LM Ep 88
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How often have you been asked by internal clients to fix a team or performance problem Through training. And how often has training only been part of the solution? Today's guest highlights how important it's to ensure that l and d is helping its clients. Understand everything that needs to be considered or addressed in order for training to have any impact at all.
My guest is Richard Bo Bodo Beau is the Director of learning and Development for Lifecycle. He has over two decades of experience creating and facilitating training for adult learners and holds a master's of instruction system design designation from the Association for Talent Development. This was a really fun conversation between two people who happened to share a lengthy background in and passion for great instructional design and learning [00:03:00] joy.
Hello and welcome back to Talent Management Truths. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell, and today I am joined by Richard Bo Bodo. Beau is the Senior Director of Learning and Development for Lifecycle, and I'm delighted to have him here with me on the show today. Welcome to the show, Bo. Thank you, Lisa. So let's begin by sharing a little bit with our listeners what you do at Lifecycle and a little bit about your, your career journey on the way there.
Yeah, so Lifecycle is a recycler of lithium ion batteries. We're one of the largest in North America. And you know, the interesting thing is I'm, I'm new to this entire space. You know, battery recycling is becoming obviously very, very important. So the whole space is new, so I. Tend not to feel like too much of an imposter.
But, you know, I am in charge of all the, all the training. So I work with all the elements of, you know, our people that face [00:04:00] out to the business and conduct training as well as our team that designs instructional design you know, creates videos administers training through the l m s. Yeah, I lead that whole, that whole team.
That whole piece. Okay. Yeah. And well, what about on your way here? So you've had kind of a, an interesting career path just in, in terms of some other things you've done. Maybe you could share a little bit about that with us. Yeah. You know, I started out when I first got married back in the early nineties in sales.
I really enjoyed interfacing with the public enjoyed talking. And so sales was a you know, was a, just an easy transition coming out of you know, college and getting married. And so I went into sales. And eventually that transitioned into training simply because like most instructors I became an accidental trainer.
You know, it was, Hey, you're, you're good at presenting this, so we're just gonna put you into turn in charge of all the training. [00:05:00] And so I became a trainer, started developing training for adults back in 1998, and I. Became pretty much full-time at that, about 16 years ago in 2007, and you know, have been doing that ever since.
And that's, you know, one of the things I think's interesting is, you know, most people look at a salesperson and an instructional designer or someone that's leading training and think, you know, those are two completely different things, but at the end of the day, they share a lot of the same. The same requirements.
You know, in sales I was always spending time upfront with a customer trying to understand their needs, understand the problem. And I think that's one of the things that, you know, I learned from some of the, some of the really great salespeople I got to work with was, you know, spending time upfront to understand everything before rushing into a solution is really important.
And, you know, the truth of the matter is, In [00:06:00] instructional design and in training it, I'm doing the exact same thing. I, yeah, I spend time understanding what is the need, why does it exist, and only once we truly understand it can we then go forward and create a solution. In sales, the solution is typically a product and a program.
In instructional design, it's typically a, some sort of training. So, the two share. A lot. At the end of the day, you're solving a problem for somebody. Yeah, it's so true. And I I appreciate your emphasis on the need to really understand the need upfront. You know, I've often said the same thing around the overlap between sales and, and learning and also project management.
Right. Cause I've do dollied with that as well over the course of my career. And it's interesting cuz if you think about certain models like in, in project management, a lot of people listening would be familiar with, you know, the, the business requirement phase, right? The feasibility and then the business requirement phase.
And in learning we call that the [00:07:00] needs assessment, right? Or in talent consulting. So, and then from there we're going to sort of design, and then there's this iterative piece that go where we go back and forth with our stakeholders, right? And then we're, we're developing out from that initial design and going back and forth.
And then there's the implementation and then an evaluation. And actually the stage I missed that I think's most important is figuring out at the front end after the needs assessments done, or the business requirements is figuring out how are we gonna know? If we're successful. So figuring out the evaluation strategy so then we can simply execute on that once, once deliveries occurred.
And so, you know, they're just, there's those different stages exist in all three domains. They're just called different things. Yeah. And, and you know, it's, it's interesting you talk about that because I've always felt like Stephen Covey's book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, you know, he talks about beginning with the end in mind.
