Watching Olympic coaches operate, as we have for 40 years, makes one thing very clear: the courage to have a direct conversation when needed is vital to helping someone reach their potential.
This is why we are pleased to share that our popular Managing Challenging Conversations program is now available in webinar and live keynote formats.
Coaching with Courage: The Tough Conversations is a one-hour tour of the communication skills leaders need to tackle their toughest coaching conversations with confidence. Be among the first to experience this new session in a special preview event with Third Factor Principal Trainer Garry Watanabe on Thursday, March 6, 2025.
Drawing on lessons from our 40 years of work with world-class coaches, we’ll explore how to:
Build the courage and mindset to initiate a direct conversation
Structure a clear opening statement that gets tough coaching conversations off on the right foot
Work through resistance and defensiveness using strategies to diffuse tension
Manage your own reactivity to stay composed under pressure
Whether you are an individual looking for help with your own challenging conversations, or a leader tasked with creating a culture of courage and continuous improvement within your organization - you’ll leave armed with the inspiration and practical tools to get started.
Coaching with Courage: The Tough Conversations
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About the presenter:Garry Watanabe is an expert on coaching and performance psychology with a wealth of experience working under the peak of pressure in both business and sport. As Principal Trainer for Third Factor, Garry has helped thousands of leaders apply the principles of coaching, collaboration and resilience in their professional and personal lives. His corporate clients include Deloitte, Toyota, RBC and the USGA.
In the midst of rapid expansion and a shift to a remote-first environment, retail consulting and technology company, Orium, partnered with Third Factor to give its leaders a framework and skills to lead with its values.
Twenty-four of Orium’s leaders participated in a total of three days of training, leading to an uplift in engagement among leaders and their teams, and enabling the organization to navigate the pressure that comes with doubling in size.
Click here to read the case study.
New manager development programs are often a surprising “problem child” in the Learning & Development portfolio.
The recent Association for Talent Development (ATD) report sponsored by Third Factor, “New Manager Development: Building a Foundation for the Future,” highlights a critical gap: while 70% of organizations have new manager development programs, most fail to realize their full potential with 77% reporting only moderate success or worse.
Successful
Unsuccessful
No program
Helping new managers transition from individual contributor to people leadership roles is vitally important for the performance of not only those managers but everyone that reports to them as well. But with the large population of managers in most organizations, Learning & Development (L&D) is often tasked to execute these programs at scale and on a shoestring budget. Add in the time pressures on new managers, and it can feel near impossible to deliver impactful leadership development programs for this audience.
We know how challenging this mandate can be, so we’ve collected some practical strategies from leading organizations that we partner with to help get the value out of your investment in new manager development.
Leadership at the Helm: Building Top-Down Support
The ATD report underscores the importance of senior leadership in new manager development. Most of the organizations surveyed indicated that a lack of either resources, senior leadership support, and/or prioritization were challenges to training new managers. So how do you build that critical support at the top of the house?
01.
Pick your moment and leverage business needs to advance new manager training.
02.
Enlist your partners to sell your vision for new manager training internally.
03.
Get senior leaders directly involved in training to underscore its importance.
First, pick your moment. When organizations make significant investments in new manager development, it typically comes at a time when there is a clear business need – for example, a new strategy, a culture transformation, declining engagement scores, or high turnover. Use these windows of opportunity to demonstrate how Learning & Development can help turn conceptual business plans into real action by driving the right behaviors in managers.
Second, enlist your partners. You need every tool in your arsenal to build the strongest business case to senior leaders for investing in new manager development. Involve HR or internal business partners as well as your third-party vendors to help demonstrate to senior leaders the value and expected outcomes of these programs. Hearing directly from your leadership team about a strategic transformation they are driving from transactional to advisory services, for example, will enable your vendors to design programs that directly support those needs.
Finally, start small and get senior leaders directly involved. One L&D team that we work with is driving a multi-year rollout of a two-day in-person program to help managers build coaching skills – a significant investment of time and resources. But it all started with just one session focused on the C-Suite team. Through that firsthand experience, the CEO and his team became passionate champions of the program. They not only committed to funding a broad program rollout, but the CEO now speaks directly to every cohort of managers that goes through the program. His involvement sends a strong message about his commitment to manager development and also reinforces the connections between the content and their business priorities.
