CLO Archives - Chief Learning Officer - CLO Media https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/tag/clo/ Chief Learning Officer is a multimedia publication focused on the importance, benefits and advancements of a properly trained workforce. Wed, 15 Nov 2023 19:01:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/cropped-CLO-icon-Redone-32x32.png CLO Archives - Chief Learning Officer - CLO Media https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/tag/clo/ 32 32 Beyond training: The CLO’s expanded role in talent management https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2023/09/20/beyond-training-the-clos-expanded-role-in-talent-management/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2023/09/20/beyond-training-the-clos-expanded-role-in-talent-management/#respond Wed, 20 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000 https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/?p=128856 CLOs must create a culture of learning within the organization where continuous skill development is encouraged, recognized and rewarded.

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In the rapidly evolving business landscape, the role of the chief learning officer has undergone a significant transformation. No longer confined to managing training programs leading learning and development teams, today’s CLOs are integral to broader talent management strategies that drive organizational success. 

Let’s delve into the expanded role of the CLO and how it intersects with talent management.

From training manager to strategic partner

In the past, the primary responsibility of a CLO was to oversee and administer L&D programs within an organization. Their tasks were primarily centered around curriculum development, program delivery and ensuring that employees acquired necessary skills and knowledge. The CLO’s function was often viewed as somewhat operational, focusing on the day-to-day execution of learning initiatives.

However, the evolving business landscape has significantly transformed this role. Today’s organizations are confronted with numerous challenges — from rapidly changing technologies to shifting demographics in the workplace. In this dynamic environment, the role of the CLO has expanded and evolved to become more strategic and integral to the organization’s success.

CLOs are no longer just managers of training programs and learning teams, they are now seen as strategic partners who contribute significantly to an organization’s overall vision and objectives. They are expected to have a deep understanding of the business, industry trends and the broader macroeconomic environment. They need to align L&D efforts with the organization’s strategic goals, ensuring that employee development supports business growth and competitiveness.

The modern CLO is now tasked with developing comprehensive talent management strategies. This involves a holistic approach to managing people and includes everything from talent acquisition and performance management to succession planning and leadership development. The goal is not just to enhance employee skills, but also to drive engagement and retention. CLOs are expected to create a culture of learning within the organization where continuous skill development is encouraged, recognized and rewarded.

Aligning learning with business goals

A crucial aspect of the CLOs evolved responsibilities involves aligning learning initiatives with the broader business objectives of the organization. This alignment is not a mere correlation. It’s a strategic integration where learning initiatives are designed to directly contribute to the achievement of business goals.

To effectively perform this role, CLOs need a deep, comprehensive understanding of their organization’s strategic objectives. They must be aware of the company’s vision, mission and long-term goals to ensure the learning initiatives are not developed in isolation, but are intricately linked with these objectives. Whether the goal is to increase market share, enhance customer satisfaction or improve operational efficiency, the CLO needs to understand these targets and how learning can contribute to achieving them.

Translating these strategic objectives into relevant learning programs is a complex process that requires expertise and creativity. It involves designing programs that not only equip employees with the necessary skills, but also instil in them an understanding of the larger business context. For instance, if a company’s strategic objective is to drive innovation, the CLO and her team might develop programs that foster critical thinking, encourage creative problem-solving and create a culture of experimentation and risk-taking.

Ensuring that learning programs support key business goals is not a one-time task, but an ongoing process. The CLO needs to continuously monitor and assess the effectiveness of these programs in achieving their intended outcomes. They should use metrics and analytics to measure the impact of learning initiatives on business performance, making necessary adjustments to ensure alignment with evolving business goals.

The CLO’s role in talent management

The CLOr’s role in talent management is significant and multifaceted. As the person responsible for L&D within an organization, the CLO plays a crucial part in ensuring that the company’s talent has the skills, knowledge and abilities necessary to meet current and future business challenges.

Here are some key aspects of the CLO’s role in talent management:

  • Talent development: The CLO oversees the design and implementation of learning programs aimed at developing the skills and competencies of employees. This includes everything from technical training to leadership development programs. The goal is to ensure that employees have the skills they need to perform their jobs effectively and contribute to the organization’s success.
  • Succession planning: CLOs play a crucial role in identifying potential future leaders within the organization and preparing them for higher-level roles. This involves creating targeted development programs that help these high-potential employees build the skills they’ll need to succeed in leadership positions.
  • Performance management: The CLO is often involved in developing strategies and tools for assessing employee performance. These assessment tools can help identify skill gaps that can then be addressed through targeted training and development initiatives.
  • Talent retention: By creating a culture of learning within the organization, the CLO can help improve employee engagement and retention. Employees who feel that their employer is invested in their professional growth are more likely to stay with the organization.
  • Strategic alignment: Perhaps most importantly, the CLO ensures that all talent management initiatives are aligned with the organization’s strategic objectives. This means L&D programs are designed not just to improve individual performance, but to drive the organization’s overall success.
  • Driving employee engagement and retention: CLOs play a crucial role in driving employee engagement and retention through effective talent management strategies. This involves creating a culture of continuous learning, fostering career development opportunities, and recognizing and rewarding employee achievements. By doing so, CLOs can help attract and retain top talent, thereby enhancing organizational competitiveness.
  • Promoting diversity, equity inclusion and belonging: Promoting diversity and inclusion is another critical area where CLOs can make a significant impact. This involves developing inclusive learning programs, promoting diverse leadership, and creating a culture that values and respects differences. By championing diversity and inclusion, CLOs can help foster a more inclusive and innovative workforce.

In essence, the CLO’s role in talent management is about ensuring that the organization’s most valuable resource — its people — are equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to drive business success.

Today’s CLOs are strategic partners, critical to shaping and implementing effective talent management strategies. By aligning learning with business goals, driving employee engagement and retention, leveraging data and analytics and promoting diversity and inclusion, CLOs can contribute significantly to organizational success. Embracing this expanded role is not just an opportunity for CLOs to enhance their impact, but also a necessity in today’s dynamic and competitive business environment. 

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Meet the CLO Advisory Board: Kimo Kippen https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2021/03/11/meet-the-clo-advisory-board-kimo-kippen/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2021/03/11/meet-the-clo-advisory-board-kimo-kippen/#respond Thu, 11 Mar 2021 15:39:43 +0000 https://staging.chieflearningofficer.com/?p=65926 Meet longtime CLO Advisory Board member Kimo Kippen, founder of Aloha Learning Advisors.

