Practical Applications To Bridging The Learning-Doing Gap

8:11PM Nov 17, 2023

Speakers:

Shannon Tipton

Jason

Erica

Jennifer

Mia

Denise

Lilianne

Dr. Bob

Beth

Keywords:

learning

cohorts

people

organization

chat

put

training

managers

accountability

jean

create

great

jennifer

pre

l&d

good

talk

companion piece

teams

sales

Oh, here we go thank you for that Heather. There. Those are the regulars here that say Shana and don't forget to turn on your recording before you start going on. Or if the cat is in front of you, the cat is welcome. The dogs are welcome. All the fur babies are welcome. Okay, so while we get warmed up here in the chat, please share with me being that we are pre Thanksgiving here in the States. What is your favorite Thanksgiving side dish?

Guide dish,

your side dish. What is your favorite? Put that into the chat for me? Jean pumpkin pie. So if you're eating pumpkin pie as a side dish, then you and me were sisters. Yes. Cranberries. The can because of the ridges. Do you remember that? Those of you who I don't know, I think I don't know if it's a boomer thing. I don't we use we grew up with the canned cranberries and the ridges were helpful because you used to cut the slices with the ridges. Thank you, my people. Thank you. All right. Sauerkraut. Okay, I'm loving this. Potato Casserole homemade. Yeah, I do homemade cranberries now, but green bean casserole. It's a Baltimore thing really? Is it? Because Is there a lot of German ancestry in Baltimore? Is that why sauerkraut? Sweet potatoes. The yellow ones. Okay. Yep. There we go. Yes. And I'm all about the sides. When it comes to Thanksgiving, all about the sides. I love I make a big huge batch of gravy and a big batch of stuffing, or dressing. And that's my I'll eat that for the rest of the week. You put raspberries in your cranberry sauce. Oh, that sounds yummy. And it's cranberry raspberry. Those cranberry raspberry. That's a great idea. I might try that this year. They still have it. That sounds good. Is it stuffing? Or is it dressing? Well, you have a whole hour on that is it. It's dressing outside of the birds definitely when it's in the bird. So I for me, that's the definition. And I use dressing. I don't stuff my bird. We could have a whole other discussion about how are you cooking your bird. But I don't think that's why all of you are here today. You guys are all here today to talk about the learning doing gap. Not necessarily what we are doing for Thanksgiving. Although this is a fun conversation. Let's get in and start talking about the learning doing gap. So officially welcome everyone to the learning rebels Coffee Chat, where we are discussing l&d topics of the day together, figuring out solutions, finding, you know, best recommendations for how you do things. And in this case, we're talking about the learning doing gap. And what I mean by the learning doing gap is really the transfer of knowledge, the transfer of skill. When we put people through a classroom or a course, be virtual instructor led, or elearning. The big question is how do we get people to apply what they've learned into their day to day, right? That's the that's the big question on the table. Because we know there's there too, there are two reasons why learning transfer fails. The first reason is a lack of feedback loop. So we're not providing necessary feedback, we're not providing necessary adjustment. And the second reason is because of a lack of learning reinforcement. Okay. So those are the two main reasons why learning fails. And what I'd like to talk about here is yes, feedback loops, for sure. But also, what are we doing in regards to learning reinforcement? How are we bridging the gap when it comes to learning reinforcement and also providing them feedback loops? And Heather, is this like for work specific training or public webinars? I treat each differently. And you're absolutely right, Heather. I would treat both of those differently, too. And in this case, I'm talking about work specific training. How can we help people get back to their day to day and apply what we need them to apply? public workshop is a little bit of a different animal here because a lot of times we don't have control. If I were to do a public workshop, I don't have control of or what you do when you leave me. But here we have a little bit more control. Dr. Bob, I saw your hand.

Yeah, almost all of what I did was management development. And the key to success was having the supervisors of the learners meet with me for half a day. So we could discuss what they could expect or what they should expect from their learners who had gone to the management development course. And without doing that, I mean, the whole thing is just way too haphazard. Nobody knows who's going to do what, when, where and how nobody knows if that's the result of the learning that they receive. from Dr. Bob, or if you know, they read something in the Sunday business sections.

Right. Right. Exactly. I love that approach. Because as people are saying, in the chat, getting the getting the supervisors involved certainly is an important first step. Now, Gene, what would you like to contribute? I see your hand. Yeah, I

just wanted to ask, because I've always had this question in the back of my head. If it is, especially for a sales team, oh, our sales team needs training on this, our sales training team needs training on that. I always thought, well, after the posts, the reinforcement should be up to the sales leader to bring it up in a one on one to coach to it or whatever. So do you actually give them a template to talk about? Do you just tell them that they need to do it and assume that they do like where N word is my word is my responsibility and to doing that reinforcement? Great

question, Dr. Bob, what is what's your thought?

