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This podcast offers business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for lean process improvement and implement continuous improvement projects, cost reductions, product quality enhancements, and process effectiveness improvement. Listeners come from many industries in both manufacturing and office applications.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 0:04
You know, why do so many training programs fail to deliver?
Nadia Golenkova 0:07
Because if you break down the journey, if you go, Oh, we're going from, you know, from this type of organization and chaotic organization to a lean, structured organization. We're going to do that in five years, and we're never going to stop and smell the roses. That's bound to failure as an organization. We've got strategies, we've got goals, we've got directions that we want to go into. That's the journey we've got to take, you know, to go from I just need training full stop to defining specifically a capability or skill sets or knowledge that are actually going to, you know, put their finger on the scale in terms of delivering performance and delivering impact. G'day,
Andy Olrich 0:52
everyone and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast. I'm your co host, Andy Ulrich, and I'm also joined by the wonderful Shane dauphinbaugh, how you going?
Shayne Daughenbaugh 1:00
Shane? Good. Thank you, sir. I am going well, or I am doing well, let's say, let's say it that way. How about yourself?
Andy Olrich 1:07
Yeah, both is fine, yeah. Going, great, mate. Going, great. What's, what's the weather like? Up, where you are in that part of the
Shayne Daughenbaugh 1:12
world, you know, it's melt your face off hot. That kind of thing a little different than what it is down, where you're at. But I am super excited while, while we're here on together to talk real quick, that we will be in the same place and time, same place, same time zone and everything just coming up at the middle to end of September. Those of you that haven't heard about it, the lean solutions, global lean Summit is coming up September. What is it? 22 to 2523
Andy Olrich 1:40
25 to 25 mate, yeah, yeah.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 1:45
We're super excited to be together again. You'll be able to see us. We may be doing some kind of a podcast live there. I'm not sure exactly how that's going to go, but we'd love for you to join us there. Okay, anyway, what else did you want to talk about today?
Andy Olrich 1:57
Andy, you said it's melt your face off hot. I mean, it's not here, it's windy and cold and raining, but I know you work hard, but you play hard. And there's always this link around games and things that we get gamification and around learning. But tell me what you've been up to, because you told me a cool story just before you jumped on here. And I think it connects
Shayne Daughenbaugh 2:17
in Well, I mean, it's, I have to admit that I'm a little bit of a nerd in that. Yeah, I do play video games as an adult. It sounds weird to say out loud, especially being recorded, but there's a game that I'm playing right now that's taking up way too much time because of how I play. And I play very slowly. I play grinding, which means I just do the mundane tasks over and over again. And it's funny that the story that I was telling you earlier was how I used that mentality of grinding to do yard work and something mundane and things that I really didn't want to do. I just approached it like I would approach like I approached the game, and just grind my way through it, learning new skills along the way. But what I find really interesting is I just read an article about today's by today's guest, about gamification and and I am very excited to have Nadia golenkova, right, that I do that, right? Okay, I always panic. Wait, what I have to say the name. So those of you that believe we're all professional on here, we're just people. We panic at times, but, but I just read an article on LinkedIn about gamification and grinding, gaming and learning. And in the age of AI and I, we encourage you to go and look Nadia up on LinkedIn. But as I'm super excited about this, because I want to hear more about learning opportunities and how we can use learning in a way that actually benefits the company more than just transfer of information. So let me tell you about Nadia golenkova. Nadia has over 18 years of experience in leading corporate people functions and lecturing for top executive, top tier executive, MBA programs, Nadia stands out as a credible executive partner specializing in helping organizations build impactful learning capability, people and OD strategies, strategy. Did I say that right strategies that deliver measurable and commercial results? Nadia has guided businesses through several cultural and capability transformations, and is well known for developing inspiring leaders across the front line as well as in the executive suites, recognized nationally and internationally. She's an award winning innovation champion, renowned for her drive creativity, resourcefulness and curiosity and as a certified coach, Nadia's distinctive presence encourages deep insights, reflection and actionable accountability. Now to use enduring passion is sharing ideas that help people and organizations achieve moments of clarity that truly unlock potential. So with that. It. Nadia, welcome to the show.
Nadia Golenkova 5:02
Hello guys. Get a handy Hi, Shane. What an intro. All right. So much. Thank you, Shane, great to be here.
Andy Olrich 5:14
We're so happy to have you here. And I will disclose to a listening audience, we've got someone on from our end of the world. So Nadia is in Australia, so it's great to have you on and we're just so thrilled, like we've got your credentials there. We're going to share a heap more about Nadia in the show notes, where to find her things after so check it out. It's super impressive. So yeah, today our topic is building capability that sticks, turning training into tangible ROI. So anyone who listens to this podcast, or if you're listening for the first time, we do really come in about culture capability learning. It's not just about the tools and and the push down right? So Nadia is, as you heard, is an expert in this field, and we're really, really thrilled to have you here. So Nadia, how's things been going for you?