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Chief Learning Officer recently sat down with Kimo Kippen, founder of Aloha Learning Advisors. Kippen is the former CLO of Hilton and the former vice president of learning at Marriott International. In 2015, he was recognized as CLO of the Year.

Chief Learning Officer: Where is your hometown?

It’s an interesting question. If you were to ask me where my heart is, where I identify, where I am from as a person, it would be Hawaii. I am lucky now in that my hometown is here on the island of Oahu, an area called Kaneohe, which is on the North side of the island. Absolutely beautiful. I live now, in this stage of my life, between Hawaii, where I am right now, and also Warsaw, Poland. I toggle between winters here, summers there. And I do quite a bit of work in Europe, so I need to have my feet in both parts of the world. I like it, because it helps keep me really relevant. I’m working, really, across 12 time zones, and I’m actually having a perspective from being in the Pacific all the way to spending a lot of time in Europe.

CLO: What was your official job in learning and development?

I worked my whole career in the hospitality industry. I started as a busboy, and then as a very young manager at Marriott, I had to go to a training program, and I was like, “Oh, that looks like a fun job.” I worked my way all the way up to being the head of learning for Marriott. I then left Marriott, and went to work for Hilton as the chief learning officer. I was part of the IPO for Hilton, really helping take Hilton to the next level. The thing about hospitality is, everywhere needs it. The world needs a lot of hospitality, in more ways than one. It’s a great industry to be in, and people are very respectful of great brands and great systems, great leaders and great companies.

CLO: What lessons did you learn in 2020 that you’re taking with you into 2021?

Lots of good lessons. A great shift for me is just to be more appreciative of slowing it down, being very much more appreciative of the here and now, and a greater appreciation of the sheer beauty of the world. I swim at the beach every day, and prior to COVID, this beach that I swim at would be packed, and then when COVID hit, we were the only people on the beach. I see turtles every day, and about a month ago, I was swimming, and I saw a Hawaiian monk seal on our beach. A Hawaiian monk seal is endangered, indigenous, and there’s only about 1,300 of them in the world. He was sun-bathing right in front of us.

When I was really young I moved out of the islands, so when I came back for a vacation, I see tons of family, tons of friends. I have breakfast, lunch and dinner appointments set up, and coffees in between just to catch up and reconnect with people. But, on the other side, you don’t really see a lot. You don’t really play tourist. But now that we’ve been back for a much longer time, and because there’s so little tourists, you can actually get access to a lot of places. So, about a month ago, we went to Haleakala, which is 11,000 feet high. It’s the house of the sun. We were the only people at the observatory. When we went to Kilauea, which is on the Big Island, we were there on Thursday, and the volcano erupted on Sunday. When we were walking around Kilauea crater, we were the only people walking around the crater. It’s just beautiful. It’s like rediscovering.

CLO: Tell us about L&D Cares?

In partnership with other learning professionals, we have come together to help practitioners, both there on the consulting side, as well as those who are in full-time gigs, who have been displaced as a result of COVID, to help them find their next gig and opportunity. And as you know, the way one gets a job is through networking. What we’re trying to do is help people to network. So, we set up this L&D Cares site, and we have 400 people who are already on it, and what we’ve done is we set up these cohorts. They’re groups of 10 — we have about nine of them right now — people who want to come together, and we have volunteer coaches to coach those cohorts. They meet probably every other week. Having done a job search, I am very cognizant of having a buddy or buddies to help you in that process.

We’re doing this very much on-the-fly, but it has quite a bit of structure. We’re doing a lot of career summits. We did one back in September, and … another one in February. It’s a [virtual] forum of people and 40 speakers to help people, again, to network, and learn skills to help them to get a better and greater job.

CLO: How do you enjoy spending your time outside of work?

So, I’m pretty fortunate that I’m working, shall I say on my own terms? I have quite a bit of flexibility in what I do, and I’m loving it because it’s allowed me to do other things that are important to me. Again, around family and health, well-being and travel, so that’s been very good. I serve on a lot of boards. I’ve been able to devote more time to [causes that I care deeply about] to help advance their mission, and then personally, we’re now living what we’ve strategized to do, and that is to be able to live between two places that we care and love very much, Poland and Hawaii. To be able to spend time in both places has been wonderful.

Kippen was profiled in 2015 when he was awarded CLO of the Year.

CLO: What book, audio or physical, or podcast, has gotten you through 2020 and the pandemic?

One that was interesting, a colleague wrote, it’s called “Curiosity,” written by Simon Brown. He’s done a nice job in talking about the power of curiosity, the importance of curiosity, what that means to organizations. That was good. The other one is around racism, “How to Be an Anti-Racist.”

CLO: In your opinion, what are some components of a robust L&D program?

Always start with the learner. Everything is about the learner. What is the objective, and what does the learner experience look like during that learning process? How would we measure the effectiveness, the impact, of that learning, both for the individual, as well as for the organization for which we’re doing it with and in?

CLO: What advice do you have for fellow CLOs, and learning leaders as they take on 2021?

It’s a marathon and not a sprint. And always take care of yourself first. Focus on resilience, and really keep in mind that it is the longer play that we’re talking about. There’s going to be sprints that are going to be meted in between that, but it’s really important these days that we keep in focus what’s really important, which is your health, yourself, your health, your family, your loved ones and staying focused on that. In this new world in which we’re working, which is primarily remote and at home, that and now for people that have kids, they’re having to do all that remote. It’s a whole new day. So, I also just need to express, we need to be grateful, gratitude, kindness, appreciation, resilience, empathy. These are some of the words that I would like to see the world have more of, and acceptance, toleration, celebration, inclusion, belonging, those, a lot again, those words, adjectives and adverbs that I’d like to see more in the world.

 

This article has been edited for brevity.

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Explainer: Who is the chief learning officer? https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2020/09/02/video-who-is-the-chief-learning-officer/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2020/09/02/video-who-is-the-chief-learning-officer/#respond Wed, 02 Sep 2020 18:43:10 +0000 https://staging.chieflearningofficer.com/?p=63582 While the CLO remains the highest-ranking executive in charge of learning and development, the role and responsibilities have expanded.

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Video editing by Shaan Chadha and Colin Hohman

Information in this explainer video was gathered from Human Capital Media Research and Advisory Group’s report, “The Role of CLO: What’s Next?

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Take a look at the evolution of the CLO https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2020/02/03/take-a-look-at-the-evolution-of-the-clo/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2020/02/03/take-a-look-at-the-evolution-of-the-clo/#respond Mon, 03 Feb 2020 17:53:41 +0000 https://staging.chieflearningofficer.com/?p=61509 The world of workplace learning has experienced seismic change over the past three decades. How has the CLO role kept pace with the evolving needs of the workplace?

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It’s been almost a quarter century since the formalization of the position of chief learning officer: In 1994, Jack Welch made Steve Kerr the CLO of General Electric. Of course, senior managers, often within human resources, had been responsible for workplace training for decades prior to the creation of the CLO role. This was more of an emblematic recognition of the importance of learning within a successful business. A dedicated executive was necessary to make sure the organization could continue to find the best ways to develop employee knowledge and skills.

The world of workplace learning has experienced seismic change over the past 25-plus years. Technology has evolved. New principles have been introduced. Even the way people do their work has fundamentally changed.

But what has happened to the CLO during this period? Has the role kept pace with the evolving needs of the workplace? How have the skills required to be an effective CLO changed? And perhaps the most important question of all: Does a modern business even need a CLO to enable the future of work?

More Than a Title

Before exploring the evolution of the CLO role, it’s important to acknowledge that not every organization has a formal CLO. The majority of companies, from small and medium-sized businesses to global enterprises, employ a role that oversees a significant component, if not all, of the formalized workplace learning function. They may be part of the HR team or embedded within the operation. They may be referred to as training director, head of learning, vice president of learning, chief talent officer or a variety of other titles. Regardless, their focus is making sure people have the knowledge and skills needed to do their jobs effectively and contribute to the overall success of the organization.

Every organization is different. The strategies and tactics used to support workplace learning can vary considerably. Therefore, while they have the same role in concept, the day-to-day of every CLO will vary. So, rather than examine the details of the job to determine how it has changed over the years, it is simpler to look at how their function — the organization’s overall approach to learning — has evolved. And since 1994, there have been four distinct phases of workplace learning that have shaped the CLO role.

1. The Academic CLO

The original CLO played a role very similar to the dean of an academic institution. Workplace learning was extremely structured and relied almost exclusively on a combination of classroom and on-the-job training into the late 1990s. Learning and development included large teams of classroom facilitators and peer trainers along with instructional designers and project managers.

The corporate university was the center of the workplace learning strategy. Employees were commonly required to take time away from their day-to-day work to focus on planned skill and career development activities. Training delivery was very expensive, but this was how corporate education was always done. The CLO was measured primarily on volume of training delivery, availability of development offerings and responsiveness to business requests.

2. The Digital CLO

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the internet happened. L&D rapidly introduced digital training as a cost-effective and scalable alternative to the classroom. The corporate university shifted its focus to culture and leadership training but was no longer the center of the workplace learning system. The CLO adjusted their budget to reduce travel and logistics expenses and add essential learning technologies, including a learning management system and basic authoring tools. Trainer roles were reduced, and digital content developers were added. While the tactics shifted considerably, the measurement focus on utilization stayed the same.

3. The Ecosystemic CLO

The 2010s brought the realization that the CLO never actually owned workplace learning in the first place. This was made clear as other teams, including sales, marketing, communications and operations, began to rapidly adopt their own tools and strategies for employee enablement. Technology had triggered fundamental changes in employee workflows and expectations, so every team started looking for ways to address their growing skills gaps. They may not have referred to their tactics as “learning,” but it was all in service of the same goal: an informed, capable, productive employee.

To address the accelerating speed of business change along with the decentralized reality of employee enablement, the CLO began to recognize their organization’s learning culture as a multifaceted ecosystem. This represented a near 180-degree pivot from the centralized, university-driven approach. Now, the CLO looked for ways to work across functions to support L&D. They challenged their teams to find meaningful integrations and connect technology, data and content tools to provide a holistic employee experience. The historic focus on push training began to give way to more pull concepts, such as mobile, social and self-directed learning, to balance scale and personal needs.

The measurement story also started to change. The CLO was under increasing pressure to validate the impact their function was having (or not having) on business results, an expectation that had been experienced by their executive counterparts for years. This meant that utilization stats were no longer enough. So, the CLO turned to their data partner within their organization to help their team begin to improve their measurement capabilities and expand the scope of “learning data.”

Challenges in the New World of Work

There are still plenty of CLOs who lead L&D teams that leverage a centralized, academic model for training delivery. At the same time, many CLOs have made the clear transition to a holistic, ecosystemic approach so their teams can leverage a wider range of tools and tactics to enable employee performance. Every organization is unique. Supporting a medium-sized business with a core set of roles is very different than supporting a global enterprise with an extensive number of functions and job requirements. An effective CLO must adopt strategies that best fit the needs of their business. There is no such thing as a “best way” to foster knowledge and skill development that fits perfectly for everyone.

Regardless of their business size or industry, many CLOs are now facing the same fundamental challenge. According to PwC’s “Talent Trends 2019” report, “79 percent of CEOs worldwide are concerned that a lack of essential skills in their workforce is threatening the future growth of their organization.” This is up from 63 percent in 2014. At the same time, research shows that, due to the current state of the global economy, companies are starting to prefer reskilling over external recruitment as a primary means to address their talent gaps.

Automation is rapidly changing the roles people play in how work gets done. Ninety percent of organizations are already in the process of designing jobs, according to the “2019 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends” report. In a world of near constant business disruption, organizations must foster an unprecedented level of agility to remain competitive long-term. As things stand right now, more than half of all employees will require significant reskilling in the next three years. But it’s foolish to think reskilling is a short-term challenge. Rather, CLOs must reimagine their function in order to provide the continuous development and support employees need to keep pace with their ever-changing job expectations.

4. The Modern CLO

The CLO must again evolve to help employees thrive within the modern workplace. However, this phase should not be focused on specific tools or tactics. Rather, providing clear value through L&D in today’s workplace requires a continued shift in mindset. Organizations with mature learning cultures may already be moving down this path based on what they learned during previous phases. The modern CLO must influence the entire organization — executives, stakeholders, employees — to think differently about the role of L&D. They must help people adopt a modern learning mindset and transition completely away from the idea that workplace learning should look and feel anything like traditional schooling.

By definition, “modern” is a moving target. Similarly, the CLO must constantly reassess how they provide value within their organization. While tools and tactics will change, a modern learning mindset is guided by a set of foundational, evergreen principles.

Agility. Continuous learning is a requirement in the modern workplace. The CLO must foster organizational agility by shifting their team’s focus from programs and content to systems and channels. L&D will only be able to help people keep pace with the changing needs of the business by connecting them to knowledge and skill development rather than requiring that they always build and deliver it themselves.

Impact. Like any other business leader, the CLO must be able to determine whether their efforts are having the intended impact. They must challenge their team to improve their measurement practices and tap into related expertise within the organization. The modern CLO must be willing to acknowledge moments when their efforts do not yield the intended impact and proactively improve their strategies as a result.

Data. L&D cannot move forward unless it improves its data capabilities. Artificial intelligence, adaptive learning, augmented reality — many emerging L&D practices require quality data to implement. Therefore, the CLO must prioritize this effort and integrate learning data with the broader picture provided by business data. They must partner across the organization to leverage data practices and expertise. The modern CLO must ask questions and make decisions using data in addition to their past experience and outside input.

Ecosystem. The CLO must continue their shift toward a holistic approach to L&D. Rather than seeking centralized ownership of reskilling practices, the modern CLO leverages a wide array of tools, channels and tactics in partnership with internal and external experts to help employees balance the push and pull of continuous workplace learning.

Workflow. The corporate university is not dead, but it cannot be the centerpiece of a modern learning strategy. Rather, the modern CLO pushes their team to provide learning and support opportunities when and where an employee needs them. Complex skill development may have a structured, academic feel when needed, but a modern learning strategy begins with a focus on the true moments of need that can make a difference in people’s day-to-day execution.

Personal. The future of learning should not be based on a specific type of content or technology. Rather, as jobs become more complex and skill development needs become more nuanced, the future of workplace learning will become personal. The modern CLO must adopt tools and tactics that can balance the needs of individual employees with the scale of their organization. By adopting modern learning principles such as data, ecosystem and workflow, the CLO can reduce their team’s reliance on one-size-fits-none training and adopt new practices, such as AI-enabled personalization and coaching.

In today’s workplace, mindset trumps talent. After all, an effective CLO must leverage the talents within their team and across the organization to bring their vision to life. They don’t have to be an expert in topics such as data, AI and experience design. Rather, they must understand the potential for such concepts and influence the culture shift needed before they can be successfully implemented. After all, if people continue to think learning at work should look and feel like school, the CLO’s impact potential will be extremely limited.

Is the CLO Still Needed?

In his 2016 Forbes article, “A Message for the C-Suite About Chief Learning Officers,” Dan Pontefract suggested that the true function of the CLO is more about purpose than learning: “This newly redefined CLO will now hold the keys to a more engaged organization, one replete with an army of purpose mindset employees.”

While not every organization has a true CLO, maintaining a formal role that works across the organization to help people do their best work every day is essential in today’s business environment. In this way, span of influence is infinitely more important than title. After all, the CLO does not own workplace learning. But, by applying a modern mindset, they can show people that learning is perhaps the most important part of work.

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Career Advice: Jesse Jackson https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2019/05/14/career-advice-jesse-jackson/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2019/05/14/career-advice-jesse-jackson/#respond Tue, 14 May 2019 09:00:47 +0000 https://staging.chieflearningofficer.com/?p=58815 Jesse Jackson, CLO of consumer and community banking for JPMorgan Chase, shares his career journey and how he came into L&D.

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Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson

What has been your career path?

My role as a CLO for JPMorgan Chase, specifically with our consumer community banking business, is a bit nontraditional. I didn’t come up through a normal HR program; I had the privilege to enter the bank through our management development program. I spent time in our consumer community banking group as a general manager moving through various roles, predominantly for our branch banking business. I also had the opportunity to move into our commercial bank, where I served as an underwriter and as a commercial banker lending to hallmark names in the New York marketplace. Additionally, I supported the business, specifically the commercial bank, as a client service manager for our global network. Having worked within the commercial bank for a number of years, I also transitioned back into business banking, which is one of the sublines of businesses within the consumer community bank. It was in that role where the opportunity to transition into the chief learning officer role emerged. It allowed me to meet and work with another set of leaders within business focused on some of the same goals and objectives as we think about truly enhancing and transforming the experiences that we deliver to our clients across the globe.

What attracted you to and continues to excite you about learning and development?

Learning is so exciting right now because it is bringing together so many dynamics that we see in the broader economy. Whether it is the technological revolution as we look at the learning management systems or as we look at more digital learning modalities. It is that capability that is helping us shape our competitive landscape. Equally important is how we partner with other disciplines to ensure that we are arming our employees with the right tool sets, the right procedures, the right systems that are going to enhance their careers in the various job families that we deliver value across.

What lessons have brought you here?

Lessons really manifested themselves at key transitions. Specifically, moving from one job role to the other. They’re more memorable, because that’s where there was more stress on me individually, more stress on the enterprise in terms of ensuring that I had the requisite skills and knowledge to perform effectively within the context of that new role. As with any transition, there’s a material learning curve in many cases as individuals move to do other activities. Understanding that we recognize that learning curve, that we accelerate our ability to move up that learning curve, in many respects allows us to differentiate ourselves and deliver value faster to our customers and to the enterprise. I think about those transitions in my role from teller to branch manager, from branch manager to sales manager. Certainly, from leaving the consumer community bank going into the commercial bank as a credit underwriter and moving through credit training. Those are experiences that I draw on today as I face new challenges, as I think about bringing together the right team members to address those challenges.

What will the CLO role look like in five or 10 years?

The CLO role in five or 10 years will continue to evolve in a way that allows the chief learning officer to work much more in an integrated fashion with our chief information officers and chief marketing officers. This notion of lifelong learning, this notion of continuous learning, what some call learning agility, has never been more critical. It’s not just what it is we’re teaching, but it’s also critically important how we’re teaching it. What are the learning modalities that we are maturing and delivering across the enterprise? To do that effectively, the chief learning officer and the partnership with our chief information officers, with our chief marketing officers within the enterprise, will become even more critical and certainly I believe will enable us to deliver transformative value to our enterprise by really enhancing the performance of our people and increasing their success and ability to contribute effectively to our customers.

