The Manager’s Role in Learning
Learnings from the AITD 2015 Conference
I literally dived in and out of the AITD annual national conference yesterday at Sydney’s Technology Park. Although my visit was brief there was a real buzz in the air to the quality of the presentations and the way perceptions were being challenged.
The implications of changing demographics in the workforce, mobilisation of learning, neuroplasticity and socialisation of learning were hot topics.
Of course my favourite discussion was the one I took part in on the main stage with Peter Hall from QBE Insurance, Stephanie Peskett from Unilever and Liz Quinn from the APSC.
Marina Harper from Salesforce did a terrific job of keeping us all on track as we traversed the role of the manager in learning.
Everyone on the panel shared wins and challenges. Peter raised the question ‘shouldn’t we be focusing on the participant’s role in learning?’ Liz recounted her own experiences balancing the role of the manager within the APSC, where they wear the hats of both capability assessor through performance reviews and also coach/mentor, where they are required to remain non-judgemental and allow their staff members to work things out for themselves. It’s not an easy task to navigate the two.
Stephanie from Unilever shared some great examples of initiatives that they use within their leadership development programs to ensure change and business outcomes. They involve the managers in a three-way conversation at the beginning and end of the overall program between face-to-face modules in the classroom. To achieve behavioural change coaching was outsourced to a third party provider. Liz cited the quality of coaching and recognised current demands on the management population as a reason for utilising expertise outside of the organisation. I shared the view that many of our clients did the same.
Great questions were raised from the audience asking how we managed the challenge of managers feeling vulnerable in the coaching process when they don’t have the expertise of the people they were coaching.
I of course stressed that for true coaching and behavioural change to be effective it’s easier NOT to be the content expert, as that lends itself to giving advice. Although, as Peter and Liz confirmed, it’s hard for a manager to put themselves in that position of vulnerability.
If you see it as the manager’s role in learning to have the follow up conversations then let’s support them, let’s give them tools, let’s help them create time – it’s all possible and it’s necessary if we are going to see the true value from learning.
It was great to be part of the learning and conversation at the AITD conference. Thanks to Elizabeth Robinson and team at the AITD for creating such a rich learning forum.
Photo credit to @blairrorani with his fantastic visual note taking.