Chief Learning Officer - April 2008 - (Page 28) PROFILE Lehman Brothers’ Hope Greenfield Making Learning Count BY KELLYE WHITNEY Hope Greenfield’s tenure at Lehman Brothers mirrors the progression of the corporate learning industry. Thanks to her efforts, the company’s learning function evolved from a provider of rudimentary, tactical content to a strategic driver of business performance. he phrase “time is money” might have been invented for those working in the financial services industry. The popular saying also has bearing on learning and development activities that take place in this space. Hope Greenfield, chief talent officer and managing director at Lehman Brothers, said the fast pace, high expectations and transactional nature of the work the company’s employees do day in and day out means time is of the essence in more ways than one. “One of the philosophies that I have for my team is if we’re not adding value in the work that we’re doing, we’re picking [the employees’] pockets,” she said. “If they’re not on the desk working or with clients — that’s what contributes to their bonus and to their getting paid — any time that we take away from them has really got to add value. You’re dealing in a world where it’s all about the price of trade at any given minute. If you miss a window, that opportunity is gone.” Greenfield has spent the better part of her career in HR and learning. She spent 16 years at Digital Equipment Corp. working in career development and learning before spending five years as the head of the HR function for medical device company C.R. Bard. From there, she moved to Lehman to do leadership work as chief learning officer. The role has expanded in her six and a half years with the organization, and she now is responsible for all leadership and professional skills development that takes place — with the exception of some product and campus recruit training — as well as pipeline development strategies. “When Lehman hired me, there was no focus whatsoever on leadership development in the organization. There was sort of requisite product training or earlycareer training, but other than that, there was nothing,” Greenfield explained. “The CEO and Joe Gregory, who is now COO, asked me to initiate a whole new effort around leadership development both to build our lead- T ership capability and to really help expand the culture of the firm. “We were less than half the size that we are today. We had lots of people who were new to the firm, which has a pretty rich and diverse history. Our firm is pretty young as an independent entity, having been owned by AMEX, been spun out by AMEX and been — by all Wall Street accounts — on its last breath many times and always able to come back strong. Senior managers really felt it was important to understand where we come from, what the characteristics are that have made us really good at what we do and made us survive. The stories people lived through needed to be passed on.” To promote the Lehman culture, Greenfield said everything on the learning side is done with an eye to current and future business needs and how learning might provide opportunities for leadership development, as well as growth in professional capability. Greenfield said all programs are co-facilitated by Lehman’s senior management, not to bring leadership expertise necessarily — which is her team’s job — but to bring the application aspect to the table and broaden employees’ networks by making introductions, expanding resources and bringing new information from which clients can directly benefit. “They’re saying, ‘When I’ve been faced with this situation, here’s what I’ve done,’ or ‘Here’s how we like to think about this at Lehman.’ There’s always an opportunity for dialogue in our programs,” she said. Dialogue often is a better way to educate the Lehman population because Greenfield said it’s unlikely someone on a trading floor will sit at a desk to complete an elearning module. The firm does some online learning, but the most impact often comes with the face-to-face interaction that allows participants an opportunity to attach real-life scenarios to learning activity. For instance, a few years ago, the chairman decided everyone at Lehman should go through an 28 Chief Learning Officer • April 2008 • www.clomedia.com http://www.clomedia.com
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