Nadia Golenkova 6:04
Oh, look, going real well. Andy and Shane, you know, we were talking earlier, so we connected a bit on both being so maybe slightly nerdy and definitely in the gamer space. And I have now put my very much nerd credentials out in public, which I totally understand. It feels, feels a little vulnerable, right? If you talk to me for 30 seconds, you'll know that that's you know, nothing else could possibly be true. So I'm doing real well. Andy, I'm, I'm excited to talk about all things capability. It's my absolute number one favorite nerd area to get really deep into
Andy Olrich 6:40
excellent so happy to have you here. And then look, yeah, there's when we talk about nerds. It's, it's at a certain thing. So I go the nerds. I get told I'm a nerd all the time as well. So let's, let's do this one for the nerds who are absolutely fundamental to creating great cultures. So you said, so we've talked a bit capability strategy is key to return on investment, so that might be a little bit different for some some organizations, smaller or medium capability strategy. Can you help us understand what that looks like, not only on paper, but in practice? Yeah, yeah.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 7:17
Define that for us, because our listening audience, some may not know what. They may not have put those two words together before capability and strategy. But to put them together, what's that mean to you?
Nadia Golenkova 7:28
Yeah, absolutely. Um, maybe I can. It might be easier to start with maybe a little bit of a contrast, and just a contrast from from my real life and from the real life of, you know, mostly any person that has worked in my space you know, for a period of time, and that is, you might get a call you know, you're, you're at your desk, or you know you're, you're going about your day. And you might get a call from, you know, from a leader that that you're working with. And the call goes something like this, Hey, Nadia, great. Talk to you. I've got a problem. I need your help. I need some training for my team. And you go, yeah, cool, great. I'd love to help you. What sort of training are we talking about? Oh, just training. I think I just need some training. Thanks. Like, could you do that for me? Yeah, yeah, no, I totally can what kind of training, what specifically? Oh, I think just everything I feel like, just the team, just really needs some training. Like, I feel like, you know, like in, in, you know, in, in skills and in, you know, things that they'd be able to do just to make them, you know, like better. I just feel like we need, just feel like we need some training. Do you think you can help me with that? Now, I can't tell you the number of times in my career I've had this conversation, but it's it's got lots and lots of zeros behind it, right? And I love those types of calls. They're my favorite types of calls, because what that's telling me is you've got a leader who's really wants to invest in their people, and who, who kind of gets it and understands that, you know, in order to to build performance and to do what they you know, what they're trying to do, they need to kind of have this, the abilities, the skills, the knowledge in their team, right? And they want to empower their people. So I love those calls. On the flip side, that's the journey we've got to take, you know, to go from I just need training full stop to defining specifically a capability or skill sets or knowledge that are actually going to, you know, put their finger on the scale in terms of delivering performance and delivering impact. So capability is, I don't know how we are with with Australian vernacular in this podcast, Andy, but feel free to cut this. But in how I usually talk about this, an organization's capability is a bit of a wanky word, right? Like nobody likes
Andy Olrich 9:53
it's really, I think that word transcends across a few cultures. I think same. You want to give us a check.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 9:59
I. I think, I think I get it. I think I understand it. Yeah, you
Nadia Golenkova 10:04
get it right. Like, and so, you know, people go like, Oh, you're a capability strategy. What that? What does that mean? And really, at the core of it, it's actually, let's define specifically what the ability skills, knowledge are people need to do their best, to perform their best, and not just their best in whatever, but they're best in the areas that we actually need help with. So if, as an organization, we've got strategies, we've got goals, we've got directions that we want to go into, and guess what? It's only our people that are going to take us there, right? Yes, there's capital, yes, there's process, yes, there's all of this infrastructure, and that's incredibly important to align. And there's a strategic piece there too, but at the end of the day, it's going to be our people that are going to drive that right. So treating the skill set, the mindset, the abilities of our people, with a strategic lens, that's really what capability strategy is all around
Shayne Daughenbaugh 10:58
so and thank you for that, for giving, you know, a more framework around those words you know. So, not so much just about, hey, training the people, but investing in them that in a way that is defined and strategized around skills that do their best in a specific area or for a specific need. So as simple as that sounds, as you made that sound, you know, why does so many training programs fail to deliver on this, you know what? And how can organizations avoid this trap of, hey, we just want to train because that's what we hear. Is really good for our people, and we want to invest in our people, but, you know, it's, how do you help walk, you know, executives and organizations through that?
