We encourage your input on the subject and look forward to your engagement. Thank you for your continued participation in this important global topic.

T & D article Interview with Dr. Roy Pollock (2)

Answer:
Great question! Take learning transfer as an example. Learning transfer is the process of putting learning to work in a way that improves performance. There is no question that in many programs, it is the weak link. But, you could also say that the learning transfer glass is partially full. There are many programs after which learning gets put to work in ways that really do improve results. So, rather than focusing on what is broken in learning transfer, we could explore what is working and start to build on those strengths.

That’s the fundamental rationale for appreciative inquiry. Appreciative inquiry is very different than traditional business problem-solving. Instead of always starting with “what’s wrong,” appreciative inquiry assumes that the potential—or capacity—for exceptional performance is already present in every organization; that there are many things already being done well, resulting in outstanding performance. The goal is to learn from and build on these strengths, rather than always looking to “fix problems.” Appreciative inquiry rejects the deficit approach and instead asks the question, how can we do more of what we are really good at to drive performance.

By way of illustration, compare how typical corporate problem-solving and appreciative inquiry would approach the same issue. In their excellent book, “Appreciative Inquiry,” Barrett and Fry frame the example this way: Suppose that you were in a company that was experiencing an employee turnover rate substantially higher than the industry average. The knee-jerk reaction is: “let’s figure out why 15% of our employees are leaving.” Appreciative inquiry would reframe the question as: “let’s find out why 85% of our employees choose to stay, so we can further strengthen those areas with the result that 90% or 95% choose to stay.” (Barrett & Fry, Appreciative Inquiry, Chagrin Falls, OH, Taos Institute, 2005) The first approach leads to a disheartening laundry list of what is broken; appreciative inquiry leads to creative and positive ideas to make those things that are working even better.

In October, I had the privilege of putting these ideas into practice on the topic of learning transfer with a large group of talented learning professionals from many different organizations at Fort Hill’s annual Learning Transfer Summit. We began the session by exploring what we currently are doing well, by having participants tell about a time or program in which learning transfer was outstanding. Using that as a positive platform, we then shifted to creating a future vision three years from now.

Building on the things we are already doing well, we were able to describe an exciting and positive future for our profession. We included the already taken actions and the impact they produce when we are at our best. The following is the future we envisioned through appreciative inquiry; I hope you will agree it is much more energizing than a list of problems to fix. Our thanks to all the LTS attendees who helped create it. Now let’s make it happen!

Vision Generated by Appreciative Inquiry

October 2014 – Much has happened in the three years since we met at the LTS in San Francisco to envision a positive future for learning and development.

Nowadays, learning is co-designed with our internal clients, so that business outcomes are clear and participant’s job relevance obvious. The learners’ perceptions of relevance and utility are tracked routinely, and programs are adjusted whenever a disconnect is detected.

Learning design emphasizes work as the practice field; the learning intervention is conceived as the catalyst that launches our participants onto the “Achievement Highway™.” Specific plans to support learning transfer are now built into all instructional designs. As a result, high levels of learning transfer are consistently achieved, producing competitive advantage; transformational business results are now the norm. Soft skills programs achieve the same levels of transfer and application as technical and compliance training.

The CEO (formerly the CLO of the organization) ensures that all leaders appreciate the strategic importance learning can have, provide support for their employees’ learning, and are active participants in the process. Performance improvement through learning is embraced as a shared responsibility between management and the training department. Demonstrated learning agility is a key criterion for selection as a high-potential employee. Leaders throughout the organization are exemplars of continuous learning and cite the ability to learn and adapt as an important factor in their success. Learning and development professionals have a seat at the table and a voice in the discussion of any new strategy; the CEO requires that every business plan includes a discussion of the new skills and knowledge needed for its execution. Senior business and learning leaders work together to develop an annual learning plan that is closely linked to the business strategy and focused on the highest priority needs and opportunities. Learning and development earned its seat at the table by delivering—and documenting—improved performance in business-relevant measures.

Across the entire enterprise, every participant is expected to deliver visible and valuable improvement as part of the learning process. Credit for completing programs is granted only when competent on-the-job application is apparent. Achievements are documented in a way that can be verified and shared broadly across the organization. Active measurement and evaluation ensure that learning is delivering on its promise, as well as continuously improves. The commitment to delivering and continuously improving business results has transformed the learning function from a cost center to an acknowledged contributor to top- and bottom-line performance.

