​What happens next? Well, that depends an awful lot on your emotional intelligence (EQ) — a concept you’ve definitely heard of, probably recognize, might not be able to articulate, but absolutely know it when you experience the lack of it. Let’s analyze two possible outcomes to our situation. First, The Reaction. 

​The Reaction isn’t ideal (but you probably already know what). It’ll no doubt irritate everyone involved and not yield optimal results, but it was easy and probably felt good to you for a nano-second. You’ll spend a lot more time cleaning up the mess you made with your team. Knowing all of that, how many of you can see yourself in The Reaction — not because you would consciously choose that solution but because it just … happens? Be honest. We’ve all done this.
What’s a better solution? The Response. 

The Response is harder. It’s clearly the compassionate, professional, mature option. It’s more likely to resolve the situation without adding more emotional garbage on top of it. It’s an emotionally intelligent response.
​
Emotional intelligence is both the ability to recognize your emotions and to make decisions about how much of a role in your response they should have. Emotionally intelligent people aren’t any less emotional; they’re just able to control and apply emotions more effectively to a given situation. They are, in essence, more self-aware and thus successful. Bradberry and Greaves write, “… 83 percent of people high in self-awareness are top performers, and just 2 percent of bottom performers are high in self-awareness.”¹

In the above example, the first reaction is irritation. Totally natural to most people. The key to this solution is the first step you take after that reaction: the pause. Taking a moment to calm down, asking yourself why you are so irritated, and recognizing that nothing that happened before you came into the office has to do with your team. It’s really not their problem.

The next emotionally intelligent action is recognizing the team’s emotions and helping them set their knee-jerk reactions aside so they can focus on a solution. This is social awareness. “To be socially aware, you have to spot and understand people’s emotions while you’re right in the middle of it.”² You don’t want to fuel the frustration fire in the team as they stand in their office. You want to help them get back to work while feeling heard, in turn trusting that you’ll take care of things.

Finally, you show empathy to Sam’s situation, to understand how he must be feeling, and collaborate to come up with a solution that enables him to perform well while giving him flexibility to address his parental and childcare needs.

Why does this matter? Well, emotionally intelligent people have the ability to get more out of both themselves and their teams. Because of this, more and more positions, especially those in leadership, require emotional intelligence to perform effectively. In fact, Daniel Goleman says, “Companies today are increasingly looking through the lens of emotional intelligence when hiring, promoting and developing their employees. Years of studies show that the more emotional intelligence someone has, the better their performance.”³​

Much like empathy (which is a huge part of emotional intelligence), EQ is a skill you can develop if you work at it. Here are a few ways to do just that:

1. Take a moment. If you don’t take a second to analyze the situation and your instinctive emotion, you’re more likely to react instead of respond. When you react, your emotions and instincts are often in the driver’s seat. When you respond, your brain is in control (even if it means deciding to let your emotions lead). A deep breath can not only change your brain chemistry a bit, but it gives you a second to decide what to do next, instead of words or actions just bursting out of you.
   ​
2. Reflect on your emotions and reactions. Noticing that you tend to react in unproductive ways is the first step to controlling your emotions. For example, do you get defensive when you receive criticism? OK. You might not be able to change receiving the criticism, but you can change how you deal with the emotion that’s involved with it. Just recognizing that you get defensive and asking yourself why can help you channel that counter-productive response.
   
   
3. Listen. We have talked about the power of listening before. The more you listen, the more you can understand others and possibly what their emotional reactions are — and how to either avoid a certain reaction or how to cultivate a different one. This means taking the time to know your team. Really talk with them. All of this increases your social awareness and your team’s group dynamic — how they behave both as individuals and as a group.
   
   
4. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and follow through. In the above example, part of the ideal solution is that the team trusts you’re going to address the issue. Sure, you said it, but if they don’t think you’re the type to follow through, they won’t trust your response and their negative feelings will persist, none of which yield a positive, empathetic, productive work environment where your team can thrive and trust you to lead.
   
   
5. Be generous. Share the spotlight; call out success. There’s a scene in Mad Men where Peggy complains to Don that he never thanks her for her work. “That’s what the money is for!” That is not what the money is for. We all want to be recognized for good work. We’re not all delivering diamonds every time, but getting recognized for good work or hard work, for extra efforts is powerfully motivating and it can make your team even more loyal to you. Very few teams rally around a leader who claims all the victories or doesn’t bother to acknowledge the efforts of others. Additionally, those team members aren’t likely to stay, especially talented and/or high potentials and performers. As a leader, it’s not about you; it’s about them.
   
   
6. Make feedback constructive.* In Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Bradberry and Greaves note, “Some of the most challenging and most stressful situations people face are at work. Conflicts at work tend to fester when people passively avoid problems, because people lack the skills needed to initiate a direct, yet constructive conversation.”[1] Most people don’t enjoy being told their work or behavior isn’t great. Feedback is meant to help an employee improve and get better, but it may come off as overly critical and demoralizing in some situations. Make sure that your feedback is clear and helpful. For example, “I don’t like this example” doesn’t help. By contrast, “This example is a little misleading. Could you find one that shows more of X, Y, and Z?” explains what the issue is and offers guidance on how to fix it. It helps to also include feedback on the things that work (but only if they DO work) to balance out what might be perceived as negative. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you only give positive feedback, you’re likely not helping your team improve and they may not trust that you’re being genuine (most of us know our work isn’t consistently perfect). See #4.
   
   
7. Admit when you’re wrong or when you don’t know the answer. This goes a long, long way to being viewed as genuine. Most people can appreciate a person who tells them they don’t know the answer but will get back to them (and actually does). Being able to admit you got something wrong shows humility and builds a tremendous amount of trust. Your team only works if you trust one other.

​Click below to download a version of this list. 

​Emotional intelligence involves the process of evolving. Some people innately have many of these skills, but for those who don’t, the skills are highly teachable and can be honed if practiced. In short, everyone can increase their emotional intelligence and thus their overall effectiveness and success. 

*Look for next week's article about providing feedback.

References
​¹ Bradberry, T. & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. TalentSmart. Page 26.
² Bradberry, T. & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. TalentSmart. Page 39.
³ Goleman, S. (2020, June 9). Harvard researcher says the most emotionally intelligent people have these 12 traits. Which do you have?. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/09/harvard-psychology-researcher-biggest-traits-of-emotional-intelligence-do-you-have-them.html
⁴ Bradberry, T. & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. TalentSmart. Page 21.

Here is just a smattering of the issues that may be stressing out your teams right now.  ​

For some, it can be all of this at once. For others, it’s this on top of other mental health issues.
​
Therapist Yessenia Guglielmi writes, “The need for mental health care is extraordinary right now ... Everyone seems to be avoiding their negative emotions and subscribing to the toxic positivity narrative in society right now. This can make people feel like failures if they are not being productive, but I want to remind people that it’s an important time to address our emotions.”¹ We are talking about mental health more now than ever, but the stigma associated with asking for help still remains, especially in the workplace where people may fear being viewed as less productive, professional, resilient, capable, adaptable, or valuable. People fear they’ll be seen differently than their counterparts and their performance and opportunities will be measured against this, which can lead to poor performance. As leaders, it’s imperative to work with your company to make the right resources available and to create a culture in which accessing those resources and/or asking for help doesn’t present a barrier or result in unconscious bias.

Empathize.
​
These days, the word “empathy” is thrown around all the time. Showing empathy is an increasingly more critical leadership characteristic. Prudy Gourguechon sums up the value of empathy pretty well, “Without empathy, you can’t build a team or nurture a new generation of leaders. You will not inspire followers or elicit loyalty.”³ To empathize isn’t feeling sorry for someone; it’s having the ability to see someone else’s perspective, to feel along side them, to really see their situation, to share their feelings. Brené Brown’s video below does an amazing job of explaining it.

Communicate Options and Resources.
​
Many companies have mental health resources and coverage of which employees aren’t even aware. Make sure you’re familiar with all the options so you can communicate them to your team. Contact your company’s Human Resources Department for an accessible list of approved and vetted resources if it isn’t already found on the company’s intranet or internet site. 

Offer Flexibility.
​
In our last blog, Team Anywhere, we discussed offering some work from home options to some employees. This isn’t simply about letting them choose a long-term commitment to where they work; it’s also about managing stress and different situations that might make it difficult to get to the office. Of course, you are running a business, so it helps to have a communication plan for last-minute, unscheduled remote working days and/or shifted work hours. (You probably already have one for sick days, so leverage that.) As much as possible, you want to foster a work environment and processes that can adapt to your team members’ rapidly changing needs.

Overall, recognize that you and your team may be struggling in ways they never were before. The more open and supportive you can be, the more you can offer flexibility and creative working solutions, the more likely your team will come to you for assistance with their situation instead of suffering in silence. The first step might just be admitting some of the ways that you’re struggling so they know they’re not alone. In the end, that may be what we all need most: to know we are not alone and that we are valued enough to be supported as we work through things. 

​If you see yourself and your teams reflected in these struggles, now is the time to invest in skills development. Reach out to us. We’ll listen and offer you our expertise.

Be sure to check back next week as we continue our series on supporting and developing managers during this transition.

​There is some inevitability to what “the office” will look like going forward. For months, many teams have been demonstrating that they can be productive from remote locations, and numerous employees see great value in the flexibility working from home offers. As we discussed in our last blog, Tomorrow Is Not Yesterday, there is no returning to where we were in early March, and a big part of that is embracing remote workers (well, metaphorically; let’s keep that six-foot distancing). Trying to hammer your staff back into the way they worked before may be doomed to failure. As you redefine what your work environment looks like, you need to rethink how you’ll foster teamwork, instill company culture, and assess performance. 

Some of us have become very comfortable with a morning commute down the hall and pants-optional business attire. There haven’t been any passive-aggressive notes about dirty mugs in the office sink in months. And, heck, Zoom has facilitated many meetings remarkably well. It may be tempting to let everyone stay where they are (it’s certainly cost-effective). However, just because your team can do it, doesn’t mean everyone should or even wants to.

First, not everyone is set up for long-term remote working, even if they are making it work now. The configuration of a home “office” (see also: the kitchen table, the couch, a small desk in the corner of the family room) can vary widely, and some might not be conducive to sustained, focused productivity. Interruptions and distractions can be rampant if workers are also trying to home school and care for their children, not to mention having spouses or significant others working at home as well. Furthermore, there’s often a benefit to being able to leave work at the office – and go home. ​

Beyond these workspace considerations, think about the value of traditional, in-person interactions. Steve Jobs said, “There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions.” According to a study by Great Business Schools, 84% of people still say they prefer in-person meetings.”¹ Online meetings may not yield the same collaborative results as traditional meetings. Moreover, the day-to-day interactions inherent to working in the same location (e.g., running into each other in the break room or parking lot, small talk before a meeting starts) yields interactions that help develop the relationships that are critical to effective teams.
​
So, do you tell everyone to stay home? No. Will some workers need to stay home for medical reasons? Certainly. Do you make everyone else come back in to the office? Probably not. For many workers, the best solution is not an either-or scenario; it’s both. Therefore, a model which allows workers to spend part of the time in the office and part of the time remotely could best meet your team’s needs. Further proof that a hybrid solution may be most effective is found in a 2016 Gallup poll. Citing that study, Simovic summarized that, people who work remote 60–80% of the time have the highest engagement....”²

The best bet may be encouraging those who prefer to work from home to do so several days a week but to also come into the office on a regularly scheduled basis, making it easier for others to set up in-person meetings. Being flexible with when and where people work can greatly contribute to mental health (see our next blog for more on this topic). You want to avoid locking anyone into one option unnecessarily.

To connect workers, many companies are embracing instant messaging platforms (here’s looking at you, Slack) to compensate for the organic conversations that used to happen in the office. Continuing to use these platforms can help solve the issue of the people at home missing out on in-office conversations. Companies need to retain that sense of inclusion for both productivity and team-building purposes. Still, with all of this technology, remember there are times when picking up the phone and talking live can save a lot of frustration. While it may be really, really easy to fire off an email and leave it in someone else’s inbox, it can be better to just walk down the hall or pick up the phone and have that live conversation. Again, the best solutions might be blended: embracing impromptu chats in the halls and chats on instant messaging platforms, phone calls and emails, and traditional meetings and video calls.

Every company and every office have a culture. Understanding and fitting into that culture can be a huge part of employee success. That’s hard to do remotely. Consider having new hires (who are able to) start out in the office for a few months so they can more easily grasp how teams interact, how work gets done, and to appreciate the subtleties that are hard to convey over email or solely through online meetings. Give new folks a chance to absorb these things; they’ll feel more a part of the team moving forward if you do.
​
For those who cannot come into the office, go the extra mile to convey the company culture as much as possible and be sure to set up video calls with as many colleagues as possible to help foster those relationships. As they move through the onboarding process, keep checking in to ensure they have the tools and resources they need and are building the connections that will help them be successful. You may need to work a little harder to help them feel fully engaged, but it will pay off in loyalty and productivity. 

It may feel easier and more comfortable to manage people you can see, but most managers are having a crash course in how to manage from afar. As Jeanne Meister states, “Face time will no longer be the measure of worker productivity. Instead, we will finally focus on results!”³ It sounds awesome and what many employees have clamored for in the past, but it isn’t easy. People managers need to learn new ways to interact with employees, demonstrate trust, and assess performance. That means finding new ways to bridge the gap and create consistency among those in the office and those out of the office.

​ First, ensure that all of your team members are experiencing similar check-ins with you, whether they are working in the office or not. So, if you have weekly 1:1s with the employees who are back in the office, make sure to use video conferencing (yes, we are back to this again) for weekly 1:1s with your remote people. Video helps both of you communicate more effectively since being able to read body language and facial expressions is key to fully understanding what is being conveyed. It also keeps both parties more fully engaged. (How many of us check our phones during conference calls without video? Be honest.) We’ve come a long way in getting even the most reluctant to turn on their cameras, and continuing that practice will increase engagement and aid in communication as we move forward. 
​
Resist the urge to micro-manage the folks you cannot see. You may have already become quite good at this over the past few months, but as we move into blended work solutions, you may be tempted to start checking in too much with team members whom you can’t physically see working. While you want them to feel connected, you  also want them to feel trusted. If you would normally stop by their desks every morning, check in with them on Slack or email. If you then leave them to their work all day, show the same trust when you can’t see them.

​Look at the quantity and quality of work. You more than likely have individual goals for each employee and an idea of what they should be completing on a day-to-day basis. Focus your assessments on those metrics. If a job requires a person to be available during certain hours, that person should be held to that standard when remote. If the job doesn’t specifically require that, you may want to establish core office hours (wherever that office is) and communicate those so coworkers know when they can count on that person being available. When shifts are necessary, work to communicate those needs to the team. We’ll say it over and over again: you want to be flexible without compromising productivity and effectiveness. Solid communication streams can go a long way to making various ways of working effective for the individual, the team, and the company.

The workplace has changed and will keep changing. Quickly. Leaders need to be able to nimbly respond to their teams’ diverse needs to keep morale and productivity high. Balancing what we’ve learned about remote working over the past few months with what we already know about traditional in-office dynamics can result in policies, processes, and training that bring out the best in every team member.

If you see yourself and your teams reflected in these struggles, now is the time to invest in skills development. Reach out to us. We’ll listen and offer you our expertise.
 
Be sure to check back next week as we continue our series on supporting managers during this transition.

Reverse mentoring, the practice of pairing senior executives (mentees) with younger employees (mentors) to develop older, senior executives’ technology and digital acumen, is gaining steam. Companies such as the BBC, Microsoft, UnitedHealth, and Target are among those creating and implementing reverse mentoring programs for their employees. General Electric was one of the first to launch a program in 1999 to tap young employees to teach older executives how to use the Internet.[1] The programmatic goal for these companies is to harness millennials’ and Gen Z’s digital skills and knowledge to educate and develop Baby Boomers and Gen X employees’ technology and social media skills.[2]

Microsoft Austria launched their reverse mentoring program in 2014. Michael Jacobs, General Manager, was paired with mentor, Magnus Svorstøl Lie, Partner Sales Executive through the Microsoft Academy of College Hires (MACH) program. Michael gained first-hand knowledge of topics ranging from new digital communication tools to workplace trends. Magnus didn’t walk away empty-handed. Through his time with Michael, he had a front-row seat to view leadership at work and the larger business picture.

​Microsoft witnessed the results from this program: it creates a two-way street to share valuable information and skills that drive and positively impact business while growing new leaders. 

Is It Reverse Mentoring or Something Else?
At its core, the goals and concepts of reverse mentoring are a genius approach, but is it really mentoring?

Rene Petrin argues that it is not, and we’re inclined to agree. BusinessDictionary.com defines mentoring as an “Employee training system under which a senior or more experienced individual (the mentor) is assigned to act as an advisor, counselor, or guide to a junior or trainee. The mentor is responsible for providing support to, and feedback on, the individual in his or her charge.”[5] Petrin views reverse mentoring as coaching rather than true mentoring. “For a younger person to truly mentor an older person, that younger one has to have sufficient maturity to relate to the older worker in such a way that will create the mentoring relationship. I find this highly unlikely in most cases, particularly if the mentors are younger workers.”[6]

Coaching, as defined by Petrin, “doesn’t require an intimate, trusting relationship. Coaching requires the expert, who is the coach, to be able to convey his or her expertise to the coachee. The coach’s style of coaching may impact how successful s/he is as a coach, but the expertise can be passed on to the mentoree regardless.”[7]

Neither the commonly held definition of reverse mentoring or Petrin’s coaching definition hit the mark. Inherent in mentoring and coaching is a relationship based on trust. This is the foundation for change to occur. Without it, unearthing internal obstacles that may prevent behavior change is impossible.

​Reciprocal Learning
Instead, what seems to be happening between many of the dyads, or relationships, is what we refer to as reciprocal learning. The relationship goes beyond traditional mentoring by paving the way for an exchange of learning where a wealth of existing experience is present on both sides. It serves as a two-way street. If the program is developed and implemented with that goal in mind, it can go beyond technology and social media training and education to include operations, customer preferences, and diversity.

Reciprocal learning expands the current notion of reverse mentoring and opens the door for companies to leverage more than technology and social media training. Consider this: women comprise half of the college educated workforce, but represent only 29% of science and engineering jobs.[8] As the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) notes, this percentage drops in the leadership ranks in both these fields.[9] In 2017, women comprised only 5% of CEOs in S&P 500 companies while men still significantly outnumbered women in the boardroom.[10] There’s room for improvement, and reciprocal learning serves as one tool among many to promote gender-inclusive leadership development.

​Success Factors
If creating and implementing a reciprocal learning program sounds like a win for your organization, consider these success factors outlined by SHRM to help you begin to draft your program foundation:[11]

1. Create and maintain an attitude of openness to the experience.
2. Dissolve the barriers of status, power, and position.
3. Commit the necessary time.
4. Develop a game plan and identify goals.
5. Define rules of engagement.
6. Communicate clearly and actively listen.
7. Encourage patience.

Keep the Conversation Going
Stay tuned for our next blog where we delve deeper into reciprocal learning benefits, guidelines, and success measures. ​

Is your organization prepared?
Bill Valdez wants to know, Is the Federal Government in the Midst of a Leadership Crisis? Using data from a survey conducted by the Senior Executives Association (SEA) in collaboration with Deloitte, he argues that a government-wide strategy to nurture the next generation of leaders doesn't exist. They are ill-prepared to address what the report refers to as a retirement tsunami. 
Consider these statistics:[1]

• 22% of senior government executives surveyed indicate their agencies are prepared to retain top talent.
• 26% of senior executives report their agencies possess the infrastructure to identify skills gaps and develop existing and future leaders.

The federal government isn’t alone in struggling to fill the leadership pipeline. Other research paints a similar picture nationally and globally:

• 89% of business and HR leaders surveyed rated strengthening, re-engineering, and improving organizational leadership as an important priority.[2]
• 56% of surveyed executives report their companies aren’t prepared to meet leadership needs.[3]
• 86% of global experts indicated that a leadership crisis exists.[4]  
• 7% of respondents characterized their leadership development as best in class (align with strategy, receive executive support, built a strong talent pipeline, and demonstrate impact on success).[5]

​Warning Signs[6]
What are the potential warning signs that your organization might be facing a leadership crisis?

1. Emerging leaders lack critical thinking skills. Critical thinking, as defined by Michael Scriven and Richard Paul, “is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.”[7] An online study conducted in 2017 highlighted the lack of critical thinking skills millennials demonstrate, and millennials echo that finding. An article by Nick Kastner and Evie Somogyi lists critical thinking among those skills that employers seek, but millennials don’t possess. The business professionals interviewed for this study noted that “problem solving is important in a fairly complex world,” and went on to say that today’s employees need to “see an issue and adapt quickly.”​[8] We can vouch for this reality. When talking with business leaders, we repeatedly hear the same concern: the lack of critical thinking skills slows down the speed of business and can cost a company not only profit, but also its reputation. Choosing to invest in and implement a robust critical skills development program that links to demonstrated results may cost upfront, but the alternative is something leaders cannot afford.
2. Your organization devalues learning from failure. Do your employees and leaders alike hide mistakes rather than learning from them and sharing that learning across the organization? A simple, yet effective cultural shift begins to occur when leaders share lessons learned in public (e.g., all-hands meetings, monthly company meetings, staff meetings) and private spaces (e.g., coaching sessions, individual staff meetings) and include time for discussion and application across teams.
3. The search for talent is continuous. What’s turnover like? Is your talent pipeline constantly churning? How are you filling your talent pipeline? Are you looking for talent outside the organization only? This warning sign speaks to growing your own talent. Relying on sourcing from outside the organization keeps teams stuck in the learning curve rather than producing great results. Yes, there's value in gaining fresh, outside perspectives to enhance your teams. However, a lopsided approach drawing heavily upon outside sourcing negatively impacts business goals. A plethora of research exists on what retains employees: if they don’t feel that they’re learning and developing professionally or that they are not challenged, they’ll go looking for that elsewhere. Valuable business knowledge leaves with them.
4. Existing leadership lacks diversity. Whether it’s race, gender, perspectives, or ideas, diversity is your company’s calling card. Lacking diversity in any of these areas speaks volumes to the inclusivity of your culture and how the company will fare not only in the present, but also the future. A study conducted by sociologist, Cedric Herring demonstrates that diversity makes good business sense: "companies reporting the highest levels of racial diversity brought in nearly 15 times more sales revenue on average than those with the lowest levels of racial diversity. Gender diversity accounted for a difference of $599.1 million in average sales revenue: organizations with the lowest rates of gender diversity had average sales revenues of $45.2 million, compared with averages of $644.3 million for businesses with the most gender diversity."[9]
5. Rising stars begin to fail. We commonly hear, “She was our star salesperson so we promoted her, and it has been a disaster.” Set your stars up for success by providing opportunities to learn and develop new skills applicable to not only their current role, but roles in which they’re interested. Career pathing programs achieve this by outlining competencies and skills, guiding managers to support specific development, assigning stretch goals, and assessing readiness.

​Recommendations for Leadership Development
Consider the following when creating a leadership development program: 

​Leadership development may seem daunting and overwhelming, especially if an organization finds itself in the same predicament as the federal government. Ignoring the problem, relying on Talent Acquisition to continually feed the pipeline, or succumbing to paralysis is a choice that most organizations cannot afford. Invite partners across the organization to begin the discussion, create a call to action rooted in data, conduct analysis, sketch a framework and strategy, and identify actionable and achievable steps to get the ball rolling.

What Is Net Promoter Score (NPS®)?
​
Fred Reichheld, a partner at Bain & Co consultants, is credited with creating a framework known as the Net Promoter Score, or NPS. Reichheld led Bain’s customer loyalty practice in early 2000, and he developed the concept based on decades of field experience in customer market research, advising senior executives on customer loyalty and growth, and publishing literature on the subject.[2]

Initially, NPS was used exclusively as a customer loyalty metric and based on one question, “How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?” As Reichheld and his team developed the metric into a robust management model, companies across industries benefitted from gaining not only customer loyalty data, but they also were able to tap into product and service gaps and overall company health.

At its core, NPS measures customer experience and predicts business growth. It anchors and details a business’s customer experience management (CEM). When used in conjunction with other metrics collected throughout the customer experience, leadership gains actionable data to improve customer experience performance.

​Among its greatest benefits, as noted by Net Promoter Network, is ease of use. It’s easily understood by employees across the organization, thereby engaging them in the customer experience.

Applicability to Learning and Development

In a previous Solutions Arts’ article, Overcoming Evaluation Obstacles, we outlined common barriers associated with Learning and Development (L&D) evaluation and how to overcome them. Among the obstacles we discussed were the limited staff time and required tools to effectively conduct learning transfer evaluation. If we substitute customers for employees, or learners, NPS becomes an effective, simple tool to gauge content value and learning transfer and integration.
 
NPS How-to for L&D

NPS is more commonly thought of and used in eLearning courses. Inserting an NPS survey at the end of an eLearning course (or via email following the course) is a great first step for many companies to test-drive the application. However, NPS can be applied effectively in other L&D and business initiatives. The following lists examples where companies have used NPS to analyze outcomes, measure integration and application, and improve iterations of future efforts:

• Talent Acquisition. When it comes to brand health, NPS can be used to measure candidate experience. Assess candidate experience pre- and post-selection process.
• Employee Engagement. The bottom line: engaged employees create return customers. Some companies are using NPS to evaluate and understand employee engagement levels and how to improve them.
• New Hire Onboarding. Is new hire onboarding hitting the mark? What can be learned from both new hires and managers to improve onboarding?
• Exit Surveys. Like Talent Acquisition, NPS exit surveys offer an insight into brand improvement as well as organizational gaps and leadership development opportunities.
• Leadership Effectiveness. Both leaders and their teams benefit from NPS surveys that gauge leadership effectiveness and link to performance management.
• L&D Effectiveness. Companies no longer rely on one or two learning modalities to develop employees. NPS may be used across modalities, including formal and informal learning.
• Competency Assessment. NPS competency assessment surveys complement individual development plan creation and implementation.

​Adam Ramshaw outlines five training evaluation questions to launch an initial NPS survey.[3]

1. He recommends including an outcome question in every NPS survey. For example, “How likely would you be to recommend this training course to a friend or colleague?”
2. Determine whether the course delivered on objectives by asking, “How well did the content that was delivered match what you were promised when you registered?”
3. A great follow-up question to the above digs a bit deeper, “How much new information did you receive in the training course?”
4. The next question seeks to uncover application by asking learners to rate, “How actionable was the information you received in the training?”
5. The final question is specific to ILT or webinar courses where facilitator feedback is essential: “How engaging was the main presenter?”

Calculate NPS

Let’s use an example from above to illustrate how to calculate an NPS and define the corresponding terminology.

Solutions Arts attended UCLA's Cannabis Research Initiative's, "The Future of Cannabis in LA" event on February 22nd. The event--held at the UCLA Neuroscience Research Building--hosted a sold out audience of 240 members of the larger Los Angeles community.

Panelists presented and discussed topics such as the effects of cannabis legalization on aspects of health, crime, tax revenue, jobs, and traffic accidents in states like Colorado and Washington and anticipating the kinds of effects Los Angeles might see as cannabis legalization rolls out.

Solutions Arts engages with a variety of diverse clients across industries including the commercial cannabis industry. From testing laboratories, distribution, and manufacturing to cultivation and retail, we partner with clients who rely on our learning and development expertise that comes from decades of working with clients in highly regulated environments. Our clients realize that highly skilled and trained staff result in owning market share and retaining valued employees. 

Click the link to learn more about UCLA's Cannabis Research Initiative. 

​Dan Cable’s article, Why People Lose Motivation – and What Managers Can Do to Help, gets to the heart of motivation in the workplace and reflects what we know to be true: people are hard-wired to seek learning opportunities and purpose, and embrace challenging, meaningful tasks. When employees encounter consistent roadblocks to satisfy these needs, they become less motivated and engaged. 

​An organizational shift such as this might seem overwhelming, but as Cable notes, there are three things leaders and managers can do with minimal effort to activate employees’ seeking systems and reap the benefits:

In our work with clients, we’ve seen the same thing. Employees who are encouraged to apply their skills and find purpose in their work are more motivated and engaged. And, the result often leads to more innovation in the workplace.
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Check out Cable’s full article at the link above and feel free to share your thoughts here or on our Solutions Arts Facebook page.

Solutions Arts will be attending EIGHTeeN to Life's event this coming Sunday, March 18, 2018 in Hollywood, CA where we'll be meeting with cannabis business leaders to talk about how learning and development supports business success across the industry.

​We'll see you there!

About the Event
A networking opportunity for leaders in the cannabis industry hand-picked for the ultimate collision of common interest with uncommon people. EIGHTeeN to Life is a monthly professional networking opportunity for leaders in the cannabis industry. The events are on the 18th of each month, celebrating the year 2018 when cannabis legalization became a reality in California.