Nadia Golenkova 11:50
Yeah, look, there's a couple of things that can get in the way with that, because, as I said, you know that phone call, fundamentally is, you know, is a beautiful thing, right? But there's lots of different derailleurs here. That's, you know, that can take us off track if we if, potentially, if we don't have the knowledge or we don't have the support. So the first part of that is, there's a lot of organizations treat capability and treat knowledge and learning as a reactionary aspect, right? So, hey, we've got a, you know, we've got a problem we've just noticed, you know, in performance, it must be a knowledge problem, or it must be a skill problem, right? Without necessarily going deeper and maybe doing some root cause analysis, right? I'm sure something that you know, that you guys are well familiar with, right, to understand what is actually deeper The problem here is, is the right skill set the solution? Or is it something to do with, you know, perhaps the process. Is it perhaps to do with leadership? Is it perhaps to do with other areas? Right? So often, you won't necessarily get an ROI if you treat learning and development as a reactionary tool of I just, you know, I've got a problem. I don't have a particular interest in figuring out what that problem actually is. I just need somebody else to come in and fix it for me. And if that's a training course, then, you know, all good, right? So that very rarely works, and I'm sure you know, you have experienced it yourself. I've certainly experienced it myself in various parts of my career, right? So, so that's one piece. The other piece that's, you know, aligned, but not exactly the same, is thinking about capability of your people in really short term, short term kind of positions. So, you know, maybe you've got a new person that started, and really it's about, I just want to onboard this person as quickly as I possibly can into my team so they can start being productive and doing, you know the tasks and routines that you know that I need them to perform, that's that's great to think through, and that's really important. And in fact, onboarding is often the bottleneck and capability in most organizations, right? But, but that's pretty much a short term view. We go we just want to get this person you know to to baseline productivity really soon, right? The long term view around capability, and when you get real return on investment, right? Is when you're thinking about, what do I want this person to do, and not just this person, what do I want people in this organization to be able to do, and to be able to drive long term that will take me in the direction that I want to go. So if I'm a, to give you an example, if I'm an, let's say I'm a manufacturing organization. I spent a big part of my career in manufacturing, and I want reliability as to be, it to be one of my, you know, core offerings and promises to my customers, right? That I'm reliable, that what I manufacture is reliable, what I deliver and produce for you is reliable, that it gets there to you in reliable way. So this you're selling, you know, this reliability. And that's part of your, you know, that's part of your strategic direction. Strategic direction, your core capabilities. You need to take a long term view of what capabilities actually drive reliability, the mindset, the knowledge, the skills that are all packaged up in reliability for you, and that becomes your organizational capability. Now. Now that might be operational excellence, that might be, you know, root cause analysis, that might be all sorts of things around it. So the long term view, not just for the person which is important, but also the long term view for the for the organization as well. So that reactionary versus long term, you know, aspect is, is important. And probably the last thing that I would say is, you know, the questions around, how do we, you know, get ROI and how do we, how do we get impact from from our learning investments? So one, you know, not make it reactionary to a long term alignment with the goals of the business or the organization, but three, is measurable, and that's a piece where I find a lot of learning programs can can really fall away, particularly if you're treating them as a short term reactionary measure, right? Because then you're not necessarily thinking about, how am I actually going to measure whether we've created a shift in behavior, we've created a shift in mindset, we've created a shift in performance based on the capabilities that we've defined. So in our example, if reliability is, you know, our goal and operational excellence is the is the core capability we want to drive for our people before we start designing or delivering, you know, training programs or mentoring programs or whatever it is, we actually have to build the infrastructure for how we measure and how we isolate what we're going to measure and then measuring that before and after, because if you don't benchmark straight away, you're not going to be able to show ROI ever. So that's three things.
Shayne Daughenbaugh 16:32
So are you saying with with that last one there really appreciate that. Are you saying that it's is setting up the framework for measuring something that happens even before you start strategizing like we want to know how whatever training we're going to do, we want to how we're going to measure it. Once we understand that, okay, now, what training is going to move us forward? What training is going to give us capabilities? You know what training is is here for the long term? Yeah, but starts with, what I'm hearing you say is, it starts with figuring out, Hey, how are we going to measure the impact of this? First like that. That's that's interesting to me. I think that that switches some things around in some
Nadia Golenkova 17:14
thinking. To give you an example, so an organization I worked with went through a Lean culture transformation, right? And a really big part of that capability journey for us was actually to go, okay. We we intentionally want to go on a Lean journey. We want to go on this transformation. How will we know that we're actually there and that we're that we're doing okay right now? From a lean perspective. I know there's all sorts of, you know, lean, you know, life cycle, you know, measures and scorecards and all of those sorts of things, and they're really important. But for me, as the as the head of capability in that, in that role, I was thinking, Okay, we're going to be launching, you know, yellow belt and Green Belt programs. We're going to be, you know, incorporating, you know, lean into our leadership programs and other you know, components, what are the sorts of things that we need to measure before from a Learning and Skills perspective, and what are the things that we need to measure after? And they should, ideally, they should be the same things, right? So that I can demonstrate that what myself and my team created and delivered and help the organization build, actually materially moved that dial. So whether that's, you know, maybe that's knowledge with regards to Lean principles, maybe that's behavior in terms of, you know, how many, how many huddles you know, are happening, maybe that that's some kind of measure within the team. So we, when we did our, you know, yellow belt and Green Belt programs, we measured, you know, improvement rates within teams, you know, three weeks before and then three to six weeks after, and in various measurable stages. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that learning is the only thing that can would contribute to those things, but you can absolutely make a line for it if all, if all the numbers go up, you can make an educated, you know, kind of guess and go, Yeah, I think this has been a contributor.
