Skip to main content

Three leaders in the training and development sector join us for a lengthy discussion on how to get C-suite level executives to adopt and roll out a training program, and to be supportive of its success.

One of the challenges that learning/organizational/leadership development teams face is that their department can quickly become seen as a fixed cost – adopting successful training development programs making their efforts almost a clichéd aspect of the company and one that never seems to fully pay off. This is completely avoidable, and each panelist offers their own unique insight – along with relevant examples – of how they have maximized buy-in from those in the executive echelon.

Employer branding is a huge topic, especially as millennials continue to dominate the workforce. How do you continue to make your positions appealing to prospective employees? Some of the suggestions in this 30-minute talk highlight how marketing a learning campaign correctly will allow you to repurpose this content as a recruitment tool – adopting successful training development programs demonstrating why you are the employer of choice because of the intangible benefits that are offered within. The “brand” is no longer a marketing look and feel, but also the kind of learning and development opportunities you offer.

There are also countless tips during this discussion on how to motivate employees to seek out learning opportunities, and how to demonstrate value to employers and talent managers so they can get the most out a training strategy and make it worth everyone’s time.

How does the future of technology affect the learning landscape? What is currently rising in the tech market that could offer more successful approaches to behavior change and engagement?

And finally, once you have constructed a stellar training event or series of events, how do you track the effectiveness of that training? Even when the impact of learning is positive, trainers will still experience anxiety because they will not always understand why a training was effective – on a mechanical level. How do you monitor Level 3 and Level 4 performance? The more sophisticated an organization is in retaining data and metrics, the easier it will be to track Level 3 and Level 4 performance. But how do you get there? Some advice includes the value of putting the learner in a position to teach others – it then becomes very easy to justify a learning objective on the whole.

In this panel discussion, we were joined by Josh Brand, Senior Director of Global Delivery for Harvard Business Publishing; Terrence Donahue, the Corporate Director of Learning for Emerson Electric; and Randy Lapp, the Corporate Director of HR and Talent Development for Metals USA. They were interviewed by Sage Media co-owner and director, Richard Fleming.

Transcript

Richard Fleming:             We’re here today to talk about how to adopt new training or get the executive team on board with a training development program. Do you guys have any thoughts on getting the C-suite level to get on board with a new investment in training and development?

Terrence Donahu…:       I think the real secret to get C-level endorsement is to design and deliver and focus all your efforts on business outcomes rather than learning objectives. I think historically, learning and development professionals speak in terms that are irrelevant to business leaders. We talk about learning outcomes and that’s a language that’s not understood by business executives, but if we do speak about business outcomes, it begins to resonate.

Learning outcomes are a feature of a training program. Business outcomes are the benefits. Executives won’t get excited about it, the features of a training program, they get excited about the benefits of it.

Josh Brand:                      Yeah. I agree with, Terrence. If you can help an executive solve their business problems, you got a much better shot of getting funded and staying funded. If you’re pitching learning, it’s often challenging to get the budget and it’s often challenging to survive the budget cuts, but if you can go directly to the business needs of an executive, you got a much better shot.

I’ll give you one quick example. We work with a pharmaceutical company and a majority of their growth comes from emerging markets. And what they found is that when a country manager in one of these emerging markets leaves, growth stalls in that market. And so the chief learning officer of this company went to the CEO and said, “What if I build you a high potential program for emerging leaders in emerging markets so that you have ready now successors when people leave?” Which they often do in emerging markets, because turnover can be a lot higher.

And it was literally a five-minute conversation. They were able to get the CEO’s buy-in to fund this emerging leader’s program in emerging markets. One of the additional benefits of this program in addition to having a bench is that they actually went through the process of figuring out what actually makes a successful leader in emerging markets. So not only did they develop people, but they actually were able to identify what it takes to be a really solid leader in emerging markets.

Randy Lapp:                     It really depends on the scale of the organization, the level of sophistication of the organization, how large the organization is. I’ve seen both and I think the approach is different where there are many layers between the folks that do this work and the C-suite. And the answer is very different when there’s fewer layers in a small organization. So I think that the more buzz you can create an excitement for a learning resource like this in a large organization that seems to cascade to the C-suite.

In a smaller scaled organization, the closer you can get to the C-suite to invite participation and engagement in the actual sessions, maybe at a pilot or in the early part of that program so that you get their observation and they get a chance to see the faces, They get a chance to hear the comments from the participants. I find that that tends to really engage then the C-suite. A lot depends on how big the organization is. A lot depends how many layers there are. Anyone in any C-suite, they want quick grabs of information to support their decision-making processes.

