Why Performance Must Be the North Star of L&D

Introduction

Nolan: Welcome to the Learning and Development podcast sponsored by Infopro Learning. I’m your host, Nolan Hout, and joining me today is Theresa Zeller. Theresa has spent over 35 years in the learning and development space, much of that in various roles at Merck, where she most recently served as the global head of learning and creation before officially retiring to pursue other passion projects.

Today, we’re going to discuss how we help people perform at their best, because, after all, that’s the primary intent of what we do in learning and development. I’m excited to start this podcast off today. So, with that, let’s meet our guest, Theresa. Welcome to the podcast.

Theresa: Thanks, Nolan. Great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Theresa’s Journey in L&D

Nolan: I feel honored to have you here. I feel we’ve crossed paths at a thousand different conferences, a thousand different times. So glad we officially got the chance to meet. Before we begin discussing the topic at hand, which is how we can help people perform at their best, let’s first consider the following: I want to start by telling you a little bit about myself. You’ve had a very long and successful career. Where did it all start? Mean, did you always start? Did you always know this was the field you wanted to be in, and you just kept at it? You had an ambition to hold a CLO-type role at Merck; how did it begin?

Theresa: Great question. Interestingly, it began the last semester of my senior year in college. So, I was an industrial-organizational psychology major, honestly, ready to graduate, and had no idea what I was going to do. In my last semester, I took a course called Training in Business, and it just all clicked. I also had a communication minor. Everything just came together, and what it spurred in me was a passion for helping people do something better, perform better, achieve their goals, and reach their business objectives. I loved it so much. I stayed on.

I conducted research with the professor and co-taught his class with him. And then, I went to grad school for learning and development. And so, I’m probably one of the few people that I know who have stayed in the same career for my entire career, now close to 40 years.

The Evolution of Learning and Development

Nolan: Well what’s fascinating is I remember when I got into this space about 13 years ago in marketing, we started producing a lot of content on corporate training, this and the other, and we’d have these institutions come to us and be USC, I remember was one, hey, we’re having a post-grad on instructional design, and so we started looking.

It’s not, I mean, 15 years ago, there weren’t that many of those out there. So, I doubt it, and when you went, which was a bit earlier than that as well. I mean, you must have been in a pioneering field, it seems, at that time.

Theresa: It was. I had to take several courses outside of the School of Education, the School of Psychology, the School of Business, and the School of Communication. However, it was located at the University of Maryland, where the master’s program was situated. And I will tell you, it was a pretty new field. And one that I still think is yet for folks broadly to see the value in learning and development. And I think it’s still evolving to where we’re getting set up to show where we can add the most value, if you will, in organizations.

Unlocking Performance—Person to Organization

Nolan: So, let’s talk a little bit about that. So, you mentioned that; let’s elaborate on that. We’re saying now more than ever that we can make a significant impact on an individual’s performance, which in turn affects the organization’s performance. Could you tell us a little bit about how you envision that and why now is the right time?

Theresa: I think now’s the time because I’ve been heralding this for a couple of years now, and I think we’re finally seeing AI coming in enough into the space that I think you’re starting to see that truly the half-life of skills is at best three years now. When I came into the space, you would teach folks a skill, and they’d do that for a good 10 to 15 years. They’d grow and enhance, and they’d become more, but essentially, they just kept improving at a similar skill. And now we’re seeing that to be successful, to have a successful career, and to survive, individuals need to reinvent and reskill themselves on much shorter timelines.

