Adam Holcher | Promote International

5 actions to get stakeholder engagement in your learning journey

Posted on January 12, 2023January 19, 2023 by Adam Holcher

Do you want to use High Performance Learning Journey (HPLJ) approach in your organization? Investing in the relationship is the first step to creating stakeholder engagement in your High Performance Learning Journey .

As mentioned in a previous blog post on Engaging Business Stakeholders, launching a successful HPLJ program often—if not always—requires input, support, and even participation from various business stakeholders within your organization (senior managers, subject matter experts, etc.)

However, there’s no guarantee that these people will respond positively. In some cases, you might be dealing with someone who doesn’t even see the value of L&D.

But there’s hope!

I have been speaking with a number of alumni who have successfully implemented the HPLJ approach in their organizations after attending Promote International’s Brinkerhoff Certification for High Performance Learning Journeys. When listening to their stories, I’ve noticed a pattern: before getting stakeholders in their organization to be truly invested in their Learning Journeys, they build a relationship first.

This doesn’t mean you have to become best friends with the person and spend your free time together, but the relationship has to be more than transactional. This means truly understanding the person’s business goals and seeing how they align with your L&D offering.

Trust starts with someone feeling that you see them as a person (not just a resource) and that you understand what they’re trying to achieve. That trust is strengthened when the person feels that you are actively trying to help them achieve their goals.

Here are five concrete actions you can take to build that trusting relationship:

Book a meeting to discuss their business goals

If they seem at all suspicious of your intentions, explain that you want to better understand how you (and your L&D colleagues) can support them
- If you don’t already have a basic understanding of how their part of the business works (e.g. what the key deliverables are, who does what, etc.), do a bit of due diligence in advance (you can start by asking a trusted colleague). If you are still missing any key details, ask the person when you meet with them. This demonstrates that you are genuinely interested.

Ask what their top three business goals are

Listen closely to understand how these goals align with the high-level organizational goals (again, do your due diligence in advance)
Ask what key activities or projects they are focusing on in order to achieve those goals

Find out what the best practices and challenges are in their part of the organization

Ask them what the star performers do differently that lead to successful business results
Ask what challenges or obstacles employees are facing, particularly in terms of skills that are lacking and incorrect behaviors

Suggest a follow-up meeting to discuss some ideas on how L&D can support them in strengthening employee competences and developing the right behaviors

Prepare a list of alternative solutions that show you are thinking about both business impact and efficiency
Frame your ideas using words they can relate to, not L&D jargon

Have patience

Building trust is a process that takes time—don’t give up, keep the conversation going
Deliver results – this starts with demonstrating to the person that you have listened to them and have some thoughtful solutions that offer value to them
Continuously focus on helping to achieve their prioritized business goals

When you do all of the above, over time you will find that the other person is much more likely to engage in a serious conversation about employee development and will be more receptive when you bring up the HPLJ approach.

How to involve managers in creating training content – Part 2

Posted on November 24, 2020January 19, 2023 by Adam Holcher

“What are you most proud of? What challenges are you currently having?”

As mentioned in my previous post on this topic (Part 1), senior managers and members of their management teams can contribute a lot of fantastic content to a High Performance Learning Journey (HPLJ). I want to reiterate that the more they understand the valuable role the program plays in contributing to strategic business results, the more invested they will be in making the program a success.

First, let’s take a step back and quickly list a few of the ways senior managers can contribute:

Giving input about which performance outcomes the program should lead to
Sharing information that will make the program content relevant to the business (e.g. real life situations as inspiration for case studies)
Actively participating in the program themselves. This can range from video presentations with Q&A to coaching to participating in a simulation.

The question now is how do you get them to contribute?

This post will focus on senior managers sharing information (and getting members of their teams to share). Once this important step is accomplished, it is then MUCH easier to then get them to actively participate in the program themselves.

The information that senior managers provide could be strategic targets and initiatives, information about organizational history, structure, or processes, as well as concrete challenges that get in the way of business success.

Let me be clear that getting information from someone is often an iterative process, often taking place through multiple conversations over time. So you need to plan accordingly. My recommendation is to be transparent about the process, without scaring people away with nightmares about countless meetings that drag on forever. There’s no need to tell them that you will need hours upon hours of their time because, you don’t know exactly how much of someone’s time you will need until you know what information they have and in what way they can contribute. In addition, they may not need to give so much time themselves if there are other people in the organization who have more concrete information. It’s better for the more senior person to give you the big-picture information and then direct you to others who have the details.

So what do you do?

In my experiences, it’s best to ask for a 45-minute phone call to start with and then assess the situation at the end of the call.

I won’t go into all of the details about scheduling the call and how to conduct the call—that is an art in and of itself—but there are two key points that truly make a difference in my experience.

Be Professional: For me, professionalism is a hygiene factor, and has three core elements.

Be structured in your communication – explain the purpose of the call (both when requesting the call, and at the beginning of the call itself), agree on the duration of the call, and stick to the agreed time.
Show gratitude – a manager’s time is valuable and therefore, it is important to show appreciation for the time he/she gives you. I always thank the person for his/her time both at the beginning and end of the call (as well as on other occasions, if you have more interaction)
Deliver results – this might be in the form of a case study for him/her to read and give feedback on. At at the very least, you should send a short e-mail giving the person an update on the program.

Be Curious: it is common knowledge that showing genuine interest in a person and what he or she does builds trust. Let’s explore this second point further.

Be curious – get the most out of your call

After reminding the person about the purpose of the call—but before leaping into my questions—I always ask if it’s okay that we take a few minutes introducing ourselves to each other. I do this out of genuine interest, but also because it puts the person at ease: talking about his/her background requires absolutely no effort, and he/she can decide what exactly to focus on (education, career, family, etc.)

Next, I tell the person more about the program itself: it’s objectives, it’s structure and any other information that might be relevant to the purpose of the conversation.

In general, your call should have two counter-balancing purposes, to get important information and to build goodwill with the senior manager. When done well, these two purposes reciprocate each other.

Getting to your questions

Now I start asking questions. If it’s a senior manager, then I generally start with high-level questions about the structure of his/her particular organization, its history, and any recent changes. Throughout this stage, I will ask multiple follow-up questions in order to get a better lay of the land. In addition, showing genuine curiosity about the organization with these kinds of questions builds a fair amount of credibility with the senior manager, thus making him/her willing to share even more information. If the person refers to any concrete structure or process, I always ask if he/she can send material.

Two must-have questions to ask

So far, we have started to get to know each other a bit and my questions require minimal effort from the other person. Now is when I raise the stakes. Two questions that I always ask are “What are you most proud of in terms of your organization’s achievements?” and “What challenges are you currently having?” (And in this order) The first question is to get the person to be a bit more reflective and give concrete examples of what is happening in his/her organization. It also makes him/her more willing to answer the second question about challenges. Asking a senior manager about the challenges in his/her organization is very much a dance—you need to “read” the person. I always start by explaining that the conversation is confidential and that any details used in the case will be tweaked to avoid identification.

Once I’ve understood the overall challenges, and identified a good subject for the case study, I generally don’t go into the details of the case study with the senior manger. Instead, I ask if there are people in his/her team who I could speak with in order to work out the details of the case.

Getting the blessing

I do so for several reasons: it shows the senior manager that I respect his/her time, it broadens the web of people involved, and lower-level managers are MUCH more comfortable talking about the nitty-gritty challenges that will make the case relevant. I always ask the senior manager if he/she could contact the member of his/her team first in order to explain the situation and then put us into contact with each other. This makes the contact with the lower-level manager much easier because it has the “blessing” of the senior manager.

