Infographics

Here are 3 ways my colleagues and confidants can support and challenge my learning in meaningful ways:

1. Understand I'm a critical thinker.

I am an INTJ: 

2. Do your research on the field of learning.

3. According to my Learning Style Inventory I had a 50/50 split between Reflective Observation and Abstract Conceptualization.

"Getting it Right" A Top 5 List Describing "Best In" Class Learning Organizations. HRDO 561.

Before we being the list of "Best In" Class please read the following article: http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/207074/file-2084802044-jpg/images/Best_in_Class.jpg This is a great read and introduction to learning organizations.

This is a great magazine to reference as well. http://elmezine.epubxp.com/i/714072-aug-sep-2016/16?m4= for the following list:

1. Veteran's Affairs Acquisition Academy - "The Warriors to Workforce Program supports the VAAA's mission to support the Secretary's commitment to Veteran employment and succession planning for the acquisition workforce. W2W is a one-year transition program at VAAA that offers Veterans an opportunity to build a new career in the federal government by applying their military experiences and skills to the acquisition field. The program focuses on transitional support, mentoring, professional development, and foundational career training activities to equip wounded veterans with skills and experiences that allow them to serve a new mission as federal civil servants."

2. Scripp's Health - "Scripps invests more than $35 million a year in employee learning and development. Scripps Center for Learning & Innovation offers a full range of programs, performance consulting, clinical trainings and leadership education, talent development, career services and coaching to maximize the employee's career potential."

3. Allied Command Transformation - NATO - "E-Learning is new for NATO. The organization has taken it from virtually unknown to 90,000 users largely due to Allied Command Transformation. Allied Command Transformation acts as a think tank for capability development, education and training and exercise planning for NATO."

4. Sapient - "Salesforce On-Boarding and Adoption Program. It has a 50 percent increase in early-stage entry, improving the accuracy of its forecasting and pipeline. It also has a 75 percent engagement in Salesforce, showing that the team is opting in and making use of the company's major investment."

5. Amazon Web Services - "Outcome-Based Account Management (OBAM) is the process, tools, competencies, and dialogue architecture for initiating and solidifying customer relationships through focus on the journey of the seller in a lifelong strategic relationship. The program offers a number of components which is what makes it effective including pre-call, pre-work, one-day live collaborative training session, three post-workshop coaching calls and on-demand OBAM playbook."

Learning Checklist for Fostering Meaningful Conversations in Teams. HRDO 561

Team learning is the "collaborative effort to achieve a common goal within the group. The aim of team learning is to attain the objective through dialogue and discussion." Great leaders today are engaging with employees in a way that resembles ordinary conversation versus commands. To host successful organizational conversations, I will develop a learning checklist for fostering meaningful conversations in teams:

1. Talk with employees, instead of ordering.
2. Communicate personally and transparently with employees, even when out of reach. (HBR)
3. Build trust through authentic leadership. (HBR)
4. Be attentive and listen well. Know when to stop talking as a leader and listen. (HBR)
5. Conduct 360 reviews to obtain feedback on leadership styles. (HBR)
6. Interact with employees versus speaking at employees. (HBR)
7. Expand roles and allow employees to become cross functional. (HBR)
8. Give storytellers a space to communicate stories about the company

https://hbr.org/2012/06/leadership-is-a-conversation

Why Organizations Are Approaching Learning All Wrong! HRDO 561

Learning is an absorbed process, not a quick fix. 

Currently, there is a shift in the culture of Human Resources in organizations. The shift is the extreme focus on people development. Companies use data analytics to research, identify, and implement models exemplifying change management. Whereas the idea previously was that training would alleviate any issues with learning, organizations are finding that it takes much more than providing a training class to their employees.

Imagine an organization that has several highly skilled employees in specific areas of the business. The employee body consists of baby boomers preparing for retirement and millennials trying to find their career path within the organization. Every other day a baby boomer is retiring leaving the organization scrambling to fill back their position. Millennial are screaming for the opportunity to develop but cannot access developmental opportunities because there are none. There is no department head for learning and development and the employee body has lost hope in training and development opportunities. A cultural shift is occurring due to the reorganization of the hierarchy and the morale is low. What do you do?

Do not throw the employee body into worthless training sessions! It will not fix the issue.

The first step is to understand the science of organizational development. Understanding the systems approach to cultural shifts and changes and learning and development would help an organization experiencing this type of disconnection re-prioritize its focus. The example provided shows there is no succession planning, a lack of development, mentorship, and coaching and as a result of that employees are losing trust, hope and faith in the organization's ability to express and show value in developing employees. An assessment of the organization's culture is extremely important. This will allow key stakeholders to offer input on what has happened, what is currently going on, and what need to happen in order to be the organization it has been set out to be. If this means a change in the  mission statement to represent the final decision on culture, so be it. The person leading the assessment for the culture should be someone who has a great understanding of the science of organizational development.

Once these factors are aligned, the conversation begins. Employee engagement surveys, one-on-one's with key individuals, and an evaluation of the different types of leadership styles represented will help the organization assess needs, barriers, strengths and opportunities.

Then, specific training sessions can be offered based off of the findings from assessments. And, it may not be training for a "process" rather, training for behaviors. Organizations are guilty of assuming training for a process will uncover  or reveal bad behaviors that hinder a culture. Training and development should always support the culture in which it thrives. Learning is an ongoing process so companies have to continue to feed the hunger of adult learning in the workplace. Otherwise, complacency becomes a part of the norm or culture and that's where development stops. Human Resources departments can no longer thrive without having a  focus on organizational development within the organization.