The more data that you can present in the form of a dashboard or something, the more buy-in you’re going to get. I’m a huge advocate of metrics. I think that’s another very powerful way to get access to the C-suite and to get that attention is to be able to give them good data, to reinforce the impact of this work.

Richard Fleming:             We’re here because we’re all involved in leadership development and trying to create strong programs that affect change in an organization. I think my concern as a video producer, that’s producing a corporate storytelling for learning objectives or business objectives is that people don’t really see the value in investing that kind of money because they don’t understand the nuanced information that they’re getting. And I think what I want to figure out today and with experts here like you guys is, there’s a barrier to entry for a lot of this stuff.

What’s the hesitancy for getting on board with some of these training programs? Why are they not adopting them sooner? This is a massive industry that we continue to fund new development and it’s almost like there are rudimentary issues that have not been resolved yet and we’re still waiting for them to get up to speed. I guess the question is more like, are they really trying to affect change or are they thinking to bottom line?

Josh Brand:                      The chief learning officers?

Richard Fleming:             Yeah.

Josh Brand:                      Yeah. I can speak to this from working with a lot of chief learning officers and my colleagues can speak to it from being on the inside. I think chief learning officers by and large are really trying to do the right thing, and they’re trying to develop the people in their organization. I think they have two challenges. One is that there are way more needs than there is money to serve those needs. And so they’re constantly trying to prioritize. And it’s not easy because you have to do ongoing development.

When you have new managers, you have to teach them how to coach, how to give feedback, how not to get the company sued, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And there’s transition points all along people’s careers. So that’s kind of the baseline that most companies, at least large companies have to do. And then you have initiatives around the business changing mergers and acquisitions, new competition, whatever it is and you have to address those as well.

You put that all together and there’s just more than a CLO could possibly do with the resources that they have. That’s the first challenge. The second challenge is it’s hard to measure. It’s hard to show your worth. It’s a little bit like advertising. Everybody knows that 50% of advertising is effective. You just don’t know which 50% it is.

Richard Fleming:             Right.

Josh Brand:                      It’s a little bit of the same issue with learning and development. We know people need to be developed in order to be successful in their career, but then when it comes to, “Well, can you show me? Can you prove to me that the investments we’re making is actually helping?” We can get to some metrics, but it’s hard to get to all the metrics that the business executives really want.

Richard Fleming:             Do you think it’s wise for them to cut marketing and development funding when times get tough? Would you cut one over another? Like usually what the first expense is leadership development and marketing. Is that a wise decision or does it prepare you for failure in some way?

Randy Lapp:                     I don’t think either are wise. Historically, if you look at businesses that are successful and prevail overtime, that’s when they invest in R&D and they invest in talent and developing their people. So I think it’s actually the converse.

Richard Fleming:             Great. Any other thoughts?

Terrence Donahu…:       I’m fortunate that I work in a company that’s far beyond the conversation of the cost of training, because the conversation we’re having is the cost of not training.

Richard Fleming:             Right.

Terrence Donahu…:       And even in times of economic constraint and restraint, they really understand that. To your earlier question, I think the challenge for the CLO is to make sure that they’re relevant in the eyes of the business owners. They might be relevant to the eyes and the employee population, but if the senior leadership sees them as irrelevant, that’s a significant problem. And I think it’s sometimes because we’ve put the price tags on the wrong thing. We put values on things that aren’t necessarily meaningful to the top leadership of the organization.

But two and a half years ago, Emerson’s chief financial officer walks into my office. It was the morning before Thanksgiving and he came in to talk about our newest global leadership program. And then he said, “You, learning and development people, you’ve moved the price tags on us.” He said, “As I look at the new program that you’ve rolled out, I realized compared to the old program, the only thing we valued in the old program is that people showed up.”

And not that they did anything with it, but with this new system that you’ve introduced with a focus just as much on the implementation of that training is the fact that they actually acquire the training. You’ve moved the price tags and you take it from something that was relatively cheap to us, and now you’ve placed it on something that’s very valuable to us.

Now, conversations like that typically don’t take place between the CFO and the learning and development people, but because in this new initiative, we introduced a new finish line for learning, and that was sometime after the course focusing on the implementation of the skills. And we moved it from a focus on learning objectives to business outcomes. We were able to get the top support of our CFO to the degree that in this workshop, he’s actually recorded a three-minute call to action video message near the end of the workshop that transports our current and emerging leaders in that training from the instruction phase into the implementation phase.

