Optimising The E-Learning Experience
By: Staff Journalist, Singapore
Published: 1 hour 51 min ago
E-LEARNING TRAINING

Singapore – Many companies are jumping on the bandwagon to implement online training programmes for their employees but the question of whether this modern means of coaching has optimised learning remains.

Oh really? Whose question is that. On the bright side, the rest of the article is good, but then they are quoting someone who knows what they are talking about.

So ignore the headline and read the rest of the article here.

Actually I think hundreds would be more logical for that amount.

Sorry Sir. We have run out of hundreds.

(me saying all the predictable things about banks and money etc)

(counter staff reluctantly turns to next colleague and asks. Got any hundreds? Sure. Says colleague and produces them. )

Ah, says I. So when you said WE have run out, you meant to say: I CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO HELP YOU MR CUSTOMER

The best bit is after watching the duty supervisor become extremely busy elsewhere as this discussion moved on, I asked for a customer feedback form. The form ends with the reassurance , and I quote
“You can be assured that your feedback will be kept in the strictest confidence”

I guess that means they will make damn sure no one inside or outside the bank will ever know I had a problem.

Let’s wait and see.
Oh and what does this have to do with leadership? Well I’m not going to put the staff members name on the feedback form. Not relevant I think, as people tend to behave according to the actual culture of the organisation, and the example of their leaders.

– Posted From My iPhone

It is not to be the expert. It is not to be the problem solver.

The true purpose of being a leader is to get results though others. In order to do this you have to develop your direct reports. Develop their skills, their expertise, their potential. Develop people to replace you, for only then can you move up to the next level.

I believe your focus as a leader should be on turning your team structure into a leadership factory. The end game is to develop people who can take over from you.

Think about it logically. To develop people for the next level you must first ensure they are expert at their current level. You should eliminate their problems by identifying what they need to learn, and providing the knowledge or training. You should coach them on putting that learning into practice and becoming expert at doing their jobs.

This will result in them achieving their goals and KPIs. As a leader you are now starting to achieve results through others.

Then you should focus on identifying where they go next, what are their aspirations,? what do they need to learn in order to be of greater use to the organisation?

Just think about how often organisations recruit middle managers from outside. Think about the “War for Talent”. The constant battle to attract people in from other organisations. When you focus on becoming a Leadership factory, you automatically get the performance on the current job, and release your organisation from the pressure of finding talent to lead and support growth.

I have global clients who complain there are locations in the world where they would like a presence and cannot open operations. Not for a want of workers or resources, but simply because they do not have the talent available to go in and manage, or lead the operations.

So ask yourself; what are you doing to develop your team and grow the next generation of leaders?

Before we go there, and, I would like to address the most common time issue for managers. That of being the expert, the Problem Solver.

Traditionally, managers see themselves as being promoted based on being the best at what they did before. They are the expert, the guru, the provider of all answers. That is a lot of pressure, and not always true. And staff get in the habit of seeing things that way and instead of thinking for themselves, the knee jerk reaction when a problem arises is to rush to the boss and ask “What shall we do?”

Absolutely no thinking going on there. Imagine a manager with ten direct reports. Each has one problem per day. When does the manager have time to do anything except problem solve?

Oh yes, and have you noticed how these problems often occur, or at least get reported, near the end of the day? The manager sighs deeply, says “Leave it with me” then calls his or her long suffering spouse to announce another late night at work.

There is a principle, which actually comes from the military, called “Completed Staff Work”.

It goes like this: In the military command chain, no-one is allowed to go to their superior officer with a problem. They have to go with three things; a full an concise analysis of the situation, at least three options of the way forward or solution, and a recommendation of the one they have chosen.

They are then, in effect, then drawing on the skills and experience of their superior by simply asking, “Is there anything I have missed?”.

The senior officer then simply has to listen to them and either approve their decision, or raise a question in any area their experience tells them something is missing.

Imagine how little time this takes. And imagine how quickly the staff develop their problem solving skills and deepen their knowledge. The motivating factor for this, is that in battle everyone down to the lowest in the chain of command must have the potential to take over when his senior gets shot. No chance there to email back to HQ for answers.

Imagine the extra time for you as a strategic leader when your people do the thinking and problem solving.

Imagine the power of agility your organisation would have if everyone could do this.

– Post From My iPhone

So lets clarify that one first: Management is the role, leadership is the style. Anyone who has people reporting to them is a manager, and should behave as a leader. As I said in the first session, you can behave as a leader without having any direct reports in the traditional sense.

Before we dig into the common issue and challenges faced by leaders, I would like to have a shot at inspiring you to do things differently. Lets look for a moment at Values.

There are Personal Values, Corporate Values and Work values. We’ll ignore the first two for a while, and look at work values. In workshops with clients I often find that these get confused with personal values.

By work values, it would be more accurate to say “the work we value in our current position”.

The significant thing that should change for people when they move into a leadership position is the Work they Value. In other words, the things they concentrate on doing. You need to recognise that you should now focus on, and therefore value, getting results through others.

This can be a challenge, as most people get promoted into the management role based on their expertise and results as an individual contributor.

It’s hard to let go of your expertise; the very thing that brought your success, and embark on doing the thing you are not familiar with, that of developing others.

Your role as a leader is to develop others. To pass on your expertise and build high performing teams, then to ensure that there is the potential in that team to replace you. Remember, Nature and Organisations abhor vacuum, so you cannot move on unless you can replace yourself.

As a leader you should spend your time in three main areas:
First, leading, coaching and developing your team; Second, connecting your team to the rest of the organisation, and third; Doing nothing.

Yes that is what I said. Doing Nothing. The most common issue managers come to me with when I coach them is that of not having enough time. It is often because they are clinging to the individual expertise of their previous role and being the great problem solver for their people.

By “doing nothing” what I really mean is having the time to stop and think. Think strategically. It is what the organisation needs and expects from you as a leader. How can you do that, if every minute of your day is occupied with tasks and problem solving?

Redefining how you think about leadership, and then taking new action, can be one of the most significant things you can do to transform your organisation.

Leadership is not about position or power. Leadership is a state of Being. You can BE a leader in anything you do; and in many organisations today, faced with Matrix reporting structures, flatter hierarchies and Virtual Teams, people often have to lead others in an environment where they do not have any traditional authority.

As we move through this series we will look at the scientific basis of so-called “soft skills” and maybe offer a different understanding of how things work.

In a recent book, Leadership and Self Deception, the authors took a position that the root of all things going wrong in organisations has it’s root in how YOU, regardless of who you are, see and relate to others.

An interesting dilemma in life is that you cannot change anyone, except yourself. Yet when you change yourself, others change.

The answer to this lies in Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion. Law 3 states (in simple terms) that action and reaction are equal and opposite.

So when you change yourself, others must react differently to the way you are being.

In Leadership & Self Deception it is posited that we react to the way we see others. We validate ourselves and our beliefs by behaving in accordance we how we see them. This in itself perpetuates their behaviour. So in relation to us, we inhibit any change in them.

Newton’s 1st law of motion says, “things keep doing what they are doing”. As Einstein put it “keep doing the same thing the same way, and expecting a different result; that’s the definition of stupidity.”

So if you can only change yourself, and you want things around you to be different, what do you need to change about you? What are the assumptions, judgments and beliefs you hold about those around you?

Ask yourself: “What if, I am wrong?”

How would things be then?