Balancing Learning Formats
Training a large population of new managers can be costly. For many organizations, it’s just not feasible to offer in-person experiential learning programs to all new managers.
In fact, the ATD report notes that asynchronous learning channels are the most common offering made available to new managers. We often hear from L&D leaders about the benefits of asynchronous learning for creating custom learning pathways and offering flexible programs that work around the busy schedules of new managers. Yet there is always a desire to incorporate some of the benefits of live, in-person learning experiences as well.
Increasingly, organizations are looking at blended learning formats to provide the scale and cost effectiveness of asynchronous learning but with some of the human connection and energy of live or in-person programs.
A financial services company that we partner with offers an asynchronous program that enables managers to learn coaching skills through a series of self-paced videos. But to enhance the experience through peer support and live discussions, managers are placed into learning cohorts that proceed through the program as a community. A live virtual kickoff provides context about the program, introduces managers to others in their cohort and builds energy around the learning journey they are about to start on. Midway through the program, cohorts reconvene for a live application lab to work through any questions and challenges as they start applying the skills in their work environment. And upon completion of the program, managers have access to 1:1 coaching and a library of resources to support ongoing skill development and application.
“The most successful new manager development programs that we see always place a strong focus on practical application.”
Whether asynchronous, in-person, or a blended format, the most successful new manager development programs that we see always place a strong focus on practical application. New managers are often completely underwater balancing their priorities of delivering results while also developing their people.
In fact, time constraints on new managers were the most common challenge cited in ATD’s report. Most new managers simply don’t have the time, energy, or interest to dive deep into theories on motivation and performance. Instead, they need a few practical tools that they can implement immediately, opportunities to practice new skills, and strategies to focus on actions that will have the greatest impact so that they see immediate results and build confidence.
Measuring What Matters: The Art of Success Metrics
You’ve heard it a million times – “how are we measuring the impact of this program?” When it comes to reallocating investment or cutting costs, new manager development programs are an easy target if they can’t demonstrate impact. Effective metrics not only demonstrate program effectiveness but also ensure the program remains relevant, impactful, and aligned with evolving business priorities.
ATD’s report highlights a similar issue: 87% of respondents cite a lack of metrics to track the program’s results as a challenge to new manager training. While most organizations do assess program effectiveness, many focus on participant satisfaction and use informal conversations rather than quantitative or outcomes-based measures. So how can you incorporate impactful metrics without creating an overly complex science project?
Most important is systematizing and quantifying participant feedback with a short, standard feedback form for every participant to complete. In our experience, taking a few minutes to do this at the end of sessions before participants return to their other work is the best way to drive response rates and specific feedback. In addition to participant satisfaction, include one or two questions tied to target outcomes – for example, participants’ confidence in their ability to apply the skills in their daily work.
With a basic feedback system in place, start looking at longer-term metrics and impacts. A large energy organization that we work with administers a final survey approximately three months after leadership development programs on how participants are applying their learnings and the resulting business impact of those actions. These concrete examples offer powerful impact stories that are highlighted to the company’s most senior leaders.
Another financial services organization surveyed the direct reports of program participants and found that more than 85% noticed an improvement in their leaders after completing the manager development program – a metric that helped build ongoing support and expansion of the program.
Transforming Insights into Impact
As the ATD report highlights, new manager development programs are a critical aspect of the L&D portfolio and yet there are very real challenges to making them effective and impactful. These strategies offer a blueprint to help ensure the investment in these programs delivers real value for the business and for your people.
Seizing the Opportunity in Wealth Management
Wealth management is undergoing an epochal change with an $84.4-trillion wealth transfer at stake. The hearts, minds and wallets of the next generation will go to firms that can:
Level up field coaching and enable advisors to have new and more uncomfortable conversations
Up-skill advisors to manage bigger teams with a diverse range of experience
Become exceptional matchmakers using psychometric data to create winning advisory teams
In this webinar, Third Factor CEO, Dane Jensen, will outline how to make the move from investment advice to "Personal CFO" using examples from our work with some of North America's leading wealth management firms and based on the whitepaper he co-authored with Third Factor Principal Trainer, Garry Watanabe..
You should attend if:
You're responsible for leadership development or change management within a wealth management organization
You need new ideas for up-skilling advisors to engage in new conversations and navigate the changing industry landscape
You're looking for innovative solutions to enhance the succession planning process
You want to learn more about how top wealth management firms are navigating the fundamental shift in client preferences
Seizing the Opportunity in Wealth Management
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This event has passed, but it won't be the last. Be the first to know about future webinars from Third Factor by entering your information below.
