August 19, 2025 • 44 mins
"Actually 90% of the change you're trying to create comes through systemic changes to the environment rather than training." - Charlie Kneen
Charlie Kneen is the founder of Solvd Together, a learning and development transformation consultancy that reimagines how global brands approach their people strategy. Formerly the L&D lead at BP in the UK, Charlie brings together expertise in marketing, coaching, leadership, and human-centred design.
If you're tired of engagement surveys and hoping for the best, this episode offers tangible alternatives that focus on business performance rather than content delivery.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- The broken model of corporate learning
- Human-centred design in L&D
- How to handle difficult conversations when research reveals uncomfortable truths about leadership and systems
- Moving from order-takers to strategic partners
- Using nudges and contextual cues to drive behaviour change without formal training
- Setting up proper research methodologies with control groups to prove ROI and business impact
Key links
- Solvd Together Website
- Charlie Kneen LinkedIn
- Solvd Together LinkedIn
- How People Learn: Designing Education and Training that Works to Improve Performance
- "The Empty Brain" article by Robert Epstein (former editor of Psychology Today)
- Nick Shackleton-Jones
- Bp Website
About our guest
Charlie Kneen is the founder of Solvd Together, a Learning & Development and Transformation consultancy that partners with global brands to reimagine how organisations engage, retain, and upskill their people.
Drawing on a background in marketing, coaching, and leadership roles across both in-house teams and start-ups, Charlie brings a unique perspective on the psychology of work. His passion lies in applying human-centred design to learning and change, helping businesses achieve real impact and commercial value while creating better experiences for their people.
About our host
Our host, Chris Hudson, is an Intrapreneuship Coach, Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.
Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.
Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally.
For weekly updates and to hear about the latest episodes, please subscribe to The Company Road Podcast at https://companyroad.co/podcast/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Hudson (00:05):
Hey, and welcome back to the Company Road
Podcast, which is the podcastfor intrapreneurs who are tired
of some of those buzzwords andready for some real change.
And I'm your host, Chris Hudson,and today we're gonna be diving
into one of the most criticalchallenges facing organizations
right now, in my view.
So it's how do you actuallyengage, retain, and upskill your
people when the old playbook andthe old methods just aren't
(00:26):
working anymore?
My guest today is Charlie Kneen,who's founder of Solvd Together.
They're a learning anddevelopment transformation
consultancy that's reimagininghow global brands approach their
people strategy.
Charlie was also the former L Dlead at BP in the UK prior to
that and a few other roles thathe can talk about as well at the
moment.
What we're really looking for isto help companies stop throwing
around engagement surveys andjust hoping for the best.
(00:48):
And I think he's got some realtangible.
Tips and tricks and someexamples of things that would
probably work a little bitbetter.
And he is also got a completelydifferent angle from my point of
view.
So bringing together abackground in marketing, co
coaching, leadership and alsohuman centered design to this
sort of messy, complex world oforganizational change.
Charlie you've done a lot ofthings and we'll get into how
you do some of those things, butmaybe for the listeners out
(01:10):
there who don't know what l andd is or learning development is,
then maybe you could just tellthem a little bit about that
first.
Charlie (01:16):
Yeah.
Cool.
So I think the simplifiedversion is you do school, then
you do university, and then whenyou get into companies, there's
meant to be a kind of version ofthat.
Learning development inbusiness, as you were alluding
to at the beginning we thinkthat fundamentally school and
university as a system is abroken model, and that same
(01:38):
broken model is applicable andrears its ugly head in corporate
business.
So the way that you might seethat if you're working in house
is.
You get an email from your l andd team or through a horrible
system that you hate using tosay you haven't done your
compliance training yet.
Here's 30 hours of e-learning.
Or you get an email from yourboss saying, I really think you
(01:58):
should go on this course.
And you have to take three daysout of your day to go and sit
and listen to someone talk atyou with loads of slides for
three days, which you don'tremember.
And then you go back to work andpeople ask you what you learned
and you say something like, Ilearned that I'm a green.
So that's like the negative endof corporate l and d.
And what we do is exist todisrupt that thinking and apply
(02:21):
human centered or product designapproach to the same problems.
Chris Hudson (02:24):
And there's a lot of, I don't know maybe the
perception over here in thismarket is that there's not a lot
of movement in that space butsome companies are, trying to do
it well.
We've got CultureAmp andAtlassian, various people
pushing ahead with some thingsout here.
But yeah.
I just wanna ask you somethingcontroversial maybe to get us
started, which is, I get thefeeling that most l and d
departments are they're creatinga lot of expensive theater,
(02:45):
making the leadership feel goodabout investing in the people.
And the employees just sitthrough some of that mandatory
training that you were talkingabout and they forget it by next
week.
So why do you think it's sobroken?
Charlie (02:56):
I think fundamentally people don't understand how
people learn or how the humanbrain works.
So there's a really greatarticle which you could find
online by a guy unfortunatelynamed Robert Epstein, but it's
not though Robert Epstein.
It's a different guy.
He used to be the editor ofPsychology Today and he wrote a
article called The Empty Brain,and he basically says that.
(03:19):
The way that we describe thebrain is often based on the most
advanced technology that we haveavailable at the time.
So his analogy is we talk aboutprocess mental processing and
memory and things like thatbecause yeah, because it's the
most advanced technology.
That's not how the human brainworks.
It's nothing like a computer.
And then I'm a bit of a historybuff.
(03:39):
So he also talks about the factthat in the Middle Ages, the
most advanced technology washydraulics.
And so people used hydraulics asa way to think about how
psychology works.
So they had the four humors.
It was like black bile, whateverit was.
So it's really interestingarticle, but I think it's
really, and it's quite succinctand I think it describes quite
clearly how we misrepresenthuman beings, how they learn,
(04:01):
and and I think fundamentallythe way that we've developed to
design school and university inparticular is based on this idea
that a human brain is a kind ofa sponge for information.
A computer is a sponge forinformation, but actually the
opposite is true.
We are terrible at rememberingstuff.
What we're really good at isproblem solving.
So a lot of what we do is thinkabout.
(04:24):
How do you put people incontexts, whether it be
simulated or otherwise, wherethey can apply their human side
to solving problems and learningthrough the process of doing,
rather than sitting them down,talking at them in whatever
format, whether that be onlineor in person, and trying get
them to remember a thing thatthey can then apply.
(04:44):
Yeah, a quite a long answer toyour question and I could go on,
but that probably gives you asummary of it.
Chris Hudson (04:49):
No, I like it.
I like the history re referenceas well.
So yeah, it feels like the kindof awareness that anyone would
have about their own learningpreferences might be somewhat
limited as well.
You talk a bit about human sensedesign and that application in
learning and change.
But I think that most people,most companies would say that
they would be totally peoplefirst, or even customer first,
and.
(05:09):
Their actual systems areprobably screaming the opposite.
How do you cut through some ofthat self-deception and what do
you think seems to work?
Charlie (05:16):
So the, I think the way we think about it is there's two
things to do.
There's the systemic challenges,which is, it may sound
patronizing to say, but I thinkif I kind of think about people
as not.
Not the kind of engineers thatare in destiny.
They're in an environment wherethey're being buffeted by lots
of different influences andimpacts.
So these things like leadership,these things like systems like
(05:38):
technologies and so on, thingslike the physical environment
where they are, things like thecultural norms of a business all
serve to.
I guess drive certain behavior.
And yep.
When we start doing our work,the first thing we do is
understand the problem we'retrying to solve, and then do the
research to understand what theenvironment system looks like.
Once you've done that, then youcan start thinking about
(05:59):
solutions that that will solvethe problem.
So then, but there might beremove stuff, takes barriers out
the way and so you drivebehavior in the right way.
Or add stuff in.
Often the first is better thanthe fir the second actually.
And then you're designingsolutions that might include
some kind of trainingintervention or a learning
development, but actually 90% ofthe change you're trying to
(06:21):
create.
Comes through systemic changesto the environment rather than
training.
So we're like a let l and dcompany that spends much of its
time trying to convince peoplenot to do training, or at least
in a more conventional sense,not to do training.
And then, yeah you build andtest the the solutions that you
wanna roll out in a iterativeproduct design type way.
(06:41):
So you get people in a room, youtest the ideas.
You you build prototypes ontools like Figma for technology,
for digital stuff.
So there's a whole range ofdifferent things to do, but
that's in a nutshell, theprocess that we follow.
Chris Hudson (06:53):
Yeah, very cool.
Yeah, I mean it's, yeah,obviously very similar to, the
work that we do in designproducts and you move it
interestedly through.
And how are you finding the kindof the first or the few, the
first few steps, of gettingthat.
Getting that thing started likein convincing people that it's a
systemic problem they need tosolve.
Like where do you start withthat?
Charlie (07:11):
Yeah.
Because we asked the question,what problem are you trying to
solve?
It quite quickly unlocks theinsight, whether the actual
person knows why they're askingyou to do something.
I think.
Conventionally learningdevelopment has been seen as an
order taking function.
So someone in some part of thebusiness goes, we need to have
some training on, I dunno how tofix this bolt.
(07:32):
And so they go to the trainingteam and they say, build us some
training.
And the training team says, yes,that's fine.
And then they launch thetraining.
Whereas if you ask them whatproblem you trying to solve and
how do you know that's aproblem, they need to be able to
clearly articulate and we haveprocesses and workshops for
doing this clearly articulate.
What are you seeing in yourorganization and what are you
trying actually trying to fix?
Often it comes down to, there'sprobably four things.
(07:53):
It comes down to, it's enga, itcomes down to engagement,
retention, attrition and skills.
Can a person do what you needthem to do?
Are they staying in thebusiness?
Could you wanna keep them?
Are they leaving?
And also, are you engaging themproperly with whether it be
comms or learning or whatever itmight be.
Yeah, it's just a process ofgetting people to clearly
articulate it and also thinkabout how are you gonna measure
(08:15):
it?
Do you know this is a problembecause you've got an intuition
that's a problem where you'vespoken to some of your mates who
are also leaders in the businessand they also think it's a
problem?
Or do you have the data?
So when we're doing theresearch, a lot of what we're
doing is validating theassumptions that the
stakeholders have.
So some, an example of thatmight be.
We did some work with a largeshipping company.
And their thing was how do weget our shipping surveyors to
(08:38):
become more consultative intheir engagements with ship
owners and captains of ships andstuff like that.
So we looked at it multipleways, but ultimately.
The assumption being made by thebusiness was that these people
don't have the capability tohave a conversation like this.
They're too audity in theirmindset to go and do this thing
and they don't have the rightperception and need to be taken
(08:59):
on the journey and look goodstuff.
And while whilst you canvalidate that so that I think
part of that was true, you alsosee the type of pressure that
they're under.
And the time, they're somebodywho has to do, I don't know, 17
surveys in a week.
Their boss is on their back thewhole time because they're like,
you need to get these surveysdone.
Customer's been waiting threeweeks for this.
They've got shipping port.
It's, costing loads of money andto get on there.
(09:21):
And then you start thinking,okay, if they perceive what you
are being asked to do in a newway, in the consultative way as
taking more time, being morecomplicated, et cetera, they're
less likely to do it.
