The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to Turn Training and Development into Business Results

By Calhoun W. Wick, Roy V. H. Pollock and Andy Jefferson

Whether you?re an HR or OD professional or work in a trainingdepartment, learn to apply the principles of follow-throughmanagement within your organization in the new edition of thisbestselling resource. Incorporating new research on learning andlearning transfer, along with new case studies, interviews, andtools, this edition shares guidelines, proven in practice by manyFortune 500 companies, on how to design comprehensive learningexperiences in leadership and management, sales, quality,performance improvement, and professional certification. You?lldiscover the theories and principles underlying the approach, aswell as the practical methods, tools, and roadmaps for bridging the"knowing-doing" gap.

Praise for the Second Edition of The Six Disciplines ofBreakthrough Learning:

"No other book in the last decade has been more important forthe workplace learning field. The second edition is even better,incorporating new wisdom learnedin the crucible of real-worldpractice."?Will Thalheimer, Ph.D., president, Work-LearningResearch, Inc.

"Simply put, this book is a critical read for anyone who wantsto ensure that the time and money spent in development producesresults."? Teresa Roche, vice president and chief learning officer,Agilent Technologies

"The Six Disciplines brings together many of the most importantprinciples of corporate training in an easy-to-understand, highlyvisual format. Readers will find this book filled with examples,models, and practical tools you can use to create high-impactlearning solutions in your own organization."?Josh Bersin,president and chief executive officer, Bersin & Associates

"Wick, Pollock, and Jefferson have a well-proven formula formoving learning from an academic exercise to business results.Their 6Ds offer all leaders specific and concrete things that theycan do to turn learning into results." ?Dave Ulrich, professor,Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and partner, TheRBL Group

"I introduced The Six Disciplines to GE's Global LearningCouncil and I am very glad that I did. The Six Disciplines gives usa common language and a common process that work very well inGE."?Jayne Johnson, director, Global Leadership Development,General Electric

"The 6Ds model provided a powerful framework for designinghigh-impact learning programs that helped to shape our approach tolearning and to align our learning leaders across the organization.The second edition adds insights and tools that make this editioneven more relevant, practical, and valuable."?Robert Sachs, Ph.D.,vice president, Learning and Development, Kaiser-Permanente

"Embracing the Six Disciplines has allowed us to develop trulyinnovative high-impact leadership programs that have changed thetrajectory of our firm."?Carol Bonett, vice president, leadershipdevelopment officer, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Jul 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9780470649534

Book preview

INTRODUCTION: THE SIX Ds

The training you provide must contribute—visibly and substantially—to fulfillment of customers’ business strategies.

—VAN ADELSBERG AND TROLLEY

Throughout our careers, we have been convinced of the strategic importance of learning and the contribution that corporate training and development programs can and should make. But we have also been deeply concerned that their actual impact is frequently far less than their true potential.concerned that Ten years ago, we started on a mission to understand—and to find ways to

Ten years ago, we started on a mission to understand-and to find ways to remove—the impediments to learning realizing its full potential and strategic contribution. We have worked with hundreds of organizations, large and small, and thousands of different programs. We have been privileged to be part of breakthrough learning programs—initiatives that helped propel their companies to a higher level of performance and that delivered results of undeniable value. But we have also observed programs that produced minimal or even negative impact, most often for the lack of learning transfer. New skills and knowledge were taught, but never applied to the actual work of the organization. When we compared the differences between these two extremes, we found that breakthrough learning is the result of a disciplined and systematic approach, executed with passion, excellence, and a commitment to continuous improvement. There is no magic bullet—no one, simple fix that transforms corporate learning from the periphery to central strategic importance.

Seven years ago, we distilled the critical practices that characterize high impact initiatives into the 6Ds (Figure I.1), which we described in The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning (2006).