And to do that, you need learning and development to help guide them on how to do it effectively. A great analogy is you can’t be a professional athlete and pick up a book on running. You’re not going to win the Olympics by reading a book. You have to practice. You need a coach. Some things go into skill enhancement, and there’s real science behind it that I think we often undervalue, which is what you’re so true. And I was talking to somebody, so I grew up in a very sports-heavy family. And so, you would think, I’m the dad on the sideline who’s yelling at the rest or with the coach. And I couldn’t be further from the truth or further from that person. And I was saying, unfortunately, there’s a lot of, so I’ll take my son to flag football. Many football coaches lack an understanding of the game because they’ve never played it. Played football, and there’s a big difference between never having played it and trying to coach it based on what you see on TV. I feel that the same thing happens with learning. Well, I’ve taught a seminar, presented for an hour in front of my executive team, or helped our L&D leaders with various tasks. Yes, you have, but the difference is so wide. So, for whatever reason, we have these blinders on, but it’s funny; I was thinking that you undervalue the skill.

Theresa: I think you’re.

Nolan: So, as we have this coach, you said, and I agree, now is the time. You mentioned the half-life of skills and the need to help understand what those skills are. And I also think that the other part that makes L&D important, aside from having that knowledge of how to do it, is that L&D is in such a tough role where you touch every person in the organization. And think of that. Is the person. So, in today’s day, when we’re talking about skills, one of the big questions is how to take a marketer who’s good at this skill but may be looking to leave because they’re more interested in this role. How do we help with lateral transfers? How do we create a skills marketplace within a company? The head of marketing doesn’t know what ops does, doesn’t know what finance does.

Its L&D is essentially the central hub, the United Nations, which acts as a third party in this whole thing. That’s saying, let me help broaden our skill set overall and flatten this organization so that as everybody advances, the value of the organization goes up because we’re now all pooling our resources. Still, our investment in these resources has gone up.

The Role of L&D in Organizational Performance

Theresa: I agree, it’s interesting because I think every company I’ve been in, or every company I’ve worked with or had conversations with peers, you always hear that we value our people and our investment is in our people. And yet, let’s be clear, one of the first budgets that gets cut is learning development?

And sometimes the last dollar that gets sold out is to learn development. That’s not always the case, however. I have had some amazing sponsors, including business leaders who truly understood what you and I are talking about. To achieve what I need to, I must have people who are ready when I need them to be. And that’s a lot faster than they’re going to get there.

And so, to me, the key has always been that people can learn from online courses, from reading a book, from observation, and sheer determination. The question is, how long does that take? And instead, what a learning and development professional can do is help an organization to accelerate that time to competence, which, especially now, is going to be worth more than any of the investments that they will ever make.

And so, I think that’s the secret behind learning and development: the acceleration piece. There are numerous tools available to help people learn new things. The question is, how do you accelerate that performance so that you’re driving meaningful value in the organization much more quickly and significantly than your competitors?

Nolan: And to steal a quote that you said to me before this, and you mentioned it, traditionally, & L&D is getting the last dollar. What if instead you got to spend the first dollar? And the odd thing is that I think most executives agree, if you look at, obviously, they’re not saying it to say it. I think they do, when they have the time to sit down and think strategically. I think they do feel, yes, our people are our resource. And the better the people, the better the product. But then they look at it as a line item; I’m not sure. And so, they get caught up.

Defining Performance in Learning and Development

Nolan: I believe that helping the organization recognize the cultural shift is the most impactful thing you can do, because the dollar you spend will have the greatest impact, as it affects everyone. Now, to do that, though, we’re all talking about kind of ROI performance. How, and you’ve got 35, 36 years of experience in this. When you’re evaluating a training or development program, how do you define performance? What does performance mean?

Theresa: So, for me, performance, and I think. We can agree that most people would agree that performance is primarily about how effectively a person, system, process, or business outcome can be accomplished. And that’s measured against certain standards, such as speed, accuracy, efficiency, and quality, which are what the business is really looking for. What I think is interesting is that, oftentimes, and I think learning has been accused of this, learning has probably earned this reputation through the years in many cases.

Often, learning forgets that we’re in the performance business, not the learning business, if that’s what I mean. It starts with what’s the business outcome that we’re trying to achieve? What’s the business strategy? What’s the goal? What is the outcome? What’s the problem the business is trying to solve? And if we’re not shooting at that target and we’re looking at learning, I mean, learning is awesome. We should all be learners, always seeking to learn. But you may miss the target. And when you’re talking about investing and finding a return on investment, and you’re talking about performance that counts in the organization, you’re talking about performance that’s on target to a particular business strategy or a business goal.