Andy Olrich 19:05
Yeah, yeah. So true. And such a challenge, right? I'm, I don't know how walk back. I had so many things that you've said there that really resonated. My little antennas are kind of melting, right? Because one of the things that I did find is a bit of a challenge. Was some people saying, I want more training, or I'm going to leave, right? You don't train me enough. And I've kind of felt that way in other roles in the past, and then the lead would say, Yeah, but what for? Like, what? What do you want to do this training on if it's just one person doing one course, just to keep them happy, as opposed to, like, you said, we've got this strategic challenge or goal that we've now got the baselining, like, where we're going to train people, and all these things you might have just, you might have, they might have already been trained that two years ago and and it's kind of living in the organization, having that strategic approach to the training and putting some measures on it. Yeah, that I've had a program where you're kind of that was looked upon. Our Summers is like, Oh, this is all just kind of whatever, smoke and mirrors. I don't see the link, right, but we put some hard numbers around it and took the time to set it up. The other bit that I love about what you're saying, Nadia, and you've lived and breathed it, right, is, we had Billy Ray Taylor on not that long ago, and he was talking he one of the things I remember from him saying was about when times get tough or we don't hit our financial targets. For example, that's it. No more off sites, no catering, no more training, right? It also, I found that strategic link, and it's in the strategy, and we've got a plan is, if times do get tough, it doesn't just get turned like, kicked off as, oh, okay, we're going to save money. It's like, hang on. This is where it fits. So I won't go on anymore, because I think, you know, it's just amazing. And I really think this is hitting a lot of people between the eyes who have either like a CI professional who's been connected to the learning and development team, so frustrating, because everybody wants training all the time and try to schedule, it's like, hang on, but which first, which next. And, you know, what kind of did that, and get to get anything out of it.
Nadia Golenkova 21:05
Yeah, Andy, can I just pick up on something that you said? Because it's, there's, there's a passion area here for me that I, you know, that I really, really believe in. And, you know, I've been through a couple of economic cycles, and in my career, as we all have, right? You know, sure we remember those. And that's very true. It's, it's part of a, you know, kind of nature in my industry that you know when, when budgets get tied and when the market turns, you know, things kind of contract and so on. And this is the reason that I'm so passionate about this space. Because A, not only do you protect, you know, can you protect capability as a strategic imperative, when you think about it that way, because, let's face it, it actually really is what's going to get you out of that, you know, economic downturn, that's the ability of your people to respond and react, right? But the other part to it, which I which I hadn't talked about yet, is the reason it's for me, I think it's so important for organizations to do this work, is because you end up owning the strategic capability of your people yourselves. If you take this kind of reactionary or off the shelf approach, and you go, I just need, I need some lean training for my people, for example. Or I need some negotiation training for my, you know, for my sales folks, or whatever it might be, right? And you call an external provider and you go, can I just buy an off the shelf program? And all they do is they just take the last client's logo off the top page and they slap your logo on the page, and they train your folks in it. That's fine. There may be very much some some learning transfer. I'm not at all, you know, kind of sledging, you know, outstanding providers out there. But what it is is you're not actually owning what's unique to your organization and unique to your people. So naturally, when you become reliant on these sorts of initiatives where you where you're going, Well, every year, we pay, you know, Bob, to come in and train our sales folks. When budgets get tight, all of a sudden there's no more budget for Bob, right? When you've defined your strategic capability and you have built your learning ecosystem internally with the right providers externally, sometimes Absolutely, that's necessary, but for the capabilities that you own, where you go, Hey, we're a manufacturing company, and reliability, you know, is in our name, right? Is in our DNA. Nobody should own the learning IP for reliability, you know, except for you, right? Because that means you can sustain it and carry on forever, through through thick and thin and through hard times and softer times, right? So ownership of the right capabilities, of the strategic capabilities yourselves, ownership of that IP and ownership of the development of your people, so that it can be, you know, approached in the long term way, is really important. There are tons of things that you need to know, or that your people need to know as part of your as part of working for you. Not all of them are strategically relevant. And those are the things that absolutely you can outsource to an external provider, and that can, you know, flex and grow with you. Your the things that are part of your DNA, you've got to own that stuff
Andy Olrich 23:59
100% it's this is fantastic, Nadia, and as we drew the link into like, when? About, why do it? What? So what? Why is this important? With anything? We have a lot of guests that come and talk about lots of different things, but big part of it's around the change management or sticking with the plan. And it's like, yeah, what's in it for me? And that could be the worker who wants training just because they want some training and some stuff to be interesting, or the CEO that's like, I can see this number, and it's not moving the right way, and part of it is training. So you touched on, you touched on the Lean culture, right? So what have you seen in your experience around not only doing the training or launching the program, you've got the baseline measure. You've got the leadership on board and people excited. Now we've got to make this stuff, get it in and make it stick. What's some of the things you've seen to help with that? And now listeners can connect with.
