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CEO, SkillDirector Stuart Rogers is SkillDirector's CEO, focusing on strategic leadership, finance, and operations. He has broad operational, sales, and executive management experience at companies in the technology and hard goods distribution sectors. Stuart holds a bachelor's degree from Wofford College and an MBA from the University of South Carolina, with concentrations in marketing and finance.

Stuart Rogers

ASTD Career Navigator: Create Your Customized Development Plan

Make sure that every training program is linked to the desired business outcomes of the unit that funds your training budget.

Linking Learning and Business Results: Are You Part of the Problem or the Solution?

ICE 2012 Sales Enablement Zone Blog Series 3-8

We are fortunate to work with some of the leading facilitators in the worldwide talent development community. Our facilitators bring a wealth of experience and insight to their classrooms. We’re spotlighting their stories here.Meet Jonathan Halls!Jonathan is the award-winning author of Confessions of a Corporate Trainer and bestselling author of Rapid Video Development for Trainers.What is your favorite motivational quote?It changes every week but at the moment I like this one from Carl Rogers: “I can’t teach you anything but I can help you learn.” It emphasizes that our role is to partner with learners.How many years have you been a facilitator? Did you find the career path, or did it find you?I like to say I’ve been a facilitator for more than 10 years and that’s not lying. But, errr, I’ve been doing it for more than 30 years. I’m a bit unusual in that I’m not an accidental trainer. I always intended to be a trainer due to the influence of a mentor in my teenage years. In fact, I was teaching broadcasting skills in my teens, so I was geeking out on andragogy and adult learning skills before I left high school.What is something you wish you knew before becoming a facilitator?I wish I realized that being a polished trainer with nice slide decks and well-formatted handouts isn’t necessarily learner-centric. My bachelor’s and master’s degrees are in adult learning so I knew all the theories from Knowles to Rogers to Freire. But knowing them and practicing them are different. What took me years to learn was that the key is trusting the learner and all the knowledge, skills, and intentions they bring to the learning experience.What is your go-to facilitation tool?Questions are my number 1 tool, partly because they’re easier to carry than trainer toys and laptops and projectors. But mostly because when a trainer asks questions, it unlocks the learner’s long-term memory to help them build new mental models for cognitive and psychomotor learning. That’s not all–questions also provide dignity. When we ask questions, we show that we value and honor the learner’s perspective and trust their capacity to learn. And we get to learn from them too.How has hybrid learning changed how you facilitate?Not a whole lot. Our job is still to help learners build their skills. I think it’s more important to focus on trusting the learner to learn than being polished with technology. And I’m not a luddite. Hybrid situations still require the learner to do the work. It’s less about what we do than what the learner does.What is your best piece of advice for anyone looking to become a facilitator?Study how the learner builds their learning and reflect on what your role as a trainer is in helping them do that learning. Ask yourself, do I really need to present? To talk? Have cool slide decks? Or do the learners need to be doing stuff? Then grab a glass of your favorite wine, sit back, gaze into the distance, and marvel at the incredible capacity humans have to learn.What is your favorite part about being a facilitator?It’s the privilege we have to partner with folks as they walk on their learning journey. It’s truly awesome and it teaches us so much about life, other people, and ourselves. I love connecting all that to organizational performance, which is about helping people learn new skills, gain confidence, and help their organizations thrive. It’s an awesome part of the job.What is your favorite song these days, the last great book you read, or your favorite hobby outside of work?I’m a classical music buff and like some jazz. I know this sounds really nerdy but every month I get hooked on different composers. This month I’m reveling in Mozart piano concertos because of their incredible precision and light touch, especially Piano Concerto No. 21.How have your facilitation skills and training aided you in other aspects of your personal or professional life?Gee, where do I start and where do I stop? They help me understand people. They help me be patient (well some of the time). They help me know when to shut up. Most of all they teach me about other people and all they bring into our lives.

“It’s more important to focus on trusting the learner to learn than being polished with technology.”

