Google Ad #1 - desktop - 728x90

Google Ad #3 - desktop - 728x90

Google Ad #1 - mobile - 300x200

Google Ad #3 - mobile - 300x200

ATD_Half_Page

Googel Ad #1 - Side Bar - Content pages

ATD Footer Logo

Paula Pierce is a recognized consultant, coach, and speaker with more than 20 years of experience helping organizations solve their operational problems, change their performance trajectory, and realize success on their terms. Experienced in organizational culture, leadership development, human capital strategy, and change management, she currently serves as the CEO and principal transformation strategist at Peridona Strategies LLC. Paula is passionate about helping organizations and individuals discover their true value and operate from a mindset of service and authenticity. She believes that true satisfaction and success come from using one’s talents to enhance the lives of others and that organizations have that same duty on a larger scale. She coined her company’s tagline—Be Brilliant—as a reminder that the solutions and answers to the problems of individuals, organizations and the world reside inside us, and that when we tap into our inner-brilliance we are best able to influence positive change. Contact her at paula.pierce@peridonastrategies.com.

Paula Pierce

When ASTD asked me to write a blog series on organizational culture and employee engagement, my answer was a resounding, “Yes!” Writing about my favorite topic—culture—in concert with one of the best ways to improve organizational performance—employee engagement—made this blog series a must-do. And I thought the best way to kick off the series was to detail a common definition of organizational culture from which we can all work.Edgar Schein, professor emeritus at MIT Sloan School of Management, is a leading thinker on organizational culture. In his book, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 4th Edition, he defines it as “a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.”This is a great definition containing several key points that provide a concrete understanding of what organizational culture is and how we experience it in the workplace. But if I were to put this definition in front of an organizational leader, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her eyes roll. So, let’s break down the key points to make it a bit easier to digest:#1: Culture evolves over timeCulture isn’t instantaneous or quickly changed, and it develops slowly through group problem solving and by overcoming adversity. Culture is so deeply rooted that it frequently trumps organizational strategy and change initiatives. (A-Ha moment, anyone?)#2: Culture is exhibited through patternsCulture develops out of experiences the group deemed successful and therefore determined them to be “the way to do things” or “the way to think about things.” Because this form of doing, thinking, or feeling worked well in the past, it is repeated over and over again until it becomes a pattern of behavior.#3: Culture is about basic assumptions, perceptions, thoughts and feelingsCulture is not the organization’s core values or philosophy or norms. It’s deeper. Culture lives in the hearts and minds of the organization’s employees and is often very difficult to explain or define to someone who is not part of that culture. In other words, you have to experience it to fully understand it.So, if I had to boil it down to a shorter but realistic definition, I would describe culture as an evolutionary pattern of employee assumptions, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings about how to be successful in the organization. Clear as mud? Well, I hope it’s clearer than that!Next week, we’ll delve into the relationship between culture, employee engagement, and organizational performance. In the meantime, get engaged in the discussion and let me know how you’ve experience culture in your workplace and where you’ve seen it either foster or inhibit strategy execution and change. Be brilliant!

