Leadership Training

Today we’re speaking with Eric Dingler, who recently joined Deloitte Service LLP (“Deloitte Services”) as the Director of Learning and Talent Development for the United States for Deloitte Consulting. Prior to that, he held the role of Senior Director, People & Organization Effectiveness at the Gap.

• 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