The L&D field is awash in suggested tools, techniques, frameworks, dogma, and just plain junk. Fortunately, there are also plenty of useful and effective concepts, tools, and guides. Indeed, arguments abound about whether ISD, HPT, talent development, training, e-learning, learning objects, expert systems, balanced score cards, Lean Six Sgima, quality management, or constructivism is the “way to go.” However, support for one approach over another is usually based on personal biases rather than research and pragmatic feedback from sensible application. Bottom line: Learning and performance practitioners must do the right thing, not just do things right. What’s more, as professionals, we are responsible for what we use, do, produce, and deliver in terms of the value we add or subtract from our internal and external clients. All of us are charged with improving performance, and we are confronted with change in our pursuit of performance improvement. What’s more, we are responsible for the consequences of the choices we make in these efforts and in reaction to such change. Too often, though, we look for quick fixes, magic checklists, and comfortable ways to enact change and improve performance. Sadly, we typically look for conventional ways of doing things, rather than seeking out the best tools and concepts to manage the actual realities we must face. Although convenient in the short term, this sort of approach to managing change won’t work in the long term. Perhaps it is time to make sensible and justifiable—not just conventional and temporarily safe—choices. In other words, will we be the masters of change or the victims of it? Here are some sensible, sensitive, and effective guidelines—based on applied research and successful practices—for managing change while improving performance. Think and act strategically, not just tactically and operationally. Correctly align what we use, do, produce, and deliver to measurable external client and societal value added;Find, define, and justify valid and useful objectives based on performance data, on evidence.Use and align three levels of planning and results: societal/mega, organizational/macro, and individual/micro.Collect needs (not wants) assessment data and use that for deciding your choices of where to head, what you do, and what you deliver; needs are gaps in results not lack in means and resources.Select the right tools, such as Lean Six Sigma, balanced score cards, e-learning, learning objects, for measurably improving performance based on needs assessment data. Don’t start with a solution before you know the problem.Be rigorous about evaluation and continual improvement to assure that you and your organization adds value within and external to your organization. All of this is possible … and ethical … and professional … and we know how to do it.For more advice on improving organizational performance, check out my latest book, Needs Assessment for Organizational Success. Co-authored with Ingrid Guerra-Lopez, this book provides new insight in managing the needs assessment process to structure performance improvement across all aspects of measurement and supportive decision-making tools.

Will L&D Pros Be Masters of Change—or Victims of It?

Needs assessments can align with a bottom line—if done correctly. Further, there are two bottom lines that are important: one is the conventional one and the second is the societal one. Both are important but success can be further assured by aligning and contributing to both bottom lines.  Defining and Delivering Success: The Primary Role of Needs Assessment A proper needs assessment—identifying and prioritizing gaps in results on the basis of the costs to meet the needs as compared to the costs to ignore them—increase your success, as well as the continuing success of your organization. It provides evidence for strategic planning, decision making, design, development, implementation, and evaluation/continual improvement. To best assure that a needs assessment will add value to at least one bottom line depends on which approach you use. There are, indeed, two bottom lines: the conventional one displayed on a corporate profit and loss sheet (usually quarterly and yearly) and the societal bottom line that documents what value has been added to individuals, the organization, and our shared society. There is a choice of needs assessments approaches, and which one you select from the “cafeteria of options” will determine what value you add and to whom the value is added. Hope is not an option in selecting a needs assessment approach; mother advised, during my more formative year that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” So select your assessment on the basis of what results you will get, as compared to the usual “this is what others use and they say it will it is good.” I believe that only evidence-based approaches that have proven merit should be considered. Needs Assessment, Strategic Planning, and Measurable Success There are three levels of planning, and thus three levels of needs assessment.  Needs assessment will provide the basic evidence—data—for strategic thinking and planning. Which level you start with will determine if you get results at the conventional bottom line or also at the societal bottom line. Here are the basic questions any organization should ask and answer and a format for obtaining commitment.  Do you commit to deliver organizational contributions that adds measurable value for your external clients AND society?  (MEGA/Outcomes)Do you commit to deliver organizational contributions that have the quality required by your external partners? (MACRO/Outputs)Do you commit to produce internal results that have the quality required by your internal partners? (MICRO/Products)Do you commit to have efficient internal products, programs, projects, and activities?  (PROCESSES)Do you commit to create and ensure the quality and appropriateness of the human, capital, and physical resources available? (INPUTS)Do you commit to deliver:products, activities, methods, and procedures that have positive value and worth?the results and accomplishments defined by our objectives? (EVALUATION/CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT) Based on the questions, there are three levels of results: Societal results and contributions (Mega)Organizational results and consequences (Macro)Individual or team results and consequences (Micro). Needs and Needs Assessment Needs—gaps in results and consequences—should and may be collected at the three results levels of Mega/Outcomes, Macro/Outputs, and Micro/Products. This data will allow strategic thinking and planning to move forward based on evidence; making useful and valid decisions and providing the basis for evaluation. It is vital that “need” be defined as a noun, as a gap in results, not as a gap in resources or processes. NEEDS are gaps between current results and desired results at three levels (Mega, Macro, and Micro) NEEDS ASSESSMENT is the identification and prioritization of NEEDS for selection elimination or reduction   Needs may be prioritized on the basis of the costs to meet the needs as compared to the costs of ignoring them. Needs when identified can be captured in a summary form that identifies the gaps in results and also identified possible means to close those gaps that should be considered after selecting the needs to be met. These data points will allow for useful strategic planning and decision making. If you are to add to both the bottom lines, start at the Mega level. If you only intend to add to your organization’s bottom line, start at Macro or Micro level. But be aware that that limited focus might not add value to society or sustain your organization for long.Editor’s note: This post is adapted from the ASTD Handbook (ASTD Press, 2014). The second edition of the ASTD Handbook is the most valuable resource you can own as a training and development professional. Written by 96 of the best and brightest thinkers in the field, its 55 chapters cover everything you need to know about the profession today. Find key statistics from the book in this infographic. Join me online February 25, 2015, for the Essentials of Conducting a Needs Assessment Certificate.