FIGURE I.1. THE 6Ds THAT TURN LEARNING INTO BUSINESS RESULTS

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Case in Point I.1

The 6Ds at GE

Jayne Johnson, director, Leadership Education, for GE Global Learning, Crotonville, introduced the Six Disciplines to GE. "Part of my role in leading the Global Learning Council is to share best practices among the group. I read the Six Disciplines book and fell in love with the methodology. It just makes so much sense to start with the outcome in mind and work backwards. The concepts really resonated with me, so I introduced the Six Disciplines to the Global Learning Council by having one of the authors come out to Crotonville and conduct a session for us. Looking back now, I’m very glad that I did, because the 6Ds lives on across GE Global Learning.

"GE is very much a metrics-driven organization, very results-oriented. The 6Ds gave us a common language to reinforce all our efforts and ensure that we are making an impact with the courses we run. Before we knew about the Six Disciplines, whenever somebody went to one of our classes, we had them put together an action plan based on all the things they had learned and wanted to implement upon their return home.

"Once they left our grounds here in Crotonville, we really had no idea what they did with it. Occasionally, we would check in, but there was no consistency. So, what the Six Disciplines did was give us a more consistent and thoughtful approach to ensuring that participants continue to think about what they committed to do in the class and as a result, we have a higher percentage of people following-through on them. The Six Disciplines gave us a common language and a common process that makes so much sense. It works very well in GE."

Since the first edition of this book, learning organizations in many leading companies have adopted the 6Ds as the organizing principles for their training and development efforts. They have found them to be a powerful mnemonic and a common language to leverage best practices across their learning organizations (see Case in Point I.1).

This new edition of The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning has been extensively revised. We have incorporated new research and examples of best practices from innovative companies on the leading edge of getting better results from learning. We have also incorporated many of the new tools and guides we developed in conjunction with the 6Ds Workshops.

What follows is a brief introduction to each of the Six Disciplines. Each begins with a D to make them easier to remember and apply. While implementing the principles of any one of the 6Ds individually will enhance results, the greatest improvement is achieved when all six are used together; there is synergy among them. In the remainder of the book, we dedicate a full chapter to each discipline, exploring it in depth and providing examples and tools to maximize its contribution.

005

Define Business Outcomes

A fundamental premise of this book is that human capital is the single most important source of competitive advantage in today’s increasingly knowledge-based economy. Competitive pressure requires organizations to continuously improve the quality of their products and services and the efficiency with which they are delivered. Maintaining competitive advantage through human capital requires ongoing investment in employees’ development, both so that they stay current in a rapidly changing world and so that they stay with the company. According to James K. Harter, Ph.D., Gallup’s chief scientist for workplace management, one of the best predictors of retention is whether an employee feels he or she has opportunities at work to learn and grow (Robison, 2008).

Corporate-sponsored learning represents an investment that companies make to enhance their human capital and so ensure their future. Companies expect that investment to pay dividends in terms of greater effectiveness, improved productivity, enhanced customer satisfaction, better commitment, higher retention, and so forth. That means that all company-funded learning opportunities—whether classroom-based training, e-learning, informal learning, executive coaches, tuition reimbursement, and the like—ultimately serve a business purpose.

We should say at this point that, throughout the book, we use business and corporate to refer to the larger organization that sponsors learning and development initiatives. These are meant to also include government agencies and not-for-profit enterprises. Although they are not businesses in the usual sense, continuous learning is nevertheless essential for these organizations to fulfill their missions, and it must be managed in a business-like manner to be effective. Whether or not the organization is expected to produce a profit, the fundamental rationale—and management’s expectation—is that performance will in some way improve following a training and development program or other learning opportunity (see Figure I.2).

In other words, as workplace learning professionals, We are not in the business of providing classes, learning tools, or even learning itself. We are in the business of facilitating improved business results (Harburg, 2004, p. 21). The extent to which organizations are willing to fund learning, and the regard in which it is held, depend on the extent to which learning initiatives deliver on management’s expectations for improved performance.

