I wanted to write this blog since quite some time. Never found that time and space. At my work we started a concept called 'Work Out Loud' and I am using this opportunity to write this blog thanks to my compliance to the activity this week.
Now if you see the activity that I am doing out of this learning is something that I think I am fairly good at, but at the same time never found myself encouraged enough to do this. This is one category of corporate learning. The other category being, that the learning outcome is my weakness and I am not encouraged to pursue it. It might also be the case that I am highly motivated to work on my weaknesses. Or exploring the last quadrant, that I am motivated to learn more about my strengths.
Now if you see the activity that I am doing out of this learning is something that I think I am fairly good at, but at the same time never found myself encouraged enough to do this. This is one category of corporate learning. The other category being, that the learning outcome is my weakness and I am not encouraged to pursue it. It might also be the case that I am highly motivated to work on my weaknesses. Or exploring the last quadrant, that I am motivated to learn more about my strengths.
Most of us find our comfort zone in whatever our strengths are and need encouragement to pursue things that are our weakness. For example, if I find 'Leadership Skills' as my strengths, I would tend to build my entire career upon it. However there is a force from the other end of the spectrum which is a compliance called "My Learning Plan" or "Associate Annual Learning Plan" which explores what are the weakness of an associate and based on the competencies required for the job profile, the weaknesses of the associate are pushed to the 'Learning Plan'.
Now since it is the associate's weakness, s/he doesn't really get motivated enough to pursue it. So the corporate structure pours in more money to ensure that they love the bitter medicine. However colours you add or make the packaging interesting, the medicine is still bitter for the employee and hence the showbiz makes little impact.
I was going through Strength Finder and I could so relate to the argument placed in that book by Tom Rath.
Let us imagine that we are able to discover strengths of an individual and we push learning plans according to what the associate is good at rather than what are his/her weaknesses, I think the associate would love to pursue the topic further. Moreover the amount of effort needed to pull someone from 30 to 80 is much more than pushing someone from 90 to 95. The reason being very obvious, "I love this topic. Give me more."
With this, are we at risk of placing our employees in their comfort zone? Comfort zone gets created by familiarity of the topic. If I am exposed to something unfamiliar in the topic I love, I would be challenged to resolve it and hence push myself further to improve on it. With this we are rather increasing the chances of removing complacency.
"But pursuing the course is not the objective of the curriculum. We need associate's growth as the outcome from the learning. What is growth from 90 to 95? I can show higher growth from 30 to 80."
I beg to differ here. The objective of corporate learning is not growth of the employee but productivity of the employee. If there is no return on investment there is no point of that learning. There would be much higher return for the growth from 90 to 95 even though it is mere 5 points ahead. Reason being the higher you achieve in a field, the niche area you enter and hence the work style and the outcome is more unique. Now as the employee hikes further towards the peak, the organization can expect innovations of most productive forms.
Most of the annual appraisal discussions focus on "What you need to improve?" While yes a basic compliance is needed to maintain the organizational sanctity, I believe it would be more prudent to discuss on "You are really good at this. Let us see what all opportunities we can offer you to improve on it. What all can be done to hone your skill further. How can we make it niche to the extent that you are a thought leader for that niche!"
Yes I have experienced this in my current employment. It makes huge difference to the productivity. The employee feels more productive and hence valued. The organization reaps benefit from that value and hence it becomes a win-win situation.
As a L&D personnel we tend to think about how to 'Fill In the Gaps' within my organization. For a change let us discard this thought and focus on how to fortify my organizational strengths!
