Chief Learning Officer - March 2008 - (Page 31)

environment By taking a filmmaker’s perspective, CLOs can build effective learning programs that articulate their personal vision while also creating innovative, adaptive learning that satisfies executives and keeps the audience coming back for more. The CLO’s job is similar to a movie director’s. Both have an end result — either to finish a movie or develop an employee. Along the way, each makes thousands of choices that are invisible to nearly everyone without an understanding of the process. Filmmakers make movies that are wholly original and effectively capture their vision by changing lighting and camera angles. Similarly, a CLO or learning executive can tweak and change methodologies and delivery methods to make their learning program as valuable as possible. However, CLOs and directors are judged by their results, not their procedures. A CEO or studio executive is more interested in the finished product — the productive employee or finished movie — than the details of how he or she arrived there. This kind of freedom can invite a host of methods and theories revolving around the best way to accomplish each goal. In the 1950s, a young group of French critics-turned-filmmakers embraced what they called the “auteur theory.” The idea was that a movie should be the personal creative vision of the director exclusively. In their thinking, the director is the person entrusted with deciding what works best for the picture. So why should financiers or a studio handcuff them? Like filmmakers, CLOs have budgets that are closely watched by executives, so communication and compromise are essential to each job’s success. But like the auteur filmmaker, a CLO must have the ability to quickly and decisively make changes to better the overall program. Just like if the footage of a horror movie isn’t scary enough, a director can add shadows, fog, more sound effects or creepier music, a CLO should implement the tools he needs to maximize the effectiveness of his learning program. Pete Thedinga, senior vice president and learning and leadership development executive at Bank of America Card Services, agreed that developing a learning program, like making a movie, is a fluid process that must be agile. Because many of the employees his organization trains will be face-to-face with customers, Thedinga has worked during the past few years to add as much to the program as he can to prepare them for that. “I try to look at it not only as how do you create and maintain a program, but how do you constantly reintroduce different modules, different media and different modalities of learning,” Thedinga said. “In order to improve and reduce the classroom time and increase the practical time, there’s a lot of scenario-based training, role-play, modeling and simulations I’ve put in place.” I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 31 March 2008 Unlike other C-level executives, the CLO has no distinct playbook or roadmap, which leaves the door open for experimentation. As a learning leader, Thedinga takes the initiative to implement a learning method better suited for the actual tasks of his employees. Like an auteur, he’s using the tools around him to hone in on a style fitting to the final product. And like a fortunate auteur, he has the blessing of his superiors to make changes to the learning program as he deems necessary. “I think the beauty of the Bank [of America] is that we have very strong values, a very clear leadership model and we expect our leaders to act in the best interest of the company,” Thedinga said. “If I say to my superiors, ‘Hey, we http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - March 2008

Chief Learning Officer - March 2008 Editor's Letter Table of Contents Imperatives Selling Up, Selling Down Strategies Take Five Learning Solutions The Treasury Board of Saskatchewan: Training the Trainers With Experiential Learning Clo Profile Environment Xerox: Creating a Learning Masterpiece Tactics Capturing the Knowledge of the Workforce Productivity Succession Planning Tips from the U.S. GAO Human Capital Influencing Competency Management Case Study Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - March 2008

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