Therefore, the First Discipline—and perhaps the most critical—is to clearly define the business outcomes expected from each and every learning initiative. We do not mean learning outcomes or learning objectives. Most programs already have well-defined learning objectives that articulate what participants will learn or what they will be able to do by the end of the program. Those are still necessary for designing the instruction, but they do not answer the fundamental questions that business leaders are interested in:

• How will this initiative benefit the business?

• How will we know?

FIGURE I.2. MANAGEMENT EXPECTS TRAINING TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE

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Whereas learning objectives explain what participants will know or be able to do at the end of the program, business outcomes specify what they will do on the job, and the benefits to the business. Clearly defining the expected business outcomes has many advantages:

• It makes learning a more strategic function, since the relationship to the mission of the organization is clear.

• It increases the motivation to learn in adults by answering the what’s in it for me? question.

• It increases the likelihood of investment by making the business value explicit.

• It calls attention to the shared responsibility of learning and line managers; on-the-job results can only be obtained with their support and reinforcement.

Enterprises that have implemented D1 across their learning organizations have discovered that they achieve much greater buy-in, not only from management, but also from program participants themselves. Getting clear about D1—the desired business outcomes—makes designing a more effective intervention easier. It is also prerequisite to effectively documenting the results (D6). Finally, having clearly defined outcomes allows learning organizations to win: They can unambiguously demonstrate their value because they know what success means to the business.

In the chapter on D1 we underscore the importance of making sure that there is open, transparent, and readily apparent alignment between needs of the business and the goals of learning initiatives. We provide guidelines for distinguishing between learning and business outcomes and for distinguishing between performance problems that can, and cannot, be improved by training. We include tools and guidelines for having the dialogue with business leaders needed to ensure linkage. We underscore the benefits of understanding the value chain of learning, of mapping the intended impact, picking the right problems, and managing expectations.

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Design the Complete Experience

A second theme running through this book is that converting learning into business results is a process, not a one-off event. Learning organizations need to be much more explicit and deliberate about the process by which learning is transformed into results than has been the norm in the past (see Figure I.3).

Process improvement requires considering all of the factors that affect the outcome and singling out those that have the most profound influence for special attention. The Second Discipline of breakthrough learning, therefore, is to design the complete experience. The emphasis here is on complete, which means including what happens before and after the formal periods of instruction as part of the design.

FIGURE I.3. TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT NEEDS TO DESIGN THE COMPLETE EXPERIENCE

© Sidney Harris/Condé Nast Publications/www.cartoonbank.com.

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Historically, instructional design systems and corporate learning organizations focused primarily on the course—the period and method of instruction—with relatively little attention paid to what happened before and, especially, after the instruction. The research results are clear, however. The program’s surround—what happens before and after training—is as important as the instruction itself in determining the outcome. The transfer climate in the participant’s workplace has a particularly profound impact; indeed, it can make or break the value of any learning program.

The Second Discipline—designing the complete experience—recognizes that, from the participants’ points of view, the learning experience begins long before the formal course. It ought also to continue long afterward, until they have improved their performance and produced results (see Figure I.4).

The Second Discipline demands a new paradigm: The learning organization is responsible for optimizing the learner’s total experience—not just what happens in the classroom (or its virtual, electronic, or informal equivalent). Maximally effective programs approach learning holistically and systemically; they pay special attention to the impact of the participant’s manager and the work environment on learning transfer and results. Designing learning initiatives that comprise all the factors that influence the results—including those outside the traditional scope of training and development—is more important now than ever; learning organizations are increasingly being funded on the basis of the business value they generate (or fail to generate).

In the chapter on D2, we examine what makes up the complete experience and which elements most impact learning transfer and the creation of business value. We suggest methods and tools to optimize outcomes, some of which challenge conventional thinking. We argue that learning organizations need to redefine what it means to finish a course. The participants’ work is not done when they reach the end of an online module or the last day of class; the real finish line for learning is the documented delivery of business results. We show that improving the transfer climate and providing post-instructional performance support are particularly rich opportunities for a breakthrough.

The real finish line for learning is the delivery of business results.