Yeah.
In designing solutions for that,we needed to design a, an
experience to shift theirmindset, which is you're not
just there to take, to basicallyaudit the ship, make sure it
(09:42):
doesn't sink.
You are also there as a, as thefrontline, almost sales person
who can give a potential client.
Better advice, not technicallyadvice, but more more
opportunities to solve theproblems that they have.
Because if you go on the shipand go, you can't, there's a
massive hold in the ship.
You can't do anything or goanywhere.
Sorry.
It's different to being saying Iactually know somebody in my
(10:03):
business who could help you withthat.
Or I know a supplier that islocal that can have, it's more
of that that partnership typeapproach that we were going for.
Yeah, I think it's, I thinkit's.
Clear problem solving focus andtaking the stakeholders on the
journey where you're essentiallychallenging them to say, look,
if you can't prove this is aproblem,'cause you've got data
that says it is, then why areyou wasting our time asking us
(10:25):
to do a load of stuff?
Chris Hudson (10:27):
Yeah, fair enough.
Good to have an honestconversation from time to time.
Yeah.
And those things do come up, butyeah, the root causes, when you
reveal them, they can oftenimplicate leadership and, some
of the systems, some of thesacred cows that do exist within
those organizations.
Yeah.
How are you finding, what's yourmethod be a personal through
your company that you find ishelpful when it comes to getting
(10:47):
organizations to face up to someof those uncomfortable truths?
Charlie (10:50):
Yeah, my old boss used to say, never be afraid to be
fired.
So that's one thing
Chris Hudson (10:55):
you started
Charlie (10:55):
just yeah, exactly.
I mean there's a recent example,so we do a lot of work with
Heathrow Airport.
Yeah, and I won't say which teamit was, but we did some research
basically we came back and said,your baby is ugly.
And it did cause some issues.
I think I.
The reason for that was partlybecause, little things like we
didn't play back the research inperson, so we couldn't, massage
(11:17):
the conversation in a way thatmade everyone feel comfortable.
We didn't necessarily set thecontext that we may come back to
you and say.
There are big problems here.
We focus on problems because wewanna improve stuff.
If we are focusing on the goodstuff.
As much as it would be good foryour egos, it's actually not
what we're here to do.
So there's little things likethat, like setting the
expectations around what you arethere to do and how the
(11:38):
likelihood you're gonna findstuff like that.
And, but yeah, but I've been inseveral conversations where I'll
play back some insight from theresearch.
The stakeholder will say, whosaid that?
And I'll say, I'm sorry.
I can't tell you.
That's the reality.
You just have to fake.
You have to suck it up.
You're also not, you are notsaying the bad stuff, right?
(11:59):
You are just playing back whatyou've heard.
So in that way, you're slightlyprotected.
And actually a lot of morebolder companies employ us
because they want an outside inview rather than an inside in
view, because you never reallyget the true.
The true picture if you're justreviewing or marking your own
homework, so to speak.
Chris Hudson (12:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
So there are there certainconversations that haven't ended
as well as that way where you'vethought this is how we need to
work, but if we can't work thatway we can't do it.
Is it
Charlie (12:27):
We have turned, we do turn down work.
If we can't do research, it's aprinciple of ours, which is if
you're not willing to.
To find oh one, we need to do itbecause if we're gonna design a
solution that works for you, weneed to understand the context
in the organization.
To, to the point that we can dosomething useful.
There's a lot, there are lotsand lots of companies out there
that basically have lots of offthe shelf courses and will do a
(12:49):
workshop and it'll be good.
But you'll not really get,you're not really getting to the
root of the problem.
You're trying to take a stickyplaster over the issues'cause as
our view.
So it's good for us to do thatresearch.
It's good for it's good for thembecause they get the data that
helps.
Validate assumptions or revealnew things that he didn't think
of, and also give him a pictureof, what there is what's going
(13:12):
on out there.
So I think, yeah, I think theshort story is that in order to.
Where it's not gone so well.
Or where we've decided not to dowork is generally speaking,
whether the client has beenresistant to the art concept of
even doing the researchinitially.
But, we also take on workperhaps we, we usually would say
no to, but we just make surethat we do some kind of
(13:35):
research.
Anything is better than nothing.
So even if it's a day shadowingsomeone that's better than
nothing, gives us some idea.
So yeah that's probably the mainprinciple that we follow on, on,
on that front.
I'm trying to think of anexample of where it's gone
terribly wrong.
The worst.
A common thing that happens withthe research is we play back the
data and the stakeholder goes,we already knew that.
(13:57):
So what's the value of you?
You spending 10 days on sitewhen we already knew all this?
And that's the, that's when theconversation goes well, this
isn't just about the process ofplaying back data.
It's providing you the data.
So you're making good decisionsbased on data rather than on
assumptions and intuition.
It's engaging the populationthat you're trying to target in
(14:18):
an honest conversation aboutwhat their experience is.
And you're engaging enoughpeople that it's a kind of
critical mass.
So essentially it's PR for yourprogram to actually listen to
people and talk to them.
Yeah.
And.
Yeah, and more broadly, it givesyou, it is much more specific
and it stops you getting to aconversation later on where
(14:38):
you've basically got astakeholder looking at your
solution design and going, Ithink it should be like this.
And you're saying, yeah, but wethink it should be like this.
Yeah, I'm paying you so you dowhat I say.
Whereas if we can go, but theresearch is telling us that this
is the way it should be, it's amuch easier conversation to
have.
Although I have been in aworkshop where, a client was
(14:59):
basically arguing with a memberof the target audience who was
in the room at the time sayingthat this isn't how it is.
It's like this.
So some clients are literally sofocused on what they want, that
they'll just kind of pushthrough regardless of what the
data's telling them.
this isn't just about theprocess of playing back data.
It's providing you the data.
(15:19):
So you're making good decisionsbased on data rather than on
assumptions and intuition.
It's engaging the populationthat you're trying to target in
an honest conversation aboutwhat their experience is.
And you're engaging enoughpeople that it's a kind of
critical mass.
So essentially it's PR for yourprogram to actually listen to
people and talk to them.
Yeah.
And.
Yeah, and I think in like morebroadly, it gives you, it is
(15:42):
much more specific and it stopsyou getting to a conversation
later on where you've basicallygot a stakeholder looking at
your solution design and going Ithink it should be like this.
And you're saying, yeah, but wethink it should be like this.
Yeah, I'm paying you so you dowhat I say.
Whereas if we can go, but theresearch is telling us that this
is the way it should be, it's amuch easier conversation to
(16:02):
have.
So some clients are literally sofocused on what they want, that
they'll just push throughregardless of what the data's
telling them.
But that's really rare.
Chris Hudson (16:12):
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, it sounds there aredifferent people to convince
along the journey a little bit.
You might have somebody up frontin the leadership that is, is
like the project sponsor whowould be, defending the
methodology a little bit.
But it sounds like you're,you're always gonna have to
convince other people rightthrough the process.
So when are the sort of bigmoments of truth, one of the big
(16:32):
epiphanies happening throughyour process as you see it and
what's working well?
Charlie (16:36):
Sometimes the epiphany only happens at the very end.
We did a big piece of work withone of the big four professional
services firms, and at thebeginning of the project we
introduced who we were.
We showed you the process.
We came up with some, we wentthrough a few workshops of
ideation and stuff like that.
And at the end of that, one ofthe kind of key sponsors
basically said, I didn't get it.
I think we should just do whatwe did last year.
(16:57):
And.
Then we did the thing we pushedthrough, we got some support
elsewhere from a ex-colleague ofmine.
And we went through that processand by the end we launched the
thing.
It was a massive success andeveryone was scrambling to take
credit.
You know everyone.
Yeah.
One of the main blockers of thatprogram ended up coming to the
awards ceremony with us andbringing her son with them.
(17:19):
It was it was an interestingproject in particular because of
the shift in kind of mindset,but also the behavior of people
afterwards I think was quiteinteresting too.
Chris Hudson (17:28):
Alright.
Where to next?
Yeah, maybe also the start ofthe process.
You find yourself having to,convince people that it's a good
idea and you are, you're like.
You're maybe talking a bit aboutsome of the signals that people
are seeing, like when they, whenyou're trying to get them to
understand the problem spacethat they're maybe seeing or
maybe not seeing.
So when you have some hunchesabout what's going wrong with
(17:51):
the culture of learning and howit's all running, like what are
some of those signals as you seethem that usually pop up?
Charlie (17:58):
So the people that will re really want to work with us
are people that want to dosomething differently.
Yeah, we've talked a little bitabout the way that school works
and the way l and d sort ofcopies that model.
Yeah.
The complaints we often see iswe feel like order takers, no
one listens to us.
We don't have a seat at thetable.
Those are like the maincomplaints from learning
development that we see becausethey basically just get.
(18:19):
Inundated, they're alwaysstretched.
They don't really feel likethey're doing anything
worthwhile'cause they're justchurning out e-learning and
whatnot.
The other thing they have, theystruggle, really struggle with
is engagement.
People canceling last minute ornot turning up or not doing
their compliance training orwhatever.
So generally speaking, it's apretty miserable existence
working in learning development.
(18:40):
If all you're doing really ischurning out content, that is
fundamentally, again, comingback to my earlier point about
the way that the human brainworks, because the model is
based on, again, brokenpsychology which is the kind of
split between, again, this isone of those, common errors
about how we think about thehuman brain, which is like
there's a separation betweenyour emotional brain and your
(19:03):
rational brain is, but it goesall the way back to Plato and
Aristotle, that there's a, somekind of separation that makes us
different.
But actually, there is noemotional brain and rational
brain.
You have a brain, which isinterconnected and a lot, and
has a book called Help HowPeople Learn by Nick Shackleton
Jones, who was my boss when Iwas working at BP in house.
Which kind of goes into this ina lot of detail, but, and the
(19:25):
upshot of that is everything youdo is emotional.
And then we play the rational ontop of it.
And there's books by people likeJonah Lero.
Talk about that unconsciousbrain and how it's actually made
the decision before yourationally realize you've made
it.
Yeah.
So yeah, you can gophilosophical on that, down to
the point is there is no freewill.
Yeah.
(19:46):
I don't wanna go into to loadsof that, but fundamentally the
challenges that people face areif they're churning out content
because they've got this ideathat learning is about putting
content in front of people.
There's an assimilation ofinformation, then magic happens.
They go back to their workday,their workflow, and they
(20:08):
remember that content orinformation they've seen and
they apply that content andinformation that they've seen.
That model doesn't work becauseof reasons we discussed.
Like other things happen whenthey're at work.
That mean they don't do whatthey're supposed to do.
They do other things.
So I would say, learningdevelopment, suffer.
(20:28):
From this erroneous view of howthe brain works organizations
suffer because they spend lotsand in some cases they spend
lots and lots of money on thisstuff.
But even if they're not spendinglots and lots of money on it
they want people to get betterat what they do.
They want to train and developtheir graduate population, or
they want people to becomereally, good at applying AI in
(20:50):
their jobs so they can be moreproductive.
Things in organizations have tochange to meet the market
trends, to meet changes in ourtechnology usage and things like
this.