Why L&D Needs a Clear Goal

Nolan: And I’ve made an analogy when you give directions? It’s well, if you don’t know where you’re going, how do you find the best way to get there? And if you say, ‘Meet me in Chicago,’ I’ll land in Chicago. It’s going to take me, actually, maybe 30 to 40 minutes to find where you are once I’ve arrived in Chicago.

But if I know to meet you at Wrigley Field, I’ve got a much better shot of hitting that goal than I’m trying to do. And I think that often, what we do is create this, knowing we need to go to Chicago, and that’s it. And then we collect performance along the way. After we went to Chicago, we’re now there. Now, how close did we get? How much time did it take? Versus understanding what it is that we set out to do here in the first place? And I think that, I was talking to a gentleman a couple month back, and I think that’s one of the big ways that L &D can stand to have a big transformation is for those people to lead that charge, to say, I’m not going to do this program if I don’t have an idea of what the impact’s going to be.

Theresa: Fully agree. And we’re not aligned on what that target is and how you’re going to measure that. And sometimes I think we make measurements so much harder on ourselves than we need to. And I’ve had the opportunity to work with some truly exceptional measurement and evaluation experts in the learning and development, as well as performance, spaces. Quite honestly, if you can use the same metrics that the business uses, all the better.

The more you can speak in the language of the business, the better. If, to use your analogy, we’re both talking about going to Chicago, the very first thing we’d better do is figure out what the shortest route is from here to Chicago.

Training Without Purpose Misses the Mark

Nolan: Or, see, I think that’s actually where the nuance lies. Because what are you hoping to get out of that route? Is it a sightseeing tour? The exact opposite, actually, and I reference this a lot. We were conducting a call center training for a large telecom provider, and we had asked them, ‘What performance do you want to see?’ And they’re well, we want them to get better. And we’re well, listen, getting better in a call center environment means a lot of things. You, let’s use Nordstrom or Zappos, where they will spend five hours on the phone with you. They will listen to your life story and share their own, because they want you to leave feeling heard and understood, rather than just an internet service provider. They want you to get off the phone.

They want you to solve it and move on to the next one. For one organization, talk time is not particularly important. For others, talk time becomes a valuable commodity. So, how are you supposed to create a training program that says, either get them off the phone or keep them on the phone, developer poor, make them feel special, or answer their question, but keep them moving? So that the overall purpose of the key is clear.

Theresa: It is. And that goes back to the core of business strategy. Is the business strategy costly? Its quality? It’s pricing, cost, but time, so it does go back to where they are leaning heavily on business? What they think their business value is.

Aligning Learning with Business Strategy

Nolan: And how do you interject yourself in that conversation? I’m sure you’ve had many times when you’ve tried and failed, but I’m also sure you’ve succeeded many times. What have you found to be most successful?

Theresa: I honestly think that business leaders, when I started, were not as focused on the importance of learning. I began at Merck in the commercial organization and then transitioned to the manufacturing organization, where I led manufacturing learning initiatives. And I’ll never forget; I felt I was in, in some ways, a whole different company, almost – the world was different. And what I appreciated was that I truly saw that business leaders, if they can solve a really important business problem for me, come on board. You are welcome. If you’re going to waste my time, I have a lot of problems to solve in a given day.

Honestly, I think that being part of the solution and being able to show up credibly to understand the business and the problem they’re trying to solve is crucial. And if it were a problem that I couldn’t help them solve, I would get out of the way. If it were a problem I could help them solve, I would be clear about how we could work together to solve it. And with that, I don’t think you have a problem getting us the proverbial seat at the table.

Nolan: You are seated at the table.

