Mission Incredible: How One Manager Used Learning to Do More, Better with Less

The Mission: A technology company has a group of employees who support its global network of third-party developers - the people who create apps and businesses using  the firm’s technology. The pace at which the company releases new features is so fast that the developer relations team, who travel the world giving presentations at conferences and trade shows to evangelize these new capabilities, are challenged to keep up. To become more scalable, the team commits to also deliver presentations on new features via YouTube. The videos are good and the firm’s ability to keep up with its release schedule is significantly improved.

The culture of the organization, however, is such that although “good” is okay, the videos need to be great. In this case “great” means getting all of their videos viewed, remembered and acted on. There is more work to do to empower the team to make stickier videos, ones that third-party developers will watch through to the end so they can leverage the technology to build better apps.

To get to “great”, here’s what the manager did not say at his next team meeting. “Okay, some of our viewers seem to lose interest in your videos and are dropping off before they end. Go make better videos. I will use YouTube analytics to measure success and you will be held accountable. You have three months to improve.” 

Here’s what he did do. We met for thirty minutes over coffee to discuss how Kilyx uses learning as a catalyst for change. Ninety minutes later, we had a clear direction. After six months the manager said, “Kilyx was fantastic to work with and the program strongly exceeded my expectations. What I liked about the Kylix system overall is that everything was very actionable. They went the extra mile to adapt the materials to my team's specific needs and helped embed it into our processes.

“All the participants loved it and the results were truly amazing: we saw a 4X increase in viewer retention on our educational videos [while producing fewer total hours of video]. The best part: the learning has proliferated with all participants now speaking in a common language. Well done!” 

Do you have 30 minutes for a cup of coffee to discover how Kilyx Learning Cohorts can empower you to use learning as a catalyst for change that participants love and that produces measurable results for the sponsors? 

Boxes and Blank Slates

Life is filled with cliches. Do a Google search on “business cliches” and you’ll be told that some should be cut from your vocabulary, others will get you promoted, 13 are making you terrible at your job, and most are overused. You will also be told  that cliches “lack original thought.”

This last point is true, however, it’s a bum rap to call out cliches on this. There is no original thought.

Okay, I confess, this is not my idea. In fact, I read it somewhere. Indeed, nothing at all in this little communique is original. All I can take credit for is accumulating and chewing on several thoughts over a period of years, weighing their relative merits with as clear a mind as I can muster, and serving them up in a way that I hope you find palatable - maybe even delicious. Yes, creativity is more like cooking than sorcery.

So what’s the point? When you take the time to noodle on a cliche, despite all the bad press the abuse of cliches attract, you may discover that many hold wisdom. It may require time and thought to unpack them. It may be someone else who does it for you. Regardless, an old overused cliche may provide you with actionable insights and breakthroughs.

For instance take, “Think outside the box.” You see it in job descriptions. You hear it in meetings (I did just last week). For some it is an ability they claim to have or aspire to. For others it sounds more like a mystery skill such as mental telepathy or clairvoyance  But what does it really mean, and how can you do it?

There is a short video where Stanford professor and best-selling author Chip Heath discusses thinking outside the box. He tells about how boutique hotelier Chip Conley of Joie de Vivre Hospitality and his marketing team set out to develop a theme for a rundown property he had acquired in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. They spent a day brainstorming. It was a series of bad ideas, and at the end of the day they were no closer to a winning theme for the property than they were in the morning.

The next morning, Conley plopped a copy of Rolling Stone magazine on the table to begin the session and asked the team what a Rolling Stone hotel in this gritty part of San Francisco might look like. The great ideas flowed quickly and soon the team had an innovative concept for this dilapidated property which ultimately became a hit with musicians and Silicon Valley engineers who want to be as cool as a rockstar.

Heath’s point is simple. If you want to innovate, don’t start with a blank slate like the Joie de Vivre team did. Rather, find a box - the right one - and think inside the box.

I’m Too Busy to Keep Learning

How do you inspire your professionals and keep them mentally sharp? One characteristic of highly effective organizations like yours is a culture that nurtures your employees’ minds as well as their skills. In his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey addresses this on the personal level, advocating for individuals to be proactive about the seventh habit “Sharpen the Saw,” which includes “mental renewal.” He wrote,

“Most of our mental development and study discipline comes through formal education. But as soon as we leave the external discipline of school, many of us let our minds atrophy. We don't do any more serious reading, we don't explore new subjects in any real depth outside our action fields.”

His point is well taken. As professionals, we need to keep learning inside and outside of our “action fields” throughout our careers to be our best. The truth is, however, that for many of us the pressure to be productive at work, engaged with families and friends in our personal lives, and get some sleep and exercise too, seem to make it all but impossible to keep learning beyond the required behavioral competencies and product knowledge that our careers demand.

This is one area where our clients step in and set themselves apart:

They set their people up to be great by fostering a culture that not only includes competency management, but also complements it by continuously developing their people’s mindsets.

Indeed, progressive organizations such as yours have made significant investments in managing the competencies that have been identified as characteristics of your high performers. The question is though, are you also providing your professionals with “systematized study programs” (to quote Covey) that keep them current with emerging research? Do you regularly socialize innovative thinking and great outside and institutional stories? Are you inspiring employees’ creativity and empowering them to differentiate themselves and your firm by the depth and breadth of their knowledge and how they apply it?

As you review your resources for complementing your skills-based learning and product training with programs that nurture your people’s mindsets, I invite you to schedule a discussion with me about the benefits of the Kilyx learning system for your organization. Our virtual and on-site Learning Cohorts empower professionals at leading organizations to keep learning outside their specialties so they can make a difference for your company and clients through the practice of their specialties.

Dane Cannon
President, Kilyx

415.766.7995 | connect@kilyx.com