How Does Your Needs Assessment Align to the Bottom Line?

At the beginning of the past two years, I’ve written a post on important points I think you should know. In 2021 I mentioned the importance of context, emotion, and learning to learn. In 2022 I discussed some of the newer cognitive science models of cognition—including distributed, social, and embodied cognition—as well as the role of mental models. This year, I’d like to focus on a trend that we should extinguish: the belief that we are formal, logical, reasoning beings.The cognitive revolution transcended the view of behavioral psychology; we couldn’t talk about what went on in the brain. While many valuable insights were generated by that scientific paradigm, including the role of performance objectives, the move to thinking we could isolate necessary components provided further advances. Results that have stood the test of time—the recognition of sensory, working, and long-term memory as well as core cognitive processes like attention, elaboration, and retrieval—were identified.We tend to adopt existing models as frameworks for thinking about the brain, and the cognitive revolution was no exception. For example, consider the computer as a general-purpose information processing system. It made sense to adopt that model to reflect our abilities to process information and complete a variety of tasks. Thus, the dominant framework for thinking about thinking was to view our brains as formal, logical, reasoning machines.Such models, with some assumptions like mapping the world into formal representations, accomplished impressive tasks. Systems built upon that model could break down problems into components and solve them. They could even learn. Artificial intelligence (AI) advanced as a result. So-called “expert systems” were built upon interviews with the best practitioners. Sadly, these models failed in practical situations, leading to an AI winter. This was a disconcerting time, when behavior naturally observed in humans did not reflect these symbolic systems.The Postcognitive RevolutionOne of the most impressive capabilities of our thinking is the ability to organize the world into flexible frameworks. What David Rumelhart called schemas, Marvin Minsky called frames, and Roger Schank called scripts all reflect our ability to infer knowledge about the world. Thus, we had representations such as wheels that scaled up to vehicles but differently for automobiles versus bicycles. Symbolic logic struggles with this, however. Attempts were made to adapt, such as Lofti Zadeh’s Fuzzy Logic and Douglas Hofstedter’s Slipnets, but suffered in practice.An alternative framework emerged that could be characterized as “subsymbolic,” operating below the symbolic level. John Holland, Keith Holyoak, Richard Nisbett, and Paul Thagard created a genetic algorithm approach in Induction, which borrowed mutation from biology, but wasn’t aligned with neuroscience. Rumelhart, along with Jay McClelland, proposed connectionist models instead in their two-volume set Parallel Distributed Processing with a neuroscientific inspiration. These models were found to exhibit rational behavior similar to humans. They represented the same types of behaviors, including errors, that were empirically obtained from psychology research.These neural net models created not only a psychological revolution, capturing elements of cognition, but also a renewed basis for artificial intelligence, underpinning much of today’s work in machine learning.A Cognitive LegacyOne small legacy of the formal, logical, reasoning model of cognition, however, seems to linger. It appears that many of our practices in learning and development (and business in general), still seem to be based on this idea. This is a potential problem.If we’re formal logical beings, there are several things we should be able to assume. For one, if we give people new information, they’ll appropriately adjust their behavior. Moreover, the person with the greatest access to information should be the one to make a decision, and that decision will be the best one possible. We see this manifest in several ways.For one, our training frequently resembles the presentation of new information with an expectation of behavior change. Too often, we see bullet points of information extracted from (and even presented by) experts. After