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Kathy White, MS, Executive Director of Learning and Performance for Amgen’s worldwide Operations and manufacturing facilities. Kathy has worked at Fortune 100 Pharmaceutical and Bio-pharmaceutical industries for 28 years in manufacturing, quality, strategic planning, and training. Kathy and the Amgen Learning & Performance team have been on a multi-year transition from traditional training to becoming a human performance based group. This was recently recognized when the team received the 2012 ISPI Award of Excellence.

Kathy White

In Lessons From Leaders, Sam Shriver and co-authors spoke with 15 leaders from every walk of life. While each was unquestionably unique, there were also some noticeable commonalities.

The Characteristics of Effective Leaders

Kathi Edwards is an independent consultant, writer, and facilitator specializing in creating more effective learning environments and strategies. She supports clients in developing learning strategies, designing learning opportunities, and ensuring subject-matter experts (SMEs) have the knowledge and skills they need to facilitate learning. Ultimately, everything she does is focused on those who matter most: the learners.Kathi’s unique expertise in transforming the effectiveness of subject-matter experts who lead learning opportunities is frequently sought by national and international organizations in a variety of fields. In demand as an engaging speaker and facilitator in both corporate and not-for-profit settings, she is a frequent content leader on topics related to learning, learning strategy, and working with and coaching subject-matter experts. In addition to facilitating ATD’s Training Certificate Program, she developed and facilitates, several times per year, the popular three-part webinar series “Essentials of Coaching SMEs to Facilitate Learning,” part of ATD's ongoing “Essentials of...” webinar series.Kathi speaks and writes extensively on learning practice and strategies. She is co-editor and a chapter author for the book “Core Competencies in Association Professional Development, 2nd edition” (ASAE, 2011), and contributed 22 of the ideas in the book “199 Ideas for Enhancing Learning Experiences” (ASAE, 2011). She also served as executive editor of “CAE Study Guide 2015” (ASAE), a comprehensive study resource for those seeking the Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential.As part of her ongoing commitment to effective learning regardless of the setting, Kathi is a qualified lead assessor for the American National Standards Institute's (ANSI) Certificate Accreditation Program. The program is based on ASTM E2659-09, Standard Practice for Certificate Programs, which is an American National Standard.Prior to launching her consulting business, Kathi spent 25 years working in a variety of capacities for five distinctly different trade and professional associations. For a majority of that time she was responsible for development, implementation, and evaluation of professional development programs.

Kathleen M. Edwards

Kathi Edwards is an independent consultant, writer, and facilitator specializing in creating effective learning environments and strategies. She is passionate about all aspects of learning, from developing and implementing high-level strategy to ensuring SMEs have the knowledge and skills they need to facilitate learning effectively in all modalities. Everything she does is focused on those who matter most: the learners.Kathi's unique expertise in transforming the effectiveness of SMEs who lead learning opportunities is sought internationally in a variety of fields. In demand as an engaging speaker and facilitator, she has been a frequent content leader for ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership and the Association for Talent Development (ATD) on topics related to effective learning and working with and coaching SMEs. Currently facilitating ATD’s Training & Facilitation Certificate program, she also developed and facilitated the three-part webinar Essentials of Coaching SMEs to Facilitate Learning, part of ATD’s ongoing Essentials of.... webinar series.As part of her ongoing commitment to effective learning regardless of the setting, Kathi is a qualified lead assessor for the ANSI National Accreditation Board’s Certificate Accreditation Program. Kathi speaks and writes extensively about learning practice and strategies. She is co-editor and a chapter author for the book Core Competencies in Association Professional Development, 2nd edition, and contributed 22 of the ideas in the book 199 Ideas for Enhancing Learning Experiences. She also served as executive editor of CAE Study Guide 2020, a comprehensive study resource for those seeking the Certified Association Executive credential.Prior to launching her consulting business in 2003, Kathi spent 25 years working in various capacities. For most of that time, she was responsible for development, implementation, and evaluation of professional development programs.

Kathleen Edwards

One of the most critical questions talent and learning professionals need to answer to close an identified performance gap is whether to build or to buy the expertise needed to design, develop, and deliver the most effective learning experience. This is not just an either-or decision. There are many variations, ranging from completely outsourcing to partnering with an external source for just some of the components. The decision not only affects the solution, but also the budget, personnel, support efforts, time involved, the results for the employees and ultimately the success of the organization. What do you need to know before the conversations start? What research do you need to do? What questions do you ask? Where do you start?Situations like this are a common part of the talent leader’s portfolio. Your starting point might be different depending on your industry, your size, your market position, the maturity of your learning function, and other factors. However, if you are part of a benchmarking consortium, such as the ATD Forum, there is a known pathway–ask your peers!Forum members have a variety of methods to gain information from a diverse group of peers, including sending a simple member-to-member survey, asking others at a small group cohort meeting, hosting a virtual roundtable for members to share and ask questions, and holding deep dives at interactive labs.At the 2023 Spring Lab in San Diego, members focused on the build-or-buy conundrum and took it a step further to collectively develop ideas, checklists, and questions to enable a perfect fit between a provider and customer, regardless of whether the provider is internal or external. Context was provided by a member and its external strategic partner sharing a case study. This included an overview of the challenge, the case they developed for using an external supplier, and the many techniques employed over the years to work together to enable success for the real customers—the employees.Using this scenario, the collective peer group of talent leaders from 19 companies developed a list of reasons for using external versus internal suppliers, used the Value Proposition Canvas tool to dive deeper into clarifying needs, heard from an expert on using burden rate (the cost to an organization of hiring and maintaining an employee beyond their wages) when cost is a primary factor, and, finally, developed a list of elements to consider when selecting an external provider.Reasons for considering an external supplier:Diversity of thought and known expertise related to solving the challenge lends credibility on the issue that might be missing internally.A partnership can expand the company’s network for ideas, people, and solutions; this might include mentorships.Time to market can be much faster.Processes established to easily show metrics and ROI if the supplier has a model or tool designed for that purpose.Content maintenance capability is a huge factor, and the supplier may have a dedicated team.Reasons for not using an external supplier:An external person or group not understanding the context of the organization, the need, or similar factorsChallenge of getting executive buy-inCost, especially when burden rate is considered a sunk costRisk factors if internal leadership changes, the vendor gets acquired by another company, or other unforeseen circumstancesInitial time investment to set up the contract, especially if it involves legal, compliance, contracts, IT, or other departmentsLack of specificity based on industry—for example, experience from banking not applicable to constructionThe group then developed a list of elements to consider when selecting an external supplier. As the small groups reported their ideas, there was large group discussion and experiences shared from the rest of the peer group. The host team with the case study, along with the strategic partner, supplemented the conversation by providing real-life examples.With this list of elements clarified and expanded, the teams brainstormed how to determine whether these elements were present. A sampling of the elements and response includes:Element: How might we know if the supplier’s offering will really meet our need?Suggestions generated:Ensuring internal clarity on the problem and need by using a tool like the Value Proposition Canvas or Cathy Moore's action mapping prior to engaging with themRequesting demos and asking for a pilot or examplesAsking what they would change from their standard format for your organizationAssessing how they engage and ask questions of you as a client (Do they probe to dive deeper?)Element: How do you know if the external supplier can serve as a thought partner within your context?Suggestions generated:Asking for a list of other clients the supplier has worked with and interviewing themWorking through a scenario you provide and seeing how the supplier respondsAsking broad, open-ended, what-if type questions and focusing on what is referenced, especially noting other thought leaders and researchAsking, “What in our relationship, as you understand it now, might incur extra work and therefore additional fees?”Asking for examples of times when the supplier has provided thought leadership and the results garnered (Is there a regular cadence for sharing experience and current thought leadership? For example, does the supplier have a regular web conference or blog or gathering of clients to share forward-thinking ideas?)Asking for a list of the books, articles, whitepapers, or blogs the supplier has published for the industry at large and a list of conferences or other venues where they have shared experiencesThe build-or-buy decision is huge. However, if the decision is to buy, it takes continued effort from both parties—the customer and the supplier—to build an ongoing strategic partnership that results in a perfect fit which in turn makes an impact on the organization. Connecting, collaborating, and sharing with industry peers is an excellent start.

Build Versus Buy: Lessons From Peers

Managers are the bedrock of work. They are also the reason that many people hate their jobs. Most new managers have a strong desire to be successful, and for their team members to enjoy working for them. But because they lack the skills they need, they spend a long period—typically up to 12 months—in a trial-and-error mode. And while they make those errors (and slowly learn on their own), they frustrate their team members.
In this webcast, we’ll talk about the results of a study that ATD conducted to better understand how to close the management skills gap. We’ve identified five core skills that managers need to be successful:

accountability
collaboration
communication
engagement
listening and assessing.

These skills make up the ACCEL model, which presents a clear road map to help new managers master the transition to management. We’ll discuss practical strategies for developing these skills, as well as tools and resources that will help new leaders navigate this change in mindset and behavior quickly and efficiently!
 

Why Management Skills Matter

Cathy Fyock, CSP, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is “the Business Book Strategist” and works with professionals and thought leaders who want to write a book as a business development strategy. She is author of 10 books, including On Your Mark: From First Word to First Draft in Six Weeks; Blog2Book: Repurposing Content to Discover the Book You’ve Already Written; and with coauthor Lois Creamer, The Speaker Author: Sell More Books and Book More Speeches. Her most recent book is Authority, which is an anthology about the power of authorship.Since beginning her business in 2014, Fyock has helped more than 200 professionals become published authors. She believes that we all have a purpose, and that our stories are the way in that we share our truth with others. She is certain that authors can and do change the world, one word at a time.

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