Mm-hmm. And I think, I think whenever you. Whenever you design training or you're designing a solution [00:08:00] for a customer, you know, you kind of have to ask them, what is, you know, what do you wanna see out of this? What's your, your perfect end game? You know, you, you have to start with in training, like, how am I gonna assess that this was.
Successful. You know, and it's interesting you mentioned project management. I'm reading a book right now called How Big Things Get Done About Project Management. and they actually talked about the Sydney Opera House, Beautiful, iconic building. Beautiful, iconic building.
But it didn't start out that way. Actually, you know, it's interesting that the gentleman who came up with the concept, like in, back in the late fifties When it opened 14 years later, he, he wasn't even mentioned, he didn't even show up. And still to this, when he, when he passed away, had never seen it because, you know, it started out with just a drawing and, you know, through a number of different circumstances, like people just started putting shovels on the ground without.
Completion or anything like that. And you know, this, this book talked about, you know, the [00:09:00] challenges of managing that project and compared it to how things go at Amazon. And one of the things I thought was, was interesting, you know, they, they detail out that at Amazon when you start a project, you actually have to start with the press release that you're gonna do as well as frequently asked questions.
And so, That's where they start is like, Hey, here's the press release. Here's frequently asked questions, and we're gonna work backwards from there. That is so interesting. I didn't, I didn't know that. I hadn't heard that about Amazon. You know, what it makes me think of is, is when we're doing long-term visioning, right?
Or planning, and we're saying, okay, like, you know, I'll say it to my coaching clients all the time when we come up to completion of a coaching engagement, you know, one of the questions that I send them to sort of think about is, okay, imagine a year from now. You know, and what's happening and, and what are you, what are you celebrating, et cetera.
Write, write your answers as though the year has already happened. Because it's very, very powerful to, to [00:10:00] create that kind of visual and get very specific. It's like it's inviting you to sort of peer through a window at. What will have shifted. Mm-hmm. Right. If this happens, the other thing that I think is really interesting is that the best project managers, the best salespeople, and the best learning or talent people are the ones that help their clients with that initial crucial stage of needs assessment.
Because often I'm sure you run, you've run into this, I certainly have, you know, you can get clients, well-meaning clients who are looking for l and d too. Go fix something, go train, go train these people and teach them to be effective with their time or whatever they might be prescribing the solution.
And they may not have really gotten to the, what is leading to this perception of time wasting, right. That we're trying to get at. Right. Because if we're not starting, if we're, we haven't properly identify what's really going on, then you know the solution. If it doesn't line up, it's, it's gonna land on deaf ears.
So I think that discovery element, that that skilled ability [00:11:00] to really dig and help clients figure out what they don't know yet is, is important. What do you think about that? Oh, I agree a hundred percent. I think, I think sometimes when you start talking to talking to clients in the business or you know, people you sound to, they often don't, don't quite know.
They just, they, they sense that there's a problem and. One of the things I find all the time is that they think training is the solution. Always like training's, you know, some sort of panacea for, you know, hey we're, we've got a problem, throw some training at it. And you know, typically what I find is, you know, once you start asking questions and start digging into it, you generally find that.
I mean, on anything, training is probably less than half of the solution. You know, there may be broken processes, there may be attitudes that can't be addressed by training, I mean, there's always things that training can address, but you know, as a, as a learning consultant, if you are not, [00:12:00] you know, identifying those things upfront, you run the risk of getting to the end and having a training that didn't succeed.
And, owning that it didn't succeed because you didn't call those things out. And so I, I think it's always important whenever you're going through the process of designing training to, look at like, okay, here's, here's the need. Here's, you know, how we can address this. Here's things that have to be addressed for this to succeed.
I, you know, I like to specifically call out, like, if these things aren't addressed, it's gonna fail. Yes, a contingencies really, I that's, I, as part of the strategy document that I've kind of ma you know, created over the years and honed and I teach people to use it, it's that's one of the key things is let's look at what are the parameters around.
The outcomes, right, that you want and, and based on, you know, sometimes people, you know, you work with your stakeholders and they can have a whole list of outcomes that they wanna see. It all [00:13:00] sounds great. And then when you get down to the nitty gritty, they only wanna give you 90 minutes. but make it as interactive as possible.
And so then it's all about, well, let's scale back. So if you are looking for ni, you know, I'm always really clear. So this is what we can do realistically in a half day, two days, one hour. You know? So it is, a lot of it I think is, is managing expectations, right? Getting that really clear view. It even links to the performance management cycle.
If you will, right? If you think about how we do performance enablement in, in organizations with, you know, setting goals with employees upfront, right? Really aligning to the overall vision of the company and their KPIs. And, and then from there, you know, laying out how are we gonna get there and how are we gonna evaluate it when we, when we arrive?
Yes, absolutely. And you know, it's interesting, I have a gentleman named Christopher Neubauer, who is the, he's the trainer for Rotary International. He, I saw a presentation where he actually goes in and he'll [00:14:00] define what percentage of a solution training owns, and, and he'll, he'll say, okay, here's a hundred percent of the problem training owns x.
You know, human resources owns y operations owns, you know, Z and or Z. Thank you. You know, so, so, you know, he'll go through and do that, and I thought that's pretty impressive. So, yeah. That's, that's fascinating. Well, I mean, I'm actually gonna be working with a client group next week and it's, it's really going to be fundamentally around getting clear on rules and.
Expectations for these roles because there's a lot of, little bit of finger pointing and worry about stepping on toe toes and all sorts of things in this particular division. Right? So I'm actually taking a team coaching approach cuz this is not a, this is not a training that's, this is a, let's figure out together what's working and what's not, and then how do we start moving towards something that's more effective as a group.
So, but, but it is interesting when you, when you talk about. Putting a [00:15:00] percentage on what training can do. Cuz often if I think about all the years I spent in corporate and I did my adult education training in the, in the mid nineties as well after doing my B ed for how to teach kids But I think about, you know, so often the needs that would be presented to me, the, the, the problem that learning was supposed to be a solution for training. In the end it was often the leaders that needed the help to change their behaviors. It wasn't about their employees. It was often, you know, maybe 75% of the time, more of the work needed to happen with them and with their leadership style.
Getting more clear on expectations, roles, responsibilities having the tough conversations in a clear and kind way and and so forth. Have you encountered that as well? Oh yeah. I mean, I think in most organizations you have leaders that a lot of times are not equipped to be leaders. I think it's pretty common in business to promote people who perform well to become leaders and.
We have to stop making that [00:16:00] association that just because a salesperson is, top of class as sales does not mean. They'll be a good sales manager. And the other thing too is a lot of times, you know, people get put into a position and it's just, you know, slap 'em on the back and say, go get 'em, tiger.
And you know, like we, we have to, we have to equip you know, those people for the, those roles. And, I think one of the, one of the things that is really important is. Teaching managers to create a space that is conducive for their employees to perform. there's two things that I, I look at when I, when I fundamental things for leadership and, how do you prepare leaders to, to lead?
And one of 'em is just an understanding that, you know, if their employees have a problem. Even if it's at home, it's, it's, it's a, it's a work problem. The second one is to, create a safe [00:17:00] space where people can fail. You know, and those, those are the two bottom layers of, gentleman named Abraham Maslow created Maslow's Hierarchy of performance or human Needs.
Yeah. And you know, the first layer is, you know that for human to perform up to their potential, they have to have home has to be taken care of. Shelter, they have to have shelter, food, shelter, clothing. Right. And so clothing clothing's, optional, I would say. Well, if you live in Florida or certain, certain parts of Florida.
Yes. Having, I've lived there for 20 years. I know some of those spots you, you know, where not to go. But yeah, I mean, you know, you have to have those things taken care of because if something's wrong at an employee's home, it is coming into the workplace. Absolutely. And you as a leader mm-hmm. Have to deal with it.
And whether that's giving the employee space to just kind of address it so that they feel safe and, okay, I can go handle this thing. But I think, I think also you have to create that a safety net where an employee feels like, they [00:18:00] can make a mistake and it's not the end of the world. Now, obviously we don't want employees making the same stakes over and over.
I mean, that's a whole different issue. But, I always tell my, my, you know, people on my team like, look, I would much rather you make a mistake and something fails and just know that you tried something. Then have you petrified to try anything? Like that's how innovation occurs. It, it exactly.
I was just speaking with somebody else about that on, in a recording last week about how innovation is, is stifled by an intolerance of mistakes, It's funny because, I've worked in, in an organization where they talked about, you know, making it safe to make mistakes and, and, and it was not actually safe there.
And think about actually just earlier today, so I made a mistake with a really important client. I was supposed to be on this meet and greet with a, with a. A joint client and I have one email with this organization that I have my own. And I just [00:19:00] didn't put a little spot in my main business calendar for this meeting.