You tell them the what? We're not leaving it open ended, we're not leaving it to chance. You're trying to develop perspectives, but more importantly, some series, some serious, specific behaviors. So I want the sales manager to know what those behaviors are that we had his or her salespeople learn in the classroom. And you know, what ends up happening? The sales manager says, Oh, I never thought of that. And I, you know, I always thought that was kind of funny. But yeah, you've got to meet with them. I don't know, you want to draw a list? Is have an email ready for them? Look for this, look for this, look for this look for this. I don't know that's up to each person to decide how they want to do that. But I think the more specific, the better.

I agree, I liked the idea of sending them. Management, follow up email. So there people have just been through the class. So Jean, for example, all of your salespeople have been through the class, after the class, you send a follow up email to the manager saying what Dr. Bob just said, here's what you need to look for, you need to look for this, this this, this is the language they should be using. Now, this is the process they should be using. You know, and here are some helpful guidelines for you. Or Here are some helpful talking points for you. Right, so I love that idea. I think that's a great idea. Jennifer, I see your hand.

I just to answer to jeans question. And I actually jotted down what Dr. Bob had to say, because I think that's really good. But one of the things that I've seen that works for us is as we do the last few slides to wrap, one of the slides I put is actually like, you know, I've told them not to use their phone the entire time. But I say pull out your phone now send an email to your leader and talk about just right one thing that you're going to do differently starting to morrow, and then in the body just right, like and I want to discuss this in my one on one how you can help me like do you want to be my you know, my accountability partner? Do you need me to do you need to clear the workload do you need, you know, more micro help as you're building towards this mastery or whatever. And then I usually give it like a week or two, and then I send an email to the people leaders of of my attendees, and I say bye now you should have received an email from your leader who attended my training on date. And they asked you for help. So please, you know, if they didn't do that, ask them why when it was a call out a call to action, and if they did, you know, please, please let me know if you need further help from me. So I'm kind of putting it back on them that they're responsible to follow up. And it's really just one action and I've I've seen that work fairly well. I want to share that

Jennifer, I don't know if you noticed, but when you said, have them open up their email and send a note to their managers, anyone who had their mic on went, oh.

You heard that. That resonated. No, I didn't hear that. But I'm glad it resonated.

It did. And I think that's a really good idea. I really liked that. Excellent. Thank you for that contribution. So now we're all just like, scribble that before I forget. Dr. Bob.

Yeah, I mean, what Jennifer is describing is really cool. Another thing I like is if it's a small group of salespeople, or a small group of managers is have the manager or the sales manager, go out and make the call with them, or get online with them, you know, whatever strategies they're using. And so that way, the sales manager or the director of those managers can see in action, what's going on or not going on. And if you're real fortunate, the managers have been to your coaching skills program. And so they know how to work with those people to ensure that the learning and the action take place.

I like that what you're alluding to, is if we put salespeople through some sort of let's say, I don't know, negotiation skills, class, okay, then we are making an assumption here, and I think it's a solid one, that the managers should have gone through some sort of companion jeez. Right, so there's a companion piece with that. So when everybody's completed, this series, as it were, then they can all help each other as they move forward. And I like that. Yeah, I like that idea a lot. And the companion piece doesn't have to be a huge thing. It doesn't have to be a half day or even two hours, it could be a one hour, let me touch on the high notes of what everyone's going to go through. So now you're the managers in the loop with what the participants are doing. And then everybody comes together afterwards. Does that sound fair? Dr. Bob?

Oh, yeah, right on.

It would

be even cooler to do like, even after that, the manager gets on the calls. And then you have a learning community or a once a month manager meeting where they talk about challenges with their teams. But they say, What did you see on your team after after the training? Do who had the most improvement or whatever, kind of make it a competition with the sales leaders, then the sales leaders can talk amongst themselves about what did they see amongst the teams? That's kind of cool. I liked

that idea. And that would be applicable for any position, right? Not just sales, it could be leadership development, or what have you. Where you have the you have the program, you have the companion piece, and then a month later, you get the managers on maybe a half hour call to say, what sort of changes have you seen? What sort of behavioral changes or action oriented changes? Have you seen with your people from a month ago? Yeah.