this, there’s an expectation that we’ll do something differently. Similarly with annual or quarterly reviews. People need feedback at the appropriate time and support for change. We don’t just change when we wish to; it takes time and practice.We also see decisions made by individuals without consultation. Folks will decree a new approach because it’s been determined by the person at the appropriate decision point. Yet the evidence suggests that we get better outcomes when we bring more people into the decision-making process, such as in Keith Sawyer’s Group Genius. When we follow practices that help us suitably explore a problem individually, and then collectively brainstorm solutions, test, and adapt, the outcomes are better.A Problematic LegacySadly, there is also evidence that this approach to work isn’t working. We see it in the outcomes of learning investments, and when we evaluate organizational success as an outcome of our approaches, we see that more informed ones work better.In the 2012 Harvard Business School working paper The Great Training Robbery, Michael Beer, Magnus Finnstrom, and Derek Schrader cite metanalyses that suggest only 10 percent of training investment has an impact. There may be multiple causes for this, but it does suggest that we’re wasting money with our approaches. The Serious eLearning Manifesto suggests that much of traditional learning is based on information presentation, so it’s safe to say that we’re not doing as well as we could.Similarly, efforts like Laura Overton’s Toward Maturity and Lauri Bassi’s Human Capital Capability Scorecard suggest that organizations do better when they’re better aligned with how people think, work, and learn. Organizational performance reliably improves with better employee approaches.Overall, the continued use of ineffective practices undermines our organizational success. We need to effectively achieve our organizational goals, which includes ensuring we can optimally execute what we know we need to do and continually innovate when we have to invent or adapt.Moving ForwardWhat should you do differently?Truly understand how your brain actually operates. Know the basics of the human information processing loop and extensions for learning and performance.Avoid the myths that continue to hinder our industry.Conduct deep needs analyses to find important performance gaps and their root causes. There are many causes of problems besides a lack of knowledge or skills. Stop thinking that if you give people knowledge, behavior will change.Leverage external resources. Decision making is best done collectively and iteratively. To do otherwise is to minimize your potential.Move from legacy practices to evidence-based practices. There are vested interests that continue to exist based on perpetuating approaches that aren’t effective. Many products that are quite lucrative—profiling instruments and development programs —aren’t effective.Start measuring impact. This doesn’t mean what people prefer (there’s no correlation with what people think of a program and its impact). Instead, assess the actual change in the organization. You can’t collect this yourself; you must partner with the business units that require change.Align programs to demonstrable gaps, and then measure until they’ve improved.Ultimately, L&D should be the folks that are responsible for not only optimal execution but also continual innovation. When you’re innovating (problem solving, designing, or researching), you don’t know the answer when you start, so inherently it is learning. It’s informal learning, and no one knows the answer (yet)! Still, it’s an opportunity for L&D to attain a more valuable role in the organization.To make this strategic move and start bringing evidence-based practices from formal to informal learning, take ownership of these practices within your teams. Make it safe to fail; share stories of what you tried; and learn together. Create and understand a learning microculture before taking it to the rest of the organization.Last, identify the organizational legacies that are holding you, and your organizations, back. Then, find alternatives, and implement them. When you’re free of your unexamined past, you can move forward to an evidence-based future that means better outcomes. That’s a trend I’d like to see and encourage you to undertake.