FIGURE I.4. THE COMPLETE LEARNING EXPERIENCE ENCOMPASSES MUCH MORE THAN THE PERIOD OF INSTRUCTION

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Designing for the complete experience allows learning organizations to realize their full promise of delivering value to the organization. Since training and development programs take time and cost money, everyone benefits when they are planned and managed in a way that maximizes the likelihood of success.

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Deliver for Application

The Third Discipline that characterizes high-impact learning programs is that they are delivered to facilitate application. That is, their instructional designers begin with the end in mind—what participants are supposed to do differently and better—and then consciously select learning strategies that help participants bridge the learning-doing gap (see Figure I.5).

Delivering for application means selecting what to teach and how to deliver it most effectively based on the desired business outcomes and the behaviors needed to achieve them. It means using instructional approaches, technologies, and supporting strategies that accelerate learning transfer and application on the job. At the core of the Third Discipline is the principle that learning creates value only when it is applied; therefore, the way in which learning is delivered should reflect and facilitate the way in which it will be used.

In Chapter D3, we look at innovative ways that progressive learning organizations are bridging the learning-doing gap by making the relevance of the material clear; showing how each element is connected to real business issues; motivating application by answering the what’s in it for me? question; and helping participants prepare and plan for on-the-job application. We review insights into what makes learning memorable and provide tools to map the chain of value and monitor the perception of the program’s utility.

FIGURE I.5. THERE IS ALWAYS A GAP BETWEEN LEARNING AND DOING; THE GOAL OF D3 IS TO BRIDGE THAT GAP

© 2008 Fort Hill Company. All rights reserved.

011012

Drive Learning Transfer

Because companies invest in learning to address business needs and opportunities, learning objectives are, in effect, business objectives. They should be treated as such. In any well-managed company, systems are in place to set, measure, monitor, and reward achievement of business objectives. Historically, however, there have been no such mechanisms for learning-transfer objectives (see Figure I.6). Program participants were allowed to set them and forget them. Small wonder relatively few were achieved. Talk to any group of laymen or professionals about what’s broken in the current learning and development process, and most will tell you it’s the lack of serious post-training follow-through (Zenger, Folkman, & Sherwin, 2005, p. 30).

Learning objectives are, in effect, business objectives.

Learning transfer is the process of putting learning to work in a way that improves performance. The Fourth Discipline that characterizes high-impact learning organizations is that they drive the transfer of learning back to the work of the enterprise. They do not leave it to chance or individual initiative. Instead, they put in place systems and processes to actively encourage and manage the transfer process. The Fourth Discipline includes making sure that participants set (or are assigned) the right objectives, that they transfer their learning to the work they do, and that their managers hold them accountable for doing so.

FIGURE I.6. LEARNING TRANSFER IS THE WEAKEST LINK IN MOST TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

Copyright © Grantland Enterprises; www.grantland.net. Used with permission.

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In the chapter on D4, we introduce the concept of learning scrap and the high cost of doing nothing to ensure learning transfer. We explain the elements that define the transfer climate and determine the results that training ultimately delivers. We review what it takes to improve performance and discuss breakthroughs in the management of the learning transfer process made possible by technology. Finally, we provide case examples of how supporting learning transfer enhances the value of already effective programs.

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Deploy Performance Support

Companies that are serious about getting a return on their investment in learning and development understand that the job isn’t finished until the new knowledge and skills are successfully applied in a way that improves performance. They recognize that getting better at anything requires practice and that when trying anything new, people need support and coaching (Figure I.7).

FIGURE I.7. TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS CREATE GREATER VALUE WHEN THEY INCLUDE BOTH ACCOUNTABILITY AND SUPPORT

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To maximize the probability of delivering meaningful business outcomes, highly effective learning organizations practice the Fifth Discipline: They deploy various forms of ongoing performance support after the instruction. They work with senior leaders to develop a culture in which managers understand that they have a responsibility to support learning. They put their money where their mouths are by reallocating some of their resources from pure instruction to instruction plus performance support for transfer and application.