Even if we haven’t used up the full 45 minutes, I will end the call early. Again, this shows professionalism and earns goodwill. After thanking the senior manager for his/her time and help, I ask if it’s okay that I reach out with follow-up questions or to give an update on the situation. They always say “yes.”

Getting a senior management team to not only approve a development program but actively contribute is a big step towards an HPLJ. So, schedule the calls and pull out your pen and paper.

How to involve managers in creating program content – Part 1

Posted on November 18, 2020January 18, 2023 by Adam Holcher

“What WE need to do is…” When a manager uses these words in reference to a development program, it should sound like music to your ears. No matter what words complete the sentence above, the fact that the sentence includes the word “we” is a major victory.

Here’s why: Most managers believe in helping employees develop new skills. However, some L&D managers might have experienced resistance from managers towards getting involved in development programs. For example, when talking to a manager about such a program, the manager generally focuses on the challenge of their employees being “away from work”; and they definitely see the task of preparing content for the program as someone else’s responsibility. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s just that development has historically been outsourced to L&D and external providers.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are a lot of best practices, not just for getting managers involved, but for getting them actively engaged in providing content.

Content is the challenge

As you well know, the best development programs focus on improving business performance and therefore need to include content (material, activities, assignments, etc.) that applies to real-life business situations. Naturally, certain managers can be quite valuable in providing this content, as they know what behavioural changes participants need to make, in what business situations, and what challenges the participants face. In addition, the more that managers get involved, the more likely it is that the program will lead to successful business outcomes.

So how do we get managers involved?

Let’s start with the obvious. First and foremost, you need to think carefully about how you communicate the business value of the program: how it will help the company reach its strategic business goals. A common mistake that people make is that they spend most of the time talking about what the participants will learn. Instead, when you speak with the manager about the aims of the program, talk about what the participants will do differently in their roles, and how this will help the manager achieve his/her business goals.

Management support is key

Second, we can’t ignore politics. In my entire career, I have never been part of a successful development program that didn’t have the full-hearted support of top management, especially the CEO. If the CEO and all members of the senior management team genuinely see the business value of the program and communicate this to other managers, then you will see much more openness. The keyword is “communicate.” It’s not enough for senior managers to value the program themselves; they need to clearly broadcast this to the rest of management.

Internal partnership and pilots

So, how do you get senior managers to see the value of the program? It is essential that you have a respected champion in the senior management team (e.g. the EVP of HR). You should work in partnership with this person to prepare presentation material for the management team that clearly communicates the Program Performance Path (PPP), as well as a draft structure of the program. Ideally, your champion should have a good relationship with the CEO and should arrange for you to speak with the CEO as early as possible.

Next, you and your champion should arrange for a pilot program, in which senior managers “test drive” the program (or a portion of the program) in order to experience it first hand. If the CEO endorses the pilot program, then the rest of the management team will follow suit. It’s preferable to involve the CEO in as much of the pilot program as possible.

Purpose for pilot program

The pilot program serves three very important purposes:

To get the senior managers to experience the program first hand (they might need it themselves). Once they’ve “gone through it” themselves, they tend to become great ambassadors, speaking about the experience with confidence and energy.
To get feedback from the senior managers about the experience (what they liked, what needs improvement etc.), as well as to get spontaneous input from them for future content (topics, assignments, business cases, etc.). You should set aside at least a few hours of the pilot for this purpose. Even if they have criticisms about certain aspects of the pilot program, showing them that you appreciate this feedback goes a LONG way in getting them engaged. It also creates accountability on their part to help improve the program.
To get senior managers (and their direct reports) to contribute more content to the program themselves. If you have succeeded in numbers one and two, then number three will happen easily. Suddenly they will start talking about “what WE need to do to make this program truly successful.”

Once senior managers are committed to and invested in the success of the program, you can request that they ask members of their management teams to contribute the detailed content. There are great strategies for navigating this process successfully, so stay tuned for a follow-up blog post on this topic.