And this is so unlike me, cuz I'm very organized about that. So anyways, I get this phone call. Hey Lisa, are you joining us for this meeting with the client? I'm like, oh my God. I was mortified. But you know what my client said. So the we're working with this person. She, she said, Oh, it's, don't worry about it.
I already, I already told them, I said, Lisa's never late. This is so unusual. Some something must have happened. She was so gracious about it. Now that is an example, you know, even though it wasn't a big, massive, terrible mistake with huge, I impact it, you know, it was, it was something that wasn't great and, you know, I, I.
Not proud of the fact it happened, but I'm human and it was, it was not intentional and it was handled in such a gracious way, and I think that's, we need to give people the, that, that grace in real, real life, you know, more often. Yeah. And you know, you and I had spoken about[00:20:00] you know, I think one of the instances where I, I really had an opportunity to practice this with my team was when when I was at Karcher North America we were leading the training team and I had been telling my boss for years that we needed to do virtual training, like we needed to create a virtual classroom.
And we finally got the opportunity to do that. And, I went first and my virtual training was a total failure. I mean, it was, it was so bad. we finally hired a, a good friend of mine, Cindy ett, to come in and, and, and train our team cuz she's like the preeminent expert on virtual facilitation.
And, we got some skills, but that's still. There was a lot of things we had to try and learn and, and fail at. And, you know, for, for the team of us that, that did that at Karcher, I. I mean, it, it was, we'd get together on a weekly meeting and we would just talk about all the things that didn't work.
Like, you know, here's what we did, here's what, here's what worked, here's what didn't work. And [00:21:00] you know, we had a lot of good laughs about stuff that failed. And, question was always, all right, that failed. What are you gonna do next? You know, it wasn't, it was just like, okay, you, you failed it.
You know, you tried something, it didn't work. You know, let's move on. What's next? What are you, you know, modify it. What are you gonna do next? You know, because I, I'm a big believer that, failure is an important way for people to learn. I mean, and, and try things. And like I said, I'd, I'd much rather as a leader, create a space where, People are empowered.
They, they try things and if it doesn't work, you just own it and move on. It's not a big deal. It's not the end of the world. Just move on. I, I, I, you know, I really I couldn't agree more with you, Bo, because You know, it makes me think of also this I'm really doing a lot of team coaching these days, working, working with management teams and so on and, and love it.
And I'm always really clear upfront with teams that, we're gonna be doing some stuff. Sometimes that's, it may, may make you feel a little uncomfortable, right. With some of these experiences and the [00:22:00] conversations that we're gonna have, especially when they're trying to shift into a higher performing team and where there might be some personality clashes that have been.
Going on for some time, that kind of thing, right? So we're trying to get at the root of that and really create some cohesion and clarity moving forward. And I'm very clear to people we might be experimenting with a particular exercise or activity and it may not land with the group. And that's okay.
I'm going to be the Wayne Gretzky and skate where the puck is going. So if we need to spend longer over here and go shorter over there, or, or kibosh, you know, a particular thing that we're doing that I thought might work and we're, we discovered it wouldn't, you know, then we'll move on. And I, and I, you know, I, I'm, I invite people to, to trust that that's okay, right?
To model the way. I think it's really, really crucial. Yeah. And, and you know what I, it's, talk about modeling as a leader, right? And you know, it's interesting when you talk about how do you build a culture [00:23:00] where that's accepted because, you know, it, it is, it is truly a culture. When you look at culture, And, you know, do you define like what is culture?
I mean, a, a simple definition of a culture is what do people do when no one's around? Right? And, and what people do when no one's around is informed by beliefs they hold and the beliefs they hold are informed by the experiences they have. And so as a leader, when you're, when you're looking to build a culture, you have to understand that if your walk does not match your talk, Not creating a safe space.
You know, you really have to give employees experiences that say, Hey, it's, it's safe to fail. You know, if you're trying, well, it, it reminds me so much of, you know, the OZ principle, right? Partners in leadership and the whole culture of accountability. Right? That, it's people's experiences that drive their beliefs, that drive their actions, that drive their results.
You know, it's that, that whole pyramid, that was a huge, huge Model That was very, we, you know, I really worked to embed and thread that in my last [00:24:00] organization is really, really critical. And it's precisely that. Like, what, what do you do when, when no one's around? The example that I remember using back then when we were trying to, you know, cultivate a culture of greater personal accountability was this idea that you go into the washroom and you, you, you wash your hands and you notice there's paper towel that's sort of overflowed that's fallen on the floor.
And do you just walk past it? If no one's there or do you, do you pick it up with your paper towel and put it away? Yeah. And you know, it's interesting, there's a one of my favorite books is called Seven Keys to the Kingdom and it's by a guy named Tom Conland and he, he wrote about what Disney does that's different.
And someone gave it to me cuz Disney used to be an account of mine when I was selling in the field and Oh, neat. Spent a lot of time there. And you know, one of the things he talks about is that everything has to walk the talk. At Disney. Everything. Everything wants to talk and everything speaks. Yes. Yeah.
And well, and talking about speaking, one of the things that Tom Conley goes into is that if you go into the Hall of Presidents, [00:25:00] bill Clinton has a Timex Ironman that's set to the correct time. It works, it's set to the correct time. No one will ever see it other than employees. And you know, so he goes into the, goes into the explanation that look.
If you're an employee and they want you to really take the hall of president seriously, you know, they outfit everything. People in the audience never see that, but employees do. And I think, you know, when you start talking about leadership, everything has to walk the talk. You know, all the small details.
Employees are always watching. Leaders don't get a break. And so, you know, when you're creating a safe space for your employees Leaders have to be cognizant of that and everyone has bad days. And when you know, if you don't react appropriately as a leader and you just had a rough day, it is critical that you apologize.
And, make things right with your, your employee because they have to trust that they're safe. Oh yeah. That recovery is, [00:26:00] is absolutely critical. It's not about perfection. So, you know, we've been spending some time talking about creating a safe space for le Leaders creating a safe space for employers rather employees.
But, you know, something you'd mentioned to me when we first met was this, the importance of creating a safe space for people in which to learn. Mm-hmm. And I was wondering if you could, you could explain that a little bit. How do you do that practically speaking? Yeah, I think, I think it's, it's not much different than what you do with an employee.
You know, for me, you know, I have always felt like. People learn better. Learners learn better when they are enjoying themselves, when they're comfortable, when they're relaxed. You know, so for me, honestly I try and create an environment where, you know, we're having fun, we're using humor. I'm a well known purveyor of dad jokes.
I have the Best Dad joke book. I'll have to send it, send you the link. Awesome. Yes. Yeah. you know, the, what's interesting to me now is like, I'm reaching an age where it's like, okay, [00:27:00] my, my eighties references aren't landing with the 20 somethings, but I'm still gonna go out there and swing.
So I think, I think we know create a safe space. They have to. They have to feel engaged. They have to feel, that you're, personally engaged with them. You know, and, and it, again, it's really just creating an environment where they can succeed. I was talking to one of my colleagues today and somehow we got on the discussion of role playing in training.
And you know, I think when most people talk about role playing, They cringe. I mean, it's just like, no, I don't want any part of that. Because the idea of role playing is two people awkwardly standing in front of a room, kind of working through a scenario. So, you know, I had a colleague named Paul Novik years ago.
I, I worked with, and, and he actually had a great way to do it. He, when he brought up roleplaying, and I'm like, no, that won't work. And he's like, trust me. And so he, he did it where you have, you know, you're two interacting parties and an [00:28:00] observer, and you do in a small group. You don't do it in front of, you know, a large group and, you know.
Yeah. So it creates a safer space. Everyone's gonna play every role, so, Yeah. And it's one of the most, you know, I, even with that, I, I've never done it upfront other than if it's somebody playing a volunteer with me and I'm demonstrating, you know, like a crucial conversation or something. It's always in the small groups, the triads and so on.
I moved away from calling it role play cuz it, I just got too many eye rolls, you know? So I would say we're going to experiment, we're gonna practice. And so we gotta, we gotta try on these skills we've been talking about, try them on for size and, and make them fit you right? So there's some tailoring that has to happen in terms of your language and so on.
And, and people tend to not get their knickers in, in the same knot when I use that kind of language and set it up that way. So, just, just a thought. So, so safety in learning safety for employees. Let's talk a little bit about something you mentioned earlier [00:29:00] about how sometimes people are elevated to leadership because they were really great at the job they did, and I certainly, that's happened to me.
It's happened to so many people. I've no one. But something I know you've got really a lot of skill in is helping SME subject matter experts, whether they be leaders or, or frontline, but helping SMEs become. Really great trainers because there's, there's, you know, pros and cons. They can often, they bring this, this street cred, if you will, right?
This credibility of having done the job, knowing an inside out, all of that, that knowledge capital, experience capital. And yet if they don't really understand, How learning occurs and the power of reflective learning and involving learners, then it, they can often be an obstacle. And, and things can go kerplunk.
So, so what do you, like, what's the wisdom from your perspective around how to prepare SMEs to be actual trainers? You know, it's interesting. I you know, typically when I, [00:30:00] when I hire trainers, I try and find people who are SMEs. So, you know, I'm trying to. Find people who can do both. And one of the things that I constantly tell my, my trainers who are also subject matter experts is to check your expert.
I think one of the things that SMEs have to recognize is they are, they're gonna inherently gloss over things that they may think, okay, this is elementary, but it's not. You know, easy for you. Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, as a, as a trainer, one of the things I'm constantly doing with subject matter experts, there's a, a couple things, but one of the things I'm constantly doing is, is we're building content.
I'm asking a lot of questions, and it, it takes them a little while and then they, then I think typically they catch on to. Oh, I've gotta go in and explain this. You know, because they will skip steps. They will take things for granted. And the other thing [00:31:00] too is, you know, when you talk about skipping steps, a lot of times if it's a process thing that they know they don't even realize they're skipping steps.
Like they've done it so long, they've just totally forgotten. Yeah. That there's a step in there. They just do it unconsciously and, oh, I, yes, I've seen it time and again. It's, it's, it's, yeah, it's really hell. I used to. A process like policy and procedures group, and as well as learning at one point and in my past.
And so I remember creating the process to sit down and pull these processes out of people's heads that had not been documented, right? And working with you could have three people doing the same job, and they all had a different way of doing this. Now it was a lot more paper and all that kind of stuff back then in the nineties.
So, you know, we really talked about, like, said that we're, look, we're, we're needing to come at this with a beginner mindset. It's like, pretend you know nothing. And what are all of the things, like each step really A, B, C, D that you have to move through. Yeah. And [00:32:00] the other thing too that, that I, I do with them is I, you know, I prepare them like I'm gonna ask you why.
Okay. Because, you know, for me, when I'm designing training and I think a lot of subject matter experts focus on the what, like this is what you need to do. But what I need to communicate is why you know, I need to communicate the what, but I need to give them the why behind it. Like, you know, if there's a certain step, why does that certain step exist?
What are we trying to accomplish? And so I think it's really important when you're working with SMEs to, to, to ask that. Ask. Ask why. And you know, the other thing too, when you're, when you're. And this is where it gets back to kind of relating to sales, is I think a lot of salespeople when when they ask a question of a customer, Customer gives them an answer and they take it at face value.
I tend to question everything and so, you know, I'm asking, okay, well okay, I get that, but why is this? You know, so it's continuing to dig until you [00:33:00] feel like, yep, I can understand this. I heard someone say one time, if you can't explain it to your mom, you probably don't understand it. And, you know, so that's what I try and get to is like, okay, could I, could I explain this to somebody else?
Yeah. And what's interesting too is often when you're, you're kind of documenting a process for purpose of training, especially with technical, technical stuff, right. Asking that why? I don't know about you, but I've had a lot of people say, well, I don't know. This is just the way we do it, right?
Mm-hmm. So it's this, you know, hence the, the very strong link between learning development and continuous improvement and quality assurance, right? Like this is the, you know, often it's coming out of the, the learning team, the talent team, the, you know, there's some, some critical improvements that we could make to be more effective here, right?
Where there's, there's, you know, duplication of effort or, or extra. people involved that don't need to be, that kind of thing. Right. We could really streamline here once you dig in and sort of see, oh, there's no actual reason why we do this particular step. Well, and you know, [00:34:00] it's, it's interesting you say that because years ago I was, I was able to work with a colleague when I was at Karcher.
That we took his knowledge of lean manufacturing and my knowledge of cleaning and equipment. Mm. And we were kind of testing, okay, could we apply this lean pri lean manufacturing principles to cleaning? And we were able to successfully save customers a lot of time on their cleaning processes. Everyone wanted to know, how do I clean a bathroom faster?