You know? Yeah, another piece of that is, what did you not see that you expected to see? Because I think when they miss something that's just as important as what they did do. And and what was the impact of that? I mean, that's a great discussion. The manager makes a call with someone or the sales manager makes a call with someone. And not only did they talk about the behaviors, but they talk about the impact. Did they get the sale? Did they have to reduce the price? Did they have to change the delivery date? I mean, God, this could be so cool. But you got to have time, you got to have time to do all this. Yeah, you

do. You do have to have time. And you have to have support. Right. So you have to have leadership support management support, like Jason put in the chat there that it's certainly a utopia. But I don't think it's unrealistic to start with those rose colored glass views, right? Because then you can scale down what what can your organization support? What do they want to support? Right. So Jason, what are your thoughts?

And I tried to so many different things before I just came up with one word.

It's a good word. Yeah, it's

a good word. But it's like, oh, that's all great until you realize that learning is not part of the culture of your company. And yeah, it's great. Go in with those rose colored glasses and want to try these things? And I guess it is, when people say, well, the learnings are happy, he's like, Well, we're doing everything we can, like training can only take it so far. You have to buy into this, you have to do these things. Well, we don't have time to do that, then the results aren't on us. I hate to say we're passing the book, but it's like, I can only supply you with the tools, you have to build the house.

Right. Great analogy. Great analogy. And this is an ICU there, Erica. This is why I often say that in the design document that you create or business case that you create for any training program, you put in the risk reward portion. So the risk is, so here's my design document. And these are what we expect, these are the expectations at the end of the day. And in order to get to those expectations, this is what we have to do. Or this is what I'm suggesting that we do. And if we do not do this, then this, then x will not happen. So you're outlining in the design document, or like I said business case, or whatever document you're filling out that if x doesn't happen, then the results that you're hoping to see will not occur. And then that way, when they say to you, well, we don't have time management doesn't want to, or whatever they come up with. And you can say, Okay, I wrote down right here that if we did not do this, then the goals will not happen. And see each of you saw this email, each of you signed off on this document. And so now, you owe me out, you know, and that's kind of a that's a habit that we all need to get into. Oftentimes, you know, we just accept the challenge of creating something without really letting people know, in writing, that these are the sorts of things that need to occur in order for the learning to actually be transferable. Right. So

I really liked that having that risk reward thing, when you're talking about, hey, we're not just to learn in this learning, your participants will learn and then you have your objectives, but then also that risk reward thing. Now, I really liked that, because then it is, and you just have a template, right? You fill it out, training initiative that you have, or whatever, I really am going to put that in a note too. I like that. Thank

you. Thank you. It's worked for me in the past, and it's a, you'd have to train the organization to see that. You know, so it's not just all of a sudden, one day, you never told them that. And then the next day, all of a sudden, you are making these demands, so to speak, there's a graduation here, you know, to lead them in that direction. Because part of part of what we've done indirectly is we have sort of trained the organization to expect the impossible from us. So they come to us, and they say, We need this training program. And we need it built like this. To do this. We need it yesterday. Make it elearning. Make it 20 minutes, incorporate these 10 slides, Do this, do this do this right. Is that all sound familiar? Yep, I see nods. Okay. And then we go to we go to groups like this. And then we go, can you believe they did this to me? And we all commensurate, which is great. That's what that's what we're here for. And then we go back and we do it. So effectively, what we've done is that we've trained the organizations to know what to say, here we go. So we've trained the organization to accept that it's okay for them to do what they've done. Because we'll come out with the answers, we will come out and do whatever they want. And so now we have to reverse train them, if that makes sense. Right. So there's a little bit of a graduation for this, but we can do it. Erica, I saw your hand. And b I see your hand as well.

