Chief Learning Officer - April 2008 - (Page 36) IN PRACTICE STEELCASE: USING DOWNTIME TO YOUR ADVANTAGE why it occurs, but it’s not acceptable.” At Steelcase, the communication between departments is essential to developing a successful launch with a great product, messaging, distribution and training, and that communication has to start early, Dutkiewicz said. “We want to be in the planning meetings with our sales leadership, marketing leadership or distribution leadership because if we understand what they’re trying to accomplish in the market, we can help them build the training that they need to make their plans come true,” he explained. “The last thing you want to have happen is us find out a couple of months before something’s coming to market [that] somebody thinks they need training for it. It’s difficult to build the right training and get it implemented, so we have to have early visibility in order to be successful, and visibility equates to communication.” Blended Learning In creating a product-based training solution, companies should include a variety of modalities. There has to be a blend of methodologies. Sanofi-aventis does this by using d-learning modules for about 70 percent of its training. The other 30 percent is live training. “To me, it’s about maintaining that delicate balance. Any one method, if that’s the only method that you utilize, you’re limited,” Capaldi said. “In other words, if it’s all to be delivered via instructor-led training or it’s all to be delivered via online, you’re missing the opportunity to raise the level of effectiveness. Giving people the foundational materials and pacing the learning associated with that material, that’s a great way to use distance learning and e-learning. “However, when you get to the actual behavior associated with what you’re going to do with the product knowledge in front of the customer, to me, that’s just difficult to replicate in distance or in an online fashion — as well as the shared learning that occurs from having other learners around you. Even if you have budget constraints, there is always a way to bring together the learners so that they can participate together in that latter component.” No matter what changes happen in the industry, there will always be a place for instructor-led training, as a sales staff needs the interaction, simulation and feedback that occurs only in a face-to-face setting. “For example, we could put everybody on a plane and spend X amount of money, or we could keep them where they are and give them log-in information,” Stephens said. “[Virtual learning] looks easier, cheaper and better, but if you put all your eggs in one basket and assume that’s the way adults learn, you just shot yourself in the foot. A lot of companies have tried a variety of things, and they end up with some blended learning combination that has occurred through realizing what works in our environment, what works for our products and what works for our people. There is not one perfect answer.” CLO 36 Chief Learning Officer • April 2008 • www.clomedia.com B ecause product-based training is largely dependent on new products, it’s important for companies to use any respite as an opportunity to advance and improve a sales staff’s skills, as Steelcase did just a year ago. “Last year was not a big year for new products,” said Ken Dutkiewicz, director of global learning and development for Steelcase University. “When I sat down with the vice president of sales, we looked out three years. When we looked at the last fiscal year, we saw there was not a lot of new product, but the year after we’re going to be introducing a lot of new product. So he said, ‘I need to get the skills of my sales force better so that they can better implement the product when it comes to market.’ We knew that [the] lull in product gave them an opportunity to build skill, and we really think that’s going to pay off for us.” The abeyance in new products allowed Steelcase to take a step back and look at the broad picture to see where its sales staff was strong and where it needed help. To do so, the company surveyed its management and sales force to identify the biggest deficiencies. The sales employees responded with three critical skill sets: financial acumen, ability to negotiate and account planning. The company then made a fairly large investment in training to develop those capabilities in its sales force. The next step was to assess the sales management and its coaching abilities. Dutkiewicz said he found that these skills were not consistent from sales manager to sales manager. “The reason we’re looking at this as a project is we didn’t think we had it nailed,” he explained. “We had people who were really good coaches; we had people who were so-so coaches. We had people who said: ‘Gosh, I’m so busy I don’t know if I have the time to coach.’ If we’re going to be consistent and we’re going to get the maximum out of the investments we make in learning, we have to coach to the things that we build.” After recognizing that, Dutkiewicz said Steelcase now is closing the training loop by reinforcing the sales staff’s skills through structured coaching to ensure what was taught in the classroom happens in the field. “We’re going to [take] all of our sales managers through a coaching program,” he explained. “We’ve decided that in order to get the maximum lift out of any training we do, there has to be a strong coaching component. As a matter of fact, coaching may get you more than the actual learning event. We’re really putting some pressure on our managers to coach to the things that we’re training on.” Product-based training, like any training, needs to be proactive instead of reactive. Learning executives need to assess new product schedules several years ahead and allow for skill-augmenting sessions during years when few new products are rolled out. In addition, companies need to provide an oft-forgotten layer to their training programs: coaching. “Our sales leader has been adamant about the fact that you can’t miss coaching opportunities,” Dutkiewicz said. “Over the last six months, we’ve really put a lot of emphasis with the sales leadership team in making sure they understand their responsibility from a coaching standpoint; it’s not just about learning, it’s about the overall performance you get. It doesn’t make sense to just stop at a training session. You’ve got to have your management team prepared to coach on how well they are using those skills.” CLO – Lindsay Edmonds Wickman, lwickman@clomedia.com http://www.clomedia.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.