Corporate Learning Week 2021 – Lessons from America’s Best-Run L&D Organizations continued for its third day on March 23 and was no less exciting than Days One and Two of the virtual event.

Those days were filled to the brim with concepts around the successful use of strategy maps, building a culture of performance within the organization, transforming adversity into opportunity through self-management and enabling transformation through digital-led learning.

We also covered adapting the learning culture in the remote environment, the new career cycle, a fantastic presentation on learning analytics and creating an agile learning organization through mental Y.O.G.A.

Missed the first two days of CLW 2021? Read CLN Editorial Manager Mason Stevenson’s Review of Day One and Day Two.

Corporate Learning Week 2021

Remote is Reality

Day Three was similarly positioned when it came to topics. What fascinated me most is many of the speakers pulled into their sessions this idea that remote work is more of a reality now than a strategy to get organizations through the pandemic. As much as it pains me to use this term, because it’s been overused and I don’t think it actually applies to the topic anymore, remote work is the “new normal.”

Having applied that overall view of the day, let’s get down to the specifics in terms of points I believe standout from the sessions presented on Day Three of CLW 2021.

Crafting and Executing a Learning Measurement Strategy

Our first presenter of the day was Dave Vance. Vance is the former Chief Learning Officer at Caterpillar and is currently serving as the Executive Director for the Centre for Talent Reporting. He’s also a founding member of the Corporate Learning Network’s Advisory Board. Dave is also moderating a panel discussion for us later today.

Mr. Vance’s presentation was entitled Crafting & Executing a Learning Measurement Strategy:  Ensuring Training Investments Deliver Maximum Value to the Organization.

While there were many pieces of information that came out of Vance’s presentation, the key item for me was the answer to a very simple question around measurement:  why do it at all? Simply, we want to be able to understand the ROI of a learning strategy. Of course, that is one minor piece when you consider all of the data an organization gathers about its people.

But there is so much more to my question’s answer than simply to inform. Vance outlined every reason below is clear detail.

Learning leaders, and frankly any leader, in an organization must divorce themselves from this idea that data for data’s sake is key in any plan. There is such a thing as too much data and dumb data (data that poses no real value to an organization).

Data collection has to have purpose and if it doesn’t fall within the categories Vance explain in his presentation, you have to ask yourself one key question: why do we have it if we’re not going to be able to use it purposefully and with real, valid outcomes?

The Data Piece to the Mentoring Puzzle

The day’s second speaker took Vance’s statements and drilled them further to the point… and she did so with a focus on mentoring.

Kacie Walters is the Vice President – Global Practice Lead, Professional Development – HR Talent Management for the Northern Trust Corporation. Like Vance, she is a founding member of the Corporate Learning Network’s advisory board.

Before making the connection mentioned above, it’s important to look at mentoring and how to make it successful.

Mrs. Walters took our audience on a journey of detail turning over every stone that had to deal with what mentoring is in reality. We, as learning leaders, “know” what it is, but only in the most basic form. Mentoring is when someone imparts knowledge to a person who is similarly positioned to follow the same math as his or her teacher.

That’s all fun and good, but we need to understand how mentoring… in whatever form it takes… is successful across the board. Walters explained what how mentoring can be successful.

Knowing that; how to make mentoring successful creates and opportunity for a leader or team to then measure that success. But how do you do that and why? Walters answer that question below:

Time Gap Analysis

Whether it’s mentoring or data collection/analysis… work duties take up a huge amount of our time. In fact, there used to be this concept of work-life balance (WLB), but that is obsolete in reality. We can thank the COVID-19 pandemic for that nugget.

With WLB out of the way, we’ve seen the rise of life-work integration. Put simply life is work, work is life. With so many of us, myself included, working from home fulltime now… we have to constantly think about how those two facets of our lives, among so many more, “play nicely together” for our benefit and the success of our professional teams and organizations.

Eric Torigian is the Managing Director and Chief Human Resources Officer SitusAMC and was our third speaker of the day. To accomplish this balance, Mr. Torigian says it’s important for people to understand how effective the work their doing is to the organization. That happens through internalizing the work through a Time Gap Analysis tool.

Essentially, a person takes their day-to-day activities and charts them on the document below.

Using that chart and overlaying it with the one below generates a map of how you work and what best suites you where your work is concerned. In some instances, you may be surprised that it doesn’t match up with what you are currently doing as it relates to your day-to-day activities.

Essentially, you want your duties to fall in the target zone as that’s where you as an employee are most effective.

Digital Transformation: Talent or Technology?

Our fourth presenter of the day was Lisa Lang. Mrs. Lang is the Head of Learning & Education for Siemens Americas. During her presentation, Lang focused on how her organization created its learning eco system to help support their growing network of global knowledge brokers.

But the key point I took away focused on the concept of digital transformation and who is it really about: technology or talent? Lang pointed to a Harvard Business Review study. The findings are below:

The data overwhelmingly indicates the digital transformation is about talent, not technology. That makes perfect sense. Technology is a tool and nothing more. Yes, it can do things, but it still requires the human component. And when you look at how people are engaging with learning content, the technology has changed and will continue to do so, but the content is somewhat foundational across the board.

Day Four – Drucker Master Class Day

After three days of sessions, Corporate Learning Week 2021 his headed for a shift or Druckarian proportions.

At our Drucker Master Class Day, which is March 30, we will present a four-step approach… which includes… abandonment of the unproductive and the obsolete… Strategies for achieving continuous productivity improvement of all assets… Identifying & capitalizing on successes (sometimes successes which are initially unseen) … and a structured approach for making effective change happen… otherwise knowns as is Innovation.