L and d is a fundamental way ofallowing people to do that.
But l and d has traditionallybeen focused more on content and
knowledge and less onapplication behavior change than
(21:11):
it should have been.
So that's the shift that I thinkeveryone needs to go through if
you're working in this space.
Chris Hudson (21:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It makes sense.
So outside of l and d who isbest to activate outside of l
and d to make that sort ofchange possible within an
organization, do you think?
Or who are the allies?
Charlie (21:30):
Things we, I start with, there's people that aren't
allies.
Brand and comms.
Brand and comms, because it'ssimilar.
And because, as an example, whenwe're.
Design deploying a thing for anL and D context, a lot of it
comes down to what does it lookand feel like?
How are you communicating it?
And because it overlaps withsome of the comms and the brand
(21:52):
stuff it can do quite prickly.
So advice there is make sure youmake friends with them up front
and you explain how what you'redoing is different and how it
needs to look and feeldifferent, et cetera.
To the usual, this is why I wastalk, talking about.
My lovely wife and her kind ofbrand alignment and my lack of
brand alignment.
Chris Hudson (22:10):
Is that clash because of, the role of brand
within the organization?
The EVP, the employeeexperience, or the kind of
perceived, the perceived way inwhich the work should happen
within the organization is asit's, yeah.
That way.
That was more of the
Charlie (22:26):
format, but it's a little bit of both because it's
what is brand?
Is brand a, is brand a tagline?
Is brand the way something looksand feels?
Is it what we're talking about?
Is it tone?
Is it, because actually you, youcould argue that brand is also
kind of ways of working andattitudes and mindsets in some
ways internally.
I think that it depends on howenergetic brand is to be able to
(22:51):
take on that kind of discussion.
But so we've run, again, we've,worked with clients where.
We haven't done the work upfront to engage the brand and
comms team, and then they pop upone day before we've got a shoot
planned to say, we don't likethe person you've got front of
camera, so we think you shouldcancel the shoot.
We're like we spent best part ofa hundred grand on this, so
(23:12):
we're not gonna do that.
But, why didn't you tell us?
Why didn't you say this back inNovember?
A year ago when we introducedthe concept?
Yeah, it can get quite prickly.
The allies actually tend to bethe people on the front line.
The people are actually doingthe job, not the people, quote
unquote trying to enable them todo their job.
If you spend time with andengineers on the front line that
(23:34):
are trying to do something, andyou go and listen to what
they've got to say, and youidentify their problems, and you
ask them, how, who do they knowwho's solving this problem?
What could we do to support you,et cetera.
Then they're generally verysupportive of the activity.
If a little bit cynical, becauseI think there's a lot of.
A lot of projects that kindastart up, go through that
(23:55):
process and then nothing reallyhappens with it.
Nothing really happens with thedata.
So yeah, so really the frontline is the main bastion of good
practice, I think, in thisstuff.
'cause they just wanna do theirjob faster and better.
And if you can support'em to dothat, then they usually have is
open to it.
Chris Hudson (24:11):
Yeah.
All right.
What about change readiness,like in terms of organizations'
readiness to change and.
Now, what are the conditions orthe right conditions for that
being possible, would you feel?
Charlie (24:22):
A burning platform helps.
So if there's something yeah.
Really going wrong thengenerally speaking,
organizations are willing tochange.
The, there's all these tropes atthe moment, change is
inevitable.
Everything's changing all thetime.
I don't know the thing that gotus.
The thing that's fundamentallychanged, things like the fact
that I can work from home mostof the time and see my kids way
(24:46):
more and not have to commute twohours each way every day was
coded.
That has nothing to do with,Microsoft or Zoom, being
effective as a technologycompanies it's not really
anything to do with companiesreally.
Making a decision on front.
I think a lot of it's without,outside of people's control,
it's market conditions.
(25:06):
It's, sometimes you can get,CEOs that have a really strong
vision that could drive anorganization in one way.
Because if anyone's gonna hop toit when somebody says something,
it's a CEO e.
And we have lots ofconversations where people ask
us to do work because the CEO'smentioned like one sentence of a
comment in a.
(25:27):
In a senior meeting, everyonegoes, oh my God, we must
immediately do this because Yep.
That Bob's decided it is a goodidea.
He is been to a conference andhe thinks we need a skills
platform now.
So I think it's yeah, Bob orJill, I dunno.
So I think change readiness isan interesting one.
I think it's about culture and Ithink it's about I think it's
(25:47):
the story people tellthemselves, really.
I.
Change.
Fatigue is something that comesup quite a lot.
People are really bored change.
It's that's life.
Unfortunately.
Things change.
Businesses change.
The work, the market's changing,the world's changing faster than
ever.
It's just what you have to suckit up.
I dunno, maybe I'm maybe I'mbeing unempathetic, but I think
(26:08):
change readiness is about howwilling.
How willing are the people atthe top and also what is the
culture like in terms of beingwilling to try new things?
Yeah, and adapt quickly.
And I think the companies that,ultimately the companies that do
best are ones that are, thathave that kind of baked into
their culture and are willing toevolve all the time.
Chris Hudson (26:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Is there a thing around metricsas well?
Sometimes if you're talking inthe language of product and
that.
Then now you can run multipleversions of something.
You can obviously set very clearmetrics and report on that and
measure that.
Is that discussion becoming veryreal for you as well in the way
that you're setting things up?
You need to run lots of ones orcan you just go with one, see
(26:50):
how it goes, then it's Right.
You know what are the dynamicsof the project and the rollout
usually?
Charlie (26:55):
Yeah.
So it's a tricky one because thedata that we end up playing
with.
Depending on the type of workwe're doing often it's like HR
data, which is generally a bitnaff anyway.
It's things like pulse surveys,which is like once every six
months they ask you, are youhappy and do you like your boss
kind of thing.
So that's data we've used in thepast for things like Heathrow,
(27:16):
when we did the leadershipprogram for them to say, the
main scores they were looking atwere engagement and inclusion
and diversity and, trust inleadership.
So those are the focuses,focuses for us.
And you can really see the shiftover time over sort of six to 12
months.
You can see a shift there.
The stuff that's easier tomeasure, stuff like sales.
(27:37):
So we do a bit of salesenablement now, which we know
we've done before, but it's asense of where we are in the UK
and how the market is.
Chris Hudson (27:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Charlie (27:44):
That people are coming to us more and more asking for
sales.
Sales training essentially.
Yeah.
Which is easy to measure becauseyou can you can just see, I'll
be selling more stuff.
That's and you can track it atan individual basis'cause they
all have to report on that.
So it's, it depends on theproject, depends on the type of
work that we're doing.
As to what med metrics we'relooking at there's the obvious
(28:04):
stuff, which is essentially NPS.
For the programs that you'rerunning, would you recommend it
to a friend type stuff?
But yeah, the really juicy ROIdata is takes a little bit
longer or it's a longer checktrain to get to.
But the way we generally willlook at it is we measure before
and after against a controlgroup.
(28:25):
When essentially you wanna piloteverything before you roll out
fully, because you need to testhow it works in the real world
and with the real people thatyou wanna help.
So if we generally will do thatwe'll do a do some measurement
at the beginning.
We'll do some measurement at theend.
We'll keep the groups relativelysmall.
We'll ask lots of follow upquestions, but we'll make sure
we have a control group so wecan we can compare and contrast
(28:45):
to see whether the thing we aredoing is making the difference
to people.
Yeah, the example you can see onour website is a legal general
big insurance company here inthe uk.
Yeah.
We did that for an inclusiveleadership program and that's
the model we now use.
Chris Hudson (28:58):
Yeah.
Nice.
Yeah, I really like what you'resaying.
I think part of it feels like,whereas, companies almost think
about lots of different streamsof work happening at once.
And they're all running in theirown swim lanes and they're all
running in parallel.
But what you are saying is notthat l and d is that tack on,
swim lane on the side whereyou're dipping and out of it
when you need to learnsomething.
But actually it's, you'redesigning for a system of
(29:20):
learning within the organizationwithin the way in which you
work, when it works well.
And I, I really like the soundof that, but yeah, it sounds
like it would be hard for peopleto do.
Are you finding it hard?
Yeah.
Charlie (29:30):
I think that I think people are finding it hard
because there's a lot of peopletalking about it, or at least
in, in my network I thinkthere's very few people can
actually show that they're doingit properly or they're doing it,
doing a good job of it.
So it's a good yarn, I would saythat people tell about l and d
but then they find themselvesdoing e-learning courses anyway.
So I think the thing that'schanged a lot of what's changed,
(29:54):
how I approach.
The kind of performance end ofwhat we do and also the more
systemic end of what we do is Inow run my own business.
So I understand all the shitthat you have to do and all the
different pillars of business ingeneral.
And obviously it's a smallcompany and compared to a large
one, you understand thedifferent.
Angles and ends to, runningbusiness and what you have to
(30:16):
consider in it, which I thinkhas given me a more holistic and
probably a more effectivemindset in terms of how we, how
we make the change to thebusiness and what changes to
things like all organizationalstructure can do to how people
behave and how people work.
So I think it's been quitehelpful to to be doing that as
(30:37):
well as doing the work that wedo.
Yeah, I think it is, it's hard,but I think there's enough,
there's enough evidence and, adecent number of books, a
general understanding of humanbehavior now that perhaps I
wasn't 10 years ago.
That give, that makes theargument easier to make.
And also it guess massivelydepends on the organization, but
(30:58):
there are plenty of people insay, engineering that understand
things like design thinking.
So it's easy enough to.
Talk to'em in that language andget a response that, that makes
your life easier.
So yeah, I think it's thehardest bit is probably just the
fact that you're basicallytelling people what you've been
doing for the last 50 years iswrong and you need to be doing
(31:19):
something differently.
Whereas there are cases fordoing e-learning.
If you're doing a compliancetraining, you need to tick a
box.
But it's understanding thatyou're doing that, not because
you're actually trying to trainpeople, get them better at what
they do.
You're doing it because you needto satisfy the regulator, which
is a different problem to solve.
But in that case, it might aswell just be one page of all the
information where you tick a boxat the end, you're compliant
(31:41):
people, you've delivered theinformation, right?
So I think it's just beinghonest about, what are we doing?
Why are we doing this?
Those kind of things.
Chris Hudson (31:49):
Yeah, for sure.
The, a company's purpose isobviously, one thing and then
you're thinking about, who'sactually behind that and who's
driving the company or theorganization.
And, in, in the language ofattraction and retention and.
You're talking about realpeople, and it's not just
compliance training, as you say,it's like you have to motivate
them on a deeper level.
Companies that are very obsessedwith, very regularly or,
(32:09):
semi-regularly anyway, changingthe perks and the benefits and
just coming up with the newversion of the fruit and the
yoga or whatever it is, it isjust.
An illustrative thing in thewrong direction perhaps.
And some of those real issuescould be a lot deeper where,
what they're really missing isthat, to be able to retain their
best people.
They're having to, they fundingto fundamentally change how
their operating model works withlearning at its core for that
(32:30):
talent to remain loyal in somesort of way.
Yeah.
That's it.
Charlie (32:34):
Learning is a kind of a, yeah.
Learning is a, is part of theexperience of work.
So at, the most basic level, youcan also just think about it as
part of what a company does todemonstrate they're investing in
you and giving you an experiencethat you might not have had
elsewhere.
But in that case, again, youcould just stick 500 quid behind
the bar and, let people have afew beers or soft drinks with
(32:57):
their friends.
Again, it's just being reallyclear about what you're trying
to solve, what problem you're,you're trying to get at, and.
Being unegotistical about whatthe solution might be.
Yeah.
But as you say, you, thingslike, I wouldn't underestimate
the yoghurt and yoga'cause thatcan be, that's part of the
experience in the EVP.
And so I think some of thosehygiene factors are quite handy.
(33:19):
But again, I think it's just theother thing I would say about
more traditional and moreconventional approaches to
learning.
And I think probably more youcould apply this more broader
than this as well.
I think people just really tryto simplify the world into a
cause and effect.
So if, and if you think aboutthe world.
Business as cause and effect.
(33:40):
On a very simple level, what youget is people doing activities
to change one particular thingwithout really thinking about
the bigger picture and howcomplex these things are and how
complex people are.
So I think what we are trying todo is take a broader, more
complex view of how these thingscan really be solved long term.
Yeah.
(34:00):
And I think that's somethingthat.
We've not, human humanity is notme particularly good at in the
last however many years becauseit's cause of how it thinks
about the brain, how it thinksabout people, how it thinks
about business, really how itthinks about society.
So yeah, I don't need it toophilosophical.
'Cause I always, there's alwaysa risk of that.
But yeah, I think it's, I thinkit's just being more open about
(34:21):
the complexity of what it isyou're trying to do in
businesses.
Chris Hudson (34:24):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we have a lot ofentrepreneurs listening to the
show and they, the people thatare trying to drive change from
within their organizations aswell, have you got any advice
for them in terms of how totackle l and d transformation?
If you don't have the CEO's ear,but you can see some of these
systemic issues are there, butit feels like they're so deeply
ingrained a lot of the time thatpeople wouldn't know where to
(34:44):
start and they wouldn't take onchanging the whole l and d
platform just overnight becausethey wouldn't do that.
Yeah.
Where should people start toinitiate some of the positive
change that you've beendescribing?
Good question.
So
Charlie (34:55):
there's probably two things.
One, we have a toolkit on ourwebsite.
So this solve Together Withoutan e.com.
You'll find a toolkit where you,when you click on How we Work,
so you can download some of theresources we've got on there.
Quite helpful.
But more fundamentally, I thinkpeople are used to, especially
in l and d, are used tobeavering away producing
training behind their laptops,not really talking to anyone.
(35:19):
So the number one thing is beproactive.
If you don't know what thebusiness strategy is and you
don't know what all yourindividual departments business
strategy is.
How are you gonna help themachieve their business strategy?
And often these companies don'teven have business strategies at
a department level.
They just have the main one,which is slightly ethereal,
which this yeah.
The exec team have come up toand off site, and they're like,
(35:41):
wait, here's a strategy for thenext three years.
Go and do that.
And everyone's just scratchingtheir heads like what do you
actually mean?
So I think it.
Looking at the strategy and thenengaging the senior bots to
really understand what it meanspractically and often they
haven't really thought about it.
So you can help them throughthat process.
And then it's looking at thekind of department level as
well.
So what are your, how is yourstrategy for your department
linked to that bigger strategy?
(36:04):
And helping them think throughpractically what it actually
means.
'cause I think these things,again, are so wishy-washy a lot
of the time.
So funda fundamentallyunderstand the business that
you're trying to support.
That's the first thing.
Once you've done that,identifying, let's say the top
three problems that thedifferent, either the company,
if you're going that level orthe, specific department has and
(36:26):
then going and solving thoseproblems.
So being able to play back whatthe, say top three problems are,
and also how those problems areshowing up in the business, as
as output.
So data essentially.
So you know when you're askingwhat is your strategy, what's
getting in the way of yourstrategy.
How do you know that's gettingin the way of your strategy?
(36:47):
Those, that's the kind ofbreadcrumbs to follow.
And then you end up withessentially three problems per
department, or what threeproblems per, organization that
if you could go to the CEO andsay, this is one of your biggest
problems and we've been able tosolve it and we can prove it
because we've got the data toshow you.
Then you start becoming ordertakers basically, and you start
(37:08):
becoming a genuine competitiveadvantage to your organization.
And when the time comes to cutall the budgets because the
market's crap you've gotsomething to to fall back on and
say, look, we're we're not the land d team anymore.
We are the productivity andperformance team or something
like that.
And a lot of the quote unquotethought leaders in the UK anyway
(37:29):
at the moment are talking aboutmaybe we need a rebrand of l and
d and all this kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you know that there is an argument to also say,
maybe think about repositioning.
What you are talking about.
If you start talking aboutlearning and you don't have the
time to take people on thejourney with you, people
automatically fall intodelivering some training
(37:49):
content.
Whereas if you talk aboutbusiness performance and
productivity, which I think ison the lips of everyone who's
struggling to figure out how togrow, and in the environment
where AI is taking overeverything that I think, it's a
good, it's a good time toreposition what you're doing
into more of a performance lens.
Chris Hudson (38:06):
Nice.
Nice.
Yeah, I really like that.
And I you, the next question Iwas gonna ask you is about what
leaders should be asking abouttheir l and d strategy.
And it probably is along thoselines, right?
It's gonna be around, businessperformance, productivity, is it
working, basically?
Charlie (38:20):
Yeah.
Chris Hudson (38:20):
Yeah.
This is overlooked.
It sounds obvious, but it'soften overlooked, right?
Charlie (38:24):
Yeah.
And often people go through themotions of doing learning
development because.
It's intuitively the right thingto do.
But again, I just think it'stime that l and d stops stops
highly behind the kinda schooland university.
It's a good idea to do learningtype thing and actually start
thinking properly about what isthe.
Value of what we do.
Like how will we actuallyhelping this business improve
(38:47):
beyond people going on a niceoffsite for two weeks and having
a nice hotel and doing somenetworking.
So yeah, it's back to justgetting up every morning and
feel like you actually are outthere to make a difference and
help people and help yourbusiness get better.
Rather than just thinking yourjob is to do some content and
force some information topeople's heads.
Chris Hudson (39:08):
Yeah.
It's a hard one to rewire inpeople's heads, I think, because
it feels like another task ontop of their day job that they
have to learn something.
But what they're not realizingis that by doing the work, they
are learning something.
The experience of learning.
It's just not, a separate thingon the side.
They're gonna try and squeeze inthe last 10 minutes of their
lunch break.
Yeah.
Smash out their compliancetraining.
(39:30):
It's gonna, yeah.
It's gotta be something theytake into their work and their
mindset every day.
Charlie (39:33):
They will thank you though, because they don't wanna
spend, most people are underpressure to deliver.
They're not under pressure tolearn.
So that's another big challengewe see is l and d complaining
that no one's got time to do thecourse or whatever.
And they talk about learningculture.
We don't have a learning culture'cause people don't wanna sign
up to my course.
And the reason they don't wannasign up to you'cause they're too
(39:54):
busy doing actual work.
In some ways learning the bestlearning is invisible.
People don't even notice thatit's there, but it's driving the
performance or the behavior inthe way that you want it to be
driven.
An example of that was so he, asyou can imagine, in airports the
biggest population is security.
And they're not allowed anythingon them.
When they're in the securityzone because it's a highly
(40:16):
secure environment.
So they don't have, they havephones on them.
They don't have any pictures onthe wall.
They, yeah, they have nothing.
So you can obviously take themout of that environment, stick
'em in a classroom and talk atthem and tell'em how you should
do stuff.
But actually, one way we'vefigured out to, to engage that
part of the organization isspending time with them.
We noticed that they werecarrying.
(40:38):
They had lanyards on them andthey had badges on their
lanyards from stuff they wereproud of.
And they also had little cheatsheets and things in their
lanyards where they had theircards.
So we designed some resourcesand some nudges to sit, on their
lanyards and in their lanyardsas a way of getting to those
people.
It's like a channel essentially.
So yeah, I think it's, again, itjust comes back to understanding
(41:01):
the environment and how you canmeet people in the right
direction.
But you need to really, you needto be there to understand, but
that's the kind of thing thatyou can and then again,
behavioral science, but you canbasically nudge behavior in the
right way if you use theenvironment, environmental cues
to do that.
So yeah, it's a rich, it's arich broad.
Opportunity, I think for peoplethat are willing to take on a
(41:23):
new way of thinking, a new wayof working.
So it's quite exciting becauseyou go from somebody who's just
turning out courses to somebodywho's actually thinking about
the business and thinking aboutpeople's context and environment
more than I suppose just goingthrough the motions of doing
essentially a curriculum oflearning like school or
university.
Chris Hudson (41:40):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I like that.
The behavioral nudges that, youare running it like a product,
like you were saying right atthe start.
You all the behavioral nudges,all of the Yeah.
All the cues that you're lookingfor that change of behavior in
one way or another.
Interested in a final questionmaybe, which is just around
personalization and where yousee it working well.
Because you can obviouslyobserve an audience in that
(42:01):
example there with the securityguards, but have you seen it
work at a larger scale as wellwhere you've designed in edges
that work at that level too?
Yeah,
Charlie (42:09):
Personalization, so an example of that is actually the
same client, we had to do, itwas a population of two and a
half thousand people, and someof them had been at the company
for 10 years and some of'em hadbeen at six months.
And the client wanted to putthem through the same
experience.
Chris Hudson (42:27):
Yeah.
Charlie (42:27):
And you're like, okay, how's that even gonna work?
Because if you've been at theorganization 10 years in a role
versus six months, your wholeframe of reference is totally
different.
So the way we did that wasessentially just do a design, a
choose your own adventure.
Where we went, we did theresearch we understood what were
there.
Say top, I think ended up beingseven.
Conversations that people werestruggling with most in their
(42:50):
day-to-day work.
And then we laid that out forthem and said, which ones do you
wanna do?
Does that know now's your time,now's your chance to get better.
You tell us what's theexperience you want or what's
the what's the thing you'restruggling with most?
So I think scalability andpersonalization is a real
challenge, particularly atorganizational level because
often the goal is scale.
(43:11):
And the way we get round thatreally is by designing lots of
things and then that allowingpeople to choose what works best
for them.
Make sure that what you'reproviding them is specific
enough to them that they can getsome value out of it.
So the very least, what we'reproviding people is a useful
opportunity to practicesomething or a useful resource
to allow them to do somethingdifferently.
Chris Hudson (43:31):
Great.
Charlie, thanks so much.
I really enjoyed the chat withyou today.
And you've really lifted thehood and I think a lot of people
over here in this part of theworld will definitely benefit
from, listening to what you'resaying.
Because it's always so siloed,right?
It feels like a lot of thesechallenges are not shared
challenges almost.
They might be seen by someleaders, but not by others, or
it feels like it.
It's definitely the place inwhich a lot of positive change
(43:53):
could happen withinorganizations.
Yeah, appreciate sharing yourwisdom today.
