Jocelyn Visser - Compass Consultancy | Leadership Development That Actually Sticks

0:00Hi, I'm Lisa Oakley, Director and Founder of People Associates, and I'm excited to have with us in studio today on HR Unlocked at Justin Viser, Founder Campus Consultancy and Consultant People Associates. Thanks for having me, Lisa. Great to have you here. Justin calls herself a people nerd, which just means she's passionate about all things people. Always striving to demystify people problems and make it accessible for leaders and professionals alike. Her career as an HR consultant is dedicated to solving complex people challenges focusing on practical, real-world solutions, rather than just theory. Her business, Campus Consultancy, is named for helping people find direction and purpose in an often overcrowded and busy world. Can't wait to hear more about your lived experience and skills that you will bring to our audience today. I'd love to crack into something that I know you are super passionate about and that is leadership development. This is something that is pivotal for us now and well into the future. Why is it that Justin leadership

1:04development just doesn't stick? I think fundamentally, if I were to sum it up, it's that organisations focus on the things they think people need to know rather than giving leaders the opportunity to practice. And what sits kind of behind that is not aligning the leadership development with strategy, purpose, capability within the organisation and how those leaders be slight to learn. I love this. If I was going to introduce a leadership development programme academy, call it what you like, where would I begin? What are the variables, what are the factors, what are the things I need to be thinking about? I think the first one is a really simple, what are you trying to achieve? What problem are you trying to solve? I call this by clarity lens, getting really clear on what the actual problem within the organisation is. And then the second phase is getting really curious about what can we do to resolve that problem, because I think a lot of people will present something as a training opportunity, but really there's some other stuff that's lying

2:07underneath that. And so getting really clear about what is the appropriate tool to use. And part of that is also getting really clear on the people that are going to be in this leadership academy. What level of their career are they? What level within the organisation? Are they? What is the strategy within the organisation? And what are some of the values within the organisation that we can embed within the learning that we're doing? Love that. There's so much that I'm going to try and unpack it, play it back to you. So I understand where we are now, like almost like an inventory of what are we doing with? And where do we want to be? And what are the gaps, but not just for closing gaps, but how does that connect to the overall identity, because you talk about values, so DNA, the organisation and the direction strategy and sort of aim. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think leadership always has to be, leadership development always has to be purposeful. It can't just be leadership development for development's sake. It has to have a reason and a direction that we're moving into. Why is leadership development such a scary thing? Like, I mean,

3:13take me back to the philosophy of what is, what are we even talking about here? What is leadership development? How long is this podcast? We're here as long as you're here. I think fundamentally, when I think about any kind of learning, whether it's leadership development or practical training skills, you know, functional training, whatever, really what we're trying to achieve is behavioural change. So if we use it from that lens, well, we kind of have to understand or think about is where are people at currently with their behaviour and where do we want to move them to? And so when we think about leadership development specifically, and I think you ask kind of why is it so scary or why is it so big? And I think a big reason is because people don't know where to start. You know, it feels like you're spending a lot of money on this thing. And if you mess it up, then that's a lot of money down the drain. But also, I think that people think that leadership is concrete.

4:14You know, here are the skills you need to be a leader. You need to have good communication skills. You need to know how to navigate interpersonal challenges. You need to have conflict resolution skills. And all of those things are true. But then there's the next layer of application within your environment and how you as a leader are behaving within that environment. I think there's how we show up, so the behaviour, which is like the tip of the iceberg, I think. What are the people see? And then all the stuff that goes underneath the surface, your thoughts, your values, you know, the things that trigger or drive your motivators, all the things that actually fundamentally contribute to the bit on the top of the surface. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And you said there, you know, what makes you up and this is why I quite like the AMO model. And it's usually about performance, right? And it's what is the ability, someone's ability to actually do the thing to be able to perform. What is

5:14the motivation to do the thing? And then do they have the opportunity to do the thing? And when we have all parts of that puzzle, we see higher performance. And so applying that from a training or a learning lens, we go, you know, learning is really the A bit, but it's also how are we tapping into the motivation and opportunity to make sure that people can change their behaviour. I think you're touching on so much, I'm not even sure where to begin with it because it's such a big topic. Firstly, I think all of us have a responsibility in leadership roles to cultivate, that's an overused buzz word, isn't it? But to kind of develop our skills as leaders, we sort of start our careers in a functional start point, whether that's technical or science or engineering or wherever and then over a period of time, we kind of get good at the thing that we studied and end up looking after other people, also doing that thing. I've experienced that from being a consultant to being a managing consultant and it's quite a big change. And I think that's why we have