A Trend to Supersede

“It is not about what they know; it is about what they can do.”—Bob MosherMany years ago, learning scientist Roger Schank stated “learning is the work.” Today learning in the workflow is getting renewed interest as organizations realize the opportunities new technologies provide to make assets available at the point of need. The nature of work is changing, and therefore the need for access to learning assets is changing. The modern worker wants learning that is personalized just for their needs and available on a variety of devices. They are more adaptive, collaborative, and self-directed than earlier generations of learners. They use smartphones to search for answers at any time, and expect immediate access to information.Several years ago, Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher of APPLY Synergies conducted studies on learning and authored Innovative Performance Support: Strategies and Practices for Learning in the Workflow. Their research identified five unique moments when performers are learning: learn new, learn more, apply, solve, change. The first two are associated with formal training while the last three exist in the realm of performance support. Unlike traditional approaches that encourage learner dependency and begin with a training solution framed by the deeply ingrained assumption that performance challenges are best ameliorated by new learning, the five moments of need methodology encourages independence and launches from the moment of application (when learned skills are applied to the performance of a job task). The corresponding assumption in play is that performance challenges are best addressed by providing performers access to cascading levels of support, from simple (for instance, a reminder of the basic steps required to complete a task) to comprehensive (targeted training oriented around job roles and tasks for which the result of failure is catastrophic).These moments include:1. When people are learning how to do something for the first time (learn new).Example: A first-time supervisor, promoted from within, needs to learn the progressive discipline policies of the organization.2. When people are expanding the breadth and depth of what they have learned (learn more).Example: The first-time supervisor needs to learn how to conduct a verbal counseling session under the progressive discipline policies of the organization.3. When they need to act on what they have learned, which includes planning what they will do, remembering what they may have forgotten, or adapting their performance to a unique situation (apply).Example: The first-time supervisor needs to perform the task of conducting a verbal counseling session (acting on what they have learned). This requires the supervisor to plan the encounter, remember what they may have forgotten, and possibly adapt their performance to a unique situation.4. When problems arise, or things break or don’t work the way they were intended (solve).Example: During the verbal counseling session, the employee presents the first-time supervisor with new medical documentation and notice that legal counsel has been retained.5. When people need to learn a new way of doing something, which requires them to unlearn deeply ingrained skills and relearn to adjust to new practices, requirements, and so forth (change).Example: In response to legal challenges, the organization has significantly changed its time and attendance policies and procedures. The first-time supervisor, formerly a line employee of several years, must overcome familiarity with the way it has always been and internalize the new approach.Learning new and more is the traditional stronghold for L&D professionals. It is what we have done for years and years. Learning used in apply, solve, and change moments is performance support; it is needed when it is needed—just in time, not when someone is attending a class. It is also needed in the right amount, not the amount deemed important for the length of a class.According to Gottfredson and Mosher, all learning needs to focus on application. This means addressing the entire journey performers make, from the beginning stages of learning through the full range of challenges when learners are called upon to actually perform, to use what they’ve learned to take actions. If organizations are interested in advancing employee performance, they must understand the moments when employees need access to learning.The Complete Learning Journey is depicted as three phases—training, transfer, and sustain, as illustrated in this image. Designing for this model requires pairing team members who are certified in the five moments of need methodology with practitioners who are experts in the role for which content is being designed. While in concept this approach is not so different from a traditional designer–subject matter expert collaboration, in practice it becomes more of a relationship between the designer and the larger professional community being served. Approaches differ based on the moment (for example, new is taught differently than more), and content associated with formal instruction is generally limited to those tasks that, if performed incorrectly, result in significant or catastrophic outcomes. Tasks carrying less risk are addressed through instruction or performance support in the workflow.This is a framework that various modalities can easily fit into. For example, there are ways to support the moments with e-learning, microlearning, videos, gaming, and so forth. However, this design requires a complete change of mindset about the learning portfolio and an understanding that five moments of need is not a different version of ADDIE. Some tips from experience to better navigate your “new” moment with this methodology were recently provided to ATD Forum members and include:Invest your time and professional development dollars in getting up to speed holistically on the five moments of need methodology. Allow yourself to be confused as you learn; it all makes sense eventually.Don’t waste your time trying to explain the shift to a performance-based approach. Just assume that the broad community of stakeholders won’t actually get it until you have a no-kidding demonstration product to show them that’s applicable to their work.Target an individual stakeholder in an underserved area of your business as your partner. The underserved are more likely to be willing helpers and will appreciate getting top-of-the-line, impactful learning support in return.Get started, but start small.Work under the radar.It’s much harder than you think. Stick with it anyway and trust the process. As Mae West is quoted as saying, “I never said it would be easy; I just said it would be worth it.”ATD Resources:Technology to the RescuePerformance Support Certificate ProgramScience of Learning 101: When to Build Performance Support, Part 1

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