About the presenter:Dane Jensen is the CEO of Third Factor, the author of The Power of Pressure: Why Pressure Isn't The Problem, It's The Solution, an acclaimed speaker, an instructor at Queen's University and the University of North Carolina, and a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review.
Sitting across the table in an office in central Manhattan, a top financial advisor with one of the world’s largest wealth management firms didn’t mince words: “The investment business is dead. I want to be my clients’ life coach and personal CFO.”
It was a provocation, but one that gets at the heart of the epochal shift happening in wealth management. For the affluent and high net worth segments, what was formerly a transactional business rooted in investment tips is rapidly shifting to an advisory business rooted in planning for a life well-lived.
The stakes are well understood: firms that can make this shift at scale faster and better than their peers will emerge as winners in a once-in-a-lifetime $84.4-trillion intergenerational wealth transfer. Those who can’t make the shift will be forced to compete with increasingly capable, low-cost transactional platforms.
Having different conversations
At the heart of the transition is equipping financial advisors with the skills, technology and resources to have different conversations with their clients.
"The top advisors are doing something totally different," shared one manager. "No one wants your opinion on "which stocks should I buy right now?" Instead, success increasingly hinges on an ability to execute four categories of conversation – which tend to be progressively less comfortable for advisors:
Conversation 1: Help clients articulate financial goals
e.g. "I want to retire in 30 years with a $200k annual income" – and then develop a plan to reach those goals that leverages the full balance sheet – cash management, investments, and debt. In almost all firms, these conversations are supported by planning tools that advisors have access to but the comfort level with discussing cash management and debt is often not as high as with investments.
01
Conversation 2: Surface potential derailers
e.g. "what if you are incapacitated and unable to work?" – and help mitigate them by using insurance and other risk management tools. These conversations can be risky themselves. As one executive struggling to get advisor uptake on insurance put it: "advisors often don’t want to get caught in a conversation that creates more fear than hope."
Estate planning, tax, and financial literacy skills for the next generation. Beyond the unique expertise required to navigate these areas, these conversations can be infused with inter-family tension, especially when a prized asset like a cottage hangs in the balance. No client wants the transfer of their wealth to result in rifts amongst their children. As a result, advisors are sometimes hesitant to insert themselves into what feels like a fraught discussion.
03
Conversation 4: How to lead a life well lived
The best advisors provide access to expertise and experiences that support clients in living long, meaningful, healthy lives that allow them to enjoy the benefits of their financial freedom.
04
Taking stock of the list above can be overwhelming. “What is most different from three years ago,” shared one advisor, “is the amount of things you need to know – from planning, to asset management, legal, mortgages, insurance, and so on.” And sitting above the array of new technical and product expertise is a heightened level of conversational skills required to build client relationships in which individuals feel safe to discuss highly personal matters – hopes and fears that they often have not shared even with their family or close friends.
Better conversations at scale
In every wealth management organization, there are high performing advisor teams already having these conversations with their clients. The challenge is doing it consistently and at scale. Even planning conversations, the first and most straightforward of the four categories above, are not yet happening with consistency. As of 2023, JD Power reports that only 57% of full-service wealth management clients say they have a financial plan in place. So how do we scale excellence? Our experience points to three key leverage points for seizing the opportunity:
01.
Level up field coaching to both role model the new kinds of conversations we want advisors to be having with their clients, and to surface and overcome barriers to the adoption of new products and technology.
02.
Equip advisors with the leadership skills to manage bigger teams.
03.
Become exceptional matchmakers to team up advisors with complimentary businesses and skill sets.
Hey look, a one-pager.
We’ve put these ideas in a handy one-page document you can take to go.
LEVELING UP FIELD COACHING – FROM DASHBOARDS TO BEHAVIOR CHANGE
Just as client conversations are shifting from transactional to advisory, so too must internal coaching. In their conversations with advisors, field managers are the critical role model for the types of curious, developmental conversations we want advisors to have with clients.
Historically, field coaching has been dashboard driven – focused on identifying and rewarding high performers and highlighting areas of under-performance to those lagging. As advisors are asked to have new and more uncomfortable conversations with clients that touch on planning for death or disability, surfacing hopes and fears, and shaping legacy – simply highlighting metrics and asking for ‘more’ is not sufficient.
Similarly, driving technology adoption at scale in wealth management is not like rolling out a new, mandatory operating model at McDonald’s. As one consultant put it: “this is an incentive-based business, not a rules-based business.” Field leadership plays a crucial role in helping advisors see the value in new technology and understanding the role it can play in enabling their success, and that of their clients.
To drive new conversations and speed adoption of new technology, field managers need the coaching tools to go beyond dashboard metrics to get at the underlying drivers and blocks of behavior change.
This requires equipping field managers with:
Strong relationship building skills – in the high autonomy environment of wealth management, the strength of the relationship determines the level of influence.
A deeper understanding of what drives behavior change (or resistance) – managers need to have a mental model of where resistance comes from and how to overcome it. This is what allows them to be curious rather than judgmental in the face of push-back and dig deep to understand the block they need to remove to change behavior.
Exceptional questioning, listening and curiosity skills – finally, helping field leaders strengthen their ability to have discovery conversations that seek to understand advisors’ hopes and fears rather than ‘objection handle’ their concerns. Again, this provides role modeling for the types of client conversations we aspire to have.
In our experience, building these skills is best accomplished by identifying an initial cadre of field managers who have both the interest and capacity to become stronger coaches – and investing disproportionately in their development. The results driven by this group can serve as a strong incentive for other managers, and the individuals targeted can serve as internal champions. For example, in one organization we work with, 17 branch managers were nominated by their regional directors to receive extra training and 1:1 support from a master coach for a 12-month period.
EQUIPPING ADVISORS TO LEAD BIGGER TEAMS
A survey of the conversations advisors are being asked to navigate makes it clear that no one has the skills to do it alone. World-class advisory is a team sport and organizations need to support advisors in building larger teams with a diverse range of expertise that cuts across debt, insurance, estate planning and more – with the client service, risk, and back-office functions to support it all running smoothly.
“Advisors all want a team – but they don’t want to manage a team.”
From the advisors’ perspective, downward pressure on fees means they need bigger teams to serve more clients in order to make the same compensation. And bigger practices are more highly valued when the time comes for an advisor to sell their business down the road. It seems like a win-win. And yet, as a seasoned coach to financial advisors put it, “advisors all want a team – but they don’t want to manage a team.” Most advisors pride themselves on their subject-matter expertise and their relationship and selling skills. Managing a team and dealing with the administrative burden from growing headcount is rarely aligned with their areas of core competence. And while some of these responsibilities can be delegated to an office manager, ultimately the leader is responsible for building a compelling vision and team culture that attracts and retains top talent.
More consistent success with creating bigger teams requires that organizations help advisors build people leadership skills. High performing advisors will not get committed to doing things they don’t feel competent at. Training for advisors must go beyond product, sales and client service skills to encompass setting them up for success with ever-growing teams.
BECOMING EXPERT MATCHMAKERS TO TEAM UP ADVISORS
Finally, beyond equipping individual advisors to grow their teams, firms must become experts at developing a repeatable model for combining the practices of individual advisors into teams with multiple advisors.
“Advisors with different backgrounds and skills produce the best performance when teamed up, but those differences can also produce tremendous friction.”
Research by McKinsey has shown conclusively that “team-based wealth management advisors outperform sole practitioners on almost every metric.” Specifically, teams in which the advisors bring a diversity of skills and backgrounds produce the best advisor team performance.
Beyond performance, teaming up advisors also provides more redundancy, allowing advisors to live more balanced lives, and aids in succession planning – a critical priority as a generational shift occurs over the coming 10-15 years.
Accessing these benefits is easier said than done. Advisors with different backgrounds and skills produce the best performance when teamed up, but those differences can also produce tremendous friction and lead to combustion that is both costly and demotivating.
To access the advantages of team performance, wealth management organizations need to bring science to the art of matchmaking to achieve a higher hit rate and fewer blow-ups. This requires:
Using psychometric data, not just business data, to identify strong teams – two practices may look like an obvious match based on their client lists but be unworkable due to the personalities of the advisors. Using psychometric tools gives organizations a clearer, data-driven view of whose distinct styles will be complimentary vs. combustible.
Having tough interpersonal conversations up front – using the same psychometric data, organizations can increase eventual success rates by having tough, data-driven conversations up-front that surface and plan for likely sources of conflict based on each advisor’s unique style.
Building the skill of collaboration – collaborating with someone different than you is a learnable skill that can be improved with practice. Providing advisors with up-front models for working through conflict and effectively working together can head off potential derailers down the road.
There has never been a moment of so much opportunity and risk in the wealth management industry. The firms who can pair a team-based structure with high quality field coaching and technology that enables advisors to confidently broaden the conversations they have with clients are those who stand to gain from volatility and win the hearts, minds, and wallets of the next generation.
Take this whitepaper to go
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About the authors
Dane Jensen
Dane is the CEO of Third Factor, an acclaimed speaker, instructor at the University of North Carolina, and a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review. Learn more
Garry Watanabe
Garry Watanabe is an expert on coaching and performance psychology with a wealth of experience working under the peak of pressure in both business and sport. Learn more
Roughly one quarter of organizations say their new manager training programs are extremely or highly successful, but an equal number report their programs as only slightly successful or not successful at all.
Key reasons for investing in training for new managers include better individual performance (85%), continuity of organizational culture and values (69%), and better team performance (62%).
Top focus areas for new manager training include communication skills (93%), providing feedback (92%), and performance management (91%).
91% say their new managers just don’t have enough time to invest in development programs.
Third Factor has partnered with the Association for Talent Development (ATD) on exciting new research that reveals how organizations approach training for new managers. The report draws on a sample of 287 organizations seeks to understand why organizations do or don’t invest in training for new managers, how new manager training is approached, and the common trends in the most successful new manager development programs.
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, the importance of new manager training is highlighted by a notable statistic: 70% of organizations have a development program for new managers, and among those without, 54% plan to introduce one within the next two years. This trend underscores a growing recognition of the crucial role new managers play in organizational success. However, transitioning from an individual contributor to a managerial role is a journey filled with challenges. Managers must not only manage tasks but also lead people, a shift that requires a fundamentally different skill set and mindset.
Successful new manager training programs can be hard to come by
While about a quarter of organizations consider their programs extremely or highly successful, another quarter view them as only slightly or not at all successful. This suggests a broad spectrum in the effectiveness of such programs across different organizations, highlighting the need for tailored approaches and continuous improvement in managerial training practices. It underscores the importance of not just having a training program in place, but also ensuring its relevance, effectiveness, and alignment with organizational goals.
The good news is that the report shows 78% of organizations actively measure the success of these programs. The most common method used is assessing participant satisfaction. However, high-performing organizations often go further by evaluating long-term impacts such as the retention rate of managers and their contribution to organizational performance. This approach underscores the importance of not only implementing development programs but also rigorously assessing their outcomes to ensure they meet organizational goals and contribute to long-term success.
Performance and culture are the most desired outcomes
When developing training programs for new managers, organizations are unsurprisingly focused on performance – but the question of whose performance is most important raised our eyebrows.
While 85% of organizations want their new manager development programs to enhance individual performance, only 62% include team performance in their goals. While enhancing a manager’s skills is essential, it’s crucial to recognize that a manager’s success is inherently tied to their team’s performance. Focusing solely on individual managerial skills without equally emphasizing team leadership and development can create a disconnect. This approach may lead to managers who excel individually but struggle to foster a high-performing team, ultimately impacting the broader organizational effectiveness.
Fortunately, continuity of organizational culture and values is also a top outcome for new manager development. Some 69% of organizations rely on new manager development programs to ensure that leadership is aligned with the core principles of the organization. This alignment helps in maintaining a consistent organizational ethos, which is essential for long-term success and identity.
The most important skill for new managers? Communication.
The skill new manager training programs focus on above all others is communication, with 93% of organizations prioritizing this in their development programs.
In our 3×4 Coaching program, we teach that coaches use four key communication skills to develop their people: questioning, active listening, feedback, and confronting. Feedback also made the list of skills, with 92% of new manager development programs dedicating time to giving people information about their performance.
While performance management (91%) is another top focus area, the communication skill of confronting didn’t make the list. Questioning, listening and feedback are useful and necessary skills, but aren’t always the best tools when a valued performer needs to make a non-optional change to their behaviour.
Teaching new managers skills for managing challenging conversations is a worthwhile investment. Giving younger leaders the opportunity to learn and practice the skill means they will be better prepared to confront problem behaviors when they reach a more senior position. By thinking of communication skills for new managers as an investment in the future, organizations can strengthen their entire leadership pipeline.
Finding time is a top challenge in training new managers
The primary challenge in this developmental journey, as reported by 91% of organizations, is the lack of time for new managers to participate in training programs. It’s no secret that new managers are expected to hit the ground running, often having been selected for their aptitude for the role and prior success in a non-leadership role.
The rub is that the bias toward execution, rather than leadership, is actually counterproductive. While managers at this level need to be adept at leading their people while being responsible for their own work product, putting emphasis on the former in the earliest days could set them up for a career-long belief that their individual productivity is more important than that of their team. This misprioritization can also lead to a situation where managers are underprepared for their roles. Moreover, the pressure of managing operational tasks while also trying to develop people management skills can lead to burnout and decreased effectiveness.
Just as new managers need to skillfully coach their people in the flow of getting things done, their own leadership training needs to happen in the flow of work. Training programs need to be flexible and easily integrated into the daily workflow of new managers. This might involve bite-sized learning modules, on-the-job training, and leveraging technology for accessible and engaging learning experiences. Additionally, creating a culture of continuous learning and providing ongoing support and resources can help new managers adapt to their roles more effectively and efficiently.
Equipping new managers for success
The research from Third Factor and the Association for Talent Development presents a valuable opportunity for improvement in new manager training. This study offers a roadmap for organizations to refine their leadership development strategies, emphasizing the integration of training into daily work, a comprehensive focus on communication skills, and prioritizing team success alongside individual performance. By embracing these insights, organizations can significantly enhance their outcomes, nurturing leaders who are well-equipped to meet the challenges of the modern business world.
You can download the full report from the ATD website. Imagine you’re organizing an in-person learning event for a group of 30 senior leaders. You’ve spent weeks getting the details just right. It’s the first time this group will be getting together in over two years, and you can’t wait for two days of interactive, collaborative learning.
And then, the calls start to come in. One week out from the event, the head of marketing tells you there is a case of Covid-19 in her daughter’s classroom, and she will need to attend the session remotely to keep her in self-isolation. Then, three days before, two more calls come from sales leaders who need to travel to meet with clients and will need to participate remotely.
In a matter of days, 10% of your group needs to attend remotely. More requests are sure to come in, and your team now needs to come up with a way to accommodate both in-person and remote learners on short notice.
This is the new reality. The question is no longer whether to deliver learning remote or in-person – but rather whether to be fully remote or to host a hybrid learning experience. By assuming all in-person events will need to accommodate remote participants – and planning accordingly – you can create learning experiences that are ready to adapt to whatever may come.
Hybrid is to Netflix as in-person is to Blockbuster
Hybrid learning events struggle to achieve their goals when they’re treated as an in-person experience first. But as many industries have learned the hard way when undergoing disruption, you can’t do what you’ve always done and expect the same results. Much as Blockbuster failed to recognize Netflix as a serious disruptor, learning organizations stand to fail by ignoring the importance and permanence of hybrid learning.
Much as Blockbuster failed to recognize Netflix as a serious disruptor, learning organizations stand to fail by ignoring the importance and permanence of hybrid learning.
When L&D professionals do as Blockbuster did and try to carry on with business as usual, the result is a poor experience. The overarching problem is the lack of interactivity between in-person and remote participants, resulting from poorly adapted technology and resources, limited opportunities for participants to connect with each other, and a failure of the event organizers and facilitators to understand participants ahead of time.
At the heart of solving these problems before they happen is a focus on creating a unified experience for all learners. Successful hybrid learning events do this by giving careful consideration to how technology is used, creating opportunities for participants to connect, and getting to know participants ahead of time. In delivering hybrid learning to our clients, we’ve observed some innovative practices that exemplify this philosophy.
Adapt technology to the human experience – not vice-versa
Inequality in hybrid learning environments often results when the human element is considered secondarily to technology. For example, remote participants suffer when their experience is made possible by a laptop placed near the front of the room. Thoughtful hybrid learning design considers the desired experience first and then uses technology to build quality and efficiency, creating a “one-classroom” model where all participants feel included and barriers to communication are removed.
Bring the online experience into the room
One of our clients, a major quick-service restaurant chain, added a screen at the front of the room displaying the online experience. This ensured everyone in the room, including the facilitator and participants, were constantly aware of the people who weren’t physically present.
Create a screen-friendly experience for online participants
In early 2020, our partners in the Full-Time MBA program at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University found a way for remote learners to experience the class in the same way as the in-person cohort by hiring a full-time videographer. As the approach has proven successful, the program is now leveraging technology to deliver the experience more efficiently with an automated system.
As a low-cost alternative, the quick-service restaurant chain asked in-person participants to bring their laptops and join the online meeting, keeping their cameras on so remote participants could see faces and hear comments. An AV support team set up microphones at every table to ensure remote participants could hear discussions clearly and both the in-person and remote conversations were moderated. We like this approach enough that we’ve adopted it for our own hybrid staff meetings – with great success.
Have support to bridge the gap
The Smith MBA program addressed cross-medium communication challenges by placing a staff member in each classroom to act as a moderator, managing the incoming Zoom information and filtering it to the faculty to ensure the remote participation was managed efficiently.
Create opportunities for participants to connect with each other
What we know as we gain more experience through this hybrid world is that people are craving more opportunities to connect on both a personal and professional level with their colleagues – a part of the experience that’s often neglected for online participants.
At larger events, we’ve seen this solved with formalized “brain dates” in which participants have scheduled time to meet one-on-one or in a small group, and indicate their preference to meet live, online, or hybrid. Meetings can be on a subject relevant to the event or less-formal opportunities for networking.
Our team at Third Factor has addressed this by scheduling a regular meeting with cameras on to share from our learning experiences and connect about what’s happening at a personal and professional level. We don’t just stop there though, many of us set up informal coffee chats to reconnect with each other, have a laugh, and sometimes we actually have a coffee!
Understand the field before playing the game
In our 3×4 Coaching program, we teach that people can’t commit without having clarity on what’s expected and why it matters. Successful hybrid learning events require the organizers and facilitators to have clarity on who the participants are and what their needs are.
One of our favorite ways of building clarity comes from the legendary basketball coach Jack Donohue, who would ask: “what would you see,” and “what would you hear.” I.e., what would you see and hear if you were a remote participant having a positive, engaging experience?
The Smith MBA Program called this “understanding the field before playing the game.” The instructor got to know remote participants’ names and locations ahead of time, and was able to use that information to engage them – acknowledging them personally and asking questions of them throughout the session.
Keep your eyes wide open
As Albert Einstein said, “you can’t use an old map to explore a new world.” To execute successful hybrid learning events, learning & development teams need to recognize that the choice isn’t between remote and in-person learning; it’s between remote and hybrid.
Every in-person event will inevitably need to accommodate remote participants, at least in the near-future. To ensure your next learning event is successful, this shift in designing your learning experiences will require thoughtful planning to put the human experience ahead of technology, create opportunities for participants to connect with each other, and get to know your participants ahead of time so everyone can be included. Skilled workers across the country are making their position clear: they have no desire to go back to the way things were, and they’re willing to leave their job rather than return to the office.
From an organizational standpoint, however, it’s not so straightforward. There are arguments for and against bringing people back into the workplace. Attempting to transition to a hybrid model is sure to be fraught with challenges. And for some organizations, a return to working face to face is the only way forward.
To establish a post-pandemic model for work that prioritizes productivity, a plan for employee retention is imperative. Senior leaders must be able to clearly articulate the benefit of returning to in-person work and find ways to motivate individuals within the team to endure the change. To do so, organizations need to make full use of people leaders to ensure that understanding and motivation cascades to each individual contributor.
Give meaning to the change
While the value of returning to in-person work may be clear to the senior team, it’s unlikely that everyone in the organization will find it apparent.
In the absence of information, people tell themselves stories
In the absence of information, people tell themselves stories – and those stories are rarely positive. Without a clear understanding of the benefit of returning to work, people are likely to tell themselves that it’s because they’re not trusted to do their job while working remotely. Or, that it’s because of their leaders’ own discomfort with remote work.
To combat this, organizations need to be able to clearly articulate the value of why people are being asked to come back to the office, beyond “you get to keep your job.” People need to understand how it benefits the organization, how it benefits their team, and how it benefits them personally. A client I work with, League, provides a useful example of this in their communication to employees about their plans for a hybrid model. Their Chief People Officer, Kim Tabac, has promised their people to, “strike the balance between the ‘I’ and the ‘We’ by focusing on the intersection of the employees needs for meaningful work, and a continued focus on their mental health and wellness, with the company’s focus on high performance, innovation, and connection to our mission.”
In addition to helping motivate people who would rather continue to work remotely, being clear about the value of working in-person can help to ease the pain of change for everyone in the organization. A few months into the pandemic, we asked leaders about their challenges in the remote work environment and almost one in five said their biggest obstacle was others not being open to change. By giving the change meaning, organizations can reduce this friction point and accelerate the pace at which the benefit of the change begins to outweigh the discomfort of the change itself.
Ditch broad-reaching incentive programs in favour of personalized motivation
Skilled workers are leaving their jobs in droves because they don’t want to go back to the way things were. But it would be wrong to assume that people are most motivated by having flexibility in where and how they work. There are many different things that motivate people at an individual level, as diverse as the team itself. Organizations can drive performance, reduce turnover, and facilitate organizational change by discovering each contributor’s top motivator and connecting it with their work.
We recently ran a workshop with 220 leaders at a financial services company on the subject of how to hold more effective career conversations. When we asked the leaders what motivates them in their careers, there was no consensus. A top three did emerge (interesting work, money, and meaningful work, respectively), but none showed a clear majority and only 10% said they are motivated by all three.
What this tells us is that a broad-reaching program for this group focused on interesting work, money, and meaningful work would only be a perfect fit for one in ten leaders. What’s more, a program focused on improving work fit to life would only capture the attention of a little over one in three. To effectively motivate individuals through the return to in-person work, and beyond, organizations need to shift to an personalized approach.
Leverage people leaders to put plans into action
As the soccer coach John Herdman said, “People do things for people, not things.” For organizations to successfully communicate the value of returning to work and tap into what motivates individual contributors – and therefore retain skilled workers – people managers need to be at the centre of a culture shift that makes leadership their first job.
People do things for people, not things.
Too often, people leaders feel like managing their team is a “to do” along with the rest of their job. In fact, when we asked the same group of leaders what gets in their way of having career conversations with their people, 42% told us they don’t have the time. Organizations need to give leaders a clear expectation that helping their people grow and develop is their first job, rather than something to be fit in around other tasks. By investing in people and having these conversations, that’s how the work’s going to get done. It’s not the other way around.
As the plan is set in motion, focus on three priorities to enable leaders through the transition to in-person work:
1. Encourage leaders to build relationships with their people
At the heart of all this is emotion. Whether someone would rather quit than come back to the office or whether they’re motivated in their job, all comes down to how they feel about the situation.
In order to tap into the power within emotion, leaders need to build relationships with their people and earn permission to do so. And if they’re leading a team that’s distributed or working on a hybrid model, they need to pay close attention to their relationships with the people they don’t see in person on a daily basis.
2. Give leaders the skills to coach their people
Telling leaders to find out what motivates their people is about as helpful as a basketball coach telling you to shoot a three pointer. Leaders need to understand their role as a coach; they need questioning and listening skills to open and carry out effective conversations; they need the ability to give their people clarity on what “good work” looks like; and they need to be skilled at giving recognition in ways that’s going to motivate their people.
3. Make regular career conversations a formal part of performance management – and empower leaders to connect their people with what motivates them
With the relationships and skills in place, ask leaders to hold regular career conversations with their people. Make it every leader’s responsibility to understand what motivates each individual on their team and support them in using that information to create connection points between the work and what motivates them.
Avoid the “brain drain”
Enough companies have already learned their lesson the hard way – requiring an entire workforce to undergo a significant and rapid change can lead to a drop in engagement and a rapid “brain drain” if not handled carefully. To ease the transition and retain skilled workers, engage your leaders in a culture shift that puts leadership first, gives leaders the skills they need to motivate their people, and encourages them not just to have career conversations, but to create meaningful connections between what their team does and what motivates them.
About the presenter:
Garry Watanabe is an expert on coaching and performance psychology with a wealth of experience working under the peak of pressure in both business and sport. As Principal Trainer for Third Factor, Garry has helped thousands of leaders apply the principles of coaching, collaboration and resilience in their professional and personal lives. His corporate clients include Deloitte, Toyota, RBC and the USGA.
About the presenter:
