Training Industry Quarterly - Winter 2009 - (Page 35) What’s most important to a learning professional – classroom/training experience or business experience? I would say what’s most important is business experience. You absolutely have to understand the business of wherever you’re providing training. You’ve got to understand the business that they’re in. That’s what I worked very hard to do when I came to Boys & Girls Clubs of America, not having worked in an organization that had affiliates before. 1 2 10 QUESTIONS WITH TERRI DORSEY issue. Connected into the succession planning piece is to make sure that when we do succession planning, we keep an eye for diversity, so that we not only are doing good succession planning, but that we develop successors from a variety of backgrounds, races, ethnicities, genders, etc. The kids we serve are very diverse in every aspect-- rural, urban, every color. We want to be able for kids to look at their headquarters organization and see somebody who is the same color or of a similar background. You must overlay diversity with succession planning; that’s very important. What’s your preferred training methodology? It’s probably not what’s most “in” right now, but I still strongly prefer when at all possible to do live classroom training supported with coaching afterward. I think there’s a lot of value in action learning projects related to whatever they’ve learned in the classroom, so they have to go away and use the content that they learned to deliver a project that has value to the organization. To me that is optimal. It’s obviously not always financially and physically possible to do, so we do have online learning. But my preference for that is still synchronous learning, where you’ve got a live person on the phone or over the computer with some type of visual that goes with it. We do all of it, but that’s my preference. What’s your most memorable training experience, good or bad? My most memorable negative experience was I had read a book which was awesome and I had seen the author do a keynote speech, which was also very good. We chose to bring that keynote author in to do a full-day workshop with our senior leadership team, which was horrible. The learning point there is just because someone is an author and a keynote speaker that does not necessarily translate into being a trainer. It’s a totally different set of skills. That was a big learning point for me. I guess from a participant standpoint, the most positive experience was attending a conference with our whole senior leadership team. It wasn’t just the conference itself but the time spent with the whole senior leadership team. At this point I was very young and very green and had no healthcare experience. It wasn’t the conference itself, it was the time spent with the leadership team in that organization. Attending sessions, having conversations around the sessions, what we were going to do when we got back, etc. That was extremely positive. 6 7 What’s the most challenging aspect of your job? Probably challenging right now purely from a training perspective is figuring out the best way to use technology to be efficient – cost-efficient, time-efficient – but also not to lose the personal aspect of training and coaching. So it’s blending technology in appropriately. I just want to make sure that we’re being efficient, keeping up with technology but also not losing the personal aspect of training. 3 What’s the most rewarding aspect of your job? That’s easy. What I’m probably the most proud of is about six years ago we put in a leadership development program for high-potential employees. The way the program works is 15 people go through the program at a time; it’s a two-year program. They have classroom learning, networking opportunities, new job experiences, and they have some projects outside their usual work. They get some individual development and executive coaching, and they have projects they work on in groups. I’m just really proud of the outcomes. We’ve had two groups, 30 people, go through now since 2003. We’ve retained 25 of the 30, which was a big deal. We’ve been able to fill 15 our of 21 VP positions with folks from our leadership pool. We’ve had really good outcomes and measurements around retention, promotion. 8 9 Do you find the time to continue your own professional development? I do. Actually, this year I’ve focused most of my own professional development on succession planning. I am currently registered to attend two conferences on succession planning. I have been fortunate to not only have time but also an organization willing to invest in something that’s a high priority. Any recommendations for folks out there – books, partners, resources, etc.? I’ve partnered a good bit with Linkage, Inc. Also on a couple of occasions there’s a Berkeley-based training organization called Barnes & Conti. The really cool thing is although they are training companies, they have been very good to me in terms of doing some oneon-one with me and allowing me to actually deliver the programs. We pay a licensing fee, but because we’re nonprofit, we don’t have the big budget that some organizations might have for training. This way I can provide some really high-quality training but keep the cost down. We have also been fortunate enough to work with Noel Tichy out of the University of Michigan. Who would you consider your most valuable role model? One is my current supervisor, our SVP of HR, Nell Fielden, who has great knowledge around all aspects of human resources. She has taught me so much about all aspects of human resources, not just OD and training. She’s a wealth of knowledge about HR. I hope to one day have that same level of knowledge and to be able to put together all the pieces of human resources like she can. I would also say Roxanne Spillett, who is our president, for a different reason. She’s just a role model of energy and a passion for the Boys & Girls Clubs. Also, she’s a role model for her amazing ability to think strategically, to ask the hard questions. Another is an earlier supervisor, Tom Koelbl, who really showed me how to lead employees. He’s an excellent coach; he provided support but kind of got out of your way and let you perform, and he always gave credit. What are the most pressing issues on your professional plate now? Definitely succession planning. Our board of governors is very interested, very concerned. We have a senior management team that is predominantly made up of 50-something plus, so it’s a big, big, big 4 5 If someone wants to follow in my professional footsteps, I’d tell them to be sure to… Seek first to understand the business that they’re providing training in. They’re not going to be perceived as credible if they don’t understand the operations side. They have to have a good relationship with their operations people. If they don’t understand operations, they have no credibility, which really doesn’t bode well for your training function. 35 10 Training Industry Quarterly, Winter 2009 / A Training Industry, Inc. ezine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ http://www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ
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