Thank you, Shannon. I I wanted to you know, my my brain has now been noodling on what you said because I was going to connect to Jason's comment and then you've kind of created a little bit of a through line and I'm I'm working on a program right now, which is what I was connecting to when I was listening to Jason. And that, you know, they have indicated what they claim our current state gaps. And we're trying to present to them an opportunity of being able to do work, that is actually good work. But helping them to show how it can be scalable, and repeatable and not be so much of tribal knowledge, where it's this thought about, like, Oh, we don't, you know, only this person can, you know, teach on this. And as we're trying to present to them about, you know, how they can do this. And we've, we're showing them, here's a template, and this is how the leader can, you know, be able to introduce the activity, let the person do the activity, then they do a coach or debrief on the activity. And then we get feedback, kind of like where Jason was going about, like, well, but we are already doing that, or why, you know, or you're saying, you know, there needs to be more time for this? Well, we don't have time for that. And then when I was listening to you speak about the risk reward component. And I think that's so far the biggest aha, and I'd like to speak to my my colleague about it after today, I think what we're missing is, even though we're trying to indicate to them how these small adjustments, and how they, as leaders, who provide that wrap around, and that you know, continuous connection and checking in when they have somebody learning is so vital. And then when they come back to us and say, We don't have time, or we think we're already doing that, but they're clearly have indicated, but we're having problems, this isn't happening or that isn't happening. And you're like, Okay, well, we're on a hamster wheel here. Because you're saying there's something wrong, you we're trying to provide you a way of how you can make small adjustments, even, you know, not even large things. And then you're like, oh, my gosh, I just don't think that that's going to be possible. So I really liked that you've introduced this very explicit risk reward because I think, and we don't, we're kind of in progress. So I got to figure out how we can shove a square peg in a round hole. But I think what you're hitting on is what we've come to acknowledge is the risk reward, and then we just go about doing what we do. But maybe what is missing is we're not clearly articulating, okay, I hear you client. And if you say client that you do not want to then adopt this as the suggestion as a methodology, please recognize that this will be the risk that will happen if you then continue to do it the same way. Because you said that this is not this isn't what or excuse me, because you said, these are the things that are supposedly not happening currently. Right.

Right. Exactly, exactly. So you can just kind of ease them into it, you know, until it becomes part of your culture. Right. And that's really in to Jason's point, the goal for all of us is to is to work for an organization that appreciates having a culture of learning, and having a culture of learning means all of these supporting functions that Dr. Bob talked about, you know, and that Jennifer talked about. And Jean, it's, you know, how can we move that needle? Excuse me? In little, little bit? Right? You know, so it's baby steps, it's baby steps towards that. So Mia, I saw your hand. Hello, I,

I had done something at a previous company. And it's it's been a while, but it kind of touches on two different things. One is a way to present continuous learning. And the other is is kind of about trying to establish that learning culture. So I did something called a Google whisper course. I don't know if any of you guys have heard that sound familiar? Yeah, it's basically a micro learning presented in a series of emails. usually no more than maybe four to six. I had kind of stuck to four format, I think around two weeks apart. And the first one I did was just, I think I called it modern workplace learning culture or something like that, where I and I sent it to all the managers, it was voluntary. And just to kind of present concepts about where learning in the workplace is going, trying to get it like that shift in perspective that we're all from them on performance and things. But one of the cool things about it was, you know, the, when I learned about it used like Google forms at the time. And so, you know, I would present like a little slide doc of the information, or maybe it was a video and broke it down, like I said, into four sessions. And then I would give them a form. The first question on the form was always sort of a survey question. So I could kind of get insights from where they are, what they think about learning on their teams, and, and then had a couple of, sort of open ended questions. Or, or maybe I had some, like, you know, a little bit more survey, but just kind of getting them to reflect and input what they would do. And so in the next series, I would kind of summarize that input that I'd gotten, and then, you know, go into the next lesson, so to speak. So it was I think it was a pretty good start and getting sort of that and learning culture, getting managers thinking about it. Some participated more than others, obviously, I think, if we can get like that one team that really adopt something, and then we can model that, like, look how successful we were, you know, but so it turns into like a pilot. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But for me, it was my way of, of, you know, kind of getting this approach out there that learning is more than a PowerPoint presentation, you know, and, or that order taking, and things like that, and, and just kind of shifting what they think about learning it, and also kind of educating them a little bit. But that format, uh, you know, I haven't used it in recent jobs. But, you know, I'm thinking that they could probably, it was a little labor intensive with gathering them the feedback, but there's probably some things like maybe Slack channel or something where you can have that ongoing discussion. And, you know, participation.

Well, in Jean asked a good question in the chat, or,

Yes, I think it worked in this was at the end, sort of end of my my time at that company, I think it definitely worked for those who kind of really got into it. And I could see a little drift off over the four sessions, which was good insight for me, but it wasn't a lot. So I was kind of impressed that I want to say something like 60 to 70% completed all four, and it was completely voluntary. But you know, making sure what's in it for them, and that it's a doable, you know, task, I think was important in the design of it. But yeah, we had a little bit of, I created some performance support on SharePoint, that was kind of a learning geek, you know, site for people to come to you Nice. All teams are like asking for help with their own training, since l&d can't cover everything. And so yeah, I think for those that were really into it, it did help. And then I know it caught like the CEOs I and then he had nice or leadership training. And so where they kind of made it mandatory. That wasn't in you know, Google's initial idea of it is it shouldn't be mandatory, but format of that email series. So

yeah, I like a good drip campaign. Like that with lessons. You know, I think that's always a good idea. I love the fact that you did it, you know, to help the organization understand what building a learning culture is.