So thank you.
And where can people find outabout you and learn more about
the work that you're doing atSolvd Together?
Charlie (44:00):
So solve S-O-L-V-D together.com.
You can also follow us onLinkedIn, obviously.
And my name Charlie Kneen.
I'm on LinkedIn as well, so youare welcome to follow me and
connect.
We are.
Looking like we're gonna be inAustralia in a few months anyway
after the summer.
So potentially if if we're overthere at the same time, and if
(44:21):
there's anyone that wants tomeet up for a coffee and discuss
more of this in detail, I'llprobably be be on the East
coast.
Chris Hudson (44:29):
Good stuff.
Sounds good.
Thanks so much
Hey, and welcome back to the Company Road
Podcast, which is the podcastfor intrapreneurs who are tired
of some of those buzzwords andready for some real change.
And I'm your host, Chris Hudson,and today we're gonna be diving
into one of the most criticalchallenges facing organizations
right now, in my view.
So it's how do you actuallyengage, retain, and upskill your
people when the old playbook andthe old methods just aren't
(00:26):
working anymore?
My guest today is Charlie Kneen,who's founder of Solvd Together.
They're a learning anddevelopment transformation
consultancy that's reimagininghow global brands approach their
people strategy.
Charlie was also the former L Dlead at BP in the UK prior to
that and a few other roles thathe can talk about as well at the
moment.
What we're really looking for isto help companies stop throwing
around engagement surveys andjust hoping for the best.
(00:48):
And I think he's got some realtangible.
Tips and tricks and someexamples of things that would
probably work a little bitbetter.
And he is also got a completelydifferent angle from my point of
view.
So bringing together abackground in marketing, co
coaching, leadership and alsohuman centered design to this
sort of messy, complex world oforganizational change.
Charlie you've done a lot ofthings and we'll get into how
you do some of those things, butmaybe for the listeners out
(01:10):
there who don't know what l andd is or learning development is,
then maybe you could just tellthem a little bit about that
first.
Charlie (01:16):
Yeah.
Cool.
So I think the simplifiedversion is you do school, then
you do university, and then whenyou get into companies, there's
meant to be a kind of version ofthat.
Learning development inbusiness, as you were alluding
to at the beginning we thinkthat fundamentally school and
university as a system is abroken model, and that same
(01:38):
broken model is applicable andrears its ugly head in corporate
business.
So the way that you might seethat if you're working in house
is.
You get an email from your l andd team or through a horrible
system that you hate using tosay you haven't done your
compliance training yet.
Here's 30 hours of e-learning.
Or you get an email from yourboss saying, I really think you
(01:58):
should go on this course.
And you have to take three daysout of your day to go and sit
and listen to someone talk atyou with loads of slides for
three days, which you don'tremember.
And then you go back to work andpeople ask you what you learned
and you say something like, Ilearned that I'm a green.
So that's like the negative endof corporate l and d.
And what we do is exist todisrupt that thinking and apply
(02:21):
human centered or product designapproach to the same problems.
Chris Hudson (02:24):
And there's a lot of, I don't know maybe the
perception over here in thismarket is that there's not a lot
of movement in that space butsome companies are, trying to do
it well.
We've got CultureAmp andAtlassian, various people
pushing ahead with some thingsout here.
But yeah.
I just wanna ask you somethingcontroversial maybe to get us
started, which is, I get thefeeling that most l and d
departments are they're creatinga lot of expensive theater,
(02:45):
making the leadership feel goodabout investing in the people.
And the employees just sitthrough some of that mandatory
training that you were talkingabout and they forget it by next
week.
So why do you think it's sobroken?
Charlie (02:56):
I think fundamentally people don't understand how
people learn or how the humanbrain works.
So there's a really greatarticle which you could find
online by a guy unfortunatelynamed Robert Epstein, but it's
not though Robert Epstein.
It's a different guy.
He used to be the editor ofPsychology Today and he wrote a
article called The Empty Brain,and he basically says that.
(03:19):
The way that we describe thebrain is often based on the most
advanced technology that we haveavailable at the time.
So his analogy is we talk aboutprocess mental processing and
memory and things like thatbecause yeah, because it's the
most advanced technology.
That's not how the human brainworks.
It's nothing like a computer.
And then I'm a bit of a historybuff.
(03:39):
So he also talks about the factthat in the Middle Ages, the
most advanced technology washydraulics.
And so people used hydraulics asa way to think about how
psychology works.
So they had the four humors.
It was like black bile, whateverit was.
So it's really interestingarticle, but I think it's
really, and it's quite succinctand I think it describes quite
clearly how we misrepresenthuman beings, how they learn,
(04:01):
and and I think fundamentallythe way that we've developed to
design school and university inparticular is based on this idea
that a human brain is a kind ofa sponge for information.
A computer is a sponge forinformation, but actually the
opposite is true.
We are terrible at rememberingstuff.
What we're really good at isproblem solving.
So a lot of what we do is thinkabout.
(04:24):
How do you put people incontexts, whether it be
simulated or otherwise, wherethey can apply their human side
to solving problems and learningthrough the process of doing,
rather than sitting them down,talking at them in whatever
format, whether that be onlineor in person, and trying get
them to remember a thing thatthey can then apply.
(04:44):
Yeah, a quite a long answer toyour question and I could go on,
but that probably gives you asummary of it.
Chris Hudson (04:49):
No, I like it.
I like the history re referenceas well.
So yeah, it feels like the kindof awareness that anyone would
have about their own learningpreferences might be somewhat
limited as well.
You talk a bit about human sensedesign and that application in
learning and change.
But I think that most people,most companies would say that
they would be totally peoplefirst, or even customer first,
and.
(05:09):
Their actual systems areprobably screaming the opposite.
How do you cut through some ofthat self-deception and what do
you think seems to work?
Charlie (05:16):
So the, I think the way we think about it is there's two
things to do.
There's the systemic challenges,which is, it may sound
patronizing to say, but I thinkif I kind of think about people
as not.
Not the kind of engineers thatare in destiny.
They're in an environment wherethey're being buffeted by lots
of different influences andimpacts.
So these things like leadership,these things like systems like
(05:38):
technologies and so on, thingslike the physical environment
where they are, things like thecultural norms of a business all
serve to.
I guess drive certain behavior.
And yep.
When we start doing our work,the first thing we do is
understand the problem we'retrying to solve, and then do the
research to understand what theenvironment system looks like.
Once you've done that, then youcan start thinking about
(05:59):
solutions that that will solvethe problem.
So then, but there might beremove stuff, takes barriers out
the way and so you drivebehavior in the right way.
Or add stuff in.
Often the first is better thanthe fir the second actually.
And then you're designingsolutions that might include
some kind of trainingintervention or a learning
development, but actually 90% ofthe change you're trying to
(06:21):
create.
Comes through systemic changesto the environment rather than
training.
So we're like a let l and dcompany that spends much of its
time trying to convince peoplenot to do training, or at least
in a more conventional sense,not to do training.
And then, yeah you build andtest the the solutions that you
wanna roll out in a iterativeproduct design type way.
(06:41):
So you get people in a room, youtest the ideas.
You you build prototypes ontools like Figma for technology,
for digital stuff.
So there's a whole range ofdifferent things to do, but
that's in a nutshell, theprocess that we follow.
Chris Hudson (06:53):
Yeah, very cool.
Yeah, I mean it's, yeah,obviously very similar to, the
work that we do in designproducts and you move it
interestedly through.
And how are you finding the kindof the first or the few, the
first few steps, of gettingthat.
Getting that thing started likein convincing people that it's a
systemic problem they need tosolve.
Like where do you start withthat?
Charlie (07:11):
Yeah.
Because we asked the question,what problem are you trying to
solve?
It quite quickly unlocks theinsight, whether the actual
person knows why they're askingyou to do something.
I think.
Conventionally learningdevelopment has been seen as an
order taking function.
So someone in some part of thebusiness goes, we need to have
some training on, I dunno how tofix this bolt.
(07:32):
And so they go to the trainingteam and they say, build us some
training.
And the training team says, yes,that's fine.
And then they launch thetraining.
Whereas if you ask them whatproblem you trying to solve and
how do you know that's aproblem, they need to be able to
clearly articulate and we haveprocesses and workshops for
doing this clearly articulate.
What are you seeing in yourorganization and what are you
trying actually trying to fix?
Often it comes down to, there'sprobably four things.
(07:53):
It comes down to, it's enga, itcomes down to engagement,
retention, attrition and skills.
Can a person do what you needthem to do?
Are they staying in thebusiness?
Could you wanna keep them?
Are they leaving?
And also, are you engaging themproperly with whether it be
comms or learning or whatever itmight be.
Yeah, it's just a process ofgetting people to clearly
articulate it and also thinkabout how are you gonna measure
(08:15):
it?
Do you know this is a problembecause you've got an intuition
that's a problem where you'vespoken to some of your mates who
are also leaders in the businessand they also think it's a
problem?
Or do you have the data?
So when we're doing theresearch, a lot of what we're
doing is validating theassumptions that the
stakeholders have.
So some, an example of thatmight be.
We did some work with a largeshipping company.
And their thing was how do weget our shipping surveyors to
(08:38):
become more consultative intheir engagements with ship
owners and captains of ships andstuff like that.
So we looked at it multipleways, but ultimately.
The assumption being made by thebusiness was that these people
don't have the capability tohave a conversation like this.
They're too audity in theirmindset to go and do this thing
and they don't have the rightperception and need to be taken
(08:59):
on the journey and look goodstuff.
And while whilst you canvalidate that so that I think
part of that was true, you alsosee the type of pressure that
they're under.
And the time, they're somebodywho has to do, I don't know, 17
surveys in a week.
Their boss is on their back thewhole time because they're like,
you need to get these surveysdone.
Customer's been waiting threeweeks for this.
They've got shipping port.
It's, costing loads of money andto get on there.
(09:21):
And then you start thinking,okay, if they perceive what you
are being asked to do in a newway, in the consultative way as
taking more time, being morecomplicated, et cetera, they're
less likely to do it.
Yeah.
In designing solutions for that,we needed to design a, an
experience to shift theirmindset, which is you're not
just there to take, to basicallyaudit the ship, make sure it
(09:42):
doesn't sink.
You are also there as a, as thefrontline, almost sales person
who can give a potential client.
Better advice, not technicallyadvice, but more more
opportunities to solve theproblems that they have.
Because if you go on the shipand go, you can't, there's a
massive hold in the ship.
You can't do anything or goanywhere.
Sorry.
It's different to being saying Iactually know somebody in my
(10:03):
business who could help you withthat.
Or I know a supplier that islocal that can have, it's more
of that that partnership typeapproach that we were going for.
Yeah, I think it's, I thinkit's.
Clear problem solving focus andtaking the stakeholders on the
journey where you're essentiallychallenging them to say, look,
if you can't prove this is aproblem,'cause you've got data
that says it is, then why areyou wasting our time asking us
(10:25):
to do a load of stuff?
Chris Hudson (10:27):
Yeah, fair enough.
Good to have an honestconversation from time to time.
Yeah.
And those things do come up, butyeah, the root causes, when you
reveal them, they can oftenimplicate leadership and, some
of the systems, some of thesacred cows that do exist within
those organizations.
Yeah.
How are you finding, what's yourmethod be a personal through
your company that you find ishelpful when it comes to getting
(10:47):
organizations to face up to someof those uncomfortable truths?
Charlie (10:50):
Yeah, my old boss used to say, never be afraid to be
fired.
So that's one thing
Chris Hudson (10:55):
you started
Charlie (10:55):
just yeah, exactly.
I mean there's a recent example,so we do a lot of work with
Heathrow Airport.
Yeah, and I won't say which teamit was, but we did some research
basically we came back and said,your baby is ugly.
And it did cause some issues.
I think I.
The reason for that was partlybecause, little things like we
didn't play back the research inperson, so we couldn't, massage
(11:17):
the conversation in a way thatmade everyone feel comfortable.
We didn't necessarily set thecontext that we may come back to
you and say.
There are big problems here.
We focus on problems because wewanna improve stuff.
If we are focusing on the goodstuff.
As much as it would be good foryour egos, it's actually not
what we're here to do.
So there's little things likethat, like setting the
expectations around what you arethere to do and how the
(11:38):
likelihood you're gonna findstuff like that.
And, but yeah, but I've been inseveral conversations where I'll
play back some insight from theresearch.
The stakeholder will say, whosaid that?
And I'll say, I'm sorry.
I can't tell you.
That's the reality.
You just have to fake.
You have to suck it up.
You're also not, you are notsaying the bad stuff, right?
(11:59):
You are just playing back whatyou've heard.
So in that way, you're slightlyprotected.
And actually a lot of morebolder companies employ us
because they want an outside inview rather than an inside in
view, because you never reallyget the true.
The true picture if you're justreviewing or marking your own
homework, so to speak.
Chris Hudson (12:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
So there are there certainconversations that haven't ended
as well as that way where you'vethought this is how we need to
work, but if we can't work thatway we can't do it.
Is it
Charlie (12:27):
We have turned, we do turn down work.
If we can't do research, it's aprinciple of ours, which is if
you're not willing to.
To find oh one, we need to do itbecause if we're gonna design a
solution that works for you, weneed to understand the context
in the organization.
To, to the point that we can dosomething useful.
There's a lot, there are lotsand lots of companies out there
that basically have lots of offthe shelf courses and will do a
(12:49):
workshop and it'll be good.
But you'll not really get,you're not really getting to the
root of the problem.
You're trying to take a stickyplaster over the issues'cause as
our view.
So it's good for us to do thatresearch.
It's good for it's good for thembecause they get the data that
helps.
Validate assumptions or revealnew things that he didn't think
of, and also give him a pictureof, what there is what's going
(13:12):
on out there.
So I think, yeah, I think theshort story is that in order to.
Where it's not gone so well.
Or where we've decided not to dowork is generally speaking,
whether the client has beenresistant to the art concept of
even doing the researchinitially.
But, we also take on workperhaps we, we usually would say
no to, but we just make surethat we do some kind of
(13:35):
research.
Anything is better than nothing.
So even if it's a day shadowingsomeone that's better than
nothing, gives us some idea.
So yeah that's probably the mainprinciple that we follow on, on,
on that front.
I'm trying to think of anexample of where it's gone
terribly wrong.
The worst.
A common thing that happens withthe research is we play back the
data and the stakeholder goes,we already knew that.
(13:57):
So what's the value of you?
You spending 10 days on sitewhen we already knew all this?
And that's the, that's when theconversation goes well, this
isn't just about the process ofplaying back data.
It's providing you the data.
So you're making good decisionsbased on data rather than on
assumptions and intuition.
It's engaging the populationthat you're trying to target in
(14:18):
an honest conversation aboutwhat their experience is.
And you're engaging enoughpeople that it's a kind of
critical mass.
So essentially it's PR for yourprogram to actually listen to
people and talk to them.
Yeah.
And.
Yeah, and more broadly, it givesyou, it is much more specific
and it stops you getting to aconversation later on where
(14:38):
you've basically got astakeholder looking at your
solution design and going, Ithink it should be like this.
And you're saying, yeah, but wethink it should be like this.
Yeah, I'm paying you so you dowhat I say.
Whereas if we can go, but theresearch is telling us that this
is the way it should be, it's amuch easier conversation to
have.
Although I have been in aworkshop where, a client was
(14:59):
basically arguing with a memberof the target audience who was
in the room at the time sayingthat this isn't how it is.
It's like this.
So some clients are literally sofocused on what they want, that
they'll just kind of pushthrough regardless of what the
data's telling them.
this isn't just about theprocess of playing back data.
It's providing you the data.
(15:19):
So you're making good decisionsbased on data rather than on
assumptions and intuition.
It's engaging the populationthat you're trying to target in
an honest conversation aboutwhat their experience is.
And you're engaging enoughpeople that it's a kind of
critical mass.
So essentially it's PR for yourprogram to actually listen to
people and talk to them.
Yeah.
And.
Yeah, and I think in like morebroadly, it gives you, it is
(15:42):
much more specific and it stopsyou getting to a conversation
later on where you've basicallygot a stakeholder looking at
your solution design and going Ithink it should be like this.
And you're saying, yeah, but wethink it should be like this.
Yeah, I'm paying you so you dowhat I say.
Whereas if we can go, but theresearch is telling us that this
is the way it should be, it's amuch easier conversation to
(16:02):
have.
So some clients are literally sofocused on what they want, that
they'll just push throughregardless of what the data's
telling them.
But that's really rare.
Chris Hudson (16:12):
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, it sounds there aredifferent people to convince
along the journey a little bit.
You might have somebody up frontin the leadership that is, is
like the project sponsor whowould be, defending the
methodology a little bit.
But it sounds like you're,you're always gonna have to
convince other people rightthrough the process.
So when are the sort of bigmoments of truth, one of the big
(16:32):
epiphanies happening throughyour process as you see it and
what's working well?
Charlie (16:36):
Sometimes the epiphany only happens at the very end.
We did a big piece of work withone of the big four professional
services firms, and at thebeginning of the project we
introduced who we were.
We showed you the process.
We came up with some, we wentthrough a few workshops of
ideation and stuff like that.
And at the end of that, one ofthe kind of key sponsors
basically said, I didn't get it.
I think we should just do whatwe did last year.
(16:57):
And.
Then we did the thing we pushedthrough, we got some support
elsewhere from a ex-colleague ofmine.
And we went through that processand by the end we launched the
thing.
It was a massive success andeveryone was scrambling to take
credit.
You know everyone.
Yeah.
One of the main blockers of thatprogram ended up coming to the
awards ceremony with us andbringing her son with them.
(17:19):
It was it was an interestingproject in particular because of
the shift in kind of mindset,but also the behavior of people
afterwards I think was quiteinteresting too.
Chris Hudson (17:28):
Alright.
Where to next?
Yeah, maybe also the start ofthe process.
You find yourself having to,convince people that it's a good
idea and you are, you're like.
You're maybe talking a bit aboutsome of the signals that people
are seeing, like when they, whenyou're trying to get them to
understand the problem spacethat they're maybe seeing or
maybe not seeing.
So when you have some hunchesabout what's going wrong with
(17:51):
the culture of learning and howit's all running, like what are
some of those signals as you seethem that usually pop up?
Charlie (17:58):
So the people that will re really want to work with us
are people that want to dosomething differently.
Yeah, we've talked a little bitabout the way that school works
and the way l and d sort ofcopies that model.
Yeah.
The complaints we often see iswe feel like order takers, no
one listens to us.
We don't have a seat at thetable.
Those are like the maincomplaints from learning
development that we see becausethey basically just get.
(18:19):
Inundated, they're alwaysstretched.
They don't really feel likethey're doing anything
worthwhile'cause they're justchurning out e-learning and
whatnot.
The other thing they have, theystruggle, really struggle with
is engagement.
People canceling last minute ornot turning up or not doing
their compliance training orwhatever.
So generally speaking, it's apretty miserable existence
working in learning development.
(18:40):
If all you're doing really ischurning out content, that is
fundamentally, again, comingback to my earlier point about
the way that the human brainworks, because the model is
based on, again, brokenpsychology which is the kind of
split between, again, this isone of those, common errors
about how we think about thehuman brain, which is like
there's a separation betweenyour emotional brain and your
(19:03):
rational brain is, but it goesall the way back to Plato and
Aristotle, that there's a, somekind of separation that makes us
different.
But actually, there is noemotional brain and rational
brain.
You have a brain, which isinterconnected and a lot, and
has a book called Help HowPeople Learn by Nick Shackleton
Jones, who was my boss when Iwas working at BP in house.
Which kind of goes into this ina lot of detail, but, and the
(19:25):
upshot of that is everything youdo is emotional.
And then we play the rational ontop of it.
And there's books by people likeJonah Lero.
Talk about that unconsciousbrain and how it's actually made
the decision before yourationally realize you've made
it.
Yeah.
So yeah, you can gophilosophical on that, down to
the point is there is no freewill.
Yeah.
(19:46):
I don't wanna go into to loadsof that, but fundamentally the
challenges that people face areif they're churning out content
because they've got this ideathat learning is about putting
content in front of people.
There's an assimilation ofinformation, then magic happens.
They go back to their workday,their workflow, and they
(20:08):
remember that content orinformation they've seen and
they apply that content andinformation that they've seen.
That model doesn't work becauseof reasons we discussed.
Like other things happen whenthey're at work.
That mean they don't do whatthey're supposed to do.
They do other things.
So I would say, learningdevelopment, suffer.
(20:28):
From this erroneous view of howthe brain works organizations
suffer because they spend lotsand in some cases they spend
lots and lots of money on thisstuff.
But even if they're not spendinglots and lots of money on it
they want people to get betterat what they do.
They want to train and developtheir graduate population, or
they want people to becomereally, good at applying AI in
(20:50):
their jobs so they can be moreproductive.
Things in organizations have tochange to meet the market
trends, to meet changes in ourtechnology usage and things like
this.
L and d is a fundamental way ofallowing people to do that.
But l and d has traditionallybeen focused more on content and
knowledge and less onapplication behavior change than
(21:11):
it should have been.
So that's the shift that I thinkeveryone needs to go through if
you're working in this space.
Chris Hudson (21:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It makes sense.
So outside of l and d who isbest to activate outside of l
and d to make that sort ofchange possible within an
organization, do you think?
Or who are the allies?
Charlie (21:30):
Things we, I start with, there's people that aren't
allies.
Brand and comms.
Brand and comms, because it'ssimilar.
And because, as an example, whenwe're.
Design deploying a thing for anL and D context, a lot of it
comes down to what does it lookand feel like?
How are you communicating it?
And because it overlaps withsome of the comms and the brand
(21:52):
stuff it can do quite prickly.
So advice there is make sure youmake friends with them up front
and you explain how what you'redoing is different and how it
needs to look and feeldifferent, et cetera.
To the usual, this is why I wastalk, talking about.
My lovely wife and her kind ofbrand alignment and my lack of
brand alignment.
Chris Hudson (22:10):
Is that clash because of, the role of brand
within the organization?
The EVP, the employeeexperience, or the kind of
perceived, the perceived way inwhich the work should happen
within the organization is asit's, yeah.
That way.
That was more of the
Charlie (22:26):
format, but it's a little bit of both because it's
what is brand?
Is brand a, is brand a tagline?
Is brand the way something looksand feels?
Is it what we're talking about?
Is it tone?
Is it, because actually you, youcould argue that brand is also
kind of ways of working andattitudes and mindsets in some
ways internally.
I think that it depends on howenergetic brand is to be able to
(22:51):
take on that kind of discussion.
But so we've run, again, we've,worked with clients where.
We haven't done the work upfront to engage the brand and
comms team, and then they pop upone day before we've got a shoot
planned to say, we don't likethe person you've got front of
camera, so we think you shouldcancel the shoot.
We're like we spent best part ofa hundred grand on this, so
(23:12):
we're not gonna do that.
But, why didn't you tell us?
Why didn't you say this back inNovember?
A year ago when we introducedthe concept?
Yeah, it can get quite prickly.
The allies actually tend to bethe people on the front line.
The people are actually doingthe job, not the people, quote
unquote trying to enable them todo their job.
If you spend time with andengineers on the front line that
(23:34):
are trying to do something, andyou go and listen to what
they've got to say, and youidentify their problems, and you
ask them, how, who do they knowwho's solving this problem?
What could we do to support you,et cetera.
Then they're generally verysupportive of the activity.
If a little bit cynical, becauseI think there's a lot of.
A lot of projects that kindastart up, go through that
(23:55):
process and then nothing reallyhappens with it.
Nothing really happens with thedata.
So yeah, so really the frontline is the main bastion of good
practice, I think, in thisstuff.
'cause they just wanna do theirjob faster and better.
And if you can support'em to dothat, then they usually have is
open to it.
Chris Hudson (24:11):
Yeah.
All right.
What about change readiness,like in terms of organizations'
readiness to change and.
Now, what are the conditions orthe right conditions for that
being possible, would you feel?
Charlie (24:22):
A burning platform helps.
So if there's something yeah.
Really going wrong thengenerally speaking,
organizations are willing tochange.
The, there's all these tropes atthe moment, change is
inevitable.
Everything's changing all thetime.
I don't know the thing that gotus.
The thing that's fundamentallychanged, things like the fact
that I can work from home mostof the time and see my kids way
(24:46):
more and not have to commute twohours each way every day was
coded.
That has nothing to do with,Microsoft or Zoom, being
effective as a technologycompanies it's not really
anything to do with companiesreally.
Making a decision on front.
I think a lot of it's without,outside of people's control,
it's market conditions.
(25:06):
It's, sometimes you can get,CEOs that have a really strong
vision that could drive anorganization in one way.
Because if anyone's gonna hop toit when somebody says something,
it's a CEO e.
And we have lots ofconversations where people ask
us to do work because the CEO'smentioned like one sentence of a
comment in a.
(25:27):
In a senior meeting, everyonegoes, oh my God, we must
immediately do this because Yep.
That Bob's decided it is a goodidea.
He is been to a conference andhe thinks we need a skills
platform now.
So I think it's yeah, Bob orJill, I dunno.
So I think change readiness isan interesting one.
I think it's about culture and Ithink it's about I think it's
(25:47):
the story people tellthemselves, really.
I.
Change.
Fatigue is something that comesup quite a lot.
People are really bored change.
It's that's life.
Unfortunately.
Things change.
Businesses change.
The work, the market's changing,the world's changing faster than
ever.
It's just what you have to suckit up.
I dunno, maybe I'm maybe I'mbeing unempathetic, but I think
(26:08):
change readiness is about howwilling.
How willing are the people atthe top and also what is the
culture like in terms of beingwilling to try new things?
Yeah, and adapt quickly.
And I think the companies that,ultimately the companies that do
best are ones that are, thathave that kind of baked into
their culture and are willing toevolve all the time.
Chris Hudson (26:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Is there a thing around metricsas well?
Sometimes if you're talking inthe language of product and
that.
Then now you can run multipleversions of something.
You can obviously set very clearmetrics and report on that and
measure that.
Is that discussion becoming veryreal for you as well in the way
that you're setting things up?
You need to run lots of ones orcan you just go with one, see
(26:50):
how it goes, then it's Right.
You know what are the dynamicsof the project and the rollout
usually?
Charlie (26:55):
Yeah.
So it's a tricky one because thedata that we end up playing
with.
Depending on the type of workwe're doing often it's like HR
data, which is generally a bitnaff anyway.
It's things like pulse surveys,which is like once every six
months they ask you, are youhappy and do you like your boss
kind of thing.
So that's data we've used in thepast for things like Heathrow,
(27:16):
when we did the leadershipprogram for them to say, the
main scores they were looking atwere engagement and inclusion
and diversity and, trust inleadership.
So those are the focuses,focuses for us.
And you can really see the shiftover time over sort of six to 12
months.
You can see a shift there.
The stuff that's easier tomeasure, stuff like sales.
(27:37):
So we do a bit of salesenablement now, which we know
we've done before, but it's asense of where we are in the UK
and how the market is.
Chris Hudson (27:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Charlie (27:44):
That people are coming to us more and more asking for
sales.
Sales training essentially.
Yeah.
Which is easy to measure becauseyou can you can just see, I'll
be selling more stuff.
That's and you can track it atan individual basis'cause they
all have to report on that.
So it's, it depends on theproject, depends on the type of
work that we're doing.
As to what med metrics we'relooking at there's the obvious
(28:04):
stuff, which is essentially NPS.
For the programs that you'rerunning, would you recommend it
to a friend type stuff?
But yeah, the really juicy ROIdata is takes a little bit
longer or it's a longer checktrain to get to.
But the way we generally willlook at it is we measure before
and after against a controlgroup.
(28:25):
When essentially you wanna piloteverything before you roll out
fully, because you need to testhow it works in the real world
and with the real people thatyou wanna help.
So if we generally will do thatwe'll do a do some measurement
at the beginning.
We'll do some measurement at theend.
We'll keep the groups relativelysmall.
We'll ask lots of follow upquestions, but we'll make sure
we have a control group so wecan we can compare and contrast
(28:45):
to see whether the thing we aredoing is making the difference
to people.
Yeah, the example you can see onour website is a legal general
big insurance company here inthe uk.
Yeah.
We did that for an inclusiveleadership program and that's
the model we now use.
Chris Hudson (28:58):
Yeah.
Nice.
Yeah, I really like what you'resaying.
I think part of it feels like,whereas, companies almost think
about lots of different streamsof work happening at once.
And they're all running in theirown swim lanes and they're all
running in parallel.
But what you are saying is notthat l and d is that tack on,
swim lane on the side whereyou're dipping and out of it
when you need to learnsomething.
But actually it's, you'redesigning for a system of
(29:20):
learning within the organizationwithin the way in which you
work, when it works well.
And I, I really like the soundof that, but yeah, it sounds
like it would be hard for peopleto do.
Are you finding it hard?
Yeah.
Charlie (29:30):
I think that I think people are finding it hard
because there's a lot of peopletalking about it, or at least
in, in my network I thinkthere's very few people can
actually show that they're doingit properly or they're doing it,
doing a good job of it.
So it's a good yarn, I would saythat people tell about l and d
but then they find themselvesdoing e-learning courses anyway.
So I think the thing that'schanged a lot of what's changed,
(29:54):
how I approach.
The kind of performance end ofwhat we do and also the more
systemic end of what we do is Inow run my own business.
So I understand all the shitthat you have to do and all the
different pillars of business ingeneral.
And obviously it's a smallcompany and compared to a large
one, you understand thedifferent.
Angles and ends to, runningbusiness and what you have to
(30:16):
consider in it, which I thinkhas given me a more holistic and
probably a more effectivemindset in terms of how we, how
we make the change to thebusiness and what changes to
things like all organizationalstructure can do to how people
behave and how people work.
So I think it's been quitehelpful to to be doing that as
(30:37):
well as doing the work that wedo.
Yeah, I think it is, it's hard,but I think there's enough,
there's enough evidence and, adecent number of books, a
general understanding of humanbehavior now that perhaps I
wasn't 10 years ago.
That give, that makes theargument easier to make.
And also it guess massivelydepends on the organization, but
(30:58):
there are plenty of people insay, engineering that understand
things like design thinking.
So it's easy enough to.
Talk to'em in that language andget a response that, that makes
your life easier.
So yeah, I think it's thehardest bit is probably just the
fact that you're basicallytelling people what you've been
doing for the last 50 years iswrong and you need to be doing
(31:19):
something differently.
Whereas there are cases fordoing e-learning.
If you're doing a compliancetraining, you need to tick a
box.
But it's understanding thatyou're doing that, not because
you're actually trying to trainpeople, get them better at what
they do.
You're doing it because you needto satisfy the regulator, which
is a different problem to solve.
But in that case, it might aswell just be one page of all the
information where you tick a boxat the end, you're compliant
(31:41):
people, you've delivered theinformation, right?
So I think it's just beinghonest about, what are we doing?
Why are we doing this?
Those kind of things.
Chris Hudson (31:49):
Yeah, for sure.
The, a company's purpose isobviously, one thing and then
you're thinking about, who'sactually behind that and who's
driving the company or theorganization.
And, in, in the language ofattraction and retention and.
You're talking about realpeople, and it's not just
compliance training, as you say,it's like you have to motivate
them on a deeper level.
Companies that are very obsessedwith, very regularly or,
(32:09):
semi-regularly anyway, changingthe perks and the benefits and
just coming up with the newversion of the fruit and the
yoga or whatever it is, it isjust.
An illustrative thing in thewrong direction perhaps.
And some of those real issuescould be a lot deeper where,
what they're really missing isthat, to be able to retain their
best people.
They're having to, they fundingto fundamentally change how
their operating model works withlearning at its core for that
(32:30):
talent to remain loyal in somesort of way.
Yeah.
That's it.
Charlie (32:34):
Learning is a kind of a, yeah.
Learning is a, is part of theexperience of work.
So at, the most basic level, youcan also just think about it as
part of what a company does todemonstrate they're investing in
you and giving you an experiencethat you might not have had
elsewhere.
But in that case, again, youcould just stick 500 quid behind
the bar and, let people have afew beers or soft drinks with
(32:57):
their friends.
Again, it's just being reallyclear about what you're trying
to solve, what problem you're,you're trying to get at, and.
Being unegotistical about whatthe solution might be.
Yeah.
But as you say, you, thingslike, I wouldn't underestimate
the yoghurt and yoga'cause thatcan be, that's part of the
experience in the EVP.
And so I think some of thosehygiene factors are quite handy.
(33:19):
But again, I think it's just theother thing I would say about
more traditional and moreconventional approaches to
learning.
And I think probably more youcould apply this more broader
than this as well.
I think people just really tryto simplify the world into a
cause and effect.
So if, and if you think aboutthe world.
Business as cause and effect.
(33:40):
On a very simple level, what youget is people doing activities
to change one particular thingwithout really thinking about
the bigger picture and howcomplex these things are and how
complex people are.
So I think what we are trying todo is take a broader, more
complex view of how these thingscan really be solved long term.
Yeah.
(34:00):
And I think that's somethingthat.
We've not, human humanity is notme particularly good at in the
last however many years becauseit's cause of how it thinks
about the brain, how it thinksabout people, how it thinks
about business, really how itthinks about society.
So yeah, I don't need it toophilosophical.
'Cause I always, there's alwaysa risk of that.
But yeah, I think it's, I thinkit's just being more open about
(34:21):
the complexity of what it isyou're trying to do in
businesses.
Chris Hudson (34:24):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we have a lot ofentrepreneurs listening to the
show and they, the people thatare trying to drive change from
within their organizations aswell, have you got any advice
for them in terms of how totackle l and d transformation?
If you don't have the CEO's ear,but you can see some of these
systemic issues are there, butit feels like they're so deeply
ingrained a lot of the time thatpeople wouldn't know where to
(34:44):
start and they wouldn't take onchanging the whole l and d
platform just overnight becausethey wouldn't do that.
Yeah.
Where should people start toinitiate some of the positive
change that you've beendescribing?
Good question.
So
Charlie (34:55):
there's probably two things.
One, we have a toolkit on ourwebsite.
So this solve Together Withoutan e.com.
You'll find a toolkit where you,when you click on How we Work,
so you can download some of theresources we've got on there.
Quite helpful.
But more fundamentally, I thinkpeople are used to, especially
in l and d, are used tobeavering away producing
training behind their laptops,not really talking to anyone.
(35:19):
So the number one thing is beproactive.
If you don't know what thebusiness strategy is and you
don't know what all yourindividual departments business
strategy is.
How are you gonna help themachieve their business strategy?
And often these companies don'teven have business strategies at
a department level.
They just have the main one,which is slightly ethereal,
which this yeah.
The exec team have come up toand off site, and they're like,
(35:41):
wait, here's a strategy for thenext three years.
Go and do that.
And everyone's just scratchingtheir heads like what do you
actually mean?
So I think it.
Looking at the strategy and thenengaging the senior bots to
really understand what it meanspractically and often they
haven't really thought about it.
So you can help them throughthat process.
And then it's looking at thekind of department level as
well.
So what are your, how is yourstrategy for your department
linked to that bigger strategy?
(36:04):
And helping them think throughpractically what it actually
means.
'cause I think these things,again, are so wishy-washy a lot
of the time.
So funda fundamentallyunderstand the business that
you're trying to support.
That's the first thing.
Once you've done that,identifying, let's say the top
three problems that thedifferent, either the company,
if you're going that level orthe, specific department has and
(36:26):
then going and solving thoseproblems.
So being able to play back whatthe, say top three problems are,
and also how those problems areshowing up in the business, as
as output.
So data essentially.
So you know when you're askingwhat is your strategy, what's
getting in the way of yourstrategy.
How do you know that's gettingin the way of your strategy?
(36:47):
Those, that's the kind ofbreadcrumbs to follow.
And then you end up withessentially three problems per
department, or what threeproblems per, organization that
if you could go to the CEO andsay, this is one of your biggest
problems and we've been able tosolve it and we can prove it
because we've got the data toshow you.
Then you start becoming ordertakers basically, and you start
(37:08):
becoming a genuine competitiveadvantage to your organization.
And when the time comes to cutall the budgets because the
market's crap you've gotsomething to to fall back on and
say, look, we're we're not the land d team anymore.
We are the productivity andperformance team or something
like that.
And a lot of the quote unquotethought leaders in the UK anyway
(37:29):
at the moment are talking aboutmaybe we need a rebrand of l and
d and all this kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you know that there is an argument to also say,
maybe think about repositioning.
What you are talking about.
If you start talking aboutlearning and you don't have the
time to take people on thejourney with you, people
automatically fall intodelivering some training
(37:49):
content.
Whereas if you talk aboutbusiness performance and
productivity, which I think ison the lips of everyone who's
struggling to figure out how togrow, and in the environment
where AI is taking overeverything that I think, it's a
good, it's a good time toreposition what you're doing
into more of a performance lens.
Chris Hudson (38:06):
Nice.
Nice.
Yeah, I really like that.
And I you, the next question Iwas gonna ask you is about what
leaders should be asking abouttheir l and d strategy.
And it probably is along thoselines, right?
It's gonna be around, businessperformance, productivity, is it
working, basically?
Charlie (38:20):
Yeah.
Chris Hudson (38:20):
Yeah.
This is overlooked.
It sounds obvious, but it'soften overlooked, right?
Charlie (38:24):
Yeah.
And often people go through themotions of doing learning
development because.
It's intuitively the right thingto do.
But again, I just think it'stime that l and d stops stops
highly behind the kinda schooland university.
It's a good idea to do learningtype thing and actually start
thinking properly about what isthe.
Value of what we do.
Like how will we actuallyhelping this business improve
(38:47):
beyond people going on a niceoffsite for two weeks and having
a nice hotel and doing somenetworking.
So yeah, it's back to justgetting up every morning and
feel like you actually are outthere to make a difference and
help people and help yourbusiness get better.
Rather than just thinking yourjob is to do some content and
force some information topeople's heads.
Chris Hudson (39:08):
Yeah.
It's a hard one to rewire inpeople's heads, I think, because
it feels like another task ontop of their day job that they
have to learn something.
But what they're not realizingis that by doing the work, they
are learning something.
The experience of learning.
It's just not, a separate thingon the side.
They're gonna try and squeeze inthe last 10 minutes of their
lunch break.
Yeah.
Smash out their compliancetraining.
(39:30):
It's gonna, yeah.
It's gotta be something theytake into their work and their
mindset every day.
Charlie (39:33):
They will thank you though, because they don't wanna
spend, most people are underpressure to deliver.
They're not under pressure tolearn.
So that's another big challengewe see is l and d complaining
that no one's got time to do thecourse or whatever.
And they talk about learningculture.
We don't have a learning culture'cause people don't wanna sign
up to my course.
And the reason they don't wannasign up to you'cause they're too
(39:54):
busy doing actual work.
In some ways learning the bestlearning is invisible.
People don't even notice thatit's there, but it's driving the
performance or the behavior inthe way that you want it to be
driven.
An example of that was so he, asyou can imagine, in airports the
biggest population is security.
And they're not allowed anythingon them.
When they're in the securityzone because it's a highly
(40:16):
secure environment.
So they don't have, they havephones on them.
They don't have any pictures onthe wall.
They, yeah, they have nothing.
So you can obviously take themout of that environment, stick
'em in a classroom and talk atthem and tell'em how you should
do stuff.
But actually, one way we'vefigured out to, to engage that
part of the organization isspending time with them.
We noticed that they werecarrying.
(40:38):
They had lanyards on them andthey had badges on their
lanyards from stuff they wereproud of.
And they also had little cheatsheets and things in their
lanyards where they had theircards.
So we designed some resourcesand some nudges to sit, on their
lanyards and in their lanyardsas a way of getting to those
people.
It's like a channel essentially.
So yeah, I think it's, again, itjust comes back to understanding
(41:01):
the environment and how you canmeet people in the right
direction.
But you need to really, you needto be there to understand, but
that's the kind of thing thatyou can and then again,
behavioral science, but you canbasically nudge behavior in the
right way if you use theenvironment, environmental cues
to do that.
So yeah, it's a rich, it's arich broad.
Opportunity, I think for peoplethat are willing to take on a
(41:23):
new way of thinking, a new wayof working.
So it's quite exciting becauseyou go from somebody who's just
turning out courses to somebodywho's actually thinking about
the business and thinking aboutpeople's context and environment
more than I suppose just goingthrough the motions of doing
essentially a curriculum oflearning like school or
university.
Chris Hudson (41:40):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I like that.
The behavioral nudges that, youare running it like a product,
like you were saying right atthe start.
You all the behavioral nudges,all of the Yeah.
All the cues that you're lookingfor that change of behavior in
one way or another.
Interested in a final questionmaybe, which is just around
personalization and where yousee it working well.
Because you can obviouslyobserve an audience in that
(42:01):
example there with the securityguards, but have you seen it
work at a larger scale as wellwhere you've designed in edges
that work at that level too?
Yeah,
Charlie (42:09):
Personalization, so an example of that is actually the
same client, we had to do, itwas a population of two and a
half thousand people, and someof them had been at the company
for 10 years and some of'em hadbeen at six months.
And the client wanted to putthem through the same
experience.
Chris Hudson (42:27):
Yeah.
Charlie (42:27):
And you're like, okay, how's that even gonna work?
Because if you've been at theorganization 10 years in a role
versus six months, your wholeframe of reference is totally
different.
So the way we did that wasessentially just do a design, a
choose your own adventure.
Where we went, we did theresearch we understood what were
there.
Say top, I think ended up beingseven.
Conversations that people werestruggling with most in their
(42:50):
day-to-day work.
And then we laid that out forthem and said, which ones do you
wanna do?
Does that know now's your time,now's your chance to get better.
You tell us what's theexperience you want or what's
the what's the thing you'restruggling with most?
So I think scalability andpersonalization is a real
challenge, particularly atorganizational level because
often the goal is scale.
(43:11):
And the way we get round thatreally is by designing lots of
things and then that allowingpeople to choose what works best
for them.
Make sure that what you'reproviding them is specific
enough to them that they can getsome value out of it.
So the very least, what we'reproviding people is a useful
opportunity to practicesomething or a useful resource
to allow them to do somethingdifferently.
Chris Hudson (43:31):
Great.
Charlie, thanks so much.
I really enjoyed the chat withyou today.
And you've really lifted thehood and I think a lot of people
over here in this part of theworld will definitely benefit
from, listening to what you'resaying.
Because it's always so siloed,right?
It feels like a lot of thesechallenges are not shared
challenges almost.
They might be seen by someleaders, but not by others, or
it feels like it.
It's definitely the place inwhich a lot of positive change
(43:53):
could happen withinorganizations.
Yeah, appreciate sharing yourwisdom today.
So thank you.
And where can people find outabout you and learn more about
the work that you're doing atSolvd Together?
Charlie (44:00):
So solve S-O-L-V-D together.com.
You can also follow us onLinkedIn, obviously.
And my name Charlie Kneen.
I'm on LinkedIn as well, so youare welcome to follow me and
connect.
We are.
Looking like we're gonna be inAustralia in a few months anyway
after the summer.
So potentially if if we're overthere at the same time, and if
(44:21):
there's anyone that wants tomeet up for a coffee and discuss
more of this in detail, I'llprobably be be on the East
coast.
Chris Hudson (44:29):
Good stuff.
Sounds good.
Thanks so much
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Charlie is America's hardest working grassroots activist who has your inside scoop on the biggest news of the day and what's really going on behind the headlines. The founder of Turning Point USA and one of social media's most engaged personalities, Charlie is on the front lines of America’s culture war, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of students on over 3,500 college and high school campuses across the country, bringing you your daily dose of clarity in a sea of chaos all from his signature no-holds-barred, unapologetically conservative, freedom-loving point of view. You can also watch Charlie Kirk on Salem News Channel