Andrew Wojecki

What happens when it is you, who has no time to reflect?

As learning leaders our job is to cultivate the necessary conditions for driving effective organizational engagement, capability development, and productivity. So what happens when learning leaders have no time to learn? As learning functions have gotten leaner, while organizational learning needs are growing larger, there is an inherent tension for learning practitioners to not overlook their own development. This is and has been the a tension for employees, but I'm hearing/observing through colleagues that the sheer workload and time-compression is inhibiting reflection, application, and innovation for learning professionals.

This is a case of the shoemaker's children going barefoot.

Some ideas:

1) Take the one sentence a day diary approach - what was the one clarifying question you heard that day, the business performance opportunity you uncovered, or a remaining challenge you are working on? Capture your state of mind now, you most likely will not replicate it tomorrow.

2) Think about the problem you are addressing and the people you are currently collaborating with, then think about who is missing. Follow up with a phone call to keep a broader circle connected with your actions. Take a minute now in order to accelerate later.

3) Make the paradigm shift from reflection being a passive activity to an active state. In the workplace, we all become action-oriented and reflection gets lost as a thing that's nice to do. From my observations in developing leaders, a differentiator and often an under-developed skill and behavior is deliberate practice and reflection. There is never going to be more time, so decide to stop doing something less effective, and choose to insert the occasional strategic pause into the day.

What I learned in 2010 Part 1

1. Start with your strategy - if not, everything else is just expended effort

Some insights while in a workshop with Willie Pietersen, from Columbia b-school. "Structure follows Strategy" - often our actions and intentions are shaped by the current structures we are embedded within. The challenge is if your current structure can fulfill your strategy. This is often the case as Strategic Planning is done in a cyclical, time-bound, ritualistic manner. For example, something that is done every 3-5 years. However, if strategy is defined as a continous, learning cycle than it is a living and adaptive focused investment of effort and resources, which can change. Therefore, the structure may change as required by the strategy an organization is pursuing.

- "How can you get away from the urgent, and focus on the important?" Often in service organizations like HR, we respond to the immediate, pressing, and urgent fires that need to be put out, with the good intention of delivering a quality service to our clients/partners. The unintended consequence being that it pulls us away from the important work we are already working on - hence, further straining already finite resources. Can having greater clarity, unity, and agility in your strategy help re-balance this inbuilt tension?

- "Insights are an extraction industry." Like gold mining where you need 4 tons to get an ounce - generating strategic insights is difficult, laborious work.

- If you're not a value center, then you're just a cost center. How are you generating and delivering value and what insights are delivering for the business that no one else is?

- Turning insights into actions is a doing activity. All to often reflection is seen as a leisure or an indulgence - something no one has time to do. As Talent Management leaders we need to build the mindset that thinking/reflecting/pausing/contemplating are doing activities where insights turn into actions.

- When the cost constrained, efficiency arguement comes to a proposed learning solution - remember the phrase, "Is the value of the learning bigger than the cost of the possible mistake."

- Key Takeaways after two days with Willie a) A non-decision is an action, b) ask yourself what you will stop doing, c) we all have customers - always, d) put everything you do on a trial by fire every 2-3 years, e) Build Gap Champions - rather than hide gaps, highlight them and tackle them.

2. Learning Transfer should be integral in the sum of all actions and moving parts delivered by the learning organization

"...the most significant gains in transfer will come when learning is more tightly integrated into the process and reward systems that already matter in the firm. The challenge is not how to build a bigger and more influential transfer support system, it is how to make transfer a more integral part of the existing organizational climate."

3. Differentiate your approaches in how experts and novices learn - novices are like sponges and SME's are like bricks

- a) SME's organize content around their knowledge, rather than the context of the job, b) SME's fail to distinguish between what's nice to know and what is essential, c) SME's tend to leave out critical underlying information, d) SME's often chunk too much information together, e) SME's don't understand the need for frequent practice

 4) What Really Motivates Workers?

HBR's 2010 #1 Breakthrough Idea from Teresa Amabile. Demonstrates that the greatest motivator for knowledge workers is a sense of progress. Beyond rewards, recognition, emotional support, and clear goals - a sense of progress in one's work is the strongest motivator. As supervisors, this falls directly in our sphere of influence - in other words how much focus and effort (on our part) are we putting on ensuring our team members are experiencing daily progress?

5) Ask "Why are we going so fast?"

Speed is important, but to what end-goals are you racing toward? Can individuals, teams, and/or organizations fall into "acceleration traps" - where everything speeds up in doing more with less, particularly in our current economic climate and focus on efficiencies. Things to look out for - 1) over-loading employees with too many activities, 2) "multi-loading" - asking employees to do too many different kinds activities, 3) "perpetual loading" - depriving the workforce of any hope in retreating to recharge their energy.

The Job Hunt - do we talk about the times 'in-between' enough

Today's job market is more competitive, uncertain, and intimidating than my generation has seen (let me speak for myself - more than I have ever seen). Over a year ago, based on my own decisions, I attempted to try something different and transition into a new role and new industry. I was lucky. Any later and that gamble might not have paid off.

One thing I wasn't prepared for was the time inbetween. What one did with oneself while looking for work? Yes, the job search should be seen as full-time work, but I struggled with the isolation and lack of meaning that working toward a particular business or team objective provided. For many who are in transition through no choice of their own must now manage the tension and emotions that naturally arise.

Seth Godin has written a recent post questioning if the resume is still relevant.
Guy Kawasaki has written on his dos and don'ts on resumes.

What if.. on interviewing and job searching in a downturn

I was sitting in traffic on my drive home today listening to NPR. I began thinking about all the people who have lost their jobs over the last few weeks. I began reflecting on my previous job transition, when I moved back to the US. After 8 years overseas, with a graduate degree and the majority of my work experience overseas, it was difficult launching a search. Largely, because I was building and establishing networks and relationships. But also, establishing my brand. That took some time for me to realize how to structure my competencies and expertise into the language of the industries and niches I was exploring.

Many folks will be faced with similar tasks as workforces are gutted and industries made lean. There are also many opportunities for individuals to reconnect with their sense of vocation and look for jobs with a deeper sense of purpose - that of course comes after having bread on the table and next month's rent covered.

I remembered being disappointed with the questions recruiters and HR representatives asked. There is alot of talk about transferable skills these days, with good reason. However, I seldom experienced or heard those skills put into questions.

We've all heard of killer questions, but what questions would give recruiters and HR reps the opportunity to 'see' emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and other interpersonal capabilities in action?

• What about the 30 second un-elevator pitch? I've been to events where a room of 40-50 people go around talking about their strengths, achievements, and value-add to a potential organization. (In these situations, it's best to sit nearer the front so you can get your pitch over with and snooze or work on notes until the real session or speaker begins). What I'd love to hear if I was interviewing candidates to work on my team or in my organization is what they're not good at. Someone who could demonstrate the ability to critically reflect on their shortcomings, attitudes, potential blind spots, preferred work tasks and communication styles. Imagine the kind of conversations to be had if we focused on weakenesses. I think that, contrary to our initial thoughts, it would focus the conversation to where we want it to be, which is emphasizing strengths. The 30 second un-elevator pitch: the backdoor to a strength-based interview.
• What if you showed up with 5 random pictures that represented the best of you and what you bring to the organization? Not a portfolio and not pictures of you. 5 pictures which best document and demonstrate what you do, who you are, and how you are going to impact the business and enhance project execution, product deliverables, or customer engagement.

It'll be a long time before I'd hear these questions being asked in the oil and gas sector, but thinking about them got me home in one piece. Another day of surviving Houston traffic.