This future was achieved by learning leaders who were courageous in their execution, who viewed themselves as true strategic partners, and who, as a result, took calculated risks to try new approaches to integrate learning into the business.

The Road Ahead

As we look forward to the New Year, let’s envision the future we want for ourselves and our learning colleagues. Let’s be mindful of what we already do well, and ask—through an appreciative inquiry—how we can use the elements of excellence that already exist in ourselves and our organizations to create the future we want.

To continue your learning, be sure to attend our upcoming complimentary webinar, “Using an Achievement Roadmap™ to Create Valuable Business Results,” on Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 11:00am EST.



In the July Learning Alert, you talked about getting participants to tell an Achievement Story about putting their learning to work. Can you explain why and give an example?

• It gives participants a concrete finish line to shoot for. If they know that by a specific date, they will be expected to tell an Achievement Story, then they will need to have achieved something to talk about. If they know their manager will be included, that provides additional incentive.
• It also gives participants a way to communicate and get credit for their efforts and results.
• Lastly, achievement stories are powerful ways for the learning organization to communicate the value of training programs, both to management and to future attendees.

What Goes Into an Achievement Story?

The following questions will help participants frame their Achievement Story:

An Example

The following example is an achievement story told by a sales team leader following a program on holding more productive and authentic conversations:

Next Steps

Choose a strategically important course where it is vital for participants to apply what they learn.

Inform them that they will be expected to tell their Achievement Story and when. Include their managers and other key stakeholders. Consider using ResultsEngine® to help keep them on track and to automate the capture and dissemination of stories.

Select the most compelling stories, verify them, and tell them frequently to communicate the value of the program to the business sponsors and the value of learning transfer to participants.

To learn more, attend my upcoming complimentary webinar, “Using an Achievement Roadmap™ to Create Valuable Business Results,” on Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 11:00am EST, where details on using the Achievement Roadmap™ will be given to help participants get great Achievement Stories as well as using ResultsEngine as a GPS to create even greater learning value.

The department made several changes in their learning design and evaluation procedures in order to increase level three / four learning transfer. These included:

• The creation of pre-course contracts that required participants and their supervisors to discuss the course, the reasons for attendance, and to formalize two initial participant goals for the course.
• An experiential learning design that gave participants an opportunity to apply their learning to a real work problem they brought with them to the class (formalized in their pre-work). Using tools provided in class, participants created an action plan that could be implemented immediately upon return to their jobs.
• Employing Fort Hill Company’s ResultsEngine® in order to facilitate the completion of two formalized course related goals, which were set at the end of the classroom portion of the course. ResultsEngine supported the transfer and application of learning on the job and its data-mining and report generation capabilities enabled them to convincingly demonstrate the measurement and evaluation of level 3 / 4 learning transfer.

Over a three year period, these changes have achieved the following results:

• 81% of training participants either achieved or made significant progress with their two course goals (indicating change in behavior).
• 79% of training participants state that their performance on the job improved due to their involvement in the course and follow-through program.
• 96% of the participants’ supervisors state that they observed course related participant performance improvement.

The APi Group’s learning function is now a strategic business tool that is getting tangible results and has been given an ASTD 2011 BEST Award.

T & D article Interview with Dr. Roy Pollock (1)

I have been reading Rita Smith’s new book, Strategic Learning Alignment. She makes the point that learning organizations need to make a business case for learning. What about learning transfer? Is it possible to make a business case for investing time and resources in learning transfer?

It is, and you should.

We agree whole-heartedly with Smith when she writes: “The only reason that learning functions exist is to drive business outcomes” (p. 10). Training and development drives business outcomes by equipping people with new skills and knowledge, that when applied to their work improve performance, resulting in better service, higher revenues, improved quality and so forth, which collectively produce a competitive advantage for the organization (Figure 1 below shows the path by which learning creates value).

It is clear from the sequence of events that realizing the business benefits depends on BOTH high-quality training to impart vital skills and knowledge AND on the transfer of those skills to the work of the individual and firm. When there is no transfer, there are no benefits.

Unfortunately, transfer is the weak link in most corporate training initiatives. For example, ESI recently polled 3,200 learning professionals about the effectiveness of learning transfer. The majority felt it was less than 50%, many much lower. In other words, in their organizations, more than half the training effort is wasted for lack of transfer to the job.

This, improving learning transfer, represents a huge opportunity for training and development to increase the value it delivers. That is why a recent research report by Bersin & Associates stated: “Based on our research, we expect learning transfer support to be a major differentiator for high-impact learning organizations in the next 10 years.”

