What Blackberries, Shoulder Pads, MySpace & Leadership Development Programs Have In Common | Meredith Masse | DisruptHR Talks

4 Components of a Highly Effective Learning & Development Program

(or What Shoulder Pads, Blackberries, MySpace and Traditional Leadership Development Have in Common)

By: Meredith Masse

This exact topic kicked off the inaugural DisruptHR Colorado Springs. The 5-minute video here is the tell-all for upgrading your training and development efforts. In short, it’s about implementing the 4 Rs of Modern Learning that every development program or activity must include if we want leaders to learn new skills, retain them, and turn them into more productive habits that positively impact organizational goals.

1. REDESIGN: Please… no more 8-hour, drink-from-the-fire-hose trainings! The data shared in the talk proves this simply does not work for creating new behaviors that lead to better business results.
2. REINFORCE: The talk highlights that practice makes permanent. If we expect leaders to permanently ingrain new skills, they have to have reinforcement activities to challenge them to practice what they are learning in their actual workplaces.
3. REALIGN: This is the job of a coach, the person who can ask questions critical to the success of any development participant when they start to veer off path: What new skills did you try? How did it go? What went well? What could have gone better? How will you do it differently next time?
4. REINFORCE (again): This time, we bring the participants’ managers into the conversation about what they are learning. The manager can reinforce the learning by suggesting actual opportunities in the participant’s day job to apply what their learning so it “sticks.”

After watching the video, we’d love your comments below about these ideas for upgrading your organization’s development efforts.