What is your most important career advice?

As I think about career advice, I think about it not necessarily through the lens of multiple jobs that individuals need to navigate through, but more through the lens of the skill sets and capabilities that need to be matured. I also view it in a more pragmatic way, in terms of a T-shaped diagram, where the broad horizontal are the soft skills that we need to navigate effectively. Specifically: communication, collaboration and executive presence. I’ve used the deep domain expertise as those types of capabilities that’ll allow us to be much more consultative and allow us to partner with the C-suite as we attempt to understand their key performance objectives and deliver learning capabilities that allow us to progress toward them, if not exceed them.

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Burgers and Basics https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2019/01/14/burgers-and-basics/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2019/01/14/burgers-and-basics/#respond Mon, 14 Jan 2019 09:00:31 +0000 https://www.clomedia.com/?p=57874 Relationships are the center of the CLO role.

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Mike Prokopeak is vice president and editor in chief at Chief Learning Officer magazine.
Mike Prokopeak is vice president and editor in chief at Chief Learning Officer magazine.

Let me set the record straight for those still in doubt: Hamburgers are not made of ham.

We live in a politically divided time when fake news and alternative facts have regrettably become a common part of the lexicon. But on that basic culinary fact we should be able to agree.

Yet even that kind of common knowledge isn’t always common. It’s a useful reminder for chief learning officers as another year begins.

There will undoubtedly be many new developments in education technology this year, emerging applications and exciting methodologies that engage learners and provide powerful potential opportunities for development. Technology is advancing at a dizzying pace that is exhilarating to watch. Access to the world’s entire collection of knowledge and expertise is at the tips of our fingers and learning organizations will march ever forward with new initiatives and programs.

That is the way it should be. Experimentation and innovation are the currency of the learning economy. Those who are able to learn better and faster are the ones who will rise. For CLOs, failure to launch new approaches and refine old ones is a personal and professional failure.

Yet amid the pressure to continually innovate, it’s important not to lose sight of the basics.

I’m not talking about using agile development techniques to design a course or evaluating the success of a program on the Kirkpatrick scale. It goes without saying that successful learning organizations should excel at the fundamentals of workforce education.

I’m talking about a different set of basics: building good relationships and continually checking your assumptions. Which brings me back to the hamburger.

A few weeks back, we had a breakthrough with my 6-year-old son. A vegetarian by practice if not principle, he avoided any kind of meat like it was a T-Rex on his tail. The sight of a chicken nugget heading for his plate would send him shrieking into the other room. Getting his growing brain a regular source of protein was a daily struggle. All that changed on Taco Tuesday of that week.

We added a little ground beef to his heretofore cheese-only taco and sure enough, he liked it. Like many an eager parent, I took it a step too far. When I suggested he could try a hamburger next, he shot me a look. “I might like beef but I’m not going to eat ham,” he said.

It was a great reminder to check my assumptions. It is called a hamburger after all. Identifying that small misunderstanding may just end up saving us from years of dinnertime aggravation.

As a chief learning officer, you may think you’ve checked all the boxes. You’ve done a thorough needs analysis, combed through all the relevant performance data, meticulously surveyed the state of current skills and aligned with critical business priorities. But a small misunderstanding can torpedo all that effort.

Even in the best-funded learning organizations where workforce development is central to business, chief learning officers have limited power to mandate compliance or compel people to participate in learning. Hard power is scarce. There’s always a more urgent task and a higher priority for busy executives and frontline workers alike.

The ability to influence others is the chief learning officer’s secret weapon. You have to work through others and channel their energies, passions and interests. The best do it so well that it seems effortless. But like a duck serenely floating in a pond, beneath the surface they are continually paddling.

They talk regularly to top leaders and worker bees alike. In many cases, they will actually do the job alongside them. Those learning leaders invest time and sweat to understand where workers struggle so when it comes time to solve a problem those workers know the learning leader has their best interests at heart.

Most important, they tell you the truth. They see you’re working with them rather than through them. And because you’ve listened and invested time and energy in them and their challenges, they’ll give you an honest answer when the time comes. They’ll let you know that they didn’t know a hamburger wasn’t made of ham.

When it comes to relationships, it’s hard to have a beef with that.

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For a Limited Time Only https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2018/09/24/for-a-limited-time-only/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2018/09/24/for-a-limited-time-only/#respond Mon, 24 Sep 2018 09:00:05 +0000 https://www.clomedia.com/?p=56064 Embrace the temporary to see results that last.

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Mike Prokopeak is vice president and editor in chief at Chief Learning Officer magazine.

Sears was the undisputed king of retail when I was growing up.

Heading back to school? Sears had you covered with all the clothes and supplies you could possibly need. Washing machine went kaput? The Sears appliance store offered choices and styles to fit your needs.

Need a power drill? Aisles of Craftsman tools fit whatever your home improvement project might be. Fitness equipment? Check. New tires for your car? Check. Mattresses? Rest assured. Sears had it.

Sears stores were everywhere, from cities to suburbs to small towns. And in the rare event there wasn’t a store nearby, you could order just about anything and everything in the Sears catalog and have it delivered to you.

The company was the picture of stability and its massive Chicago headquarters served as a powerful symbol of that corporate heft. The Sears Tower reigned as the world’s highest skyscraper for 25 years from its completion in 1973 to 1998.

But it wasn’t just from afar that I saw that. My dad worked there. He started in the appliance department and slowly but surely moved up to managing a region of service centers. Under his watch, a fleet of vans visited hundreds of homes daily to install dishwashers, repair TVs or fix just about any home appliance, whether it was Sears’ Kenmore brand or not.

Sears was as solid and dependable as an employer could be. Until it wasn’t.

The tide turned in the 1990s. The retail business started to change as consumers turned to specialist brands. The internet killed catalogs. Dad took an early retirement package he couldn’t refuse.

Fast forward a couple of decades. The Sears Tower, vacated by the company after its 1995 move to the suburbs, took a new name in 2009. The last Sears retail store in Chicago — the city the company called home for more than 100 years — closed in July 2018. Corporate fortunes come and go but the lessons they teach can remain, particularly for learning organizations.

From the time the first corporate universities were established the focus was building something that lasts. Companies like GE and Motorola created some of the first modern corporate universities and established the new role of chief learning officer to run them.

The effort remains a worthy one. Staying relevant and competitive in business requires continuous investment in skills and abilities. A corporate-academic hybrid is the logical way to deliver it.

Now, some of those early investors are struggling to adjust. Motorola was split up and sold off piece by piece. Industrial powerhouse GE continues to grapple with the challenges of the digital age. What changed? Business did. Innovation happened, new models arose and the pace of change sped up.

Household names like Motorola, Kodak and Circuit City as well as Sears have waxed and then waned. According to one study, 88 percent of companies that were on the Fortune 500 in the 1950s are now long gone. Look at CEOs for further evidence. The length of their tenure at the top continues to drop, registering a median of five years in 2017.

That quickening pace of business transformed enterprise learning as well. Curricula and courses with year-long revision and development cycles gave way to learning in the moment of need. Seemingly evergreen skills made room for rapidly emerging skill sets and a more flexible approach to management and leadership. Learning and development has kept pace.

But the focus on permanence lingers — to create something special and fight like hell to protect it. It’s not a bad impulse but it’s one CLOs have to increasingly let go of in order to be successful.

Being a CLO isn’t a lifetime appointment. This isn’t the U.S. Supreme Court or a tenured professorship. It’s a business role like any other. You pick the best talent available, focus on a solid strategy and deploy proven tactics to make it happen. With a little bit of luck the combination of right people, right approach at the right time works — and it can feel like magic.

And then it’s over. There’s power in embracing the process and making the most of the situation you’re in. Companies are moving to a more agile business model. So are people. More often than not, your best people are looking for flexible and creative work. Learning for a limited time only isn’t a bad thing.

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Making Learning Modern https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2018/05/29/making-learning-modern/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2018/05/29/making-learning-modern/#respond Tue, 29 May 2018 19:29:38 +0000 http://www.talenteconomy.io/?p=25653 Modern-day learners want access to the information they need when they need it. Here are some insights into the future of learning and development departments, as well as how to speak their learning language.

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“] Technology is changing the way we gather information and learn at an increasingly rapid pace. Just a few years ago, if you needed to change the oil in your car and didn’t know how to do it, you would have dug through the glove compartment for the manual, read the instructions the best you could, then given it your best shot. (Or given up and taken it to the shop). Now, a quick search on YouTube will serve up a video — and sometimes several — showing you exactly what to do, step-by-step, for your make and model of vehicle.

The ubiquity of handheld devices like smartphones also means we can learn wherever we are. In just the past five years, global penetration of smartphones has increased from less than 19 percent to nearly 75 percent. For many of us, search engines are the go-to resources whenever we need to look something up, gather insights or learn something new.

This consumer-oriented approach to learning has affected the expectations we have for learning at work as well. We don’t want to sit through hours of one-way lectures given by an instructor who can’t relate to our experiences. We want to be empowered to set our own educational path and to learn from people (often our own peers) who clearly understand what it means to apply the learning in our role. When we need to learn how to do something specific, we want help to be as easily accessible and relevant to our circumstances as the oil change videos on YouTube.

These new expectations aren’t just restricted to millennials or Generation Zers who seem like they were born with a smartphone in their hands. The reality of today’s work environments means that everyone from Gen Z to the oldest of the baby boomers is being asked to get more done in less time. With technology at virtually everyone’s fingertips, workers in an increasing number of industries are developing what we call a “millennial mindset,” where they expect to be able to use technology at work to learn and gather information when and where they need it.

Let L&D Be Your Ally

If you’ve been offering product training sessions and little else, the insights above can leave you feeling a little overwhelmed. How can you possibly get from where you are today to where you need to be? If your organization has a formal learning and development department, you may be closer than you think.

The makeup of L&D varies from organization to organization, but generally, these teams have at least one or two people who are experts/specialists in learning theory. Best case scenario, they have already invested in a modern learning platform that you can leverage. If not, it’s likely that they have at least looked into modern learning platforms but haven’t been able to justify the investment to the business. You can provide them with the opportunity. Worst case, they have no idea what a modern learning platform is and you can help them up their game while you investigate the opportunity together.

Once you are ready to begin developing training services, whether they are classroom services or e-learning modules, you will need someone to lead the effort. Your L&D allies won’t be the subject matter experts, but they can help your SMEs translate their knowledge into useful enablement services.

If you don’t have a background in training, getting up to speed on the terminology can help you have a more productive discussion with the learning professionals in your organization. Here are just a few terms with which you should be familiar:

  • Badging: Validations given to learners to attest to completion and passing of a course. Badges can be added to social profiles on platforms such as LinkedIn.
  • Credentialing: Similar to badging, credentialing is often used when attesting to the learner’s competency in an area.
  • Gamification: Adds elements of gameplay to learning such as scoring points, leaderboards and badges. Since salespeople tend to be competitive by nature, gamification is particularly effective in sales force enablement.
  • LMS: Learning management systems. A somewhat outdated term that refers to the systems used to manage and maintain learning assets as well as data on attendance, course evaluations and student assessments.
  • Microlearning: Learning that is delivered in short bursts that focus in on a very specific topic. Generally, microlearning is thought to increase retention. It also tends to be one of the best ways to increase participation within a time-strapped sales force.
  • M-learning: Mobile learning. Refers to learning assets that can be accessed through mobile devices. This term is also falling out of fashion. In a modern workforce, all learning should be accessible from a mobile device.
  • MOOC: Massive online open course. Originally offered by universities to the community, these online courses are open to anyone and free of charge. Private businesses are now taking the MOOC concept and transforming it into a learning platform for their sales organizations.
  • VILT: Virtual instructor-led training. Training that is offered in a virtual environment where instructor and learner are in different locations. This type of training fosters interaction between instructor and learner, and sometimes, between learners.

This story is an excerpt from “Sales Enablement: A Master Framework to Engage, Equip, and Empower a World-Class Sales Force,” co-authored by Miller Heiman Group CEO Byron Matthews and CSO Insights Research Director Tamara Schenk. This excerpt was adapted for Talent Economy. To comment, email editor@talenteconomy.io.

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A Dedication to the Craft https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2018/01/02/a-dedication-to-the-craft/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2018/01/02/a-dedication-to-the-craft/#respond Tue, 02 Jan 2018 09:00:14 +0000 https://www.clomedia.com/?p=41031 At Gilead Sciences, Brian Miller takes the same thoughtful and dedicated approach to learning that he was taught at a young age.

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When Brian Miller was just 6, his mother, an accountant by training, would take out her ledgers and spreadsheets, lay them on the floor and invite her young son to play a game.

“Literally she would spread them on the floor and say, ‘I’m off by two cents. Help me find it,’ ” Miller said.

The hunt for the missing money was one of the ways Miller’s mother, who earned a master’s degree, became a CPA and eventually a chief financial officer while raising her two sons alone, taught him to develop perseverance and stamina.

“Mom is an amazing woman. She taught me I need to get better every day and be the best at your craft,” he said.

It’s a lesson Miller has carried with him throughout his career, whether as a middle school teacher or now as vice president of talent, development and inclusion at Gilead Sciences, one of the world’s leading biopharmaceutical companies.

Early Career

Born in St. Louis, Miller grew up in Pasadena, California. After graduating with an economics degree from the University of the Pacific, he was teaching math to middle school students when on a dare, he applied to the master’s program in education at Harvard University.

“The acceptance came in on April 1 and I thought it was a joke,” he said.

At Harvard, Miller also took courses through Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School for Government, sparking an interest that led him to create his own consulting company after graduation. He later went on to work for Ninth House, one of the first companies to create high-quality learning simulations, and the Forum Corp., a pioneer of “insourced” training.

“The things I gravitate toward are things that are just on the edge of something different,” Miller said.

Looking to move into an inside role at a company, Miller joined Amgen, a biopharmaceutical company in Southern California, as a manager of learning operations in 2005.

That transition to corporate education came with a few realizations. Unlike in consulting, there’s no walking away from organizational challenges. “A consultant can say here’s what you should do, here’s what it looks like … and then move on,” he said. “When you’re internal, there’s no moving on. You live with that solution year over year over year.”

That helped Miller realize the importance of character and competence. “Your words really land and stay,” he said. “You really have to be thoughtful about what you put into an organization because it has ripple effects and it typically will stay around.”

As Miller moved his way up the organization and was promoted to director of learning and development, he learned the importance of communication and clear direction. “We don’t give enough time to the why,” Miller said. “We give a lot of time to the what we’re doing and how we’re going to get it done.”

It was that thoughtful, deliberate mindset that would play a direct role in the next step of Miller’s career.

The Need to Lead

When Katie Watson went looking for a leader to build a new corporate learning function at Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company, she had a clear idea about the why.

The biopharmaceutical company, founded in 1987 in Foster City, California, outside of San Francisco, was on an extended run of success because of its pioneering antiviral drugs but many senior leaders had been there a long time, a source of tremendous value but also potential risk.

“From a strategy standpoint, it was key for us to make sure we were getting that next level of leaders ready to take on those important next roles,” said Watson, executive vice president of human resources and herself a 15-year veteran.

At that point, the L&D team consisted of one person mostly working on strategy. Miller, who had flown up for the day from Southern California to interview, presented his strategy to build a department.

“I was willing to declare my point of view — right, wrong or in between,” Miller said. “I think they saw me as a guy who is … going to put it out there to be debated and then he’s going to work his tail off to execute.”

Watson, who had been interviewing for months, saw in Miller something that pushed her to act faster than Gilead normally likes to move. “Before he even flew back down to Southern California we had made him an offer,” she said.

Miller’s experience at a peer company along with his consulting expertise were strong selling points but it was his preparation and approach that sold Watson. “He had the vision for where we wanted to go but also the patience to say we don’t need to throw everything at it in Year One,” she said.

Miller, offer now in hand for the short flight back home, knew he was at a potential turning point. “It’s one of those change-your-life moments,” he said. “There are moments in your life that will change the trajectory of your career as well as your life and your family.”

At the time, Gilead employed about 4,200 people and was on the cusp of rapid growth. But it was the opportunity to build a learning and development function from the ground up that pushed Miller to join the company in April 2010 as director of learning and development.

‘Swiss Army Knife-Type Talents’

As he settled in to his new role, Miller asked for time to observe for a while before hiring a staff. “That gave me the opportunity to go in a totally different direction,” he said. “Year One the direction was to build the department closer to a consulting company.”

Miller eschewed traditional L&D job roles like instructional design and classroom trainer and opted instead to focus on building analytics and project management capability.

He went looking for what he called “Swiss army-knife type talents,” experienced learning professionals who had the ability to consult and analyze business problems. “Getting that sort of talent to come, I knew we’d have the opportunity to play very broad across the organization,” he said.

That measured, methodical approach matched Gilead’s science-based culture. “One of Gilead’s key strengths historically has been its ability to focus on one thing at a time — first HIV then hepatitis C — and just completely dominate the market,” said Michael Douglass, health care industry analyst and deputy managing editor at The Motley Fool, a multimedia company that provides investment advice.

As those treatments have matured, Gilead has diversified outside of its core areas of expertise into new areas such as autoimmune disease and cancer. “I’d be more concerned about the risk of trying to do too many things at once but Gilead has been thoughtful and careful in its approach,” Douglass said.

That culture of deliberation has worked in Miller’s favor. “That first year was a lot of hard work on my end but it set the right trajectory for the function,” he said. “We are not a big team. We have to embrace the scramble … but we enjoy that.”

From Watson’s perspective, the time Miller and his team spent to get to know the business and meet with leaders was well spent. “If you were to go out and ask people at Gilead, he and his function have so much credibility and are so well regarded,” she said. “And it is because not only are the programs they create well done and well aligned with what the business needs but they took the time to engage the business.”

Brian Miller, at Gilead’s headquarters on L&D’s role: “We have to embrace the scramble.” Photos by Brian Flaherty

Learning Looks Like Gilead

While Miller took a measured approach to get to know Gilead’s business and put the right team in place, that didn’t mean he wasn’t looking for quick wins. Senior leader development, the issue that concerned Watson when hiring an L&D leader, was first.

Despite having just a small team in place, Miller decided to develop a custom three-day program that would match Gilead’s culture and leadership values. The business simulation and case study at the heart of the program came directly out of multiple meetings with the CEO and divisional presidents. “Every bit of that looks like Gilead,” Watson said.

The process Miller went through to create the program was as important as the program itself because it underlined for senior leaders the importance of developing the next generation of Gilead leaders.

“They committed that not only would their people be going to these programs but they would be there,” Watson said. “They would attend part of it and talk to that next stage of leader.”

That ongoing engagement with the program, even several years later, is how Miller and Watson recognize they’re achieving results from their development efforts. While Gilead tracks formal measures for programs, it’s the ongoing commitment from veteran leaders, some of whom had not engaged in leadership development in the past, that stands out.

“We are such a data-driven company … yet something in the experience made them pause and think about the type of leader they want to be or something in the business simulation made them pause and think about how they interact with their peers,” said Watson. “That’s compelling to me.”

Miller and his 13-member team have jumped at other opportunities to contribute to Gilead’s business. During a time when the company was growing rapidly through acquisition, they partnered with a longtime executive in Gilead’s research and development group to build a half-day culture training session to help new hires understand how Gilead works and why it works that way.

Watson said half of the company has made that training mandatory, an unusual step for Gilead.

When Gilead considered adding a new core value — inclusion — for the first time in 12 years, Miller and his colleagues put together a 90-day sprint team to dive into the data and present the business case. Then they made the case for why L&D should lead the charge. “It’s a behavior change issue, a culture change issue,” Miller said.

Miller credits his team’s ability to methodically approach business challenges and uncover business value as key to their success. “The things that are core — there’s where you really want to stare into that one, we want to wallow around in things that we know that the business really values,” he said.

It’s an approach that has also advanced Miller’s own career. He recently took over all of Gilead’s talent management and succession planning in addition to learning.

Succession is on the minds of investors. When Gilead veteran John Milligan took over as CEO from longtime leader John Martin in 2016, it was a signal that the company would approach growth much as it has in the past, Douglass said, but the recent retirement of COO Kevin Young has analysts watching carefully.

“One of the things I most respect about Gilead is that its management team is deliberate in its growth plans,” Douglass said. “This isn’t a company that wastes a lot of money each quarter trying to make Wall Street and short-term shareholders happy. That care — some would call it slowness — has almost certainly depressed the stock price in the last couple of years … but it’s the right answer for long-term, sustainable growth.”

Kind of like how finding the missing two cents in the ledger is the right way to teach a 6-year-old the value of perseverance and dedication to your craft.

Mike Prokopeak is vice president and editor in chief of Chief Learning Officer magazine. Comment below or email editor@CLOmedia.com.

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Stressed, Pressed and Blessed https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2017/12/19/stressed-pressed-blessed/ https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2017/12/19/stressed-pressed-blessed/#respond Tue, 19 Dec 2017 09:00:15 +0000 https://www.clomedia.com/?p=41019 With all the challenges, it’s easy to lose sight of just how special learning work is.

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Mike Prokopeak, VP, Editor in Chief

In learning, as with just about anything in life, it’s easy to focus on the negative and get preoccupied with the challenges that inevitably pop up to block our way.

There’s never enough money, time or attention to do all that we want. Add to that the unavoidable fact that learning and development is a long-term strategy for a short-term obsessed business world dominated by quarterly results-driven thinking and it’s no wonder that learning leaders feel the pressure.

Lofty expectations come from all directions: executives want real results, business partners come with pet projects and learners have an insatiable demand for help in advancing their careers.

Piling on top of that is the ever-expanding set of tools, technologies and methodologies at hand for the job. Learning leaders have a dizzying array of choices in their work: in classroom or online, in person or on the go, via programs that take months to complete or bits of learning consumed in a matter of minutes.

But all that pressure and stress is nothing new for chief learning officers. You signed up for it. Being an executive, whether the role is learning, marketing, finance or operations, means you have to deliver. Learning is the right thing to do for the health and wealth of the organization and employees alike. But that doesn’t mean you get a free pass to the board room.

With all those challenges, it’s easy to lose sight of just how special learning work is. It’s a blessing to be able to be a chief learning officer. That message is crystal clear as I look to the year ahead.

One of the benefits of my job is the ability to travel around the country and meet learning executives at companies large and small in a wide range of industries. From Boston to Seattle, Atlanta to Anaheim, I met dozens of learning leaders in 2017 who have me excited about the future of the profession.

Take technology. I’m a short-term skeptic when it comes to the effects of emerging technology on learning. Too often, emerging fields like artificial intelligence are used to sell a product rather than advance the practice. 

But I’m bullish on the long-term effects of technology. From virtual and augmented reality to machine learning-fueled technologies, there are a host of platforms and applications being developed by vendors that promise to make learning more accessible, more effective and most importantly more enjoyable.

Let’s face facts. Learning is uncomfortable. There’s a tension inherent in stretching people’s knowledge and capability and challenging them to think in new and different ways. But that doesn’t mean the experience should be painful.

For inspiration, I look at Jesse Schlueter at Nordstrom who told me the experience of learners should mirror the high-quality, customer experience shoppers expect when they visit the retailer. Or 2017 CLO of the Year Damodar Padhi who completely redesigned the digital learning experience for the nearly 400,000 employees of Tata Consultancy Services because the one thing a CLO can’t do is sit still.

In the year ahead, I’m excited by the talent agenda that sits atop the priority list for many organizations. Learning is at the heart of growth plans, especially as business becomes faster and more unpredictable. 

Learning leaders like Mike Kennedy of the National Basketball Association aren’t squandering the opportunity. When the NBA’s new commissioner came in with a new vision, Mike was the right person in the right place at the right time to lead the organization’s renewed efforts to find and develop the next generation of talent. 

I’m inspired by the many smart, passionate learning leaders I continue to meet. Whether that’s people like Biogen CLO Angela Justice with her doctorate in neuroscience or Deloitte’s Jeff Orlando whose psychology background gives him deep insight into human behavior and organizational change.

Our profile subject this month, Brian Miller of Gilead Sciences, is no exception. Learning leaders “embrace the scramble” as he says and find joy in the challenges that come with the job. 

The pressure and stress are just the side effects of the incredible privilege it is to be the leader whose No. 1 job is simply to make people better. 

Mike Prokopeak is vice president and editor in chief of Chief Learning Officer magazine. Comment below or email editor@CLOmedia.com.

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