In the chapter on D5, we make the analogy between product support and performance support for learning transfer. We explore the three sources of support—materials, systems, and people—and provide examples. We discuss the need to balance accountability and support and the new demands this places on the learning organization and line management. We focus special attention on the participant’s manager, because he or she has a profound impact on whether learning is applied or scrapped. We confront head-on the reasons that managers don’t coach more to support the use of training and we provide specific steps to make the transfer climate favorable for results.

016

Document Results

The bottom-line questions that must be answered about any learning and development initiative are these: Did it make a positive difference? Did it achieve the results for which it was designed? Was it worth it?

The Sixth Discipline is to document results in a relevant, credible, and compelling way that justifies further investment and supports continuous improvement. Evidence of results is needed to justify continued investment in any business initiative. Learning is not exempt from this requirement, especially in a time of financial exigencies. In today’s business climate, companies must continuously improve the effectiveness and efficiency of all their business processes to remain competitive. Learning organizations should be models of continuous improvement.

Learning organizations should be models of continuous improvement.

But continuous improvement is possible, and continued investment is warranted, only when there is unequivocal evidence that the initiative generated value. The requisite data are those that document outcomes of importance to the business—not just activity (people trained, courses taught), learner satisfaction (reaction), or even the amount learned (see Figure I.8).

The Sixth Discipline—documenting results—is essential to support a cycle of continuous learning, innovation, adaptation, and improvement. The results of one program are the raw material for the next cycle of defining outcomes, designing experiences, delivering, driving, deploying, and documenting. A never-ending cycle of reinvention and renewal ensures that corporate education keeps pace with the changing competitive environment, workforce, and business needs.

FIGURE I.8. THE OUTCOMES OF INTEREST TO THE BUSINESS ARE ON-THE-JOB BEHAVIORS AND RESULTS

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In the chapter on D6, we discuss why learning organizations must document results. We differentiate between metrics needed to manage the learning organization and actual results that matter to the business. We provide guiding principles for program evaluation and advice on what to measure, how to collect and analyze the information, and, especially important, how to market the results.

Summary

Learning programs are investments that a company makes to enhance the value and effectiveness of its human capital. Management has a fiduciary and ethical responsibility to ensure that those investments produce a return: results that improve performance and competitiveness.

We have identified Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning—the 6Ds—that characterize high-value, breakthrough learning and development initiatives (see Figure I.9). Learning organizations that have adopted the 6Ds as their operating principles and that have practiced them diligently have increased the contribution that learning makes to their company’s success (see Case in Point I.2). As a result, 6Ds learning organizations have enjoyed a corresponding increase in the recognition and support they receive.

FIGURE I.9. THE SIX BREAKTHROUGH LEARNING DISCIPLINES

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In the following chapters, we explore each of the Six Disciplines in depth and provide practical tools and advice for their implementation. Each discipline is illustrated with case examples and insights from corporate leaders. Our experience in helping companies implement the 6Ds has renewed our optimism about people, learning, and organizations. We have been privileged to work with talented and creative learning and line professionals and to see breakthrough results; we believe that we are at the beginning of a true renaissance in corporate education. We are confident that you will extend the principles articulated in this book to achieve even greater success. We look forward to hearing your stories.

Case in Point I.2

The 6Ds at Kaiser Permanente

Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente is the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plan, serving 8.6 million members. In the rapidly changing field of health care, training and development are especially important to help Kaiser Permanente achieve its mission of providing quality care for its members and their families and contributing to the well-being of its communities.

Robert Sachs, Ph.D., is vice president of learning and development. He introduced the Six Disciplines at Kaiser Permanente because of "the focus on outcomes, the whole idea of creating impact, and the concept of designing the complete experience. It isn’t just what happens in the instructional walls—whether it was a classroom or e-learning or whatever—that matters, but how you get people ready and how you help them translate what they learn into results.

"Historically, we’re a pretty decentralized organization, so we probably went about doing our learning in just about every imaginable way. The 6Ds provided a framework that was easy to understand and comprehend and teach so that people could apply it. Both the vision and strategy were that we all would use this common framework to think about our work.