Josh Brand:                      We hear of clients who are going through similar conversations sometimes not with as aligned as CFOs as Emerson has. One of the common conversations that comes to mind is the CFO or their surrogate will often come to our client, the CLL and say, “How can you do this for less money?” This is where technology often plays a big role. If you look at a lot of training interventions or leadership development interventions, a lot of the cost is in just getting people together.

In the higher up the organization you go, the more expensive it is because they’re generally traveling from around the world, they’re traveling business class, et cetera, et cetera. And so if you can use technology enabled learning to avoid some of those costs of bringing people together, you can actually spend more of your budget on the actual learning than on getting people to the learning.

Richard Fleming:             Often what we’re trying to recommend to people is instead of finding for example, video tools that are just cheap or like finding whiteboard software that isn’t expensive is to get the users to actually participate in that, meaning that they’re the ones that are using the cheap applications to effectively show or prove their learning.

So an example might be like, instead of you making a homegrown video of a training, you give the training. You present it in the way that you think the instructional design is optimal and that you have them build their own cheap videos to try to reapply that information because the retention won’t be there right from the homegrown video, but it will further reinforce that learning mechanism.

Randy Lapp:                     I’m shaking my head, yeah because you’ve kind of answered the question.

Terrence Donahu…:       Just come on over here.

Randy Lapp:                     I do want to go back to the question about money and engagement.

Richard Fleming:             Yes, please.

Randy Lapp:                     Again, it’s been my experience that I think one of the challenges for folks in the learning and development, organizational development, leadership development space influenced by what is going on around them in business and the business environment, and they want to go in a direction, but they don’t necessarily… As it relates to developing leaders or as it relates to developing talent, they’re not quite sure what that is. What specific behavioral outcomes are we looking for?

And so as a result, it then becomes very difficult to quantify what that training and development is worth, because we’re not really sure what we’re pointing to in terms of what we want to change organizationally. I see that as a deficit. I see that as something that happens in some organizations. They know they need them. They’re not necessarily sure in detail why. And I see companies that slide resources, intellectual property around learning and development and leadership development, in and out, in and out, in and out, so that, that box becomes kind of cliche in the organization.

So it essentially becomes a fixed cost in their mind. And so to your question earlier, if they can reduce that fixed costs, the outcome probably will stay pretty close to the same and they saved a few dollars. So I see that gap in some organizations.

Richard Fleming:             Is there like a more effective way to market it to the C-suite?

Randy Lapp:                     I think that by being able to demonstrate alignment with the impact and the desired future state and being able to demonstrate the quantifiable value that you add to the organization, I think gets their attention. And then I think that breaks that model up of checking the box. We need that, not sure why, check. And it’s no longer a fixed expense. Now, it becomes something that somebody is willing to invest in.

Richard Fleming:             So in terms of turnaround, when you conceptualize a training program and then there was need or there’s an established need, generally, how long does it take to initiate some kind of plan? Because I know most people have different budgeting cycles, so they may think of something in June that is going to be budgeted for the following year.

Randy Lapp:                     So just to clarify the question, from concept to delivery? Is that what you’re asking?

Richard Fleming:             I think maybe even from like recognizing that there’s an issue or a need for training to try and you get the adoption of it or the execution of it to roll it out.

Randy Lapp:                     So it’s baked, it’s done. We’re ready to start piloting and delivery.

Richard Fleming:             You’re talking about more of the business objectives focus and then you’re talking about some behavior issues that may populate the organization. When you’re trying to construct a training to alleviate some of these concerns, I mean at what point does it become a problem? At what point do we say that we need to fix this or we’re in trouble? Is there a point of no return or is there something where the red flags pop up and we’re like, “We have six months, but the billing cycle is a year out.” How do you reconcile seeing a problem versus initiating some kind of training program to alleviate it?

Terrence Donahu…:       Well, even as we see the problem, not all problems are solved by training initiatives. So that’s where the training needs assessment is really going to be important to say is the cause of this performance discrepancy caused by lack of knowledge and skill or is it something else? And if it’s not caused by lack of knowledge and skill, the worst thing that we could even do is provide training. But if it’s a true training need and not just through training a lot, then you begin to plan the project and you go through all the instructional design process, the development process, the implementation, the piloting, the evaluation, the transfer phases. That could take up to a year and a typical three day instructor led program from concept through full execution globally.

