Canadian HR Reporter

STRATEGIC CAPABILITY NETWORK'S PANEL of thought leaders brings decades of experience from the senior ranks of Canada's business community. eir commentary puts HR management issues into context and looks at the practical implications of proposals and policies. CANADIAN HR REPORTER February 20, 2017 EXECUTIVE SERIES 17 www.scnetwork.ca Join our professional community of Canadian HR & Organizational Leaders: • Connecting @ monthly events • Collaborating with peers • Challenging conventional thinking The Power of Human Capital CULTIVATING LEADERSHIP FOR 35 YEARS Great Leaders GROW www.scnetwork.ca Bite-size learning ree SCNetwork members engage in a back-and-forth on Carol Leaman's presentation Tracey White: Carol Leaman, CEO of Axonify, was the subject of SC- Network's "CEO Spotlight" in January. Axonify is intriguing because not only is it one of Canada's fastest growing technology companies, but its digital learning platform is breaking rules in the L&D world. Using brain science and data analytics, Leaman's team may have fi nally solved a problem that has bedeviled corporate learning — how to accurately link individual knowledge and skills development to business outcomes. Jan van der Hoop: Personally, I found the science that underpins the delivery model most interest- ing… that the research into hu- man learning validates the fact we learn best in small bites ("micro- learning") followed by repeated questioning over time to stimulate recall. e result? Only fi ve to seven per cent of information from normal training is retained after 30 days, while information that is delivered in engaging "bites," and then recalled three to fi ve times over the following 30 to 40 days, has a 90 per cent retention rate after nine months. It's a pretty compelling case for changing how we train and share knowledge. And yet… is the sci- ence itself new? Not really — I expect it's been out there for a while; Axonify has simply built an effi cient platform to deliver, track and measure it. We've known that human learning is best done in bite-size pieces with repetition over time, for decades. So why have we been so slow to shift the traditional L&D delivery models — to the point where 70 per cent of line business leaders bypass HR com- pletely to get the job done? Paul Pittman: Physiologist Ivan Pavlov had the same idea: Keep focused on small activi- ties to get the best results. In his case, though, there was reward at the end for successful "learning." Which begs the question: How do we incent and reward folks to keep to the plan, to redo the bite- size learning? Do we reward the activity or the business outcome? Which is more important, the means to the end or the end? And here's my biggest con- cern. I am no neurologist but I have played electronic games and the way to do better, to succeed, is through repetition, through learned behaviour on how to beat the algorithm. Just like the irre- sistible ping of a new message on your phone, the reward is a tiny hit of dopamine. While gamifi ca- tion might be an excellent way to train repetitive activity, not every solution is binary. What are the outcomes we want: customer satisfaction, higher engagement, greater collaboration? ese re- quire complex considerations of the whole rather than a part. Anyone who has experienced customer service that required the provider's agent to go "off script" to deal with a problem will know frustration. e dopamine reward comes from steering the issue along a path and into one of several available responses — not necessarily the one required by the customer or colleague. Of course, I oversimplify, but we must not overlook wisdom and relationships as we master World of Warcraft II. Van der Hoop: There were some gems in Leaman's discussion of how she has built the company. Particularly interesting, I thought, was her clear-headedness around what builds engagement and es- prit de corps, and what does not. Being in the tech sector in a hot market like Waterloo, Ont., competition for talent is stiff . And while other tech companies are bending over backward to lavish their staff with all the (expensive) trimmings — such as three meals per day cooked by an executive chef — somehow Carol and her team seem to "keep it real" by hir- ing in the right people (yes, tech- nical skills are critical, but you need to be the right human being) who will add to and complement the culture. Perks are not culture. I couldn't agree more. White: Yes, I agree. Carol opened the Q&A session by not- ing the importance of her HR leader in helping to build and advance the business. It was ob- vious that entrepreneurial busi- nesses such as Axonify face the same people challenges as legacy organizations. For all the attention surrounding a startup culture, it was clear that as the business grows and more people join, Axo- nify is developing the same kind of management programs — such as pay for performance and learning — that are common elsewhere. Carol closed the session by ob- serving the need for a strategic approach to human resources management is an opportunity for practitioners. PANELLISTS: • Jan G. van der Hoop, president of Fit First Technologies in Toronto • Tracey White, owner and managing director at Strategy in Action in Toronto • Paul Pittman, founder and president of the Human Well in Toronto Paul Pittman Jan van der Hoop Tracey White Insights from an impressive female CEO Carol Leaman is not your run-of-the-mill CEO. How many of us have sold a busi- ness to Google and then turned down a job there? How many of us have grown and sold three tech companies and then leapt into a fourth startup? Below are three insights based on her shared experience. A new perspective HR and learning and develop- ment can be seen as reactive. Even though there may be a large bud- get commitment to supporting learning, line-of-business leaders often do not see it impacting em- ployee performance and results. A shift in reliance from "one-and- done" training to building knowl- edge relevant to performance directly focuses on supporting business results. Learners want learning that is fast, fun and personalized to their needs. Technology that uses brain science can build knowledge through micro-learning to sup- port retention, gamifi cation and personalization to increase en- gagement, and link measurement of what is known and not known to business results. An entrepreneur's perspective In a startup, employees do not expect much structure, but as the company grows, employees have an expectation of formal struc- ture, programs and processes. While some formalization is useful, it has to be approached in a way that supports the desired culture. For example, some perks, such as fancy premises or pool tables, are mistaken as culture — but they are temporary. Culture is when people come to work every day and have fun, enjoy the other people, and feel they have accom- plished something meaningful. Every hiring decision can have a ripple eff ect on culture. A woman who knows herself Starting up and building compa- nies is not for the faint of heart. It requires courage, passion, con- fi dence and a broad set of capa- bilities. For a woman in technol- ogy-based startup businesses, it can be even more diffi cult. With notable exceptions, women are still not represented in science and technology in terms of edu- cational enrolments, proportion of the workforce in industries, or in leadership roles. e stereotype of a technology entrepreneur is male. Women who do not match this expected whiz-kid profi le may have trouble raising capital suffi cient for a big initial market presence. e re- sults aren't pretty: a slower build, increased risk for those starting up, and the need for a track record to support investment. Passion is supported by self- knowledge — knowing what you can do, what you love to do, and what type of environment gives you satisfaction. Passion makes it possible to commit to courses of action that involve risk because they have a higher likelihood of overall satisfaction. Leaman made that diffi cult tradeoff when not accepting a job at Google. In spite of the diffi culties and risks, she has grown another company that is one of North America's fastest- growing companies. The experience of Leaman: challenges leaders to re-examine how learning happens and how best to support knowledge build- ing in their organization; helps entrepreneurs better understand that HR approaches evolve as their company grows; and in- spires women to rely on their courage, passion, confi dence and capabilities. Karen Gorsline is SCNetwork's lead commentator on strategic capability and leads HR Initiatives, a consult- ing practice focused on facilitation and tailored HR initiatives. Toron- to-based, she has taught human re- sources planning, held senior roles in strategy and policy, managed a large decentralized human resources function and directed a small busi- ness. She can be reached at gorslin@ pathcom.com. Karen Gorsline STRATEGIC CAPABILITY

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