Nadia Golenkova 25:02
It two things that come to mind for me. One is embedding your capabilities, you know, really broadly and as broadly as you can across a number of different areas. And the second one is around building what I like to call another wanky word, sorry guys, a learning ecosystem, right? Not just a, you know, a course catalog. So let me talk about each one of those, and maybe I'll start with the learning ecosystem, right? I think a lot of organizations naturally from, from really traditional ways of working approach things for learning as as a as a catalog, like as a menu, right? And honestly, full disclosure, I've been there, you know, in the beginning stages of my career, where I'm going, like, oh, we can just offer, like, tons of courses, either, you know, in our, you know, through our training department, or we can offer it through our learning management system. And there's 3000 you know, options out there, and it's a menu in a catalog, like in a in a big restaurant, and you can go and pick whatever you like, right? And that's good, but your learning culture and your learning ecosystem is not a menu, right? It's, it's more of a living, breathing thing where, and the idea that learning just happens in a course or happens via an online module is a bit outdated, right? And we know that learning actually happens, you know, in everyday situations and everyday opportunities that we have. So approaching it from a perspective of a menu or or a catalog is maybe a little misguided now that I, you know the that I'm working in this space and approaching it more like something that is interconnected, and living and breathing is important. So when we're talking about, you know, here, we've got this capability that we want to, you know, transition into our business. Let's say it's reliability again, for the sake of that example, it's not just the, you know, the the lean, you know, Greenbelt, course. What is the mentoring situation? What is the project situation? What is the skill utilization situation? What is the next level up situation? So to your example, Andy, you know, we've got an employee who might have been trained on it a year or two years ago, and nothing's happened since then. And they're like, Well, I went to this course, and I never used those skills, and now I don't really have them anymore, and I feel really dissatisfied, because I invested my time, right? And you invested your time, but we got nothing for it. So the ecosystem around it. So not just acquiring knowledge, but using knowledge, retaining knowledge and and and elevating that knowledge is part of the the entire kind of landscape that that we need to consider. The other piece that I find, and again, it's, maybe it's a related theme, is broadening the the offering of your you know of your core capability areas through lots of different channels, right? So one example for me, again, from from this manufacturing organization, is we, we went on a Lean journey. Lean capability was a was a core area that we wanted to embed. So guess what? Lean wasn't just something that we talked about for our manufacturing areas or our production areas or our delivery or warehousing areas. We went on a Lean journey with our sales team. We went on a Lean journey with our leadership team. So as the head of capability, the leadership program that I developed so we had multi tier leadership programs for, you know, first first time supervisors, middle managers and our executives, all of those programs, when they were built and designed, they were built and designed with a you know, lean capability lens. So that meant that those programs were unique to us, that I if I got them off the shelf from somebody else, we they wouldn't have been transferring, you know, kind of lean and those principles to leadership in the at the right level, in the same ways that we would have for our sales people, we trend. We gave them a lean mindset to sell with a lean purpose, or with a with a lean lens, as well. For our customer service teams, you know, the way that they did their job. So it's not necessarily just going in and doing giving them all a green belt, how you do how you do your job. We're teaching them how to do their job with that lean perspective. Is, was what made that cultural transformation really powerful and really impactful
Shayne Daughenbaugh 29:13
right in it, it makes me think of the article that I mentioned at the beginning about the gaming and and you mentioned something in there. I'd love if you can, if you're following with me as to as because I can't remember exactly, but it was about leveling up your people. You know is, is about that cultural transformation. You know that you mentioned, how do we level up our people? Not just, am I training Andy in this, but as an example? Am I giving him more responsibilities that he has to meet, that this skill will help him meet, and then continuing, continuing, if you have any more to add to that, I just I loved that, that part of your article,
Nadia Golenkova 29:51
yeah, absolutely. I think the thing that I love about games, right is that they are instantly engaging, right? Right? And there's a lot of mechanics that goes into that. There's a lot of really smart design and really smart thinking, and I think that that comes very much in parallel in designing really smart, engaging learning experiences and learning ecosystems and and that ties in with capability, right? Because what does a really great game do? A great game tells you initially, and first a great story doesn't have to be a complicated story, but a great story that you're connected with, right? Like, you know, you if you like mobile gaming, you know, Hey, would you like, do you want to pretend to be a homesteader? Like, that's a great story in your head, right? You know, do you we were talking about, we were talking about other games, right? So they give you a really great narrative and a really great story. That's what capabilities allow, allow you to do. If you can say, We're an organization, and this is what we deliver for our customers, and this is what makes us unique and true, right? These are our capabilities. That's a story you can tell our people, your people, and then when you say, we'd like to develop you in these areas, they naturally understand that they're a character in the story. Potential for them, they're the main character in the story, right? They're on this quest to do, you know, to develop the skill, and they understand what for and why, rather it being really disconnected. So that's a really important piece around storytelling, and that's what capabilities allow you to do. The other part to it is absolutely, you know, breaking down the experience. So it's really clear, what are my experience levels, right? You know, I'm starting on day one in this organization. But it's really clear where, where I'm going, and where the organization's going. What's my next level up? And how do I make an engaging experience to get from, you know, level one to level 20, where I'm the you know, where, where I'm facing, you know, the most, the toughest challenges that I can. And I'm ready, and I'm prepared for it.