Organizational Culture—Why Leaders Should Pay Attention

Just like all important projects, bringing an aspirational culture to life takes concerted effort, focused action, and of course, time. Achieving the results you desire won’t happen overnight, which means losing that critical momentum as the implementation project moves forward is a very real possibility. And as with any change, you’ll face resistance. So, what can you do to keep things moving and continue to help employees adopt the behaviors and mindset your organization needs to be successful? Here are some ideas. Let’s talk resistance Resisting change is part of being human. It comes from our oldest, deepest instincts to protect what we have in order to survive—that good-old “fight or flight” intuitive mechanism that kicked in back when our ancestors were hunting wild game and living in caves. But the workplace isn’t a cave and we don’t have to spear our own wild boar for today’s working lunch, so shouldn’t our fight or flight mechanism be at ease? Perhaps.But if you connect the dots between your job, your financial situation, and your ability to pay the mortgage and put food on the table now and in the future, it really does get down to the basics of human survival. You’re not going to change the fact that the present situation is known and secure, and the future is unknown and scary. But you can change how you react to change and the unknown. Think of resistance as a gift Resistance is a gift. Really. Resistance is a blessing, an opening, an invitation to engage. When people resist, it’s often because they haven’t emotionally aligned to the vision, they aren’t connecting the dots between objectives and actions, they are concerned about losing some sense of self, or they are fearful about how they’ll be affected and whether they can or want to live with it. In my experience, this resistance often comes from a lack of information—the employee doesn’t have all of her questions answered yet.  So the solution is pretty simple: find out what the questions are and answer them candidly, truthfully, and genuinely. Once you get those questions answered and have support for the change, you need to help folks make the transition. Here are some things I recommend for my clients when they are at this point: carry around the document that describes your culture— that will let employees see its importancekick-off recurring meetings with a 90-second “culture moment”— let everyone participate by sharing stories about how they’ve witnessed the culture live and in actioncreate spot awards to recognize and reinforce desired behaviors—they don’t need to be expensive, just timely and publicly awardedprominently include culture information on your intranet site—give it its own page and find ways to make the page enticing and engagingidentify and equip culture ambassadors—your high potential pool is a great place to startmake sure managers understand how to develop to the culture—use idps to establish goals around desired behaviors. Culture develops over time As I’ve said before, defining, cultivating, and reinforcing the desired culture is the role of leadership, with much-needed support from the human capital team. As you’re going through the process, remember that cultures develop over time. Therefore, people transition over time. Successful change takes stamina and continued focus. But eventually you’ll see the desired behaviors exhibited, and those behaviors will ultimately change the mindset about how the individuals and organization are successful. One day, you’ll realize your desired culture is your present culture. Be brilliant!

Culture Change—Keeping the Momentum Going

If you’ve taken the time and invested the effort into defining your aspirational culture—the one you believe you must have in order to achieve your strategic objectives—you’re on your way to being one of few high-performing organizations. But while defining your culture and putting it in writing is a great (and by that, I mean critical!) first step, it’s not enough to make that culture a reality.  And ultimately, that’s what you want, right?Launching your aspirational cultureWhen I work with clients to define their needed culture, I encourage them to make a big splash about it.  We develop a launch plan and load it up with opportunities to talk about and experience the culture in action.One of my favorite things to do is develop a little booklet that links the strategic foundation (mission, vision, values) and the culture description, and get this booklet in the hands of each and every employee.  Making an investment in something tangible goes a long way to communicate the importance.Embedding your cultureIn addition to lots of communication tactics, I work with clients to help them embed the culture into their human capital systems—this is the absolute best way to foster transition of that cultural mindset and associated behaviors to the new reality. The goal is to get to the point at which your talent acquisition processes are hiring for cultural fit, your onboarding and learning programs are developing new behaviors, your rewards system is recognizing people for living the culture, and your performance management system is holding employees accountable. There are myriad ways you can help bring the desired culture to life, especially through learning and development programs.  Here are some ideas.Onboarding: Openly talk about the culture during the first 90 days and help new employees understand how they can be successful within your organizational culture.Manager training. Help managers see how culture role modeling and cultivation is part of their responsibility and give them tools to make it quick and easy.Leadership development. Create programs for existing leaders and high potentials to serve as culture ambassadors and be part of the culture creation.Coaching. Whether it’s a manager coaching and employee or you’ve brought in outside expertise, weave the desired cultural behaviors into the “how” aspect of goal accomplishment.Informal learning (such as through communities of interest or lunch and learn programs)—Have the informal learning coordinators work with facilitators and presenters to emphasize cultural elements in their storytelling.Individual development plans—Use these as a mechanism to provide employees insight into how applying culturally desired behaviors will contribute to their success and growth in the organization.One of my favorite books, The Transformative CEO: Impact Lessons from Industry Game Changers, makes the case for defining and cultivating the needed culture to drive organizational performance.  As human capital and learning practitioners, you can leverage this information to make the case with your leadership for transitioning to the culture you need.  And once it’s defined, use these ideas to bring that aspirational culture to life.  Let me know how it goes.  Be brilliant!

