We’ve previously defined the corporate university (click here to read the blog post “Defining Your Corporate University”) and with this clarity and consensus in mind, we are ready to get started.
Well, not quite yet. We still have more clarifying to do so that we can determine the purpose and establish an initial build-out plan.
This diagram illustrates the different phases of university development and is a great guide to start the initial build-out. Depending on your resources, urgency, and current state, you may be ready to start with any of these phases. Your first step, then, is to determine where you want to be and where you are in the life cycle of university development.
Source: Adapted from Jansink, F. (2005). The knowledge-productive corporate university. Journal of European Industrial Learning, 29(1), 40-57.
Many companies with whom we work on university development want to see results right away. But even though you’re being strategic about the entire university design process, you’re not going to be in the Strategic Phase until you’ve laid some groundwork. That groundwork requires thoughtful planning on how the university will need to function operationally and what tactics need to be put into place to achieve the strategic objectives.
If it hasn’t become apparent to you already, you will realize that one person can’t build a corporate university on their own. We will talk about that further in a future post, but in the interim, I’d love to get your thoughts on this life cycle. Do you agree with these phases? Are there any phases missing?
Linda Dausend is a consultant at FlashPoint. She consults with clients on talent management, helping to align their human resources programs with organizational strategies.
Stay tuned for more from Linda in this blog series about corporate universities. It’s easy to get our blog updates! Just look for Feed Subscription in the right column of our blog and enter your email address. Our blog updates will be delivered to your email inbox.
So, you’d like to start a Corporate University. Great! I don’t think you’ll regret your decision to do so; but, before we talk about all the great outcomes that a university can provide, let’s take a step back and define a “corporate university.”
There are probably as many definitions as there are organizations that have universities (which is estimated to be about 2,000 today), but the best definition I found was from Mark Allen, Ph.D, and the author of The Corporate University Handbook (AMACOM 2002). Dr. Allen defines it as “…an educational entity that is a strategic tool designed to assist its parent organization in achieving its mission by conducting activities that cultivate both individual and organizational learning, knowledge, and wisdom.”
More than anything, a corporate university strives to align employees’ performance with the strategic direction of the company. The training is connected to competencies, for example, or to specific business objectives. It’s typically built using a leveled approach and with frequent benchmarks to measure success in achieving the corporate mission.
A university is so much more than a name, a new logo, and t-shirts. That’s why it’s critical that you first define what the university is for your organization.
In the coming months, I’ll review a corporate university that we recently developed with one of our clients. I’ll also share other key aspects about this comprehensive training solution, including:
Defining outcomes
Crafting a vision
Achieving support
Getting funds
Designing the structure
We’d love to hear what you think about corporate universities, what definition you might offer up and, if you have one, how it works and what advice you can provide.
Linda Dausend is a consultant at FlashPoint. She consults with clients on talent management, helping to align their human resources programs with organizational strategies.
Stay tuned for more from Linda in this blog series about corporate universities. It’s easy to get our blog updates! Just look for Feed Subscription in the right column of our blog and enter your email address. Our blog updates will be delivered to your email inbox.
Recently, during the kick-off of a twelve-month leadership development process (using the Leadership Challenge® Workshop content), a past participant described his experience to a group of leaders being introduced to the process. He summed up his experience as “life changing” and shared examples of ways the experience had impacted him.
As I’ve facilitated these types of long-term engagements, I’ve heard hundreds of similar descriptions. Below is a sample of reactions, pulled from emails I have received from participants in the Leadership Challenge® Workshop experience:
“This is life changing and could not have come at a better time. I learned a lot about myself as a leader and have cemented my core values—honesty, achievement, dependability, and happiness. My core values are what drive me every day and if I hold true to them, they should allow me to focus on what I feel is important.”
“This process has brought me closer to my true self. There is always a trigger behind one realizing one’s destined path – I have seen it countless times in my life. I am so thankful that this has come into my life – the trigger which has helped shape my professional and PERSONAL evolvement.”
“I had a moment today that the training helped me through…I got really frustrated because of something a team member said, and instead of reacting, I remembered my values; I listened and filtered out the content and helped my team member with a solution. I can see that I have really grown through this process.”
I’m not surprised when I hear these reactions as something magical happens during the process—participants are reminded of their intrinsic value. What they often discover is that which makes them most effective as a leader has been with them all along—they just need to get out of their own way.
FlashPoint offers a public Leadership Challenge® Workshop each spring. If you are interested in learning more about this experience, please click here for additional information.
Andrea Moore is a Senior Consulting Manager at FlashPoint; Andrea focuses on leadership development, training and performance improvement solutions, and one-on-one coaching.
I recently came across a couple of articles published by the Society for Human Resource Management, both with the same theme—how performance reviews are ineffective and put organizations at risk (rather than offering legal protection, as most people think). The articles, both written by employment attorneys, highlight the following flaws:
Supervisors are not prepared to conduct the reviews
Supervisors are not honest in their feedback
The feedback isn’t objective or timely
The authors point out that in their long legal careers, they’ve found that performance reviews most often work against employers and often serve as the plaintiff’s key piece of evidence. One author was forthright—throw the review form in the recycle bin!
Advice such as this seems counterintuitive to most HR professionals and refutes what most of us have learned and advocate. When I read the articles, I had to pause and consider how to reconcile the two positions.
The key reasons the authors list for why performance reviews fail boil down to a common element—supervisors don’t have the skills they need to conduct them. I’m still convinced that a well-developed and well-executed performance review serves a useful role if the organization invests in the process and in preparing supervisors to carry it out. Some areas to focus on include:
Creating a well-thought-out form that not only promotes open and meaningful dialogue around the employee’s performance but also provides sections to spell out yearly goals and development plans.
Outlining a process that includes quarterly update meetings, encourages regular feedback, and involves both employees and supervisors.
Training supervisors so they understand the review process and tools and how to use them effectively.
Regularly evaluating completed forms, asking questions, and coaching supervisors on how they can better carry out their reviews.
Sources:
Janove, Jathan. “Reviews—Good for Anything?” HR Magazine, June 2011.
Keyes, Judith Droz. “The Legal Case for Eliminating Performance Reviews.” SHRM Legal Report, April 2011.
As the business world evolves, development tools evolve to fit the needs of today’s learners. For example, the traditional mentoring relationship with a rigid meeting structure now looks much different, as mentoring occurs virtually and just-in-time. Certainly the traditional mentoring structure is still applicable in some scenarios.
As mentoring has evolved, it is also increasingly confused with other development activities, such as coaching. The challenge with confusing these two disciplines is that when used inappropriately, we miss opportunities to leverage their full potential. Human resources professionals and managers must understand the purpose and desired outcomes for both mentoring and coaching to ensure they are used in the most effective way.
The visual below shows the different focus of mentoring and coaching. Notice that mentoring is more directive—its purpose is knowledge transfer from the mentor to the protégée, so key activities within the mentoring relationship include sharing expertise and offering advice. Coaching is more non-directive, with a focus on eliciting ideas and thoughts from the participant, hence, the focus on asking questions.
I am currently in the midst of a coaching engagement, focused on helping a person transition from individual contributor to leader of a new team within her organization. Specifically, I am coaching her to develop a vision for her team and create a structure that best supports their direction. The essence of the engagement is asking key questions to help her identify what she needs to do; it’s an empowering process. My colleague, Jennifer Rufatto, wrote in a blog about demystifying coaching, “the essence of coaching is helping someone learn to think better.”
Because this manager has the management skills (from previous positions) necessary to lead this group of people, coaching is the most effective development opportunity for her; she is getting what she needs to support her success, and ultimately the organization’s success. Andrea Moore is Senior Consulting Manager at FlashPoint; Andrea focuses on leadership development, training and performance improvement solutions, and one-on-one coaching.
Engagement research repeatedly shows that employees look to opportunities for growth and development for continued engagement, but it’s not enough to encourage participation in a learning exercise; to fully maximize the experience, the participant’s manager needs to be involved to help facilitate the development process.
In a 2009 ASTD (American Society of Training and Development) research paper, The Value of Evaluation, authors explore the complex issues of learning evaluation and measuring the success of training initiatives. While the paper is full of valuable information for learning professionals, there is one particular message that resonated with me—learning professionals have a tremendous opportunity to leverage the participant’s manager in the development process. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the participants’ managers always understand their role or how they can support.
For example, in the research paper, authors shared results from a study in which managers were asked to what extent they are held accountable for setting goals with employees prior to training and for giving employees opportunities to use new knowledge after training. As you can see below, the percentage of managers who are setting goals with employees prior to training is very small. The case is similar with the percentage of managers giving employees opportunities to use new knowledge after training. I believe that if each of these activities happened more often, it would have a tremendous impact on the transfer of learning from training to job performance.
So, what’s the message? HR and learning professionals who are leading/supporting training initiatives need to ensure that managers are involved in the process. Below are some activities that you can incorporate into your development process:
Prior to the design of any training/development, meet with the participants’ managers to find out what the needs are. Ask them what success looks like for their employee’s participation in the training.
Educate/coach managers to support the development of their employees.
Coach managers/provide clear expectations on their role in following up with employees after training and their role in giving employees an opportunity to use the skills learned in training.
Provide a participant/manager conversation guide to structure conversations during a training/development initiative. This will help ensure that participants are connecting with their managers throughout the development process.
Andrea Moore is a Senior Consulting Manager at FlashPoint; Andrea focuses on leadership development, training and performance improvement solutions, and one-on-one coaching.
One of my favorite commercials is from Monster.com where a child states, “I wanna claw my way up to middle management.” I remember the first time I became an assistant manager. I was so excited to send my new business cards to my whole family (even though they live in Colorado and couldn’t do business with me) and I readily gave one to anyone who would take one. We all love the American success story about the person who started in the mail room and worked his way up to CEO—what a great story. Everyone should strive to accomplish that, right?
What happened to simply being “the best” at what we do? Why if we are considered “the best,” do we have to get promoted to feel valued? By that rationale, Peyton Manning should be the coach and not the quarterback. Imagine what would happen to the Indianapolis Colts if Curtis Painter took over and Manning was simply his coach? Do you remember when Magic Johnson tried to coach? He failed miserably, yet no one would argue that he is one of the greatest basketball players of all-time. The role of being a coach is different from being a player. Just like the role of being a manager is different from being a contributor. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of contributors who have what it takes to be a manager and I firmly believe that leadership can be taught; but, it is not for everyone and that should be ok.
So, what do you do? You can’t stop promoting from within your organization because you do not want employees to feel stagnate.
Here are some considerations:
How does a promotion impact your customers?
Think about how you show that you value your employees. Does everyone know how they contribute to the success of your business? What is their impact on your business?
Do a job analysis and consider job enrichment and/or enlargement versus simply promoting people into management. Few people want to do the exact same job each day, but it doesn’t mean the only way to change that is through promotion.
Consider a pay-for-performance compensation plan as many people want and take a management position simply because it pays more.
Ask employees how they feel about their contributions and their role within your organization.
There was a time in my career when I would have ranked advancement as the most important part of my job. As I have matured in my career, I value the impact I can have on an organization. It didn’t come naturally and it took a lot of work. I now chuckle a bit when I hear titles dropped in conversations. My current title will not raise the eyebrows that my CEO title once did, but I can tell you confidently that I would have a much larger impact on your organization today than I would have six years ago.
In HR consulting, often I hear leaders say that team building is great—but they just don’t have time.
When I drill down, the assumption I find is that team building needs to take hours—even days—to be effective. In reality it is the value of consistent team building that has the greatest impact rather than the amount of time spent.
Give yourself a break! Team building can be done in 15 minutes or less! To make it most effective decide on what message(s) you want your team building to convey and center your activities around that message. Consider the following examples:
Message: Value the unique contributions of each person within the team.
Team Exercise One:
Have each team member take a piece of paper and write their name at the top. Pass the paper clockwise and when they get someone else’s paper, they should write one thing they value about that person. Continue passing the papers until each person has their own paper back. Have team members take turns reading their paper out loud. Finally, close the exercise by encouraging team members to keep this paper handy when they need to remember what their team values in them. This exercise not only builds the esteem of each person, but reminds everyone to think about what they value in each other.
Team Exercise Two:
Prior to the meeting, have each team member map out the core responsibilities of their job and identify what other roles on the team are impacted by each responsibility. In the meeting, have team members pair up and give them three minutes to share their maps with their partner. Do four rounds of this and then come back and debrief by explaining that nothing we do is in a vacuum. Encourage them to get with each other before the next meeting and add more detail to their maps. Managers could have many uses for these maps; yet, the primary goal is to get the team thinking about how what they do impacts others on the team.
What quick and effective team building ideas do you use? Please share!
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
Recently, I signed up to participate in a three-and-half-hour workshop. The workshop flyer described interaction and conversation facilitated by the author of a book I recently read; I was excited to share the many questions that had come to me as I worked through the book and discuss thoughts and ideas with other participants.
As I entered the room where the workshop was to take place, I appreciated the seating arrangement—a large circle of 25 chairs—as it was perfect for group dialogue.
Right on time, the author began with a story that quickly drew in the audience. He was still talking one hour and 15 minutes later when someone interrupted him and asked if we could take a quick break. After the break, we returned to the circle and he continued to talk for the remainder of the “workshop.” At the conclusion of his talk, he hurriedly took a couple of questions as participants were preparing to leave. I scrambled to review the questions I had brought with me, and yet, they no longer felt appropriate.
I found value in the content of the author’s message but it was not at all what I had expected. Had I planned to attend a lecture, my preparation would have been very different.
Andrea Moore facilitating a workshop
This experience was a great reminder to me of the importance of appropriately describing and marketing your event, whether it be a training session, workshop, presentation, or lecture. In our work at FlashPoint, we try to be descriptive of what we are doing. Here are two examples from the events page on our website:
Jeremy King will present “Dealing with Difficult People”…
Tell participants in advance what they can expect. They are much better prepared and engaged when they know what it is they are attending.
Andrea Moore is a Senior Consulting Manager at FlashPoint; Andrea focuses on leadership development, training and performance improvement solutions, and one-on-one coaching.
I recently read an article in a mainstream magazine that took me on quite an emotional adventure. The piece offered tips to job seekers from a human resource professional’s perspective. I laughed (mostly at the Dilbert cartoons), I agreed, but mostly I got mad. The last thing we need in the HR profession, which is already sometimes misunderstood, is a popular publication creating content that reinforces negative HR stereotypes and, in some cases, gives wrong information. Here’s a synopsis of my journey through the article.
I laughed. . . .
A cartoon depicts a horn-haired boss asking his secretary to interview a job candidate. The secretary asks the candidate why he left his last job. After replying that he left because he punched his boss, the secretary promptly recommends the candidate for the job.
I agreed. . . .
The article provides good pointers for job seekers. For example, it advises them to research the organization before they go to interview. It’s frustrating when candidates ask me to tell them about our business. I’ve been tempted to give them 10 minutes alone with our website and then resume the interview. I also agree with the author that having your mother call to renegotiate your job offer is a bad idea.
I got mad. . . .
There is so much wrong with this quote from the article that I don’t know where to begin: “If you’re put on a performance improvement plan, you’re cooked. I might look you in the eye and say we’re going to do everything possible to make this work, but that’s just total BS.”As an organizational development (OD) consultant, this counters what I witness from HR professionals every day. Another quote nearly broke my OD heart: “All those boring training things? We think they’re boring too.” Really? Perhaps there’s something lacking with the trainer or the training content.
Information such as this is unhelpful and perpetuates negative images of the “HR person upstairs.” It reminds me that we have a long way to go as HR professionals in establishing our role as valued members of the leadership team. We know that we can provide great value to employees and can impact our company’s bottom line. We need to get that message across. I can’t wait to see an article published in a mainstream magazine that portrays us as progressive thought leaders. It’s time to get some good PR for HR!
I’m eager to hear what you think. Do you agree with my frustration and/or do you have ideas for changing the negative perception of HR professionals?
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
We’ve previously defined the corporate university (click here to read the blog post “Defining Your Corporate University”) and with this clarity and consensus in mind, we are ready to get started.
Source: Adapted from Jansink, F. (2005). The knowledge-productive corporate university. Journal of European Industrial Learning, 29(1), 40-57.
So, you’d like to start a Corporate University. Great! I don’t think you’ll regret your decision to do so; but, before we talk about all the great outcomes that a university can provide, let’s take a step back and define a “corporate university.”
I recently came across a couple of articles published by the Society for Human Resource Management, both with the same theme—how performance reviews are ineffective and put organizations at risk (rather than offering legal protection, as most people think). The articles, both written by employment attorneys, highlight the following flaws: 
One of my favorite commercials is from Monster.com where a child states, “I wanna claw my way up to middle management.” I remember the first time I became an assistant manager. I was so excited to send my new business cards to my whole family (even though they live in Colorado and couldn’t do business with me) and I readily gave one to anyone who would take one. We all love the American success story about the person who started in the mail room and worked his way up to CEO—what a great story. Everyone should strive to accomplish that, right?
In HR consulting, often I hear leaders say that team building is great—but they just don’t have time.