Andy Olrich 31:47
It's such a slow, like some of this stuff, kind of puts people off because it's a slow burn, and especially if they don't kind of see that the numbers coming back through immediately, very challenging, especially for people trying to stand up a CI, a continuous improvement program. Yeah, we could do those things. Can we just do it without? Do they have to do a project to get their certification? Like, can we just, and, yeah, I know that's all great, but we just, can you just, can we just jump in and just get going and do some stuff? So there's, there's that real tension there around, yeah, it's like taking the time to sharpen the saw and using that training or that capability program to create that filter as well for Who are we going to select next for our leadership team, or things like, we've got to give them this do they step up? They've got the skills and they can step up, and that builds into their professional development plans. Whereas, yeah, I do see either we're going to train everyone and they're like, did this training last year. We do it every year, and sometimes the results get worse, right? Because it's just training for training sake, and that could be compliance or safety. But the other thing is like, yeah, if you want to truly know if your people can use those skills and deliver results for the business sooner rather than later, you've got to walk through that door like you said you could. And there's some great online stuff there, right? But this is part of an online learning resource, let's say, but Jesus, nothing like the real thing. And walking through that door yourself, and it's just so pleasing when the things have gone well for you. Nadia is, yeah, they had to actually have some structure, some measures, and they needed to do something with it to retain the skills. And yeah, let's get our money back, return on investment.
Nadia Golenkova 33:22
So absolutely and but that's also the the, I suppose the way to measure results quicker as well. Because if you break down the journey, if you go, Oh, we, we're, we're going from, you know, from from this type of organization and chaotic organization to a lean, structured organization. We're going to do that in five years, and we're never going to stop and smell the roses, you know, at any point in time. You guys know this better than I do. You know, but it that's bound to failure when you intentionally create, you know, learning levels and learning journeys in this way you stop and smell the roses really frequently you built in, you build in really frequent achievement stop stations and go, Oh, wow, I've just, I've just got that, you know, so you don't start with a massive transformation project. You start with a really small project in our in my example, you know, we, we did our certification program, and then within the space of two weeks or people needed to deliver something that was a lean improvement, and sometimes they were tiny, tiny things. But it doesn't matter from tiny things, big things come right? It created a sense of achievement. It created a sense of, Oh, I've actually used this skill set. It created a sense of excitement. You can do all sorts of culture, building things around it, in terms of celebrating it and and making it, you know, kind of sticky and powerful within the business. So I think, you know, I totally agree with you. If you, if you take too much of a long term view in this space, right, you'll lose momentum, and you'll lose your energy. So that's why building that kind of ecosystem and that gamified model, for me. Has been really effective,
Shayne Daughenbaugh 35:01
right, right? Because, because that's what, that's what keeps me going when I'm playing a game that is just dragging out. The reason why I keep, I stay on my phone is because there's little things, oh, hey, I got this badge, or, Oh, hey, you know, I won this little thing, or I beat this, or I beat that, or I got this skill, you know, and I get to choose how, where I want to go from here. But it's those things along the way that I totally see now, now that we're having this conversation, when I think about like I did a lot of work for the state of Nebraska here in the United States, and the training, as much as I loved our training, I see that we didn't have that part. We just kind of fell off like there wasn't that strategy of capabilities we knew we wanted to promote these capabilities, but we didn't strategize how we were going to do it. And we didn't have those check ins, those follow ups, those challenges, those those that expectation that after this, there is more and and now let's exercise that gift, and let's celebrate that exercising or that learning, you know, and let's celebrate that, and what's next, and how are you going to continue on your journey as the hero of the story?
