Chief Learning Officer - July 2008 - (Page 28)

“In mid-career, when everyone else was running off to marketing conferences, I was going to organizational design and development forums, the Gestalt Institute and all these places where people talked about things like organizational alignment and performance management,” he said. “I think my natural tendencies were to focus on those issues because I saw a multiplier effect: I found that the marketing results always came if I was aligning with the organization and getting the most out of people.” Finally, he decided to pursue a career in this discipline. He got a master’s degree in organizational development and analysis from Case Western Reserve University and started this professional transition as a consultant. “I started getting involved with consulting for clients and agencies and really helped them align with their organizations to better deliver on their strategic intent. I knew the subject matter, I had a passion for CLO-RADIO Jeff Tritt talks more about the connection between individual development and organizational development in a podcast on our Web site. Listen at www.clomedia. com/podcast. programs. It also referred to creating a new philosophy to drive those programs. “We put a stake in the ground and said, ‘We’re going to reinvent how the organization does learning,’” Tritt explained. “One of the things I was ﬁrst tasked with was bringing back a culture of learning within the agency. We’ve completely ﬂipped the way we deliver the content. “Three years ago, we would have all the executives come in and just tell employees, ‘This is how legal works. This is how creative works. This is how production works.’ We effectively communicated the key building blocks, but what we quickly learned was that these new people coming into our organizations felt uninspired and unengaged by that process. “We inverted the whole thing and turned it into projects, games and challenges. So instead of having the CFO come talk to them about ﬁnance, we turned around and made them meet the CFO, get on his calendar and have him tell them about proﬁtability. It’s through their questioning of it that they learn the content, come back to their work groups and become teachers themselves. We watched the dialogue and commitment we created just multiply. We barely allow a PowerPoint presentation in any learning environment anymore. We’ll still use it from time to time — maybe to outline the day’s agenda or brieﬂy show a key concept on the wall — but if we don’t have everyone engaged in dialogue from there, we feel like we’ve lost the learning opportunity.” That emphasis on dialectical learning is important to Tritt for two reasons. First, the learning audience is one comprised of creative professionals. Because of their innovative nature, they generally prefer programs that involve interaction and don’t give participants the feeling of being spoon-fed information. Second, learning through dialogue is simply part of Tritt’s overall philosophy of development. “Generally, I think learning happens in any relationship, and dialogue is the best way in which learning happens: You play with it, experiment and work everything out,” he said. “I really see our learning opportunities as a way to deepen and extend our connectedness to each other. We purposefully try to get people from as many different departments as possible talking to each other. The greater the diversity of ideas, perspectives and people we have in the room, the more opportu- “Generally, I think learning happens in any relationship, and dialogue is the best way in which learning happens: You play with it, experiment and work everything out.” – Jeff Tritt, Leo Burnett learning and development, and from that point, I kept doing projects in that space.” A little more than three years ago, Tritt found himself back at his old employer, but working in a very different capacity. “I originally came back to Leo Burnett to be part of their organizational development group,” Tritt said. “About three months into that position, there was a need to have someone head up human resources for all of North America, which included traditional HR aspects, but also organizational development, talent management and recruiting. So three months later, I was in a completely different role.” Tritt faced a couple of immediate and interrelated challenges: the outmoded way learning was delivered at the company and the resources devoted to employee development. The leadership team at Leo Burnett quickly concluded that the organization needed to invest more in its people. This wasn’t just related to funding 28 Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • July 2008 • www.clomedia.com http://www.clomedia.com/podcast http://www.clomedia.com/podcast http://www.clomedia.com

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

Chief Learning Officer - July 2008 Contents Imperatives Selling Up, Selling Down Strategies Take Five A Customer-Driven Approach to Molding Tomorrow’s Leaders The Home Depot: Accelerated Leadership CLO Profile Birth of a Salesman: Selling Learning to Solve Business Issues Selling Learning’s Potential at Siemens Transform Corporate Learning With a User Network Wiki Training Increases Productivity for RMC Vanguard Mortgage Lessons From the Feds: Mapping Learning to Strategic Initiatives Department of Labor Centralizes Content Synchronous and Asynchronous: What’s in a Name? Coping With Cultural Barriers to E-Learning The Manager’s Responsibility for Employee Learning Case Study Business Intelligence In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - July 2008

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.