Bringing Your Aspirational Culture to Life

In my last blog post, I established the definitive link between culture, employee engagement, and organizational performance. And let’s face it, in today’s high-tech business environment it’s easy to stay on top of, or even mimic, your competitors’ products and methods. So the last remaining competitive advantage you really have lives inside your organization—your leadership effectiveness and the culture those leaders establish.Every organization has a culture, whether they’ve defined and cultivated it or not. The question is: Does your organization have the culture it needs to achieve the results it desires? If your answer is not a resounding “yes,” your organization has some work to do.I like to start with what I call the strategic foundation—the mission, vision, and core values. The mission defines why the organizations exists, the vision defines what the organization aspires to be or achieve, and the core values describe what the organization deems important. Many organizations have these tenets written down in some form or fashion, and use them to drive behaviors and decisions to varying degrees. You can’t build a business upon this foundation if it’s not documented, so do that first. And put the requisite effort into it.If you’ve already got the mission, vision, and core values documented, now would be a good time to review them and see if they inspire and motivate the workforce behaviors you’re seeking. Otherwise, your strategic foundation is not providing you the strength it is intended to provide.Let’s talk a bit about mission. If your organization’s mission says anything about revenue or profits, you’ve got it wrong—because only the greedy are motivated by money for any extended period of time. The rest of us are motivated by opportunities to serve and have a meaningful impact. So make sure your mission defines not only why your organization exists, but also who it is at its core. This may take some collective soul searching. You have to go inside and know the value you bring and what you stand for in order for it to matter to your employees, investors, and customers. Do it—it’s worth it. I promise.Getting your mission right is the first step in defining your culture. The next step is defining desired behaviors. Many organizations have a handful of core values identified, but few have gone the extra step to define what those values look like in action. This is a great way to let employees know what is expected of them behaviorally. Then, you can work these behaviors into learning programs, recruiting and onboarding, and the performance management system, which is where culture comes to life (more on this in next week’s blog post).Here’s a great example of a core value defined. Use this as a model when you update your own core values.Collaboration isactively listening to the ideas, viewpoints, and perspectives of otherskeeping an open mind to perspectives that may be different from your ownrecognizing that the power of multiple experiences and inputs may result in the best outcomeworking together to create multi-discipline, integrated solutionsfinding and leveraging common values or goals to overcome obstacles.Can you see how if you define who you are as an organization, and document the behaviors you believe will make you successful, you’ve taken the first steps in establishing a culture that will lead your organization to its greatest potential? Next week we’ll examine how to bring that culture to life through people systems. Until then, in the comment section below, share with me your experiences related to a strategic foundation and a solid, performance-driving organizational culture. Be brilliant!