Nadia Golenkova 36:09
Yeah, exactly, exactly, right. I love that,
Shayne Daughenbaugh 36:12
man. I'm jazzed about this. I'm geeking out here.
Andy Olrich 36:16
I love it. So am I anyone who knows Shane? I'm looking at Shane spike now he's on fire.
Andy Olrich 36:22
So I have a whole page.
Nadia Golenkova 36:28
I think your nerd energy has synchronized. Unite, yes, yes.
Andy Olrich 36:35
You want to drop the next question,
Shayne Daughenbaugh 36:36
mate, yeah, yeah. Let's you know, I think it's, it's, we're need to kind of be wrapping up here, understanding that you do have other work to do, but, but I'm interested in, like, what advice would you give to leaders that to help them shift from this one off training events into something that's a little more sustainable, a little more the capability building approach? What advice would you have for that?
Nadia Golenkova 37:02
I think the first advice for me would be, don't feel like you you need someone's permission to do this, right? Come on, if you're, if you're in an organization. And, and look, I've worked in in smaller businesses, and I've also worked in really, really large multinational businesses, right? And, and then in both of those scenarios, you always feel like you you know you're waiting. You're waiting for someone to allow you, or to, you know, to tell you that you're allowed to start the thing that you're doing. But there's nothing in here that I think really requires or begs, you know, permission, if you so, you know you don't need to wait for your HR department. You don't need to wait for your learning manager, or you don't even need to wait until there is a HR department or a learning manager on board to do this stuff, because the the steps are actually straightforward and and can be done, right? So if you're a leader, let's start with what is it, what is it that your team does, and what is the direction that your team is going to go in, right? Just a little bit of future thinking, you know, you've got a, you know, manufacturing team, or you've got a customer service team, or you've got an organization, what is it? What is the long term direction where you're going, and what are the, let's say, top four, maximum five, you know, capabilities, the that that drive the team forward. Maybe there's only one, right? You don't, we don't know that the context here, but just to find what are those critical top line things that mean success for the team, they're not the only things, but the most important things. Without those, you know, you're not you, you're somebody else, right? That's the starting point. And, hey, what a great way to involve your team in thinking about that, right? And what a great engagement exercise to go like folks. Let's, let's try and, let's try and build out our own narrative and our own story. What's unique about us? What is specific? Was it? What is it specifically that we do in this team that helps us take that direction, defining those you know, handful of things is a starting point that already gives you power. Because the next time you know, you go, I need some training. You kind of know where that training is going to land. It's not that phone call to Nadia going, I just need training. Blank Space. What do you got? What do you got? Just tell me anything. Because at that point, all I can do is send you the 3000 you know, course, you know, LMS, and go take your best shot, you know, right? So already you're narrowing down if you want to take a step, you know, an extra step into that, you can then try and break it up a little bit further and go, Okay, well, what are the skills that I need, right? So, you know, if, like we talked about, if it's, you know, if it's organizational excellence or if it's lean, is it root cause analysis? Is it identifying waste what? What are the, you know, kind of sub areas and that maybe somebody can help you with that, or there's tons of online resources that can, that can help you with that as well. So again, you don't have to go nuts. You don't have to create a, you know, competency matrix and a thing that's, you know, 5000 pages long, that, you know, gives you RSI every time you turn. Learn it. You know, it can just be something that can live on one page to go. These are the top four things that we that are our capabilities, and these are the top skills that fall underneath them. And then, how do ask yourself the question, how do people learn those things, right? Other courses? Is it through practice? Is it through mentoring? Is it through doing a particular type of work? Is it through some direction? Is it through some online resources and just start throwing stuff, you know, into into the mix, that's the beginning part of the learning ecosystem. So again, sounds really fancy, no more difficult than that, right? So if you're, if you're a leader, and maybe you don't necessarily have a lot of support in that space, if you just take those, you know, couple of steps, or three steps, you've already got the, you know, kind of the mud map, or the the outline of your capability, strategy for for your own team, right? And that's exactly the same process that I would take an organization through, or, you know, or or hold departments or larger areas through, right? From there, test and trial see what works. Measure right. Set your measures early to go, okay, you've got, you know, we're going to try and elevate this skill set right. Maybe we've identified a gap. There's all sorts of, you know, deeper things you can do. What are, what are the measures right? And you will know that better than anybody else. For your own team to go. Well, this is, you know, this is in the trash can at the moment, and I want it to be, you know, at the top right, what skills related to that? Let's measure before. Let's do the learning intervention. Let's measure after. And that'll tell you if you've got a bull's eye or not. And folks, can I tell you like I've there's not every shot I've fired in my career has been a bull's eye, right?