Randy Lapp:                     I think it’s situational, what’s going on? What all the variables are? I also think it’s organizationally specific. I’ve been in organizations that are very agile at this and I’ve been in organizations that are very cumbersome and that process grinds on for a very long time. And not usually a result of, or the capabilities of the learning and development team, but more because of obstacles and barriers that are kind of embedded in the organizational culture. It’s kind of all over the board.

Richard Fleming:             Okay. Maybe that also applies to try to judge and gauge performance. How do you measure level three and level four performance?

Josh Brand:                      From our perspective, our clients always want us to help them measure because they have to justify the value of the investment that they made in us and in the intervention at large. The behavior change can come when you put the learners in the position to teach others. So when you have a leader who has gone through some sort of leadership and development program and as a part of that program, we ask them to be a leader, as a teacher.

We ask them to cascade what they’ve learned or translate what they’ve learned to the people that they lead or broader part of the organization. And by doing that, then it’s much more likely to stick. And from there, you get great stories. From there, you get stories about how a leader was able to change their own behavior and was actually able to help others change their behavior as well. We find that’s a very effective way of measuring. At least at level three.

Randy Lapp:                     I think my peers would agree, this is the holy grail. My experience has been that the more sophisticated an organization is in its ability to obtain data and metrics, the better you can address level three and level four as it relates to training activities. At this point in time and in terms of all the technologies that are out there, there’s fear, there’s anxiety about saying, “We’re not sure why the impact is positive.” We can’t necessarily draw the line with specificity, but we know that it makes a difference.

And I’ll use an example outside of learning and development. We know that when people get a cold, if you take vitamin C, you seem to get better, but they’re not sure why. They’re not sure what the mechanism is that makes that transition. I think that learning and development, and I think specifically leadership development has some similar relationship.

I think that some of the things that we do, we know that they address root cause opportunities or gaps, but we’re not sure what the actual mechanics are. So level three and level four wants to know. We want to draw a solid line, not a dotted line between an event and an outcome. But the reality is, is that oftentimes that dotted line is fine. I think it really comes down to what kind of metrics you have.

For example, in the past I’ve worked for large companies that have really good, robust data. And so we could in a moment measure things like speed to readiness, intent to leave the organization. So we can get that stuff and that will give us good insights. But I think there’s no denying, it’s the elusive holy grail.

Terrence Donahu…:       So in our signature leadership development program, we’ve actually found it quite easy to gather data on levels three and level four because the learners are giving it to us. We moved the new finish line for learning. The old finished line was at the end of the course. And at the end of the course, we gave them a certificate and we sent the wrong message that, “Okay, now you’re done,” where you check the box, you’ve met the requirements, you showed up.

So the whole change now, the concept is really simple. The real work begins when the workshop ends. And so we have a significant focus on the implementation phase of the learning. 12 weeks after the instruction phase, all the participants are back together in a WebEx conference and each one takes four or five minutes to report back to their peers of the class and to their facilitator three things.

Here’s what I set out to accomplish, here’s what I did achieve, and here’s the impact it’s had on me and my business and my team. And what we’re hearing just even 12 weeks later are credible and compelling and relevant business outcomes. In other words, the things that we’re hearing are directly correlated to the true north of the course. The reason why the course existed was to achieve four specific business outcomes.

Now, the great thing about this is when they’re telling me the business outcomes, I don’t have to justify it. They’re telling me. So actually, it’s very simple if you think about it.

Josh Brand:                      The only thing I would add is one thing we’re hearing more and more from our clients is that they’re asking executives, was this course or program a good use of your time? And particularly with more senior executives, that often is the best indicator of whether it was a good investment. If a very time compressed, discriminating executive who has all sorts of avenues to learn and all sorts of things on their to do lists says, “I’m glad I spent my time doing this,” then often that’s the truth.

Randy Lapp:                     One of the things that I think more of the developing research is focusing on is the ability to recognize and observe desirable behavior. And I know that a lot of organizations are kind of setting that as the goal specific behaviors that we want to see, and when those behaviors, which are observable in fact take place, we know that then that will get us to the outcome that we’re looking for and that effort was a success. So I think there’s a lot in behavior in a lot of this.

Richard Fleming:             One of our Sage advice interviewees mentioned that to stop thinking about your employees as assets, that they’re not assets. And asset is like a computer or a building. A building won’t go and leave for another company. So the idea was that over-training people have fears that then you’re basically preparing somebody for a better work environment. And his spin on that statement was think of them more like shareholders or investors. How do you keep them engaged in contributing? It’s a different shift from them saying, “We have you as an asset and you have a future set.” Any reactions to that or suggestions in terms of taking the training and then building that language into, “You’re an investment, you’re a stakeholder?”

Josh Brand:                      What we know from our work with younger generations of employees like millennials is that they want control over their own learning and they value learning from peers as much as they value learning from the, “Sage” on the stage or the expert, or even more. And so what we’re seeing is organizations are responding to this and they’re actually going out and asking young employees, what sort of learning do you want and how do you want to consume it? And then they’re giving it to them.

So in essence, they’re treating them like consumers as opposed to employees. And what they’re finding is companies who do that are building their employee brand, so they’re retaining their employees, but they’re also using it to recruit new employees. Potential employees are looking at what sort of development they’re going to get in the organization, not just what the job is, but how are you going to develop these so that I can grow in my career in the ways that I want to. They’re evaluating what employer to work for based on what they see the employer doing in terms of investing in people’s careers.

Terrence Donahu…:       And how we market our training programs to the organization is now being used as a recruitment tool because we have a very effective marketing campaign for learning, we can actually present these to candidates and say, “This is why we should be your employer of choice because you know that if you come aboard with us, you have a development plan in place and here is your leadership path, and here’s the defined route to help get you there.”

Richard Fleming:             Yeah. Verizon is definitely very aggressive with that. I mean, everything is branded to their company and then it kind of leads us into a discussion briefly about branded HR. It was really big conversation in the 60s and now it’s having a resurgence in terms of creating a company culture and attitude and every touch point, every piece of collateral that you have is enforcing that company attitude. Do you think it’s important for businesses to focus more on keeping that consistent throughout all channels, all touchpoints?

Randy Lapp:                     The whole notion of employer branding is probably one of the richest areas for organizations to mind currently, and you pointed out Verizon. There are others that do a really good job I think of creating a strong employment brand. I think especially with millennials, it’s going to be critical for businesses to have a strong employer brand, to be an employer of choice.

Richard Fleming:             Crispin Porter Bogusky, they’re one of the largest ad agencies in the world. They have their employee handbook, and it’s hilarious like the copy is really funny, and it’s beautiful. It’s very well designed. I think that’s in alignment with their mission of everything that they touch has to be beautifully designed and fun. And I think it’s really important for the culture of an organization to be applied at various different stages.

Randy Lapp:                     Well, I think that this whole notion of employer brand gives folks like E and OD and LND an opportunity to engage in a conversation about what makes an organization appealing with the C-suite, with folks that are interested in that in a way that we haven’t had a language to talk about that in the past. It’s a different perspective. I think it’s a different mindset.

Historically, employers didn’t feel the need to really market themselves. They maybe did a little bit, but they have a brand for what they did in the marketplace and that in and of itself was supposed to be enough to attract talent. The game has changed. It’s a whole new day. And so the brand is really a lot more than just that. It’s what are you doing to develop your talent? It’s something as simple as your online look and feel and who the demographic that it’s appealing to.

So there’s a lot, I think that’s still developing about this whole notion of employer brand and it’s going to definitely have an impact in the HR arena and things like talent and acquisition and all of that.

Richard Fleming:             And actually even the story, a lot of very successful brands have a very rich narrative that go along with it. Do you think it’s important to integrate a company’s story throughout or even… The buzzword is storytelling or corporate storytelling is effective, but how are we using it responsibly in the training world? We think about context being essential for content because the context is the vehicle or the vessel to provide that content, because without it, it’s just facts kind of being thrown at people’s faces.

How important is it to use a true narrative, meaning that you’re not only telling the solution or the elixir of the story is really built into the training objective, but it’s also in alignment with what the values are of the organization? So a lot of people talking about, “Well, we need to tell more stories.” But telling stories with no business objective is kind of a waste of time.

Josh Brand:                      It does allow people to form that connection with their company. Actually it was just last week, I did a leadership development program for a group of high potentials at a healthcare provider, and the CEO kicked off the program. This is a very large company. Many of the folks in this program had never met the CEO before, never been in such a small form with the CEO. He actually spent 90 minutes with them.

He started with a personal story about how his father died when he was young and how he saw what the power of healthcare could potentially do. Unfortunately, he didn’t do for his father, but he decided early on, he was going to devote his career to healthcare. And that was his connection to the company and it allowed people to figure out what their own personal connection to the company was.

I think those kinds of stories are really important to get people connected to an organization and find meaning in their work, and meaning in what they do for that company.

Richard Fleming:             It’s so powerful because it immediately aligns their mission with what his motivation is in the company and why he wants it to succeed. It’s almost that intrinsic value.

Randy Lapp:                     And trying to create learning, culture shift, whatever the goal is. Half of that work is really content, words on paper on a PowerPoint presentation. I would say as much as 50% of it is exactly that. It’s the narrative that links that to the organization, its values, its strategies and the direction that that organization is heading in. So I think that the one is the antidote to the other. And I think a lot of organizations do a good job with the first bucket. They go out and they buy content or they get content or they make content, but then that second part gets left out. And it’s an anemic response.

Richard Fleming:             Any idea why they might kind of neglect it?

Randy Lapp:                     I mean, personally, I think they don’t know how to. A lot of learning right now is already squeezed so that there’s only enough time to hit the content, but the content without that critical story that embeds and ties it to the organization, I think is an anemic experience again. You have folks that view this development activity as the Sage on the stage, someone up talking the whole time and in the process they want to give knowledge. I think that a lot of folks in this space want to give information, but if you don’t connect it, if you don’t make it relevant to them, then it’s a waste of their time and your time.

Richard Fleming:             My final question for you guys is the use of technology and how you see kind of what the future landscape is for leadership development through technology.

Terrence Donahu…:       There’s always going to be a balance between high touch and high tech. The nature of the most of the programs that I support are key leadership skills which are very high touch skills. And one could argue that high touch skills are not best mastered or acquired in a high tech environment. That said, we don’t think of training as only that which happens in the classroom. And we could use technology-based training in the deliverables to prepare people for when they actually get physically there to them practice a skill.

So the content could be presented before they actually get the group together. And then when the group is there, that’s the time for the high touch and the practice and the feedback. So there’s always going to be a balance.

Josh Brand:                      I’m really bullish on that use of technology and leadership development. I think we’re seeing some great innovations around things like social learning, around all participants being able to be on video during live sessions, which engages people a lot more, gaining a much better understanding of how to design technology enabled learning in ways where people come up the learning curve and then don’t fall back down the forgetting curve by spacing out the learning and allowing time for reflection and practice an application.

We’re seeing more and more methods, MOOCs, SPOCs, large cohorts, live virtual, gamification simulations. We can go on and on. And the more tools we have in our toolbox, the more you can bring to solve a problem using technology. So I think it’s only going to go up.

Randy Lapp:                     Evolving technologies will certainly enable more advanced virtual learning and learning that doesn’t happen in a live context. I’m aspirational and optimistic that those technologies will continue to advance. And that we can start to rely less on live and interactive based training. Especially as it relates to leadership development. I think that there are, as we know, many subsets of learner groups that virtual delivery methodologies and alternative methodologies work very effectively.

I think that leadership development does, as Terrence said require a high touch factor. A lot depends on the resources of the organization to. If money is no object, there’s lots of toys out there. There’s lots of cool things. If an organization is trying to really… If there’s a lot of financial rigor, then you have to get more creative in how you use those tools and resources.

Terrence Donahu…:       I think there’s two criteria you really have to look at. When we give employees knowledge and skill to do their job, there’s two things they have to be in place. It has to be cost effective and it has to be instructionally effective. So we’ll always have to ask ourself which instructional strategy or combination of strategies we’ll do that. In sessions like this at ATD, I see what, I guess the author, CS Lewis would refer to as chronological snobbery. If you’ve ever heard his quote?

Richard Fleming:             Yes.

Terrence Donahu…:       He said beware of chronological snobbery. Nothing is of greater value because it’s new, nor is something is of less value because it’s old. Newness is not a virtue nor is oldness a vice. And I think in the learning and development field, we really need to take that to heart because there still are timeless rules for great instruction and they’ll always be at a time and a place for in-person instructor led training, but let’s maximize the technology and leverage it and balance it together.

Richard Fleming:             That’s fantastic advice. Honestly, a lot of these things are core to who we are as human beings. I mean story, whether you’re telling it through an iPhone or an iPad or around a campfire, it has the same impact on our brains and the human experience. I want to thank the three of you for participating in this panel. I had a blast talking with you, so thank you.

Josh Brand:                      It was a pleasure.

Randy Lapp:                     Thank you.

Terrence Donahu…:       Thank you very much.