Keeping L&D/HR focused on the 'Big Picture' during the economic downturn.

While talk of recession dominates the current business agenda we should not forget that most are short lived.  Hence, I believe that the L&D topics being debated before the phrase ‘sub-prime mortgage’ entered the popular press remain important. 

 

The economic growth of China continues.  It is thus inevitable that, like Japan beforehand, management and leadership practices associated with their climb up the world order will be of global importance.  Currently the vast majority of textbooks read by our UK managers are written by US opinion leaders: but should we expect this to be the case in 10 years time? For HR to influence the uptake of ideas from these new thought-leaders, we will need to build global partnerships.

 

Global communications and mobility have changed how the efforts of individual employees are aggregated.  Management structures refined over the past century now look clumsy if not obsolete, as ‘amplifying effort’ (i.e. colleague engagement) becomes the greater challenge for leaders.  Gary Hamel’s thesis on “The Future of Management” provides great insights, and now HR must help take up the challenge.   

 

Mentoring, coaching and on-the-job experiences have always been an important part of workplace learning.  Training is becoming increasingly squeezed both from a time and financial point of view.  In a world where vast amounts of knowledge can be accessed with a couple of key strokes, ‘just-in-time’ performance support rather than ‘just-in-case’ training is being demanded.  Understanding and integrating the ROI of training and other forms of learning has never been more important than at present.

 

Equally, a harsh economic climate provides some additional opportunities for those involved in Learning & Leadership.  The psychological contract with employees has already moved away from expectations of ‘a job for life’ in return for loyalty and commitment.  Individuals who accept the need to invest in life-long learning are most likely to successfully navigate a world of rapid organizational change and multiple careers.  Building this mindset and ensuring organizations contribute to keeping their workforce ‘employable’ is likely to be most valued now.

 

Leadership judgment is critical at this time, as poor business decisions are unlikely to go unpunished.  Perhaps more important, however, is the ability to execute whatever business strategy is selected.  This depends on successfully changing employees’ behaviours, a complex challenge where HR expertise can contribute significant business value. 

Hence I hope that the value of L&D/HR will come to be better recognised by business leaders as they navigate the current economic downturn.

Interesting Links (September 2008)

Being Wired or Being Tired: 10 Ways to Cope with Information Overload

Here is a great paper that pulls together solid practical advice for managing information overload.

"Dealing with information overload has become a task for each and every one of us, and yet very few of us have actually stopped to think about the best way to do this. We know that we are interrupted. We know that such interruptions affect our work and capacity to think in an adverse manner. And yet, because of the very problem itself — the constant flow of information and tasks demanding our every moment—we do not stop mid-flow to assess and organise. 

Examining each information input in our lives, including the content, delivery method, and access device, will help us to realistically assess what it is we’re doing with our time. Consciously thinking about the effectiveness and desirability of each stream of information, and of ways to improve them, will help to get the best information to you in the best way"

___________________________________________________

Powerful Leadership Proverbs

Leadership Now highlights Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs - written by Bill Hybels with church leadership in mind. However, there the advice is highly transferable. Leadership Now focus on five of the 76 guiding principles that have shaped his leadership - this includes:

"Values Need Heat: When you heat up a value, you help people change states. Want to jolt people out of business as usual? Heat up innovation. Want to untangle confusion? Heat up clarity. Want to eradicate miserliness? Heat up generosity! New “states” elicit new attitudes, new aptitudes, and new actions. It’s not rocket science. It’s just plain chemistry. Which is a lot about heat….Over time, sufficiently hot values will utterly define your culture"

___________________________________________________

Balance Scorecards

The Palladium Group provide plenty of free information from their recent meeting - which includes practical insights on the use of balanced scorecards in work-class organisations.  Download the conference report here.

______________________________________________________

Millions of Britons regret their career choice

Reported by Management Issues - "Almost half of all UK workers, if given the chance, would have studied something totally different after leaving school and a fifth feel that as a result they plumped for the wrong career, according to new research"

____________________________________________________

Multiple bosses - do gender differences cause problems?

Kevan Hall highlights an interesting study here on Multiple bosses - do gender differences cause problems?  in his Life in a Matrix blog.

The study found

• Women who had only one female boss reported more psychological distress (such as trouble sleeping, difficulty focusing on work, depression and anxiety) and physical symptoms (such as headaches, stomach pain or heartburn, neck and back pain and tiredness) than women who worked for one male boss.
  
• Women who reported to a mixed-gender pair of supervisors also reported more of these symptoms than their peers who worked for a single male boss.
  
• Men who worked for a single supervisor, regardless of the supervisor’s gender, had similar levels of distress.
  
• Men who worked for a mixed-gender pair had fewer mental and physical symptoms than those working for a lone male supervisor

interesting data ..... 

Performance Support vs. Training (continued)

My thanks to JD & Dave Ferguson for their comments to my initial post on this topic - and I fully agree with the comment "we should make clear the purpose of training (or any other intervention) -- improved performance"

So on reflection, I'd like to add a third theme to my previous comments on Performance Support.

It is well accepted that from a typical well-designed training intervention, some delegates will gain significantly and translate the skills gained into improved business performance, while others on the same class will gain little, or be unable to positively impact business performance with any new knowledge/skills gained.

[for more on this - see my enthusiasm for evaluating training using the methodology proposed by Brinkerhoff]

In my view we should expect the same from Performance Support.

...why is it that some truck drivers efficiently get from A to B using Sat Nav., while others using the same system end up stuck in country lanes ?!

When training & performance support are blended, those already using Brinkerhoff's 'Success Case Method' are likely to be gaining important insights on the relative importance of the performance support associated with the training being evaluated.

What is new - is that in situations where performance support is being used to replace 'just in case' training - there could be merit in taking a similar approach to evaluation (i.e. accepting that performance support does not yield uniform outcomes, but through understanding the enablers & barriers to it translating into improved business performance - we can get more from these tools)