"I’ve got a group that does a fair amount of instructional design for our core learning programs, and so they began to modify their instructional design framework and methodology to incorporate the Six Disciplines. It’s hard to make the impact totally tangible from the dollar and cents standpoint because a lot of what we have applied this to so far has been general leadership training. But we are clearly getting people who are actively following through with tangible effort to translate things that they take away from a program into real action.

We’ve done some work on ROI, and there is still opportunity to refine our measures of business impact, but we do see people being more effective at managing their teams, cutting down the amount of time that it takes to work on issues of employee relations, and making meeting times more efficient and effective as a result of applying some of the skills they’ve gotten in their programs. We also see people taking on more strategic issues and broadening their strategic relationships. Those have been some of the tangible results and outcomes.

Alan Jang, senior manager of the learning solutions team, said, In order for learning solutions in Kaiser-Permanente to be successful, meaning achieving measurable results that impact the business, we had to create a new finish line for training. Training doesn’t end at the end of the course; it should also include follow-through and support. The [Six Disciplines] give us the framework to do that (quoted in Chai, 2009).

Action Points

For Learning Leaders

• Evaluate the extent to which you are practicing the Six Disciplines.

• Select a program for which you are responsible that has strategic importance and great potential contribution.

• Score the selected program using the 6Ds scorecard (Exhibit I.1).

• Decide which discipline, if strengthened, will produce the greatest improvement the quickest (low-hanging fruit).

• Use the relevant chapters of this book and your organizational knowledge to develop a plan.

• Present your findings, the target, your plan, and rationale to the relevant management team.

• Ask for the resources and cooperation needed to implement your recommendations.

• Evaluate the results and repeat the process to drive continuous improvement.

For Line Leaders

• Think about critical business needs that can be addressed (at least in part) by a learning and development program; then complete the worksheet in Table I.1.

• In the first column, labeled Critical Business Needs, write the most pressing business opportunities or challenges that training can help address.

• In the second column, labeled Conditions of Satisfaction, describe the results you require to consider the program a success—what people will do better and differently and the business impact this will have.

• In the third column, Acceptable Evidence, describe the information you will need to be sure the program is working. What kinds of data will you consider credible and relevant?

• Show the completed worksheet to your head of learning and development. Ask whether it is possible to deliver the results desired. Then work together to make it happen.

• If you are already investing in learning and development (through an internal unit or external vendors) use the 6Ds Scorecard (Exhibit I.1) to identify the most promising areas for improvement. Ask your learning leader to do the same and compare your results.

• Use the relevant chapter(s) of this book to jointly develop a plan for improvement.

Exhibit I.1 6Ds Learning and Application Scorecard

© 2008, Fort Hill Company. Used with permission.

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TABLE I.1. THE LEARNING FOR RESULTS WORKSHEET

020

DEFINE BUSINESS OUTCOMES

Management must always, in every decision and action, put economic performance first. It can only justify its existence and its authority by the economic results it produces. There may be great non-economic results: the happiness of the members of the enterprise, the contribution to the welfare or culture of the community, etc. Yet management has failed if it fails to produce economic results. . . . It has failed if it does not improve, or at least maintain, the wealth-producing capacity of the economic resources entrusted to it.

—PETER DRUCKER

In the final analysis, organizations invest in training and development and other corporate-enabled learning initiatives for one and only one reason: to improve the performance of individuals and, thereby, the organization as a whole. Effective learning contributes to the success of the enterprise in many ways: directly—through enhanced job performance—and indirectly—through better retention, recruitment, employee commitment, and so forth. Organizations seek to facilitate learning as a purposeful business activity to ensure their own success and the success of their people.

Learning agility and speed are essential to remaining competitive, perhaps even viable, in an increasingly knowledge-driven global economy. According to Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at USC’s Leadership Institute: It isn’t about ‘treating people nice;’ it’s about helping develop people to be at their very best, because that’s the only way that companies are going to succeed. It’s human capital that is the basis for competitive advantage (Bennis, n.d.). As one of the most famous CEOs at Proctor & Gamble, Richard Red Deupree, put it: If you leave us our buildings and our brands but take away our people, the company will fail (quoted in Dyer, Dalzell, & Olegario, 2004, p. 159).

