits.

This is an idea that I have been toiling with for sometime, and I spoke to a few stakeholders and prospective end users, but they have shown a mixed response towards it. The apprehension lies into venturing in the unknown and someone as the good shephard who takes the onus.

I urge all in the learning and development space to pay attention; the time has come to focus on things that will help the country grow and make it a superpower, and it is in your hands.

Please feel free to comment on this article. The pursuit is to become better.

Learning from Indian Bosses

Time to rethink what we read and who me follow!

Wharton professor of management Peter Cappelli on leadership lessons from India: http://bit.ly/atsfWd http://bit.ly/d97kvg

Peter Capelli presents an interesting perspective... The interesting thing is that many of these practices we do witness happening around us all the time, but, are biases around 'what is best has to be from west' stops us from looking at these; and while I say that, it is not entirely true too, for I have known of a lot of people (read, quite a lot) including me who have been studying these behaviors of indian bosses closely. There are ills as well, which is OK, considering that they are a part of everything & anything; the 'matter which matters' is to look at the replicable behaviors and move forward! So, net net, it makes me feel proud, and it ain't so bad as it looks!

Follow both the links, and read the entire article presented in two forms... He says...

The idea that what is good for business is good for America -- a common phrase in an earlier generation -- seems a distant memory. Where do we look for business leadership?

Let's outsource it!

In an interesting sign of the times, the most impressive business leaders at the moment may be in India. What makes them impressive is a commitment to social goals that extend beyond the interests of their firms and -- here's the good part -- stunningly impressive performance.

They don't appear to be paying any price in terms of performance for being good citizens.

The Indian economy...

> largely sidestepped the financial crisis because of wise banking practices,

> her overall growth rate is second in the world,

> her major corporations are growing at rates of 20 percent to 40 percent per year,

> her companies have been on an acquisition binge, and the evidence suggests that when they acquire foreign companies, those companies perform better.

A study of Indian businesses based around interviews with the leaders of 100 of the biggest companies in India.

Indian Business Leader Priorities...

1. Chief input for business strategy;

2. Keeper of organizational culture;

3. Guide or teacher for employees;

4. Representative of owner and investor interests; and

5. Representative of other stakeholders (e.g., employees and the community).


Some of the identified key differences between Indian and Western bosses...

1. Social Purpose

2. Invest in Employees

3. Take the long view

4. Work from their strengths

5. Act as a role model

Getting a 'Seat at the Table'... or not getting it!!!

Are you 'in', or are you 'out'...

This is a short presentation I made to a summit organiser, because they wanted me to present on the topic... Well, they didn't approve of the idea, I guess, because they sent me an invitation to attend rather than present. Nevertheless, it was worth it. And for many of my colleagues in the industry, it may be of some help.


World View of a 'Good L&D Guy'

• Conducts good training & coaching
  
• Plans to upgrade the L&D function to a Corporate University, and oneself as the (Chief) Learning Officer
  
• Has a lot of training presentation from the previous assignment, and innovates on them
  
• Talks about cost reduction by using innovative learning tools such as 'e'
  
• Sends motivational emails and news items from leading journals
  
• Has his numbers in place

...and also organises get-togethers


My View of 'What is wrong with that'

• A lot of training happens unhappy happens, but people at large are still unhappy, unless I deliver myself
  
• My boss doesn't understand as to why do I want to call the department a 'corporate univ.'
  
• I build content from the repository that I have, but people don't like it
  
• eLearning is costly to implement, but I am sure it will work out someday
  
• I send motivational mails because people want me to
  
• My MIS of 'how much have I done' is there in place
  
• I thank Edward Scannell and John Newstrom for 'Games Trainers Play'

...I do what people 'expect me to do', so, why the fuss???


My Boss' View of 'Why am I not at the table'

• My competitors have a L&D guy so do I now I'll figure guy, now… , the competitive advantage; we do conduct a lot of training
  
• Learning is not our business; then why do we need a fancy name for the L&D department; I have other things to do
  
• Its very standardized; I had the same slides in the previous company
  
• I need to reduce manpower costs, so, we should automate learning; we should get eLearning
  
• I need to remind our Training Head to keep me out of the motivational emails that the department sends me; they are very good
  
• I also need to explain the data that I want to see
  
• These guys are good at team building; the problem within the team is something that I need to take care of, same with our sales numbers, and also with my succession plan

So, what do you have to do...
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Why are you still here reading this...


