- Kobi Yamada, author

• Please tell us about your educational background and what influences and/or people led you down the Learning and Development career path.

I received my undergraduate degree from the University of Stockton in accounting, and went to work for Arthur Andersen in 1987 to pursue my CPA. But I really wasn’t certain that accounting was going to be my long term calling. So after I earned my CPA 18 months later, when Arthur Andersen’s consulting division was split off to become its own strategic business unit, I saw that as an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new enterprise. I knew that I enjoyed project-based work, being creative, and thinking strategically, so becoming a founding member of this new initiative was a very exciting career move. It also meant that I didn’t have to worry about payroll, cash flow or growing equity (even though it was a very entrepreneurial role) thanks to it being under the Arthur Andersen umbrella.

The business was very successful, but after a few years our group was still struggling with the issue of how to differentiate ourselves as consultants. We realized that although many clients were happy with us once we completed a project (so long as we left them with a three pound binder of data and results), six months to twelve months later they were dissatisfied because nothing had really changed. So the question our leadership team was asking ourselves was, “how do you actually get sustainable change?” We realized that creating that tangible result, a new organizational habit so to speak, was the most valuable thing we could do for an organization.

Then in 1991, our practice contracted with Peter Senge’s organization out of MIT at the time, author of The Fifth Discipline that focuses on the concept of the learning organization. Arthur Andersen had managers from around the world to work with Peter’s concepts for two years, and I was one of them. That experience really opened my eyes and showed me the way to achieving that sustainable change we had been looking for. Ultimately, I learned that creating new capabilities at the individual level leads to new capabilities at the organizational level.

So I began my pursuit of a career in Organizational Learning and Development in earnest, which led me to a new role with Coca Cola as a learning coach where I focused on how to build learning capabilities in executive teams. I then moved to Bristol-Myers Squibb where I led Global Organizational Development. And that brought me to the Gap as the Senior Director of People and Organization Effectiveness. Each of those roles has allowed me to approach the question that drives me (how to obtain sustainable change?) from a different lens. I viewed each of those positions as both an opportunity to add incredible value to the company, as well as a time for me build my own intellectual net worth.

• You recently left the GAP after four years as the Senior Director of People & Organizational Effectiveness. What is one of the accomplishments you had with this role that you are most proud of?

I’d say completely rethinking the way we approached sales associate development. Gap hired anywhere from 60,000+ sales associates annually at the time, and naturally there is a great deal of turnover with these roles since they are hourly, part-time positions. So we really took that into consideration, along with the fact that the majority of these employees are in their early twenties and not looking to make a career of the position. Our goal was to decrease those turnover rates at the 3-month, 6-month and 9-month marks, as well as make them better sales associates.

So for starters, we decided to give them more development over time for less payroll dollars. Originally the training was done in the back of the store, classroom based, and with a fire hose approach. I knew there had to be a better way to do it! What we did was create a curriculum full of training modules that where most did not exceed seven minutes in length. These modules were the building blocks of their training journey over a several month period. Many of the modules could be done on the sales floor during down time. We created a sign-off system as well as a visual tracking system so they & their peers could see how they were progressing with their training. This methodology of presenting them with ongoing challenges kept the sales associates engaged in the learning process. This work led to a decrease in our annual payroll dollars spent on sales associate training. As it was new we were just beginning to measure impact on retention. When I left the future was to provide various levels of certification that link to scheduling and role to further drive engagement and increase retention.

• What was it about the work culture at Deloitte that led you to your new position as Director for Learning & Talent Development?

I am trying to solve an extremely complex rubik’s cube, and that intrigues me! It’s really about developing talent, and knowing that we live in a world with a shortage of white-collar workers. Plus, similar to the work I did at the Gap, we now need to translate the needs and goals of the millennial generation who are now entering the workforce. I focus on Deloitte Consulting. We need to continually engage our partners, principals, and employees, and right now we’re working with a learning model that’s really still based on the baby-boomers, much less Generation X, so that really needs to be modernized. When it comes to the leadership and structure of the larger consulting firms, there are many similarities, so another challenge I have with this role is to differentiate ourselves from everyone else.

Also, because we’re working with a partnership here, it makes the situation even more complex. There are 900+ partners/principles/directors of Deloitte Consulting here in the U.S., so while there’s a leadership and governance structure, it’s certainly different from the Gap or Coca Cola. There are so many bright and dynamic individuals here that are used to handling an area of learning development on their own. So my challenge is to harness that energy in a collective fashion without stamping it out.

• I know you’ve only been with Deloitte for a few months now, but what is your current “gameplan” going forward?

I’ve been busy learning as much as I possibly can about each service area and each industry’s business challenges; what has worked well in the past and what opportunities may be out there for learning and development. I’ve also spent time observing our current offerings.

My first major undertaking is to lead an assessment of the current state in learning and development and work with Deloitte Consulting leadership to build a blueprint for the future. We have established a cross-business group and they have developed a strategic direction and conclusions document. The next step, is my team will start the assessment process for Deloitte Consulting against the strategic direction and conclusions. From there, we will develop a Deloitte Consulting-specific, three-year business plan with initiatives, investments, and timelines.

• Can you share with us your philosophy or personal stamp that you hope to bring to Deloitte Consulting?

I’ve found that I have a natural inclination to persistent thinking. I believe that through my experiences I been able to get a good grasp not so much of what is the absolute right or wrong way of thinking, but what works and doesn’t work in a given situation. That has given me a mindset to be very strategic about this type of work and be able to see it from a wide lens at play. It’s very exciting to look at the challenge of getting 9,000 professionals from one organization to work together in an aligned new way, and to build it at the individual level in such a way that it creates new synapses in each person’s brain, and thus create a new habit. It all goes back to that question of “how do you get sustainable change in an organization?” I love answering that question, and I’m really looking forward to answering it for Deloitte Consulting.

Deloitte Services LP, Eric Dingler, Leadership, Organization, Learning Development

- Ayn Rand (1905 – 1982), novelist, philosopher, playwright and screenwriter

The Southwest office of Pinnacle Performance is hosting a 1-day Presentation and Communication Skills workshop on Wednesday, August 27th from 9am to 5pm in Phoenix, AZ.

Utilizing heavy video analysis and a fast-paced, “building block” approach, this Pinnacle Performance workshop will provide each participant with a unique, personalized training experience that focuses on analyzing and improving the delivery of each learner’s individual communication.

Please visit http://pinper.com to learn more about our company, and to read multiple client references, such as this one from Larry Frazier, the Director of Training Practices at Oracle:

“Our training with Pinnacle has paid huge dividends. The instructors we sent to Pinnacle training increased their quality delivery score by 10% and now have the highest quality delivery scores at Oracle.”

This interactive, fast faced, energetic, and FUN workshop is a fantastic opportunity to sample Pinnacle Performance’s truly innovative training! Find out why companies like Oracle, Walgreen’s, Kodak, Capgemini, Allstate, Digitas and Health Net have sent thousands of their employees through this acclaimed program.

To reserve a space for this workshop, please email bmcneany@pinper.com. Space is limited, so RSVP today!

Pinnacle Performance, Workshop, Phoenix, Presentation Skills, Communications Skills, Training, Public Speaking

- “Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it.”

- “My advice: Just keep movin’ straight ahead. Every now and then you find yourself in a different place.”

George Carlin (1937 - 2008)

R.I.P. George

Here are some of the moments as captured by yours truly. Based on some of my conversations with keynote presenters, we should have additional profiles and follow-up discussions posted on the site within the next couple of weeks.

The summit was held at the beautiful Rancho Bernardo Inn, a golf resort and spa located just north of downtown San Diego. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to golf on the grounds; the staff felt that my handicap of 50 could be a danger to some of the participants.

Jim Ehinger (left) and Joshua Campbell enjoy lunch at the Aragon Lawn courtyard. Jim and Joshua both serve as Training Consultants for Cornerstone Information Systems, a technology company that produces applications for the travel industry.

Amy Shoemaker is the Director of Talent Development for the accounting firm Kennedy and Coe. Patrick Barrett works for United Rentals, and is the Director of Training and Development. They both agreed that (1) the summit was a great opportunity to learn from other learning and development professionals, and (2) the chocolate raspberry souffle was one of the best desserts they’d ever had!

I devoured mine in 8.5 seconds. Chocolate stimulates the mind, right?

During the summit, Training Magazine honored 40 organizational development professionals under the age of 40 with their first annual Top Young Trainer Awards. Bill Gauthier, the Director of Training Technology at CCA Global Partners, was one of the recipients.

Holding a conference in San Diego during the first week in May? It’s the law: you MUST have a Cinco De Mayo party!

Lorne Novolker, President of Prospero Learning, and his lovely wife Lori enjoy a sangria and margarita respectively. (Later in the evening, they sang with the mariachi band.)

The Reformed Theological Seminary provides free lectures through iTunes University care of their virtual campus. Here, Andrew Peterson plays one of the segments (well, that’s his hand anyways. Sorry about that, Andrew!).

Brian Powers, the Director of EMC University, gave an informative (and entertaining) presentation on Managing Change. He explained how the tech giant instituted a formal approach to change and provided a case study on how this approach was implemented. Unfortunately, time constraints didn’t allow for an interactive workshop that Brian had planned on facilitating, but he assured us it would have been fantastic.

The summit concluded with a keynote address by Bruce Kimbrell of the Disney Institute, followed by a workshop on the Disney approach to talent management. Bruce also provided audience members who provided input during the session with what he called “PPIR’s” (Positive Plastic Interactive Reinforcers). Here’s one of them:

And just as Pooh is waving good-bye, we also have to go for now. But we’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Joyceann, Leah Nelson, and the rest of the team at The Nielsen Company for inviting me to this exceptional event! We’ll be back soon with additional follow-ups from the summit (and of course you’re regularly scheduled Leadership Training programing).

Critical to the success of any good leader (or writer, for that matter) is the ability to stay organized. In order to practice what I preach, I’ve finally gotten around to tidying things up a bit here at Leadership Training Skills!

On the right side of the site, you will now find multiple categories to help you find the article or blog posting that you may be interested in. It’s fairly straight forward, but since I’m so proud that I finally got around to doing this only 14 months after launching site, let’s go through them together!

- Announcements: This is simply for website announcements, such as my past (and ongoing request) for interview candidates, and this post regarding new categories. Hopefully I’ll have some promotions and contests here in the near future.

- Business Topics with Links: Any posting that pertains to a business topic such as Cold Calls or Networking and also provides a link to at least one other website or resource can be found here. Honestly, I could use a different name for this one (you know - one that doesn’t stink?). Any ideas? Let me know!

- Interviews: All of the interviews that I’ve held with CEO’s, top Human Resources personnel and Learning Officers are listed here in chronological order. Without question, this has been the most fun part of writing this blog, and I’m looking forward to profiling many more leaders to come! Do you know someone that would be a good candidate for a Leadership Training interview? Let me know!

- Original Articles: This is my original take on topics like Customer Service and Bad Employees. The latter article happens to be my personal favorite (for now)…

- Quote of the Day: Self explanatory, and the easiest posts for me to write!

- Reading to Lead: Here you’ll find my version of the Book of the Month Club, with suggested business reading material such as Let My People Go Surfing.

- Workshops, Conferences, Expos: This is a category I hope to expand on quite a bit in the near future. There are so many great business events to attend and network at, and I’m going to highlight (and attend) as many as possible! Since I live in Los Angeles, there will no doubt be a tendency for me to concentrate on events held in the Southwest region of the U.S.. However, if you have an event or organization that you’d like to promote, please let me know!

So hope this helps when you’re surfing around LTS. If you have any suggestions, comments, or just want to say hello, let me know either in the comments section, or by email. Thanks for reading!

Jay will be a featured presenter at the upcoming Training Leadership Summit in San Diego on May 5th. The topic of his seminar will be “Implementing a Knowledge Continuity Management Process”.

• “Can you please give us an overview of you professional background?”

I’ve been in the Human Resources and Learning and Development field for over 26 years now, with 8 of those years spent as the Director of Learning Resources and Organizational Effectiveness for the Scottsdale Insurance Company. Prior to my time here (and oddly enough), I directed the training function for an international private fire and ambulance company. Before that, I provided learning and development consulting services for commercial and consumer banks. I have also served as the director of the Quality University for American Express.

The origins of all this began with my time as a trained social worker. But early on I became very attracted to the human development opportunities that a corporate environment provided.

• “What brought you to your current role as Director Learning Resources and Organizational Effectiveness for the Scottsdale Insurance Company?”

For me, it was a combination of wanting to stay in this area and also have a position that serves a meaningful purpose and is also very satisfying from a personal perspective.

We have over 1,400 associates that work on one campus, so from a learning and development standpoint, it’s a dream scenario! Also, insurance is really about creating and assembling people lives, and I really feel that makes this a very noble business. Finally, Scottsdale Insurance has always been ranked very highly as a top organization to work for, both by the community and by publications such as Training Magazine. It’s probably why our retention rate is currently at 93%.

The anchor to all of this really comes down to our culture, which is expressed in the integrity of our intent. It’s all about doing what we say we are going to do.

• “Is there a specific person or mentor from your past who was instrumental in leading you down your current career path? What was it about this person that resonated with you?”

Here’s a story that just recently was able to weave together on it’s own. Back when I was in graduate school in 1978, I took a class in Organizational Development that was taught by Jack Dauber. Somehow I was magnetized by Jack, as well as by the content of the class. We had conversations after class where I asked him more and more about this OD field that seemed very different and unique to me.

Fast forward now to this past May, when I went to a ceremony at this school where my friend was given an honorary doctorate. I hadn’t been back there since ’78, but the moment I walked back through the halls I realized that it smelled just the same as it did nearly 30 years ago! On one of the walls there was a picture of Jack Dower. When I asked someone how he was doing, I learned that he had passed away about 7 years ago. In that moment, it really hit me just how influential Jack had been to me, and how he had led me down the career path that I had chosen.

After my visit, I wrote a letter to the Dean of the College to let him know just how much Jack’s class had meant to me. I wrote that the experience had led me to take on a career that I had devoted my life to, and I asked the Dean if there was anything I could do to honor Jack’s memory. Here replied and told me that there was: I could teach his class at the university. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do for a week this summer.

• “What are some of the high priority programs and initiatives that you are currently planning or rolling out for Scottsdale Insurance in 2008?”

We have a very rich and deep framework here at Scottsdale Insurance for Learning and Development, which we provide an overview of with our Learning Resources Practice Areas (see below). Here are a couple of examples of programs that really stand out and have an edge to them:

- Claims Training Unit (CTU). This is where we take young individuals and bring them into our Claims organization to turn them into claims representatives. Now, most training programs that teach a technical skill involve a great deal of standard reading and testing. How boring is that? So we were just talking one day, and said “what we can do to create something that is a rich learning experience, but also unique and interactive?” We went back to some of the original adult learning theory, and it brought us all the way back to Socrates and the Socratic method!

In this program, which is roughly nine months long, the students are given questions to answer prior to the actual training session. They do the research, they do their interviews, their reading, etc.. When they arrive in class, the material expert asks them questions and the students answer. The facilitator (instructor) then will say, “great answer! Who wants to add to that,” or “you’re off base, can someone correct him/her?” So the learning is really done prior to the learning experience, and the role of the instructor is to facilitate the recall of the required knowledge, and not to teach.

With nine months of this kind of classroom work, you get a great feel for the material, because you’re always thinking on your feet, and you can’t hide, so you come prepared!

- Executive Institute. Through succession planning and account review practices, we identify a handful of high potential executives who can expand their role in the organization at any given moment. This program usually involves 5 – 7 people and lasts for about 18 months. There are four quadrants that the participants go through: group learning, self-directive learning, in-business learning, and community involvement. Of the last 5 employees who enrolled in the Executive Institute program, 4 of them are now on our executive team, so we’re very happy with the track record of this program. As is the mentor of this program, who just happens to be the president of our company!

• “If you had to give a prospective employee the #1 reason why they should come to work for Scottsdale Insurance, what would that reason be?”

There’s two ways I look at that question; first, to look at the width and the depth of this company in terms of its values and expressed culture. The four principle core values of this company are trust, respect, courage and passion. They are expressed in such a way that an individual can see and feel that, and expect that from our company on a daily basis.

The other way I look at it is from a longevity and opportunity point of view. If someone is looking to hang around here for a while, we offer mobility within the organization: in any given year, we have as many as 20% of our associates move into a different job. In addition, we’ve been able to weather the financial storms around here quite well. In the 26 year history of this company, we’ve had no layoffs. We’ve had organizational change and shifts, but absolutely zero layoffs.

If those two reasons aren’t enough to persuade a potential candidate, then consider the most important benefit to working at Scottsdale Insurance: we have free underground parking! Trust me, that is extremely important come summertime in Arizona.

• “Can you give us a sneak preview regarding your upcoming presentation at the Training Leadership Summit?”

When it comes to knowledge content, we were noticing three things here: first, because of the age range of some of the associates, when someone leaves it’s a big deal. You want to say, “you can’t leave! You know too much!” We’ve also noticed that the frequencies of retirement have started to tick upwards a bit. Lastly, we have a great deal of internal movement from position to position as well, so cumulatively there’s a great deal of lost knowledge and wisdom.

The typical response to this type of issue is to ask the outgoing individual to write up a log or job desk manual to hand over to your successor. To that solution we said, “boring!” We started thinking about creative ways to capture knowledge as an alternative; we brought in some external consultants but weren’t satisfied with the solutions they presented us.

Then one night I was watching “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”, and I thought, “could we build a Knowledge Continuity Management Program in a week or less?” So we teamed up and put together our own “Extreme Project” with no charters, no flip charts, agendas or minutes, and put the entire program together in a day and a half.

Knowledge Continuity Management has three components to it; Legacy Capture, Knowledge Capture, and Knowledge Transfer. I’ll get into more details at the Summit, and some of the really exciting twists we’ve put into the program.

• “Anything else you’d like to discuss today?”

I’d just like to bring up a fun contest that we are promoting in our Health & Wellness Practice Area. You’ll see people on our campus wearing pedometers; the first team to walk to New York City from Scottsdale in terms of number of steps will win a prize. We recently opened up an office in New York City. Just another way we promote a healthy and competitive workplace here at Scottsdale Insurance.

Scottsdale Insurance Company, Jay Scherotter, Director of Learning Resources, Organizational Leadership, Interview

“We cannot be what we want to be by remaining what we are.”

– Max DePree, author of Leadership is an Art

(painting: Landscape with Merchants by Claude Lorrain)

Next month from May 4th to 7th, the Rancho Bernardo Inn in sunny San Diego will play host to Training magazine’s 2008 Training Leadership Summit. This event (which builds on the success of last year’s inaugural Summit), will provide senior level learning executives from around the globe an opportunity to connect, spend time away from the interruptions of the office, and focus on some of the major issues and challenges they are faced with in the professional learning industry today.

Some of the highlights from this year’s agenda:

- Leadership Excellence, Disney Style

On Wednesday, May 7th from 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., join the Disney Institute and discover how by providing a compelling vision and setting goals, as well as encouraging involvement and accountability, you can create magic too! The Disney approach embraces an open leadership style—originating from Walt Disney’s own innovative methods and unique vision that have played a major role in Disney’s success story throughout Disney Destinations worldwide.

- Using Blended Learning, Web 2.0, Virtual Worlds and Social Collaboration

Join Virginia Crockett, the Senior Director of Learning Technology at Qualcomm on Monday, May 5th from 11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m., to learn how her organization engages learners, promotes discussion and idea sharing, and gathers collective intelligence using Web 2.0 technologies. Plus, hear how they are testing virtual worlds for experiential learning, and how technology has improved employee onboarding for domestic and global employees.

- Implementing a Knowledge Continuity Management Process

Scottsdale Insurance quickly developed its knowledge management process by using an “extreme project” model. Explore how this process has led to quicker proficiency of those assuming new jobs and quicker transfer of both tacit and explicit knowledge with Jay Scherotter, the Director Learning Resources and Organizational Effectiveness, on Monday, May 5th from 11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. (Jay will also be featured in a upcoming interview here on Leadership Training Skills)

The Summit will also feature several receptions, networking luncheons, and a Young Trainer Awards ceremony. All to be held on-site at the gorgeous Rancho Bernardo Inn, San Diego’s Legendary Golf Resort and Spa.

If you are interested in attending, visit the Training Leadership Summit website for additional information. This writer will be attending, and I hope to see some of my readers there!