Andy Olrich 41:38
Stop experimentation. We need to wrap this up. Sorry, Nadia,
Nadia Golenkova 41:45
how did she get her screening? Right? We cannot
Andy Olrich 41:48
have real people on this podcast. Terrible.
Nadia Golenkova 41:52
It just, it all has to be 100% but yeah, if not every shot, shot you shoot is going to be, you know, as a bullseye, it's no it's not going to go in the net, right? So that's fine. What you try first might not necessarily work, but you've got the framework. You've got the structure, the the thinking is, right? You go, this is what we need. So this piece didn't work that. Guess what? That's an ROI for you, because it means you never, ever have to invest in that again and waste money on that again. If you don't have that strategy, you'll spend money on the same program over and over and over every year getting no results. So that that infrastructure will give you a sense about what's working and what's not. And then just, you know, have fun with it. Involve your people. Get them to be, you know, part of the, part of the solution and part of the journey with you. And be, be the main players, you know, main characters in their own story, right?
Andy Olrich 42:41
Yeah, and not walking into training with the blank sheet. So I'm going to give a shout out to two of my most wonderful learning and development people, Kelly and Katie, if you're listening to this, so passionate, so caring, always trying to give the leaders the training that they're asking for. But there was this whole piece around, well, we can't do it all and we've got a certain budget, or where does this fit in, having that team give them? Whenever I've seen examples of people coming in saying, oh, because this is happening or this and this is what we need, it changes the conversation totally. And they've had a like, they're not how is the L and D team going to be experts in the finance processes or the out in the field or in the factory or in the digital team, like they just want people to give them the direction and help them support the business as best they can for where they want to be. So I think it is a bullseye, definitely this episode here, and such a such a great way to show how this all ties in. And it's not just a we a choice so much anymore like this is this is actually really part of our DNA and the culture that you're seeking to drive so yeah,
Shayne Daughenbaugh 43:50
and, and I love the word that that we've chosen to use is strategy. We use strategy for so many other things, but do we use strategy in this way, not for training strategy, but for capability strategy, you know, and I love that the way you answered that last time, you know, figure out what your capabilities are. Step two, you know, what are your skills for each of those? Step three, how are we going to learn those? Step four, what are the measures that you're going to set so we know if this is working. Step five, experimenting, and then all along the way, involving others in this, and making it as as you talked about at the beginning. You know, it's called back at the beginning, you talked about this being a living, breathing Where did I put this? It's somewhere in here. It's, it's taking ownership of something that's that's living and breathing, and not just, you know, on a page, hey, this is our catalog, or our menu, or a man, a manual kind of a thing. So great stuff.
Andy Olrich 44:49
We're gonna have to take a deep dive into some of these things. But yeah, and it ties in though, with that, doing that planning, with the team, giving the learning team to help build that strategy. So we also. Don't just run off, and we've got this crack training program in one little team, Nadia, this has been amazing. How, how on earth can people find out more about you and connect with
Shayne Daughenbaugh 45:10
you and read about your nerdy gaming?
Nadia Golenkova 45:13
I feel like I need to have a follow up to that article with more nerd tips. I've, maybe I've cemented myself as, like, you know, the nerd ambassador from Australia,
Andy Olrich 45:23
that's all right, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a good one. We're showing fans
Nadia Golenkova 45:28
great one. Yeah, LinkedIn is a great one. So you can find me at night on Nadia girl and Cobra on LinkedIn, and I'd love to talk to you about any and all things to do with capability, with learning and and with technology that enables both.
Andy Olrich 45:42
Thank you. Shane, excellent. Final words of wisdom from you,
Shayne Daughenbaugh 45:47
mate man, I hope that people understood kind of what was going down. I think there was some great content here. If you have questions or want to continue this dialog, we would love to get some feedback. You know, whether it be when we post this on LinkedIn, to make it in our comment section, or when you're listening to it, put some comments, you know, in that so that we have some feedback, and so that we can also continue the dialog in a conversation with more than just the three of us. So thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate that. Thank you, Shane,
Nadia Golenkova 46:21
Thank you, Andy, it's been an absolute
Andy Olrich 46:23
blast. Yeah, thank you. I'll let my final thoughts are, yeah. Off the back of what Nadia said, have a look at where you are now. Is your training delivering results? Are you even measuring it? Second part is, Did you learn something out of this? We wanted, we would love to know. And thirdly, if you go on and start to build some of this stuff. Also let us know, and let Nadia know, we really want to make sure that we get an ROI from all of our time, either presenting or interviewing or listening to this and watching. So we love having you on board. Nadia, thanks again, and I'm sure we'll have you on the show again. Shane, it's a pleasure. Stay cool, and we'll see you all next time. All right,
Shayne Daughenbaugh 46:59
thanks everybody. Have a great day. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai