Managers

as Lifelong
Learners
How to build a
learning organization

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction........................................................................................3
Building Talent in Your Organization......................................................6

Goal Alignment...........................................................................7

Skill Development.....................................................................10

Talent Mobility..........................................................................13

FAQs Related to Organizational Learning Strategies............................16

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INTRODUCTION
Practical experience is great, but sometimes formal
training and development is still necessary.
In the long run, the only sustainable
competitive advantage an
organization has is its ability to
learn faster than its competition.
Effective managers realize that
they cannot leave school as A
Manager-in-a-Box and never
look back. They need to be lifelong learners ready to engage
a lifetime of business challenges. Many people will agree that
practical experience is a great way to
learn. In fact, if youve been around
the block a time or two, the old adage
experience is the best teacher is
probably anchored in your mindset.
When I reflect on my business training
and development through practical
experience I always find Will Rogers
perspective insightful, but also at
times, troublesome.
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Why troublesome? There is definitely a negative impact on

individuals and organizations when continuing education
is downplayed or, even worse, when formal training and
development is completely discontinued. Lets face it, formal
training and development is often necessary. When you hire
employees, it would be convenient if they would be adept at
every skill the job requires or will require in the future, but
thats not realistic. Demands change, so businesses have
to adapt quickly, which means managers need to take on a
growth mindset. Managers with growth mindsets believe that
they and their teams can learn, change, and develop new
skills as needed. They focus on building talent within their
marketing organizations.

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Old dog, new tricks, no problem!

Once asked to write a full story in just six words, legend has it that novelist Ernest Hemingway
responded: For Sale: baby shoes, never worn. I can express my full personal story in just six
words: Old dog, new tricks, no problem! Those six words explain my approach and attitude
toward marketing training and development. If you want to grow your personal brand and
career youll serve yourself and company well if you dedicate yourself to lifelong learning.
Marketing is as powerfully impacted by
ongoing technological changes as any field.
Customer Relationship Management, Business
Intelligence, Predictive Analytics, Marketing
Automation, Marketing Resource Management,
Big Data, and Social Media are just the
start. By the way, lets not forget changes in
consumer behavior which often result in new
regulations like: Do Not Call, CAN SPAM, Do
Not Mail, Do Not Track, Do Not Collect, Do Not
Deliver Directories and Opt Out, Opt In. For this
reason, CMOs must recognize the importance
of ongoing learning for themselves and their
staff to keep up with the latest marketing
strategies, technology, and relevant skills.
You dont need to be in the training and development industry to realize that paying attention
to your own learning path and the learning paths of your staff members will provide a
return on investment. For example, social media works as a means of connecting entire
organizations with the market. That means new social and communication media involves the
broader learning strategy of your entire organization, and that lifelong learning is therefore
central to the success of your company.

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BUILDING TALENT IN YOUR ORGANIZATION

Employees need to be prepared and motivated for the next challenge. Organizations need the
human capital infrastructure in place to give their workforce the right skills to work on the right
projects in the right roles. They do this through a focus on three key talent management areas:
goal alignment, skills development and talent mobility.
1. 
Goal Alignment: Strategy execution fails in large part due to differing goal priorities.
When your best people spend their valuable time doing a fantastic job on all the wrong
stuff, success will be elusive. Getting everyone on the same page is a high-impact
process.
2.

Skills Development: You want your employees to do and build great things. But are
you building great employees? Great employees are built by great managers who make
training and development a priority.

3.

Talent Mobility: Moving employees from role to role across leadership and functional
areas is common practice among organizations that understand the need to quickly
transform as business needs change. Talent mobility planning must strike a balance
between the needs of the organization (making sure key roles have fully developed
pipelines) and the employee (your best performers will leave if they do not see new
challenges).

These three processes are tightly intertwined. Talent mobility planning without subsequent
development is useless paper-pushing or wishful thinking. Goal alignment without talent
or development planning might mean you dont have the people equipped with the skills
necessary to get the job done. Development thats not driven by organizational or career goals
is likely to go unused and be a waste of time. The outputs of these combined processes are
nothing short of higher employee engagement, higher productivity and higher profitability for
the organization.

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Goal alignment
Theres something wrong here. Something seems to be out of alignment.
When something is out of alignment like your car, your back or a door-jam you can feel
it. And in most cases you probably seek immediate treatment because the wear and tear
on things that remain out of alignment can be physically, emotionally or financially painful.
The same is true for goal alignment in a company. When goals are not aligned between
employees and managers or among managers, you can be sure the wear and tear on strategic
organizational initiatives will be damaging.
Heres a classic misalignment story between sales and marketing: A company is trying to
attract more new customers. Although everyone in the company agrees that new customers
would be a good thing, they differ on how to make that happen. Employees in the sales
department want a strategy that will uncover a qualified, ready-to-buy right now sales lead.
The marketing department too is interested in generating more leads for the sales department,
but the marketing departments managers are focused on preliminary steps such as what will
attract more viewers to the company website and what will engage more of those viewers to
download information from the company website or call and inquire about the services the
company offers. The marketing departments efforts will not bear fruit overnight, but in time,
the department expects that the cultivation of prospects will generate higher quality sales
leads with faster sales cycles.
It wont take long before those misaligned goals and strategies start to create internal
friction. You see, the sales department has a monthly quota to obtain and doesnt appreciate
the longer-term lead strategy. Time and resources spent on nurturing people who visit the
company online seems like overkill to them. As a result, they might not be willing to support
other communication channels that serve the marketing departments engagement strategy.
In other words, Twitter and Facebook may seem like a waste of time to the sales department.
Marketing therefore ends up working without the support of sales, which cripples the
companys efforts to lure more customers. Had the sales and marketing departments been
working in sync, they would have been attracting far more customers in the short and
long term.

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Its fairly common for employees and entire departments to be out of sync. If youre trying to
get a companys employees to be aligned on its strategic goals, consider the following:
Solicit input from all levels.
In setting goals, an organization benefits from
gaining the perspective of its employees; not
just hearing their ideas, but giving those ideas
respectful consideration. A company that solicits
ideas, wherever they arise, is a company where
creative achievers want to work. Why not trust the
employee whos answering a customers call, that
he or she may know an effective way of improving
customer loyalty? To be sure, not all ideas are
worth putting into place. Some are unrealistic or
too expensive, but some could prove to be useful.
Consider the companys culture.
Whether a companys goals are accomplished
hinges a lot
on the culture
of the company. An adaptive culture will be able to make
changes and grow in the desired direction. A company
with a culture thats resistant to change might pay lip
service to the goal but in actuality ignore it. The culture of
an organization can evolve, but it takes a lot of time and in
some cases, the arrival of new staff members. In creating
company goals its crucial to think about the dynamics of
the organization. Leaders can have a lot of influence in
creating a workplace culture that motivates, and that in
turn, leads the company to realizing its goals.

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 Make sure everyone knows how he or she can contribute.

If you want employees to be focused and motivated, they need a clear understanding of how
their efforts serve the companys short- and long-term goals. Those goals should be tied into
the objectives for individual performance. Employees want to love their jobs. If they feel they
are contributing to a goal that is meaningful to them, the chances of them loving their job are
far greater. They work hardest when they believe in what theyre working toward. If only a
cadre of top managers is fully versed in and believes in the companys goals, the rest of the
staff may have little motivation to meet them. The staff may even resent what seem like edicts
from the top.
Create clear and objective benchmarks for measuring progress.
If there are no concrete measures of progress, its tough to inspire employees to meet the
companys goals. If the goal is to improve customer service, for example, the company needs
some specific measures of whether customers are more satisfied. Sales are one measure but
another might be how long customers are put on hold or how many times theyre transferred.

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Whatever goals an organization sets, they need to arise from the companys core values,
and those values should be well defined and promoted throughout the organization. So if a
company values integrity, ambition, or respect, the goals they establish need to be in sync
with those ideals. The core values in a company arent simply the promises written on the
company website or posted on employee cork boards, theyre the qualities modeled day to day
in interactions between managers and employees and between employees and customers.
An organizations leaders can have a lot of influence in creating a workplace culture that
motivates, and that in turn, leads the company to realizing its goals.

Skill Development
The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is
not training them and having them stay. ~Henry Ford
When I tweet the quote below its not unusual for that tweet to get retweeted and favorited
several times.

Its obvious that this statement by Henry Ford resonates with a lot of people. Employees really
do represent an organizations greatest asset and its important to keep those assets up-todate with proper training. The pace of technological change calls for constant expansion of
our knowledge base and the skills we bring to everyday work assignments. Facebook and
Twitter, which werent even around a decade ago, are now such critical tools for marketing
departments worldwide that if the employees in the companys marketing division arent

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savvy about how to Tweet or how to build their Twitter site, the company is severely limited
in its ability to lure new customers. Companies whose employees are tied to older processes
and technology are missing the ability to mine information through faster and easier means.
Employees who dont keep up on the latest applications are holding themselves back as they
watch their more competitive counterparts pass them by.
In a lot of professions, such as law and health care, continuing education is required to keep
practicing in the field. In the business world, its an unstated rule that employees keep their
skills current. But the challenge to keep up can seem overwhelming. Theres so much to do as
it is and so many deadlines to meet, how can a company and its individual employees make
time for learning and development? Fortunately, learning can take place on a lot of fronts:
Conferences/Classes: Employees can take classes or go to conferences and then share
what they learned by hosting a round table discussion.
Blogs/Articles: Employees should be encouraged to read relevant blogs and articles and
keep professional contacts and associations. New tools and methods pop up constantly and
need to be evaluated.
Mentoring: Employees can be paired up with mentors within the organization people who
know more about a particular skill than they do.

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 Cross-training: Cross-training or job rotation immerses an employee in new roles or

projects that can dramatically expand their horizons. Stretch assignments are a great way to
challenge an employee to reach out for new abilities in previously unexplored areas.
These kinds of individual and collaborative learning exercises tend to happen routinely when
you put processes in place and make relevant learning resources available to a workforce.
Training opportunities are often what motivates employees to stay at a company and attracts
new staff members. Most people want to work for a company thats using cutting-edge
technology and is willing to invest the time and money necessary to ensure employees are up
to speed even as technology changes.
Training does not always have to be expensive. Even with limited budgets, companies can
make learning opportunities widely available. Cross-training and mentoring come at little to no
cost and yet can prove to be incredibly valuable because much of what people learn happens
on the job, not in a classroom or at a
conference.
Learning doesnt simply allow staff
members to enhance their abilities. It
opens their minds to possibilities they
didnt previously see. It may even give
them renewed enthusiasm for their
job. And a company that goes out of
its way to keep its employees trained
is sending a powerful message that it
wants all of its employees to grow and
believes in their ability to do so.

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Talent Mobility
Cross-training for business survival
When I was much younger, I worked as a roughneck in the West Texas oil fields. The guys I
worked with dubbed me college boy because they knew Id be heading back to school in the
fall. As you might guess I got to do the manual back-breaking jobs because I wasnt trained
to operate any of the equipment on the job site. At the time, I thought they had the easy jobs
and I admired their skill, their ability to jump from the drivers seat of one piece of machinery
to another and operate it with equal skill and ease. That got me thinking as I stood under the
Texas sun about the ability to perform different jobs at the same worksite, how it made their
day go by faster, and probably made them more valuable employees because of their ability to
quickly adapt in a fast moving and often dangerous environment.
Indeed, when Charles Darwin was referring to the survival of the fittest, he didnt mean the
strongest or the fastest, but the most adaptable. The species that could adapt would thrive. In
organizations you could argue that the fittest employees the most adaptable are those
that are cross-trained. In most cases, cross-training is not only good for the employee, but also
for the employer. Cross-training employees is like having a disaster recovery plan in place: You
probably arent planning your daily schedules to have employees jump around among jobs,
but caught in a pinch, some employees would be capable and available to fill in the gaps. In a
small business, having cross trained employees could make the difference between shutting
down due to absent employees or staying open. The employee whos filling in may also offer
insights on ways to improve on how the job is being done.
For an employee too, there are benefits to being able to fill in on a coworkers job. He or
she knows more, can do more, and becomes potentially better positioned for a promotion
or a lateral move. In fact, knowing another persons job could make the employee better at
performing his or her regular duties. I worked in sales for years before moving into marketing.
Now as head of marketing, I look at marketing campaigns through the lens of a sales person.
When Im thinking of a marketing campaign Im not only thinking about our brand, but how the
campaign will translate to more sales leads for our account executives.

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It doesnt sound like there

is any downside; why not
just cross train everyone?
Not so fast. It does cost
money to implement a
well-rounded cross-training
program. And there is less
productivity while training
occurs. In addition, a poorly
implemented program
can have unpleasant
consequences, such as:
Decreased morale-if employees feel that they are in jeopardy of losing their jobs.
Resentment-if employees feel that they are assuming more responsibility for the same pay.
Confusion-if employees lose sight of their primary responsibilities.
Loss of specialized knowledge-if employees spend all of their time learning a little about
everything.
A poorly managed program can also result in dissatisfied customers and possibly even
costly mistakes. Cross-training is not a successful strategy for every business. But for those
businesses where it seems to work the following steps are helpful:
1. Identify the tasks performed for various jobs and designate which ones could be
successfully performed by other employees.
2. Identify who is interested in participating in the program. It may be counterproductive to
force someone to participate. Decide how to deal with this situation.
3. Cross-train members of the same team. My summer job in the oil fields demonstrates
how efficient teams become when they can step in to do significant pieces of one
anothers work. Also, its a natural learning process for one team member to pick up skills
from another.
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4. Identify who has the competencies to perform the tasks designated as cross-trainable
in step 1. Specialized skills in some professionals (engineers, scientists, programmers,
lawyers, accountants) may be less available for cross-training than others. Determine what
proportion of team members job can be reasonably shared with others.
5. Apply coaching skills to the process. Cross-training is at the challenging end of the learning
curve, involving major portions of employees jobs rather than a task or two. Those who
do the training whether it is a fellow employee or the manager need to understand the
appropriate coaching behaviors to apply at each stage in the process.
6. Reduce workload during training and while tasks are being performed. Otherwise, the
people involved may feel resentful about the process.
7. Recognize and reward employees that have new skills and/or responsibilities.
8. Incorporate the cross-training process into an overall development plan for the employee.
The decision to move forward with
a cross-training program is entirely
your own, but its an option that
should be considered nonetheless.
You know your business and you
know your management team. Ask
them how they think their people
would respond to the program and
weigh your options from there.
Theres certainly risk with crosstraining, but the rewards can be
substantial.

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FAQ RELATED TO ORGANIZATIONAL

LEARNING STRATEGIES
Question 1: Many on our senior team are resisting
learning about social media. How can I convince them
to get onboard?
Most people will agree that practical experience is a good thing. In fact, if youve been around
the block a time or two, the old adage experience is the best teacher is probably
anchored in your mindset. When I reflect on my lessons learned through practical experience I
always find Will Rogers perspective insightful, but also at times, troublesome:

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Why troublesome? After all, at one point or another we all start out as greenhorns. And lets
face it; there are situations we occasionally experience that are really not possible to prepare
for. What I find troublesome is the negative impact on organizations when key executives
continue to scoff at the lessons offered, or worse, they refuse to acknowledge they were even
handed an exam.
Are senior executives in your organization still scoffing at social media? In todays environment
your customers are testing your organizations ability to interact with them on social platforms
in the same way you communicate with them through email and over the phone. In fact, you
may have seen the following factoids in recent presentations:
72% of all internet users are now active on social media
18-29 year olds have an 89% usage
The 30-49 bracket sits at 72%
60 percent of 50 to 60 year olds are active on social media
In the 65 plus bracket, 43% are using social media
And yet some of your peers are still hesitant, or openly against implementing social media
strategies in your organization. I suspect some are hesitant because they are not personally
using social media, and if the truth were known, theyre still not concerned with learning. Even
so, its time to let go of the notion that social media is just for kids and has no business value.
In short, you dont want the adage you cant teach an old dog new tricks to begin to
be associated with your personal brand. Here are some brief observations to share with your
leadership peers that might motivate them to sign up for a lesson or two.
1. Your words and actions are magnified by your position. Most of your actions will
seem more important to your employees than you intend; merely teasing about the use or
value of social media on your part may become dangerously distorted by your workers. Its
time for you to provide executive level support for this engagement channel. Keep this in
mind; its not about you, its about your customers. If your customers want to communicate
through LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook who are you to stop them?
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2. N
 o need to boil the ocean. There are scores of social media related platforms and
applications, so dont be afraid to narrow your focus during your initial learning process.
Its too early to declare with authority the platforms that will remain standing, those that
will be absorbed, or the ones that will fade away. For senior executives I would recommend
focusing on LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook, in that order. Sidebar applications
that help with efficiency and effectiveness (for example, TweetDeck or various mobile
applications) can wait.
3. You cant learn to swim without getting wet, so jump in. If nothing else, just commit
to spending 15 20 minutes per day learning the ins and outs of a single platform. Once
you develop a comfort level move to the next platform or application. If you have a trusted
friend or colleague who is already social media savvy consider asking them to breakfast
or out for a beer. Use the opportunity to pick their mind on the platforms they like to use,
and how they strategically leverage those applications. If all else fails, hire someone to help
you with your social media education. Based on my teaching and consulting background I
obviously like that approach! However, you may want to start by making an author happy
and simply purchasing one of the many social media related publications on the market.
4. T he clock is ticking. Weve moved from a time of mass communications to one of
masses of communicators; your customers are sharing their experiences through Twitter,
Facebook, YouTube and other platforms at
a rate that will continue to accelerate. As a
result, social media should become a part
of every organizations risk management
and customer engagement strategy. That
means the entire leadership team (CEO, CIO,
CFO, CMO, Sales, Legal and HR) will feel
the impact. You know from experience that
it always takes more time than expected to
secure cross functional support. So, its time
to start building bridges.

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Question 2: How do you improve learning motivation

and participation within an organization?
Enabling employees to succeed in a fast-changing business environment should be central to
every organizations strategy. After all, when employees are properly equipped with the right
set of skills, theyre best positioned to add maximum value to both the organization and its
customer base. Are education, training, and lifelong learning for your workforce important to
your company? Or do I really need to ask if your workforce is truly motivated and engaged as
learners?
In a typical company, learning nuggets are accessed in clumps in various places, with all sorts
of gaps in between. One or more people in a work group will take advantage of opportunities
and information will be shared with others in the group. Some managers inform their teams
and encourage participation, while others dont. With the typical hit-and-miss approach, many
employees at various levels never find out about opportunities to sharpen their skills that would
otherwise be available to them. With rapid changes in technology and business processes,
new training can be a matter of someone keeping a job or being left behind. However, its
interesting that when employees hear that they need new training, their first response can
often be a yawn or a grumble. People dont always see training as an opportunity. Instead,
training can feel like a hassle, like one more thing added to a mounting list of responsibilities.

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In order to improve learning participation and motivation try some of the following:
Have each employee complete a survey regarding his or her learning needs and interests.
Route the results through the employees manager to add items the manager feels are
important either for current or future projects.
Assign learning resources based on the personalized needs of each employee.
Provide time on the schedule to complete training, shadowing, mentoring, or other learning
activities.
Track usage and completion of learning tasks.
Allow employees to update their learning profiles on an ongoing basis to reflect their
progress and changing needs.
Companies that take the above steps dramatically broaden employee growth and development
across the organization. Usage of one resource elearning has been reported by
corporations as the second most valuable training method that they use. This is no surprise,
given that e-Learning saves businesses at least 50% when they replace traditional instructorbased training with e-Learning.

Question 3: How do you conduct a powerful and

effective performance review?
As soon as I bit that piece of candy I knew it was trouble. Yes, I chipped a tooth and that meant
a trip to the dentist. The process of getting a crown wasnt that bad though. Then again, I used
noise cancellation headphones to drown out the sound of the drill. I also asked the dentist to
use both Novocaine and Nitrous Oxide. In short, you could say that I really didnt want to be
there. So where does the phrase Id rather go to the dentist than [you fill in the blank] come
from? What type of task or obligation is so hideous that youd rather subject yourself to a root
canal than deal with the event? A simple search uncovered a few examples:
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 According to research from an insurance company 39% of women would rather go to the
dentist than talk to their spouse about their daily finances.
According to a travel survey 54% would rather go to the dentist than sit in the middle seat
on an airplane.
40% of Americans think filling out income tax forms is worse than going to the dentist.
According to a technology company survey 40% said they would rather go to the dentist
than deal with poor customer service.
Where do you stand on the following statement?
Id rather go to the dentist than do a performance review.

For many people this

statement rings true. And
its often the case for both
the giver and receiver of the
review! The performance
review is a high-stakes
conversation for both parties.
The risk of frustration,
disappointment and even
anger is possible if not
approached correctly. How
do you conduct a powerful
and effective performance
evaluation? How do
you approach your own
evaluation? Here are my approach considerations for both sides of the evaluation desk:

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Giving
1. An effective boss will not save his constructive criticism for the annual evaluation, but will be
offering feedback throughout the year. Reduce the stress by making your reviews a process
rather than once-yearly events. Nothing in the evaluation should be a complete surprise
to the employee, so if you check-in via brief meetings on a quarterly basis you can inspire
small incremental changes along the way when needed.
2. Talk about goals and talent development as part of your appraisal. These topics introduce
positive feelings and the sense of working together to develop skills and align tasks. In
addition, find at least one or two aspects of their job performance that are good and start
there. We all need validation. That enables you to come across as fair and helps the person
being reviewed to be receptive to hearing about the areas that he or she needs to improve
on.
3. Tie your performance reviews in with career planning, succession planning, and leadership
development. The review can become a fountain of opportunities, in many cases, that will
prompt employees to participate enthusiastically. But remember, criticism, even legitimate
criticism, is hard to take, so be as diplomatic as possible in how you word the persons
weaknesses. Make it you can improve this rather than heres where you messed up.
4. Make sure to ask the employees how they feel about their own performance and ways you
could be a better boss to them. A humble boss is a boss people want to work for and work
hard for.

Receiving
1. Recognize the difference between feedback and criticism. Your manager is probably trying
to help you improve for the coming year rather than penalizing you for the past. And thats
something you want to do, right? So, even if you have been excelling, try not to go into the
evaluation expecting only to be showered with praise.
2. Listen first and try not to react immediately after hearing criticism. Take a day or two to
absorb it and then get back to your boss with a response if you feel the need to. Time will
allow you to respond rather than react.
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3. Look past the critical language to see the basis of the criticism, and strive to understand
it. Try to develop empathy for your boss who has the tough job of trying to assess your
performance. Empathy goes a long way toward helping you be receptive to what he or she
is saying.
4. Use I statements to keep things more objective. What I hear from your feedback is that
I sometimes invite too many people to my meetings. Couple this kind of sentence with
another I statement that suggests specific things you can do differently. What I could do
is invite fewer people and then provide a summary of the meeting to my team.
5. Take advantage of opportunities for setting clearer goals and developing your skills. One
approach is to sit down after your meeting, consider the constructive feedback, and come
up with a few ideas for developing your skills in those areas. You can then bring those up
with your manager.
Criticism is both hard to give and hard to take. We want people to like us. We want to succeed.
So it can be difficult to tell an employee something he or she may be disappointed to hear and
its equally difficult to be on the receiving end of that criticism. But disappointment,
even frustration, can teach and can help motivate change. So be brave and know that,
at least evaluations (unlike a trip to the dentist) should not leave you with the fear of leaving
with a fat lip!

Question 4: How do you build a learning organization?

