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Clare Norman, master certified coach, is dedicated to enabling people to feel truly seen for who they are. With more than 20 years of coaching experience, Clare empowers individuals to find their authentic voice and express their needs, creating a more caring world.In her work with leaders, Clare challenges the status quo, encouraging a shift towards prioritising people alongside profits. She believes that by developing individuals, we create ripple effects that transform organisations and communities.Simultaneously, Clare is passionate about elevating the coaching profession. She advocates for higher standards in coaching and deeper awareness of coachability, ensuring that both coaches and clients are primed for transformative experiences.Through her coaching, writing, and thought leadership, Clare is making a lasting impact on individuals, organizations, and the coaching industry at large.

Clare Norman

The coaching custodian serves as the architect of organizational coaching success, creating the conditions where meaningful development can take root.

The Coaching Custodian’s Role in the Success of Organizational Coaching

ATD Blog

While facilitating leadership development workshops at Emerson (a Fortune 125 company with 90,000 employees in 140 countries), there is an interesting comment I frequently hear: “I did not realize how much time you would give me in this workshop to think!”Is that a compliment or a complaint? I believe most people mean it as a compliment because they are surprised. Most of them haven’t had enough time to think in prior trainings.I’ve heard this comment many times, and it never takes me by surprise. In fact, I would be disappointed if I did not hear it. Most learners aren’t given adequate time to think and reflect when they attend training sessions.Far too many training programs rely on content rather than application and do not offer learners time for intentional reflection. In my 28-year learning and development career, I’ve seen too many programs approach learning by telling learners as much as possible in the time provided. Many of us in L&D call that strategy “ten pounds of training in a five-pound sack.”Fred Harburg, former chief learning officer at Fidelity Investments, sums it up well: “If there is no time for reflection, there is almost no chance for improvement.”L&D professionals want to create value for learners. One of the most valuable activities we can build into the design and delivery of our courses is intentional reflection and implementation planning. To improve our training programs, we must stop talking and pushing content, and let learners think.This represents a paradigm shift for many L&D practitioners. Spend less time on content and more time on intentional thinking and reflection.L&D thought leaders Roy Pollock, Cal Wick, and Andy Jefferson (authors of The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning) popularized the term “learning scrap.” Learning scrap refers to content covered in a workshop that is never applied. Most L&D programs have a typical learning scrap rate of 85 percent. At best, most learners apply 15 percent of what’s taught in a workshop on the job. If you want to decrease learning scrap and increase learning transfer, build more deliberate thinking and reflection activities into your courses.In his classic book, Learning and Memory, Donald A. Norman writes, “To remember is to have managed three things successfully: the acquisition, the retention, and the retrieval of information. Failure to remember means failure at managing one of these three things.” I argue failure usually occurs at the retention level. If there is no reflection, there is no retrieval. If there is no reflection and retention, do not expect retrieval to follow.This issue is well-documented by Ruth C. Clark, Frank Nguyen, and John Sweller in another classic book, Efficiency in Learning. They refer to this concept as “information fatigue.” We need to give learners more time to process during a training program. The authors’ research shows a lack of time for reflection leads to cognitive overload. Overload implies a malfunction; learning is short-circuited. If a person attends a program to learn, and we cram it full of content without giving them time to think, it’s no wonder learning scrap occurs.Several years ago, I codeveloped a workshop with Michael Watkins (a former faculty member at Harvard Business School and founder of Genesis Advisers) to create a workshop based on his bestselling book, The First 90 Days. Our workshop designed intentional thinking activities that asked participants a series of questions at the end of each module. The reflection activities took between 20 and 30 minutes to complete and consisted of five or six questions. These were not simply recall or comprehension questions, but rather synthesis and evaluation questions (the higher levels of cognitive thinking).Some of the top executives who attended this workshop told me that if I had not built in deliberate time to think, their goal would have been to rush through the course so they could move on to the next thing on their list.Here are some ways to build time for reflection into your programs:
Build thinking time into the design and delivery of every learning program you create, no matter the delivery method (in person or virtual).Resist the temptation to add more content to your courses. Do not fall prey to the “myth of more.” More content at the expense of intentional time for reflection will not improve learner performance. It will diminish it.Remember, the goal is not to give the content. The goal is for learners to get it, which will only happen through the discipline of quiet reflection.If trainers are given the option to talk or let their learners think, many would choose to fill the silence with their own voices, but the greatest value trainers bring to a workshop is knowing when to stop speaking and give learners time to reflect.