6:19the model that we have because I'm so fortunate to work with wonderful capable autonomous folks like yourselves, but really, there's a responsibility incumbent upon me as the individual to want to care about being a leader. And so I think 50% of the problem, this is my assumption, is does everybody in a leadership or managerial role one understand that and two have the capacity for it because you tend to hurt mid life when you have a busy family and a mortgage and lots of extra quick lat activities where your kids are otherwise and then you're trying to add more into an already tight schedule around how to show up as a leader. And it's a very different to your point, experiential learning, reflection. It's a very different development, kind of approach or methodology, then when I just read a book and set an exam or a quiz or a test, like it's such a different mode of operating isn't it? Learning had a been effective leader. Yeah, definitely. One of the analogies I use a lot with leaders is we think you become technically

7:22good at a thing and then jump into a leadership role, which is the problem you're describing that many people are in and you just get handed this leadership book and it's like, great, that's all you need to know. This magical mystical book that doesn't exist and really I think that leadership development is essentially those pages of a book slowly layered throughout your career and you have to be able to embed them and really, if I continue the analogy, read them, reflect on them, embed them into your DNA and then you go into the next chapter. It's not this block that you just get, it has to be continuous. Leadership is relentless. So how we show up every day and I suppose our commitment to ongoing learning in that space and unlearning in that space is pretty important. And then I think you made some points about the AMO model, which you know that I absolutely love. So performance is a function of your skills, knowledge, ability, fundamentally, then your can do motivation, you know, know how can do plus your

8:24opportunity to succeed. So your environment and quite often yes, it's used in performance because we're looking at the gap, not merely going, this is the job description, this is where you're performing, how do we close the gap. My mantra is if it's an ability problem, run your performance improvement plan, it's going to work every time, you know, teen out of teen times, it's going to work because if Lisa doesn't know how to use Excel and you teach me how to use Excel, thing problem solved. But you're probably not going to introduce a performance improvement plan for something like that because you probably would have already tried to check me on an Excel training course, you know what I mean. So we kind of pull out this POP and we weaponize it when there's a motivational issue or an environmental issue that we're trying to solve with almost like the wrong tool in the toolkit. You've heard me say if it's a motivational issue, you're probably never going to solve it with a POP, but I didn't introduce one anyway because it's a great insurance policy, best defense against agreements, performance improvement plan. But the environmental thing is an interesting one because it requires the leader to almost hold a mirror up and go,

9:29have I given clear instruction of direction, does this person know what's expected of them, are they given the tools to be able to succeed, all of the things that make up the other part of that equation. What I'm interested in from your experience in terms of how this is applied is we often get calls from leaders and you've had these calls and I've had these calls and we work with similar clients where they go, can't stand so and so because of such and such. It's not over the edge, it's not performance improvement plan territory, the same principle is applied for development, right, performance development, the same principle is applied, but the leader is just kind of at their wits end and needs to talk to an independent person like us about how much they are struggling with the fact that so and so is not doing X, Y and Z. And our job I think is to kind of accept that, draw a loan in the sand, I learned very early on that people pay me to listen, I thought I had to have all the answers but actually allow them to just vent and digest that and then try and get them very quickly to go, what's the opposite of

10:31the thing you're saying to me right now? And they honestly think I'm crazy. I go, no, no, no, no, you don't like that the employee does X, Y, Z. If you told your husband every night that you didn't like that he didn't empty the dishwasher, do you think he's going to start emptying the dishwasher? Like no. So what is it that you do want to see and why don't you have the courageous conversation about the thing that you do want and now with a wonder of technology we can just invert the thing. Okay, you don't want this, you want that, you want to follow up and follow through a retention to detail whatever the thing is and then when I'm finding more and more with leaders at a time pool, they outsource the development to us, they'll say you sit with my person and help them with their attention to detail and follow through and I'll go great fine. But how many have you had this conversation with him? No, I've just got mad at an external third party. Help me understand. Help me understand what happens to you. Sorry, there was a question, believe it or not. Yeah, great question because I think like you say it is something that we both

11:32experience many, many times. You know that the old, we don't like how this person speaks to someone and so can you do some coaching with them? Yes. This person is crying in the lunch room every day. Can you do some resilience training? And it's like, I feel like we're kind of answering the wrong question. And so I think, you know, what's happening there is I think people are, or leaders or business owners are reaching for the solution that they think is going to solve the problem, which is just throwing more knowledge on. And I think this is where the knowledge verse application piece is so interesting to me. Because I think most people know how to do their jobs. They've had training, they've done the Excel training like you mentioned before, you know, they've been on a leadership course. But then it's actually applying up within the business. And I think that that can be done in a kind of formal learning setting for sure. You know,