The Payoff

Improving learning transfer makes sound economic sense. Here is an example based on not atypical numbers: XYZ company runs a program for 100 participants that costs $1,000 each. When they evaluate the results three months later, they find that only 20% of the participants applied what they learned; but those that did generated, on average, an additional $6,000 each for the company in new revenue and cost savings. So, the ROI is good: 20% on this investment of $100,000 (Table 1).

Table 1: ROI Analysis for Program A

The learning team, however, is convinced they can do better. So, they invest some of their time and resources in a learning transfer support system and materials. The effort increases the cost per participant by $200 each or 20%. On analysis three months later, they find they have only increased the transfer rate from 20% to 30%. So, the question from a business leader’s point of view is: Was spending the extra money worth it?

Now let’s look at the analysis for Program A+ (the same program + support for learning transfer) in Table 2.

Table 2: ROI Analysis for Program A+

The results are quite startling. Increasing the cost of the program 20% by investing in learning transfer increases the ROI two-and-a-half times! Note that the value per participant who used their learning did not change; it shouldn’t since the course was exactly the same. All that changed was the percent of people who diligently applied what they learned.

We often hear learning professionals say that they have no additional budget for supporting learning transfer. If that is true, then an alternative that should be evaluated is: What would happen if you trained fewer employees and used the cost savings to support learning transfer? Would that produce better results than continuing to train so many with such a low yield?

Let’s do the math. If we use the preceding example of Program A+ (with support) but instead of adding budget for learning transfer, we reduce the number of participants trained so that we stay within the $100,000 allocated, then the results would look like this:

Table 3: ROI Analysis for Program A+ with Fewer Participants

Surprisingly, this approach produces both a higher total dollar return as well as a higher percent ROI than the base case (the program with no transfer support). In other words, you can often create greater value by training fewer people and investing the savings to make sure that those you do train put their learning to work.

What accounts then for the huge increase in value realized? It is because the current level of transfer is so low. In most programs, 75% or more of the potential value goes unrealized (Figure 2 below). We only need to capture a small portion of the unrealized value to dramatically improve the overall outcome.

Don’t take our word for it. Prove it to yourself by plugging numbers for your own training program into our free online Impact Calculator.

The bottom line is this: There is a strong business case for investing some of next year’s budget and time in support for learning transfer. The investment will be repaid many times over in superior results. Indeed, if business managers appreciated how much value was being “left on the table,” they would want to know why you aren’t investing in learning transfer.

Want to learn more?

Attend ASTD’s Learning Transfer Conference in November, where you will have the opportunity to do a deep dive into creating a healthy transfer climate and exchange best practices with learning professionals around the country. To learn more about using the learning transfer management system ResultsEngine®, click here.

As part of our commitment to help advance the learning profession, Fort Hill Company is pleased to offer the following educational webinars at no cost to you. Two new webinars introducing the 6Ds® have just been added. Click on the below titles to learn more and register:

September 13, 2011: The Business Case for Learning Transfer- Dr. Roy Pollock
In this engaging and interactive webinar, Dr. Roy Pollock, Chief Learning Officer of Fort Hill Company, will make the business case for learning transfer. He will explain why learning professionals should be very concerned about the lack of learning transfer and how they can improve the ROI of programs without changing the content.

September 28, 2011: On Beyond ADDIE: Introduction to The 6Ds® of Breakthrough Learning- Dr. Roy Pollock
Hear from the authors of the best-selling The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning why more and more organizations are adopting the 6Ds® as the model for designing and executing training and development programs. Find out why we need to “move the finish line” for training and how to ensure that all your hard work pays off in real business impact.

October 7, 2011: Using an Achievement Roadmap™ to Create Valuable Business Results- Cal Wick
In this fun and thought-provoking webinar, Cal Wick, one of ISA’s Thought Leaders of the Year, will introduce the Achievement Roadmap™ and how you can use it to help participants visualize—and complete— the journey from learning to business results. He’ll explain how to get participants on the “Achievement Highway” and prevent them from using the “Same Old Way,” which leads only to the “Opportunity Scrap Yard.”

October 28, 2011: On Beyond ADDIE: Introduction to The 6Ds® of Breakthrough Learning- Dr. Roy Pollock
A repeat of the September 28 webinar for those who missed it or had scheduling conflicts. Hear from the authors of the best-selling The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning why more and more organizations are adopting the 6Ds® as the model for designing and executing training and development programs. Find out why we need to “move the finish line” for training and how to ensure that all your hard work pays off in real business impact.