Defining the Culture You Need

For many leaders there’s a commonly held belief that employee engagement drives organizational performance. And there’s data out there to support it—Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace recently re-confirmed a well-established connection between employee engagement and the following nine performance indicators:Customer ratingsProfitabilityProductivityTurnoverSafety incidentsShrinkage (theft)AbsenteeismPatient safety incidentsQuality (defects)But I believe that if we look a little deeper, we’ll see that organizational culture actually has the single biggest impact on organizational performance. I know—it’s a bold statement. So stick with me for a moment, and I’ll explain my thinking.Last week we defined culture as an evolutionary pattern of employee assumptions, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings about how to be successful in the organization. For simplicity, let’s call it a mindset. This mindset is reinforced via more tangible or visible organizational elements such as processes, communication, interaction, decisions, and what I like to call the strategic foundation—the mission, vision, and core values. Together, these elements create the employee experience.The employee experienceWhen employees show up for work, they spend eight hours or more immersed in a world that may or may not feel good to them. If it’s a culture that aligns with their values, is supportive of their efforts, respects their ideas and opinions, and trusts them to make role-appropriate decisions, they will feel good. When employees feel good, they smile (and then others smile, too—I love how that works!), they try harder, they help others, they are appreciative, and they genuinely want to do what is best for the organization because they come to value the associated experiences and feelings. In other words, employees who feel good about their day-to-day experiences are more engaged. And more engaged employees deliver a better customer experience.The customer experienceI think intellectually it’s easy to accept the concept that a positive employee experience has a positive impact on the customer experience. And conversely, a negative employee experience has a negative impact on the customer experience. But to what extent do leaders think this experience is important enough to take action inside their organizations?Maybe this will prompt action: The employee who is having a negative experience is carrying that negative energy with him. He carries it home to the spouse whom you want to be supportive when he has to stay late to meet an important deadline. He carries it to his friends and professional colleagues who may be your future employees, he posts it online for the whole wired world to see, and he carries it with him when he interacts with the customer. Are you starting to see the link? Good. Now, let’s talk performance.Performance outcomesIt’s possible at this point that some leaders are saying, “Yeah, that’s all well and good, but our customers only care about low cost.” Or: “Internally we’re doing fine—it’s the economy that’s killing us.” Blame it on the economy. Or on your customers who don’t get it. Or on your employees who don’t focus on the right things. It can be all of those things, but it’s really none of them. Because nothing—and I mean nothing—matters more than the employee experience, and ultimately the customer experience, when it comes to the bottom line.Consider these examples: People love CarMax because of its no frills, straightforward, take-it-or-leave-it experience. People buy Apple products because of the experience of turning on a technology product that is designed to be up and running on the spot, and the opportunity to work with a “genius” when they need help. And people over-pay every day for a decaf, four pump, skinny, extra-hot vanilla latte because of the social experience Starbucks provides. In every single case, it’s not difficult to imagine what it’s like to be an employee and how that translates into your experience as a customer. And because you like how it feels, you keep going back for more. And that is the impact to the bottom line.Gallup is right! Employee engagement is critical to organizational performance. And you can drive engagement by defining and cultivating a culture that fosters a positive employee experience. Now it’s your turn. Below, share your observations and the instances when you’ve seen a link between culture, engagement, and performance. Be brilliant!

How Culture and Engagement Drive Organizational Performance

While many people try their best to create e-learning courses, very few of them manage to succeed. Effective e-learning courses are easier said than done; you have to devote your time, energy, and money to deliver high-quality product. Here are six simple but critical steps to help you create effective e-learning courses. (You probably already know these, but it’s a good idea to periodically review them.)#1: Research Target AudienceKnowing your target audience is all-important when it comes to designing and delivering e-learning courses. You need to answer the following questions:Is it a course for professionals or beginners?What is their level of education and/or age?Are there any cultural considerations we need to consider?What are the financial constraints?#2: Spend Time on the IntroYour course introduction may only last a few seconds, but you still need to devote adequate development resources. Here are eight key factors to consider:simple and understandable introductionfully functional interfacefriendly supportrelevant, attention-grabbing contentsimple, error-free languageattractive visual elementsinteractivitycall to action.#3: Remember the KISS RuleChances are you are already familiar with the KISS rule (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Remember that lengthy introductions and course content will likely make your course boring. Instead, try to have light, interactive content. Less is often better when it comes to e-learning courses. Perhaps you can use infographics and interesting pictures to relay information, but try to omit busy or complex media and backgrounds.#4: Incorporate High-Quality Visual DesignRemember that it takes less than five seconds to form the first impression. And, as you probably know already, 95 percent of first impression in the web falls to design. The must-consider factors are color, spacing, alignment, and position. Add only necessary high-quality objects—as they are the first aspect to represent the learning experience—as well as you and your company.#5: Know Your ValueIn order to stand out from the crowd of competitors, your e-learning courses should emphasize its value right from the beginning. The best e-learning courses give clear reasons why learners should choose your courses. If a learner doesn’t see the exact value of the course right from the beginning, he won’t make an effort to use it. In other words, know what your e-learning course is really good for.#6: Add Flexible ModulesInstead of wondering how long or short your online courses should be, you need to focus on its utility and adaptability. If your courses present useful information the person really need, plus your courses offer flexible modules, even the busiest person will find time to attend them.Bonus: Try Special OffersThere is a common delusion that rich people don’t fall for special offers. Conversely, it is rich people who enjoy and look for discounts as a treasure hunt. To make your e-learning courses effective for the market, add special offers for using the course—depending on your target audience, of course. Share your own critical e-learning development factors in the Comments section.