12:33I think that learning that is interactive and poses a question about let's say courageous conversations. Okay, now let's practice it. You know, let's practice it in a safe environment where you aren't going to get upset or someone else isn't going to get upset if you say the wrong things. We're just, we're just role playing. But then you can also practice it in the workplace with really effective coaching and that can come from external people like us. But it can also come from leaders themselves. And I think one of the biggest pieces of learning that is overlooked on a day to day basis is the impact of quality supervision and feedback. Because that's really actually where the magic happens to change behaviour. I think we've talked a lot on the podcast about feedback. I'd be very interested to understand what you mean by quality supervision. Yeah, what's that? This is micro management. Sure, anything else. So I guess my example of that would be that, you know, we have what I would call

13:38un, if I start with the opposite, uncolytary supervision. Right. It would be leaders assessing performance based on report or external data without looking at that kind of first hand, what is that person doing? So if I think of an example that I've actually had recently a client that I'm doing some coaching with and the feedback has been that their communication style is aggressive, not my word, not how I would describe it, but how it has been described. As I've kind of dived into this problem, I've actually realised that the manager does not observe this person in who workplace at all. So the feedback is coming from third parties and they may or may not be right. We kind of haven't made a determination on that. But I think the thing that's interesting is that the leader is responding to feedback without having verified it. So when I say quality supervision, I mean leaders getting involved with what their team are doing

14:43on a day-to-day basis and especially if we're virtual or remote or especially if we're in dispersed kind of work environments. You know, if you're in an office altogether, you probably are doing this because you're just seeing it happen, but when you're actually in different locations, then it reduces that effectiveness. I love the point you just touched on there around somebody's perception of you is their reality. And that feedback is just as important as feedback that is maybe sort of more valid if there is such a thing as feedback that is more or less valid. Subject to the credibility of the feedback and the source and the verification like you've just said. So data, right? Feedback is data. So if somebody thinks I'm aggressive and I evaluate that and go, yeah, maybe that's true. Or somebody has a perception that I'm aggressive, but maybe other people have a different perception, that's still valid. That's still really helpful for me to understand.

15:46And I think this is where people get it wrong, receiving feedback because they take such a defensive position when it's about what is worth accepting here? You know, I understand it, get that awareness and then decide what am I going to take or leave because you have choice, you have autonomy, like you have agency over how you apply this feedback or not, and watch will you action as a result? And quite often senior people will come to me and say, there's this perception, but that's not me. And I'm like, cool, what are you going to do to change the perception? Because your relationships with your peers or key stakeholders and their perception of you, yes, matters. So they have this perception for a reason. I'm not saying you have to change who you are as a person and show up differently in mask your behaviours, but you might need to do a little PR campaign and fix that. Yes, perception. Absolutely. I'm pretty sure this quote actually comes out of the Gottmann Institute, but it's something around, do you want to be right or do you want a good

16:47relationship? And I think about that with those pieces of feedback, right? It's like, I can sit here and argue until I'm blue on the face and, no, this is not how people see me, no, there's no way but if people see me that way, that's the reality, like you've said. And so I can choose to accept it and go, well, I don't think in that way that other people do. And now I'm going to respond to it by addressing our relationship as such. And that builds good relationships. I feel like every marriage needs that. Right. I feel like every Gottmann Institute is a, as a, every relationship needs that. I'm going to, I'm going to apply that for sure. What does it do? Do I need to be right or do I need this relationship? And that is such a decision point when considering feedback. Okay, okay. So leadership development is changing, I think about the formats that we're familiar with, the sort of large scale, even universities are battling with us right with programs with lots of people, onsite, in person, how accessible is that? Now that technology's changed. And also,

17:47what is our attention span? I've podcasted popular because it's a way of consuming knowledge when you walk the dog or drive the car. You know, do we really have time or capacity for in-depth onsite training programs with other people like gone other days? I mean, what's changing? What are you saying? What's working? What should we be doing? Yeah, really, really good question. I think that if I start with internal versus external, I think that internal I've found is more effective, more often, it doesn't mean it's always the answer. But because it has that low barrier to entry. When you say internal, do you mean somebody could be external, but facilitating a cross-functional team within an organisation or any to it? Yes, I got to say that. So whether it's the internal HR person or it's you or me, but it means that whoever is onsite can just walk the two feet to the boardroom. Yeah, okay. So it's not a public program where they need to sign up and then be available with a bunch of strangers for a day. Gotcha. Because I think we're the external,

18:48what the external, so you know, going out of your environment to be in a classroom type situation or, you know, a overnight stay or whatever. I think what they have that is still effective is it gets you out of your environment so you're a bit fresher and your perspective starts to shift a little faster. But I think the biggest downside to that is it's just such a time sink. I mean, I'm sure you've had it as well. Every later I know that has gone on a trip like that. When they come back, yes, they'll probably say, oh, that was really good. But the two weeks before they go, I'm dreading this, I don't want to go. I hate that I said yes to this. Yeah, I'm so stressed. I've got so much work to do. And then even when they're there, half of the brain are still thinking about the work that they've got to do. Whereas most people are pretty comfortable giving up an hour to go, like I said, two feet to the boardroom and listen to us yet about something in the leadership space and do some cool interactive activities. And I think that's kind of the second

19:48part is, I think, old-style leadership development was a lot of the know-how. Here's the Ling Hione's five dysfunction of a team model. Here's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And all of his models are still very much valid, not saying they're not. But I think the move that a lot of practitioners have made and that we need to continue making is cool. I've taught you this model, now apply it to your workplace. How would you apply this within your team? And what I've seen happen in rooms that are so magic is we do the kind of theory of it. And then we break up into groups and we explore how to apply that within your team. Like how are you going to build psychological safety within your team? Pick one tip you've taught, I've taught you today. You know, pick one thing from today's session and unpack it with your group. How are you going to implement this in your team? Write an action plan. And then we all come back together and talk about it. So there's a shared learning. There's a self-directed learning. And interestingly enough, I actually, one team that

20:50I did this with last year, I got a call from the HR manager earlier this week, which is such a great timing for this podcast because she was telling me about how their engagement schools have nearly doubled. Now look, that's probably not all to do with the leadership development, but I would say that there is a huge chunk that is because the amount of feedback we've got from leaders in the room and then post the sessions ending was how they were able to implement that immediately post the session. So it went from the boardroom straight onto the floor, so to speak, with in minutes. You know, there was no delay in actually implementing what they were learning. I don't know if we invented the idea, but we did sort of capitalize on it. Hey, last year we identified that businesses spinned on leadership and just development in general was just next to nothing because of their resources available. And so if that align item has been cut in your budget, what do you do? Where do

21:55you go? How do you retain and engage and motivate people? Because you're still needing to do that. There's still people moving into the organisation. There's still people progressing through the organisation. These are sort of facts. And we decided that we would come up with a 12, I don't even know how it was 12 months, hey? We just came up with these ideas, these modules. You could probably read all them off. Leadership versus management, collaboration, communication, cross-functional collaboration and remote teams, communication and influence. It's a really good one. There's like an negotiation one. Coaching, exploring. Coaching, interesting. We just came up with these little, but they were lunch and moons, right? They were literally lunch box sessions. The idea, I mean, it just flew off the shelves. It just surprised me how much it just exploded. We said we would give up one hour of our time at kind of the cost of that time, that we would develop the materials, which we have consistently done at no cost to those organisations, even though we've branded them within their own looking field. So it looks like theirs. But we have the content. And the content isn't rocket science. I'm not trying to undersell the

22:57content. No, but I actually picture it. It's been a bit of a base line knowledge. The benefit of the content, as you know, is that it's 30% really theory. Here's a model, let's chat about it. And 70% facilitated discussion, which in my experience, I have learned so much more out of an inch in every one of those chats, whether it's for an person. Then I mean, everyone's learned, which is great. Then I think I've necessarily given, you know, I sort of think I just get to have this great chat with this amazing and incredible leaders. And like you say, facilitates. What did you call it before? Like learning, cross-functional learning. Yeah. And I think that there's, I think this is self-directed learning, because there's that kind of, there's self-directed learning in terms of, I'm applying the tools within my own time. And then there's the peer-to-peer learning of, now I'm bringing the tools and what I've learned back to the table and we're discussing it. And I think that the magic of those things is it all happens in a psychologically safe space,

23:57because it's like, hey, look, if you say the wrong thing, if you mock up the name of the tool, no one's going to say anything about it. No one cares. We're all here to learn. We're all in the same space, you know, we're all leaders at a same similar level. And so it's such a safe space for people to be able to actually play and test. And then that gives them the confidence to actually go out and do it. And for us, it's such privilege to be, can you give us our organisations that we support on a consistent basis? So we just go in, chat with them once a month. It's just such an honour to build the trust and build it for. And actually build a depth of understanding of the air business, which just means that relationship has strengthened over time, totally. But we have done this in production. We have done it in physiotherapy clinics, like with clinicians. As I say, I don't think we invented the idea, but it's actually quite a simple premise, a simple idea. I liked what you said before and it had struck me earlier about it being accessible, non-threatening, psychologically safe, applied. Why are we not doing more of this

24:59kind of easy to digest, accessible learning? Why are we complicating it? I honestly think that most business owners think it's too hard. If I think of some of the leaders that we've worked with, that we've talked about whether it's been this 12-on-program or more tailored solutions for them, in the head, they've got this mental model of leadership development, particularly, but learning in general, being this thing that you go out and pay an external agency 10 grand for, and you send your people away. And you send your people away for a week, and then nothing happens, nothing comes back into the business. And so I think the more that HR practitioners and people in general can understand that learning shouldn't actually be difficult, it should be as easy as it should be pleasure. It should be joy, it should be fun, it should be easy, it should be something that people look forward to. I truly feel another organisation that we both work with contacted me last week,

