As we were designing Bright Academy, we felt a particular pull to include a short word on some practical challenges that we face as learning professionals - particularly when it comes to supporting executive operations leaders or business partners who have high hopes and demands from our team.
Tell me if any of these sound familiar…
- There’s a large new technology rollout coming, but the system design isn’t done till the last second, and you only get a couple weeks to develop training for something that probably needed 2 months.
- There’s a common mistake we see employees making and a Vice President swoops in to say ‘ we need “a training” on this out by Friday.’
- You suggest a meaningful update for a learning experience you believe can make an impact, and the operations team says ‘we’ll think about it.’
Real talk, people.
While there’s no guidance anyone can give you on how best to manage all these sorts of scenarios, there are some observations that we wanted to share that we hope may help. And that are VERY related to all the learning strategy topics we’re covering here in Bright Academy.
- First - having a documented learning strategy helps.
- Many operations leaders may not be used to having or discussing a formal, documented learning strategy. If you go through this process - especially without being asked - and present/discuss it proactively, I think you’ll find it elevates the tone of the discussion with your leaders. ESPECIALLY if you take the approach we’re suggesting in Bright Academy where the focus is tying the learning program to specific business metrics. If you don’t have this, when these sorts of frustrating situations come up it’s almost like you’re missing a foundation to work from in the relationship.
- Second - asking questions related to the 80/20 rule helps.
- When business needs emerge and leaders swoop in, they’re often working from data sets that they’re not sharing with you when they reach out. They’re looking at P&L statements, or reports on the volume of employee mistakes, or the costs of the issue they’re managing, declining NPS scores… whatever. The intuition behind the 80/20 rule should push you to understand and ask about THOSE metrics, not just dive into the work. The best thing you can do when leaders ‘ask for training’ is ask questions. All these learning strategy topics start to come together. How many learners are impacted? How frequently is this customer issue happening today? 1 time a day 10,000 times a day? What’s the cost to our company of this mistake we’re making? What would success look like if training can move the needle? These questions not only will help you design a better learning experience, but they signal to the leader that you’re acting as a real business partner, which will help with credibility if you make suggestions.
- Third - sometimes you just need to push back a little.
Here’s the thing. Many things that happen DON”T need more training. Or at least need a very light touch. A one-pager, not a 30 minute lesson. A 15-minute webinar, not a half-day class.
So there’s no real ‘training’ I can give you on how to have this conversation - sometimes you just need to speak up and say ‘No.’