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Winning Firm Alliance
Phil is a member of the Winning Firm Alliance a group of leaders in their respective fields who share a passion for bringing about positive change in professional service firms.
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 How often do you hear or read about a change you think would benefit you, then put off implementing it?
Curt Rosengren reports that rather than steadfastly incorporating something new into his life for all eternity, he commits to an experiment with a finite time-frame of 30 days. “I’m going to do this every day for 30 days” is a lot more likely to yield consistent action than, “I’m going to do this from now on.”
The 30-day limit does two things. First, it makes it short enough to feel do-able, and second, it creates a sense of focus and commitment.
“If there’s something valuable there, I can continue incorporating some or all of it into my life.” Says Rosengren. “If there’s not, I can leave it by the side of the road.”
Much training concludes with action planning. Perhaps instead we should get people to commit to experiment.
 Here is an interesting video from Professor Daniel Willingham in which he explains why he believes learning styles to be a myth.
I can agree with his logic in relation to the learning styles model (visual vs auditory vs kinesthetic) on which Willingham bases his argument (and which seems to me to be over-emphasised by many an NLP practitioner).
However, I am less convinced by his assertion that the same logic can be applied to all the other learning style theories. I have certainly found when designing learning interventions that it can be helpful to involve elements that appeal to activist, theorist, reflector and pragmatist styles, as advocated by Honey & Mumford in one of the most commonly-used approaches to learning styles.
 All leaders of professional service firms would surely recognise the benefits of having their people engaged and motivated, even passionate, about their work. Most will also be able to point to some members of their firms who are engaged and some who are not.
But can passion be taught? According to Lisa Haneberg of Management Craft it can.
There is no doubt that, if leaders in firms want their people to engage, there are things they can do to bring about greater engagement. Some of the steps can be achieved through management processes but the main prizes will come through engaging people in a worthwhile activity that is aligned with their personal ambitions. That is what leadership is about.
Sadly, as David Maister has commented, the professions can be amongst the worst in extracting all emotion from their work. Firms need to look differently at how to get the best from people.
Once when designing training to help partners in a major accountancy firm bring out the best in their staff, it became obvious that the partners already had the necessary skills. Indeed they were using these skills daily with their clients. However, on returning to the office they slipped into a different mode where they relied on their “position power”, simply expecting their staff to do as they were told. The training was therefore designed not to equip them with new skills but to help them transfer the skills they already had to a different situation, i.e. dealing with their staff as though they were clients.
Put more starkly, it can be worth getting leaders to think of their team members as though they were volunteers. Yes, volunteers. This analogy rankles with many people because most of these people are being paid substantial incomes to “compensate” them for their work. Yet the fact is that the most valuable parts of their contribution they volunteer; they volunteer their creativity, they volunteer their commitment, they volunteer the smiles on their faces as they greet clients, they volunteer going the extra mile. These things can’t be bought in return for cash. They will only be offered voluntarily. And what leads people to volunteer these things? It probably boils down to pursuit of a worthy goal and a sense of involvement.
And that’s what leadership is about; getting the best from people by involving them in the committed pursuit of a worthwhile goal.
Having worked with thousands of professionals to help them improve their selling skills, here (in order) are the top 5 most common failings I witness:
1. Not taking enough time to understand what clients really want (be sure to undertake a thorough fact-find / orientation meeting with a client).
2. Failing to present clients with a credible picture of how they will benefit (use sales triads to persuasively highlight benefits, features and a success story).
3. Using written proposals wrongly and placing far too much reliance on them (use written proposals only to advance to the next stage and avoid putting too much information in them).
4. Worrying too much about “closing” a sale, and not enough about “advancing” a sale (aim only to move to a next stage, without being pushy).
5. Dismissing, rather than dealing with, clients’ genuine concerns (always start your response by acknowledging and showing understanding of the client’s concern).
Could your partners and professional staff be guilty of any of these?
Here is a simple illustration, offered by Bersin & Associates, of where we currently are in the evolution of corporate training:
You could argue perhaps about some of the labels but in broad terms it seems realistic.
I’m not so sure though that most professional firms have yet made it to the top step. Indeed, many are still on the bottom step. The good news is that it is possible to jump up to the top step, from anywhere without too much effort or cost. Indeed, because training in many firms has developed in a fairly haphazard way, there may be savings to be made.
The top step is really the only place to be.
Why do people in your firm attend training – because they have to, or because they want to?
Some training might be compulsory to meet professional requirements, or because someone feels that “all our associates need this training” (unlikely). In UK law firms, October training sessions usually draw out people who simply need to complete their minimum CPD hours for the year – another form of compulsion. Some people may attend training because their appraisal highlighted this as a development need – does this lead them to want to attend, or do they feel they are being compelled to attend?
It matters because delegates who are there because they want to be there will be more receptive to the training and much more likely to learn. Delegates who feel compelled to attend will usually learn less and can also have a negative effect on other delegates.
The question then arises, do we do enough to “sell” training in order to get people to want to be there? Even when training is compulsory, there are benefits in creating a desire to attend.
Some training managers are very good at sending out frequent reminders to potential delegates publicising the availability of training. But how much thought is really given to constructing a persuasive sales message using proven principles of selling to create a genuine desire?
Do external providers of training (like me) do enough to help sell the training to delegates, or do we feel our job is done once we have sold it to the training department?
Maybe we all need to be better at selling.
Many people will have remained with their current employer over the past few months not through loyalty but because market conditions have presented them with few alternatives. That will soon change and as the market recovers we can expect a surge in moves from one firm to another. This is a real opportunity for those firms that position themselves to be able to attract the best of the movers. Yet some firms will lose out through this process, losing some of their best people and unable to attract good people to replace them.
It is therefore imperative that firms make a concerted effort to motivate and engage their people. The start point is to bring them up to date on the firm’s situation. Some leaders try to create a positive spin but this risks damaging trust. Instead, communication should attempt to paint an honest and fair picture, good news with bad. If mistakes have been made, leaders should be honest about this and show some humility.
It is not just about passing information downwards though. People should be asked about their views, their ideas, and their fears. Letting them know that a firm’s leaders do not have all the answers can help to build trust, and involving them in a dialogue as the firm develops its plans for the future can be a way to win their loyalty.
In the good times many firms spent lavishly on retreats. These have gone with cost-cutting but there may never have been a better time to engage staff through a carefully developed away-day. It does not have to cost much yet it may prove to be an excellent investment
Here is an interesting comparison from the ever excellent Jay Cross.
In a blog post entitled eLearning is not the answer Jay says:
If you want outcomes that are comparable or better than what you were getting from instructor-led workshops, you have to do more than just throw things online. You have to support electronic offerings with mentors, guides, help desks, FAQs, reinforcement, and organizational support. eLearning is not a free lunch.
Professional firms have become very used to push learning, and moving towards pull learning will require some changes in learning culture. This is likely to be the major challenge for learning and development professionals in firms over the coming years. It would be easy but wrong to carryon doing things the way they have always been done. Change has to come and right now is a good time to face it.
I am currently talking to firms about how they can make this transition. Inevitably there are apprehensions but when viewed positively it is an exciting time to be in learning and development. It is not really a question of whether to change, but merely of where to start.
 Here is an extract from Michael Hanley’s elearning blog about designing learning for the PlayStation generation:
L&D professionals must embrace the knowledge that change is coming, look to the training tools and technologies that already exist, and be prepared to embrace innovation in organizational learning. Understanding the demographics of the 21st Century workforce should influence future training techniques; if you’re smart, you’ll be developing training strategies and approaches already.
Some approaches to consider:
- Understand the importance of the peer group
- Incorporate viral marketing or word-of mouth/ referral strategies into learning
- Use an anecdotal style / storytelling to engage learners
- Use scenarios, risks, and consequences to develop skills, build cognitive awareness, and likely outcomes to events.
Dealing in theory, raw data, or pure statistics will not motivate this group of workers to learn.
I think the need to embrace new approaches is already with us, and not only for younger learners. The professional people for whom we design learning will continue to be more demanding than most learners. We need to keep them at the forefront in their areas of expertise, and we L&D professionals need to be at the forefront in ours.
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How often do you hear or read about a change you think would benefit you, then put off implementing it? 