Yeah.

What does that look like? I think that's a tremendous idea. Because then what we're doing is we're trying to level set what this means. Because when we talk about having a culture of learning, or a learning organization, that means something different to every person to every organization. What does this mean? And I think what you're doing here, and what we all could do is that we're just kind of level setting the definition for what it means for our organization. Forget what HBr or Forbes or whatever, forget what they say, here's what we're doing. And in here's what's works for us. I think that's great. And then what you can do is you can build off of that. Exactly, yeah, right. I think that's a that's a tremendous idea. Love it. Thank you for sharing that. Sure. All right now What else we've got? What we're doing here is we're identifying how we can bridge lessons to application. And so drip feed lessons. Communication with the supervisors, creating some sort of companion pieces so that we can bring the managers into the conversation with learning. What else can we do? Or what else are you doing? To help bridge that gap?

Is it so nice? I saw somebody up here talk about Bri, we're, let's talk about prework first, and that was Heather, let's talk about pre work for a second. Does pre work help bridge the gap? Well,

I was a lot like Mia, where I started in a company that had no learning program had no we were more enablement than anything. So it was mostly we focused on sales. But I really started with the sales leaders and top down saying, this is how I'm going to structure a program for the sales teams, they have to do pre work. Because if we're doing virtual training, I don't need to read them read to them like they're five years old. And it is super important that they do the pre work. So they come to the virtual session and be able to practice. Well, the first one didn't go super great. There was one team that did that got 100% participation in the pre work and the virtual tendons. And the CRO actually did a huge kudos email to all the sales leaders saying, you know, such and such a team build, well, the sales leader got all bent out of shape, because he didn't get any kudos. And so it turned into your team do the work, right? It didn't it more into like a pure competition thing. And so we would always involve the upper, you know, the CRO, like, who's completing the work, who's not completing the work, who's showing up, and it ended up turning it into where people saw the value of doing the pre work because they'd be embarrassed coming to the virtual session, and not being prepared. Because then their peers would end up saying, what? How come you don't know what we're talking about? And they want to be the one to say mine didn't do it. Right,

Jennifer, I see your hand.

Sorry, I just want to piggyback off of what Jean saying I don't want to embarrass anybody. But at the same time, if I'm going to set a prework the expectation, I think we have as facilitators and As designers, we have a duty to weave that in right and self isolation that you have done it. So if I'm going to take five minutes, and read to you like a fifth grader to their five year old, to Gene's point, then people are just gonna say, Oh, it's okay, if I don't read it, because Jennifer is going to chop me up at the top of the course and we're going to be fine. So if it's clear that there was no way I'm walking into jeans, trainings without doing the pre work, and that's the expectation you have set, then then you're being successful. If you're if you waver on that, sometimes you do sometimes you don't, or, or anything like that, that's where I get into trouble. So what I'll do it my pre work, I do believe in pre work, because I'll say, if you know if this is a new topic to you, here are some optional resources you might want to check out. And then I clearly say, you know, here are some required readings that we will discuss in the meeting. So I do kind of give them different content. But if I'm giving them required reading, it's up to me to make sure that I weave that in. There's nothing worse than having spent like two hours digesting some Harvard Business Review. content. And then the facilitator never even mentions it again or Right. Right. And we've been so yeah.

And that was it. Thank you for that. That was going to be my follow up question as well. Jennifer is, well, first off, we again, I could have a whole hour's worth of discussion around pre work dealing with pre work what we should be doing or not do in regards to pre work. That's a whole entire different conversation. My question is, to Jennifer's point is how can we if we're going to have people do pre work? How does it help them after? Right, so we realized that it might set the stage for the program. It's Golf. But how can we link the pre work that we're asking people to do to the exchange of knowledge? After they leave the program? Is there something? Is there something there that we're missing? Is there a link there that we are missing?

I think you need to revisit the pre work in some shape, manner or form a small group discussion or some kind of a questionnaire where they check things off. I did this I did this. Oh, I didn't hear that. I heard this though. And that kind of closes, quote unquote, the loop at least for that piece of what we're doing.

