Charleen Allen, Director, Global Learning & Development, Baker Hughes, summarized her company's highly successful implementation of a Sales Leadership Program as part of a culture change initiative. Participants left the program with two assigned goals that required them to practice specific new skills and knowledge on the job. Both the practice of assigning the goals and the use of Friday5s to ensure follow-through helped contribute to the outstanding success of this initiative as evidenced by improved business results and demand for more training by the business units.

Michael Echols, Ph.D., Executive VP, Bellevue University Strategic Initiatives, presented new ways to think about and manage human capital investment. He pointed out that what companies typically refer to as their "most important asset" (their people) is treated as an intangible asset. Human capital, therefore, does not appear on a traditional balance sheet; training is treated as a current expenditure rather than an investment, even though effective programs generate a return over many years. Find details in his book, Creating Value with Human Capital Investment.

Bruce Carlson, CEO and President of GRID International, shared insights on the dilemma of organizational change. He explained that for a new strategy to work in the long term, the culture of the organization must be changed. People inside the organization must be engaged in investigating and solving the problems that directly affect them. GRID's Power to Change process, which includes follow-through management, provides people with greater ownership and commitment to their own solutions, increased confidence in themselves, and in their organization's ability to transform and grow. In short, Bruce concluded, "Change is an inside job."

Ben Pratt, Senior VP of Market Based Management LLC (MBM), a Koch Industries company, explained how Koch companies use MBM to create business success in general and how Friday5s is used to support the application of learning in "MBM for Supervisors" sessions at Georgia-Pacific.

MBM is a management philosophy that enables organizations to succeed long term by applying those principles that allow a free society to prosper. Throughout history, free societies have proven to be vastly more successful at raising the wealth and quality of living than centrally controlled societies. Charles Koch, CEO and Chairman of Koch Industries, wondered what it might look like to pattern a business more like a free society. The answer to that question eventually crystallized into a unique management philosophy that he named MBM.

Pratt began by showing stunning examples and sharing unforgettable stories of what happens when free society principles are in play and when they are not. He then shared data on how Friday5s is used in MBM leadership development.

"Friday5s has been a very useful tool in helping us achieve sustainable change in management behaviors," Pratt said. "Cal [Wick] and his staff [at Fort Hill Company] helped us move beyond event-based training to focus more on driving real behavior change - and I think both of us learned a lot in the process."

Bill Ward, Cisco Systems Senior Director, Workplace Resources, European and Emerging Markets, working with Sherri Cannon, The Cannon Group, shared their approach to integrating follow-through with Fierce Conversations^®. Goals of this program included fostering a culture of truth, cultivating agility in decision-making, and retaining and developing the best and brightest talent. A critical challenge is motivating participants to continue to practice their new skills. The solution includes steps taken before, during, and after the workshop. For example, the course was always referred to as a 10-week learning process, rather than a 2-day course. In addition to follow-through with Friday5s, participants received both live calls and voicemail messages encouraging them to practice their skills and update their progress.

The two-day summit also included presentations by Judith Blair and Nancy Maresh, partners of Brains at Work, who woke up the group's brains with their lively activities and their explanations of how to apply research on brains and learning to the way we teach. Examples of Fort Hill Company's new partnership with 50Lessons, were shown. 50Lessons uses the power of stories - as told by many of the world's most respected business leaders - to teach and inform.

"Coming attractions" included previews of Fort Hill Company's new book, Getting Your Money's Worth from Training and Development: A Guide to Breakthrough Learning, which will be released by Pfeiffer in January, and a new version of Fort Hill Company's technology suite that will provide even greater functionality.

Learning Alert™ is sponsored by:

Copyright © 2008 Fort Hill Company, all rights reserved