We were grateful to have Brandon Carson (VP of Learning Leadership and Cultural Experiences, Starbucks) and Jerry Kaminski (Global Learning Operations Manager, Ford Motor) on a recent webinar. In their decades of experience, they have learned much about how to communicate the value of learning to the executive leadership of their companies. Below are seven of their key insights. To view the full webinar, click HERE.
Align your learning with your company’s organizational and financial goals.
Jerry Kaminski: We keep the organizational and financial goals in the forefront every day. Because Ford is a global company, we are across 130 countries. Our mantra with our learning team is that we are developing things that are global, but we have to localize them to gain a true global impact. Our organizational and financial goals drive what we do.
Brandon Carson: One of the biggest challenges for Starbucks is a capability crisis which all companies are facing. This crisis sits firmly on our shoulders as learning leaders. People in our industry often talk about learning having a seat at the table. In this crisis, we actually are the table. The things we do now are setting the table for one of our most important organizational goals. We not only need to be up to speed on current goals, we also need to be in front of where we need to go. We have to think forward about the capabilities we will need to accomplish the goals of our companies. We have to be able to diagnose and prescribe in a much more agile fashion to do the reskilling and upskilling necessary.
Develop an effective communication plan to clarify the value of learning to the C-Suite.
Brandon Carson: Before I was at Starbucks, I spent some time at Apple where the training team reported up to the marketing team. This helped us stay on brand with our product messaging in our learning. Because of the tyranny of the urgent, we are sometimes precluded from the rhythms of the business. We see our work in learning as directly correlated to our customers. We have to continuously communicate our value as part of our ongoing connection to our core business.
Jerry Kaminski: We use all the channels of communication available to us whether it is email, video, webex, town halls, elevator chats when you bump into someone, etc. I tell my learning team to take every chance we get to communicate what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. We have to constantly communicate the value that our learning team brings to Ford.
Utilize both qualitative and quantitative data.
Jerry Kaminski: At Ford, we use both qualitative and quantitative. As an L&D professional, I like to do something a little radical. I write survey questions to be more quantitative. Instead of a 1-5 Likert scale, we simply use yes or no. Either you can do something or you cannot. If you say you cannot, we want to know why. This leads to a much better conversation with the C-Suite. If we have the majority in the yes category, clearly we are doing something right. If not, we need to look at how to fix that. This gives our team insight into where we need to go and what we need to do.
Brandon Carson: We use both qualitative and quantitative data to communicate value. I like to say that we are data informed as a practice but not data driven. We do this because we look at performance through the lens of humanity. There are more anecdotal measures that do inform what we do, but you really have to make use of both tools. We are doing the hardest thing in our organization which is to measure and change human behavior. I use what I call a balanced scorecard that has two dimensions. The first is how we execute to the goals we have set. This measures our efficiency as a learning team in delivering on those goals. The second is our effectiveness of our work in meeting organizational goals across the enterprise. We correlate what we do to our business KPIs. If you can’t make this correlation on a project, then you probably should not be working on it. This is how we bring to life our value to the enterprise. It is vitally important that we are an evidence-based function to demonstrate the complexities of changing human behavior, and the learning team is accomplishing it.
Find a learning champion among the C-Suite, VPs, and managers.
Brandon Carson: In almost all the organizations in which I’ve worked, relationship-building has been essential. These relationships are key to getting done what you want to do. Learning leaders need to have a strong perspective. They need to have a take on what needs to be done to move their organization forward. The C-Suite is often looking to learning leaders to tell them what they should be doing in the learning space. They are looking for bold ideas. To have this level of confidence, learning leaders really need to understand deeply how the work of the organization gets done. This is both an art and a science. What is done by the learning team has to be connected to overall performance, and having someone at that level who understands this is essential. This kind of expertise helps build those trusted relationships. One more suggestion. Don’t think you should only be talking to the C-Suite. Look to higher-level managers and directors who actually know how the work is getting done.
Jerry Kaminski: I have been very intentional about finding a member of the C-Suite or someone who is a senior leader that I can talk to about the process of learning and changing behavior. I focus my efforts on that person and then let them tell your story. Working closely with one executive on their part of the business meant that their performance got better and better in terms of profitability and retention until other executives started to notice. Soon, his peers were coming to him and asking him how he was accomplishing this. He pointed them straight to my team, becoming our sales and marketing person to the executive team.
Get the right members on your team.
Jerry Kaminski: In large companies, having the right team goes beyond instructional designers. It means having professionals who can help with data, marketing, and perspective. This all helps with the messaging to the company’s leadership team. The people on your team need to have good influencing skills, good listening skills, and empathy. They have to be able to collaborate with others outside of the learning team. Showing the value of learning to the C-Suite and upper management is a team effort.
Build the necessary tech stack to be able to measure the impact of your learning
Jerry Kaminski: In some sense, technology has made things easier for understanding the impact of learning at Ford. On the other hand, we work in multiple platforms: an LMS, an LXP, and four different development platforms. And then there is access to multiple other premade learning platforms. Having so many tools in the tech stack does not necessarily mean greater efficiency. Sometimes they don’t interface. One thing that has definitely helped is artificial intelligence. That is a huge time saver for us and gives my team a lot more flexibility and creativity. We need to ensure that we have the right tools so that we can track the KPIs.
Benchmark the performance of your learning team with other companies and available industry standards
Brandon Carson: Benchmarking is critically important. I do a lot of forums and am involved in a lot of networking just in the learning industry. This is more important than ever because we are a big inflection point. The tech tsunami that started a couple of decades ago is moving even more rapidly with AI. Learning has become more center stage to ensure employee continuity and drive employee well-being. We are leading the reskilling and upskilling of the people in our organizations. I believe we are in the middle of the single largest job transformation in human history. AI is going to change a lot of things. In the midst of these changes, it is essential for us to know what other learning leaders are doing. Many of us face the same kinds of issues: labor and skill shortages, employees are asking for different things, and work has different meanings for people. Learning professionals are unique in that they are open to sharing what they are learning in their roles. But there is the danger of us becoming segregated from our peers.
Jerry Kaminski: At Ford, we are constantly benchmarking. I started benchmarking years ago. Many of my colleagues only benchmark our peers in the automotive industry. I think it is important to benchmark across the spectrum of all types of companies. For customer service training, look at what Brandon and his team are doing at Starbucks. Look at learning at Amazon. Look at what the function is, not just a specific industry. Use organizations like ATD to provide comparables. Find a place where you can join a group and benchmark over against each other. Like tracking metrics, benchmarking is a continuous process. Don’t wait for a downturn in your industry to begin. You want to be leading with data not lagging. It is also a very good idea to do an annual L&D report just like your company does an annual report. This report should benchmark your performance against your industry and other industries. This means you are not waiting for your executives to come and ask you what you are doing well.