Yes, I agree. That's great, great idea to make sure that we are closing that loop. Beth, I see your hand. Yeah,

this probably isn't rocket science, you guys probably are doing many of these things. But I think thinking about something that you're going to address in class that they're dealing with. So the pre work is to think about some of those objectives you have for the class. And think of a situation in your life where maybe these things are falling short. And then they, they use that as the guide throughout the class to apply the principles. And then after class, they have an accountability partner or someone else's great idea about sending an email to themselves. And I'd like to address that. But then you're connecting what they thought about in applying a current situation in their life. And then connecting that back of how is it being fixed with the things that you learned, potentially as an option?

I love that idea. And anyone, I don't know if there was anybody here, I think there are a few people here, who just attended our Learn something new session with Hadiya, this past Wednesday. So she talked about, you know, the importance of incorporating stories and how to do that. And I think the techniques that she discussed there, if you create this narrative, like Beth is suggesting, if you create this narrative, before they come into the class, and then afterwards, they can take that narrative and say, Okay, you had this, you know, this is what was before. This is how you got there from here. And so now you can see this improvement. Right, so now the narrative changes, how has the narrative changed for you? I think that's a great idea, Beth? And no, I think a lot of what l&d does isn't rocket science. You know, what it's important? Because, you know, we're not, I don't think I've ever thought about it in that fashion is to create the pre narrative, and then the post narrative. And now, are you seeing a difference as to how that has worked for you? I think that's a really excellent idea. So thank you for sharing that. All right. And Jean. Yeah,

you were asking how do you link the pre work to the post work? Well, again, this is because sales is sometimes the easiest to talk about. If they had to explain a process or explain how a particular product worked, in the context of how does it connect to other products, I would have a, an infographic of how these products connect together, they would have to be able to they reviewed that. And then in class, they would have to be able to explain it to their in a breakout room, explain it to their co workers. And then that pre work and that graphic is their job aid afterwards. Right. So I love that. That's what I did. I

love that. And I think that's another way that we can bridge the gap right? technique that I've used in the past myself is have them create their own job aid in the class. So they create their own infographic, they create their own storyboard or what have you. Because if they create it, they're more likely to use it. And then that becomes part of the change that you hope to see. But it goes with what with what Erica was talking about. It's how do we go back? And same with what Dr. Bob was talking about? How do we go back a month later, 60 days later, 90 days later, to see whether or not they're still using it? Or if it was even helpful to them? Has any of the vocabulary seeped into their day to day conversations? Right? You know, so I think that that's the really important bit. And I'm gonna go back here to Denise. So Denise, in the chat here, you wrote using cohort groups with accountability. So I don't know if you have the ability to unmute yourself and talk a little bit about that, but I'd love to hear more about your thoughts around that.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. So I mean, it was all in the context of a leadership development. But when you set up the cohort groups, after the event, taking people out of their typical dynamics, and partnering people together that typically don't work together, or aren't interacting with each other on a day to day basis that you take kind of like that friendship element out of it. And then you get the ability to show individuals facets of other ways that the skills are impacting other components of the organization or other departments within the organization. So you start to break down some of those silos. And you also can show how upstream downstream impacts are affecting, and then that creates some accountability for people to realize that they're either contributing or detracting from the organization as a whole, well, it might not necessarily impact their direct department. Now, it's impacting others within the organization that they might not have seen before. And also still accountability in that work stream. And also accountability from the perspective of making assignments that, you know, small, group assignments that everyone has to come back and contribute and learning from each other, you know, kind of like those group assignments that we all love to do. When we were in our earlier education scenarios where one person picked up the slack for everybody

ended up doing the work for the project. Yeah. Like that. I love the idea. And here's, here's what I especially appreciate, Denise is the use of the word accountability. And oftentimes, I think we might approach some of this, the cohorts that we create, whether they be on teams, or slack or whatever. So we create these cohorts, and we create cohorts for learning. Maybe it's a language change. So where rather than cohorts for learning, maybe it's cohorts for accountability? Right. So then, then the business might feel as though oh, I need to I have to, or this is really something I should be doing, rather than a cohort for learning where everybody's like, I don't have time for I don't have time for that learning stuff. You know, but accountability is part of the business vocabulary. And so maybe if you put it, you know, reframe it that way, maybe, then it becomes maybe you see more success. So I really appreciate that you called it that. And so let me ask you, what, were you the person who introduced this to the organization? And if so, how did you go about doing that?

