You can spend your whole L&D career asking the wrong questions and acting on misleading answers – many do. However, if you continuously focus on the wrong questions, you will fail to uncover critical information and act on it impactfully.
Asking hard questions is a fundamental part of productive knowledge exchange and creative problem solving. And above all, it is a critical methodology for aligning learning and development with the business’ core strategy, which is the basis for L&D success.
Question 1: What problem am I trying to solve?
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It is easy to smile at this cliche – the classic marriage of naivety and irresponsibility in its stimulus/response paradigm. However, when a learning and development programme is supposed to solve every human resource failure, and poor individual performance is blamed for every systemic breach, you may find yourself in the same territory.
If it were true that every piece of poor performance or low productivity was some kind of training deficit, then anyone working in L&D would have a job for life! This knee-jerk reaction does not transform the organisation, rather it yields a never-ending cycle of reaction and failure. It is about doing what you have done before without questioning the logic. It is about achieving enough ‘likes’ to justify another budget and a further opportunity to solve every business failure with a new course.
Often big complex problems require several approaches to sustain change – not simply a single solution applied with no real sensitivity of discrimination. By focusing on the nature of the problem, you will promote debate and partnership to help uncover the best route forward.
As soon as you ask a few fundamental questions you inevitably begin to probe into the organisational culture – and, sometimes, it’s the culture that needs changing. If you can see the bigger complex intermeshing of cause and effect, you are on the first step to rebuilding and repositioning both the organisation and your role.
Question 2: What is happening to AI in my workplace?
It is inconceivable that AI will have no impact on your work, your workflow and your organisation. The truth is that AI’s impact on workflow is a massive challenge, and it will take considerable effort to embed next-generation practices across the entire workplace. The people who work with people have a key and enduring role here.
By involving yourself with pockets of innovation across your organisation’s four corners, you will learn and surface invaluable insight. Think about sharing any changes you discover and their impact so far.
At regular intervals you should also pool your knowledge with colleagues to work out what new practices or interesting developments could be shared across the business.
It is empowering to think about the potential for organisational transformation when these green shoots mature. Help that process along by offering support and being the guardian angel of good practice – this could be the most exciting opportunity of your career.
Question 3: Am I enjoying my job?
Your ultimate goal in L&D is to improve the quality and effectiveness of work in your organisation. But if you do not truly understand the day-to-day reality for most of the workforce, your interventions will not make a profound difference.
Two simple questions can lead to richer conversations across the business:
- ‘What stops you doing your best work?’
- ‘What couple of things could we change to make your work-life better?’
I call this exploration doing fieldwork. Get in the habit of asking those questions wherever you go. Each encounter is an excuse for a short conversation and the chance to learn more. Your job will be immeasurably easier if you can improve the conditions and therefore the effectiveness of learning. This is fundamental to making a greater impact.
Robert Brinkerhoff, the impact measurement specialist and former academic, discovered many years ago that learning programmes fail for a multitude of reasons. Few of these are attributable to the quality of the learning offered. If you can help others be more effective and happier at work, you will be too!
Question 4: What will L&D be like in 5 years?
Many years ago, McKinsey developed the ‘3 Horizon model’. Essentially the first horizon encourages all managers to spend most of their time making their day-to-day work more efficient and effective. However, some time has to be allocated to developing new ideas and adjacent innovation that emerge from current practice. This second horizon involves extending current products and expertise.
The game changer, however, is the idea of focusing time on the third horizon: blue-sky speculation, crazy ideas, and extrapolations. Dreaming about a future is one way of ensuring that it happens.
These regular short bursts of activity in that area mean faint signals are amplified and ideas flow. It is easy to burden yourself with the all-encompassing pressures of the present, to the exclusion of everything else. But you need to have vision and belief that the world will change and therefore your organisation has to change. Be ready for the opportunities that could emerge and do not ignore them.
Big questions, great impact
Reflecting on these four questions, will help you make a greater impact at work. To warm yourself up, think first about why you joined your organisation, what your dreams were and what you consider to be your fundamental purpose.
Big questions always unlock possibilities so think forward regularly. Doing so will enable you to inject innovation into your workplace and stay in touch with developments happening outside your comfort zone.
