Events

I've spent the last 6 months doing a pro bono project with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

The IFRC is an incredible organization that does a lot of good in the world. They are a federation of 191 independently operating national societies, and, in total, direct the efforts of over 11 million volunteers. It's big. And it's complex. And .after working with them for six months, it's difficult for me to have sympathy for learning leaders who say that they "can't" do something because of internal complexities.

The goal of this small project with the IFRC was to get a baseline on how their national societies learn. They want to change the definition of "learn" from something that happens in the classroom to something that happens continuously, wherever staff and volunteers are. We began the effort with a survey and some analysis, and then the internal team heading up the effort hosted representatives from about 30 national societies in Geneva last week. The singular goal was to figure out how to further learning throughout the federation.

The thing is, while the IFRC doesn't have many of the usual trappings that we associate with learning and development, they are fundamentally a learning organization – an organization that learns. While they have challenges like all organizations do, they are unfettered by some of the things that keeps for-profit organizations stagnant. And because of this, they're continually learning and adjusting. And while I have been talking about it for well over 5 years now, this group taught me new things about what it means to be a learning organization:

1. Flexibility is key. I was supposed to present findings to representatives from about 15 national societies on Monday morning in Geneva, Switzerland. Unfortunately, I read the agenda wrong and bought a ticket that didn't get me to Geneva until 2pm on Monday, about 3 hours after I was supposed to speak. Fred, my contact with the IFRC, listened to my panicked call, and then worked some magic on his side to rearrange some things. He did it calmly – seeking a solution to the problem instead of focusing on the cause (which I fully admit, was me).

I couldn't help but think as I got of the phone with him how much stress in our organizations could be relieved if we could all learn a little bit of flexibility. Is forgetting the page numbers on a presentation really the end of the world, or are we all going to live through it? Can we instead use things that don't go 100% right as experiences for learning and growth? I did. I vow never to buy another plane ticket without double-checking my schedule.

2. Learning is largely about bravery. Because of the decentralized nature of the IFRC, our initial timeline for data collection and analysis was extended by several weeks, which meant that it was almost impossible to review high-level findings with leadership before we shared them with the larger group. IFRC leaders encouraged the sharing of data with the larger group, and then went further by allowing me to share it with a group of about 30 chief learning officers from around the globe to see if we could find commonalities and make suggestions that may help the IFRC.

It's brave to be that vulnerable. It's also how we learn. We try things we don't know how to do, we share uncomfortable information about ourselves with others, we allow others to learn in messy, scary, ways.

3. Desire is really important. I sat in a room last Monday with representatives from national societies that included Afghanistan, China, and North Korea, among many others. These people came together to find solutions that will help their staff and volunteers learn better. They spoke different languages. There was a lot of translation going on. There was questioning and clarification and a true desire to seek understanding. The goal was more important than nationality or one person's opinion, or the larger conflicts going on in the world.

I wonder how many other leaders are as anxious as these were in helping their workers understand what it will take to make a difference in their organizations. I also wonder how many L&D functions work as hard as the internal learning group at IFRC does to help inspire leaders to care about learning in the first place. And, I wonder what would happen if we all cared that much.

This project was unlike any other project I have ever done. It fundamentally changed me. I'm better for having done it and better for having met these people. And we're just at the beginning. I'm sure as we continue with this project, they'll continue to teach me what it means to be a learning organization and what it means to have impact in the world.

If you want to help, you can donate to the Red Cross here, and if you want to help with this project specifically, contact me. I know people 🙂

Back in March 2018, I posted to LinkedIn what I thought would be a rather quickly forgotten question: What technology had others seen that focused on improving diversity and inclusion (D&I) in companies? The response was huge, with lots of people I'd never met sharing how their company was using technology to tackle diversity and inclusion in ways that I'd not even dreamed of. Clearly, something big was happening – so the question turned into a quest to understand this new market.

We've ended the first 2 phases of that quest with the publication of our research on D&I tech, Diversity and Inclusion Technology: The Rise of a Transformative Market, which we, RedThread Research, have completed in partnership with Mercer.

Let me take a step back and tell you why I was even asking the question. Years ago, I'd asked folks what vendors they used to help with D&I. Most people just scratched their heads, and said, “Huh? I don’t understand what you mean.” So, I went about my merry way working on a study that ultimately focused on D&I practices, with no technology component.