You should be off to your Sales Head, Marketing Head, Finance Head, HR Head and Ops Head… need to take care of challenges in their worksphere!

What to focus on when creating a training road map?

An old team member had posed this question and wanted a 'quickie' response. This is a basic question which almost all training professionals have struggled with and many continue to struggle. Incase you wish to have some more inputs, do write to me, and I'll be glad to offer my assistance. Keep one thing in mind... Don't get on a jehad to find a 'training' solution for every problem. Think like a business operator.

Yenjoie!!!
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Easy-Way-Out


Only Step: Do a cut-paste job



Not-So-Easy-Way-Out

Step1: Identify business goals.

Step2: Identify business problems.

Step3: Identify those business problems which you can solve (and to whatever extent).

Step4: Qualify by doing some interviews with stakeholders, operators and customers.

Step5: Analyse

Step6: Prioritize by severity of implication, recurrence and contextuality to your function.

Step7: Create a plan to focus at removing or reducing the impact of the business problem. Read HPT framework available at http://www.ispi.org/

Step8: Get basic buyin from stakeholders before you go into the presentation.

Step9: Buy & Read 'SPIN Selling Fieldbook'. Then apply the same on the presentation that you would make.

Step10: Incorporate feedback and implement with a strong review mechanism to ensure formative feedback.

Clients are too busy to keep their appointments. How to handle such situation?

This is the situation which occurs many a times... and its a good point that may help you. I recently responded to the same in a training session, where these Financial Planners were complaining that people don't even give time to discuss their financial plans although they may be paying for the ‘financial planning’ service.

My answer to them was SPIN (www.huthwaite.org). What we need to understand is that people don't buy solutions, or listen to you, or go through your documents, just because they have a problem that any of the above can solve.

Let me explain this in simpler terms...
1. Do we go to the physician when we have symptoms of the flu... No!
2. Do we go to the physician when the implication of the flu is such that it hampers things that are non-negotiable with us, such as not being able to meet the client leading to a loss of revenue... Well, YES!!!

The crux of the matter is that we don't take up solutions when there are problems, even if there is a 'contract'. On the other hand, once the implications of the problems are so large that they start impacting cost, convenience, time, quality etc., we open up to looking at solutions.

So, what you may want to do is to talk to your client in terms of implications of a delayed conversation... will the delay lead to a postponed project close, and will that lead to a delayed implementation, and will that lead to an increase in cost... so, what we are talking about is a balance with cost on one side and the value that one sees in talking to you 'now' on the other.

We need to build 'that' value in your conversation, which I am sure you are doing... and as I always tell myself, every conversation is a 'sales' conversation; if not in real terms, imagine them to be. By doing this one increases the chances of success.


Warm Regards,


Paco



PS… Do read the book ‘SPIN Sales Fieldbook’ by Neil Rackham

Collaboration in Learning

I have been using collaboration in learning programs for sometime. In my current role, we have started looking at them being used very seriously.

In particular, there is a program called 'Sell Out Of Trouble' (SOOT), wherein we use the experience & learning of all participants to collaborate and resolve problems emanating out of a live case study ('personal financial planning' interaction).

The process is tedious for the facilitator, but the application of learning in the simulated environment is quick-effective-efficient, disparity in learning comes out and can be fine-tuned, seeing the learning being applied in action builds conviction; all of this leads to a higher probability of the learning being applied in the workplace. It is also important that the case study being used to collaborate is live in nature & spirit. For example in SOOT, facilitators use their own life as a case study, and become the subject who's financial planning needs to be done. The collaborative effort in unearthing the exact problems, their implications and finally the solution to payoff their need, builds conviction in the learners that the discussed methodology of sales 'works', and its OK to give it a try in the field.

Collaboration has been used in learning environments for a vey long time.

If you have any more examples of having used collaboration in the learning & development space, please do leave a note...

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.