Um, yes, we, I introduced it to the organization. The first time unfortunately, that I engaged in this experience, it was not successful, as expected. So people, people didn't get the support, they found ways not to come to their appointment times or not to engage with, you know, the individuals that they have previously been partnership partnered with. So, you know, over time, and an evolution started to, you know, create more accountability for the accountability. So right, sort of better going upstream in the, the hierarchy of, you know, setting a steady and expectation that, that they will be at this event, this is critical. Having somebody in a position that can say that, and there's love, there's gravity to them that statement. I would say, yes. It hasn't been a booming success, but I've seen it get better. Right?

And that's what it is. It's baby steps. You know, if you had told me it had been a rousing success from day one, I might have I might have doubted you a little bit. Because it's it always when you're talking about these sorts of group accountability or learning or what have you, it always traction takes a little bit of time to occur, you know, so it's okay. And I would I would let those who are listening to this know that it's okay. Don't feel discouraged if, if things like this do not take off right away. It takes time. And I like, Jason, your your comment there? I don't know if that's a, I'm trying to figure out how to say it. But just your acronym there about accountability, support, motivation and learning. Is this something that you're doing?

No, just somebody just reading the chat and listening to came up and tried to find another L because so it could be a small cohort? Yeah. So it would be, so you need an extra L. And then this is something that sticks in, you know, we'd love initialization and acronyms.

We do. We do.

One, one thing that I would like to highlight, though, is, you know, being purposeful in in designing the cohort groups together to really open up individuals, especially if your organization is sort of siloed in departments. So where we might not have gotten the true, like, a measurable KPI to say that we were able to improve on a certain KPI within the organization this much. I definitely think that we improved the feeling of partnership among the teams or departments that hadn't existed before.

Yeah, yeah. And I think what's when you think about a KPI we always try to attach it to a business KPI. Right, so what's the business goal here, and in some cases, it's easier than others. So if you think about sales, it's always easier to attach a KPI when you think about sales, because you can say, when they participate in this accountability group, let's just call it that in this accountability group, their revenue is going to go up because their pipeline is going to be filled faster, right? So their sales are going to be faster, because they're learning from each other. That's the expectation, right? And so it's easier to connect those dots. And you can say that, here's the other bit, right, it's businesses do not want to attribute 100% of the success to training, they want to say it's not all training, it's this, this, this and this. And that's why we succeeded. However, they are not shy of saying 100% of the time, it failed because of training. Okay, so, you know, all right, that being said, is, if we admit that upfront and say, these KPIs are going to be reached, because of some of the changes that we're making, in performance reviews, some of the changes that we're making with the goals, and some of the changes that we're making with leadership, plus the new training, then we're going to see XYZ happen, you know, so we're not putting all of it on our shoulders, again, it goes towards that risk and reward thing. So then when it fails, we can say, well, the training went the way that training was supposed to go. But you all didn't do the management training, the management changes that were expected. And so dot, dot dot, yeah, then this kind of helps cushion the blow, you know, as it were, about why something didn't, why a KPI wasn't met, etc. So, you know, to help those goals be moved forward, right? So it takes a village, we want to move everything forward. And so we'll admit that up front, and that's how we're going to measure it on the back end. Now Joyce, I, I see your comment here about or your question rather, it takes time how long is too long I wish I had a magic wand to tell you how long is is too long. I'll I can only give you my experiences and maybe others here have their their own experiences. Let's let's take this coffee chat as an example. And so we've been doing this now I know some of you who are regulars, but we've been doing this for almost three years. Okay, um, since since the beginning of the pandemic, and the registrations for this chat when I first started was like two, five, okay, and that went on for a while, and then it kind of up to 10 Okay, and it's like and I was super excited by that because I wasn't being lonely alone, you know, all by myself. But today is The registrations for this chat here was something along the lines of 70 people. Okay. And when you think about who shows up, and this is typical, you know, you get about a third of people who register who actually show up some of these things, right. So, which is great. That means then I've got, you know, 75 people who are listening to the recordings or listening to the podcast, or or taking advantage of the resources that we have. And it took three years to get here. And, and I'm okay with that result. So and then it's a matter of what will the organization sustain? What will it accept? You know, so that is something that can only be measured by you and your organization? What's the agreement? How long are we going to try this six months a year, but just know that a month isn't going to be long enough? Or even if you think about building a cohort around a class? Will doing it once it's not enough doing it twice is not enough? Because then you're still working out the bugs? What worked, what didn't work, what needs to be changed, right? And so those takes several iterations. So that's all on on you, and your organization. So I don't know anybody else got any thoughts around that?