And, you know, every time we went and did that we would save 50% of time. And You know, it's, it's interesting cuz he made the comment, he said, your, your productivity is stored in, or your capacity to get things done is stored in the form of waste in your current processes. And, you know, the, there was probably no more anywhere clearer than we were asked after we had done this with a couple exercises with a customer at the University of Kansas Medical Center to go through and watch someone [00:35:00] cleaning an office.
Two and a half minute cycle time for them to clean the entire office. And I'm thinking this, this young lady moved there through there so efficiently. I'm like, I don't know how we're gonna find any time, any waste. Soon as she got done, her boss said, well, why did you do X, Y, and Z? And she said, oh, because if I don't do it, they complain.
And her boss said, all of those are out of the contract. We're not supposed to be doing that. So if you're getting complaints, let me know. And they knocked the process from two and a half minutes down to one minute to clean an office. And so, you know, you can find. You can often find waste in processes just by starting to question things and ask those questions, question things.
Well, and that's right there. That wasn't just about efficiency because people hadn't understood or were, you know, doing a zigzag instead of a straight line between steps. But you know, that's mapping back to actual expectations. Are we doing too much or too little? You know, based on what, what the contract is essentially.
So, yeah, so fascinating. Well, we're, you know, I [00:36:00] think. I'm feeling a little sad here cuz there's so many things that I wanna talk to you about cause this is so interesting. But one thing that I really would love to get some insight on is you recently completed a degree in instructional design and I'd love to know how that experience was for you.
Just as a learning professional and as, as somebody kind of mid-career, cuz you'd said, you know, you did a lot of, came to adult learning in the, in the mid nineties and that's when I did my diploma certainly, but not a degree in it. So tell us about it. What was it like? Well, you know, it was interesting.
I I started doing, creating training in 1998 and moved into a full-time role in 2007 and. It was 2017 before I ever heard the term instructional design. Oh. I was able to take the Association for Talent Development master of Instructional Design course. And I was exposed to just things that now are basic to me.
I mean, Bloom's Taxonomy and mm-hmm. the fact that there is a science behind how people [00:37:00] learn and, and those sorts of things. And I was hooked. I mean, the second I heard it, I mean, I've been doing this for 10 years full-time. And the second I heard and learned about it, I was, I was just fascinated and fell in love with the, the concept of how do you, how do you create effective training for adults?
You, and so I. I had an opportunity in 2019 to either go get a, an industry designation or go to school and get a degree and decided to pursue a degree. And so, I became a 48 year old freshman and graduated about six weeks ago. it was a fascinating journey. I bet I, yeah, I, I really, congratulations.
I really admire that you, that you, you know, committed to that and, and went through that particularly cuz you've been working in the field for some time and still acknowledge there were things to learn and things to be excited about and curious about. I just think, yeah, there's, there's always so much to, to keep learning and trying out in this field, which is very, [00:38:00] very exciting.
Well, you know, one of my favorite quotes, and I use it all the time, is from the movie Tommy Boy. When Tom Callahan Sr. Says, you're either growing or dying. There ain't no third direction. And so I, you know, I, I look at it, you know, I, I love to, love to learn, love to read. I've already got, you know, kind of the next steps and, and things I wanna do.
And honestly, for me, it really comes down to serving the learners that. I get in front of you know, and that's, that's the thing. I mean, you know, I look at knowledge as it's my, my job to steward it. You know, I'm a steward of what others have poured into me. I mean, I'm, I'm here because others have invested in my life, you know, in one way or the other.
And, you know, I wanna, I wanna do the same. And so, I feel like it's my job to acquire knowledge, piece it together with other newer knowledge and, and continually be creating something that, you know, I can pass on to others, to, you know, help them do their job better, to, you know, grow themselves. And so, you know, [00:39:00] I, I love to learn and you know, to me it's personal.
Yes, I hear that. And the word that popped up for me when you were describing that was synthesis. You know, if we go back to Bloom's Taxonomy, it's really that, that higher level thinking of pulling things together, making connections, and helping other people see these same connections and maybe in different ways.
Right. And discover for themselves. So. Well, thank you so much for spending some time with me today on the show. I'm really in awe of all of the, the things you've been doing and the things you've been sharing. I'm, I'm very appreciative of, of you sharing your insights with us. Well, thank you for having me, Lisa.
It's been a pleasure. My pleasure. [00:40:00]