November 8, 2011: How To Make Learning Transfer a Priority for Participants- Cal Wick
Cal Wick, Fort Hill’s Chairman and Founder, will show why Learning and Development needs to do more than just teach content. We also need to engage, equip, and energize our participants to make learning transfer a personal priority. Otherwise, as one Learning Leader said, “If participants are not going to apply what they learn, it would be cheaper just to send them the bagels!”

December 7, 2011: Turn on the Results; Plug the all new ResultsEngine® into your Training Programs- Michael Papay
In this interactive webinar, Michael Papay, Fort Hill Company’s Chief Innovation Officer, will demonstrate ResultsEngine® and discuss the recent Bersin Research Report on learning transfer. He’ll review case studies that show how leading organizations got significantly better results from the same training when they added support for learning transfer.

We look forward to sharing our insights with you during these webinars and, as always, welcome your suggestions on topics you’d like us to present.

The report, authored by Bersin senior analyst, Janet Clarey, emphasizes that learning transfer—the process of applying new skills and knowledge from training to the job—is essential for learning to produce business value. The report also notes that “having a process in place to support transfer of learning is often missing in the design of corporate L&D.” “Based on our research,” Bersin concludes,¹

This finding is consistent with the research by Fort Hill that led to the publication of The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: “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.” ²

Until recently, however, providing support for learning transfer was a time-consuming, mostly manual process. That is certainly a contributing factor to Bersin’s finding that “more than one-quarter of learning leaders say improving transfer of learning support is a significant challenge.”

Fortunately, there are now alternatives that make support for learning transfer efficient, scalable, and economical. The Bersin report goes on to profile the leading learning support tool from Fort Hill, ResultsEngine®, and three examples of organizations that have used ResultsEngine and the 6Ds® process to boost the impact of their learning programs.

ResultsEngine is an easy-to-implement, software-as-a-service tool that automates the learning transfer support process. A dashboard of key metrics, such as the progress learners are making toward their goals (see Figure 1 below), provides learning leaders with key insights into the critical post-program application period, so that they can focus on business outcomes.

At Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, according to the Bersin report, “The focus on business outcomes has meant L&D is now able to get behavioral changes and show ROI. A recent coaching skills program resulted in more employee engagement and optimism, as well as a 50 percent improvement in skills over those employees not using ResultsEngine®.”

A major pharmaceutical company highlighted in the report implemented ResultsEngine—(formerly Friday5s®) after a leadership development program. “This follow-on, the company found, was much easier with the Fort Hill software than when it had tried to do post-program support manually.” Even more important, “The ROI reported by participants using ResultsEngine was almost 50 percent greater than for the same program without it.”

The full Bersin report is available for free download on our website under Articles. To learn more about how you can boost the results of your learning programs with ResultsEngine and the 6Ds® process, email us at: info@forthillcompany.com.

At this time, I’d like to invite you and your colleagues to join me for our upcoming complimentary webinar, “Turn on the Results; Plug the all new ResultsEngine into your Training Programs,” to be held this Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 12:00pm EDT.

References

¹ Bersin & Associates (2011). How to Support and Improve Learning Transfer Using Fort Hill Company’s ResultsEngine®. Research Bulletin 6(29) June, 2011.

² Wick, C, Pollock, R and Jefferson, A (2010). The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to Turn Training and Development into Business Results. San Francisco: Pfeifer.

Check it out HERE!

Answer: I may have an answer to your question in what I have been working on for the last six months. The answer goes right to the heart of motivating, empowering, and enabling participants to put what they learn to work…

I call it the Achievement Roadmap™.

This approach motivates participants to use what they’ve learned and supports them in doing so. Here are the three steps.

Achievement Roadmap Process

Step 1: Define an Achievement Story™ as the finish line of your program.

Step 2: Give participants an Achievement Roadmap™ and GPS.

Step 3: Implement a scalable process.

At this time, I’d like to invite you and your colleagues to join me for a complimentary webinar, “Using an Achievement Roadmap™ to Create Valuable Business Results,” to be held on October 7, 2011 at 11:00am EDT, during which I will provide more details and examples of using the Achievement Roadmap™, Achievement Stories, and ResultsEngine as the GPS to create greater value from learning.