I don't know if I have a thought about the time thing. And maybe this goes along with the time thing. But I'm thinking about all these really great ideas and putting them in cohorts and accountability and things like that. But we also have to compete with noise and time. Like timelines, and yeah, so

we are not the only things happening in their lives. Right?

Right. So that's another consideration that you have to you have to maybe put under the the risk and reward thing. This

is why you have to be really thoughtful about what we put in front of people. And the mantra that I like to use is before I put something in a group isn't helpful. So is it helpful? Is it useful? If it's not, then maybe now is not the time, maybe later is the time but right now might not be the time? So it's about, you know, that judgment call? What do we use it for? How do we use it, etc. So all of that goes into the plan. You know, so I goes back to what Jean what you put into the comments a little bit ago about not introducing something not introducing too much too soon. Right? And yes, me finding ways of getting feedback, for sure. And, you know, getting feedback through surveys or work observation or, or what have you, you know, you want to get, you want to get something back that lets you know that you're headed in the right direction, or that the people are headed in the right direction. And that could be one on one interviews. You know, pick a person, pick a person who is not going to agree with you. It's we all want to find those people that really, you know, like what we're doing, but that's not helpful. You know, so sometimes you have to find the person who didn't participate. Find out why. You know, or the person who's not using the infographic as a job aid, find out why. Right? Okay, well, we are almost at the top of the hour, so anyone have any closing thoughts that they want to share? As I go through the chat real quick,

I just want to say thank you, because it really is nice to get together with learning l&d people and discuss these ideas, especially if you're in a small company, and you're all by yourself. It's really, it gets sad and lonely to not discuss.

It does. Well, even within larger companies, sometimes you just don't have somebody to speak learning with. We want to use our words, the words that we love, and we can always use those words. Right, within, you know, in our organizations. Yeah. Right.

Thank you again.

And then I also want to acknowledge Heather, earlier on in the chat, you know, about creating a chat room and have people post examples of what they applied and how they learned. I think that that's all great, especially if you have teams or slack, super easy to do, right. It's just a matter of encouraging people to do that and ensuring that the cohorts or your Slack channels, it's a safe place. It's a safe place for people to come together and write the wrong thing. It's okay. Right. Okay. Yes. Thank you, everybody, and I am looking at the chat. But on that note, I just want to encourage you all, be sure to sign up for the coffee chats that are happening in December. They're less lnd TGT kind of things like what we're talking about here, they're more sort of fun because it is the holidays. Our next coffee chat here in two weeks is our I think our third annual, fourth annual may be gifts for the trainer in your life, where we all come together. And we put together some of the neat things that we wish we had. And that we can give each other and might be helpful for your organization or might be great for anyone in your life. So we have a lot of fun building those gift lists. And then in four weeks time is when we have our little holiday get together Holiday Extravaganza. And I have a bunch of books to give away. So I will look forward to that. So I hope you all have signed up for both of those things are learn something new this week with Hadiya was the last one of this year, we will have more obviously in 2024. Four. So look for that scheduled to go up. But also, this is where we're all going to start with our intensive workshops. We're starting off in January with our intensive with myRA. So myRA is going to do a two hour workshop about generative AI and helping us build chat bots and those sorts of things that can help us within our organization. So if you are leaning into this, this is where you can roll up your sleeves and really get to work with my read. So we're looking forward to that. And there'll be more intensives as we go on through 2024. So thank you all for joining me here today. And I loved our conversation about everything that you guys are doing, you know, and everyone's feedback as far as how we can really make learning more applicable in our, in our workplaces. And towards the point of finding more people to speak with don't forget about the community. So the learning rebels community is there for you. Feel free to join in on that. And when you are part of the community, you get discounts on some of the events, if you're a community Plus member, you get 100% off of all of our learning something new, so it pays for itself there. And you also get access 365 Seven days a week, 24 hours a day access to all of the coffee chat resources, and also some of the learn something new resources and research papers etc. So please feel free to check us out there. And maybe and I don't know if you've put a link to the community in there earlier, but I'll drop it again. There you go. So I look forward to seeing everybody in the community as well. What are you guys going to do this weekend? Thanksgiving shopping. I know that's what I'm going to try to do after this is hit the grocery store before all the crowds do. Thanks,

Shannon. Bye.

Bye, Jean. Anything special happening? Yeah, enjoy your Friday. We got the got the holidays coming up. Maybe it's time to take a breather before everything hits us, right. Meow thank you for your contributions. JD it's always good to see you. Bye bye. Bye bye everybody can stop the recording