Want Them to Learn? Give Them Time to Think

Currently, 58 percent of employees in the US are always or are sometimes working remotely—and many companies are expecting this to be the new normal moving forward. This shift means that these businesses are going to need to learn how to operate virtually. HR teams, in particular, have to adapt their approaches during this work-from-home age to ensure they have their employees and organizations set up for success. We’ll explain how in this post.3 Ways HR Needs to Adapt to the Work-From-Home AgeOnce the pandemic began, HR teams had to pivot the way they operated almost overnight. Now that most of us have settled into the world of remote work, it may be time to take a closer look at specific functions and ensure they’re optimized for the current situation.HiringThe process of identifying and hiring talent changed significantly during the pandemic. Companies went from hosting in-person and on-site interviews to having all of these conversations virtually. Teams have also had to get creative with how to virtually welcome and onboard new hires. In addition to all of this, organizations recognized that those offering remote job opportunities were seeing a competitive edge over those that don’t. With all of these changes in the hiring landscape, what can HR teams do to adjust?Be UpfrontHR needs to make it clear—from the initial job posting through the hiring process—what the company’s policies will be in the post-pandemic world. Will remote work be permanent? Or will your employees eventually return to the office? Will the current benefit offerings change after the COVID-19 pandemic ends? These factors will heavily influence a job searcher’s decision to apply to your company, so it’s important to be honest about where your organization stands.Take Advantage of the Remote EnvironmentCertain advantages come with being a remote company. Now that there aren’t any location constraints, you have a much bigger talent pool to select from. So, unless your company is planning to return to the office soon, use this as an opportunity to fill your pipeline with talented candidates.Adapt Your ProcessesAdjusting your interviewing and onboarding processes requires more than just giving everyone access to Zoom. You have to rethink the experience and make changes to ensure that candidates who go through your hiring process get the amount of information, exposure, and context they need to make the best decision. Similarly, you should train all your hiring managers on these new remote processes to ensure everyone is successful.BenefitsMany benefits, such as catered lunches and commuter cards, are no longer relevant to this new world of work. This means that your company likely has some extra budget being left on the table. Instead of letting this money go to waste, consider reinvesting it into new offerings that are more relevant for employees while they’re remote—especially given that 57 percent of employees say their benefits package is more important than ever before to them.Make Data-Informed DecisionsInstead of making assumptions about your employees’ wants, use an anonymous survey to collect feedback directly from your workforce. This data can help you identify where to invest company resources. For instance, you may learn that your working parents are especially stressed out during the pandemic. In this case, consider rolling out additional child care benefits, such as providing reimbursements for in-home babysitters or virtual tutors. As you adjust your benefits, use pulse surveys to gauge the impact of these new initiatives and ensure they have the intended effect.RetentionYour retention strategy might have shifted during this time as well—this is unsurprising. Employees have different priorities in a remote work setting than in an office setting. Company culture can also look different when people are physically apart. This barrier means HR teams have to figure out how to bring the organization’s values, mission, and vision to life across a distributed workforce. If a company doesn’t acknowledge these changes and adapt accordingly, they may risk losing their top talent to others handling the transition more effectively. This, in turn, can cost companies. Some studies predict that every time a business replaces a salaried employee, it costs six to nine months’ salary on average.Offer Additional Support.Right now, your employees are stressed and confused. The last thing you want is for them to feel like they’re alone in navigating these challenges. That’s why we encourage companies to use this time to offer more virtual support, whether that’s in the form of introducing a mentoring and coaching program or forming online ERGs. These resources can provide a space for employees to ask questions, receive guidance, or be heard.Build TrustYou need to ensure your workforce can trust your leadership team to make the right decisions. Specifically, employees want to know how the company is doing, where it’s headed, and what these changes mean for them. Building trust requires transparency. HR teams can adjust their communication strategies by increasing the frequency, diversifying their communication channels, and giving employees more access to leadership. As we all navigate this new world of work together, HR leaders need to think about adapting their practices, perspectives, and programs to align with what employees need today. To learn how our mentoring and coaching programs can support your remote workforce, request a demo.

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