Thus, the true measure of success for corporate training and development initiatives is the extent to which they enhance the value of the organization’s human capital and help it achieve its mission. That is a new and more demanding standard. In the past, delivering a great training program was sufficient. But not anymore. Global competition, market pressures for performance, and the recent economic downturn have moved the finish line. There is a new criterion for training success: improved performance on the job (Wick, Pollock, & Jefferson, 2009). Delivering great learning experiences is still important, but only as part of a process that delivers great outcomes for the business. And the only way to know whether the learning organization has achieved its goal is to agree in advance on the outcomes that matter most and the definition of success.

Thus, the First Discipline (D1) of breakthrough learning is to clearly define, in partnership with line leaders, the desired business outcomes. In this chapter we underscore the importance of shifting the focus of training and development from learning outcomes to business outcomes and we provide tools and guidance for making the transition. Topics include:

• Begin with the end in mind

• Express outcomes in business terms

• Pick the right problems

• Translate needs into deliverables

• Avoid training traps

• Manage expectations

• A checklist for D1

• Action points for learning and line leaders

021

Begin with the End in Mind

One of the habits of highly effective people is that they begin with the end in mind (Covey, 2004, p. 96). The same principle applies to highly effective learning organizations. Corporate training and development initiatives should always be a means to an end, not ends unto themselves. The specific end to be achieved depends on the nature and drivers of the business and its opportunities, challenges, and environment. Regardless of the specific objective to be achieved, however, all corporate learning is aimed at improving the performance of the business in some way (see Case in Point D1.1 and Figure D1.1). Thus, helping employees learn to deliver more effective leadership, reduce accidents, provide superior customer service, accelerate product development, enhance teamwork, give more effective presentations, and so forth, are all undertaken with the ultimate goal of improving the company’s financial health and performance.

Case in Point D1.1

Learning as a Business Strategy

One company that really understands the strategic nature of learning is Ingersoll Rand. As Rita Smith, vice president of enterprise learning, puts it: We’re here for only one reason: to help drive business outcomes. We need to understand the business strategy, key strategic drivers, external threats, and financial metrics. We literally need to be bilingual, speaking the languages of both learning and business (Smith, 2008).

Ingersoll-Rand’s CEO, Herb Henkel, sees learning as a key strategic lever, so much so that he has made it an integral part of the strategic planning process: When we go through the strategic planning process, we come up with ideas, strategies, and visions of where we’re going to be. Then we decide what to invest in to get the things we want. So I look at how many dollars we spend on bricks and mortar; how many on developing new products; and how much training we need to be able to meet our goals. Built into the planning process is the assumption that there will have to be some kind of training. So we consider it no different than we would anything else in terms of investment decisions (quoted in Bingham & Galagan, 2008).

The effectiveness of a learning intervention, then, is the extent to which it helps the organization achieve the end in mind. It follows that effectiveness can only be assessed—and success declared—if the goals of the intervention are clearly defined at the outset and those goals are aligned with and contribute to organizational effectiveness.

Goals Are Prerequisite for Success

In the absence of clearly defined, business-relevant objectives, learning organizations can never win in their quest for recognition and resources. Sporting events are fun to watch because everyone knows the rules and what winning means. Races have clearly marked finish lines. Other competitions have established goals and scoring. No one would pay to watch a football game if the rules were decided after the game or if winning were based on which team enjoyed themselves the most. No one would invest in stocks in the absence of accounting principles and bottom-line measures of success.

