When Life Gives You Lemons

In early 2012, Verizon embarked on the enterprise-wide implementation of Verizon Lean Six Sigma (VLSS) to apply a consistent, structured, data-driven approach to reduce waste, increase efficiency, reduce process variation, improve quality, and enhance overall performance.

My supervisor, the senior vice president of HR at Verizon Wireless, informed me that I would lead one of five inaugural VLSS projects, known as Learning Effectiveness, due to my status as the champion of the L&D department. The other inaugural projects had to do with price plan upgrades, device return rate reduction, customer call-in rate reduction, and converged wireless solutions growth.

As a result, I immediately felt frightened, on the defensive, and quite physically ill. I asked my supervisor, “What are my team and I doing so wrong to be one of top five inaugural projects? Surely there are other greater business problems to consider before the L&D team?”

She responded that the chief operating officer, “Candace,” believed that business leaders were too reliant on training and that they had abdicated their responsibilities to the training team. As a result, Candace wanted to make sure that training solutions were effective and efficient. Specifically, she wanted to ensure that for every dollar spent on training initiatives, the organization would receive at least that one dollar back.

To get started, my manager assigned a Master Black Belt and up to eight Black Belts to work exclusively with my team.

Initial fears

That all sounded reasonable, but I had suspicions that there was more to the story.

At that time, my team was responsible for all instructional design, L&D operations, leadership development, and learning technology. Field training organizations were responsible for training delivery and market-specific instructional design. The overlap in instructional design led to a great deal of redundancy, inefficient and inconsistent processes, and unhealthy tension among the training organizations.

I believed that the VLSS project would be the impetus for a major training function reorganization that would not be favorable to my team or myself. For example, would we further decentralize instructional design?

Another concern was previous feedback Candace had given me. I didn’t always have the in-depth data she was expecting when I presented learning solutions results. For example, I could always provide utilization, Level 1 (satisfaction), and Level 2 (learning) data; occasionally, I had Level 3 (behavioral change) data. But rarely was I able to provide tangible business impact and ROI data (such as measurable sales improvement or productivity improvement).

Therefore, I was also nervous about being able to meet Candace’s specific requirement that $1 spent must yield at least $1 in return because we didn’t have an ROI methodology in place. Admittedly, having a repeatable, sustainable business impact process in place was something I’d wanted to do but didn’t have the resources to implement.

I felt the most vulnerable I had ever felt in my professional life. In fact, I imagined the experience would be akin to being on an operating table; being cut open; and having multiple surgeons, residents, nurses, and medical students peer into my body and move organs around to see what they could find. It was an unsettling image and still makes me shudder. I had three choices: Resist to protect myself and my team, passively participate, or embrace the opportunity.

Accepting change

After much self-talk, I chose to embrace the opportunity. I believed that if I threw myself into it, I’d learn a lot because I had not worked on a Lean Six Sigma project before. In addition, I could use the project to achieve goals we hadn’t previously had the time and resources to accomplish. I took the lemons leadership gave me and decided make lemonade.

With the help of the Master Black Belt and other Black Belts, my team and I identified 28 projects that radically transformed the learning operating model, technology infrastructure, portfolio of services, and the team’s capabilities (including the much-needed ROI capability).

A glutton for punishment, I chose to lead the ROI initiative because I knew it had to be a rock-solid, highly credible methodology, and I would need to present it to the COO.

Diving deep

I began by enlisting the help of a consulting firm, which assisted a small group of us to create a learning measurement framework for Verizon. Then, a team of leaders, key instructional designers, operations team members, and I completed a custom ROI certification training program. To test the new framework, I analyzed the results of another of Candace’s goals: improving business-to-business sales performance.

As I approached that analysis, I considered the questions Candace could ask: Did you involve business leaders? Did you involve sales representatives? Where did you get the sales performance data? Were the business operations and finance departments involved in data analysis and validation? What was your role in the analysis?

The answer to most of those questions was “yes”—but I did not yet have finance onboard. So, I met with the chief financial officer for the first time. I explained the ROI analysis methodology and the new learning measurement framework, then inquired whether two finance team members could work with us on the data analysis and validation. I was pleasantly surprised that he thought the methodology and framework were solid. Then, not only did he assign members of his team to work with us; he offered to review the results with me before I presented them to Candace.

The business sales performance improvement post-training was significantly high and yielded a huge, positive ROI. The statistics were so impressive, in fact, that I had a new concern that executives would call the analysis’s credibility into question. To get ahead of that problem, I worked with the finance team to apply standard knock-down techniques that yielded the most conservative results.

Standing tall

My next task was to present the new learning measurement framework, ROI analysis methodology, and the first analysis results (business sales performance) to Candace and her senior leadership team. I was prepared to stay high level, dive into the weeds, and do whatever it took to prove that we had a repeatable, credible process. The Master Black Belt and I had a great presentation and plenty of data.

The CFO also attended the meeting. Before revealing the analysis results, I shared that he had reviewed and approved the methodology and the analysis of results. Candace stopped me midsentence, turned to him, and asked, “Is that true?” Her tone did not sound like it was a mere inquiry but, rather, a challenge. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did,” he responded.

That is when I finally relaxed. The review of the results went smoothly, I was able to confidently answer detailed questions, and Candace congratulated me on the training initiative’s positive ROI. More importantly, she gave her full support of the methodology.

Moving forward

I learned a few important things through the VLSS experience:

• It’s OK to be vulnerable. That’s how you can supercharge your personal growth and development—but don’t let vulnerability paralyze you.

• Going slow to go fast can have a great payoff. Although involving leaders, sales representatives, business operations, and finance took time up front, we all shared in the positive results.

• Be a student of the business. Present training as an investment that enables business results rather than a cost that takes away from the bottom line.

• Know your stuff. Always be prepared for any questions.

Since project completion, I gained a reputation for regularly demonstrating the value of L&D and other talent development programs (such as mentoring and tuition assistance) through the measurable business impact and ROI of the learning solutions my team implemented.

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