Only small amounts of the learning people do in their jobs takes place in a classroom. In fact,
the 70/20/10 Learning and Development Model based on research by Michael Lombardo and
Robert Eichinger for the Center for Creative Leadership suggests the following ratios:
70% of learning occurs through experience.
20% of learning occurs through others.
10% of learning occurs through formal training.
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Based on the numbers above it appears that on-the-job training is at the head of the class.
However, as a manager you can foster organizational growth and help your direct reports with
career development when you do the following:
1. Do not take a one size fits all approach to training. Instead, you need to take the time to
understand what each individual needs, so that you can provide the right training for the
right people.

2. Work with your direct reports to set development goals, and match appropriate mentoring,
job rotation, coaching, and other activities to the goals you set together.
3. Tie development goals to the business goals of your work group, department, or company.
Development is more likely to be taken seriously when clear connections are made to the
goals of your business.
4. Cultivate a culture of learning and development. When managers support development
and follow through with their employees, the benefits quickly become apparent and other
managers and employees follow suit.
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5. Look beyond the skills an employee currently has. Many skills are transferable. The job an
employee is currently performing may not be the only fit or the best fit for that employee.
6. As employees learn new skills, modify the levels of direction and collaboration you provide.
New skills and tasks tend to require a lot of manager involvement. However, when the
employee achieves proficiency and becomes confident, he or she typically wants a
commensurate level of autonomy and responsibility. Confidence grows with successful
adoption of an autonomous role.
If you dont want your employees to stagnate, its important to ensure that they stay on a
learning curve of some kind. Giving them chances for training on a regular basis will enable
them to feel like theyre growing and that could discourage them from looking for opportunities
outside the company.

Question 5: Do mentoring programs work?

In a fast changing business environment do I remember when or when I was your
age stories have value? My twenty something year old children listen to my stories
sometimes. My twenty something year old direct reports listen. Of course I also do their
performance reviews, so they might feel compelled to do so. Do you think these less senior
people are occasionally tempted to roll their eyes during some of those stories? Actually, Id
be surprised if they werent because I know I was when I was their age.
Im not put off by an occasional eye roll.
For me it signals that the message has
been received, and in truth I probably
told that story knowing that would be
the reaction. Besides, time goes by fast,
meaning it wont be long before todays
less senior people have eyes rolling at
them. Thats the way its supposed to
work when youre mentoring the next
in line.
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If you have direct reports what are you doing to mentor them? Mentoring is one of the
oldest and most powerful training methods, and is an essential leadership skill. In addition
to managing and coaching people, its important that you can help others learn, grow and
become more effective during their professional development. Heres what I loved about some
of my past mentors:
1. T hey didnt provide all the answers. They listened first, and then asked questions while
weaving in stories to help me see options without choosing one for me. Yes, sometimes I
was tempted to roll my eyes because I just wanted the right answers now and didnt want
to figure out the moral of the story.
2. T hey werent afraid to let me learn through failure. I can still remember hearing
Alan, sometimes you just have to let people do stupid stuff. Now dont get me wrong. I
know for a fact that my mentor carefully examined the pros and cons of certain failure. And
he wasnt really calling me stupid. He took stock of the risk and was OK with letting me
learn through failure. And learn I did.
3. C
 oach + Mentor equal an added bonus. Work often has two dimensions. The task
at hand (how the job should be performed) for which coaching was just fine. But there
can be political elements (how to work with people and functional areas impacted by an
assignment) as well. My coach/mentors insight on interpersonal dimensions was extra
valuable.
4. T hey were lifelong learners and inspirational individuals because they led by
example. They had a passion for learning and sharing knowledge and their attitude of the
more you give the more you get was infectious.
My hat is off to our next leaders, and to their mentors. Now, let the story telling and eye
rolling begin.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Alan See
Principal and Chief Marketing Officer
Alan See is Principal and Chief Marketing Officer of CMO
Temps, LLC. He is recognized by Forbes as a Top 50 CMO
Ranked by Social Media Influence. Alan is an active blogger
and frequent presenter on topics that help organizations
develop marketing strategies and sales initiatives to power
profitable growth. He has performed for and interacts with
some of the worlds most respected brands including; IBM,
Cap Gemini, Teradata, SAS Institute, and AT&T. Alan holds
BBA and MBA degrees from Abilene Christian University.

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