Similarly, an effective commission plan drives sales behavior because it spells out how salespeople can increase their financial rewards. Contracts include specified performance levels to avoid future disagreement about deliverables. The evidence required to support a specific therapeutic claim is agreed upon with the FDA in advance of clinical studies. Management by objectives works when individuals meet with their managers to define goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

FIGURE D1.1 EFFECTIVE TRAINING PROGRAMS ALWAYS KEEP THE BUSINESS OBJECTIVE IN MIND

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The objectives for a learning and development initiative should be no different. Management and the learning organization need to work together to define the Conditions of Satisfaction early in the development process (see Case in Point D1.2). The promised results and the way in which they will be measured should be agreed to as part of the design, not as an afterthought. The point is that learning and development can never compete successfully or truly claim success if the goalposts are not set out, fixed in position, and agreed to in advance.

Case in Point D1.2

Conditions of Satisfaction

When we asked Richard Leider, award-winning coauthor of Whistle While You Work and Claiming Your Place at the Fire, about the importance of defining objectives, he told us that it was vital and went on to explain:

"We teach leaders how to create what we call COS—conditions of satisfaction. What are your conditions of satisfaction? What is it that we are supposed to do differently after this and by when? What is it that you want delivered by when? Or created by when?

"You could call it accountability, but when leaders lead, they are customers. For leadership development, the line leader is a customer. She makes a request; she puts out certain conditions of satisfaction. And so this whole notion of leader as customer translates into the training, and therefore the follow-up practice; leaders have certain conditions of satisfaction for training.

So often leaders are not clear about their conditions of satisfaction. There is a certain language and a certain rigor that leaders need to learn in order for meetings and training and transactions to be effective. It really clears up all that murkiness. You could say it is common sense; well, the fact is—look where the breakdowns are.

Only then do those responsible for implementation have the opportunity to excel.

Business results must be the touchstone for defining learning and development objectives, the true north against which programs are designed, implemented, and measured. Any other organizing principle is likely to get the initiative off course, because as David Campbell put it: If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up someplace else (Campbell, 1974).

Business results must be the touchstone for defining learning and development objectives.

That learning and development programs should be designed with the end in mind hardly seems like a revelation. For at least twenty years, virtually all instructional design models—ADDIE and its many derivatives—have stressed the importance of starting with analysis and defining learning objectives. Similarly, focus on outcomes is the first standard of the International Society for Performance Improvement’s Human Performance Technology (International Society for Performance Improvement, 2002, p. 1). Fifteen years ago, the Robinsons published the first edition of Performance Consulting, which recognized that the real responsibility of professionals in human resources, learning, and organizational development roles was enhancing people’s performance in support of business goals (Robinson & Robinson, 1995).

Yet our experience across dozens of companies and hundreds of programs suggests that, to this day, most learning initiatives do not go far enough in defining their ultimate purpose. Most are still content to define objectives at the end of this program when in fact, It is not sufficient that people attend a training program and acquire skill; what ultimately matters is that these individuals apply the skills on the job so that their performance improves and the business benefits (Robinson & Robinson, 2008, p. 2).

In other words, the finish line for learning is not at the end of the program, but much later, on the job, after learning transfer. The Robinsons’ quote sums up the distinction between the practice of D1—defining business outcomes—and the more common practice of defining learning outcomes, which often fail to make the link to the ultimate purpose explicit. Effective programs define their objectives in terms of on-the-job behaviors and business results; less effective programs merely define what will be learned or covered.

Susan Burnett, currently senior vice president for talent and organizational development at Yahoo!, explains: "One of our strategic conclusions at Deloitte was that we needed to design and deliver outcome-based learning (see Case in Point D2.3). What I tell my team is that you have to change the conversation you have with your business partners. If you talk about what kind of training they need, you’re going to get a laundry list.

Reviews for The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning

[bsox_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fantastic help for a training company like mine, Vervago, that is developing trainings that extend beyond face-to-face workshop instruction. We are committed to helping our workshop participants use what they learn in our Precision Questioning workshop to transform how they do their work, increasing their decision-making and problem-solving abilities and making their meetings more efficient. This book helped me see many ways to do that. I also took their one-day workshop and would recommend it for any company wanting to make sure their training investments were yielding business results.