6 Simple But Critical Steps to Effective E-Learning

Spring 2014 - The Public Manager

Welcome to the first journal issue of 2014.  I have made some changes to the journal that I hope will create more value for you in the workplace. I removed Commentary, an opinion piece, and added a new column, Performance, which I hope will give you information on how to improve the performance of your organization and your employees.  

Are You Ready for the New Workplace Reality?

April 2012 - TD Magazine

While it is true that 70 percent to 90 percent of the learning that takes place in the workplace is informal, formal learning is still valued by workplace learning professionals.

Formal or Informal? or Both?

Do you want to remain relevant and have career options and internal mobility? If so, take the time to assess your skills and knowledge in critical areas of talent development (TD) and upskill to gain the skills and knowledge you need for now and the future.According to LinkedIn Learning’s 2022 Workplace Learning Report, 72 percent of learning leaders agree that TD has become more strategic, and 87 percent agree that TD has become more involved in helping their organization adapt to change.ATD research reveals critical areas where TD professionals lack the skills and knowledge to perform at a high level: succession planning processes and strategies, learning technology application, and data and analytics. Check out these detailed reports to learn more:In ATD’s Succession Planning: Preparing Organizations for the Future, one of the most cited barriers to why organizations did not have a succession planning process was lack of relevant knowledge and skills among staff (51 percent).In ATD’s Learning Technology Ecosystems: Tools, Programs, and Strategies, TD professionals cited a lack of skills on the TD staff as a barrier in building and maintaining a learning ecosystem. The highest percentage of advanced proficiency was 29 percent for learning and mastering new technologies; the lowest advanced proficiency level was leveraging data to improve operations and experiences at 13 percent.To become a valued strategic business partner and maintain a strong competitive advantage, you need to update your skills, gain new competencies, and recognize and react to the continuous changes in the workplace. Take ownership of your personal development.In a RedThread Research survey, L&D professionals revealed seven categories and 39 skills they believe they will need to succeed in their roles:Leadership (coaching, consulting, leading others, and diversity, equity, and inclusion)Data and decision making (data analysis, strategic thinking, problem solving, and data literacy)L&D core skills (training delivery, learning science, human-centered design, and content curation)Business acumen (marketing, change management, project management, creativity, and innovation)Management relationships (communication, empathy, collaboration, and teamwork)Personal readiness (adaptability, flexibility, resilience, and agility)Technology (technological strategy and technology use)How Do I Know Where I Need to Focus?TD professionals have greater expectations and challenges than ever before, and that leaves little time for their own learning. But it has never been more important for TD professionals to value their own personal development.ATD’s Talent Development Capability Model™ is a research-backed model that identifies the knowledge and skills practitioners in the TD field need to know and the ways to apply them to ensure success now and in the future. It’s practical and flexible, and anyone can use it at any point in their TD career. After completing the self-assessment, a report is generated that highlights your proficiencies and skills gaps in each of the model’s 23 capabilities.“Upskilling and professionalization are reasons practitioners look to ATD as a resource,” says Courtney Vital, CPTD®, vice president of ATD Education. “Our Talent Development Capability Model was created in response to that. The interactivity and personalization we’ve built into the self-assessment is groundbreaking. The technology is empowering, letting you personally answer the question we hear most often: ‘What ATD resources should I engage with?’”Now What?ATD is dedicated to helping individuals succeed along their path toward personal development. We have a team of professional development specialists dedicated to providing complimentary consultations for anyone looking for guidance on where to start, or what to do next, in their learning journey. It’s time to take charge of your career development and build a personalized learning plan based on your goals, role, and industry. Let ATD help you get there.

Search Results For "Paula Pierce"

Compare Courses