The Path from Learning to Results
What's in this month's Newsletter?
Greetings! I’m continuing to play around with what to include in each month’s newsletter. This month I’m adding a new section: What’s On My Mind. It’s an intentionally broad title to feature anything that’s passed through my consciousness over the past month that readers might find interesting. Basically, I plan to siphon the best ideas from the arbitrary collection of notes I write on my phone each month into this section. We’ll see how it goes!
Main Feature: The Path from Learning to Results
Jobs and Talent (I’m moving this section down a notch - just trying it out!)
What’s On My Mind
Personal and Professional Updates
The Path from Learning to Results
How do learning and development impact results?
Sometimes, there are gems on LinkedIn (damn you, intermittent reinforcement!). Mid-scroll, this graphic stopped me in my tracks:
While the exact illustrator is unknown, it showcases the philosophy of HR guru Sir David Ulrich (I reached out to David himself and he didn’t know who drew the actual diagram but he agreed that it nicely encapsulates his views). It offers a succinct ontology of how much of the soft work done in organizations is necessary for hard results. In doing so, it justifies much of the hard-to-quantify value of learning and development. It’s a nice visual and might convince the occasional skeptic of the benefits of some typical learning interventions, but is it that useful in its current state? Could this framework be a bit more prescriptive?
I think so! So I got to work. Importantly, I’m not convinced that this framework is perfectly structured. For example, I could see Active Listening & Empathy better positioned just below Communication (that is, as an outcome of Psychological Safety & Interpersonal Trust rather than their antecedent). But I’m also not certain that such a reordering would necessarily impact what one ought to do about improving any given level. So I’m going to leave that philosophical question aside in my attempt to make this framework more pragmatic.
Instead, what I did was create a working model that builds on this initial framework to include some practical steps organizations can take to improve at any given (or multiple) levels in this framework. If you care about what’s on the left (e.g. improving psychological safety) then you might consider doing what corresponds on the right.
I did make one addition to the framework that should seem rather obvious, as it was implicit in the original graphic: Adding a Results layer to the top. Currently, Innovation and Change occupy the zenith of the framework, but they themselves are only sought after because they lead to desired Organizational Outcomes. By making the end-game more explicit the framework better connects the relationship of these softer organizational dimensions to hard results like profitability. For now, I also opted not to elaborate on Vulnerability and Psychological Safety/Interpersonal Trust, as I see those two levels as organizational states of being rather than developable skills/characteristics/attributes (e.g. if you desire Vulnerability, you can only achieve it by developing capacities self-awareness and self-reflection).
This is just a draft: I suspect it would be a wise skeleton for learning and development conversations that should be constantly iterated upon as new approaches – or even a more refined ontology – continue to emerge.
With that said, I am extremely curious to get your feedback on this framework. What’s resonating? What’s really sticking out? What are its major shortcomings as currently constructed? Please help me refine what is clearly a work in progress.
Jobs and Talent
Jobs: There are tons of jobs out there! Here’s a few that some readers asked me to highlight:
The Environmental Defense Fund (NYC, global) is searching for a few roles, including an Employee Benefits Specialist, OD Specialist, and an HR Data Analytics Manager.
LinkedIn’s impressive People Science team is looking for an Associate Analyst (12 month role).
Talent:
An NYC-based friend is searching for a new opportunity in organizational and/or talent effectiveness and development. With over a decade of experience, this person would be outstanding at a Director/VP leadership role. They’d prefer to stay in NYC but would be willing to relocate for the right in-person (non-fully-remote) role. If you’re hiring for someone at this level, message me and I’ll do some matchmaking if appropriate!
If your organization is looking to build or improve your podcast and don’t know where to turn, check out podcast.love. My friend, Alex Kapelman, has been creating and producing podcasts for nearly a decade (before they were really cool) and is a master of his craft.
What’s On My Mind
I’ve been revisiting Robert Kegan’s work quite a bit. His approach plays a substantial role in my coaching and learning philosophy (this short essay explaining his Constructive Developmental Theory is worth reading). I’m particularly interested in whether domain-specific transformations may be more common than transformations of broader orders of consciousness. This seems rather intuitive although perhaps not that noteworthy?
Thanks in no small part to Burkeman’s book (see below), I’m going to try to take a slight social media hiatus in January. I passively browse social media far too frequently and despite my relatively careful curation of content I’m certain it is having a profoundly negative effect on my finite existence. Will report back.
What I’ve Been Reading:
After listening to Oliver Burkeman on a podcast, I decided to buy his new book 4,000 Weeks. I’m about halfway through it – or in keeping with his teachings, I suppose I should say that my existence has been with it – and it is absolutely marvelous! He reaches thoughtful, empowering conclusions about time as it relates to the human condition. Most impressively, he does so in a genuine way with humor and graceful prose that could easily be read by readers faster than myself (e.g. all of you) in a single afternoon. I cannot recommend this book enough!
This short essay by Patrick Blanchfield couches our response to the pandemic – or lack thereof – in terms of Freud’s opaque Death Drive theory. I’m not sure I buy it writ-large, but it’s really insightful and worth a 10 minute read. “Americans apparently embraced a fatalism whereby even their own deaths and the deaths of those they loved were more tolerable than having to contemplate the discomfort of social reorganizations that would make life different.”
I stumbled upon a concept called Answer Intelligence – a framework for better answering questions – and decided to read the book by the framework’s creator. While the basic circumplex at the core of the “AQ” framework is definitely interesting and offers some promise as a useful tool, the book itself was quite poorly written and I do not recommend it. This has, however, inspired me to think a bit more about the many different “intelligences” that have found their way into pop-sci literature. This could make for a future newsletter.
Catching myself ruminating on metaethical relativism (as one does, I guess?) I opted to reread Chapter Six of Sam Harris’ “End of Faith”. If I had read this as an undergraduate philosophy major it would have saved me a lot of angst. Great stuff.
Personal & Professional Updates
Charlotte turns two today! She is a silly, busy, extremely talkative little goofball. She’s also troublingly clever; she’s been experimenting with lying to us (she has been alternatively blaming the dog, me, and her uncle for transgressions such as ripping a book and coloring on the wall) and negotiating with poise (“just two minutes Dada, set timer now”). I’m not certain I can sufficiently articulate my thoughts on the last two years, so I’m not going to try. Suffice to say: Woah.
If you’re a beginner to intermediate runner looking for an amazing experience to kickstart a great year, join me in Austin on February 17-21.
I recently underwent another round of Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) injections in yet another attempt to solve the persistent tendinosis lingering from my hip injury. This will keep me sidelined for a few weeks of inactivity and then we just have to hope the healing has worked!
I’m going to be releasing a bit of an annual recap and planning email this week which will share more on this past year of work and the year ahead.
That's it for this edition - please reach out if I can be at all helpful.
Stay safe, get your booster shots! Be compassionate and intentional.