Innovation and training
In a recent article I found on Harvard Business review, Tony Schwartz mentions six powerful ways of creating a culture of innovation within any organization. (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/08/six_invisible_secrets_to_a_cul.html)
What really struck me is when he mentioned "...define what success looks like and hold people accountable to specific metrics" Such a simple yet profound statement, and especially since I know that most leaders do not consistently define what exactly that metrics of success is. (Of course it can always change, in fact hopefully it changes)
It talks to the overall company strategy, the departmental strategy, and even the learning culture within the organization. We all know that when it comes to training, the old "performance improvement consultancy" model hold that money, motivation, management issues, training aspects are the corner stone of most training consultancies, but few consulting firms / individuals dare to ask leaders what exactly is the metrics of success, how will we know when we have reached our goal?
Lets face it most leaders don't even know what success is, and maybe that is the key to innovation from a learning and development viewpoint, being able to assist leaders in defining what success is, what a true learning culture will entail. So simple, and yet so difficult for most companies to get right...we implement projects (sometimes hundreds running simultaneously) but we never learn quick enough when it doesn't work out, or even if we do learn quick enough, we don't dare share information on what was successful about the project and what was the lesson learned.
The conversations that are held at strategic level is murky, and full of Ego's, everybody knows that information and knowledge is the new currency, and the "reluctantly" hold onto that knowledge to detriment of the organizations learning culture.
The biggest point Tony made was that most organizations do not meet its peoples needs. They don't know:
who is working for them,
why they are there,
what makes them tick,
and what will make them leave.
We should, as Tony suggest, question the way people are expected to work. However we cant just suddenly change a process that has been working successful overnight, failing to define the metrics that individuals must operate in.
What really struck me is when he mentioned "...define what success looks like and hold people accountable to specific metrics" Such a simple yet profound statement, and especially since I know that most leaders do not consistently define what exactly that metrics of success is. (Of course it can always change, in fact hopefully it changes)
It talks to the overall company strategy, the departmental strategy, and even the learning culture within the organization. We all know that when it comes to training, the old "performance improvement consultancy" model hold that money, motivation, management issues, training aspects are the corner stone of most training consultancies, but few consulting firms / individuals dare to ask leaders what exactly is the metrics of success, how will we know when we have reached our goal?
Lets face it most leaders don't even know what success is, and maybe that is the key to innovation from a learning and development viewpoint, being able to assist leaders in defining what success is, what a true learning culture will entail. So simple, and yet so difficult for most companies to get right...we implement projects (sometimes hundreds running simultaneously) but we never learn quick enough when it doesn't work out, or even if we do learn quick enough, we don't dare share information on what was successful about the project and what was the lesson learned.
The conversations that are held at strategic level is murky, and full of Ego's, everybody knows that information and knowledge is the new currency, and the "reluctantly" hold onto that knowledge to detriment of the organizations learning culture.
The biggest point Tony made was that most organizations do not meet its peoples needs. They don't know:
who is working for them,
why they are there,
what makes them tick,
and what will make them leave.
We should, as Tony suggest, question the way people are expected to work. However we cant just suddenly change a process that has been working successful overnight, failing to define the metrics that individuals must operate in.
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