26:03and they're like, we're just checking that we've got our next leadership development session on, the team are really looking forward to it. And I'm like, that feedback more than anything else is so meaningful, because obviously the connection and the style of learning and the break-up of their months to have this moment in time where they can connect as leaders and really be focused on themselves as leaders and increasing their practical tools is so meaningful. And it's just it's a magic. So with the head of chance to see the magic happen, I think it's fit for purpose for small medium organisations. I can see perhaps larger organisations or with very structured talent management and development programmes and I was privileged to run the New Zealand one for international sales for a period of time as well, have customized programmes that are kind of layered, you've got your external programme, you've got your coaching, your mentoring, you know there's different kind of components to it. But what I like about what you're saying is

27:07one that applied nature of it, which is universal, whether you're ECME or otherwise, it's that applied nature of training or leadership development is key. I think there's a reflection, there's a self-awareness, an insight piece, I know you've done a bit of work this year on tools, we're going to chat with human synagogists on the podcast, I'm excited for that. But I think any way that a leader can get data that is ideally representative on how they're showing up is impactful. And I really like the fact that there's just a safe way for us to be able to learn together, doesn't matter whether you're in a functional expert role and you're working across within an organisation to your point or you're in a role in sort of rubbing shoulders with other people, external to your organisation because I know we do this for membership businesses, membership organisations and they have representatives from all different other organisations and they're all learning from each other. So I kind of think the more that we can kind of embrace this always on learning thing, yes, is going to help us be set up to succeed in the future. I fully agree,

28:09and there's a theory of learning, I think it's developed by Colbe, but it's called experiential learning and it's basically the theory which is obviously backed by research is that people learn better when they can do something and then show it to others and talk about it with others. And I've seen this in real time with leadership groups that come together often to learn together and share experiences because they're all learning from each other all the time. And so if we think about it from an ROI perspective, you're paying, you know, me or you to come in and lead a session once a month, but your leaders are continuing to teach and learn and grow from each other throughout the month. Like that exponential growth is insane from an ROI perspective. And I found that when I did the IOD course, which I know you wanted to as well, lots of content, great content and to your point, people can only absorb, absorb a certain amount of information,

29:15so knowledge is one thing. But then we had, we ran these simulations and it was so impactful because I started the week as chair and got some feedback, real live feedback about how to navigate the dynamics in a boardroom and then by the end of the week, the techniques I was applying to facilitating discussion or self-regulating were very, very different techniques that I had applied at the beginning of the week. And I wasn't even conscious that I needed to be applying those things until I'd had that lived experience in a safe space. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's play. It's experiential. It's that layering that I was talking about. You're layering your learning on top of a really solid foundation and then that reflection is going back and reconnecting with those ideas that you learned earlier in the week. I want to talk to you as well about tech and learning because I know that you've done some phenomenal work recently with tech and particularly remote teams or folks that are not in front of their computer, they might be on the road.

30:19And making learning accessible is something that you've done incredibly well. And we have this attention span, it's like a TikTok type, attention span, how we've created video content at quite low cost with organisational principles and values and strategy kind of embedded in linear. You know, tell us how you do that. Tell us where you begin to us, what your experience has been, what you've learned along the way in that impact. It's fantastic. Yeah. It's such a cool piece of work and I absolutely am loving doing these. I think probably the easiest way to explain all that is to take you through a recent example. And so the request was for some videos to walk people through the values of the organisation. And so the purpose was for induction or when people you know change roles within the organisation or maybe they just need a refresher on how we act here. But it was also tied to how their values tie within their organisational strategy. And so

31:26the series of videos that we that I built for them was really kind of looking at each value and it's on, you know, essence, you know, what does this value mean when we say honesty? What does honesty actually mean to our organisation and our space? So getting really clear on the definition. And then applying those same principles of live learning. So then going into a live example. Okay, so, you know, Lisa said this to you, if we apply our, you know, value of honesty, how could that, how could you respond to Lisa? How could you work with Lisa to resolve this or whatever it is? And then giving them some, you know, tools to take it forward. So in their learning module, the way it kind of looks if your learner is that you would watch this video, which is about three minutes. And then you would do either a quiz or a short reflection exercise and then you would move on to the other video. So again, you know, and you're to your point around our TikTok world,

32:27you can sit on your phone and do this quite easily. And this organisation, you know, their team are dispersed across, across Auckland. They often aren't sitting at a desk, you know, they're kind of out and about. And so having this be really accessible to something they could just sit and watch, you know, do a quick quiz, move on to the next video. And for the HR team, it means that it's all documented. They can get that real live data on who's watched what, where people are at. And how people have responded to things. And does it matter what your anime functionality is? Or you can work with any, yeah, work with any elements. I've, I've, I've yet to find an LMS. I can't work with. So that's a challenge. But I think, you know, my approach to learning is very much we should, we should build for, we should, we should build something that's purpose built for the organisation, tied to strategy, tied to values, fit for purpose for the people learning it. And then the tools which we used to deliver that, we can figure that out. You know, it's like,

33:31get the fundamentals right first. So we're talking about learning as a continuous thing, I suppose, rather than an event. Yeah. What goes before the event or the intervention or the video or the workshop or the whatever it is? What, what is in the preparation that helps get the psyche. Yes. Really? I mean, what is the pre-read? But the, the, how do we condition people to want to do? Yes. Yes. Great question. I mean, I, if I kind of peel back and I won't spend too much time on this, but I almost want to peel back to fundamental organisational design and building curious organisations. And that really starts with building your, your values and behaviours that support curiosity. And part of that is also psychologically safe organisations so people can, because curiosity really is testing, failing, learning. You know, everything about the basis of

34:35what curiosity is. That's, that's what it is. So I'd say that ideally an organisation would have that as a pretty fundamental building block. But, you know, we as practitioners can't really control that. So certainly what I can control and what I prep for and help support organisations to prep for, is real positioning is the first one. So getting really clear, who is this training for? Why is it important? And why should they care about it? You know, just that typical whifferm, what's in it for me? You know, why should they take out time from the busy days? What are they going to learn from it? So it's, you know, the thing that actually comes to mind comes from some of my whole family of teachers. So, you know, absorb a lot from, from them. And my sister has in her classroom and, you know, to be fair, she does teach five-year-olds, which is arguably scarier than teaching fully-friendly. So, with that almost five-year-olds. Yeah. And she has these things where it's the waltz. So we are learning too. So just in a fancy

35:38way, our learning objectives. And I think that's really important, you know, quite often, I think, L&D, we focus on the content, but not necessarily what people can expect to get out of it. What can they walk away with? So I think if we can articulate that, I'm also a big fan and pre-work of, as you know, because this is an our pre-work for the 12-month program, is reflective questions. Getting people to think about how do I show up? Where do I struggle with communication? Where do I have difficult conversations? You know, getting them to think about that prior to stepping on the room? It helps with the application piece, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the final piece of the puzzle is probably more a facilitator skill, which is that when people arrive in a room, they arrive with certain energy. And, you know, one of them is thinking about what they're having for lunch and the other one's thinking about the work that they've got to do. And so being able to

36:40read a room and keep people in that room through how you deliver, but also giving space when it needs to be given space to go off topic if we need to. Yeah. Good facilitation is absolutely a skill. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there's pre-work, there's pre-conditioning, call it, there's objectives or the walks, which I will remember now. And then the actual learning or development opportunity itself, what comes after that? How do we make this tactical, practical, and applied practice? Practice. So I hope we've done that in the room. So assume we've done it in the room. I love to give people something, especially if we're doing these kind of monthly sessions or if I'm seeing them again, that's my favourite way to facilitate, because then I can hold them to account and that no one else has to hold them to account. It's not giving the HR person a job. I think that's 100% important though. Absolutely. Absolutely.

37:41And the importance of an independent external third party. Yes. I mean, holding to account sounds like you're policing, but really it's a coach, it's a mentor, it's a walk alongside. How's this going for you? Have you applied it? Exactly. Right. You know, reinforced months. Yeah. So what are you taking? What action would you like to deliver in the next month? How are you going to use the skill in the next month? And then coming back to that the next month, you know, so they know that next month I'm going to go, hey Lisa, how did you use that skill? And then they can engage with it in real time. And I think the second bit is and this is a little bit more reliant on the organisation and the leaders within it and potential resources you might have within that organisation. So if I think of one team where it works really effectively is the HR manager will continue reinforcing the messages that we've talked about in the leadership development sessions through both, you know, just simple things like language and hey remember we have this tool, but also embedding some of the tools or models that we've talked

38:44about into the HR practices. So I think the more that learning can be part of a system, the more impactful it's going to be. But if that isn't possible then it's the the leaders kind of have to fulfil that role in terms of how are they embedding this into their practice. And again I think that's the role that we can play to go how have you gone, how can I help and providing that follow-up. What worked, what didn't work, what are you going to try differently and just being that safe sounding board? Absolutely. Value ball wasn't that some valuable. Okay, what should organisations measure when it comes to learning development initiatives? Beyond just attendance or participant satisfaction? Yes. I'm going to give that a knowing answer where it kind of depends what you're trying to. So I think if the outcome they're wanting is specific behavioural change, you know, we want to see an engagement school go up or we want to see less interpersonal conflict,

39:49then defining what that problem is to start with and how we're going to measure it now and post the program being run. So I think my answer to the question would be more a question to organisations which is what outcome do you want and then let's decide how we're going to measure it. Because a lot of those things, you know, we're talking about behavioural change, it's not easy to measure it. But if we define how we want to measure it, all good we can measure it. Really? So do that upfront as part of your objective setting. Because I do think that development programmes are often the first things to go when there is pressure on a budget. And so being able to quantify the value or benefit in real terms, like what is the ROI to the business? Yeah. And don't just give me retention and engagement, you know, don't just give me fluffy turns that I can't really wrap me around. It's super important to business owners and decision makers. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the first answer is the, you know, the what are you trying

40:51to achieve and then let's define how we're measuring that. So as an example of that, an organisation that I worked with, this is a few years ago, but we kind of were doing a, what I would call a really effective way of looking at learning because we were looking at performance reviews specifically. And so we're looking first at the system in which performance reviews operate in. So why are we doing performance reviews? Why are they important? How do we want to do them as an organisation? And then training people on how to do them both from a functional, this is how you fill out the form way. And this is what a five means. But then also a humanistic point of view. Like here's how you give good feedback. And so the thing that we kind of looked at in terms of ROI was the objective we want is that how leaders use performance reviews and that all our employees have had a performance review by X-date. And so that was a really nice tangible measure.

41:54And by the end of it, that had been achieved. And so then it was really easy to go, well, pretty much got 100% return on investment because you had a goal. We defined what, how to measure that goal. We measured that goal and that goal was achieved in line with how we wanted to achieve it. So what more can you want really? Very good. Okay. I'm thinking about that in the context of future readiness. So how important is it that organisations teach or train or develop their people to be, and I'm going to use the buzzwords, resilient or change really. Adaptable. Adaptable. Adaptable. Adaptable. One of the things. How important is it that there is actually a defined structured programme, like conscious programme of work around that? Yeah. I think like most things when it comes to people.

42:55Like most things when it comes to people, it's important because the decisions that you make, not making a decision is a decision. Yes. So if we don't invest in L&D because we haven't thought about it, we are making a decision and that will have an impact on our people. And sometimes it's okay, but if it kind of needs to be conscious, right? So if we're looking at the, you know, the spreadsheet and the budget and going, actually, we're choosing not to invest in this because of these reasons and that strategically sound and you know the consequences of those decisions, you know, fair enough, businesses need to make difficult decisions all the time. But I think more often what people do is go, the L&D line is really high because learning costs money. So let's just take that out and we won't replace it with anything and we won't consider what the impact is. And I think what we have found, certainly, you know, recently is kind of post-COVID is, I think it's fair to say that employee behaviour has gotten worse.

43:58And that's because we're not investing in behavioural change, which is learning, you know, it's learning, it's feedback, it's leadership, it's a fecitive leadership. And so I think for for businesses, I, you know, it's such a simple answer, but it's starting at the top of what is your strategy. What are you actually trying to achieve as a business, you know, you want 5% growth in the next year, you want to increase your market share by 20%. Like what are these things that you want to do? And then it comes down to the capabilities you need in your organisation. So whenever I've done a capability framework, that's exactly where we start and a capability framework leads then to a learning program, right? So, you know, if we've got our strategy, if we've got certain things that we need to achieve, what skills do we need to achieve them? And then how do we build those skills? Because we can build those skills by spending 60K for an external, you know, one week course,

45:00we can build those skills by spending 5 grand for one of us to come and do a, you know, whatever. We can build those skills by, and helps using tech, using, you know, London learning, all of it, there's so much stuff out there, but I think the piece of the puzzle that people mess as being purposeful about it. And I think, you know, when I think about learning as a function of human resources, it really actually starts with what are we trying to teach our people, what skills do we need within the organisation? And then the learning is just how do we do that? And in my experience, building capability frameworks, I know you've done a lot of this as well. Actually, doing a self-assessment of the workforce, you know, how important do I think this thing is, where would I rate myself today? Yes, you can calibrate that with a manager assessment, to make sure that it's valid, but generally people, I mean, underrate, sometimes people overrate

46:01their competence and capability, but generally people who want development will rate it pretty modestly, and you get this incredible data that sees of your technicians or, you know, leaders or whatever, they've identified this as something that they think is fundamentally important and connected to the organisation strategy. And here's how they rate themselves on it now. That's pretty scary data in terms of, you know, the think it's a five out of five of importance, and they would rate themselves a two in terms of confidence or competence. Yes, yes. And then collating that and building a programme of work. Exactly. Because I think that comes back to, you know, meaningful ROI starts with having the right data. Like, we can throw money at anything and expect it to be successful or unsuccessful, but really we need to know what problem we're trying to solve, or we need to know what it is we're trying to achieve. So having that data of, this is actually where our capability sits within our team right now, and this is where it needs to sit in 2020, you know, age 29, 2030, whatever the

47:08timeline is. And then it's going, well, now we've got a priority list, you know, it's okay, well, we need to build the technical skills and the IT team, or we need to build the communication skills, or whatever. And then you can build a programme of learning around that. I was going to ask you about that in terms of, is there too much? So can you do this needs analysis, which we're all very capable of doing, and just end up with Alandie, overwhelm, and try and achieve too much, too soon, that the organisation can't absorb it, and all the priorities shift the economy shifts, and we have to course-courage, you know, so what do we do to make our initiatives, this is supposed, or programmes, resilient? Yeah, absolutely. So I think we can over, Alandie. We can over, Alandie. I mean, we can over, you know, we can overdo everything, really. And I think the priority piece is really important here, and this is why I always come back to strategy. Like if we needed five skills in our organisation to be successful over the next five,

48:11ten years, what are those skills, what are the priority of those skills, and then, you know, priority times, what's lacking in our organisation? You know what I'm going to ask you to extend you. Yeah, go on. Okay, so universally, what are the five skills? Do you think every organisation needs to develop in the next ten years? I think if I look at some of the research that I've seen out there, and used it before as a buzzword. Sorry, but adaptability is one of them. You know, if we think about tech and AI, the ability for people to deal with complexity is so vital. I think, and I don't, this is more anecdotal, I think communication skills, which is such a broad term, I'm really sorry. But yeah, people just don't know how to have conversations with each other anymore. You know, if I think about so many times when I get asked to come in and solve a people problem, it's, you know, Jack's been mean to Cindy, and Cindy's been mean to Jack, and it's

49:15like, oh my gosh, okay, come on guys, let's just have the conversations. Absorption, perception, misperceptions, break up, just like outright not responding to something, or not listening properly, like the basics of how we communicate. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, keep going. I think number three, I don't know if it's a skill or more a trait, but I'm going to say it anyway, which is curiosity, and I know I've said that before, but I've been to a lot of the, you know, AI thought leadership pieces that are around this year, and the one thing I keep coming back to is, as for people to be successful in a tech world, we have to be able to play and break and learn and come back to, come back to the tools, you know. Quite a different mindset. I don't know if you've got another one about my concept, but curiosity is an orientation, yeah, definitely, definitely. And I don't know what the other two would be, because I think, I think once we get there, we're kind of getting a little bit more granular, where it probably depends on your organisation. But I think that, that ability to kind of

50:20roll with the punches and deal with uncertainty, which I think all three of those kind of cover is just going to be more and more important. I mean, it's important now. We see it all the time, you know, people, I feel like people's ability to deal with change has gone down throughout my career. And beguarity, yeah, certainty. There's a real fight against, you know, it's just people want certainty, don't they? They want that concrete. It's hard to navigate. So maybe that is a fourth or a close run or up to your three. I think there's another one around, now I've lost it, but it wasn't my head and it was genius. That would be another one. No, I had it. Leadership, communication was good. Oh, do you know what I think? Yeah. I think making complex things, yes, simple, yes. And I think HR is some of the worst at it. Yeah. Marketers get taught to make complex products and services easy for the customers to understand.

51:21You know, we get taught to make complex stuff, even more complex. And it's just too much. Yeah. And technology is our worst enemy at this. If I see something that is hardcore AI generated and it's 15 pages, I'm sorry, but that's a turn off. Don't even come to me with that. There's no thought leadership in that. That's just reach reach, regurgitate. Yes. You know, yeah. And so I think the more information overload that we sort of end up getting, the more we need to just cut through that crap to the thing that's most important. Absolutely. Absolutely. The problem that we're trying to solve here and I think decision-making and problem solving. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, again, a teacher thing that comes to me is the whole explain it to me like I'm five. Yes. Like if you can't explain a concept to a five-year-old, you don't understand it well enough. I agree. And every executive leader has an attention span like a five-year-old. Yes. And I learnt this that actually you need to be able to make it

52:23simple enough so that it's impactful, that it lands with an executive whose attention is directed in so many different directions. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Well, we've landed it. We've probably got it least bite there. Let's look back at this in 10 years time and see if we're right. Put it in the time capsule. Yes. Lay it back. Okay. You've been very generous with your time. You've been very thoughtful. You've prepared a lot before coming on and I know this is a topic that you're so passionate about. Thank you so much. We so appreciate you. Appreciate all the work that you're doing. Change the world. One organisation, one person, one leadership development initiative at a time. Keep doing what you're doing. Thank you. Thanks, Lisa.