Theresa: I don’t because I think business leaders want to succeed, and they want their people to succeed. So, if you can help me do that, come on board. I think the challenge most L&D professionals face is that they try to develop learning solutions before understanding the business problem at hand.

Listening, but they’re not doing what you and I are talking about, which is understanding what you’re trying to achieve. Is that what you’re trying to achieve – a reputation for customer experience that you want to ensure you’re spending time on and having a conversation with the customer on the phone, or are you not that interested in customer experience? You want to solve the problem, and you want to solve as many problems in a day as you can. I think that becomes the key.

Nolan: Agree. I’m going to pause for just one second because my camera turned off.

Choosing Integrity Over Opportunity

Nolan: But what you’re saying, Theresa, makes a lot of sense. If the business values you, everything else is just salt; just be valuable to the business, and be valuable to the person. But something you said was interesting.

And I’m not sure if we’ve covered it, but I think I’ve heard somebody mention it before: what happens if you can’t add value? If you’re listening, this person’s telling me that they want this done. I don’t think that I’m the person to solve that problem. Is there an example that comes to mind, or something where you had to tell them, ‘I don’t think we’re the best company to solve this, or the best person to help you there’? I believe that’s a tough thing to do when someone reaches out for help.

Theresa: It’s really funny. I’m not thinking of a specific example, but I know we did it a lot. And I say a lot, because we receive numerous requests, our portfolio is extensive, and we receive new requests all the time. And sometimes things are just better served differently. And walking your client through.

Nolan: I’m a specific example, but I know we did it on a one-off.

Theresa: I can help you. I could build the program you’re asking for, but it’s going to cost X amount of money, and you won’t gain any incremental value compared to doing [blank]. Here’s why: more often than not, the issue was that the organization wasn’t ready for it. I can create the training, but if your process is currently lagging and not yet fully operational, I’ll have to redo it once the process is refined. That means retraining your people and repeating the work. Instead, let’s step back to the root cause and review the sequence. Sometimes it’s a sequencing issue—perhaps the culture isn’t there yet, or other foundational elements need to be in place. This is one of those recurring conversations I’ve found myself having often.

A lot of folks are honing in on, well, gosh, you don’t really need learning and development, you get AI because you can get content from anywhere. But AI isn’t going to tell you that the challenge you have now is actually cultural; it’s not a content challenge. So, you can learn all that information, complete 10 or 20 programs, but you won’t get any benefit from that because your issue is a little more deeply rooted than that.

Understanding Value in Training and Development

Theresa: Sometimes, it just takes working through what the sequence is and identifying the underlying root cause of a challenge or what will get in the way of success. And I think people can hear that because they don’t want to spend or waste dollars and time. When you consider taking a manufacturing shop floor operator offline, consider the associated costs. Or consider taking a sales representative out of the field. Or even more so, think about taking a researcher off the bench? That costs a lot of money. So, you’d better have an effective value add.

And I think if you could talk in those kinds of terms, I can do what you’re asking, but it’s not going to buy you anything. I think that’s a good insight for any profession, honestly, because in marketing, the big hang-up is that marketing generates all these leads and targets those people, but they don’t know it. The leads suck. They lack a genuine understanding of sales, and therefore, they’re just winging it. They’re not adding much value.

They’re just creating value for themselves. Understanding and being honest about the actual value I stand to bring to this person or organization is really important. And if there’s no value for the person and the organization, and you can’t clearly articulate what that is or how you’re going to help, then the reality is you probably won’t. I might’ve referenced this one time. We had a client who put out a bid, who was a client of ours.

Nolan: 10 hours of brand awareness training overview for the company. We aim to develop a best-in-class training program that showcases our company and its purpose, and explores each of our service lines and their respective aspects. I want to say that, and then at the end of the day, what we said is, ‘Listen, they ended up canceling the project, and we’re, but we knew ahead of time, because we said nobody has 10 hours to learn about the company.’

That’s just not where a head of sales, a head of customer service, or a head of marketing would say, ‘ Yes, take a day and a half of my people’s time to make them more interested in our company. ‘ But they wanted it so bad, because they wanted this great training program and the super high cost and know, visual, and so sometimes, and I have to, I’m saying this as if I haven’t done this as well. Sometimes my ego has gotten the best of me because I wanted to create a best-in-class program, but I thought Is this really what our company needs now?

The ROI Reality Check in L&D

Theresa: You are reminding me, just triggered an example in my head. If one of my former team members hears this podcast, we’ll get a chuckle. There was a program that was a heavily scientific endeavor, and it was a pet passion of this extremely brilliant person to have others learn this particular technique. And it was not a small program. It was approximately six modules long. The challenge was that there were probably only two or three other people in the entire organization who would ever need to learn this. The person traveled extensively and was in high demand as a small business owner. We could never get with her. It had been going on for two years, and we had completed one module.

We need to call it. This one’s dead on the table. We need to say no. And there was a critical issue with the client. I’m sure it is, but I think this person will learn more by doing alongside you than by taking six modules. And that’s a really good example of where ROI won’t pan out. And so, we did have that quite a bit because you have people that are super excited about what they’re doing, and they want to share it with others, and they’re confident that everybody else wants to have the same skill set that they have.

And I think that’s where probably my mantra always was, who’s the sponsor? Are you talking to the sponsor? Are you here in the middle of the organization? Are you talking high enough in the organization that the sponsor cares that this training happens for three people in the organization? If that sponsor tells me it’s a big deal, but this sponsor tells me it’s a big deal.

Nolan: It’s funny. For those who are now, it seems to be a significant focus of many webinars I’ve been asked to speak about, as well as podcasts and other speaking engagements, on how to work with vendors like ours. I think that’s kind of, I think people are a little bit more tuned to. And I, this is just a PSA? A public service announcement: if you don’t have a strong connection with the end stakeholder and then bring in another vendor, the distance between what the person needs and what gets developed can be significant, unless you put those two people together.

As you mentioned, if you, as L and D, are somewhat removed from the person who needs to complete the task and are not entirely sure, will it be delivered well? And then you don’t expose one other person down the street. I mean, this could be either Ellen, this could be externally or internally? Maybe you pass this over to an ID, and I barely understand it, but good luck. So, the closer you can get, the better. As a PSA, if you’re working with a vendor, you must bring them directly with you; otherwise, you’re even further from the solution.

Theresa: It’s true. Nolan, my team, and my last team, so I had many years where I was client-facing and interacting with the business. We spanned the entire enterprise and worked with all client-facing teams. And it’s a very similar situation to the one that you’re describing. If the performance consultant didn’t bring my team member into the conversation and is trying to translate everything they said, yes, they have to own the business relationship. Yes, they have to be the one who sorts out the business. Is this worth us spending time bringing somebody from my team in?

Once you decide that it is, you need to have that first-hand conversation because the person designing has to understand what you’re driving at, where the likely gaps are, and where the capability challenge is going to arise. And oftentimes, we had some challenge, I think, as you, trying to go through a little bit too much whispered on the lane.

Strategic Performance Needs AI + Human Oversight

Nolan: Wonderful. Wonderful. One of the topics you touched on in the last session that I want to explore today is AI, as it is a requirement for posting a podcast. How. One of the things you mentioned earlier, I believe, was that when leveraging AI, the human element becomes even more important because we’ve become so focused on doing this widget or that thing.

However, the ability to direct what needs to be done and assess its impact requires a human. I believe that’s what you had. Am I referencing that? We have that, which I believe is a very real example. And that way, in what other ways are you seeing AI change performance or maybe not change performance, but make us reevaluate our role in that or maybe even how is AI helping us do that better?

Theresa: So, I think there are two sides to the coin. I believe AI has valuable contributions to make that can help. And I also think that there are limitations. So, I guess where I land is that I believe the future lies in AI versus humans. So, there’s a lot of conversation about, well, with AI, we don’t need as big a learning team. We can, because content’s everywhere.

Again, you’re not going to win the Olympics by reading a book about your sport? That’s great. Sounds good. But, but it’s AI with humans. And so, I think that to thrive in the future, we must understand the unique contributions of the human element and AI, and then work together, as there are aspects that AI cannot replicate—for example, empathy and emotional intelligence. Let’s start there. Humans can listen.

Humans can relate; they can respond to emotions and identify what’s truly important to a business leader and what’s not. They understand that, whether in a one-on-one coaching session or when navigating a tense team conflict, they can see and gain insight that A cannot. It can simulate an emotional response, but it doesn’t feel genuine.

Empathy is essential in learning and development. Being able to design for that inclusivity so that someone feels truly supported in their behavior change. It’s creating a good, psychologically safe environment that encourages trying, failing, and learning from mistakes. That’s all super important. And I didn’t understand that. So that’s why.

Nolan: And you mentioned that because you’re well, it doesn’t have empathy. Well, it does have empathy, but it’s synthetic empathy, which is probably more than I have even tried. My empathy is also somewhat synthetic because I don’t think it’s a trait that I lack, as my wife possesses it 100%. I’ve got zero.

So, it’s also synthetic for me. But even then, you can tell, and there’s something to this idea, I think I’m sure someone has written articles on this, but we have a person in our company who leverages AI extensively and constantly sends things, saying, ‘ Read this, read this, read this, respond to this, read this, respond to this, read this, respond to this. ‘ And I find myself saying, well, you invested 30 seconds of your time to write this.

Which will take an hour of my time to read and respond. Now, if you’re not willing to invest the time to dig deep enough into the issue, how am I supposed to invest all of my time? This idea, because it used to be, for me to create something that I knew took time and an investment. But if it didn’t require time or investment, and now I’m seeking everybody else’s time and investment, to me, that equation is not equal on both sides. And so you mentioned the empathy part. Yes, my leadership AI coach, which we have, has empathy, but I know it doesn’t. I know it’s not invested in me at a very human level, really astute kind of point.

Theresa: And then you also raise the point that, based on your conversation comments, you can also explore creativity. So, AI can draw from past experiences, but it can’t. It can remix and serve it up differently, but it can’t come up with something new. It doesn’t have a human experience. So, creativity comes from the human experience? So, connecting separate ideas, drawing on culture, or understanding risk-taking and storytelling are all things that can’t be done, but humans can imagine futures. You want your learning professional to envision a different future and consider what it will take to achieve that goal, thinking creatively about what needs to change for us to reach it, which is something we haven’t accomplished yet. You can’t train AI to do that.

Nolan: And I think the last, I think so, we talked about the psychological element, some of the human element, but now, I still think. Often, I was frustrated because I was creating a demo of our AI coach, which can converse and engage in back-and-forth dialogue. And I was doing a demo, and I was so frustrated because it kept answering. There are five things that you can do to do it. And I was able to get through the fifth one, but then you told me which one to do. And so I think part of the… I think AI can do a really good job. And I want to, I feel I’m an AI kind of basher at this point. Please note that Theresa and I are not part of some AI militia. We’ve actually both been using AI extensively. We’re not saying not to use it; please do use it. I speak about using it, so do use it. However, I think what AI does well is provide you with options. You then have to select which of those options you need to go with.

You still need it, and that’s where I feel human plus AI is the big thing. It’s let me help me create the options because a lot of times I get stuck or I don’t know. So, give me five or six ideas that I can choose from, but ultimately, it’s my decision that earns the company money. It’s that proverbial ‘I paid a know-it-all mechanic $300 an hour.’

Or the best is this locksmith. A locksmith arrives; this is a true-life story. I get locked out of my house, and a locksmith comes over. He’s, but he drives 45 minutes; it’s 45 minutes for him to get there. I’m whatever. He’s oh, I’m out and whatever. Comes over, takes a look at my lock, and he says, Oh, well, this is a very, very hard. And I’m all buddy, I get it. Please let me know what you’re going to charge, and it will be $250.

And in my mind, that mantra went, ‘It’s going to take him a second to do it,’ but it took him 20 years to understand how to do it in one second. That is very real. It is real. And I have found that even in the past year, the more we devalue the 20 years, the more we get ourselves into trouble. I ended up telling this locksmith, I’ve got a $50 bill in my pocket.

You take it or you leave it; I’ll call someone else. It took him 10 seconds. He put something in there, tapped it, opened it up, took the $ 50, and walked out. However, 20 years of experience is incredibly valuable, and we can’t afford to lose that.

AI Empowers L&D, Not Replaces

Theresa: Well, you’re addressing the complex judgment piece. That’s human skill, including problem-solving and complex judgment. And A, I can perform both routine and cognitive tasks. It’s great at data analytics. It’s great at summarizing. It’s, I mean, amazing at pulling in and coalescing quickly.

It’s that judgment piece that you’re speaking to that’s so critical. That is, it takes time and human cognition to drive that kind of complexity and thinking. And I agree with you. AI is an incredible tool. We can utilize it for personalized learning pathways, adaptive capabilities, analytics, and content creation. You heard me discuss accelerating performance earlier. Accelerate the performance of our learning and development professionals.

So, I mean, can I tell you there was never a year that I’ve worked in the 36 years that I was able to say yes to everything that came in the door? It was always about prioritization. It was always about the critical, the critical few, etc. Well, with the quick turn we discussed in reskilling and upskilling, you’ll have to get to more and more. What I love about AI is that it gives L&D the flexibility to move as rapidly as needed, as the AI can automate some of the more routine tasks. It can start my scripts for me. This can be a starting point, and you may want to include a similar outline in your module.

Nolan: Your content outline and storyboard can give me a starting point.

Theresa: What’s this? And then all I need to do is say that, but that won’t work because of the cultural context or the challenge the organization is facing now. That’s good, but I’d say it differently. However, it does cut down the developers’ and designers’ time, but you still need that critical judgment. So, I have a challenge when I hear that I will be able to save dollars. I think you’ll be able to accomplish things faster.

Nolan: Yep. I think what I say is keep, 

Theresa: That makes sense, you have to know.

Creating Value Over Cost in Learning

Nolan: Keep your budget the same, but do more. If someone says you can save money, say, ‘Listen, do you want to spend less money on improving the performance of our people?’ It’s a very hard thing to say yes to. It’s not, that’s not true. Well, what I’ll do is cut the cost and time of my content development in half. We’re seeing that’s about what we can do.

Now, take that money and invest it in in-person events or initiatives that people want and have had a solid impact in the past. That’s why AI helps you do things you could never do, but sometimes it does so by freeing up your resources to accomplish them. So, you have to look at it that way, rather than just a pure, ‘let me save some money here.’

Theresa: I agree. It’s a value creation tool in a very different way, because I can take some of the things that have to be done, and this is no disrespect to compliance training programs, functional training programs, and all those things. They have to be done. They take a lot of time. They always are the ones that take the majority of your portfolio because they are critical to driving the business. They’re your hygiene? It has to be done. However, other aspects will add tremendous value to the business, which you’re trying to free up resources to achieve. You can get there now and do it in a much more effective way. So, I 100 % agree with you. It’s about.

I think we sometimes spend too much time discussing cost around learning and development instead of value. Where can you create value?

Closing Thoughts

Nolan: Well, what a way to end: creating, starting with performance, and ending with value. Lovely, Theresa, thank you for investing so much of your time with us, especially dealing with my slight camera issue along the way. Thank you so much. This has been a blast, and I’m excited to hear the comments and feedback on this episode. Thank you.

Theresa: It was my pleasure. Thanks for the great dialogue. Get me to geek out on this stuff. Enjoyed it. Bye-bye.

Nolan: Awesome. Thanks. See you later, Theresa. Bye.