Post #MeToo. Post many public D&I missteps that cost executives their jobs and companies their stock prices. I thought, surely, now, there must be technology focused on this space. But I just hadn’t read that much about it.

I started talking to a lot of people about this topic and found that it resonated with many of them. One of those people was Carole Jackson, a former colleague and current Principal at Mercer, focused on their When Women Thrive research. We found a shared passion for this topic and we agreed to partner on this research to bring a heightened understanding of the D&I technology market to both vendors and customers.

So, what began as my simple question ended up turning into a quest to find as many technology vendors focused on D&I as possible – and document who they are and what they do. Why? Three reasons:

1. This market is exploding with new vendors – Our study has nearly 100 in it (and that's in just this 1st phase of the research) and many of them have only started within the last 3 years. Given this, organizational leaders need to better understand the innovative technology solutions available, and technology vendors need to see where opportunity for new products and solutions exists.
2. D&I technology has the potential to be a disruptor – Structural biases hide in our processes and behaviors and, applied correctly, D&I technology can enable scalable, consistent treatment of people decisions while also alerting users to previously hidden patterns of bias. That said, our glasses are not so rosy as to blind us to the potential limitations and even detrimental impacts of D&I tech.
3. Too little information is available on the market – The folks over at Gartner have written a report on this topic, but not everyone can access that. Further, focusing on the question of “If There’s Too Much Diversity Tech?” doesn’t give folks insight into the range and capabilities of D&I tech. We wanted to do an in-depth study that would help vendors and buyers truly understand the market.

To that end, our study answers 5 questions:

1. What is D&I technology?
2. Why are D&I technologies coming to market right now?
3. What are the benefits and potential risks?
4. What types of D&I technologies exist?
5. Who are some of the players in the different D&I technology categories?

This report is a both qualitative and quantitative study that summarizes the D&I tech market landscape, based on a vendor and customer survey, customer interviews, and the feedback we received. It also includes an interactive market map tool that allows readers to quickly understand which vendors are in the market.

THANK YOU! To everyone – practitioners and vendors alike – for participating in this research! We hope you'll continue to be part of the D&I tech conversation going forward!

As organizations try to compete in the current hot talent market, many have focused increasingly on listening to employees, in an effort to create a better “employee experience.”

As organizations try to compete in the current hot talent market, many have focused increasingly on listening to employees, in an effort to create a better “employee experience.” Companies are using a variety of tactics, such as design thinking and agile development methods, as well as new tools, such as employee listening and pulse survey technologies (vendors include Glint, TinyPulse, and Waggl, among others), to create programs and experiences that are much more holistic, consistent, and responsive to employees. This is good. But it isn’t enough.

How do we know this? Well, despite all these efforts, half of U.S. workers are looking for a new job. Further, employee engagement rates are extremely low and sickness and stress rates are very high. So clearly, though our organizations are listening, they are not responding adequately.

There are many reasons why this might be the case, but at least part of the reason is that the plethora of information available to organizations is not matched by a similar capacity to understand it. Put bluntly, there is too much information and not enough insight, decision-making, and action.

Instead of pinning the blame for this on one small part of the organization – HR – it is wiser to ask, why is there such a mis-match between information givers and information consumers? The reason for this lies in organizations’ historical approach to hierarchy and decision-making. In many organizations, the information from many people comes up, a few people make decisions, and then those decisions are pushed back down. Except for when they do not, because there are too many bottlenecks or lack of attention at the top.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  While tools can help with some greater insights into how organizations should respond, they are not enough. The tools can’t themselves do the actual responding.

Instead, we need to redesign how we approach information-sharing and decision-making in the first place to allow more people in the organization to access and take action on the collected information. This requires a re-thinking of practices and processes, and, perhaps even more crucially, our organizational cultures. It is only by doing this that we can enable the same number of people to take action on the information as those who provided it in the same place.

We’ve been doing some new research on all of this and more, and I will be debuting our new insights at the PeopleFWD 2018 Conference on October 18 in the Bay Area. I’d love it if you came along to hear what we’ve seen and to give us your feedback.

This event is being sponsored by the folks over at CPP – The Myers-Briggs Company. The agenda is targeted at both HR and business leaders – novel concept! Patty McCord (formerly of Netflix) as well as speakers from The Conference Board, SAP, Kellogg Company, M Square Consulting, and the University of Colorado will all be speaking. Come join me for an engaging day of learning.