<font face="courier new">To: <strong>Head of Learning and Development</strong><br />
From: <strong>VP Operations, Division SouthWest</strong><br />
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Dear Learning and Development team,<br />
Thank you very much for all your good intentions with the management and leadership development initiatives in the past, I know you mean well. However, I’d like to share a little secret; my colleagues and I never get much out those programs except a couple of good free lunches! As you must know, in general, we don’t like attending these events. Not only do we find them ineffective, but we are enormously frustrated by the time they take away from our job. Don’t even get me started on that e-learning management portal subscription; I get infuriated thinking of all the good money thrown down the drain without any benefit what so ever.<br />
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Yes, you are quite right pointing to those high ratings on the feedback forms. But seriously, instead of asking if we like the course or find it useful while we are still basking in the glow of a pleasant afternoon with a good trainer, why don’t you try asking some critical questions regarding specific impact a couple of weeks after the program has finished?<br />
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As a learning and development manager today, I imagine your job is pretty rough. However now, more than ever, we could use your help. When times were good you could just surf over to the nearest management or leadership development vendor -- click-click-click -- and presto, offer a fancy two day leadership training program backed by a hundred wonderful, but quite meaningless, testimonials. Nowadays it seems all any of us do is hide in our office trying not to spend money!<br />
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I implore you to think again. There has to be a better way to help us learn and develop without spending much money! <br />
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Sincerely,<br />
VP Operations, Division Southwest<br />
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P.S. Please cancel ongoing management and leadership development programs, and e-learning/management portal subscriptions until we have something that really works.<br />
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Well, there is a <u>better</u> way. Even without any expensive programs we have always been learning and developing ourselves, and we do it best with encouragement and support. It doesn’t need any new technology or budget either. Many call it informal learning, or social learning. Allow me to share my story with you:<br />
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I was director of product development at a software firm in late 2003, the tail end of the dot-com crash. Our situation was dire, not much different from that of many middle-managers struggling to survive today’s economic crisis. Three rounds of layoffs, a merger, and transfer of software development activities to offshore programmers who were paid a tenth of our salary made life at work difficult.<br />
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Yet during this period my management team and I discovered a way to not only survive, but actually thrive. It turned out to be enormously simple; meeting once a week for an hour or so, we reflected on our practice of management. This motivated changes that improved our team, the business unit, and ourselves. <br />
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“<em>Yes</em>” you might say, “<em>nice story, but get real. We just let go of half the staff and have twice as much to do</em>!” That may be true, but if you think about it, running around just barely keeping your head above water is not going to change anything. <br />
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I remember after three rounds of layoffs and yet another request to cut the budget by 25%, I began to think “<em>!#*!#!*, I don’t care anymore. I’m going to touch up my CV and find a better company, some place where my talents are appreciated</em>.” Of course, things weren’t all that different anywhere else. Much of our world was going off the same cliff. Many of my peers concentrated on keeping their heads down, thinking “<em>if I do what I'm told, work like hell and look busy, then I won’t get noticed and won’t get axed</em>.” Signs of real leadership qualities, huh?<br />
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I eventually recognized that endless planning followed by snap decisions was not going to help us get through this. So I turned to some initiatives taking place at nearby McGill University. Its management faculty had created programs around the idea that managers learn best by reflecting on their own natural experience. I figured, “<em>great, that’s something we can do, even without much budget or time</em>.” <br />
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My colleagues thought I was losing it. They kept telling me this was the last thing anyone should do: I might get noticed wasting time “reflecting”. <br />
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Nonetheless, that’s what we did. We began a process of management learning. This turned into an experimental concoction of self-directed group learning, reflection, brainstorming on current business issues, and developing actions for immediate impact --- mixed with plenty of encouragement and support for each another. There was argument, debate, and just plain chuckling as we mulled over our decisions and actions from the past week in light of management learning material. No office politics, no nonsense. We framed the overall process with a vague goal of 'trying to make things better around here'. After each learning meeting, we asked ourselves if it was worth it, just a simple question: Did we get value from the time spent? We always decided to schedule a learning meeting for the following week, and this went on for three years.<br />
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By now one might be thinking: “<em>There is simply no way managers have time to sit around reflecting while projects are slipping, budgets are shrinking, and customers are evaporating</em>.” Guess what: a little bit of learning and reflecting will help managers a lot more than running around from one status meeting to the next.<br />
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So what brought me to get started? I think I realized we had nothing to lose. So one day I just did it: opened up Microsoft Outlook, created a recurring meeting request for my management team with the title 'Management Learning Experiment', and sent the invite. No analysis or planning, I just decided to give it a try and see what would happen. <br />
<p>And somewhere along the way we returned to being excited and engaged. Everyone stopped wondering whether their CV contained the proper key words. We got enthusiastic about the great workplace and business we had been busy creating for ourselves and everyone around us. Before long, concrete results became unmistakable; projects on schedule even after layoffs, and new process improvements realized with immediate payoffs.</p>
<p>Being a middle-manager is one of the most stimulating, exciting, and challenging jobs possible. Spending a little bit of time on a regular basis with peers reflecting on our practice of management can deliver the measurable improvements, great products and services that make life as a middle manager enjoyable and rewarding.<br />
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So what are you waiting for? Are you happy to be, as Linda Hill put it in her book Becoming a Manager, another “target of change” or will you be an “agent of change”? Talk to the manager’s, encourage them to schedule a learning meeting with a group of their peers. At the start of the meeting, have everyone spend 10 minutes silently writing personal reflections on their previous week’s management happenings. Help the managers get started learning to learn, then leave the room and let them continue by themselves, your job is done! Trust me when I say they do not need you, or anyone else, to facilitate or teach. Once they start sharing, discussing, and developing actions inspired by their reflections, you will be amazed at how rapidly everyone turns things around and begins “<em>making things better around here</em>”. <br />
<strong><br />
Phil LeNir eventually left the world of high technology to become founding Executive Director of </strong><a target="_blank" href="http://www.CoachingOurselves.com/"><strong>http://www.CoachingOurselves.com/</strong></a><strong>, helping managers and leaders learn how to learn without a consultant, trainer or professional coach. CoachingOurselves is now available in 6 languages around the world.</strong><br />
